Observations about Vietnam and the Vietnamese

It's funny going to a place that feels so familiar yet very foreign. In Vietnamese, when I say I am going to Vietnam, it literally translates to "going home to Vietnam" ("di ve Vietnam"). It is a strange way to think of it. Vietnam was never -- and never will be -- my home. However, it is nonetheless a place where I can understand the language, many of the customs, and the ways of thinking.

Therefore, as a Vietnamese-American, my observations of Vietnam are a little biased, because I think many of the things that others would perceive as strange are quite normal to me. But even for me, Vietnamese society can be quite weird. These are some things that struck me:

• Once a Vietnamese person has finished eating, the first thing s/he does is search for a toothpick. Each restaurant and household has a toothpick box readily available, and everyone is very serious about making sure they do not have food stuck between their teeth. One uses the toothpick with his/her right hand and uses the left hand to cover the process. While the tooth-picking happens at the end of a meal, most conversation stops and you mostly hear people picking and cleaning their teeth. I think this practice is important because many Vietnamese people have crooked teeth, which makes it harder to make sure there is no food stuck between them without the aid of a toothpick.
• Someone described traffic in Vietnam as equivalent to having the rules of the jungle -- no one follows written rules, but someone who is used to driving in Vietnam knows the unspoken rules, such as who has the right of way, how to make it around the crazy roundabouts, when you can pass someone, etc. Like I've said before, one of the most fun experiences for me was riding around on a scooter in the city. I was lucky to be the only one my age traveling, which meant my mom's cousin Co Chi could take me around on her scooter to go shopping, to check out cafes, and to meet the others. I have to say though, being from America, where the traffic rules are very black and white, it is pretty scary getting on the back of that scooter, especially when you see all sorts of cars, scooters and bicycles coming towards you.
• In Vietnam, the symbol of your status in the society is your cell phone and how fancy it is. I suppose the equivalent status symbol in the States would be your car... but even that isn't as tell-tale a sign of your stature as the phone is in Vietnam. At my uncle's dried longan factory in Cai Be, located on the Mekong Delta, one of the workers told us that he spends about 2/3 of his salary on his fancy Nokia phone. The phone that my mom borrowed from a friend in Vietnam was sleeker, prettier, and had more functions than any of the phones that my family members own at home. Furthermore, Vietnamese people are willing to pay more money to have a "good" phone number -- one with a pattern or featuring a lot of lucky numbers.
• Vietnamese fashion is funny. Older Vietnamese women wear what look like pajamas -- matching button-up shirts and pants made of the same pattern and material. The pajamas are really comfortable and and made out of cloth thin enough to withstand the warm, humid climate. On the other hand, you see very fashionable, young, and very thin ladies wearing tight clothing and looking very cute as they whizz through the streets on their mopeds. I'm not sure when the young, fashionable ladies switch to wearing the pajama-like pantsuits -- I think it coincides with when they become grandmas.
  
• One thing I will never understand is the obsession with having pretty hand-writing. Growing up, I used to admire my aunts', uncles', and parents' handwriting -- perfectly formed cursive that all looked uniform. I didn't understand why Vietnamese people wrote such pretty letters, compared to my boxy, spiky handwriting. Then I understood why -- they practice like crazy. They even have competitions and awards for best handwriting! In Hanoi, we passed by a school that specializes on helping kids write prettier.
• It's always a funny sight for me to see bicycles riding alongside mainstream traffic. Bikers find themselves in the midst of crazy moped and car traffic, and they brave it out even in the most difficult circumstances. They are both brave and stupid. There are no designated bike lanes, and the bikers must withstand mopeds and cars coming at them with more force than a bike could ever muster. It's scary for me to see these bikers braving the crazy roundabouts.
• In Vietnam, there is a kind of a obsession with looking Western. For example, if you want to compliment someone on looking pretty, you can say they look Western and that will suffice. I noticed from looking at ads (billboards, posters, and inside magazines) that many of the models look hapa. In one particular ad, two Vietnamese parents had a kid that looked American except for its dark hair and dark eyes.
• Saying pronouns in Vietnamese will always confuse me. The cool thing about pronouns for people in your family (i.e. "aunt," "uncle," "sister") is that it shows your relation to them with just one word (i.e. your dad's younger sister, your dad's older sister's husband). It can get confusing with family because the pronoun to which you refer to them depends on your relation to them. For example, I met a cousin who was 3 years older than me, so I called her "chi.", which means "older sister." But then I realized her grandma is my mom's first cousin, so she really should have been calling me "co" ("aunt"). In terms of family relations, age doesn't matter -- only your relation to the person. It becomes more confusing when you meet someone new or want to talk to a stranger. You have to think about if that person is the same generation as you, or if they are in the older generation, if they are older/younger than your parents, etc. Basically, there is a lot of guesswork involved unless you ask outright how old they really are.
• Vietnamese people are thin and small. You often wonder how they do it, because they rarely exercise and their diet mainly consists of rice (carbs). When I go to Vietnam, I feel like a giant -- I am taller, wider, and pudgier than my Vietnamese counterparts. And I am 5'3'', 115 pounds, making me a pretty small girl by American standards. In Vietnam, I wear size L, while in America, I gravitate towards the smaller sizes. My size can be a dead giveaway of being a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese), and any doubts that I might just be a big-boned Vietnamese is erased as soon as I speak, because my American accent is so obvious.