Happy News Year

I saw a motorbike accident today, on a crowded street near Hoan Kiem Lake. I'm sure neither driver felt too reckless going 10 miles an hour, but when they collided headon it was like each of them had hit a wall going 20. They managed not to spill onto the pavement, but one driver's bike and the other driver's hand were visibly damaged in the impact—one minute after the crash, the smashed hand was already turning black. I'm taking it as a personal caution to me to be more careful. As the Vietnamese Lunar New Year approaches, Ha Noi is filling up with people and vehicles. I'm finally seeing actual gridlock at intersections and find myself riding up on the sidewalk to bypass congestion in the street. The odds of a collision are mounting.

The solar new year, of course, was two weeks ago and I celebrated it with friends at David and Christina's house. The party included Vietnamese friends, naturally—Vietnamese students and staff from Language Link, and Vietnamese women met at a karaoke bar or disco by one or two of my more enterprising and party-oriented colleagues. In general, though, the Vietnamese made less of a fuss over the solar new year than we did. They're saving their enthusiasm for Tet.

Tet, the biggest event of the year in Vietnam. For me, it symbolizes what's so wonderful and so frustrating about being here. It's like American Christmas and New Year combined. It's a time when families sometimes travel long distances to get together, when people cook and eat the most lavish meal of the year, when children receive gifts and special attention from the adults, when businesses close their doors, when friends receive friends in their homes. The excitement builds as Tet approaches. It's the biggest event of the year, did I say that? And yet. And yet. With Tet approximately one week away, I still can't find a single person who can tell me definitively what day Tet begins. I can't fathom it. I've asked one student after another. I've asked Vietnamese staff members at Language Link. Everybody knows it's coming, but they're all a little vague about exactly when it is.

I encounter this kind of perplexing disconnect almost every day. In class last night I asked a student to think of a sentence that used the word 'but'. She came up with: 'I like rock, but I don't like yellow music.' 'What's yellow music?' I asked. 'Boring music', she replied. 'Does yellow mean boring?' 'No,' another student said, 'Yellow music is country music.' 'Yellow music is Vietnamese country music?' I asked. The room went silent. 'Is yellow music Vietnamese music?' 'It's traditional music,' somebody said. 'Vietnamese traditional music?' I persisted. Silence. 'Is yellow music Vietnamese?' I asked. I wrote the question on the board. Nothing. 'Yes?' I asked, writing the word 'Yes' as I spoke. 'No?' I asked, writing the word 'No'. Nobody said a thing. A class of students who had been noisily shouting each other down just moments earlier had been silenced by an easy yes/no question about a term they themselves had introduced. I don't get it.

I'm now working afternoons at a radio station called Voice of Vietnam. VOV does an English language news broadcast every day at 3pm and again at 8pm. The news stories are taken from one or more Vietnamese news websites and roughly (often very roughly) translated into English. My job is to correct errors of grammar and polish up the style before the stories go to air. I'm supposed to work from noon to 2pm. The edited stories then get retyped and read on the air at 3:00. What happens is that from noon to about 1:30 there is one page for me to edit…and re-edit…and polish…to a high gloss. After 1:30, pages slowly start piling up in my inbox with a sudden flurry of activity between 1:55 and about 2:15 as translators rush things to my desk for inclusion in the 3:00 broadcast. As a result, I work like a fiend from 1:45 to 2:45 (knowing with a fair certainty that I'll only get paid to 2:00). Today I said something. I said, 'Wouldn't it make more sense for me to come in at 1:00 and work until 3:00?' 'Why?' they wanted to know. 'Well, because most of the stories to be edited come to my inbox between 1:30 and 2:30.' 'You're supposed to edit them before 2:00.' 'Yes, I know, but I'm finding it hard to do that when many of them don't reach my desk until 2:00 or later.' 'Okay, come in at 12:30 and stay until 2:30.' I'm thinking, how did the policy survive unchanged until my arrival? VOV is not a brand new station, as far as I know.

I'm telling you, the Vietnamese definitely have a different slant on things. And while I'm pretty sure they have the best intentions, sometimes their effort to reassure foreigners has exactly the opposite effect, as when I read on a menu this week: OUR FOOD CONTAINS NO CHOLESTEROL, SATURATED FAT, OR BORAX.