Single White Female in Hanoi (15 page)

I want to hug him but I sense it's inappropriate. Possibly he feels the same. The emotion hangs over us like a repressed sneeze. We shake hands three times. I hold his hand between mine and squeeze it. ‘Congratulations. Good luck'. It's what we both expected really.

‘I will miss you in Singapore,' he says, then he's gone for good.

Hoa has a face as round as a dinner plate and as cheerful as a sunflower. When she smiles, her face seems to emit light.
Hoa,
as Hoa herself taught me, means flower in Vietnamese, so that from our introduction, her name is engraved on my memory.

Hoa, too, remembered my name from our first introduction in the Global corridors, when she padded up to me curiously to find out who this new foreigner was. Short-haired and muscular, Hoa didn't quite fit the usual mould, and I was intrigued immediately. She playfully made fun of my clothes, asked what my name meant.

‘Carolyn? I don't know,' I shrugged. ‘It's meaningless, I think.'

‘Meaningless!' she exclaimed, unleashing a cascade of infectious giggles.

Hoa's is a disposition unfazed by the reception she gets each morning from the other Vietnamese teachers in the staffroom. At 28 she's older than most of them, so she gets the pronoun ‘
chi
(older sister)'.

‘
Chao chi
!' they say, then in English, for my benefit: ‘You look fat today!'

They say this with fresh enthusiasm each time. Hoa
is
slightly chubby, and at first I'm charmed at the thought of a culture free of the thinness obsession. But puzzlingly, the belles at the reception desk are sharp-cheeked from self-denial and still spend spare moments pinching their midriffs in horror behind the desk. In today's Vietnam, the white-collar workers are embracing the Hollywood ethos, ‘you can never be too rich or too thin'.

Given this, ‘You look fat today' seems a rather lukewarm greeting. Yet each time, Hoa thanks them and smiles.

One day I ask Hoa and the offending teacher about it, and they unite like sisters, laughing at my foreigner craziness.

‘It means the person is paying attention to your appearance,' Hoa explains to me, ‘so it is a compliment.' I shake my head in bemusement.

But in general, Hoa doesn't socialise much with the other Vietnamese staff. She prefers the company of the Western teachers. In conversation, she picks out new words like a beachcomber picks out shells, and learns them. Her pronunciation is streets ahead of her Vietnamese colleagues', despite never having had a native English-speaking instructor.

Among the foreign staff at least, news of the Global Barbeque spreads outwards from the noticeboard at a snail's pace. Apart from Zac, who detects the possibility of a free buffalo steak, none of us are particularly interested in giving up a Sunday to fraternise with Mr Thinh and his harpy wife. But as Natassia points out, it's something for the social calendar, and there's precious little else.

Natassia and I turn up together, stacked onto the back of a single
xe om
. We've come via our new tailor in the Old Quarter, dressed in newly-made silk clothes. At the entrance we suffer an airstrike of
Nuoc Mam
. It's a smell unknown to anyone who's never copped a noseful of feline halitosis. I can feel the airborne particles of rotting fish burrowing into the fresh silk. There are clusters of Vietnamese dotted around – staff and their partners. They're all eating something messy and unidentifiable.

Inside, Georgia, a young new American teacher greets us. She's sitting with Justin and his sister Alison. In the same corner, Hoa is chatting with the Russians, Jim and Irene. Periodically her giggles bubble forth.

Zac is attempting to flirt with a group of young, pretty Vietnamese staff. It looks to me like he's blown it badly. He's impersonating Vietnamese men, albeit hilariously well, and through the women's smiles I detect offence taken. When he spots me he abandons the performance. The women hold hands and run away like schoolgirls.

‘Hey Caz! Damn those girls are hot! Did you notice if the meat was ready?'

‘Couldn't tell you. Got strafed by
Nuoc Mam
on the way in, and ran.'

At the words
Nuoc Mam
, Zac has bounded off joyfully in the direction of the barbeque.

I pull up a chair beside Hoa and the Russians. Lan and Thu from administration have joined them too, and the group are deep in conversation. When I tune in, I realise they're all speaking Vietnamese.

Jim and Irene have both been in Hanoi for around five years and study the language at university here, but to see and hear, for the first time, Caucasians producing the carolling sounds of Vietnamese, thrills me.

Soon Zac returns, wiping something malodorous off a plastic plate with a roll of soft white
Banh My
. His brow is knitted as he chews. It's clear he's been at those girls again.

‘Caz, do you think Vina chicks actually get horny?' he asks.

‘I wonder,' I offer, sincerely. I consider the bony, unwomanly bodies, and the plain buttoned-up shirts and trousers. ‘Those young unmarried ones seem kind of sexless.'

‘But they're the ones I want!' he moans.

‘It's certainly an interesting question,' I concede.

‘Let's ask someone,' he suggests, and before I can stop him he's turned to Hoa, who's nearby.

‘Hoa, do you toss off?' he says. In the silence that follows, I wait for the ground to swallow me, but it doesn't. Instead, Hoa smiles and says: ‘What's that?'

‘Don't listen to him,' I beg.

‘Why?'

‘Because he only wants to talk about sex.'

To my astonishment, Hoa smiles again, turns to Zac, and says ‘What would you like to know?'

‘I've got a few questions. Would you mind answering them?' Zac replies, abandoning his original tack with sudden maturity. Inexplicably, a crowd has gathered in the doorway behind us. Natassia, Georgia, Justin and Alison.

‘Sure,' she says. ‘Shall we sit down?' And we all scramble for seats around the conference table beside the aquarium. I notice to my relief that all other Vietnamese staff members are out of the room.

‘What would you like to know?' Hoa repeats when we're positioned around her. She seems completely relaxed. Given the taboo she's breaking here, I'm awestruck.

‘Do they have sex education in Vietnam?' is Zac's first question. Hoa shakes her head vigorously.

‘No, they do not. I learnt about sex because I worked for an American boss. She talked about sex with me all the time and at first I didn't like it. I felt embarrassed and I couldn't understand why she did this, but now I'm very grateful.'

‘What did she teach you?' Alison asks.

‘So many things! About AIDS. About how to stop pregnancy. About my body. About what the man likes. She told me about in America, that it's okay to have sex before marriage,' she looks around at us carefully. ‘ … And about good sex and bad sex,' she giggles and catches her breath. ‘And she taught me it also depend on the woman!'

Hoa has the undivided attention of every Westerner around the table. Myriad, ineffable questions are mounting up in our heads. How on earth do other Vietnamese women get by?

‘Are Vietnamese girls interested in sex?' Zac asks her finally.

‘Not before marriage,' Hoa shoots back, looking cheekily at Zac. I conclude, with astonishment, that Hoa's got Zac completely worked out.

‘Hoa, are you married?' asks Georgia.

‘No. I am not. But I've been with my boyfriend for five year now.'

We all contemplate five years in a sexless relationship, then Hoa adds. ‘And we have sex. So I am not a virgin.' I study her. If this revelation has made her uncomfortable, there's no sign of it.

‘Do the other teachers know that you have sex?' I ask Hoa.

‘No! In Vietnam, we don't talk like this. But you know, Miss Ngoc, she has a boyfriend too and I think she is like me.'

‘Why do you think that?' I ask, noting, from the corner of my eye the expressions of confused prurience on Zac's face as he processes this mixed piece of news. Miss Ngoc and, in particular, Miss Ngoc's breasts, are subjects he can't help returning to again and again.

‘I can tell.' Hoa laughs again. I picture the exquisitely beautiful Ngoc – there's a sensual, animal quality about her. I'm certain Hoa is right.

‘And so,' Zac puts in, eager to get back to one of his favourite topics. ‘What about masturbation?' I notice the others around the table cringe, then sit forward for the answer. Zac explains the term for Hoa and she nods, free of embarrassment.

‘Yes. I know what that is. We have a word for it.'

‘And how many times a day do Vietnamese guys do it?'

‘No,' laughs Hoa. ‘It is not normal.' There's a gasp from around the table.

‘Not normal?' we all say together.

‘So, what do unmarried Vietnamese men do?' I ask Hoa.

‘Oh, so they go to visit the prostitute,' she says simply, as, all around the long table, jaws drop.

Overnight, invisible agents have strung large banners across roads all over town. The banners feature a caricature of a big-nosed, blonde-haired boy sneering from a broomstick. I can't follow much of the Vietnamese written underneath, but I can understand the words ‘Harry Potter'. Some enquiries confirm my suspicion. The banner is advertising a local stage-production of the book.

The enormous television fixed to the wall in the Global reception area is showing a short segment on the show as I pass it one morning. I stand and watch as footage is played of what looks like a stage in a school hall. Vietnamese boys and girls in shorts with cloaks on are running helter-skelter around the stage with broomsticks between their legs. I look round at the administration girls with raised eyebrows.

‘Very interesting!' exclaims Miss Thu, catching my look. I fix her gaze, searching, but it's no use. I can't tell whether she's serious or just being polite because Harry Potter is a Westerner like me.

But Nguyet, who has lived in France, has a different perspective.

‘In Vietnam, don't understand about good quality,' she says afterwards, when I drop by on my way home from Global. She leans forward, scrunches up her chubby face. ‘Amateur!' she pronounces, although with affection. We laugh hard. What she has just said is somehow outrageous. It's the first unpatriotic remark I've heard from a local.

Few Vietnamese have been out of their country. On average, in a class of fifteen Global students, I find two who have crossed the borders. Generally one of these has travelled nearby, to Thailand or China, but the other will have been to somewhere in the former Eastern Bloc or to Western Europe. A couple of times I've even found a student with a sibling studying in the States. At the UNCO school, where the students are poorer, the incidence is lower.

Nguyet has come to my place for lunch, but she's cooking. The dishes at the vegetarian restaurant the other evening inspired her. ‘I know to make this one,' she said many times during that meal, pointing to exotic-looking dishes. Today she's going to show me how.

First – we need ingredients. We jump on her bike and drive to
cho si lien,
an enormous market I didn't know about, two blocks behind my place. It's set up along two intersecting roads and choked with stalls, overflowing garbage skips and humans. Shoppers, mainly women, are riding through on bicycles or motorcycles, bargaining loudly from the saddle.

I'm wonderstruck at the sight of things I haven't seen before in Hanoi. There are coconuts, peeled all the way back to the white flesh, but still intact and heavy with sweet water, tiny snow peas, cauliflower, small red peppers, even potatoes. One by one, the stall-owners spot me. They jostle and shout for my attention, ‘Ma-dam Ma-dam'. They try to sell me potatoes, which in Vietnamese are called ‘Western sweet potatoes'.

The market is also something of a concentration camp for animals. With ducks, quails and chickens being slaughtered, cleaned and sold on location, the air is ripe with charnel house smells. The stench of cooking feathers and hot duck rises from wicker baskets crammed solid with live birds and left in the sun. In other spots, fish open and close their gills in basins of bloodied water.

I notice, not for the first time, how my attitude has begun to shift a little. I don't gasp and blanch, I don't abuse stall-owners, I don't run to cages and try to release imprisoned birds. In fact, I avert my eyes and just ignore what's going on metres away.

Perhaps mindful of my Western sensibilities, however, Nguyet takes my arm and directs me firmly to the fruit and vegetable areas. I point to unfamiliar wares, and she names them for me, telling me a little about their use. ‘This one, must boil. For long time. After, very delicious. This one
rau mui tau
, smell very delicious. Ah,
rau
tia to
, You must try! I like this one very much. Too delicious!' Plastic bags full of groceries are piled into the built-in wire basket at the prow of the motorcycle. When that's full, I thread bags across my forearms, then across Nguyet's handlebars. We drive out of the market fully laden.

At my place though, Nguyet appraises my tiny kitchen more closely and her face falls. My sink is a small leaky bathroom basin. She's never cooked on an electric hotplate, and she's unhappy to see I have only one steel pot and no frying-pan. Worse yet, there's hardly room for both of us in there. Her kitchen at home may be nothing more than crawlspace, but there's room for two to crawl about in it.

She sits down for a minute with her head in her hands, then brightens.

‘I think it is possible,' she declares.

First she teaches me how to wash vegetables. I thought I knew how to wash vegetables pretty well myself, but in Hanoi, the routine is different. All vegetables, leafy greens and herbs are immersed in a large bowl of fresh or salted water and agitated until they're close to disintegration. Rinse and repeat.

‘My god, Nguyet – you've killed it!' I cry, holding up the devastated remains of a soup-making plant for her to examine. The leaves have been crushed and bruised almost to mush. She giggles.

‘Must!' she explains. ‘This food, very dirty.' This is a line I'll hear from all the Hanoian women with whom I'll come to prepare food. Always, the washing routine is the same. When it comes to cleaning
rau muong
, or ‘Morning Glory', the procedure is doubled.
Rau muong
is probably the most popular vegetable in the country, but it's also the filthiest. It's harvested from often-polluted waterways around the city and smells like it too. It comes covered in flecks of crud and dots of decaying riverweed. But when cleaned, fried with garlic, and seasoned with MSG, it's too good to refuse.

Nguyet carefully carves a small square into the coconut's creamy flesh then pours the juice into the rice cooker, which has pride of place in my living room. We're making coconut rice.

Then we squeeze ourselves into the two square metres of standing space in my kitchen, and the cooking begins. Not wanting to electrocute my diminutive friend, I've given her the black rubber flip-flops. She puts her tiny feet into them and shrieks with laughter. Flip-flops are Westerner sandals, not worn in Hanoi, and they're a Westerner size too – with her toes grasping the thong at the front, her heels don't make it half the length of the sole.

Over the course of the afternoon, Nguyet shows me how to make eggplant tempura, how to prepare a marrow-like vegetable with a delicious long-leafed herb I've never encountered before, how to create soup from a few green leaves (the secret is ‘soup powder') and how to compile a salad with grated green papaya and carrot. I watch her closely, memorising every move.

It's 3.30 by the time we lay the food out on the table. A banquet. It looks so beautiful, I do a photo shoot. Nguyet puts a tiny serving of each dish on her plate, eats quickly, then holds her stomach. ‘Too full!' I manage to demolish most of the rest then we stagger to my bedroom and collapse onto the bed.

Within minutes I start to doze but Nguyet's gentle voice brings me back.

‘Carolyn. What do you think about French men?'

‘French men? I don't know.' I haven't had much experience, although I've come to develop a dislike of the rude Frenchman upstairs. ‘Maybe a bit
tinh vi
?' I've learnt this word for ‘arrogant'.

‘Arrogant!' she exclaims, then goes quiet for a minute. ‘Yes, she says, finally. ‘I think maybe this man was
tinh vi
.'

‘You met a French man?'

‘Before. In January. We were together, but he leave me for another Vietnamese girl. She was my friend.'

‘Oh,' I say, saddened. ‘I'm sorry.' There's another silence. I open my eyes and look to Nguyet. She's lying on her side, facing me. Tears are running down her perfect round cheeks and onto the pillowcase. ‘You still feel sad about it?' She shakes her head slowly.

‘Carolyn. We have sex. Now I am not virgin.'

‘Nguyet! You're 28! Not virgin is okay.'

‘No. Not okay. Please don't tell,' she whispers between sobs. ‘I only tell two people. A French woman, and now you.'

‘What about your Vietnamese friends?' Nguyet has a gang of three close friends from school. They hang out a lot.

‘No! Never. I can never tell them.' She takes the tissue I've handed her and dabs at her cheeks.

‘What about your mother?' Nguyet and her mother are very close.

‘No! Cannot. And if neighbour find out it will be terrible, terrible.' I stroke her arm.

‘Well, I won't say anything, but if I meet your Frenchman, I might beat him.' Nguyet holds my hand and smiles. We talk about jazz music for a while and we fall asleep under the fan.