The Subplot Reaches a Climax: Meeting My Father and Brother

Minh comes for me on time and I don’t recognize her from pictures. She was in her twenties in the photos and now she's 66 years old. She speaks a bit of English! She says that she wants to take me out for breakfast – pho (noodle soup) of course. She then says that she will take me to see a couple of buildings that my grandparents used to own before the communists branded them capitalist swine and took away their holdings. She will drive us around Hanoi by motorbike….whaa? Hanoi traffic…there are hardly any street signals here, just like Siem Riep, except that Hanoi is WAY more trafficked. I’m scared to cross the street let alone ride bike or moto here.

Bad Asian Drivers: Something I’ve realized here…this reputation in Canada of Asians being bad drivers isn't really true. They're just used to coming from places where there aren't any real rules for driving (except stay alive), and you make quick decisions and veer quickly and react fast. They have to take more risks and be more aggressive in order to navigate streets that don't have signals or signs. I think this mentality is brought over to Canada, and it makes Asian drivers seem reckless, when I'm sure they just think that drivers in Canada are uptight and not bold enough. I don't know...that's my impression so far of Asian driving (from Bangkok, to Laos, to Siem Riep to Hanoi). That being said, there are a lot of traffic accidents because of the nature of road use here. The good thing is that the congestion is so bad that no car, bike, or motorbike can go over 12 km/hour in the Old Quarter. About a year ago, there was a law passed that made helmet wearing mandatory, and compliance seems to be about 97% so far as I can tell. The police enforce this quite rigorously. However children under 6 years old don’t have to wear helmets because they just don’t make helmets that small yet. I’m sure that will change shortly.

After a yummy chicken pho breakfast, I hop onto the back of Minh’s moto and put on a helmet with chin guard.

Minh says she’s a good driver when I show some hesitation. Man…so many motos and road users going every which way. Navigating the intersections make me tense up. I feel like we’re in a video game like ”Crazy Taxi”. All you fixed gear bike junkies out there would love the challenge of riding Hanoi. There are no street lights, and the traffic never comes to a stop so any pedestrians have to just wade into the fray. They seem to have no problem doing so.

I we drive around, I notice that most of the Vietnamese are actually quite light-skinned. I am surprised because I am much darker than my mom or her Chinese side of the family, so I assumed my dark skin came from the Vietnamese side…but they turn out to be lighter than the Asians I saw in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia. Right now I am several shades darker than anyone else around me. I am a pair of floating teeth.

You’ll also find lots of people (the vast majority women) in Hanoi with their faces covered with masks as they ride their moto or walk around. It’s not because of H1N1, it’s because of the road dust and pollution combined with tan prevention to stay as white as possible. It's a bit weird to see normal people wearing what looks like biohazard gear on their faces, especially when some of the masks have printed teddy bears on them. On top of that many women also wear long sleeved gloves to prevent their arms from getting darker. Minh has both face mask and long gloves on.

Old Hanoi meets New Hanoi.

Random funniness. I think this child is confused about whether to take off his pants or put on his rain poncho.

This place used to be my grandparent’s family home. Ironic.

These buildings in the photo (along with a few others) were owned by my grandparents before the communists took everything away.

These are some friends of my mom who were tenants of my grandparents decades ago. I really like old people. They give me this sweet herbal tea to drink that I really like. It’s naturally sweetened by a type of flower in the tea.

We head off to Minh’s place and on the way she stops at this store and buys something. It turns out to be that exact same type of tea. Fantastic. Tea party at my house when I get back!

At Minh’s place we call my mother to let her know that “the Tang has Landed”.

On her bookshelf. A bit'o girl power, translated into Vietnamese.

My mom and Minh know each other because my mom used to play the piano for the ballet school that Minh attended. Minh used to be a ballerina in her hayday. She looks beautiful in this old photo.

Minh’s daughter, is a violin teacher for the conservatory in Singapore. She’s forty years old with two boys. Can you believe she’s forty? Asian genes I guess.

This is a picture of (from left to right) my uncle, Minh, Minh’s daugher, my mom and me when I was about two years old in Vietnam. I swear I look older.

Minh offers for me to stay at her place for the rest of my stay in Hanoi. I accept and we taxi back to the hotel to get my stuff. She aggressively won’t let me pay for the taxi (nor my breakfast this morning for that matter). I have a feeling that this trend will continue unless I can find a way to trump her aggression. I feel a small worrisome knot loosen in my stomach; I’ve transitioned from being at the mercy of hustlers in the tourist trade to being in the good hands of trustworthy family friends. Phew.

Minh has a woman work for her named Phum. Minh tells me that Phum helps her with the cooking and cleaning and lives right next door.

In Laos, I made a freshwater pearl necklace to give to my mom, and with the left-over pearls I made another one. This gift for Minh seems appropriate and I think she likes it.

She then drops the news that she’s contacted my father and half-brother and they’ll be over in a few hours. I feel a bit nervous, and kind of just want to get it over with so that the tension can go away.

They show up and my father bursts into tears when he sees me. He hugs me and I can feel his tears soak through my shirt and onto my shoulder. I feel a bit awkward that I can’t return his overwhelmed feelings. I smile at him instead and lead him to a chair. He doesn’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Vietnamese. Luckily, my half-bro speaks quite good English and I communicate to my father through him.

My father’s name is Van Tu and he hasn’t seen me since I was 2 years old. He said that I was always a smart child and he would tell me lots of stories and that my Vietnamese was good then. I remember none of this.

Van Tu is 70 years old, and is now retired. He was a college teacher of history and literature. He is a lifelong chain smoker and his teeth show it. He still has all his own hair. He is shorter than I am by an inch or so. He has skin like mine (without the tan). He does not look like me.

My half-brother’s name is Quoc Cuong (meaning strong country) and everyone calls him Cuong (strong). Cuong is 26 years old and is quite tall for a Vietnamese man – 5’9”, and he’s quite light skinned. He doesn’t look like me either. He got married last year and has a newborn girl, named Tam Anh (pure spirit) who was born the day I left for my summer vacation. I guess I didn’t escape my fate of being an aunty Anh-Thi after all. Cuong has a Masters degree in civil engineering and has studied in the Netherlands on a scholarship as well as lived in Germany. He left the civil engineering path in favour of the insurance company path because of the lack of good paying jobs in civ eng in Vietnam. He is now working for AIG, a big American firm.

They both say I look a lot like Van Tu’s sister when she was young. It’s cheesy curious of me, but of course I can’t wait to see the photos of her.

Cuong and I talk for a couple of hours. He’s a bit surprised to find out that I don’t own a cell phone or t.v., combined with not driving any motorized vehicle. He smiles and says he understands my “style” and desire for this type of “freedom”. At times, he wishes he could throw away his cell phone. He’s gotten the travel bug and would like to visit Egypt….a dream he calls it. I am a bit astonished that we can talk so easily and have some common ground.

We talk about crazy Hanoi traffic, the Vietnamese psyche, lazy-gentle Lao people (his description), the European lifestyle, individuality and family responsibilities, traveling, teaching, married life, his newborn etc.

Tomorrow is Sunday and Cuong suggests that we spend it together as he takes me around the sights of Hanoi…of course by moto. His moto is different from the others, it’s a vintage 1970 something or other and is extra long compared to modern day motos. He loves the bike and says he can take four adults and one child on it.

I am a bit afraid of Hanoi traffic, especially after Cuong told me about the horrible reckless teen motobikers and of this Western traffic expert who came to Vietnam this year to consult on how to make Vietnam’s road use more safe, and got hit by a car and died. Cuong says “Don’t worry. I am very confident in my skill.” Okay…we’ll do it.

We say our goodbyes. I will see them all again tomorrow.

I am also looking forward to seeing my niece. What a weird idea…I have a niece.

Phum makes us a delicious dinner, and all three of us sit down to enjoy it. I have the best fried Vietnamese spring rolls I can ever remember eating. The food is very simple, but very savoury and reminds me of some of my mom’s cooking. There’s something about it that tastes distinctly different from Lao or Cambodian food. I then turn to Minh and ask her “Do you guys use MSG?” She shakes her head vigorously and says “Don’t like”. So that’s what’s missing – mega doses of MSG. I can actually taste the natural ingredients in the food – it’s less chemically accentuated.

For those of you who’ve been to a Chinese or Vietnamese dinner, you will know that as a guest you can’t get away with being comfortably full. You’ll be stuffed. The moment you let your guard down to pick up your beverage, someone will put a piece of food in your bowl. When you protest that you can’t fit any more in, they will scoff and insist that you can. Minh kept on saying “finit all” – finish all? And Phum kept on stealthily placing spring rolls into my bowl of sauce. I’m surprised not more Asians are obese.

There are lots of mosquitoes, at least 3 or 4 flying around me at any given time, and so I am sleeping be-bugnetted. Not that a few extra bug bites will be noticeable in and amongst the 40 or so I already have.

A Little About Vietnam

Vietnam is known most famously for the US-Vietnamese war (and perhaps for eating dog). But before they were fighting off the Americans, the Vietnamese had to beat off successive waves of would-be colonizers and conquerors like the Chinese, Khmers, Chams, Mongols and French. Vietnam has remained a proud nation even though foreign hands have influenced their language, writing, food, and culture.

These days Vietnam is a quickly developing nation. It was welcomed into the WTO in 2006 and its bad relations with China have begun to improve.

CURRENTLY

Capitol: Hanoi
Government: Communist, with distinctly free market leanings.
Population: 86 million
Borders: China to the north, Loas to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, entire east coast is next to the South China Sea.
Religion: Combination of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism fused with Animism and Ancestor worship. It all works. There are also a growing number of atheists among the new generation.
Peoples: 84% ethnic Vietnamese, 2% ethnic Chinese and the rest is Khmers, Chams and members of more than 50 ethnolinguistic groups.
Currency: The Dong, 17500 Dong = 1 USD

(All images from the web.)

Reference: Wikipedia and Lonely Planet Guide

Back to the Motherland!

I’m flying on Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi at 6pm today. Nick stays behind in Cambodia before going to Thailand for the last couple of days of his vacation. My ride over to the airport is uneventful, but here's a kid that has a sweet red bike which I want.

The flight over Vietnam is full of beautiful clouds. I can watch clouds like these for hours (preferably on a picnic blanket on the side of a hill). I even saw a rainbow. As you can see, some small patch of Vietnam is getting rain.

Less than two hours later I am in Hanoi.

My guide book makes Hanoi seem like a place where tourists can easily get scammed. I have my radar on paranoid setting, but I guess it’s not high enough, because I still get taken for a ride – literally. A taxi scam. At one point during the taxi ride to a hotel, my taxi veers off to this little building next to a toll both, some woman comes out in uniform and hands my driver a ticket. The driver tells me that I have to pay a $18 USD tourist fee to enter Hanoi and he’ll have to show that I paid my fee at the toll. I don’t notice the other airport taxis coming over here and I refuse to pay. I didn’t hear anything about this fee from anyone nor did I read it in my lonely planet guide. As I am causing a delay, he seems exasperated and says “okay, I pay for you now and you pay me when we get to the hotel.” I’m not sure what to do. My senses tell me that this seems like a scam, but there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m wrong and just being an asshole tourist. At one point he says “relax, I a good guy.” Paro radar on overload! At the hotel he shows me this very official, and laminated ticket saying that there’s a ($18) tourist fee. I reluctantly give it to him, but then withhold the entirety of my cab fare as I decide to talk to the hotel manager to see if this tourist fee thing was legit. The taxi driver shouts at me to pay but I insist on talking to the manager first. The driver eventually realizes that I’m not going to pay him and quickly drives off.

The hotel manager also sets off my scam radar, but the room is clean and affordable. I ask the other tourists what they’re paying, and I’m not getting charged any different. He tries to hard sell me a package tour to Halong Bay and pretends he doesn’t understand my English when I tell him I don’t want one. I even suspect he might have been a part of the taxi scam somehow since the taxi driver took me to this hotel first (often taxis get commissions from hotels if they can get a tourist to use that hotel).

Bah…see…this is how racism can start. Even though I’m half Viet, I’m getting a distaste in my mouth for the Vietnamese. I know these scams exist everywhere in developing nations, and they specifically target tourists (especially traveling on their own) but bah, I’m just in a bad mood now…I'll get over it.

The manager asks me what I’m doing in Hanoi and I tell him. I ask him to help me make a phone call to Minh, my mother’s friend in Hanoi. Minh has been given the task of tracking down my father and getting me in contact with him. My mom and Minh were best friends in Vietnam. The manager talks to her in Vietnamese and then gives me an abrupt and irritated response. “She will be here at 9am to meet you tomorrow.” Whaa? This rapid progression in the subplot makes me a bit nervous.

My hotel is in Hanoi's old quarter. That's in the orange section of this map near Hoan Kiem Lake. Evidently, even though the taxi guy scammed me, he also took me to a hotel that is less than five minutes away from Minh's house. What are the chances?

As I wait for an internet terminal, two Italian guys traveling through Vietnam begin talking to me. One knows English and the other doesn’t but he speaks some Spanish. I feel my mood lift as I am able to recount my scam and get some fellow tourist sympathy. They also got caught in a taxi scam as well – but going to a restaurant. I am also buoyed to know that the Spanish speaker can understand me and that I can still speak some Spanish. They tell me that Italy is also full of scams like these so I should be careful if I ever visit there. The Spanish speaker begins trying to romance me a bit and his friend gives him a signal to cut it out and go back to their room – they have to get up really early tomorrow. Ciao!

I sleep like the dead.

Day Three at the Temples of Angkor

It’s my birthday today and I’ve been really anticipating waking up on this day at 4am and riding a bike to Angkor in the coolness of the emerging dawn and seeing the sun rise over the temples. Magical.

I wake up and look at my watch – it’s 6:45am…and I’ve missed the sunrise. This really bums me out, but I try to shake it off. I'm ready to leave by 7:15am but I can’t find my $40 ticket for Angkor. Now I’m really bummed out – I’ll have to buy a new ticket ($20 replacement) if I can’t find it. I can’t find it. I sulk a bit and tell Nick I don’t want to go anymore. He convinces me otherwise by encouraging me to discard my gloominess and move forward with what will be a beautiful day of bike riding through the temples anyway. He is wise. I am convinced.

I’m so glad I agreed. Once on my bike I am really happy. Ah…I know…I’m predictable that way.

On a road nearing the temples we see a bunch of monkeys! I have mangosteen and minibananas in my bike basket and try to tempt them with it.

Cute soon turns into ugly as one of the adult males gets bold, knocks over my bike, and steals the fruit from the basket.

As I go to retrieve the bag he retracts his lips over his teeth and raises a soundless snarl. He jumps up for the bag and rips the bottom open spilling the fruit onto the ground. This is a bit unsettling and I feel threatened for the first time. Nick isn't so much scared as a bit miffed that I’ve lost almost all of our snackable fruit (our giant pomello also rolled out of my basket and into the forest when the monkey downed the bike). He’s also concerned that I’m disrupting the monkey ecosystem by introducing this fruit into their diet and encouraging aggressive behaviour. I can’t help it…monkeys…monkeys!

Temple pictures near Angkor Thom.

I'm feeling a bit templed out after the two previous days of templing, but the ride from temple to temple is fantastic and Preah Khan, a very large temple with giant trees really renews my temple interest.
I’m melting in the heat. I’m not sure if the resolution of this picture can capture the greasy stickiness on my skin.

Non-stop sticky melty hot. That description is only ever good when describing the chocolate on a hot fudge sunday or cheese on a pizza...describing people...not so good. Thank Vishnu you can escape into the enclosed parts of the temple which are always vastly cooler than the searing ambient temperature.

Yes, this tree is as heavy as it looks.

More Preah Khan.

I cannot absorb any more temples. I want to sit the last one out but go in eventually.

I'm tired.

Nick is serene.

Somehow the Frankensteinian intermingling of tired and serene births goofiness.

ONE…

TWO…

THREE…

JUMP!

Outside this temple there are the usual kids chasing us to sell us stuff.

We decline their insistent advances, and they rush off to a Spanish couple and pull of the same solicitations but in Spanish. I wonder how many languages have been programmed into them. I have felt a roller coaster of emotions about these kids who sell stuff at them temples. From shock, to annoyance, to acceptance, to frustration, to pity, to compassion, back to irritation, to anger, to weariness, and now…finally to amusement. The kids are this particular temple are actually genuinely charming and endearing. We buy nothing from them (I am already too laden with souvenirs – so if you don’t get one…well…it means I don’t love you), but one kid agrees to have her picture taken. All the kids seem to love having their pictures taken, and they are usually delighted when you show them the shot you take. They are so poor they probably don't have photos of themselves much at home.

I feel like Godzilla.

I give her a dollar for being such a good sport.

The kids then come over and give us each one hand-made trinket that they were initially trying to get us to buy for $1 each. As I ride away, I feel like we broke through some divide. I give the credit to Nick, he’s so inexhaustibly patient with all of these kids and will spend time to speak to each one in a genuinely warm way.

I’ve taken in a lot of sun today, and even without sunscreen I haven’t burned, but my skin does feel a bit baked. Nick comments on how I’ve definitely gotten a lot darker over the course of the day. I’ve always preferred to be darker so I’m happy about this. I usually feel really pale (though still considered dark for most Chinese/Vietnamese standards) in the Canadian Winter months and welcome the sun when it comes.

Cambodian people exhibit the most diverse range of skin tones. From pale to super mahogany dark. The variation in skin tone is very nice to see. I know the preference here, as in all Asian countries is for light skin, but I find the different shades of dark here very beautiful.

Nick buys a beautiful but large musical instrument from these people before he realizes that he’ll have to bike many more kilometers before we’re back in the city.

I get the feeling that the Cambodians think I’m Nick’s Cambodian whore. When I first mentioned this in jest, I don’t think Nick paid me any attention, but he now begins to agree with the looks we’ve been getting from the locals. There are a lot of Asian tourists to Angkor, but so far, none that has been as dark as I have – I have dark Cambodian skin now. The Asian tourist mentality is to stay as light-skinned as possible by staying out of the sun, covering the body and face, using umbrellas and sunscreen, and of course, using skin whitening beauty products.

The Cambodian people and especially kids here are very different from the people in Laos. At least in their approach to strangers. They are all quick to smile at us and wave as we ride by the countryside. The Lao people just stared and their children were way more reticent and shy. This might be in direct relationship to the amount of tourism each country receives. I think Cambodia gets a lot of tourist due to Angkor.

The ride back during the sunset is brilliant and I feel great.

We end off my birthday with a good meal. Nick pays for my birthday dinner, he's lucky it costs peanuts in Cambodia…unfair…we’ll be in Canada for his birthday dinner.

Certainly a memorable birthday. I am exhausterpated and sleep like a large Angkor stone brick...um...yeah.