Funny Things

In case you had any doubts, we're here to tell you that Vietnamese culture is rather different from Western culture. History, economics, religion, climate—there’s a whole lot that goes into creating a culture. Occasionally the cultural differences might scare us or irritate us, but for the most part we’re able to appreciate the differences.

But every once in a while there are things that are just plain funny to our American sensibilities. Often, hilarity ensues when—for one reason or another—an attempt is made to imitate Western culture (often by advertising a product with half-baked English.) Take, for instance, the microwave oven we saw for sale in the supermarket this weekend. Big, bold letters proclaimed that the main selling feature of this oven was its cutting-edge “Disinfest baby Function with Light Microwave.” Sure enough, where less-advanced microwaves might have preset buttons for “baked potato” or “popcorn” this oven had a button labeled (quite disturbingly) “Baby.” We didn’t stick around for the in-store demonstration.

Another cultural difference we occasionally get good chuckles from is the extreme over-use of creepy mannequins in Hanoi. Whereas most American department stores since the 1980s have tended to take a ‘less-is-more’ attitude toward the use of creepy mannequins, any store in Vietnam even remotely related to clothing must have at least two of the marginally humanoid things sitting on the sidewalk out front of the shop. The calendar "Narsty Mannequins of the East" will be forthcoming in 2009.

Then, of course, there’s the food and drink. There is plenty of Vietnamese food that’s absolutely delicious, and healthy to boot. There’s also a sizable share of Vietnamese food that would make a health inspector's hair stand on end—fermented this and deep-fried-head-of-that. Yikes. Then there’s a whole genre of food that isn’t delicious and isn’t disgusting, but is merely…interesting. Take the Bird’s Nest beverage we found in Quy Nhon. Why anyone would look at a bird’s nest and decide to make a beverage out of it is simply beyond the realm of our comprehension. This particular drink tasted a lot like chunky sugar water. Unfortunately they printed the ingredients in English so we could tell that the chunks were, in fact, White Fungus. (Sometimes it’s good not to know.)

The final funny thing for this entry has nothing to do with Vietnamese culture and everything to do with the fact that I (Steven) am quickly becoming an old man. This past weekend I joined a friend of mine who had been asking me for quite a while to play basketball with him and a few others on Sunday afternoons. Naturally, being “the tall one,” I got matched up against the one other large fellow who had played ball for Willamette University a few years ago.

On the very first play of the game, Big Guy got the ball out near the 3 point line and I dutifully ran out to guard him, trying to recall the training I’d received as a one-time JV starter for the Rochester High School Warriors. He fired off a lightning pass which to everyone's surprise I successfully blocked--with the tip of my right thumb (not at all the recommended technique.) After shrieking and leaping about with my hand stuffed under my armpit for a few moments we resumed the game, but after a few minutes I could tell something wasn’t quite right. With Joelle’s help, I got to a clinic for some X-rays and, sure enough, had a little T-shaped fracture at the end of my thumb. Everything had stayed where it was supposed to, so they just splinted me up and said to come back in three weeks for more X-rays. Overall a positive first experience with medical care outside the US. At least they didn’t try to disinfest me with their light microwave.