Let the Rains Down

             The monsoon season turns even the most mundane aspects of Vietnamese daily life into a splendid watercolor painting.  In the morning, the flower ladies of Quan Thanh Street make bouquets of unbloomed lotuses and small orange roses, lined up on the sidewalk.  They rip leaves and snip thorns, pausing to joke with their neighbors and shovel some phơ noodles into their mouths.  Behind them, West Lake glistens in waves of hazy pinks and lavenders.  Dead fish, shredded plastic wrappers, and floating Bia Hoi beer cans dot the surface of the water.

            As the daily smog engulfs the city, a muted yellow light descends in the early afternoon.  The city turns quiet.  Everyone parks their motorbikes and puts away the products they've been selling.  Clouds brood over the lake.  Then the rains come.  It does not begin to rain, as one would say in English.  The rains come.  They deserve their plurality, splashing on every surface of Hanoi with abandon.

            The rains march in heavy plods down the alleys, carrying along pomelo rinds, broken furniture, and newspaper.  Pedestrians don ponchos that stick to their bodies and hang down to their knees.  Sloshing through the water, they swat at their ponchos as the plastic gathers in between their legs.

            Though the rains appear without the audible warning of thunder, the rushing sound, like a wild boar charging through a thicket of reeds, makes it difficult to hear.  The droplets are so thick that they fall in visible white streams.  The Vietnamese retreat to the cafe nearest their parked motorbike, the rains inspiring a thirst for a yogurt smoothie.  In Hanoi, this means a matter of yards--one can expect at least two on any street or alley.  Straining to slurp the thick liquid through the curled straw, the displaced look out the window and wait.

            Sunlight forces its way over Hanoi, drenching the city in brightness.  Since no one has yet realized that the sound of rain has dissipated, the light startles.  Slowly, the beeps of motorbikes start up and crescendo until the city reaches its usual cacophony.  During the months of June through September, there is never a question of whether it will rain.  Instead, the Vietnamese wonder at what time it will rain and how many times. 

Motorculture

They beep at every corner. They beep from behind, from ten feet in front, from either side, from head-on. They beep at 4:30 and don't stop until midnight. Two beeps warn; one long one alerts others of high speeds. A woman in a pencil skirt beeps on the way to the office. An aging man in green linen pants beeps on the way to the farm, with two pigs stacked on top of each other, lying in a cage behind him. A teenage couple beeps on the way to the movie theater, the girl's arms tight around her boyfriend's waist as he swerves down the road.

There is a game commonly played amongst foreigners living in Hanoi--let's call it The Things They Carried. Merely a quotidian occurrence for motorcyclists, we visitors stare in awe as entire families pack in to one Honda Wave and zoom away. Past winners include two children standing in front of a seat with two more wedged between a couple sitting on the seat; three men with four bags of squawking roosters; and four adults with one air conditioner.

Not only are motorcyclists able to observe what others are carrying, they can also view the jean brands of every passenger or the type of candy a child clutches. In American traffic, cars trap passengers into a secluded compartment of glass windows and metal doors and no one moves. In Vietnamese traffic, motorcycles squeeze as close together as possible as everyone streams down the French boulevards at a similarly slow pace.


The sense of camaraderie fits the socialist political system. Xe ôms, which literally translates to hug the driver, pepper street corners as an alternative to bulky taxis. Men catch naps after work as they wait for customers to haggle with them. With feet resting on the handlebars, they nestle their torsos into the seat cushion. The side mirrors become an extension of the bathroom. The drivers pick at their teeth with toothpicks, shave, and clip their nose hairs. Private life seeps into the city of Hanoi.

Every motorcycle serves as an extension of the owner's house. It travels down the twisted marketplace alleys, it provides a space to lounge on and read the newspaper while escaping the midday sun, and it provides assistance to vendors who pack up clothes or pottery and move to another street to continue selling.

The motorcycle craze involves a high degree of trust. The vehicles are small enough to wheel away inconspicuously. The engine is close enough to cause serious injury if another driver overshoots a swerve, gets distracted by a Western pedestrian, or meanders home after a night of rice vodka shots. Passengers pack into a seat tight enough and drivers pack a street dense enough for strangers’ legs to brush against each other. A hundred breaths mingle with exhaust fumes.

Why Vietnamese?

Most courses in college need no explanation--microeconomics, psychology, Latin literature, 18th century art, chemistry. But Vietnamese always brings with it a story, a burning reason as to why any student would think to suffer through it. Even other East Asian languages do not receive the same wide-eyed "Why?" from students.

My reasons for learning Vietnamese morph as I grow academically. I studied in Hanoi the semester after I graduated high school because I yearned for the unfamiliar: to speak an Asiatic language with tones, to learn the environmental concerns of a tropical region and the economic issues of a third world country, to live with a family and listen to their stories, to participate in lively celebrations and rituals, to experience a communist society, and to sympathize with a history of an underdog trying to prove itself and a lingering series of identity crises.

After my semester abroad, my reasons changed to a desire to speak more with the people I met. By the time I left Hanoi, I could keep a conversation going in a taxi for twenty minutes and throw in a few sentences at the dinner table, but I felt like I had not made many connections. My host family was well versed in body language, but how much can be said with an awkward laugh or emphatic gesture?

My study of language has led to an understanding of culture through the structure of its language. The Vietnamese language is fascinating and unique; its vocabulary and syntax are so logical. The word for "furniture" is the combination of the words for "table" and "chair" and the word for "refrigerator" is the combination of the words for "machine" and "cold". The lack of cognates frustrates me, but the linguistic simplicity makes me smile. My midterm is this week and one of the words I am responsible for is "to be worry free," which translates literally into "eat until full, sleep soundly." As I study, I will remember to take the true meaning to heart as well as the definition.

Hakuna Gol!

"When are we going to the village? It looks like FAO Schwarz in my tent," one of my classmates, Tess, complained. Our group of Columbia University students was in Kenya for ecological research but we had plans to tour a local village. One of the suggestions on our packing list, after quick-dry pants and a flashlight, was stuffed animals, markers, and other charitable donations. After weeks of observing nothing but researchers and zebras, my class awaited the bout of cultural exposure with real Kenyans and even a soccer game.

There was nothing distinctly Kenya about our trip. The Mpala Research Centre had a few one-story stucco buildings, with white researchers milling about, discussing the bird calls of superb starlings and interpretations of ANOVA results. The compound looked out to an expanse of flat vegetation, peppered by bulbous guinea fowl and twitching klipspringers. Undulating waves of blue mountains lay misty on the horizon.

Not every observation was for research. Walking back to my tent from a morning bucket shower as the sun rose, I observed impala grazing across the river. In the muted light, the water slapped the rocks loudly, rushing downstream to the baboon colony at the opposite end of the campsite. Elephant babies stumbled into the thick legs of their mothers at the sound of our van's engine, and hippos snorted water and wiggled their ears, lazily annoyed when we circled around their pool. Giraffes sat down in protest, hiding their dappled mosaic of brown and yellow in the tall savannah grass. Only the vervet monkeys sought our company, hurdling over the two layers of electrified fencing to play in the trees next to our tents and observe our strange activity—roasting marshmallows in a fire pit, playing Frisbee in the rain, running to the vans in a frenzy.

After our six am breakfast one morning, our professor Dr. Dustin Rubenstein listed the day's agenda, which began with the usual tasks of data collection and written analyses of statistical results, and ended with the instruction to gather up FAO Schwarz and Kenyan shillings. A hush fell upon the table and we quickly rushed back to our tents, preparing ourselves for the break from routine. The group congregated in front of Dustin's office after afternoon teatime, with toys instead of tape measures. We began walking down Jenga Road, a wide path of burnt orange dust. No more than five minutes had past before four mud huts stopped us in our tracks. The villagers had assembled together to welcome us, clapping as we drew closer.

Children began reaching out for the Western Treasures, beaming as our hands made contact and then silently running away. A hierarchy of toys had formed, with the largest stuffed animals on top and the crayons on the bottom. With the pyramid dissolving fast, the children began whining "me, me, me." Some of us laughed at the children's distress, since the village was so small and tightly packed that the toys could surely travel around. We do not know what they had been promised, but they were determined to get it. My classmates began tearing sheets of paper out of their notebooks, and lines began forming in front of those digging through their pencil cases. Surrounded by smiling black children with sores on their legs and scalp, we felt queasy and could not take pictures of the interaction.

We had been promised something too, though, and after the parents shouted in Swahili, the children took our hands and began leading us to a field. I walked with a boy wearing a blue shirt with OBAMA written in red blocky letters. He did not speak but clung tightly to my fingers as we approached the electrified fence. He taught me which barbed wire I could manipulate to allow my body through and which wire to avoid (the top one).

Ten or fifteen teenagers awaited us on the soccer field, aimlessly kicking the ball. My classmates and I gathered one of the goal posts, repeating "Jambo!" one of the few Swahili phrases we had confidently mastered along with habari gani (how are you?), nzuri (fine), asante sana (thank you very much), karibu (you're welcome), lala salama (good night), sawa (okay), maji (water) and mtoto tembo (baby elephant). We had not excelled past this rudimentary vocabulary because we spent most of our time with Kenyan citizens who did not speak Swahili: Plains zebras, dik diks, acacia ants, drongo birds, Thomson's gazelles, Defassa waterbucks, and reticulated giraffes. Soccer in Swahili is "mpira." We split into teams based on shirt colors. The game began.

The Kenyan teenagers all rivaled my tallest classmate, Justin, a Marine vet over six feet tall with a hulking frame. The men nimbly danced with the ball, though, instead of using the full capabilities of their strength. They were showing off by not showing off. We were so distracted by their fancy footwork that goals for both teams whizzed by without any effort on our part. The soccer ball skirted around the men's ankles. How did the ball travel from the front of his toes to the back of his left heel to between his legs to his head to the opposite end of the field? The array of moves was dazzling.

Their charity to us was the honor of being passed the ball. My soccer skills did not surpass middle school gym and I did not even try to mimic the complex moves. In an effort to blend in, though, I began aggressively stealing the ball from the opposite team by hopping on top of the ball, pushing it backwards, turning around and kicking it with the inside of my right foot. Oftentimes I just ducked or flinched to avoid getting a soccer ball punch to the head or stomach. Sometimes I collided with my African teammates and they were very apologetic. After three rounds, they gave up on manners. The game grew heated as the temperature got colder; the sun was setting. My team, the dark shirt team, was losing. We had made a goal but the other team insisted it did not count. "Hakuna gol!" they shouted. Watching The Lion King had helped me in comprehending the angry claims. If "hakuna matata" means no worries, then "hakuna gol" must mean "no goal." Bummer.

I do not have a competitive personality, which is a reason I switched from sports to dance in high school. My teammates did and I absorbed their energy. The game was ending at dusk, when we could no longer see the ball. We needed to score. I ran to block a pass from a classmate on the light shirt team, skidded on the gravel, and fell on my side. My hand broke my fall, pressing into an acacia shrub. I jumped back up, pulled the acacia thorn from my thumb, and passed to a teammate. My field credibility suddenly on par with the Kenyan soccer tricks, I found myself kicking the ball much more frequently as the sun turned bloody. Despite noble intentions by all, my team lost. Hakuna gol.

Our professor drove up to the field like a soccer mom. My classmates and I shook hands with the Kenyan teenagers, valuing the perfunctory friendships we had formed. The village was only five minutes from the research center, so we could feasibly meet again. Maybe they, as natives, knew more about drongo bird feeding habits than we did. They certainly knew more about soccer.