Across the Western world it was once expected that the man went out to work while the woman stayed home to raise the children and keep house; in Vietnam it is currently expected that women work while men generally go off to cafes, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and chat with their buddies.

For some time I just stood in the middle of the road down the bottom of Bui Vien Walking Street as the frantic horde of revellers bustled around me; taking in the sounds, the sights and perhaps less enchanting, the smells…

Women run Ho Chi Minh City while the men, well the men often take token positions such as ‘gofer’ to their wife’s enterprise – performing the menial tasks or doing the heavier lifting – alternatively they wear a shirt with the word ‘Security’ printed on the back then stand or sit on the footpath (usually drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes) outside a business run by their wives or significant others. (It ought to be noted, younger, single men – men without a woman to keep them – they do generally work also.) Where many Vietnamese businesses/organisations might appear to be run/operated by a man – in that it might be a man who seems to have the power to make things happen – this is typically just a front; behind the masculine façade (probably intended to provide reassurance for chauvinistic Western customers) there will always be a woman in control.

…I had made my decision; I now made my move. No sooner than I had stepped off Bui Vien and onto the footpath I was accosted by several attractive – I assume ‘Crazy’ – girls, where I was handed a drinks menu and shown to a stool…

As with most bars on Bui Vien Street, Crazy Girls has no definitive boundary between the edge of the footpath and the beginning of its premises; the bar entrance itself is a few metres back from the road’s edge in the form of a totally open front gaping out onto the street, and is a 30 centimetre step up from the outdoor area which is often under an awning and splays onto the footpath.

…As my eyes adjusted, although I was seated outside I found I could make out the inside of the bar; to the left was a pool table under constant lighting but to the right of that, in the shadows, beyond an oddly placed pillar, appeared to be the music station – the area from where a ‘DJ’ pulled tracks each night from what would turn out to be the same 18-song playlist (which he just might have dubbed from the bar down the street which had possibly dubbed theirs from the other bar across the street, which had definitely been borrowed from the premises up the road). Further to the right, around a corner where I was noticing many staff – most adorned in their long T-shirts and denim shorts – were disappearing or reappearing, amid even more murky shadows was located a small ‘dance-floor’ yet strangely, I observed, despite the deafening background noise, not a great many customers…

Almost every bar in Vietnam and (as I will learn through reading the book that will ultimately save my soul and which would have saved me a great deal of money too but which, at this stage in my journey, I still have yet to purchase let alone read) Thailand employs women – bargirls – for the specific task of warming up their male clientele and essentially, loosening wallets; of course they dispense drinks and wipe tables as well but primarily, predominantly, these gorgeous ladies are floozies for hire.

…Seemingly the ‘clinking’ I had been hearing was coming from around that corner to the right where, judging by the number of staff who kept disappearing then reappearing holding a drink in each hand, there was obviously some kind of beverage dispensary…

They weren’t dressed as elegantly or seductively as the ladies in red over at Blueskies but the Crazy Girls bargirls sure knew how to make a guy feel important; the girl/s would sit a man down and commence their flirtatious Asian style of ‘fussing’, involving a lot of giggling/eyelid-batting (or if he is standing this becomes butt-patting/nipple-pinching which I initially thought was an odd form of seduction and I was right; as you too will soon discover ‘seduction’ is merely the unwitting by-product of this hands-on show), where the man then buys a drink for himself along with whatever lady decides she also wants one.

…I was at a table surrounded by three beautiful women as well as the one who seemed to have ‘claimed’ me, and with a Johnnie Walker Black on the way; I have a feeling I had agreed to buy each of the ladies a drink too – that’s five in total – and I had given one of them about 600 dong, so I was keen to see if she brought back any change…

It took until about my eighth visit to Crazy Girls for me to understand the insidious complexity of this butt-patting/nipple-pinching display; I was sitting with the future ‘woman of my dreams’ and watching as one of her colleagues exuded her powers of seduction over a decidedly intoxicated male patron. The woman of my dreams – who I had since come to know as ‘Noobie’ – and I were awaiting our next turn in a game of pool against an exceedingly drunk, extremely hard case, Australian husband and wife duo. The time was well past 3 a.m. and Noobie must have noticed my attention turning to the questionable antics of her butt patting, nipple pinching colleague, a few tables over. She tried to distract me, to pull my focus back to the game of pool but no, I was captivated with what I was seeing; the longer I watched the more I was learning.

…Drinks were on the way, even so I glanced again at the drinks menu; by Vietnam standards they were pricey, I could tell that much. Bia (Beer) wasn’t even advertised but I did happen to know that most places around HCMC charge 20 to 30 dong ($1.50 – $2.50) for local (Saigon Bia, 33 Bia) beer or Singapore (Tiger) beer while spirits (only rarely did I see local whisky being sold over the bar) were generally of the imported variety (Johnnie Walker Red/Black also Ballantine’s, Teacher’s, or Chivas Whisky) thus were comparatively expensive – 80 to 100 dong ($7.50 – $8.50) – yet for spirits here (which is oddly all that was advertised on the Crazy Girls drinks menu anyway) the place charged 110 dong (over $9.00)…

What had started with giggling and eyelid-batting had rapidly, perhaps inevitably, escalated into butt-patting and nipple-pinching. Another employee had since joined in the game – perhaps to ensure the drunken manatee didn’t lose his footing and flop onto his blubbery backside before they’d finished plundering him – and now, as I looked on with intrigue, as Noobie tried in vain to turn my attention back to her and our game, with one canoodler at the front pinching nipples and one canoodler at the back patting butt-cheeks I watched as, from practically the middle of the floor, the wallet was gently lifted from the manatee’s trousers and the wad of Viet currency whisked from within. I watched as butt-pincher, the one holding the wallet, glanced sideways at me – a lovely young woman of not more than 19 years named Trang (Chang) – winked and gave me a cheeky smile. I chuckled and shook my head in feigned distaste (because admittedly, I was a little impressed). Her captivatingly dextrous fingers then separated a few 500s before slipping the rest of the notes back into his wallet – ‘Take so little that the rich Westerners don’t even notice it’s gone’ (see last year’s Chronicles) – then with a grin she slid the wallet back inside the manatee’s pocket before giving that giant butt one last gigantic slap (which I actually heard all the way across the floor). Finally, as if thanking him for his contribution, Trang reached around to plant a big sloppy kiss on his big drunken face then returned to giggling and eyelash batting, a cool million dong better off for it.

…110.000VND is the price that a tourist might expect to pay for a good meal, yet in Vietnam, relativity is not a term that people seem to comprehend (think about the New Zealand equivalent, a good meal might cost you 30 or even 40NZD; there is no way you would consider paying even $30 for a single drink).

Vietnamese people do typically have very light fingers and indeed most would make proficient pickpockets, however the art of surreptitiously plundering someone’s personal belongings from their body while walking the street, sometimes right in front of their eyes – although it is a genuine fear of most Western tourists to Vietnam – I have neither experienced nor seen or even heard evidence of this practice; although while chatting with an Australian chap named Steve during my final week I did hear a couple of rollicking stories…

Pick-pocketing may have been an active pastime for Viet youths back in the day but with the rise in Vietnam tourism, governing bodies would be foolish for allowing this trend to continue (indeed, allowing it, because the fact is, if Government wishes to start, finish, prolong, curtail, commence or discontinue something, Government has the money, hence Government has the power thus Government may do whatever the hell they wish, and if you don’t believe that you’re naïve); pick-pocketing is very much an opportunist act perpetuated with little foresight and intended only to benefit one person, for only one time. Where the majority if the world is becoming a ‘cash-free- society, Vietnam is very much a cash-only society – tourists use ATMs to withdraw perhaps 5 million VND at a time, spend that lot then withdraw another 5 mil – take away a tourist’s wallet, you’ve effectively taken his ability to burn through money.

…Vietnamese are all about the tourism cash and it is my belief that they have learned to work as a team in order to acquire the aforementioned currency; while in my final week, staying at the Yen Trang hotel (highly recommended), I found myself in conversation with a very angry, insanely vengeful, but really very nice, Australian man. Aussie Steve was around middle-age and was telling the story of his previous night’s exploits; he had been innocently taking a stroll, somewhere around midnight, and happened to cut through a place known as Tranny Corner – an area one block over from Bui Vien that is considered a red-light district for transvestites – on his innocent way back from somewhere else that was no doubt entirely respectful. As Steve told it, he was approached and propositioned by a three ‘ladies’ – one taking the front with the other two circling around either side, as if admiring – who, as he tells it, he politely declined; it seems the situation became suddenly belligerent and Steve was apparently struck/grabbed in the groin. While doubled over, apparently, the remaining two ‘ladies’, the ones at either side, emptied his pockets, stripping him of his money (which he claims did not bother him greatly), his dignity (regarding the loss of which I did not linger), and his phone (which incensed Steve more than anything as his phone reportedly contained irreplaceable family photography). However, he went on, that isn’t the only time something like this has happened around Tranny Corner…

Any logically thinking Vietnamese citizen is going to try and avoid stripping a ‘rich Westerner’ of their wallet, preferring instead just to swindle and con the money out of them the old fashioned (Southeast Asian) way, then allowing them to go back to the ATM for a top-up, before potentially repeating the act. I spent more money on that first night in Crazy Girls than I care to recall, but justified it with the statement, ‘Oh, everyone has a blowout their first night in Vietnam’ – problem was I ended up spending almost the same amount that next night, too.

…As Aussie Steve told it there was a gentleman, a tourist in or in the vicinity of Ho Chi Minh City District 1’s Tranny Corner, one afternoon having just extracted his allowance from an ATM. Reportedly he was standing on or near the curb as he slotted the wad of notes into his wallet. At that moment a motorbike buzzed by, particularly close to the footpath, with the pillion reaching out and snatching the wallet straight from this tourist’s hands. (As Steve told the story both motorcycle occupants were ladyboys of the night, or in this case day, and apparently, according to Steve, there was a little more to the story that he didn’t know but wasn’t willing to speculate – perhaps regarding ‘a deliberate target’ as a result of ‘improper treatment/payment’ or something to this effect. No I don’t know either, I’m simply surmising based on the facts that I heard and this act sounded premeditated; additionally I am aware how passionately Asian folk feel about retribution – wrong one of these people or their family members on their home soil, cause the loss of face to most any Asian person and, gentle-natured, passive as they may appear, they will even the score, albeit eventually.) Anyway, as the man stood, bemused, unable to comprehend what has just happened to him, the two harlots and their scooter race around the block to a moment later reappear and speed right back past the bewildered gentleman, tossing him his wallet. The man scampers after it, retrieves it and checks inside; of course all of the notes are gone but his bank cards, valuable to no man except him, are of course still in place.

Now I certainly am not going to vouch for Steve’s credibility or indeed, the authenticity of the above yarn, but whatever truth that story may hold it outlines my point perfectly; I believe most Vietnamese have learned/are learning that pilfering a tourist’s wallet is not beneficial in the long-term, and have perhaps become less selfish/short-sighted in their quest for the acquisition of tourist cash. They appear to have learned/are learning that to simply pick the pocket of one man – thereby taking away his ability to procure more cash which would have afforded him the opportunity to become the victim of other Viet scams/cons – is a foolhardy game to play…

You see Vietnamese are not stupid people – they have never been stupid – which is how they have devised much more complex and elaborate means of extracting money from tourists; ideally, where the sucker is not even aware he/she (but usually ‘he’) is being played.

…Mind you, one does not need to be conned in order to burn through money in Vietnam; while I may have spent almost half my month’s budget in that first night at Crazy Girls, I experienced the kind of night that I will never forget, so maybe it was worth it…

The best thing though, the woman of my dreams ended up coming back with me that night.

…So yeah, maybe it was worth it after all.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Willie May-Kit

Photography by Vienna Meeze-Conn