On Hold ... Please Wait

Dear Mom,

Waiting is normal here.  I'm thinking of it because I'm currently sorting out a banking issue back home and on hold, and I'm LOVING the fact that Google Voice allows me to dial US numbers from my computer, from here, for free.  My USA phone number (the one that ends in 6197) still receives texts.  It means I use the green phone/messages app on my phone for local VN calling, and the blue Google Voice app for my US calling and messaging, and it's a delight to not be cut off from contact with home.

Anyhow, today I'm using Google Voice to dial the bank's 1-800 # from my computer, and I'm on hold, so I got to thinking about how much time is spent waiting here.

I remember when we were in China and for years afterwards, we called it "China Mode."  It's when we'd be standing in line at the grocery store, and we'd just go into passive mode.  Cease to look at the other lines to jockey for position--just let eyes glaze over and calmly ... wait.

I've told you before that once a foreigner gets angry here, the game is over.  I've never (never) seen a foreigner's anger do any good in Asia.  I'm the surrealistically tall and blond guy that has the problem, and my best bet is to smile and wait.  Waiting.  We wait for taxis to serendipitously drive by.  I'm currently waiting for the university to give me classes to teach.  The students that have paid extra to have a foreign teacher are waiting to get their foreign teacher.  This isn't a waiting for a specific date or time to come--this is the feeling of indefinite "going to come sometime" where you just make sure you've done your part and then stand and wait.  Think government offices where you need a stamp from someone but you don't know which stamp or which someone, and you just have to wait until someone takes pity on you and helps you out.  

A couple of days ago we toured Hoi An, which is a tourist city 30km to the south of Da Nang.  They've created an old-town which is barred from cars/trucks/taxis, so it's awash with bicycles and pedestrians.  And it's charming.  It made me want to wear a T-Shirt that says "I'm a Tourist, So Trap Me."  I've never seen that on a T-Shirt, but if I did, I'd buy it.

We wait for the bus to Hoi An, and then when it arrives my kids can't understand why there's so much rush to board the bus so it can careen southward again, barely stopping to pick up the passengers--the conductor leans out the back door of the bus and helps the waiting pregnant lady step onto the bottom step, then he calls to the driver and the driver puts pedal to the metal.  We may have had to wait for the bus, but once it comes there is zero waiting before it's going again.

Hurry to the tourism office to be on time for our 8:15 appointment.  Okay, thank you for coming.  Now wait while we go rent you some bicycles for the tour.  It's 8:40 and we're sitting still in front of the office fan and dripping sweat, and waiting.  The college student volunteering for the tour company is engaging us in conversation, and that's nice.  Bikes arrive, and we're off.  We wend our way through crowded-though-mostly-vehicle-free streets, and I perceive that my gang is going to start drooping if we have to wait for the ferry boat to take us out to the island we're touring, so I stop and buy a bunch of bananas.  These are the 3-inch-long kind, sweet and a little chewy.  Our ferry is just starting to load as we arrive and that means that after we've rolled our bikes across the narrow gap between boat and pier, we are able to achieve seats under the protective shade.  Latecomers may not have to wait as long, but they have to stand in the sun.  Luckily they all bring hoodies to shield their skin from the sun's blackening rays--in the enormously hot and humid weather of the day they're wearing hoodies!  Bananas gladly received all around, including the tour guides.

No waiting as we tour a boat-building street.  Did you know they use jackfruit wood?  That they soak the boards in the mud for a year and then join them with dry pegs/dowels that expand with moisture?  

No waiting as we pedal from there to a household where they are weaving grass mats.  $5 for a mat?  Sure!  I'm a tourist today, and I'm pleased to be parted with my money.  Make it two.  We feel good about supporting the local economy, we have two grass mats that tell a story, and we're really-really-really-really grateful that we don't have to make grass mats for a living.

No waiting as we pedal along raised concrete bike lanes from there over to a temple built by the local family.  Now it's getting hot, though, so the standing in the sun guessing why there are Chinese lions in front of the temple is wearing pretty thin for me.  The collegestudenttourguides know why they are in front of the temple, so it's not that we're just standing in the sun wondering about them on our own accord...finally I'm like "No, I'm not going to guess.  If you're going to tell me about the lions, let's stand in the shade and admire the lions from over here, but I'm done with guessing."  This wasn't our first guessing game of the morning, and the guessing games always seemed to follow the same pattern:

Tour Guide: Do you know what kind of wood they use to build the boats?

Chase Family: Um, no.  What kind?

Tour Guide: Guess!  <giggles and claps hands>

Chase Family: <game for this kind of thing> Okay, is it a nut tree, like betel nut wood?

Tour Guide: <giggles> No, keep guessing!

Chase Family: Bamboo, palm, fig?

Tour Guide: No! No! No!  It's not right.  Can you guess?  <smiles>

Chase Family: Why don't you tell us what wood they use?

Tour Guide: Can you guess?

Chase Family: No, I don't think we can guess.

Tour Guide:  It is Jack Fruit wood.

Chase Family:  Oh!  Jack Fruit wood, eh?  That's interesting!  What do they use to join the boards together?
Tour Guide: <giggles> Can you guess?

So it's not like I was grumpy right out of the gate with the guessing game, but it was wearing thin by the time we were in front of the lions.

Plus, I'm not a big temple-to-worship-ancestors fan.  To me it seems to be a spiritual slavery that I would prefer to see people set free from.  I'm still learning about the local belief systems, and I'm not trying to pass a premature judgment, and ultimately that judgment isn't mine to pass in any case.  But it seems like it's all tied in with "if I don't perform these customary rites and something bad happens to my business, I know it was because I failed in my duty."  Luck and un-luck, and a vague sense of spiritual afterlife that is best honored by the traditions handed down.  Still exploring, but temples are not my favorite thing.

Ice cream is a good alleviator of grumpy.  I don't know my prices yet, so when she told me each ice cream was 10,000 I was reaching for my wallet.  That's $.50, and I was a tourist for the day.  But my Viet friends intervened and we got ice creams for 7,000 VND.  That's still twice what they'd normally be in the city, but we were by this point far out in the countryside of an island near a tourist city... and she had ice cream and we wanted what she had.  So 7,000 it was, and the jackfruit fudgecicle was pretty okay.

We did have to wait for the next part of the tour, which was a stickyrice pancake making house.  They make 30 kilos of stickyrice pancakes each day and sell them in the market, and we got to help make some.  There was another group from the same tourism outfit ahead of us, so we stood on the back porch for a while and peeled and consumed a pomelo (gift of the lady who made grass mats).

I think my "I'm a Tourist, So Trap Me" grace was beginning to dissipate by then.  After stickyrice pancakes we finished up at the souvenir shop and I just stood (waiting) in one place in the shade, semi-comatose, dispensing cash to wife and kids as it was requested for the purchase of refrigerator magnets, fans, necessary wooden elephants, etc.  

We ferried bikes back across to the Hoi An mainland, parted ways with our tour guides, and rode across town to the famous Dingo Deli for western food, air conditioning, and waiting out the afternoon downpour.  

Upon returning bikes and walking to the bus station, we had NO WAITING for the bus.  It was actually pulling out of the station as we approached, and the conductor was waving to us to run forward and hop aboard to Da Nang.  So we trotted forward and boarded the bus, only to find out that the bus-station-departure was a bit of a ruse.  It stopped for us and rolled forward a bit more, hoping for some more customers.  Then it went a mile north and we stopped and waited.  We never found out what we waited for.  After 10 minutes or so of sitting and waiting, nothing happened.  But at 10 minutes or so of waiting we did fire up the engine and begin careening north, doing our rolling-stop to pick up passengers as the conductor swung them aboard and shouted a Viet "Go!!" to the driver.  Why did we wait and then scoot at breakneck pace?  We may never know.  That's just the way it is here, and it's an important skill to learn to just go passive and wait.  Ah, patience!