The Things We Wore

            My neighbors in our Hanoi alley all wore loose, thin cotton outfit sets.  I wore capri jeans and elbow length tee shirts.  They woke up at four for morning lunges and arm swings.  I woke up at six for my first of three daily showers to rinse off the sweat and soot, followed by my routine sprint for the bus to school.  Their clothes were faded at the knees.  Brown squiggles traced old sweat stains.  My clothes had brand labels on the inside.  Small rectangular indents on the corners of my skirts indicated they had been recently washed and survived the drying process--no easy feat in Hanoi's tropical humidity.

            By dinnertime, my Vietnamese host family would have changed into pajamas while I was still in the black skirt and blouse I wore to school that day.  Each member had a token pajama outfit they wore every day.  My host mother’s was red with the Chinese symbol for longevity, my older sister Thư’s was yellow with a large duck, and younger sister Chip’s was pastel pink sprinkled with small flowers.  My host father wore a thin-striped, light blue long sleeved shirt with matching drawstring pants.  Except for the drawstring, he could have been going to the office instead of going to sleep.

            "I asked Ms. Huyen about Aliza's test," Thư announced to the family.  "She did not score one hundred, but she is still the best in the class."  My host mother nodded with no change in her usual blank facial expression, and continued spooning white rice from the cooker she had propped on a stool, seated at the table with the rest of us.  I had studied the vocabulary so that I could float in the music of Vietnamese's six tones, not for earning high grades.  My gap year allowed me to explore my curiosities about the language, but winning my host family's love provided an added bonus.

            As the U.S. Embassy's summer intern, I returned to the same house two years later for dinner, wearing the bright orange dress they had given me for my eighteenth birthday.  As I sat on the guest bench by the front door and waited for my host mother to finish making beef phơ, I noted the same pale pink paint coated the walls, the same cheap flower still life portraits displayed proudly in the living room, and the same fold-out table taken out only for meals.  They wore their pajamas and exclaimed that I looked different--thinner, darker, more Vietnamese.  I put a hand at my ribcage, smoothing my skirt over my thighs with the other hand.  No, I assured them.  I was still American.

            All American Foreign Service officers carry high heels or dress shoes, Ann Taylor dresses or Brooks Brothers suits, blazers, and an American flag lapel pin when they travel from post to post.  As the face of the U.S. Government, my coworkers want to look better than the foreign company representative or ministry official with whom they meet. 

I carried second-hand business casual attire for my internship, the dress my host family had bought me in my favorite color, an iPod, multiple pairs of flats in preparation for the destructive monsoon season, a bikini, a camera with too many functions, mascara and lipstick, a small teddy bear, running shoes, self-doubt, a copy of the Aeneid with split binding and multi-colored annotations, one pair of shorts, two Vietnamese-English dictionaries, a Columbia University tee shirt, anticipatory anxiety, a bag of Jelly Belly jellybeans for my host sister's birthday, a journal, a pair of jeans with a suddenly irrelevant Metrocard in the front pocket, an appetite for noodles, and a bottle of Sheer Blonde shampoo.

            The visiting Secretary of State wore her blonde hair in a hairsprayed bob.  She donned a crimson blazer when she stepped onto the Hanoi tarmac to greet the Ambassador.  The vibrancy of her outfit combined with the way she swung her arms out away from her body as she plodded forward gave her a presence larger than her frame.  I watched from a distance in my monochrome black dress, my work requiring me to stay one step ahead of the Secretary to quell any potential gaffes.  I carried her gifts of silk scarves and flowers from Vietnamese government officials, a framed photograph from the Hilton Hotel, and a plaque from the American Chamber of Commerce to the security conveyor belt for clearance.  The following morning, at a thank you meeting with almost a hundred Embassy staff members and their families, she and I happened to wear the same white blazer.  Her pantsuit underneath was tailored and pressed, while the excess cloth of my dress sagged.

            “Your government secretary is here,” a taxi driver commented in Vietnamese after the usual friendly banter revealed my American nationality. 

            “I know,” I sighed.  “I'm already exhausted.”  Leaning my head against the window, I imagined myself as a Foreign Service officer, or even an Under Secretary, treating this visit--the security concerns, the furniture arrangements of every conference room, the press, the carefully constructed formalities--as just an average workday. 

            The nondescript navy suit worn by Under Secretary Hormats made him seem approachable and relaxed.  He carried slow, calculated gestures for the press cameras, stopping to examine photos on the wall or shaking the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and Information chairman’s hand for more seconds than necessary.  Each word spoken was wrapped in a leaf of silence, to allow Vietnamese reporters to quote him accurately.  Sitting in the back of the van, I carried questions about green energy and Hormats’ personal background but never voiced them.  I listened as the deputy assistant, Matt Murray, briefed Hormats.  His flowers and framed photograph sat on my lap.  If the orange chrysanthemums and pink lotus blossoms had been laced with anthrax, I would have become the martyr intern of State.

            Along with Hormats' gifts, I possessed self-deprecating humor and knowledge of Vietnam’s Pepsico plant layout.  Introducing myself to Matt Murray as the official government Blackberry deliverer as we waited for pictures for which no one had invited us to pose, I idled in the lobby before informing Murray that I had surveyed the factory prior to his visit in my other role as the official government site officer. 

            The factory workers wore outfits in a navy color similar to Hormats' suit, but stained brown and red.  The whirring of the bottling facility made the men look even more worn, crouching near floor drains to empty the failed strawberry Sting, 7 Up and Aquafina bottles.  I gave them a weak wave, to which they did not respond.  My tour guide through the plant asked me how many security officers Hormats planned to bring.  "None--unless a Marine wants free Pepsi," I joked.

             The Marines wore camouflaged blouses and trousers, an outfit they referred to as "cammies," that they could not wear outside of the tinted grey glass box where they stood watch for ten hours.  They returned my morning wave before pressing the buzzer to unlock the security door.  At all other times, they stood rigidly in the back corner, their relaxed facial muscles displaying a false reticence.

            "What do you think about in the box all day?" I asked each Marine as one by one they plopped down next to me at a house party and handed me a Saigon beer.  Cage thought about his friends in Afghanistan and all their pranks.  Anthony tried to think about nothing, but sometimes caught himself remembering his dead father.  Decker thought about how fast he could get drunk and mapped out his bar hopping route.  Dre thought about girls.

            Dre listed the meaning behind each ribbon pinned to his dress blues during the Embassy's American Independence Day party: "Good conduct, meritorious service, selected Marine Corps reserve, Afghanistan service.  Um, this one's for being a drill instructor. Bronze star."  Standing in a cotton dress among three strobe lit ice sculptures of outstretched eagles, ten metal trays of American regional finger food such as Maryland crab cakes, pigs-in-a-blanket pastries, and mini Tex-Mex burritos, and hundreds of diplomats in three-piece suits and four-inch heels, I gave a distrait nod after each explanation. 

            The foreign Ambassadors invited to our Embassy’s party wore sensible grey and navy suits; I wore bright pink.  The Ambassador to the Philippines told me bright colors were a good networking tool because I would be more memorable and easy to spot in a large crowd.  He advised me to contact him when I visited Manila, offering to tour me through the landmarks.  Only once he gave me his business card did I know within which country Manila lay--all I could think about was the creamy white color.  An officer at the Kuwait Embassy wrote his cell phone number on a cocktail napkin and suggested I contact him so we could drink coffee more casually.  Neither of us had business cards, but something about a cocktail napkin seemed inappropriately sexy.  The Ambassador from Angola wore baggy pinstriped pants with upturned cuffs and bragged about the new business cards he designed himself, before remembering to wish me a happy Independence Day. 

             Each time I stepped outside U.S. Embassy functions, my hair would twist into ringlets from the humidity.  I wandered down unfamiliar streets in an effort to get lost, harangued by street vendors stooping under the weight of the bamboo pole over their shoulder, from which hung rice doughnuts or pineapple chunks.  "You buy," they insisted, sneaking up behind me or waiting for me at the corner, looking up into my eyes with woe.  The shadow cast over their faces by their conical hats, in addition to the faded cotton outfit in sepia tones, made it hard for me to escape the guilt.  It was even harder to escape the street vendor.  "No," I refused in Vietnamese.

            "Yes," I nodded, nibbling a segment of stringy, syrupy jackfruit handed to me.  The fruit vendor weighed more jackfruit and tossed them into a pink plastic bag with longan berries, rambutan, three dragonfruit, and a pomelo.  Since the total price amounted to less than a dollar, I nodded again and counted out periwinkle Vietnamese dong.

            "Thank you, Ah-Leee-Zah.  When are you coming over for dinner?"

            I took the heavy bag from her.  The contents would be my dinner for the next week.

            "Invite me," I encouraged her.  She listed her number in my cell phone as "Thuy Qua Hoa," her name followed by the Vietnamese word for fruit.  Thuy wore the same pastel pink striped tee shirt and baggy grey shorts every time I visited the outdoor market.  I did not want to pressure her just because I had no patience to cook.  Unlike the other grocery shoppers, I had no plans to turn my produce into creative meals.  Dragonfruit and rambutan could be filling, I assured myself.

            After scooping the white flesh out of a magenta dragonfruit skin with a spoon for lunch, I met a new Vietnamese friend, Bơ, downtown for a hip-hop concert.  I never made concrete plans to see the Vietnamese strangers I spoke with, and would never eat dinner with Thuy Qua Hoa.  But Bơ, who called himself Anh because his parents had given him the Vietnamese word for butter, met me in his parents' musical instrument store.  His parents approved of our friendship, though Mr. Butter's sarcastic jokes about the Embassy distressed me.

            "Aliza has a blog.  She writes about how corrupt the Vietnamese government is," Mr. Butter presented me to his friends at the concert.  Dressed in dark skinny jeans, a collared beige shirt, and a black fedora, he was as conspicuous in the sweaty crowd as I, with my Oxford blue polyester dress and bulky camera.  I denied the introduction, shaking my head to the beat of Vietnamese spoken word poetry.  Emulating Brooklyn style, the rappers wore wife beaters and bandana headbands, skinny jeans and baseball caps, basketball sneakers and chains hanging from their belt loops and from around their necks, and a tee shirt that read “I have plenty of talent and vision, I just don’t give a shit!”.

            “She's French, right?" one friend murmured in Vietnamese. 

“She’s from Brooklyn,” Mr. Butter bragged, his shirt darkening with accumulated sweat.  I smiled politely, focusing my gaze on the lacquer red columns gilded with outlines of dragons.  The Vietnamese language can never sound angry enough to rival Brooklyn hip-hop.

            "She's American," one employee corrected the others in the Consulate General Office's restroom, chatting in Vietnamese as they applied lipstick and adjusted their sheer blouses in front of the wall mirror.  I stood behind them and rubbed mascara flakes from my cheekbone.  “She works at the Embassy in Hanoi but is now here in Saigon.”

            “She looks like a princess,” sighed another employee.

            “Hello, my name is Aliza.  I look forward to working with you all,” I interjected in Vietnamese.  I threw a paper towel in the trash and left the restroom.  Silenced, each woman wore a bemused, slightly open grin on her face.  Real princesses never feel invisible.

            A concrete wall surrounded the consulate compound.  Next door stood the residence of the French Ambassador.  If Ho Chi Minh City’s city planners designed the layout of government buildings in such a way as to group those countries with which Vietnam had grievances, then they did not punish the United States or France.  Trees lined the boulevard next to the security wall, under which lay six tables with oranges and avocados.  Over the years, this street had become known as Orange Juice Street.  In the minute it took to walk from my apartment in Somerset Serviced Residence to the security door, the scent of oranges perfumed my ringlets.  Once inside, as I walked to the water cooler I would detect their phantom scent as I turned my head.

            One of the employees, Vinh, would smile and wave every time I refilled my water bottle at the water cooler.  On my last morning, she contorted her eyebrows and hurried up to me.  “Do not wear pants anymore,” she advised me in English.  “They make you look less like a princess.”

            “Ohhhh, I didn’t realize," I gasped.  "Thank you so much for telling me,” I stooped my back and placed a hand on my chest as if catching my breath.  I waited for Vinh to smile but she didn’t.

            The Hmong villagers smile constantly in the mountainous region of Sa Pa, a vacation spot 38 kilometers from China.  Though the women’s hands are stained a dark teal from dyeing textiles, their dispositions matched their bright multi-colored patchwork skirts and jackets in heavy cotton.  They hiked up the vibrant green terraced fields wearing tightly bound cloth slippers.  I wore running sneakers with grooves on the rubber soles for traction.

            We all were barefoot within the Cao Dai temple, in Tay Ninh, outside of Ho Chi Minh City.  Wearing a black tank top and dark jeans, I sat behind a wall and watched through the doorframe.  The worshippers in pristine white loose pants and knee length tunics, the typical female Vietnamese dress known as ao dai, and linen suits filed into the ceremonial hall and knelt in orderly rows on the floor.  The white grid of people contrasted with the chaotic pink, blue, and yellow decor.  Dragons snaked up columns, elaborate altars with globes and glinting candelabras flanked both ends of the hall, painted eyes watched from green windows, and staircases in the middle of the space led to nowhere.

            Nowhere left to wander, I wore a tank top with a hidden money belt underneath.  I carried the same suitcases back to New York, with propaganda war prints instead of Sheer Blonde shampoo, Converse sneakers from a Vietnamese factory instead of rain-wrinkled ballet flats, and textile wall hangings instead of pajama shorts.  They wore navy blazers, matching pencil skirts, and plastered mauve smiles, from nowhere to nowhere.

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.

Market Hunting

You plan to go to the market, not because you need to buy something but because you need to be reminded why you are in Vietnam. Last night you went to an expat bar and spoke English while dancing to Lady Gaga. You spent the morning reading about economics in English and texting American friends. With half an hour until lunch, you have almost enough time to escape the bubble and walk.

You close the tall iron gate of the pastel yellow French colonial house, a skinny, miniature version of the French equivalent, and walk past the badminton courts at the end of the residential block you always tell taxi drivers is yours, and where your Vietnamese family of two months lives. It is a lie, since your school pays these people every month and you have no biological relationship, but you can pretend. Today you don’t need a taxi because the market is in your neighborhood.

Hanoi is so oppressively humid that after a while your body does not register the heat; sweat glands work as they should, and no one judges the sweat stains on your elbow-length conservative shirt because everyone’s clothes are damp. Your sheets are damp when you wake up, your toothbrush is damp, the seat of your chair is damp, your damp notebooks are crinkled, your damp computer screen has spots of mold, your damp thighs slide together when you walk, and the steam rising from three hot meals does not fog your already fogged glasses.

Trees line your street, which is rare for this city, but you are confused about where these trees are actually planted, since looking up, all you see is a tangled mass. Green leaves connect to branches and green leaves connect to bundles of suspended electrical wires. Your knowledge of technology is limited but you are fairly certain those clumps of wire should not touch the way they are touching, especially since they are all so damp the copper has probably turned green like the Statue of Liberty. Each wire has a person and story on the other end but no one cares enough to make it straight. Maybe it is hopeless, you think. You try not to be ethnocentric but it is difficult.

Your street goes in a loop, not a grid, and the market is four blocks away to the left yet still bears the same street name. Hanoi’s haphazard plan does not bother you because at least it does not give you rashes or ruin your possessions or require three cold showers a day like the temperature. You walk with alacrity, your spongy black flip flops pattering to the beat of your gait, to show the Vietnamese couples staring that you are not a tourist—you know where your market is and how to get there. Having passed it every morning on the way to school, you know what to expect but today you decide to visit the stalls you ordinarily purposefully avoid, to get a zap of culture shock.

As your neighbors stare, you smile demurely and pretend this is all natural. Really though, your heart is pounding because it always thu-thumps with every motorcycle screech. Crossing the street, you get so close to the speeding drivers that you can see the labels on their jean waistbands—another fake Dolce & Gabbana. One day your white skin will be so distracting, the driver will not swerve. It happened once already, the teenage male driver with black hair gelled in spikes staring at your blue eyes with startling intensity, face frozen, but you ran across the cracked asphalt when you noticed his hands neglecting to reach for the hand brake, and your damp thighs slid together while you sprinted as the safety of the next crowded street approached.

The vendors cover some of the sidewalk slabs with heaps of used clothing and handbags so that you must retreat to the stream of Honda Dreams and Vespas with their shrill beeps, a Morse code that lets other drivers know their presence on the asphalt. The system is not foolproof and you have seen the evidence—battered metal and dazed, bloody Vietnamese men discarded on the side of the road. You have never seen even an indication of an ambulance, but you have learned that sometimes it is better not to ask questions.

It is better, also, not to ask how much something is. You enter the outdoor market through a narrow oval entrance in an alley wall lined with red bricks and are bombarded with the magenta, red, orange, lime green, deep green, and pale yellow colors of the fruit vendor stalls. Nothing has a set price because not even the price of dragonfruit is predictable. Instead you call out numbers, easy vocabulary, until an agreement is made. At first this was a fun game but because you are foreign, you are also wealthy, since one American dollar equals twenty thousand Vietnamese dong, so the game has turned guilty and panicked. The prickly scarlet balls of rambutan and the scaly pale green custard apples remain in their straw woven baskets and you continue onwards.

The phở smells like basil and the roasting chicken smells like a summer cookout. Oil crackles on portable gas stoves and Vietnamese families perch on small blue and red plastic stools, shoving noodles and meat into their mouths with chopsticks. The fragrances mix with smoke, making the moist air even thicker. You turn a corner and the lunch becomes raw. Gutted dogs lie on sticks ready for the rotisserie. Shelled sea urchins glisten in a heap. Bloody pig limbs rest in rows on a counter: slabs of meat, hoofs, and intestines. Silent, the butcher stares forlornly at the customers intently weaving through the vendor stalls.

A porcelain bowl of fat wiggling maggots is displayed on the curb and the vendor absentmindedly picks her nose. A cage of indignant roosters is tied to the back of an abandoned motorcycle. The birds screech at the discomfort, ignorant of the fact that soon they will be butchered, defeathered, and then plopped into boiling broth. This immediacy of your meals unsettles you, realizing that you prefer the anonymity of hamburger patties and chicken cutlets. Ducking under a blue tarp to evade the blinding sun, you discover another maze of stalls.

Withered frogs are displayed like sheets on a clothespin line, noodles on the floor in a dusty corner in twisted bundles like hay. Some vendors smile at you as you wander, but most stare blankly. Customers push past one another, competing for the competing vendors. Around another corner are plastic stickers and toys of animals, blonde dolls, and Ho Chi Minh. Further down the street are boxes of fake paper money and buckets bursting with bright flowers you can’t name. Each area of the market has a special purpose, from offering a meal to providing funeral décor. The market is the order in your chaotic Vietnamese life. This ancient system seems to work for the citizens, though economically speaking, you are stumped, since compartmentalizing the market heightens competition while demand remains constant. But you are not part of the system and regardless of what you say, you are not a citizen here and will never be.

Passing each middle aged woman selling identical flowers side by side, you notice lacquered bowls and vases across the street. You consider buying a lacquered item because of your newfound obsession with the haunting depth of the shiny, metallic technique but decide to wait until you are about to leave the country to stock up on appreciations. The Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum dedicates an exhibit to lacquer art and slowly meandering the dimly lit hall for the first time of many visits, the dark red and inky black tones make you quiver in the air-conditioned French villa, incredulous at the meticulous detail and the complex process necessary for lacquer technique. A cobalt vase gilded in gold perched on the market sidewalk curb glints in the sunlight and you look down at your toenails, newly painted with bright red glitter.

The market vendors are much less aggressive than the teenage vendors that wander the city streets with a box awkwardly dangling from their shoulders, selling scarves, postcards, and cigarette lighters. Market vendors shout at customers, customers shout at vendors, vendors shout at vendors, and customers shout at customers. No one shouts at you because you would not understand and do not belong in this market with the buzzing flies and whimpering dogs, scraping spoons and screaming children.

You are a woman, so you are at the market. Yet everyone sees through the lies. You weave through crowds and haggle persistently but you will never be a woman casually walking through the market. You will always be the girl whose knee length skirt is just a little too short, who slips in the trash that litters the curb, who takes pictures of anonymous houses because of a fascination with the foreign architecture, and who confuses the words “beef” and “father”. One morning last month you tried to ask your host mother if it would rain that day, she nodded, and you brought an umbrella to school; later that day, she was surprised to see you home because you had told her you were going shopping.

Passing a humming refrigerator stocked with local beer, you want to buy a sweating can but are unable to because your male friends are not here to buy alcohol and energy drinks and anything considered unfeminine for you. Your host sister calls them your bodyguards and coyly smiles when you assure her that you are not dating any of them.

You came to the market to be reminded of why you are here. You turn to retrace your steps because instead of finding the answer to your question, you encountered other people asking precisely the same thing. You walk at your brisk New York City pace now, not pausing to look at the pearl necklaces or t-shirts, yellow chicks or slowly scrambling turtles, gummy candies in the shape of Hoan Kiem temple or rainbow lollipops. You need to be home in time for lunch. You hope for tofu or summer rolls but it will probably be something involving grease in the hopes of fattening you up to make your American parents happy.

A group of middle aged, pajama-clad women perform vigorous arm thrashes, hops, and lunges in the badminton court at the end of your street. You have often seen Vietnamese adults engaging in this activity, and have never figured out what it is. The exercises remind you of tai chi on acid, or watered down aerobics. The Vietnamese value exercise but your host sisters hate moving, especially when it is hot. You were not aware that people could dislike walking. Because of their sloth, you feel like it is possible you are related to this Vietnamese family.

Except that you cannot be part of the family if you don’t have a key to the house. You ring the doorbell and scratch at a mosquito bite as you wait for your host mother to emerge from the kitchen. You beam and wave excitedly. Your host mother does not return the sentiment. She opens the door and asks you, “Cháu có vui vẻ tại thị trường? (Did you have fun at the market?)”

You pause, making sure your interpretation is correct before you respond, nodding, “Văng (Yes)”. You are glad you are home, though, and just in time for sweet green banana and snail soup, steamed white rice, garlic beef stir fry and spring rolls. It could be worse, you think, and help set the table.

I remember blackouts

The blackness is so thick I can almost curl my fingers around it and tug. But I can’t and the humid darkness remains. I scoot back against a chair and hug my knees to my chest, silent. I blink. I blink. My sixteen-year-old Vietnamese host sister, Chịp, wails in frustration. With a language like a song, I am impressed my sister can manage an emotive tone.

The living room of my host family’s house was just starting to become familiar and now foreignness envelops me once more. I try to picture the wooden bench up against the window, the matching chairs and the painting of a vase with flowers perched above it, the other painting of a meadow on the opposite wall, the television with a cheerful blond Norwegian-looking doll and a snow globe of New York City resting on top, and the beaded entranceway to the kitchen, the only place in Viet Nam where I don’t feel welcome.

It had only been two weeks—my feet beginning to break in the stiff plastic house sandals given to me by my host family—and already I no longer noticed the pedestrians calling out to me in the streets or staring at me on the bus, the thin limbs in mismatched and faded clothing, the challenge that thick motorcycle traffic imposes on my daily routine, the lingering sticky-sweet stench of the durian fruit vendor, or the heavy black smoke of burning paper ancestral offerings.

My twenty-four-year-old Vietnamese host sister, Thư, stomps and claps and smashes into the piano keyboard. Suddenly a small lantern illuminates Thu’s motherly smile and the bottom of her plastic magenta eyeglasses. My host mother, I imagine, remains rigid and reserved on the hard wooden bench like usual. At first I had thought my host mother resented my existence but I soon came to understand that she was just dutifully fulfilling her role as a woman: demure and unobtrusive. I unfold from my twisted confusion and rejoin the huddle in the middle of the floor.

We had been watching a movie on Chịp’s favorite channel, the Disney channel, on a Monday night. Hilary Duff had enrolled in a naval academy and the moral was that she was girly yet did not give up at school. Each shot of camouflage, boot camp exercises, rifles, or any other indication of warfare made me uncomfortable since the Vietnam War, known as the American War in Vietnam, had never been mentioned in the family. My host parents had certainly lived through the war but I did not know the extent of their involvement or how strong their sentiments were. Did they intrinsically hate Americans and I was just an exception? Was I an exception?

Glancing at the clock and then back at Hilary Duff, I had hoped that silently sitting on the beige tiled floor with my host family and watching a squeaky blonde girl get covered in mud would help me break down the barrier separating guest from adopted daughter and sister. The family has already changed into pajamas while I am still in the skirt and blouse I wore to school that day. Each member has a token pajama outfit they wear every day. My host mother’s is red with the Chinese symbol for longevity, Thư’s is yellow with a large duck, and Chịp’s is pastel pink sprinkled with small flowers. My host father does not have pajamas, from what I can see.

I stare at the three women engulfed in shadows. They chatter amiably amongst themselves as the sweat starts trickling down the sides of my face. “Xin lỗi, em (I’m sorry),” Thu apologizes to me. I shake my head and then remember I can’t rely on gestures to communicate anymore. “Tốt (Okay),” I squeak.

My index finger traces my miniature Vietnamese-English dictionary; once, twice, three times. I fidget with the pages, feeling the softness of wear. I consider casually commenting on the sudden heat influx but can’t remember which tone to use. Having learned three romance languages, I am used to relying on cognates and intuition. In Hanoi, I flounder in the music of the sentences.

With the patter of plastic blue slippers, my host father climbs down two flights of spiraling marble with a battery-powered fan the size of a basketball. He hovers over us momentarily and then disappears back up into the silent abyss. A gaunt man with monochrome clothes that hang from his stooped body, my host father still fulfills the stereotypical Vietnamese patriarchal role as the aloof provider of the family. I never see him joking or playing with my host sisters or even touching my host mother. Though my host sisters have shown me wedding pictures in which my host mother actually smiled, I have no idea how they met or decided to get married. Without access to the computer and therefore his digital games of solitaire, I don’t know what he plans on doing tonight.

Chịp begins belting out her favorite Korean pop songs. Thư encourages me to sing along but I laugh nervously instead. Mosquitoes, lacquer-green beetles and feathery moths dance around the lantern. I slap at my arms and scratch the insect bites. There is nowhere to look but at the light.

As soon as Chịp finishes her Korean warbling, I rush up the stairs to the master bedroom, my new room, the bedroom that my host parents relinquished so that I, as the American, can feel comfortable, while they sleep on mats in the third floor computer room. Though they are in their fifties and I am only seventeen years old, I am embarrassed to reject their generosity.

I yank open the first desk drawer, where I remember I put a photo album. Back downstairs, we flip through the laminated pages and I proudly blurt out family vocabulary: mother, father, older brother, aunt, grandmother, cousins. My host mother repeatedly exclaims, “Tóc vàng (blond)!” I have not been blonde since I was ten years old, but since I don’t have the sleek and shiny black hair of all Vietnamese people, I can be whatever my host family wants me to be. Which, of course, is blond. I am almost afraid to tan in the tropical sun, in case my coveted pale skin becomes slightly more like their glowing brown.

Suddenly the power is restored and the television flickers back on just in time for the last minute of the movie. Hilary Duff successfully graduates from naval academy, or peace is restored in her household, or something of that nature. We shut off the television and disperse to finish my economics reading (me), a trigonometry worksheet (Chịp), an English lesson plan for the class she teaches to four year olds (Thư), and the laundry (my host mother).

An hour and a half later, the black print of my textbook quickly grows to envelop the whole room. I open the door—blackness there too. My host father appears once again to hand out necessities: a lantern for my room and one for my host sisters’ room. I offer him my flashlight but he shakes his head. I shine my light on the stairs so he won’t fall as he retreats into solitude, his hacking cough echoing in the hallway.

Choosing to interpret this blackout as an involuntary study break, I join the insects around Chịp and Thư’s lantern. The three of us share riddles and quiz each other on Vietnamese and English vocabulary. My sisters are far beyond the “table” and “chair” stage while I have to repeat “bed” and “window”. I feel like I’m at an elementary school slumber party of overachieving nerds. When the lights illuminate the house again after half an hour of giggling, we reluctantly return to our desks.

The third blackout of the night, two hours later, finds me reading The Quiet American. I sigh, exasperated, stumble towards my wardrobe, and change into my pajamas. “Chúc ngủ ngôn (Good night),” I call out to my sisters. They return the sentiment. From my room I can see Chịp huddled by a lantern, frantically trying to finish her trigonometry homework. Though I also have homework, I decide to save it for the following day when the city’s electricity functions again.

I feel shepherded by the city of Hanoi. Its bus system determines the times I arrive to school, return back home, or travel to my voice teacher’s house. Its weather determines what I will eat that day, since my host mother buys ingredients fresh every morning at the local market two blocks away. Its citizens determine how I view myself—pretty or ugly, short or tall, chubby or fat, pale or very white, endangered or flattered. And its electricity determines how efficiently my workload diminishes.

The following day is more humid than usual. I arrive home to learn of another blackout, which had just ended. Relieved that I missed it, I stack my books in order of priority on my desk and settle in for a long night, which will only be interrupted by the mind game that is a Vietnamese family dinner. At dinner I try and make my bowl of rice last as long as my family’s three helpings. I chew individual grains, I chew air, I keep my bowl raised so no one plops more jellyfish or chicken fat into it. Whatever is in the rice bowl must be consumed. It is an unwritten law.

Halfway through studying for an environmental science quiz, the power goes out. No. No no no. I take out my flashlight, prop it between my teeth, and continue working, fanning myself with my left hand. My clothes quickly turn damp, then wet. Would this become a daily routine? Though blackouts cause no more than an inconvenience for me, which should be expected when traveling to a developing country, the uncertainty and confusion lead me to despair.

The blackouts last anywhere from ten minutes, a taunt, to three hours, a punishment. In New York City, this pattern would be classified as a national catastrophe. There would be television news, editorials, investigative commissions, political inquiries, and blue ribbon panels. In Hanoi, it is just part of the summer. My family seems to have accepted that the power is beyond their power.

After the sixth blackout that week, the block erupts into cheers when the electricity is restored again. Joining in with an American “Woo!” I feel connected with my neighbors. But no one ever seems angry and the blackouts are hardly even mentioned. The idea of protesting to a government when services are not adequate is just as foreign for them as blackouts are for me.

The Relentless Plea

“You buy,” the woman always insists, sneaking up behind me or waiting for me at the corner, looking up into my eyes with a woeful expression.

“Dạ, không,” I stutter, shaking my head and scanning the motorbikes combing the street. I have no interest in her sticky orange bag of pineapple chunks, her t-shirts with a bright Vietnamese flag or a sketch of a temple or the phrase “I heart pho,” her toothpicks, or her postcards.

As I attempt to cross an intersection while still keeping all ten of my toes, I feel the postcard on my hand or the t-shirt over the crook of my arm. Giving me the product when there is no money in my hand should not be a smart business tactic, but it allows the desperate vendor (and every vendor is desperate) to advertise her product further, allowing me to see the picture of a densely packed street in detail or feel the cotton cloth against my flushed skin.

It is hard to escape the guilt. It is even harder to escape the street vendor.

Each ‘no’ causes a surge in the vendor’s persistence. This makes the New York City foreigner uncomfortable, since I am used to homeless people dejectedly calling out for money, but staying in one spot. The personal contact here in Hanoi forces me to flee into the paved road of honking Honda Dreams, hoping that the street vendor finds another tourist.

Everyone uses jewelry, fans, hats and cigarette lighters, but the street vendors never seem to harass their fellow Vietnamese pedestrians. Only Westerners can be swayed, and they cannot understand that I do not fit this stereotype.

Whenever I leave the comforts of my room for the sweltering chaos outside, I worry about the vendors. They can be intrusive even without speaking, still forcing me onto the busy street. Small stores densely packed together leak out onto the sidewalk, creating a blanket of shoes or handmade cloth bags or spare motorcycle parts.

No space to move, no space to breathe. Just like home.