Only in America

On my way back to the hotel from the U.S. Consulate Public Affairs Office (after an exhausting day following the US election), I hailed a taxi that took me from Le Loi to Hai Ba Trung. On the way, the driver (I couldn't see his face very well) asked if I was from somewhere else visiting the city. Does it count as a fib if I said, in response to his many questions: "Que nha o Long Xuyen; I'm working in the city, affiliated with the college KHXH-NV on Dinh Tien Hoang; recently arrived in the city, and have family/relatives in the area." They're not so much lies as half-truths, right? It's more like self-preservation, like "bao thu" so that people don't find out too much.

Chi M.once tried to articulate for me the difference between ignorant people and insensitive people. There must be too many of both kinds b/c few (that I've met here so far) seem to understand the implications and connotations of silence. Non-verbal cues are lost most of the time or are misunderstood. When I'm silent in the taxi, it means I prefer not to talk, which usually means please don't ask questions. When I'm silent after being asked a rather difficult question ("Why are you so fat?"), the very pregnant pause should indicate my unwillingness to respond, my shock, and/or my insufficient, limited Viet vocabulary that ill prepares me to answer respectfully and with poise. Most will either blithely breeze right onto the next question ("Isn't there medication in America to help reduce your fat?" little shop girl at Tan Tien Giay shoestore on the corner of Vo thi Sau and Hai ba Trung streets); or they will proceed to suggest certain remedies for my fat ailment. In the case of the little shopgirl and her mother, they couldn't understand why someone young as me could be so fat, and they couldn't understand why someone from America isn't skinny; therefore, they could offer no words of advice. In my defense, I said "In the States, if you have money, you can do whatever." I just didn't know how to respond. I wasn't trying to be elusive or evasive (well, maybe I was); it just seemed I didn't have enough words to say what I meant. In the words of the girl, "the question is, does it work?"