Single White Female in Hanoi Read online

  I return home in high spirits, excited by the music I’ve heard, and by the implications of a tone language on pitch perception. I’m fast developing a fascination with the language.

  My spirits are also buoyed by the vision I see on the way home. Noticing the rain has abated, I look up into the sky and catch a rare glimpse of the moon. It’s full tonight, but not round. The shining disc is partly obscured by a purplish shadow. The shadow of the earth.

  I’ve seen quite a few partial and total lunar eclipses, but all of them in Australia. This one is superimposed above the unfamiliar squalor of Hanoi, above the homeless people bedding down on the wet sidewalk, the mothers holding their babies over the gutter, exhorting them to pee with shhhh noises, the rats that were hiding by day, now running riot, and the giant tamarind trees, planted by the French during colonial days, glistening under the yellow street lamps. I think of my friends in Australia, knowing they can see the same moon, at this same moment, with the same chunk missing. I’m on the same planet, but a world away.

  Kind of blue

  I’m awake. My wind-up traveller’s clock tells me it’s the unthinkable hour of six-thirty. My days as a night-owl musician seem to have ended in disgrace. But I have a good excuse: I’ve been jarred awake in horrible stages by the morning ablutions of a neighbour I’ll come to name ‘Hoicking Man’. So notorious and ghastly is his morning routine of phlegm expulsion that Yvette will later apologise for forgetting to warn me about him.

  For most of my time at Pho Yen The he’s my alarm clock. The first protracted hoick brings me to consciousness between six-thirty and seven am, and then I lie there trying to will deafness as the retching and spitting continue periodically for up to half an hour, accompanied by the magnified, somehow ominous sound of splashing water.

  There’s also the grrrrr of revving motorbikes as my neighbours at 6 Pho Yen The head off for work. An 80cc motor can sound surprisingly loud ricocheting off the brick and concrete walls that contain the compound. My efforts to buy earplugs will be unsuccessful. For the duration of my time in the country, anyone visiting me from the West will be ordered to bring foam earplugs.

  Thanks to my shopping expedition with Yvette, my kitchen now has a couple of plates and bowls, a sharp knife, a spoon, some chopsticks, a cheap and nasty kettle, one mug and a tea-towel. There’s also a tarantula. Actually, it’s more like a huntsman, and probably harmless, but I come perilously close to treading on it barefoot as I wander into the kitchen with thoughts of breakfast. I chase it back into its obvious access hole in the wall and stuff the entrance with plastic supermarket bags.

  I’m going to assemble a meal.

  I grab a few thousand dong from my wallet, stroll up to the open end of my little cul de sac and stand on the corner of Nguyen Thai Hoc, waiting. Sure enough, within minutes a vendor wanders past with the ubiquitous yoked bamboo baskets over one shoulder, conical hat on head and the goods I need. We squat together on the sidewalk and I pick over the contents of one basket. I select several orange chillies, some tiny cloves of garlic, a few strangely miniaturised limes and bunches of divine-smelling herbs, most of which I can’t name. There’s a lot of produce on the streets I can’t name.

  A couple of the xe om drivers at the end of the street nod a greeting at me from the long wooden benches where they sit drinking tea and smoking.

  Back home I put on Miles Davis’s ‘Kind of Blue’ and boil some rice, swearing loudly as my stove delivers another electric shock. Sitting at the desk in the living room, I chop up one of the orange chillies and I put it in a bowl with a few cloves of sliced garlic, chopped basil and Vietnamese mint. The miniature garlic cloves and the herbs are so fragrant that I become euphoric. I pour some boiling water into the bowl and let it sit for a minute, staring out of the window. Then I squeeze the contents of one lime into the broth, before adding rice and a generous dollop of coconut milk.

  ‘Voila!’ I say to the empty room. I’ve created a sort of Vietnamese Laksa soup; spicy, aromatic and satisfying. I eat at the window in absolute contentment.

  This becomes my regular morning ritual for about two weeks. It ends when I discover a nearby market at which lively old women with black teeth sell me a range of fresh groceries at prices so low, I at first thought I’d misunderstood. Every few days I wander up there to buy fresh noodles and tofu, aromatic herbs, baby corn, long purple Chinese eggplant, dried shitake mushrooms, pre-peeled cloves of garlic, eggs, and one of the many varieties of green leafy plants that locals use to make soup. I return home with plastic bags eating into my wrists. I can cook and eat delicious food for two or three days on about two Australian dollars.

  My cooking experience is also revolutionised when Yvette turns up holding an electric rice-cooker. This means I can now cook rice without going anywhere near the stove, which I live in fear of. I wear a pair of black rubber flip-flops to cook anything else.

  The conductivity of the stove is caused partly by the fact that when I turn the tap on, water pouring into the basin runs through the plughole and straight out onto the floor. There’s no plumbing. The water then pools and festers in one corner of the kitchen, gradually coming to cover the whole floor. This means that I’m usually standing in unsavoury water when I’m at the cooktop.

  It’s not just the kitchen that soon becomes unsavoury. Within days of my arrival, everything in the apartment has become dirty. The kitchen floor is vile, the garbage putrid. Liquids lying around fester, and the toilet is emitting a unique, pungent gas. Intriguingly, while greasy black dust settles on all light-coloured surfaces, a downy white mould materialises on my dark-coloured clothes.

  Luckily, Nga will arrive once a week with an illiterate 16-year-old girl from a nearby province, and they’ll spend a couple of hours restoring the flat to pristine condition.

  I check my notebook for the number and call an Australian expat called Richard Moss. A teacher at the university where I gained my teaching certificate put me in touch with him because he’s opening a new English Language school in Hanoi. Richard suggests we meet at his school, from where we can head down for a coffee at his ‘new favourite little café’.

  At the mention of coffee, my spirits pick up immeasurably. I drank my last espresso in Sydney, and my addiction has raged on unattended since then. In my mind’s eye we’re already sitting in that café. The chair is upholstered in red velvet. The glass windows seal off the foulness of the street. The aroma of fresh coffee fills the air.

  I’ve written the address down meticulously to show the xe om driver. I’m a long way from having the language to say ‘I want to go to…’ In fact, I’m still a long way from being able to pronounce Pho Yen The – the name of my street. Xe om drivers stare blankly at my efforts until I write it down for them. It takes me about two months of dedicated work before I can pull it off. There are tricky tones to master, strange prosody and vowel sounds that are foreign to English. The slightest blunder and comprehension is nil.

  Today, as I cock my leg to get onto the motorcycle, I notice that the muscles I use to do this are sore. I’ve jumped onto so many motorcycles in less than three days, I’m developing new muscles – an unexpected health bonus.

  On the minus side, though, the risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning is ever-present, I muse a minute later. The xe om driver has slammed on the brakes to avoid colliding with a pile-up of traffic, and we sit there gagging on the fumes of a hundred exhaust pipes. At the front, an elderly woman is struggling across the road carrying bamboo baskets fully laden with eggs and fruit.

  Yesterday’s rain has stopped but the sky is still overcast. I notice most of the women riding motorcycles are wearing cloth masks, which strikes me as a sensible precaution against the pollution, but I’m at a loss to explain the elbow-length gloves. Is it a strange local fashion?

  I’m yet to learn of the photophobia suffered by young Hanoi women. They shy from the sun like moles, terrified of darkening their skin. Faces and forearms must be protected at all cost.

  The obs
ession with white skin doesn’t stop at outdoor protection. My first attempt to buy moisturiser in Hanoi will be a disturbing failure. I won’t find a single product on Nam Bo’s well-stocked shelves that doesn’t boast of additional skin-whitening properties.

  Around Hanoi, the rising affluent classes often have skin as fair as mine, while poorer individuals, especially peasants, are darker. At first I put this down to an incidental effect of gene pools aggregating in socio-economic groups. An ironic one, too, since it’s obvious to me that the white-faced people look unwell while the darker ones number among the city’s jaw-dropping beauties. But it turns out the locals and I don’t see eye-to-eye on this count. Dark skin is a handicap, apparently, and equated not only with the outdoor labour of the rural peasant, but with actual ugliness. At dinnertime across Vietnam, mothers scare their children into eating with threats of abduction by an ‘ugly witch with dark skin’.

  The attitude of Hanoians towards people of African descent is even more worrying. There are relatively few such individuals living in Hanoi, but their social circles don’t tend to include locals, who generally shun them, too disturbed by their appearance to interact. A dark-skinned Vietnamese friend of mine will tell me one day: ‘Vietnamese people think dark skin is dirty and ugly. They think black people have AIDS. The African countries are poor and don’t have enough to eat, so the people are not respected.’

  Richard Moss’s new language school is across town in a former hotel. As I pull up, I can see there won’t be any work for me there for some time, since it’s still being rebuilt. I enter a gloomy foyer area, stand under an ostentatious chandelier, and pause as a tall, cadaverous man emerges from the murky depths of the corridors ahead and walks towards me.

  ‘You must be Carolyn. I’m Richard Moss.’ The voice is friendly, although the handshake is limp. ‘Glad you found the place okay. I take it you’ve worked out how to catch a xe om? This is Mr Son, my doorman.’ I follow his pointing index finger and start slightly. Only two metres to my right, seated behind a large wooden desk in the gloom is a middle-aged Vietnamese man in olive fatigues. He’s sitting bolt upright, staring hard at me.

  ‘He’s ex-Viet Cong,’ Richard whispers.

  ‘Ah.’ I nod, in the friendliest possible way, in Mr Son’s direction.

  Richard leads the way into the bright, noisy steam outside and we set off up the road. The sidewalk is so cluttered it’s unnavigable, forcing us to walk among the surging traffic. Richard’s voice slips in and out of audibility as horns explode around us. He’s oblivious to the chaos. It’s very clear that I’m a newcomer and he’s a hardened expat.

  Some 100 metres along, we peel off into a fluorescent-lit room, where Richard greets the young woman who emerges from behind a beaded curtain. There are shin-high plastic stools and low plastic tables. I swallow my dismay. He selects a spot next to the entrance. This puts us virtually on the street. I’m not sure which is a less appealing sight – the street, which breathes boiling fumes into the entrance like a monstrous salamander, or the ‘café’, whose every surface is coated in antique grime. The table doesn’t appear to have been wiped in days, the white-painted walls are virtually black, and an unpleasant smell is emanating from the direction of the kitchen. I shift uncomfortably on the plastic seat.

  Richard orders a beer, and through his translation efforts, I order a Western-style coffee. Despite everything, I’m excited to have met this guy. He’s lived in Vietnam for nearly a decade, and he’s the first native English speaker I’ve talked to since my arrival. I’ve got lots of questions to ask him, lots of observations to share with him.

  He kicks off the conversation, telling me about last week’s Australia versus the All-Blacks rugby match.

  ‘Do you follow football yourself?’ he’s asking me as his beer arrives, followed by a glass containing some grey fluid. It’s my coffee.

  ‘Er. I’m not really much of a sports fan,’ I say diplomatically. I try to drink my coffee but fail. It’s not their fault. My ordering a Western-style coffee has sent them into a flap. It’ll be a while before I know how to order local coffee served on ice with condensed milk, at which point I will become a lifelong enthusiast of Vietnamese coffee, the beans of which are pure robusta.

  ‘Do you ride?’ Richard asks me, nodding at the throng of motorcycles on the street.

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘You’ll have to learn.’

  Passing beggars extend their hats to our table. I give a note to the first one, and thereafter follow Richard’s example of ignoring them. A power cut kills the ceiling fan for a few minutes. Richard talks implacably on. The conversation so far has revolved around three epicentres: football, beer, and an unnamed Vietnamese girlfriend. At one point he digresses to talk about where to get the most delicious beefsteak and I seize my opportunity.

  ‘Is the food here … clean? I mean, what’s the best way to avoid food poisoning?’

  ‘Food poisoning? Oh, expect it,’ he says, making a dismissive gesture with one hand.

  A thick pall of fear descends on me as I realise I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve come to the wrong city. I don’t drink beer. I don’t eat meat. I have a terror of food poisoning, which I’ve now heard is inevitable. I’m not interested in football. And I’m likely to kill myself and take a few others with me trying to ride a motorbike.

  Richard kindly takes care of the bill. I thank him, mumble a hurried goodbye and take off in search of a xe om out of Vietnam. I spend the trip home planning my escape. I can’t go back to Sydney – too humiliating. I’ll have to move on to a new place.

  By the time I walk through my gate I’ve decided to email my friend Kate, who’s teaching English in Prague, and tell her I’m coming over.

  But once again, back in my living room, I’m soothed by the high moulded ceilings, the air of sanctuary and civility, the comforting hum of the ceiling fan. My panic cools.

  ‘There must be more to Hanoi than this,’ I tell the leafy plants in the window box outside my living room. There’s a cup of green tea in my hands, and my little speakers are emitting the soothing tones of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’

  Richard gave me the mobile phone number of a friend of his, Owen, who arrived recently from the US to help a floundering local college improve its administration and curriculum. I turn down the stereo, pull out the phone number and call it. The receptionist locates Owen quickly. He’s very friendly, and tells me to turn up tomorrow morning. When I locate the college on my map of Hanoi, I see it’s barely a block from my place. Auspicious.

  The day is getting on. I improvise a meal with leftover rice and coconut milk, and make another pot of green tea. Nga or someone has let themselves in while I was out and put a large thermal flask on the desk, so I can make hot tea any time of day or night.

  I pore enthusiastically over my Vietnamese phrasebook. I’ve learnt a few words now – in theory at least. I can count to a hundred and say ‘thank you’. Best of all, I’ve mastered the art of saying ‘Xin chao’, which is the polite greeting. ‘Chao’ must be said with a downward tone. An accidental rising intonation changes the meaning of the phrase to an Oliver Twist-like ‘Please may I have some rice porridge?’ It’s an easy mistake to make, and when I do accidentally make it, I remember I’m in the company of such greats as Bill Clinton, who greeted the locals with a request for porridge during his historic visit to Hanoi in 2000.

  The last of the daylight fades, and I decide the best way to cheer myself up is to head straight into the Old Quarter, make use of a cheap Internet café and go on a CD-buying spree.

  As I leave the compound, a small, terrified, ginger cat falls on my head, seemingly from thin air. I unpick its claws from my scalp, put it down and keep walking. I’m starting to adapt.

  All too perfect

  With every passing day I feel my slender thread of attachment to this place strengthen.

  Waking early in the morning is not without its merits. People have been telling me this all my life, but I
never listened. Now I enjoy the morning light in my apartment and the relatively mild weather that precedes midday’s thermonuclear onslaught.

  But most of all I enjoy the ‘street-singing’ that reaches my bedroom window from the alley beyond the gate each morning. Although it’s quite loud, it feels like it’s coming from a long way away, and not just in space, but in time. And in a sense, it is. The singing comes from street vendors who wander the streets hawking their wares. Each type of ware has its own instantly recognisable signature call – a short, lazy phrase – and has probably had this same call since time immemorial. The phrase is such a unique fusion of melody and syllables that it seems unrepeatable, yet, like a digital sample, it plays over and over, perfect each time.

  I’m riveted by the man who calls out ‘Pho’ from his bicycle. He starts on a low note, then slides it slowly up to the high register – the syllable is ‘fuhhh’. There’s a gap of about five seconds, then the voice returns, forming an ‘ahoyyyyyyyy’, which starts high and then cascades down very slowly, tailing off towards the end, so that it sounds like he’s just fallen down a canyon. With the natural reverb the alley outside adds to his rich voice, it’s a strange sound indeed. His is the song of all such vendors, although I never hear it sung with such gusto by any other.

  But the most exquisite street-singing I hear comes from the banh mi girl. Banh means bread – a Vietnamisation of the French word pain, since it was the French who introduced bread-making here. I lie rapt in bed as, in between the less appealing interjections from hoicking man, her voice sings its plaintive melody.

  It will be a month before I put a face to the voice. She’s about eighteen and impossibly beautiful. Like all banh mi women, she wanders the neighbourhood selling hot bread rolls from a wicker basket she carries on her head. She probably comes in from outside Hanoi before dawn each day. She smiles unfailingly when she sees me, despite the fact that I never buy bread.