Hitchhiking
Vietnam
By
Karin Muller
Northwest of Hanoi, Vietnam
I was up early the next morning, having learned
the simple truism that all experienced hitchhikers swear by; it's
not who you are or what your destination, but when and where you
are. I planted myself at the appropriate intersection in the gloomy
pre-dawn hours and squatted down to wait.
Several hours later a nearby soup shop opened and
was soon doing brisk business. The bubbling broth drew me like
a hungry stray. The woman who poured my soup asked what on earth
I was doing sitting on the corner like that, laughed at my shamefaced
reply and pointed at a man eating on a mat in her back room. "My
husband," she explained. He would be leaving shortly and
I was welcome to travel with him. I accepted gratefully and sat
down to breakfast.
When her husband's meal was done he carefully patted
his lips clean, put on his North Vietnamese officer's cap and
climbed into the driver's seat of a two-ton Russian army truck.
I followed with considerably less enthusiasm.
He was a lieutenant from the stars on his lapels,
and one of the most handsome men I had ever seen. Try as I might,
I understood not a word he said, and he in turn shook his head
and smiled at my attempts at conversation. Our front hood seemed
to stretch forever over a massive engine, but the truck was nearly
thirty years old and had long ago lost its Grand Prix aspirations.
We bumped along at eight miles per hour, stopping frequently while
road crews shoveled piles of stones out of the way. The landscape
turned lush and wild, with bamboo aqueducts snaking down the mountainside
to unseen villages. Barefoot men appeared with homemade rifles
and leather bags of powder and bird shot.
I wasn't the only hitch-hiker on the one-lane road.
We frequently passed small clusters of women with baskets full
of produce, waiting for a lift to market. Time and again our heavy
vehicle rumbled to a stop, the lieutenant climbing down to help
load them and their cargo into the back. Each time he returned
with an armful of tangerines from his grateful passengers. I passed
the time pealing and handing out wedges of the juicy fruit.
After three hours the language barriers began to
tumble down. In six hours the misunderstandings were nothing more
than a vague memory. By dark he insisted I share dinner with five
of his friends at a roadside cafe. They ordered a veritable feast
--roast pork and dog and steaming cabbage, rice and soup and whisky
and tea. I ate until I bulged, and then sat holding my stomachs
while they took turns choosing the most succulent bits of remaining
meat and laying them delicately in my bowl.
With or without the uniforms, they were all ranking
lieutenants and had made the thirty-year commitment to soldierhood
on the same day. They were from the city of Viet Tri, had risen
in the ranks together and eventually been sent to Moscow for six
years to learn mechanics and driving skills. At first they seemed
quite sure that Russia was a fine place to live, but as the whisky
made its rounds so did their second thoughts. "It's too cold,"
they said, and added, "The Russians, they never smile."
They spoke often and longingly of their families. Their work took
them away from home for several days each week and my handsome
driver in particular missed his year-old son. His wife, he told
me proudly, ran a restaurant single-handedly. His boast sparked
off a round of playful competition as each man held his wife's
profession up for inspection. "Teacher!" one called
out, and another "Doctor!". The fourth and fifth were
tailors, and the last unmarried, although he apparently won the
game by sending me a sideways glance and saying, "I wait
for an American wife!"
To my surprise, not one of them had more than a
single child in a land that valued family above all else, the
larger the better. They reminded me of the billboards I had seen
in almost every town, proclaiming the new government policy in
favor of small families, with captions reading "Have one
or two children!". Army doctrine apparently took a more active
role, and soldiers were demoted one star for every child more
than two.
I eventually took my leave, waddling back to the
truck cradling my bellies like a bowling ball and laboriously
clambering over the massive wheel and into the cabin. I liked
these men for the way they scrupulously washed their hands before
they ate and the loving way they spoke about their wives and children.
I liked the lifelong friendship they had forged among themselves
and the enormous calluses on the palms of the drivers, each a
ranking officer. They seemed not at all the stereotyped soldier,
nor the crafty North Vietnamese fighter, nor even the patriarchal
Asian man. Things were "different now", as they had
told me over dinner, but I wasn't quite sure how. Perhaps it was
the whisky, or the overindulgent meal, or the last forty miles
of rugged roads in the pitch dark, but the answer didn't come
to me until I was standing on the roadside, saying my good-byes.
The driver climbed back into his cabin, reached down to shake
my hand one last time, and said, "friends."
He was right.
___________
To purchase the one-hour PBS special Hitchhiking Vietnam ($12.95), please visit Japanlandonline.com
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