When the longing hits home
A short piece on those who leave Vietnam suffering from withdrawal, and pining for a way of life they once enjoyed, or simply the taste of an iced coffee on the side of a road.
AFTER LIVING IN HANOI FOR CLOSE TO TWO YEARS, I returned to Dublin in 2001. I flew out of Hanoi on a one-way ticket, fully intending to return to Vietnam – I had left the bulk of my belongings: some mildewy books, two cases of bootlegged CDs, a guitar, the city’s shittiest (read: least cared for) 125CC Minsk, all of my tall-man-in-Asia-clothes (mostly purchased at the “Russian shop”, or tailored in Hoi An, which is another way of telling you I was always badly dressed).
It was summertime when I arrived and most Dubliners were living it up. Those were the Celtic Tiger years and thanks partly to a property bubble, the town appeared to be flushed with money1. Many of my peers had spent some time abroad after university but it seemed like the majority of them had moved back and planned to stay. After twenty-something-months in Asia, I was feeling a bit out of place and speaking with a wayward accent – the latter a result of being an English teacher of beginner/elementary level students, but also I guess from having a Vietnamese girlfriend and many French friends, who couldn’t understand Irish vernacular or idioms, which forced me to streamline my banter. As a result, my speaking voice kept tuning into some oddly Antipodean frequencies; the more alcohol I drank, the more scrambled my accent apparently became (I couldn’t hear it myself but one of my best buds told me, with evident concern, I sounded like Lloyd Grossman2, still probably the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me; and a woman I knew from college asked how long I’d been living in Australia… ).
I have never tried to leave Vietnam but that summer I got a whiff of how hard it must be for long-term expatriates to do so. Without a clear sense of what exactly I was missing about my life in Hanoi, I soon found myself itching (almost literally) to get back, even though I couldn't even really explain why I wanted to go back to anyone who asked… it would take me about 18 years before I could articulate the singular pleasures of sitting on the side of the road, drinking iced coffee/ cheap beer, and riding around on a motorbike (that broke down on average once a week) in Hanoi.
The go-to cliche is that Vietnam, or rather its way of life (whichever way of life you choose, there’s more than one), gets under your skin. The phrase implies it can make an addict out of us, and I’m sure many ‘departees’ have felt like they were experiencing withdrawal symptoms – subconsciously, or consciously, yearning for the joyous clamour of your average Vietnamese street, or the freedom they felt when they were here – they might have grown to hate the traffic in Hanoi or Saigon, only to find themselves wishing (while, say, commuting on a public bus/ subway back in a developed city) they were still there, buzzing around on a motorcycle amongst it all, in the same way a Saigonese person who always hated the wet season will find themselves, when living in a foreign land, longing to be in the city on a rainy day.
"Tell me about that city you love so much….” ~ ‘Cold Nights of Childhood’ by Tezer Özlü
THE PORTUGUESE HAVE A GOOD WORD FOR THIS SORT OF INTENSE LONGING (of course they do). It’s saudade, which is described as ‘an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone…’, a definition that might trigger something in those who have left (or tried to leave Vietnam only to come rushing back months, or even years later). Because, sometimes it seems like the ones who have left are the ones who love Hanoi and Saigon the most, and even for those who lived here for a relatively short time, Vietnam often seems to have a disproportionate hold on their memories – as in, of all the countries where they have lived, its the place they talk and think about the most. As I frequently write nostalgically about Vietnam, old friends (and people I have never met, too) occasionally write to me and share the yearning that they feel for Hanoi or Saigon, no matter where they are now – Sydney, San Francisco, Washington, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Cape Town… District 7.
One friend who returned to the UK, many moons ago, told me that after a solid bout of day drinking in the middle of a summer heatwave, he’d wandered alone (his friends having disappeared into the Underground and all headed home before 11pm) through Camden Town, or wherever, when he spotted a Vietnamese restaurant that shone in his eyes like a beacon. The afternoon had begun with him gushing to his friends about how amazing London was – the abundance of resplendent architecture, the parks, the pubs, the proper bookshops, the multiculturalism with every-possible-cross-cultural-identity seemingly accounted for… – even the geezers were more sound than he remembered. But spotting the Vietnamese restaurant, after multiple tipples, he felt it kick in – that longing. That how-can–I-live-without-you anguish. Like a man/woman who has suddenly realised that his ex was the love of his/her life and they have to tell them. So, he rushed in the door, grabbed a booth and started speaking (intermediate level) Vietnamese (most fluently) to a waiter, who turned out to have been born in Croydon, or wherever, to Chinese parents. But the owner… ah -ha! She was Vietnamese, so my mate cooed her over with his best ‘chị ơi! chị ơi!3’ to order his phở (‘Phở chín nhé! Ở đây có banh quẩy không?4)’ – but she was southern Vietnamese and didn’t seem to think much of his northern accent, so she answered him in Londonised English and soon scooted away. After a few minutes of sitting in solitude, all the pints he’d drunk that day came home to roost. By the time his (bang average, overpriced) noodles arrived, he was sobbing.
“So many people who have lived in Hanoi know the feeling that the place has somehow become part of you and will forever be a part of you. Maybe B. couldn’t stand the thought of quitting the city – and going cold turkey alone back home – and needed to feel like he was taking something in return.” From ‘The Ballad of Apo., B. and Clair De Lune’
MANY PALS OF MINE, WHO HAVE TAKEN LEAVE OF VIETNAM, have left with at least one plan for dealing with the withdrawal to come – they flew to their homeland, or wherever, with half a dozen bags of Robusta coffee and an old school Vietnamese filter (cà phê phin). Every morning, in some cases for years, they’d sipped on a cà phê sữa đá/ cà phê đen đá5, daydreaming as they watched the traffic, hypnotised by the minutiae of day-to-day life that transfixes us all. When it came to reluctantly packing their bags and the tearful goodbye drinks session at a bia hoi (stock Hanoi farewell venue) or Quan Nhau (stock Saigon farewell venue), they’d proudly announced how they’d still be getting their Vietnamese-style caffeine-fix every morning (There would no doubt have been some helpful discussion on making sure they get the ice just-so – thick, solid, cylindrical… – as if that was the key to it all, and as if life were that simple).
But some years back, when I visited one repatriated Irishman, a buddy who had spent some years in Hanoi and started each and every single day with a cà phê đen đá, I pointed out the cà phê phin he’d brought home with him. It was rusting away on his kitchen windowsill, barely thought of – not gone, but forgotten. He then opened a cabinet to reveal he’d hardly put a dent into the supplies of robusta coffee that he’d packed in Hanoi on the eve of his departure. When I asked why, he gazed into his small, suburban garden – more of a yard, really – and said with a shrug as if it were obvious what was missing: “It just doesn’t taste the same here, does it?”
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It’s around about this time that one of my Irish pals – after being entrusted with a corporate hospitality credit card (not his company’s card, I should add) – ‘invented’ the Red Bull Vodka with Champagne, served in a pint glass, at Lily’s Bordello. Looking back now, it’s hard not to recognise this as a portent of doom for the Celtic Tiger and the entire nation.
An American-British broadcaster, best known to me and many others as the presenter of ‘Through the Keyhole’. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you anything else about him.
Sort of ‘Hey older sister!’
‘Pho with beef flank! Do you have fried dough here?’
Iced coffee with condensed milk. Iced black coffee with ice.
Thanks for this. Fortunately, after 10 years in Dalat, I am still here with no plans to leave. Ever.
Come back some time. You'll still recognize parts you loved.