Our Shrinking World
2008-04-10 13:32:36
By:
Gene Bromberg
I just returned home after spending 9 days in Vietnam. I went as part of a humanitiarian group composed mostly of veterans and those who had family who served in the war. For all that I've read about Vietnam (the country and the war) I never thought I'd actually GO there. And yet, there I was.
Every two years the group (called the Friends of Da Nang) raises money for some sort of project. They've built schools, a medical clinic, and this year the group helped build a bridge over a riverbed that floods during the rainy season, cutting kids off in nearby villages from the school and hospital. On a blisteringly hot day we left our beachfront hotel and headed into the mountains for the bridge dedication.
I think that Americans better enjoy their dominance in NASCAR while they can, because in the years to come there are gonna be some fearless, aggressive drivers coming from Asia. At least that describes just about everyone I saw in Vietnam, including our bus driver--he piloted a full-size tour bus along roads that were almost too narrow for two cyclists to pass side-by-side. While making a left turn onto an even skinnier path one of our fixers had to get out of the bus and start moving tables and umbrellas from a roadside cafe, lest we flatten the whole joint.
We eventually reached a point where the road grew too narrow for even our pedal-to-the-metal driver. He parked the bus in the courtyard of a building that belongs to the local Communist Party folks and we got out to wait for cars to take us a bit closer to the bridge. The building was your typical Soviet-style concrete layer-cake, painted bright yellow and festooned with fluttering red flags. A loudspeaker blared what I thought were patriotic socialist slogans, though since I don't speak Vietnamese it might've been a countdown of the week's Top 20 hits. I stood there sweating in the nearly 100-degree heat listening to that angry, disembodied voice and felt like home was a million miles away.
I walked down to the road to check out the local action. A few small houses, the ubiquitious Vietnamese roadside food stand with a half-dozen plastic stools scattered around a simmering pot. The residents understandably looked at us like we were space aliens and, as was the case just about every time we met anyone over there, they smiled and waved and flashed the peace sign.
I stood there sweating when something scraped against my ankle. Despite dousing myself with insect repellent I was getting bit up bad and I jumped about nine feet thinking it was some monster mosquito. When I saw what it was, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a playing card--the nine of spades, to be precise.
There was a tiny house next to where I stood and through the open window I saw a table set up with a handful of chairs. The card might've blown off the table, or maybe not. I didn't want to trespass on someone's property and take a peek. I thought about keeping the card as a souvenir, but how hard might it be to get a deck of cards way out in the country? Goodness knows, you can't play poker (or bridge, or gin, or any other game) with a 51-card deck. I didn't see any other cards blowing in the wind, so I walked over to the house and propped the card against the wall. I found a rock big enough to act as a paperweight and wedged it tight. If the game picked up later that night (when the temperature inside the house fell below 120 degrees) someone would see the runaway card.
It was a nice little reminder that, while there are certainly differences among the people of the world, there are lots of similiarities as well. After our trip to the bridge we stopped at an elementary school and, believe me, second-graders are completely nuts everywhere you go. Good food and good beer are enjoyed universally. And, it seem, just about everyone likes to play cards now and again. Of course there are scores of well-known Vietnamese poker pros (if you don't know how to spell the name "Nguyen" you'll never make it as a poker scribe) but it was good to see that, just as in America, they like a nice game of cards in Vietnam.
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