Vietnam 2002 - Chào
I've been studying in Australia for the last 13 years and when I completed my VCE my family decided it was time my brother and I met our grandparents.
My father had died when I was just two and since then our only means of staying connected was writing letters.
My brother and I use to hate writing letters though, the main reason was because we weren't really fluent with Vietnamese and spelling was a chore. Our mother would always give us a template to follow: "Dear Grandmother and Grandfather, I hope you are well. I am now eleven years old. I am in year 5." Our letters never got personal, after all we'd never met and back then we only new them by name. Never heard their voice or seen their picture.
Time ticked away and before you knew it my mum, brother and I were on a plane to Saigon.
First impressions
When we arrived in Vietnam there were several things that hit us pretty quickly. The heat and the mountain of people waiting outside the airport. We felt like movies stars greeted by screaming fans, miraculously making it alive threw the beggars and curious on lookers.
The air in Saigon was or shall I say is polluted and buying travel insurance felt like the smartest thing we've ever did. The traffic was crazy - you think with no lanes and the thousands of motorbikes, cars and rickshaws swerving in and out someone would get killed. But no... we arrived at our grandparents house in one piece and nothing was stolen from our luggage either.
Grandparents and aunties
Meeting our grandparents was quite an awkward situation. They looked at us speechless for a while and their expressions changed from happiness to curiosity. "Why is your hair brown?" our grandfather asked. My grandmother being the more trendy one said "It's their 'Moden'" meaning fashion. My brother and I had dyed our hair brown and they weren't use to not seeing the traditional rich black hair. My aunties took me out the next day to buy black hair dye, all the ladies sat in the kitchen lathering black dye through my hair with a toothbrush. Good bye brown hair...
I didn't realise my father had so many siblings. In the Vietnamese culture we call our siblings, uncle and aunties by number. The number is given to you according to who was born first in your family. If you were the first born your number would be 2, second born would be 3 - I was told we never give the firstborn the title number 1 because it was considered bad luck. My father had eight siblings so when I was over there I had aunty number 2 who is the oldest, Uncle 3, aunty 4 who I have not met, aunty 5, 6, my dad was number 7, followed by younger aunty 8, 9 and 10.
With so many aunties and uncles I had so many cousins that I haven't met before. The closest cousin was Aunty 8's dauther. Her name is Mai Lam and she spoke English to me whilst I was there. She was older than me by a couple of months and at the time she worked on a children television show. I've spoken to her recently and she manages her own store selling clothes and collectibles. She writes for magazines and travels all the time.
I've always considered myself to have a small family - mum, uncle, brother and me. But in Vietnam it felt so great that I had this extended family. I got to play cards, talk, catch up, share stories and learn about dad's childhood from my aunties - something I don't really do here in Australia.
Culture shocks
. In Vietnam there are literally thousands of skinny high rise apartments which have 3-4 levels.
. Not all toilets in Vietnam are our common conventional toilets. I went to the village to visit my mum's side of the family and their toilet was above a lake - you had to squat and do your business. Let's just say I held in my bladder till the next day.
. Some people are still uncomfortable with escalators. My cousin always hopped on the first step looking as if she was going on a really fast ride.
. Traffic is crazy and their traffic lights have 30 second count downs to let drivers know when the light will go green.
. Asian woman envy people with fare skin and are often at the beauty salons "chemically peeling their skin" so that their skin becomes whiter.
. Sleeping on the floor is common and most rooms now have air conditioners and mosquito nets.