Do you speak English?
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2007
1
21
23
Trip End
Dec 30, 2008
Sapa,
Vietnam
Friday, May 2, 2008
Age: 20
Marital status: married
Job: Tourist guide
Religion: No religion
I'm attempting to "see" Vietnam in 10 days. Impossible. It is a long, long country with changing landscapes and 84 million residents - there is a lot to see. I try to make up for the lack of time by going on organized tours - they get you around faster. Instead of wandering around town maples, trying to get directions by the locals in an unpronounceable (by me) language, I hop on the air con buss with an English speaking guide that drops me in and out of tourist spots, meals provided inbetween. I've retreated from the anxious state of traveler, back to the relative safety of being a tourist
Thao Thi Cha (Cha)
. My camera records the changing landscapes, but I feel downside in my guts. My days are bland, making small talk with other Europeans in my group. It is like having instant noodles instead of ball of fragrant, spiced rice noodles at bustling street stall in Hanoi - it gets you full, but it's not yummy. I decide to escape from the tourist routine and jump on a train to Sapa. It is a long overnight trip. It is the long weekend around April 30th - Reunification day and May 1st. The train is fully booked. I should have seen it coming. I end up in one of the worst tourist traps in Vietnam on the longest of bank holidays. My only consolation is that the place is packed full of vacationing Vietnamese, so it is a tourist trap with a local flavor. The streets around the main square are bustling with activity - souvenirs and local crafts are being sold by distinctly dressed ladies from the several ethnic minorities that live in the villages around Sapa. Food is everywhere - from the tiny stalls with sweet potatoes and eggs being baked on slow fire, to elaborate street barbeques over which energetic young men spin vigorously small pigs. I'm mildly disgusted by the sight of the street barbeques, but find myself taking a double take at the guys. It is not the looks that I find most attractive. It is the posture, the sense of purpose in their movement and the smiles. Vietnamese smile a lot.
I have 3 days to kill. After day two, the whole thing becomes old. I'm tired with refusing politely to buy any of the colorful, gaze grabbing crafts. I've bargained (not very successfully), bought and ate every possible weird looking fruit on the market. I've had all the strong, sickening-sweet Vietnamese coffee I could possibly take. I cave in and sign up for a guided tour to a couple of minority villages around Sapa. Our guide turns up in a full fledged ethnical outfit, apart from her sneakers (gumenki). Her English is so good, initially I think she is a pretend-minority tourism student from Hanoi, that has taken a summer job in Sapa. Three hours of walking in the steamy heat on dusty roads alongside rice paddies and water buffaloes soaking in muddy ponds, I am convinced she is the real thing.
Cha is only 20 years old. Lovely, lovely girl. Her inerasable smile reveals a gold covered toot, which kind of suits her. At the end of the trip she pulls a digital camera and shows me her 3-year-old daughter, her husband, her brothers and sisters - some of them older than her, some of them younger than her daughter. I pay her a compliment- your daughter is adorable, and your husband is a good looking fellow. Where did you meet? At the love market, she says. Are you serious? - I exclaim, perhaps a little louder than I intended. Yes, she confirms, there is a love market at the main square in Sapa every Saturday. All the young people form the minority villages come here to mingle and find someone that they like. I've dated my husband for two months before we got married - you know, to see if we like each other. No kissing or sex before marriage of course. Just to see if you like his character. Before the wedding, he paid 5 million dongs (about $320), 80 kilos of pig and 20 litter of rice wine. My father killed the pig and we had the wedding. Don't know how many people turned up - about 150 I think. You don't really invite people, they just turn up. And what happens if you don't like the guy after the marriage, can you divorce him? - I ask. Of course, she says. If the guy is not taking care of you, then you can divorce and you keep the money and don't have to give back the pig or the wine.
Good stuff, I say. What does your husband do right now? He is still in high school. Oh really, I'm ashamed to say, I am intrigued in a gossipy kind of way. How old is he? He is 21, but he repeated several years at school, because he couldn't concentrate, she explains matter of factly. Hence, Cha is working as a tour guide and supporting her husband through high school. Her sister is taking care of her daughter, while Cha is working. Her sister is 14-year-old. She has never been to school. Neither has Cha. Not a day. Very rarely girls from the minority villages go to school, Cha says. We have to learn to cook, sew, and do other handicraft. Otherwise, no one would want to marry us, says Cha smiling. I look at her intelligent, open face and ache inside. Do you think you'd go to school once your husband graduates and finds a job? Noooo, she says swiftly, too late for me. I know how to read and write, although slowly. I learned from friends and from my husband. How about your sister, I ask, does she want to go to school? Yes, of course she does, but our parents don't want her to. Who is going to work, if you go to school?, they say.
So what's next? What are you going to do in your life? Cha's face lights up, she looks up, somewhere towards the tops of the trees and tells me about her dream of having a nice house - a stone one, not a bamboo like her parents'. She will stay home to keep the garden and raise some pigs and chickens. I jot down a few words in my note book and she repeats - pigs and chickens. I suppose she wants to make sure I record the full extend of her ambition. She wants to have some money too and more children. One more if the second one is a boy, maybe a few more if it is only girls. She has 4 brothers and 4 sisters, but being a modern woman, she would opt for less. And yes, Cha does want her little girl to go to school. And schools in the area there are plenty. The official state policy is that children should at least go to primary school. I suppose no-one cares to enforce it. Sending girls to school goes both against tradition and economic interest of these impoverished families. Catch 22.
In all honesty, Cha seems very content with life. She works hard, and strives for better, and she smiles a lot with that innocent, all embracing smile. She clearly loves her husband and her child. It seems very inappropriate to feel sad for her, for not having the opportunities I would consider a birth right. All I can do is to offer her my small English dictionary, so she can improve on her English. No thank you, she says, I can't really use it, because I don't read well in English. I only speak, because I learned from the tourist. Besides, I have English-Vietnamese dictionary and many other books at home. Then she rushes off to pick her little girl. Her hubby should have cooked the dinner.
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Hugs & Kisses, Vik
