03/28/2024
A Quintessentially Vietnamese 90 Minutes
There are certain things that, to my knowledge, only happen in Vietnam.
I’ve experienced each of them before on a number of occasions, but never overlapping the way that they did tonight. And it made me giggle like crazy.
It all started because my hair was dirty.
In an attempt to travel lightly - which I am not very good at - I do not carry shampoo, conditioner or any other hair accoutrements with me. It’s easy and inexpensive enough to find a salon and get a shampoo/blowout.
And in Vietnam, it’s quite a treat to do so because every shampoo comes with a complimentary scalp massage. And I mean a seriously delicious scalp massage! Many places even include neck and shoulder massages in addition!
As if that weren’t enough, even the most humble salons in Vietnam utilize lie-flat beds that connect to their shampoo bowls with head supports coming up through the middle of the bowl.
Getting a shampoo in Vietnam is one of the most relaxing experiences you can imagine.
Except for tonight.
The neighbor next-door to the salon I was patronizing was throwing a birthday party.
In Vietnam, a party isn’t a party without karaoke. In fact, the Vietnamese love karaoke so much that it isn’t even necessary to have a party to do karaoke. It’s pretty much a nightly event that someone is going to be doing karaoke.
And the Vietnamese don’t do karaoke behind closed doors. Karaoke is a very very very public event sung over microphones with the volume always turned up to 10.
Two nights ago, I was eating dinner at the pier. Cruise ships were going by hundreds of feet away. My dinner was serenaded by karaoke.
I have a love-hate relationship with Vietnamese karaoke. I love that this culture encourages everyone to sing. And I mean everyone. Even the very very bad singers.
Ever since I witnessed Sister Margaret Marie instruct a tone-deaf second grader preparing for first communion to only mouth the words because he made the song sound bad (some nuns are particularly good at inflicting this kind of lifelong trauma), I have had a particularly soft spot for those who invite everyone to sing.
Singing is good for the soul. And those who rob others of the gift of singing are stealing something precious.
So when I first realized that the Vietnamese were not shy about singing loudly off key, it added, yet another layer of endearment in my heart for this country - even as it also made my ears hurt.
And based on the hundreds, if not thousands of times I’ve heard karaoke performed in my 3+ years of time spent in Vietnam, I can attest to the fact that there are many many bad singers in this population. lol. God love them.
There are great ones also to be certain. But the vast majority of karaoke singers I hear are terribly tone deaf. And don’t care. And I love that last part.
So even though I don’t know the songs that they are singing, I can recognize a flat note when I hear it, and man, do I hear them often!
On top of the ubiquitous loud flat notes, the most frequently chosen songs to be performed during karaoke are sappy, drippy, love songs. I love a good love song and I’m sure these are quite sweet, but, without understanding the words, they simply sound cloying to my ears. Add 10 million very loud flat notes to those and you’re starting to get the picture (or audio) of the Vietnamese karaoke experience.
So there I was - relaxing into my scalp and neck massage when, rather frequently, hard loud flat notes would pierce the veil of the spa experience - along with my ears.
Truly, it made me giggle.
But that wasn’t all.
In addition to karaoke, a Vietnamese party is not a Vietnamese party without cheers.
The Vietnamese are, largely, heavy drinkers and they love to draw others into their drinking. And there’s no better way to do that than to start a toast. And like karaoke, these are also performed at volume 10.
The cheer most often heard when drinking here is Mot Hai Ba Zo! Which translated means 1 2 3 drink!
It’s an unwritten rule that as soon as anyone utters the word Mot, everyone else at the table must join in yelling the rest of the cheer.
I absolutely love on big holidays like Tet that you will hear this cheer going up all over the neighborhood at random times. First from this house, then from that one. Over and over, all day and night long. It creates a very festive atmosphere.
Festivity was certainly the theme next-door to the hair salon tonight.
So basically the picture was me on the lie-flat bed relaxing deeply into an excellent neck massage when a Mot Hai Ba Zo cheer would erupt and break the tranquil silence.
I’d settle back in again and notes so loud and flat would stab the air and my eardrums, sometimes so terrible that they would cause me to involuntarily wrinkle my nose and squeeze my eyes even further closed.
Quite often the two sounds of bad karaoke and drinking cheers overlapped.
And when they weren’t overlapping, the lady giving me the excellent massage would say “sorry, my neighbor throwing birthday party.”
I enjoyed the comedy of it all.
And it’s all good. My hair will be dirty again soon enough and I’ll have another chance at a more peaceful shampoo blowout.
