March 23, 2020
This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
When I tell my students on the phone this morning that there is a funeral next door, I sense, rather than see, their eyes rolling. I am often excited by life here in Vietnam (which they find dull, as all teens do, their homeland) and they know of my fascination for funerals and the graves that protrude from rice fields throughout the countryside. They humor me, the outsider, the White Person they laughed about this morning as we talked about the switch in racism, here in Vietnam. “I know, right!” L. exclaims, “We always thought white people, sorry Miss, not you (but yes, me) had all the answers, had the good life, were rich and now look!” And as filled with joy as I was at hearing her voice, (I do have a favorite. Her female fearlessness is so remarkable here in Vietnam.) first in Vietnamese, her chirps (is that racist?) actually her crows of delight, I could only nod my head in agreement. You see, here in Vietnam, we were virus- free for many weeks. And then a woman (Hanoi-Girl I’ve heard she referred to 26 or 27 years of age, so the rumor goes) travelling from London, having gone to the fashion shows in Milan (so the rumor goes) infected people on the plane, many of them Westerners. And then the overseas Vietnamese came back, students studying abroad and some of them brought a virus with them as well as their luggage and new Western ways. There were others, too, big groups of White People clearly on vacation, big tour busses in wait, no masks in sight (as seen in local newspaper coverage). And then recently, most damningly, a white male, 42 years old, a pilot living here temporarily, came back with the virus, and went with friends to a St.Patrick’s Day (but maybe it was March 14, as one newspaper now claims) party in the expat (wealthy) section of the city. Cameras were searched, patrons rounded up, temperatures taken, whole ‘luxury’ condominiums and apartments buildings closed and set to be disinfected. So it’s not surprising that “White People ” here are held up as the villains and although the “Hanoi-Girl” is Vietnamese, she is also wealthy (thus somewhat an outsider as well. Privilege is Privilege) and travelled to dangerous places ( Europe, where White People live) and brought back the “foreign virus.”
Which brings me back to the beginning of the story. Funerals here are three-day affairs. Most of the population is Buddhist with a touch of ancestor worship and the Chinese leftovers of Confucianism as well. And the sounds and the overflowing altars and elaborate burial trucks with fat Buddhas on the hood fill me in an inexplicable way, almost visceral, the flutes, the cymbals crashing, the voices raised in chants male and miraculously (for me) female. But I’m like a child banished to the bedroom while the adults drink martinis in the next room. When I went out yesterday, ostensibly to buy sweet potatoes for a curry, I stopped with others on the sidewalk to gaze across the street. And these people, that I have lived among for two years, that see me everyday climb on the back of a motorbike on my way to work, trudge home from the bus stop each afternoon, and sell me ginger and lilies in the market, moved away from me. It’s true, we have never spoken except through the language of nods and smiles, and waves. They moved away from me and I am heartbroken… How will I make this house beautiful again?