Learning Experiences in Hanoi

View Photos (5) Image © 1988 Estelle Muller

There was no sign of him. All around me people were being greeted with shouts of excitement, bags were being searched by inscrutable customs officials, and cargo was being steadily unloaded. Having survived my own bag search, I stood expectantly in the centre of the airport terminal, waiting for my ride to Hanoi University to present himself. Half an hour later, the frenzy of the meeters and greeters had subsided, the remaining cargo was loaded onto dilapidated vehicles and onto the backs of bicycles, and suddenly I was alone.

Eventually rescue came in the form of two Swedish medical workers who recognised my difficulty and offered me a ride into town. As we whizzed past green paddy fields and lazy water buffaloes, I explained to my rescuers that I had made the journey from Australia to spend the next seven months living and studying the Vietnamese language at the University of Hanoi. Their stunned expressions confirmed my worst fears. I was in for a shock.

Accommodation at the university was primitive at best, I had been warned by the two Australian students who had studied there the previous year. I was told to expect rats, lots of them, wooden sleeping platforms with straw mats to prevent extensive bruising, and cockroaches the size of surfboards. My first few hours at the dormitory confirmed these points and one additional and even more alarming fact: the two and a half years I had spent studying the Vietnamese language at university had not prepared me for the language as spoken in real life. I couldn't seem to grasp one word of what teachers and staff were saying.

The first few weeks passed by in a daze of rat and cockroach sidestepping as myself and ten other students grappled with the various facets of university life. The year was 1988, and Vietnam was only just starting to open its doors to the rest of the world. Foreigners, other than the inhabitants of the nearby Russian military base, were uncommon. I had to become accustomed to stares, to children following me like crazed fans, and to a constant barrage of questions. Where did I come from? Was I married? Why not? Why was I learning Vietnamese? Along with the questions came many invitations to homes where families would want to share their modest food and immense hospitality.

The classrooms, like our accommodation, were basic. There was a distinct lack of the resources we took for granted back home in our universities. Simple wooden desks and a blackboard was the full extent of the furnishings - the windows did not even have glass, just colonial style shutters. Yet our teachers were inspiring. They listened patiently to our clumsy attempts to master the six tones of the language, confusing meanings totally with the slightest of mispronunciations.

Our class was comprised of students from South Yemen, Mongolia, Russia, Germany, Japan, Thailand, Northern Ireland and Australia, so there was no common language. Our teachers could only rely on creativity to find ways of answering our badly phrased questions about the social and political system. Even among ourselves, we students had to communicate in Vietnamese. We would draw attention and laughter as we cycled around the city, a bizarre mixture of cultures, all speaking a strange combination between inexpert Vietnamese and our own native languages.

Naturally, most of our language study took place outside of the university, as we fumbled our way around markets, struggled to avoid ordering things in restaurants that we would regret - fully fertilized chicks boiled in their shells, snake and the ever-popular dog dishes, and tried to hold conversations with bicycle repairmen, cyclo drivers and young students eager to learn about music, fashion and all things common to student culture the world over.

Our perspective was unique - Vietnam was not the popular destination that it is today, and we knew that the country would soon be transformed with the influx of tourist dollars and foreign investment. Extreme poverty was mingled with the beauty of tree-lined boulevards, lakes, temples and colonial period architecture. Consumer goods were not readily available - if we wanted film, chocolate or any other supplies, we would have to employ all our charm to persuade someone from the Australian Embassy to buy them for us in Bangkok on one of the monthly visits.

Although the loudspeakers positioned throughout the city streets would lacerate our eardrums several times a day with broadcasts affirming the Communist system, the hopeful talk on the streets and in the newspaper was about the new policy of renovation (doi moi) and a move away from the rigid Soviet style system of central planning. Openness to the rest of the world was perceived as necessary for the social, political and economic development of Vietnam.

There was an obvious excitement for the future - for improvement of the dire financial situation, for the opportunities the tourist dollars would bring, for foreign merchandise and a chance to finally catch up with the rest of the world. As a foreigner witnessing a country on the brink of such change, my feelings were mixed. It was undeniable that foreign investment was needed to rebuild the country after decades of war followed by economic paralysis, and that the lives of the Vietnamese people urgently needed to improve. The Vietnam that I was experiencing was a country in a time warp - was it the 1960's or was it 1988? It would be unfair to wish that Vietnam remain unchanged because of idealistic beliefs that it would be more charming that way. As students, we lived in crude conditions at the university, and there was a charm in the unsophistication, but we knew at the end of our studies, we could return to our regular comfortable lives. The Vietnamese people I met were hungry for change, for consumer goods, for education.

My understanding and appreciation for the Vietnamese culture was greatly affected by a chance encounter with a young woman and her child shortly after I had arrived in Hanoi.

Hopelessly lost and harried, I was staring at the street signs waiting for inspiration or a miracle to lead me back to the dormitory, when a shy-looking girl approached me and asked if I needed any help. I felt an immediate connection with her, as we chatted on the street amid the clamour of shop vendors hawking everything from lottery tickets to caged birds. Her name was Hien, she told me, and she and her two-year-old daughter Hai Anh were living with her parents-in-law, as was common practice following marriage. Her husband had been sent to work in Siberia for six years and she hadn't seen him for two. Although my command of the language was still tenuous, we shared a long conversation, at the end of which it was clear that we were going to be good friends.

On our second meeting, Hien introduced me to her parents-in-law, and I was immediately given a crash course in Vietnamese table manners. I learned that before touching so much as a grain of rice, it was necessary to invite everyone to eat, and then wait to be invited to eat by the host. Despite the grumblings of everyone's stomachs, several minutes were then spent in effusive praise for the number of dishes. My sloppy handling of chopsticks was dealt with next, as it was pointed out that I was holding them "like a peasant". Niceties aside, it was finally time to eat. During the meal, and the many, many meals that followed it, my bowl was constantly being topped up with the choicest pieces of meat, more vegetables, more rice. Resistance was futile. Similarly, I never left their home without the feeling that I had swallowed an ocean of green tea.

In the months that followed, I would see Hien and Hai Anh twice a week. Together we witnessed the spooky spectacle of Uncle Ho lying in state at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, ate countless bowls of pho, fragrant with coriander and mint, visited temples dusky with the scent of incense, and watched bad Russian movies at the cinema. On these occasions and our many excursions out of the city, communication was not always easy - I would sometimes resort to drawing in the dust or making wild theatrical gestures. After some months, however, I realised that my frustration was starting to give way to understanding and my social clumsiness was being overcome by some sense of cultural grace.

One day, towards the end of my stay, Hien gave me a small book made of bamboo paper, which she told me was a gift of friendship. Inside was a diary of all the experiences we had shared since our first meeting on the street, together with carefully thought-out excerpts from several Vietnamese poets. I was overwhelmed. My connection with this girl and her welcoming family had given me a depth of cultural experience that I had not expected to find on my first visit to Vietnam. Throughout the time I had known them, I was lifted from the observation point of a student living in a dormitory for foreigners into the life of a real family, with genuine financial difficulties but also a great spirit of kindness.

"The car is waiting outside". I was surprised to hear the words, although my bags were packed and I was clearly leaving. My university in Australia expected me back within a few weeks, although I had tried to persuade the Dean of Asian Studies to let me stay a while longer. We pulled out of the driveway and onto the uneven road to the airport, past coconut palms, roadside noodle stands and hundreds of people going about their business by bicycle or shuffling along on foot. It occurred to me that the next time I visited Vietnam it would reflect the effects of capitalism and tourism, and the country would have changed unimaginably. For myself, the chaos, the frustration, the assault of unfamiliar sounds, sights, smells and tastes would soon be replaced by normality. It seemed fitting that this time my ride to the airport had been right on time.

Published on 6/24/01