Southern styled weddings

Family and friends who come over for a wedding in Vietnam might be surprised by what happens on the happy day in Ho Chi Minh City, reckons Teddy de Burca Jnr.

Nothing is what it seems. You feel a bit otherworldly, perhaps because of the stag’s night drinks the night before, or perhaps you’re not used to being dressed in a suit on a hot summer’s day in Saigon.

You even wonder if you’ve arrived at the right spot as there appears to be three weddings in three restaurants in a row. A bride stands alone next door gazing hopefully at each car pulling up – the sooner everyone arrives, the sooner she can go in and sit down.

Proof you’re on the right track may or may not be Exhibit A: the photograph sitting on a stand outside. It is a portrait of the happy couple. One on which a studio, through the powers of photo shop and camera gimmickry, has turned two people you know into two people you can barely recognise. The demure bride has been turned into a vamped up vixen, while the characteristically laid back groom comes across as an ambitious corporate tiger.

On the whiteboard you check the names and, confirming it’s the right place, step inside, and sign your name in the large white book in which everyone else has left illegible squiggles. You resist the urge to scribble a treble clef rather than your name.

You’re ushered upstairs and try to find a group to eat with. After everyone else has turned up and found a seat the well groomed compere takes to the stage with the slick ease of a seasoned chat show host. Another day, another wedding.

Crackers pop, tinsel flies through the air and lands on the shoulders of the compere who’s now screaming about happiness, luck and success for the bride and groom.

At your table nobody has eaten all morning. Beers are poured. After one slug waiters appear opening more.

Eventually food is plonked on the table and the master of ceremonies steps off stage (probably to the wedding downstairs) and just as conversation threatens to begin music is pumped out of the speakers and eight dancers take to the stage. Though it’s more prancing than dancing. The young boys grin madly as they pirouette; while the girls look positively bored. Your shrimp salad is finished. No one has said a word at your table.

Next, in the vein of Milli Vanilli two performers begin to mime Endless Love. The boy is not much more than five foot above sea level, and a skinny-ma-link to boot, but he leans back and gives it soul as he pretends to be Lionel Ritchie. The girl looks like she’s effortlessly impersonating Diana Ross though she drops her microphone as Ross’ voice still warbles over the last few notes of every line.

Steamed Prawns in Coconut juice arrive as the dancers remerge, this time in Chinese garb – (Ni hao!). The ice is melting in your glass and the tiger beer is now two toned. When the large baked fish arrives you are treated to two comedians. Despite your best efforts the humour is lost on you. A huge burst of applause and uproarious laughter breaks out. You think the comedian’s hit the mark but it’s the table of giddy teenagers where the boys with spools of gel in their hair and girls with bubble-gum coloured clothes are tram phan tram-ing glasses of Sprite much to their own amusement.

The bride and groom stroll around from table to table. A camera man rolls along with them while a photographer snaps their every move – every clink chimes with a click and a flash. The red alcohol in their glasses stays at the same level as they toast with the guests. Despite a rousing finish to their set nobody claps as the comedians exit stage left.

The Chicken Rice arrives. More beers are opened though no one has drunk much. The bottles are left ambiguously in between other bottles. The restaurant’s profits, you presume. After yet another international dance routine (hello Korea!) next up on stage is a mask-wearing magician-mime artist.

He dons a chef’s hat, pulls out a rubber chicken and also a never-ending long piece of string from his mouth. He manages to grab some attention by inviting a foreign man to join him on stage and spinning plates on his bald head.

The hot pot arrives. Judging by people’s faces at your table everyone has lost their appetite. Then finally the music stops. The compere says one more round of thank yous, bows and bounds off stage (possibly straight into the wedding downstairs to say farewell there).

People lean back, cigarettes are lit and smoke is puffed into the air. Then the guests shift to the exits, hop into taxis which quickly disappear into the Saigon afternoon traffic. Another day, another wedding.

As you turn back to see who’s left you spot the groom sitting with his baffled-looking friends who travelled from abroad, no doubt anticipating a traditional Vietnamese wedding. You wonder is he trying to explain what just happened.

Pretty hot under the vertical ray of the sun

Hot and bothered Teddy de Burca Jnr. visits a traditional doctor in search of a remedy to help him cool down but, in the end, comes away with a little bit too much information

The summer is hard for someone who has been genetically engineered to live in a peat bog. Of course, everyone suffers in the heat of Hanoi, it’s irrepressible, but there are a select unlucky few who suffer more than most and it seems I am one of the main contenders for hottest man (sadly just in terms of temperature) in Hanoi.

If my friends are looking for me at a party or a crowded bar, they just check by all the fans. Somewhere under or beside a propeller I’ll be standing in a soggy shirt with ice cubes in my armpits.

Which I can live with usually, but the recent world cup meant an unhealthy combination of bizarre sleeping hours, copious amounts of beer, and way too much coffee to keep me awake during working hours the next day, and I was left rundown and riddled in spots.
I knew it was time to – saying this word still hurts like a kick to the teeth – detox. A
Vietnamese friend told me to cool down I needed more Yin and less Yang and wrote down some diet tips: along with coffee, liquor and spicy food, I had to kick the “hot” fruits (e.g. mango, lychee) and dig into the cooling ones (melon, dragon fruit); drink plenty of Linh Chi (longevity mushroom), artichoke tea and water by the bucket load.

As I sat glumly in a café - not drinking coffee but a glass of iced chalk (apparently it’s called bot san and made from kudzu and cools the blood) - my partner’s erudite and worldly sister, Hanh, asked if I wanted to go to a “medicinal doctor”.

What she meant was a traditional doctor who plies his trade with weird and wonderful herbs. He came highly recommended she said (but for what she didn’t say) and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try it out. He might help me “cool down”.

Perhaps, more out of curiosity I agreed, so Hanh and I headed off to the far side of the city to find this “medicine man”. His clinic turned out to be his family house. His receptionist-slash-daughter led us into the front room which was dank and dimly lit. Along the shelves that surrounded the room were large jars, the kind you’d know from sweet shops, normally filled with fudge, apple drops and cola bottles, but here they contained nothing but mysterious roots and herbs. The names were written on plasters and stuck on the bottle, but I have no idea what any of them were.

The medicine man emerged, a chipper chap, who looked delighted to have a very special patient on a Sunday. He began to ask me questions about my private life, not the 20 question treatment, but part of his “analysis”. He took my pulse. Looked in my throat. Asked a number of questions, a few of which concerned, embarrassingly enough for Hanh, stool movement and urine colour.

Then after a while satisfied with his diagnosis he began to write out what had to be done. A lot of it was what I’d already been told or guessed – reduce spicy food, alcohol, coffee, he also included shrimps and crab, all of which was bad enough but then I noticed something else he said had to be reduced: sinh hoat vo chong (husband and wife “activities” I found out later).

Then as regards the colour of my urine he whispered in a conspiratorial tone to my now highly embarrassed (or was she highly amused?) companion to tell my wife that my metaphorical salmon might not be swimming up the metaphorical stream.

But I couldn’t defend my honour: as these bombshells about my personal life detonated around me I sat blithely unawares, while smiling politely and nodding my head as if it were all on the money – (Hanh didn’t translate what he said until we had got back to the café). Then triumphantly medicine man pulled out four large packs of white and brown “herbs/ medicine”, which were the size of small peppercorns, and told me I had to eat the lot in a month, before charging me VND250,000 for the privilege of having my reputation put to the sword (not to mention doubting my manhood).

Of course, as I said, I didn’t find any of this out until later and once I did I was quick to dismiss the man as a quack. But now at home looking at my pile of medicine (who knows what it is or where it came from) I can't help wondering am I more of a sucker if I throw the VND250,000 herbs away or if I eat the whole pile down as instructed. After all, a spoonful of medicine may help the temperature go down and this summer is far from over.

Link to a story about Mai Phat Sau Nghin Ruoi (Fined 6,500) ... and I thought Frank Zappa was cruel to his kids, says you.

It's 20 question time

If you’re not fluent in Vietnamese then travelling through the remote countryside can seem pretty repetitive in the conversation department – but maybe that’s a good thing, argues Teddy de Burca Jnr.

Every trip I make into the countryside is usually good for my exceedingly pedestrian spoken Vietnamese, especially in the back of beyond, where little to no English is spoken. It means I’m forced into speaking and making more of an effort. So like a student after intensive language drills I return with real zest in my speech (which gradually then wears off, of course).

It’s not like on the beach in Hoi An, a tourist trap, where decent English is spoken by a lot of the locals. There I guard my knowledge of Vietnamese like a concealed weapon to be pulled out only when I am a) being ripped off or b) being pestered.

As the hawkers sidle up the beach towards wherever I’m sitting the tourists around scuttle away, into the restaurant, or into the sea, but I remain the definition of unruffled. Little do they know who they’re dealing with, I chuckle to myself.

When the beach urchins plonk themselves down beside me and begin to poke me in the arm, I slash through the pitiful pleas of “you buy one for me” with a curt “toi khong muon” or whatever negative response tickles my fancy on the occasion.

Of course that doesn’t actually work. (Why is it no matter how long I live in Vietnam I labour under the illusion that this would send them packing?) If there’s one thing that might cheer up the half-starved child’s day it’s the chance of chatting with a foreigner in Vietnamese but don’t I look pretty silly as I can’t understand their central Vietnamese dialect and it becomes apparent they can run rings around me in English, too.

But on the number of motorbike trips I’ve taken up north, in some pretty out of the way towns, speaking Vietnamese is a practicality. You have to speak to eat and find somewhere to sleep. I normally stop and ask at the local bia hoi, tea stall or café for advice. That’s where the 20 questions start flying. It’s like the conversational equivalent of the 110m hurdles. I don’t need to tell you what the questions are – “are you married? How big is your salary? Do you like Vietnamese women? Do you want to marry one?”

There’s a tendency to be bored by these conversations, so it’s pretty common for expats to learn a diverting tactic or a few crowd pleasing phrases (Am I in Cambodia? Or I’ve got two wives already but one more is ok), which can be whipped out in the event of a dull conversation; sort of a get out of jail free card. In reality it’s probably equivalent to a Vietnamese person who spoke Pidgin English suddenly saying, “Tally ho!” instead of “let’s go”, which would be funny but it wouldn’t mean they’re good.

Although a lot of people find it frustrating, I, however, see it as a good indicator of how bad my Vietnamese is. If you’re struggling over simple small talk, or can’t change the subject to something interesting, then let’s face it, you’re not very good. It’s like looking at your face after a late night in a mirror under fluorescent light. The stark truth is revealed, somewhat harshly.

We all live in Vietnam, some of us short term, a lot of us long term, and a lot of us would like to think we’re speaking Vietnamese fairly well, or at least give that impression, even when we’re not. I’ve certainly done my fair share of showboating in front of family and friends from home by simply ordering coffee with no sugar.
“My god, you’re fluent!” shrieked my mother when she first visited.
“Ah yes, of course,” my father said, as if speaking Asian languages ran in the family genes (undoubtedly his side) despite the fact no one had ever even set foot in the place.
“Well, I get by,” I said, knowing that my honest response is assumed to be highly commendable modesty.

But, I know the truth, I’m a pidgin speaker, and there’ll have to be a lot more boring conversations for that to change anytime soon. Every language student needs repetition to achieve fluency. That’s what the 20 questions are all about – it’s show us what you can do. The less questions asked, the more likely it is you’re actually having a conversation.

Calling Africa
Not normally a blogspot fond of gimmicks, the fidgety Pittstop engineers (curse this terrifying post World Cup void) installed one of those around the world counters. First declared click from Africa wins one box of artichoke tea.

A little less conversation (it's ok by me!)

Gruff service, as long as it’s also quick service, has its advantages and rather suits popular Hanoi lunch spots, at least so says Teddy de Burca Jnr.

Recently I read in a local paper that service in some typical Hanoi restaurants was more “hostile than hospitable”. The reporter went onto question the etiquette and manners of Vietnamese restaurateurs in this day and age.

As interesting as it is to see this debate arise in the Vietnamese media, as a foreigner I sort of see this gruff service, at pho stalls and so on, as part and parcel of the Vietnamese lunchtime rush, and even inevitable, considering the amount of people being served in such a short space of time.

There’s always a kind of exhilarating yet manic air pre-lunchtime in Hanoi. As if, at a quarter to 12, you can here the collective smack of realisation by several million people saying all at once, “feed me!”

Clearly, no one wants to muck around. Men roll their sleeves up, women roll them down and everyone jumps onto their motorbikes and hurtles off, driving as if hunger might just kill them, rather than say, an accident (as if!).

If you’re heading for a popular restaurant, like “the” bun cha place on Hang Manh, for example, you’d do well to get a seat between the hours of 12 and one. By noon the bao ve (parking staff) are in full modus operandi, as in on their feet for a change; they tell you where you should park your bike, but as everyone scrambles for the last plastic stool I highly recommend the “pretend you don’t hear them” tactic and leave it on the street.

Who cares that they might mutter expletives in your honour behind your back, you get the last seat, and find yourself snugly sandwiched in between fellow punters, listening to the sounds of happy munching.

There’s no menu in these places. For bun cha you generally have to order a small or large bowl and specify how many spring rolls you want. Newcomers (as in naïve tourists) don’t get to choose. The servers just slap down a large platter of spring rolls, for which of course the newcomer will pay whether they eat them or not.

In Com Binh Dan I like the point-and-run ordering system. Inside the door you wag your index finger at your preferred meat, fish and veg, tell them if you want soup or not and then try and find a table. The food will then find you.

With such dubiously young staff in such establishments, even if they had time to chat with you, mightn’t you struggle to find something in common? (If you feel like trying though, I recommend, “Where’d you buy your dep (plastic sandals)?” for an opening gambit.)

In Vietnamese places there’s no after dinner mint, no espresso, no desserts; when replete, people just up and leave, often still chewing the last morsel, picking their teeth or lighting a cigarette, and paying as they leave. As soon as the seats are empty, people fill them again. Ship them in, ship them out.

Now the aforementioned article said Vietnamese people were being directly abused and that restaurateurs even felt that customers expected this (reminds me of those deliberately abusive restaurants in America) which is unfortunate but as a foreigner you will either be blithely unawares to any such flak or else, if you speak any of the local lingo, probably be treated quite well, at least in my experience.

One doesn’t always have time for leisurely lunches, and you certainly don’t need silver service to enjoy a good meal in this fair country. Vietnamese food is the ultimate fastfood: Pho, banh cuon, bun bo, bun cha, com – all of these dishes are near instant, healthy, and damn tasty. You then have time to enjoy the rest of your lunch hour(s) at your own pace. Why you even have time for a snooze if you want.

On the other side of the universe, I mean city, western restaurants, where coffee is never complimentary but a chat with the manager is, it’s quite the opposite. But I don’t need the banter, the business cards or the buttering up. With the greatest respect in the world, I need a menu and a waiter with paper and pen or a good memory.

Yes, I like service prompt, discrete and if that means it also being gruff, then two (good things) out of three ain’t bad. Don’t you think that when Elvis Presley sang, “Don’t procrastinate, don’t articulate, Girl, it’s getting late, getting’ upset waitin’ around” in A little less Conversation what he was really trying to say was, “listen, honey bunny, where the hell’s my cheeseburger?”

Link to a piece on Hanoi food joints being more "hostile than hospitable" here. Course, Teddy being old, cantankerous and argumentative, says that's the point. He's writing a response but we haven't seen him for a week, or is it a month? Come back on Friday to see if anything's up...

If you want Vietnamese food with ultra-polite service upstairsforthinking points out (on the same website) an article on the place for you... Arigatou Elliott san!

Entering the Twilight Zone...

Yorkie Pittstop discovers coming back to Vietnam from overseas during the world cup is the perfect time to be jet lagged

The streets are alive, but at odd times of night. As I drive home at 4am, wide awake, I wonder how soon the sun will be rising and how many people driving past are just up or going home.

A world cup in Europe means Asia burns the midnight oil. Tactics for watching late games is a fine pickle of a conundrum. Do you stay up until two or head to bed for a few hours and get up?

If you stay up, the danger is you'll be out all night. You'll meet friends and agree to watch it together. So you all stay out drinking, comparing theories on why Brazil are misfiring, why Owen Hargreaves is or isn’t the missing link and complaining about having to work during such an important global event.

By the time the game starts you are completely drunk. Either you stay out and can’t remember the game the next day, or you go home and end up falling into a stupor on the couch and miss everything. Either way you wake up at eight am and have to check the result on the internet.

Or you decide you’ll stay in, you set the alarm but when falling asleep the first two hours are the deepest. You don’t even notice turning off the alarm at two am. You wake up at eight am and check the result on the internet.

Another alternative, definitely preferred by locals, is watching the repeat game at 6am. Foreigners are generally allergic to this – why does getting up at 2am sound easier to us? – plus, people don’t seem to like the idea that there is already a result.

This is understandable. The act is done. Millions if not billions of people around the world already know the result, so you feel like a bit of a dolt not knowing, plus doesn’t it seem silly cheering at the telly at 6am when there’s nothing left to cheer for? So people usually end up sleeping in anyway and, well, checking the result on the internet.

Clearly, not everyone is so naturally lazy. Everywhere around the city heads are slumped on desks. Boys scratch sleepy heads as they drag their feet out for a bowl of pho. Men rub bleary eyes at their local café while reading a copy of The Thao. It is a month of madness that Vietnam happily embraces.

After being in Europe watching the first half of the cup I’ve adjusted as smoothly to this timezone as I’ve ever done. My jet lag in fact has been my secret weapon. The ability to drop off for an hour or two and wake for no reason whatsoever is usually infuriating. You end up wandering the house at 3am wishing you had some milk so you could make hot milk. During the world cup however, there’s football to be watched. It’ll make the post world cup blues harder to get over as my sleeping habits are now more akin to a cat’s, I’m neither here nor there (is this what it’s like in the… Twilight Zone?), but it’s only every four years, and there’s only one week left, so next Monday will be the last time our bosses have to look at our sleepy heads.

Grumpy employers (as in the ones who don’t like football) should be thankful the next world cup won’t go any further west. If it was in South America, for example, no one would turn up to work at all.

Which gives me a business idea for 2014: widescreen TVs at pho stalls…