Author: laurenne

Dear Vietnam government,

You suck.

At first I thought you were pretty annoying when the hotels insisted they keep my passport and report to the government I had stayed there. But then I did some research and found that you suck even more than that.

When you won the civil war in 1979, you leveled all citizens, making business owners and rich people hand over everything to the man. Ok, fine. I guess that is how communism works. But then you had no one to run those businesses you took because they had died in the war or they were still fighting with Cambodia. So you let everything go to hell, including food production and ration distribution. You basically kept people starving long after the war. That was pretty rude. But I guess everyone makes mistakes when they just take power. So, I will give you a pardon on the poverty and malnutrition. Fine.

But the fact that you punished everyone who fought for the South was insane. Wasn’t losing enough for them? You had to torture and kill them even after the war was over? That’s just mean. You won’t even allow my friend who fought against you to get a passport now, twenty-five years later. Geez!

The part that I really hate about you, Vietnamese government, is your blatant lying. I mean, you were fighting a civil war whether or not the Americans were there. Yet, you call it the “American War” and blame everything on us. I visited two museums that are wall after wall of you crying victim. Yes, we sprayed your fields with Agent Orange, and that was pretty lame of us. We couldn’t believe you were kicking our asses, so we had to do something. In hindsight we really regret it. But you can stop blaming every malady on us. The 2009 cases of down’s syndrome are not our fault. We have retarded babies as well without Agent Orange (although we do spray pesticides but that is not the point.).

I also visited the prison where you tortured John McCain. You make it seem like you treated the Americans to years of basketball and happy endings. Ha! Liar, liar! McCain tried to commit suicide in there. I doubt it was due to losing some tough rounds of PIG. There are thousands of accounts of the Viet Cong raping and murdering and pillaging and destroying. So although you are communists and feel like you can write history and present your version to all the tourists who come through, I would like to point out that you acted just as badly as the Americans and the Southern Vietnamese. After all, IT WAS YOUR DAMN CIVIL WAR! And I am really sad the side we were helping lost. Many Americans didn’t understand why we were over there. It is hard to fathom why America always thinks it can jump on in and help the underdog when he’s so far from our home. But if we had to meddle, I am proud we chose the side we did. Because I see clearly who we were fighting. It was the evil “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

You may bar me from ever entering your country again, and I am fine with that. Because I don’t hang out with mean governments anyway.

Sorry for taking up so much of your time. I’ll let you get back to lying and controlling people.

Sincerely,
Laurenne M. Sala

Some quick observations from my month in Nam :

Their money is called ‘dong’. I am less mature than I thought because I giggled like Beavis every time someone told me a price.

They pirate everything. You cannot buy a legitimate book or DVD in the country. In fact, I bought a photocopied book, and I reached a page where an ant had fallen asleep on the copier.

They can carry anything with a pole and 2 baskets.

They always eat ‘family style’ with a big pile of rice in the middle.

Harvesting rice is considered a woman’s job. So, if you are eating rice in Vietnam, it was most likely planted, harvested, cleaned, and dried by a woman.

I am taller than everyone in the country.

They are very direct, grabbing your hand and asking how much you paid for your ring. They ask your age, marriage status, etc within the first moment of meeting.

When they write their names, the surname goes first. It gets confusing.

They eat handfuls of sand crabs because they’re known to give you energy.

For most Vietnamese, life is all about family. If a girl marries an ugly, fat, pimply old Western guy who has money, it’s sort of a show of love for the family. Many Westerners are surprised to see the family move on in once they get hitched.
Unfortunately, it is also often common practice for men to beat women. The women dare not say anything because ruining the marriage means putting the family’s security in jeopardy. (This is in more traditional cases, and I am sure women are beginning to stick up for themselves.)

They do not require glitz or glamour. With an old stool and a crate, they can have a sidewalk restaurant running in no time.

Their language is most complicated. Since they use 6 series of tones, each word has six meanings depending on how you say it.’Ma’ can mean ‘phantom’, ‘but’, ‘mother’, ‘rice seedling’, ‘tomb’, or ‘horse.’ This way, words are very simple and never more than one syllable.

Although Western culture has crept in to many parts of Vietnam, it seemed to me that traditional Vietnamese culture was still standing strong. People still wear pajamas all day, like they would in rural villages. They still prefer to eat noodle soup from the back of a truck than join the tourists at the KFC. They still live with the whole family.

You can get most things on the street. There are traveling candy shops, restaurants, bars, tailors, hairdressers, produce markets, etc. It’s really amazing how everything comes to you. If you are patient enough, whatever you crave will land at your feet (Perhaps a lesson for life?).

The majority of Vietnamese follow Tam Giao Buddhism. It is quite superstitious. In fact, so much of their lives revolve around luck. They believe they must always honor their ancestors by sacrificing certain luxuries to the altar. They believe you must bury your relatives with money so that they will be able to pay for things in the afterlife. A guy I met here won’t pose for photos with 2 other people (the number 3!) for fear of bad luck.

The women here are OBSESSED with being white. They go to great lengths to ensure their skin stays milky, since dark skin is a sign of fieldwork. Many women wear winter clothes in the sweltering heat so that there is no chance of tan. They always cover their faces with masks and most usually wear prom-type gloves that cover from finger to shoulder.

My name means tool repair shop. Cool! I love tools.

The coffee is superb. It is strong and rich. And served with a layer of sweet condensed milk at the bottom. Unfortunately, the best beans have been fed to weasels and taken from their poop. Not sure who thought of that one.