Anyone making even a short visit to Vietnam quickly becomes familiar with the idea of “foreigner prices.”
It’s not a difficult concept to comprehend:
In a developing country where bargaining is expected and few prices are marked, it’s not uncommon for foreigners to pay a little extra when buying almost anything.
The Price is Right would never do very well in Vietnam because it's simply second nature for most Vietnamese to know the exact, fair price for anything they might purchase, from carrots to squid to wardrobes.
On the other hand Westerners, who are not in possession of such an accurate mental price list are—frankly—easy targets for vendors trying to make a little extra cash.
In most cases, this amounts to maybe 15 or 20 cents and usually helps out the recipient much more than it hurts the giver.
It’s harmless, for the most part, and it doesn’t mean that the person selling to you is dishonest or doesn’t like you. The sellers just assume (correctly) that you have a lot more money than they do and you likely won’t go hungry if you give them an extra 20 cents. Still, to Western sensibilities, the very idea of foreigner prices can seem nasty, unfair, discriminatory, politically incorrect and downright offensive. Westerners hate getting ripped off (even if the ripoff amounts to pocket change) and the experience can sometimes leave one feeling mildly resentful towards the entire culture.
One particular Vietnam guidebook author must have been having such feelings when he wrote up his description of Quy Nhon:
“There’s little to see in Qui Nhon,” he declares in his glowing introduction to the town. “To make matters worse, the locals are rude, unfriendly, and ready to rip off the unwary.” Well there you have it.
It’s rare (and a little surprising) to see a guidebook writer make such a concerted effort to personally smear the entire population of a town of 250,000. But he goes on to bash Quy Nhon’s beach (it “contains raw sewage and other pollutants”), the towers of the ancient Cham civilization in town (“nothing to get excited about”), the area around the town’s central pagoda (“an industrial wasteland”), and eateries (“there are no decent restaurants”). It’s really an impressive array of insults to fit into such a short space.
Fortunately, Joelle and I haven’t based all of our decisions on what bitter guidebook writers have said. And indeed, not one of those descriptions has seemed to hold any water during our first week here. We’ve eaten delicious food at a number of ‘decent restaurants,’ we’ve yet to find any evidence of an ‘industrial wasteland’ in town and we’ve gone swimming in the ocean a few times already without having our skin melt or bumping into a single floating turd. And though the guidebook author himself comes across as a bit “rude” and “unfriendly” and has ripped off thousands of unwary people with a $22.00 guidebook of marginal utility, most of the locals we’ve met so far have been pleasant, welcoming, and fair in their dealings with us.
Case in point: I bought a new basket for the front of my bike today because my old one was falling apart. Though I’ll admit it sounds wimpy, baskets on the front of bicycles are not only exceedingly common here, they’re quite practical. (If you don’t believe me, you can try carrying three heavy bags of groceries home from the supermarket on your basketless bicycle next week and let me know how it works for you.)
The point, anyhow, is that I bought a new basket and needed help putting it on my bike. Fortunately, there’s a husband/wife pair that sets up their little repair cart in front of the university and works on bicycles and motorbikes seven days a week. They charge about three cents to fill up your tires with air, and a little bit more for more complicated repairs. We’ve visited them a few times already for different bike-related issues.
When I stopped by this morning with my new basket in hand, however, they were both busy working on other bikes. I wheeled my bike up, pointed to the basket, and got ready to wait my turn. I didn’t have to wait long, though, as one of the other customers who was waiting—a young guy about my age—came up and asked in English, “You want to change the basket on your bike?”
“Yes,” I replied, thinking that he would perhaps help translate things between me and the owners, as had happened before in a number of similar situations.
But instead of translating for me, he said a few things to the owners, dug around in their cart for some tools and, with two of his friends, started disassembling the old basket and putting the new one on. Needless to say, this sort of thing was new to me. It’s a bit like having the guys standing ahead of you in line at Burger King offer to go into the kitchen and make your Whopper for you. The whole process took maybe five minutes and looked professionally done at the end.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked the English-speaking one when they were all finished. He turned around and checked something with one of the cart owners in Vietnamese. She shook her head. He turned back to me and said, “Nothing. We just wanted to help you.” Huh. The ‘foreigner price’ today was apparently free. So much for the rude, unfriendly locals trying to rip off the unwary.
I returned to my apartment (50 yards away), grabbed the last American dollar bill I had, and went back out to give it to them as a token of appreciation. They refused again, insisting that they had just wanted to help. They did let me take my picture with them, and I gave them the address of this blog so perhaps they’ll read it and feel appreciated.
No matter what the guidebook writers say, we’re planning on loving and appreciating Quy Nhon and its people for some time to come. So there!
