You Will Endure Asian Americans and Their Identity Issues, Again.

My second cousin Chinh came to pick me up at my hotel room after my first night here. He’s only a tad more than a year younger than me and was about my height. I wouldn’t find it notable to mention his height, except for the fact that the second question my mom asked him over a cell phone, after having never spoken to him before in her life, was “Who’s taller, you or David?” I think he’s actually a bit taller, though he responded “About the same.” It’s nice that cheaper international rates for phone calls have lent itself to weighty conversations like these

The night before, I had asked Chinh to assist me in finding a charger for my camera which I had forgotten back in Austin, and voila, first thing in the morning, before 10 am, he pulls out a black box from his jacket pocket with my camera battery fitted inside, ready to be charged. That turned out to save me about 300 US dollars, as the electronics here run a bit more expensive and are somewhat behind technologically. I would have bought one anyway, as going without a camera wasn’t really an option, so I was very enthused he could get me one before I would be setting out to see the city for the first time. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about,” he said, with a face as modest as his words. Chinh has this placid demeanor where every word he uses, he makes count. Maybe that’s because he is stooping down his Vietnamese to my level, yet whatever his reason, I appreciate it. It made for easy conversation without me having any reluctance on behalf of my limited Vietnamese. I suppose our ensuing conversations were that of a couple of 8 year old boys who were meeting for the first time.

“When you are here, you should go by the name of Vi, not David,” Chinh mentioned just before leaving. “It could save you some money.”

I was planning on going by Vi while I was here anyway, but his advice surprised me, as I had always assumed, from the many family and friends who have been over to Vietnam, that I would obviously not be a native Vietnamese.

“You mean they won’t know that I’m American just by looking at me?”

“Na,” he said frankly.

I liked the idea that I might have some extra cash in my pocket because I would be blending in, but what of all these stories about my pending harassment by all types of desperate Vietnamese both men and women alike, how I would be an easy mark for the locals, that the American-ness I would exude could literally be seen a kilometer away?

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

We walked downstairs and hopped on his Vespa, a new, fully automatic white model just like they sell in the U.S. He had me hop on the back portion of the seat, but I didn’t or couldn’t mind, as the streets here operate on a completely different kind of logic when it comes to street traffic and I wasn’t ready to brave it on my own at the moment. I actually didn’t know there were traffic lights until about halfway through our trek, though it was clear to me some of the locals here still don’t know. Yet just as advertised, I never came close to seeing a single wreck, though in reality, I probably could have lost my fingers holding the handrails of the Vespa on at least ten different occasions. There was never much cause for concern though. There was a collective understanding with this street traffic that was clearly evident, though I was never a part of it, since I was riding bitch and was merely an observer.

And observe I did. Not so much the city streets, the buildings, the storefronts, or the parks as Chinh was taking me around. I could only look at their faces. Even though I didn’t necessarily look American to this particular Vietnamese, I still say all of these Vietnamese people whizzing by on their motos certainly didn’t look like me. They didn’t even look Vietnamese. They looked Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Malaysian, or Burmese. It was all of East Asia blended together.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum creeped up to my left out of nowhere. We didn’t get close enough for me to see exactly what it was made of, though it looked like a black marble Monticello crossed with Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial in D.C. It looked foreboding, all the more so with the overcast sky and thick haze which surrounded it the first time I saw it. I’ve of course seen it before in photos, though it’s usually photographed with the typically clear and sunny skies of Hanoi.

“That’s Ho Chi Minh’s tomb in there. He was a very famous leader of Vietnam,” Chinh dutifully informed me. The whole tour guide narration was odd to me, as he had previously let me take in the sites with very little explanation or exposition before getting to the Mausoleum. “If you look at all of the Vietnamese currency, you’ll see Ho Chi Minh on it.”

Was he really explaining to me who Ho Chi Minh was? If I looked so Vietnamese, and could theoretically pass for Vietnamese, what could explain this poor excuse for a biography?

“Some people here really revere him,” Chinh continued. “Yet some other people don’t think very much of him.”

“Yeah, I know Ho Chi Minh,” I muttered.

There was no hint of condescension in his delivery. He knew I knew who he was. I don’t even know if Chinh meant to show me the mausoleum. Maybe he rode by there on accident. It seemed a topic he didn’t really want to address but knew he had to. What could he say to me with the verbal handicap he had in speaking to me anyway? I would imagine eight year olds would have more intelligent conversations about Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. Four year olds would have given us a run for our money. But what could we say about Ho Chi Minh that other people haven’t already said better?

Maybe it was then that Chinh finally saw me for what I really was: just a regular American that couldn’t talk politics.

Our remaining ride was lazy and lighthearted, where he gave me a tour of all the main neighborhoods on our way to Cau Dung’s house for lunch.

“Over there is where we can eat dog later if you want,” he said as he pointed to the right at a white banner with “Thit Cho” written in red.  It was spoken with an obvious chuckle, though he was genuinely waiting for a response on my part.

“Maybe,” I said with a laugh, actually meaning it.

I’m an American, we thought.