Bonne nuit, Viet Nam

A busy day ends with me back in my room, forty thousand dong richer after a coup at poker (played, in true Hue style, with toothpicks instead of poker chips). Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?

My day was filled with banh mi, incense, and the familiar sound of Vietnamese-accented French. First, I was treated to my cooking teacher’s well-developed, deep Parisian accent, as she tried to reinvent Hue imperial cuisine for a young American vegetarian (this process included what seemed to be improvising recipes on the spot, such as lemongrass and sesame seed tofu). After four hours in the kitchen, nodding and responding “oui” and “je comprends", I was fully ready for relaxation.

Unfortunately, though, upon leaving the cooking school, I found myself lost in the labyrinth that is backstreet Hue. I wandered for a good forty-five minutes in the dark, before walking into a secluded café where I happened to run into an art teacher from Hue University who spoke enough English to communicate with me. He was kind enough to order me a taxi.

I managed to get back to the hotel in time to fulfill an evening coffee appointment that I had with Ms. Thi, a lovely and kind Vietnamese teacher at the University who was originally supposed to be my partner on a project I was going to undertake (on French culture here in Central Vietnam). She brought along her husband, who, like her, prefers to speak in French, and who, also like her, is as charming and likeable as can be. We all got on motorbikes and ended up in a little café with good views of the French, Eiffel-built bridge on the Perfume River, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes and chewing on watermelon seeds (apparently, this is usual snacking fare). I might have shut my eyes and been on the banks of the Seine. It was all very, very French.

Sometime in the coffee conversation, we ended up talking about the war (“la guerre americaine”). I am cautious enough to know that bringing it up myself in casual conversation with a Vietnamese acquaintance might be considered impolite and/or insensitive, but it came up nonetheless. What was clear from the conversation was that the war is just as taboo here as it once was in the US, and that the Vietnamese (at least the two affable, well-educated, young “vietnamiens” that I was talking with) would rather have it forgotten.

I, who am neither a Vietnam War buff nor a big fan of the whole war and blood and guns scene in general, was perfectly content to let the talk return to the familiar terrain of having my Vietnamese hosts try to marry me off.

With that, I bid the day, and Vietnam, “bonne nuit".