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Hi Nhuung,

Responses inserted. See BeLow. - ADM

On 10/8/07, Hong Nhung <nhu...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't use "shocks" to describe the disorientations, disturbances and
surprises i've experienced since settling down in Saigon, Day One
AD.1994.10.10.ICT.

Culture "clashes", or "gaps" (as in generation or communications gaps) would
be more like i'd put it. And they continue today, and with almost the same
sort of impact they had when i first hit the ground.

But, yes, there were a few shocks, too, come to think of it.

Like when i got hauled out of some disco on Tran Hung Dao for talking to the
same lady some loaded Taiwanese guy was hitting on.

Once on the street, some other guy came up to me from out of nowhere, while
i was cursing the glaringly discriminatory practices of the clubs security
and management, and punched me in the face.

He was dressed and gelled like a US Vietnamese of the day and started
yelling something about being more respectful of his nation.

Somewhat indignant of such disrespectfully combatitive tactics from someone
demanding respect, i widened my stance a bit just as some rent-a-bike driver
slid up  and whispered, "Not here, brother, not here. Too many homies
about...".

So i left, still shaking my head in wonder about what the heck those bozos
were on.

But it was still nothing that couldn't be worked out quite simply, with
either the rest of the mickey of rice wine i held at the time, then, later,
a bit of trivial sociological thought on the norms of club-cum-criminal
subcultures in lesser-developed metropoleis -- maybe both...

More interesting mix-ups, however, have been those so subtle they're either
repeatedly misinterpreted and misunderstood everyday or simply not noticed
at all till they smack you up the side of head screaming, "Wrong!"

These still happen almost every day, even after a baker's dozen years of
working fairly familiarly with all sorts of less worldly Saigonese virtually
absent of any English skills beyond "Hello! Một đô...".

Like when you still just can't get through on a regular basis to someone
who's position surely implies some prerequisite subtlety in dealing with
Western eccentricities along with more supple communications skills
vis-a-vis the fabled  "Ôm Bà Tây" (Mr, Ms West) -- like English-school
managers, airport taxi drivers, supervisors of serviced apartments, and so
on.

It seems Vietnamese suffer the same thing i've personally seen as they get
much more intimately acquainted with the East-West coin's other side: all
too often one must forget what one "knows" and guess yet again at what heck
is going on in the other folks' heads because they're just not doing what
you'd think they'd do, yet again.

For some others' accounts, there's a potentially relevant article i edited
-- and admittedly embellished, informatively, i hoped -- for the new Thanh
Nien News Daily, born Monday 2007.09.27 -- to assuage the local
numerologists, one must assume: "9, 9, 9..."

For those, not into VN numerology, 9's the big digit, and 2+0+0+7=9, 0+9=9
and so did the 2+7 from the "2007.09.27" that featured big in the TNN
Daily's launch conference banner.

For those not here now, the TNN Daily is now the English-language cohort of
the Thanh Nien print daily, in Vietnamese, website at www.thanhnien.com.vn.

It's preceded by some 18 months of course by the English-language website,
www.thanhniennews.com.

[I guess the Pham Ngu Lao culture-clash yarn didn't make the web site.]
Here's an extract from the final draft before proofing -- which hit the
street in the, hey!, premiere edition, Monday 2007.10.01, Thanh Nien Daily
No. 1, as "Police see culture clash in Westerners' adopted town" (a somewhat
sad manglement of a perfectly good headline by proofing and layout, i might
add ;)):

FOREIGNER QUARTER CHRONICLE Police see cultures clash in HCMC's wild 'West
Town'
Saigonese call it *Pho Tay* (Westerners' Town). The budget travelers who
comprise its primary clientele simply call it by its ward name, Pham Ngu
Lao.
Just a few hundred meters from Ho Chi Minh City's first five-star hotel and
its iconic central market, there are few spaces in the nation where the
cultures of Vietnam and those from overseas get as much in each others'
faces as they do in West Town.
*And, all too often it seems, the bridges across the culture gaps are strewn
with the rumble from clashes they've witnessed. (Inappropriate so soon after
Can Tho Bridge collapse?)*
One need not read police reports to know that Pham Ngu Lao is wild. Most
Vietnamese will visibly balk at a proposition to meet in the "backpacker
zone".
Yet the quarter's police provide the most vivid, authoritative accounts of
what's been going down in Westerners' Town.
According to precinct police chief Nguyen Huu Tai , the quarter evolved into
what it is today when tourists and travelers first began to flock there in
the 90s attracted by the quarter's cheaper rooms, bars, shops, discos and
restaurants.
While establishments serving some 2,000 foreigners a day sit largely on the
major streets that border the quarter, the bulk of people in the zone each
day instead occupy the hundreds of slim, dark alleys threaded between the
major streets.
It's also one of the few places in southern Vietnam where people can party
till dawn. Till 24/7 shops started appearing last year in HCMC, Pham Ngu Lao
held a virtual monopoly on 24-hour service.
Naturally enough, the "social evils" like to gather late at night and local
drug peddlers, prostitutes, petty thieves, loan sharks and con artists have
all predictably been drawn to the quarter.
But, likely because the zone remains so small and distinctly circumscribed,
yet lucrative, such vices and petty crimes have been largely tolerated, for
over a decade, by both the quarter's entrepreneurial residents and policemen
alike.

Recently, according to ward precinct chief Huu Tai, a drunken foreigner
stumbled into his station claiming his cell phone, wallet and motorbike were
suspiciously "lost" while he slept somewhere in the quarter.
Yet he couldn't remember either the name of the bar or the street he was on.

Police looked into the case nonetheless and soon discovered the complainant
had quarreled with some local folks around the time his bike disappeared.
He apparently also smashed some glasses at a hotel where his girlfriend was
staying because their service did not meet his expectations.
As to his motorbike, he'd apparently lent it to a friend and forgotten as
much.
As irresponsible as such behavior will undoubtedly seem to most Saigonese,
the man at least displayed the good grace to return to the station after a
day of detoxification to apologize and offer compensation for both the
damages and trouble he caused.
He graciously agreed to a fine of VND2 million (US$125), said precinct chief
Tài, plus a similar sum for the broken glasses!
In another account from the ward's precinct, a man so drunk he couldn't walk
fell into the station demanding police help return money and papers he
claimed were pick-pocketed.
Yet again, the complainant couldn't remember even the location or time of
the alleged crime.
In fact, he claimed he couldn't even remember his own name or nationality.
He could only tell police he was staying temporarily in the Go Vap District,
some ten kilometers away.
Yet he refused to leave and loudly insisted police apprehend the thief. When
police of course explained they could not help, he then took to trashing
chairs and tables in the station. The ruckus only stopped when he noticed
police preparing their video cameras and handcuffs.
Precinct chief Tài fully acknowledges these are but two of the more extreme
cases his station has seen, but to one extent or another, this remains his
daily fare in Pham Ngu Lao.
Copyright 2007 (c) Thanh Nien Daily, Vietnam.
The following are a few more tidbits i'd still consider culturally
disorienting.  I still have trouble imagining what might be going through
the minds of the subjects, readers and publishers of these stories when they
acted out, wrote up, sent out and read or re-read these little gems:

   - Quang Binh palates stuck on sociable stork,
   http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=32279
    Sticky rubber-decoy storks lure live birds to a meal

   - Police care renders impounded HCMC motorbikes useless
   http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=32269

    This is your bike in police custody

   - Cross-country cycling barber hits every province on homemade bike ,
   http://www.thanhniennews.com/entertaiments/?catid=6&newsid=32297

Hung hangs out with Vietnam's longest haired hippy, Tran Van Hay, while in
Kien Giang. That's not a branch Hung's got in his hand.

--
AD (Andi) Marshall
Mobile: +84 (0) 903871313
eMail: admarsh...@gmail.com
Zone: ICT (IndoChina Time, GMT/UTC+7)
Web: http://admarshall.googlepages.com/
Post: HoChiMinh City (ex/or SaiGon), VietNam
Quote: "Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none..."
Source: Shakespeare, 1623, "All's Well That Ends Well"
Get it at Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2246
GPG/PGP Public Keys online: http://cryptonomicon.mit.edu/