ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE BLOGOSPHERE IS THAT IT GIVES YOU ROLE MODELS THAT YOU CAN NOT ONLY ASPIRE TO, BUT ALSO HAVE A PRETTY GOOD CHANCE OF BECOMING (OR TRANSCENDING). The blogger is the new celebrity, in a way, but he or she is a celebrity on a more human level than say, David Beckham or Brad Pitt. I used to like reading Noodlepie and his blog about Vietnamese food, and I admired the way he harnessed the creative potential of the Internet to well, basically promote himself. There are a million bloggers out there like him, stars of their own microfields. Nobody would recognise Noodlepie if he strolled on to your local Metro, but in the world of the Asian expat and Saigonese street food enthusiast, Noodlepie is a someone. He has his own individual style and a celebrity swagger. Reading Noodlepie made my think: I can do that, I can become a legend too. I have got buckley's of making it as a rock or movie star, but I can become a name in the blogosphere at least, and make a little money too. Not by contesting Noodlepie on his home patch of food, although I have blogged my share of Asian dishes. My niche is more trans-Asian, with a little dose of Europe and Australia thrown in. When I was a little kid I wanted to be a science fiction writer, but then I realised: what use do we have for a science fiction writer, when the entire world now is science fiction? If there is any theme for my blog it is this: the future already happened. Like a modern Marcel Proust I want to describe the future world that is now, by living it. Just as with Proust, relationships are the key. You can only really know a country until you have loved its citizens. Hence the birth of this new blog, Vietnam Girls.
After a long bout of poverty in Japan which prevented me from really travelling, at the end of 2006 I got a new job singing on the telephone in Tokyo, and my paypacket swelled. I thought finally my chance had arrived to become transAsian, and get out of Japan for a while. It had never been my intention to get stuck there so long, and truth be told, I had always found the south-east of Asia more exciting and exotic, than the north-east. My new plan was to continue working in Japan, but with my swollen income, take regular monthlong jaunts around places like Thailand, India, Greenland if I could make it ($1000 Tokyo to London, $300 London to Reykjavik, $1000 Reykjavik to Nuuk.) This was my plan, but plans have a fabulous way of mutating when they hit the hard bedrock of reality. I did at least get one monthlong trip through, in March 2007 -- actually it was 3 weeks back home in Australia, with four days in Ho Chi Minh City. Flying Vietnam Airlines, and I wasn't bright enough to accrue any points. I was excited about my Vietnam stopover because it was one of the first Asian countries I ever visited, and I made two tours there. I remember I had quite a crush on the place back in the mid 1990s, even though my holidays there had invariably turned to disaster (paralysed with culture shock and hiding in my room like a timid mouse the first time, stuck with a girl who considered me a creep the second.) But Vietnam had come a long way since the mid 1990s, and I had matured too. This time around, I was going to do Vietnam like a man, rather than a cowering rodent.
As is my wont these days, I did plenty of research before the trip. One sunny Sunday morning, I read a story on the Internet, a very old (by Net standards) story written by this guy called
Ted Guhl, about his experience with Vietnam girls. It had a strange resonance with me. Little did I know at the time, that I would soon be living the story, or at least a story parallel to it. Parallel but not touching. But unlike Ted, I decided not to be a pussy, but pursue the opportunity offered to the end, just to see what happens. And I decided that this page, and the threads which sprout from it, would be the story which recorded it.
Ted wrote: "During my first moments in Saigon I half expected to see something shocking, surreal, a time-warped American tank, or columns of Viet Cong marching down the street. Instead I saw a rather poor, pleasant looking city of wide boulevards, hundreds of bicycles, motor scooters, cyclos, and a few cars and trucks. The people, dressed in a wide variety of clothing from lovely Ao Dais to Western business suits, appeared lively and attractive.
"Leaving the taxi, three white jacketed doormen quickly whisked my bag and me into the lobby of the Saigon International, a small French-era hotel. Within minutes I was registered, assured that the required notification with the authorities would be handled by the management, and escorted with smiling efficiency to my modern air-conditioned room on the third floor. There was no elevator; however the stairs were wide with large windows on each landing, like those of an elegant European house.
"I unpacked, cleaned up a bit, and went for a walk. Upon leaving the hotel I was approached by a cyclo driver.
"'Hello. Where you come from?'
"'USA.'
"'Where you going?'
"'Walking around.'
"'I give you tour? Go to war museum. Go shopping."
"'No, thank you, I just want to walk around.'
"'Maybe good restaurant? Show many temple.'
"'No, thanks. Maybe later.'
"'OK. No problem. I am here.'
It turned out that the War Museum was at the first corner, but I missed the sign and kept walking. Despite some interesting examples of colonial architecture, the area seemed amazingly uniform. Each block had a few stores and at least one street vendor...
"Late afternoon found me still wandering the streets, I knew I was hungry and would have to eat soon if I wanted to keep my energy up but I could not make up my mind where. I wanted to try some of the local food from a small cafe or street cart but could not remember, beyond some rather strongly worded warnings about unwashed fruit and unboiled water, what the guidebooks had said about this. Finally I ended up eating some fast food chicken from a place called California Fried Chicken. It was dreadful and served me right for being so fearful.
"Feeling dislocated, I returned to the Rex Hotel, where my driver found me immediately and gestured for me to get into the cyclo. "You want go eat?" he asked.
"'I eat already,' I replied, as we headed down the street away from the plaza.
"'Want go to nightclub?'
"I said nothing for a moment, trying to decide if a beer or two would feel right, or if I should return to the hotel. Part of my mind was warning me that I should watch out where I let myself be taken in this indecisive and somewhat uneasy mood.
"'You want meet girl?'
"'No. Maybe a beer.'
"Okay. I know good place. Cheap." And off we went, east on Le Loi Boulevard and south down Deng Khoi Street again. Good lord, I thought, he's taking me to one of the tourist bars..."
COLD CALLING, AND GETTING APPROACHED BY VIETNAMESE GIRLS
IN MY SO OH SO LIMITED EXPERIENCE, VIETNAMESE ARE CERTAINLY NOT BACKWARD ABOUT COMING FORWARD, TO ABUSE AN OLD CLICHE.
I have been approached by Vietnamese girls in Vietnam itself, approached by Vietnamese girls on the Internet, and even cold called by at least one particular persistant girl, who found my number at the bottom of this very webpage. Most people would consider listing your cellphone number on the Internet a dumb idea, but I believe in openness and transparency, and besides, what's the worst that can happen -- someone might bug you on the phone? Ever heard of call screening? I hardly ever pick up the phone anyway, when it is coming from an unknown number. One of the few times I did pick up an unknown call, I was at that aforementioned singing job in Tokyo, up in the clouds, when this girl with a south-east Asian girl came on and said hello. I thought it was the girl I had met in Vietnam at the start of this adventure, but her accent sounded different. I asked her why she was calling me. "Do you like Vietnam girl?" she asked, but it sounded like: D'you like Vitnam girl? "Do you want marry Vitnam girl?"
"Sorry I have got to work," I said, which was true -- my shift was about to begin. But I was kind of a bit astounded, by the lengths some Vietnamese girls will go to, to find a foreign boyfriend or husband.
In his classic tale of tropical love which never had the chance to bud, Ted Guhl wrote (Situation background -- He is still getting carted around by the cyclo driver who befriended him at the start of the story, having made that fundamental tourist mistake, of ever giving those vultures the time of day): "Half way back to my hotel, a motor bike pulled up alongside and slowed to match our pace. On it were two attractive young women, perhaps in their twenties. The driver had a charming smile, full of playful energy. The rider, who looked a bit younger, was willowy, with dark hair and deep, searching eyes.
"'Hello,' the driver shouted, 'where you come from?'
"'USA', I shouted back.
"'America. You want massage? Make love, good?'
"Speechless, I smiled, looked away, then looked back. I shrugged.
"'Where you going?'
"'Hotel.'
"'We give good massage, good make love, yes?'
"Rallying, I replied, 'You young girls, I'm old man.'
"'Make love us, you feel like young man.'
"They were laughing and so was I.
"'Hotel no let you come in.' I said, trying to regain some control over the situation.
"'You come us, we take good care you,' the driver said. She really seemed to be enjoying this.
"'How much?' I asked, out of curiosity I hoped.
"'Twenty dollars.'
"Shit, I thought, what do I say now. What did I want? I was certainly enjoying this conversation. And suddenly the somewhat fragile feeling I had had all evening disappeared.
"Inspiration!
"'I give you ten dollars. Just massage.'
"Her smile disappeared. I could see that she was sizing up this new suggestion and that she didn't believe me.
"'Twenty dollars, massage, make love, two hours.'
"Suddenly, I didn't want this to end here.
"'Listen, I give fifteen dollars, but just massage, no make love.'
"I could see that this offer was tempting from a monetary point of view but that somehow it didn't feel right to her. I believe she thought I was being cheap. There was no smile. Suddenly the motor bike veered off and turned around and was gone. I sighed. Welcome to Saigon..."
As is my wont these days, I did plenty of research before the trip. One sunny Sunday morning, I read a story on the Internet, a very old (by Net standards) story written by this guy called
"'Hello. Where you come from?'