by Darcy Nabess
Are you an ugly expat?
You might know one. You might be one
Let’s hope not.
I was a little sleepy this morning, browsing through the books at the Fahasa bookstore on Dong Khoi. Standing at the cash register, waiting for my change, the cashier gave me an extra 10.000 dong note. I looked at the change and said, “Oh, too much, here you go,” and gave her back the note. “Oh, so sorry,” she says, and I replied, “Oh I’m not sorry, it’s okay,” laughing.
“Must not be Vietnamese.” A big voice booms behind me. I am darkhaired and not very tall. I could be Vietnamese from behind. I turn to see a tall American fellow smiling. I wasn’t smiling back. “Excuse me, what did you say?” He says that for someone to give back the mistaken difference on a transaction would have to be a very honest person, so I couldn’t be Vietnamese. I was a little speechless. I’m on a little trip these days, where I hold back on saying what immediately wants to said, and choose instead to consider things before responding. But to tell the truth, I was just sleepy and dazed, and felt immediately angered. Because my anger was immediate, my little inner guru kept me from speaking automatically. I had a number of sharp words lined up like soldiers in an instant. I come from a rather hostile environment, and am very adept at expressing my anger and outrage. But it hasn’t served me well, so for a number of years I have been trying on a different tack.
It occurred to me that likely nobody in the room understood what he was saying, but I certainly did, though like I said, I was sleepy and could not think straight. He launched into a bit of small talk about my purchases, some learning materials on Arabic. He was quick to express the hope that I was not traveling to the Middle East on an American passport, and I responded with a few icy, slightly cutting all-Canadian replies, not addressing what had offended me. I parted from him as quickly as I could and left the store.
A few minutes later, as my mind cleared I decided to go back into the store. I told the staff what had happened, it was difficult as they needed a few of them to understand me and piece together what had upset me so; I really needed to let it out or it would ruin my whole day, and I managed to tell them that they should not give this man any more business, that his utter disrespect for their country belittled all of us. They were thoughtful and grateful for my input, but seemed uncertain as to what to do about it, businessswise. To their credit, they found more humour than offence in the whole situation. That spoke volumes to me about my already deep affection for Vietnam, as I am not so indiscriminate in my affections, and here was ready affirmation.
This is the 21st Century, but unfortunately many attitudes around the world do not fully reflect what that should mean. In this rapidly globalizing world, most people have been mentally left behind by the changes sweeping over us. This is most apparent to me in the bigoted, arrogant and thoughtless judgements and actions of a few people who really should be cultivating an attitude of gratitude for the opportunities that globalization has bestowed upon us, particularly those of us living in poorer countries enjoying a standard of living that does not come as easily as it does back home in our expensive rich countries.
It appears that there are a number of Viet Nams. I suppose you could say this for any country. Perhaps there are as many Viet Nams as there are people to experience it. My own experience has been extremely positive, and I have come to love this country with a degree of affection I could never muster for my own. I have always found life a little cold and wanting in the communal and community warmth department in Canada, particularly the cities of Toronto and Montreal, where I have lived the past number of years before coming to Viet Nam. There certainly are a lot of adjustments to make when embarking on such a radical change of culture and environment that could stress a person to the point where their senses leave them on occasion, as obviously the tall American fellow’s had, but I have been bowled over continually by the warmth and openness of the Vietnamese; I have never experienced living in such an overwhelmingly goodnatured society.
Many will say, oh, it’s because you are a foreigner, you are rich, you are a novelty, newcomers always get to be the star, are always treated to the better side of people. Well that might be somewhat true in some circumstances, but I can see that it isn’t. Watching society here from the outside it’s perfectly obvious to me, that the majority of Vietnamese people enjoy each other a great deal, all of the time. There is so much rampant smiling, so many displays of affection toward each other, so much obviously deep friendship, so much unpretended love for their children and families; we just don’t behave this way in Canada, and when we do, it always seems so pretentious and showy and forced. Maybe it’s the climate, I don’t know, but the difference is stark. Even most casual exchanges here (outside of the tourist zones at least), are marked by warmth and sincerity of expression, of decency and respect across language and cultural barriers. It’s really something and I haven’t found this elsewhere in my travels. I really don’t find the Vietnamese to be any more dishonest or roguish than anyone else, and I have been around.
The downside, and I speak from experience and observation here, is that many of my fellow expats do not see or experience what I see and experience. Speaking foreigner to foreigner, many feel perfectly free, like the ugly expat in the bookstore, to unfairly generalize and criticize our host society as rascally, dishonest, backward, and worse. And worst of all, they feel they are absolutely correct in their assessments, and don’t feel the need to be hushed about it while in the presence of local people.
Again, in my own experience, I have found all human beings, rich or poor, of all colours and ethnic and cultural strains in a dozen countries, to have a tendency toward dishonesty and unseemly conduct. We are all faulty works in progress, and traveling around the world, I don’t see any one nation as having the monopoly on letting a cashier shortchange herself, or local merchants bilking a tourist, or of any group of people assuming superiority over others. It is the universal human condition. I don’t know what reality these people come from to display such presumptuous spurious hauteur, and it galls me to be associated with such a mealy, crude mentality. Too often when I meet such blatant prejudice, I am dumbstruck by such expressions of certainty about their projections and rationalizations and overt racism. It is so hard to believe how thoughtless and obtuse we still are, how easy it is to deny a whole nation their humanity and dignity, all the while reaping the benefits of their largesse.
I really hope this attitude doesn’t end up with our gracious hosts reflecting back the cultural arrogance we are so casual about expressing. I really hope there are enough foreigners in Saigon who meet this bigotry (and that is what it is), and who, unlike myself in my morning fog, can gently correct these misguided foreigners and help them see that they are not seeing Viet Nam clearly.
