When people ask why we chose to adopt from Vietnam, as opposed to domestically or from, say, Russia or China, I often want to ask them in turn if they have an hour or two to sit for a cup of tea while I wax rhapsodic about this country on the other side of the world that I love so dearly, for reasons that are hard to articulate. Usually, I nutshell it with something about feeling a "connection" to Vietnam, having traveled there before. Of course, it's much more than that, although try as I might to encapsulate the whole thing, I'm still not sure it makes any sense, in the way that instinctual, gut-driven things often don't. Try explaining to someone why you love your favorite food, for example, or how you knew your spouse was The One, and you'll know what I mean. You just DO.
Which isn't to say it's not a valid question to ask, and I don't mind it at all. Trust me, I will talk anyone's ear off who's willing to listen to me go on (and oh, I do GO ON) about adoption and Vietnam. Nevertheless, I'm unable to come up with something that doesn't sound glib (we wanted an excuse to travel to Vietnam again) or superficial (the kids are so beautiful there!) or overly pragmatic (6-9 months' wait for a girl, versus years for China).
The first time I went to Vietnam was in August 2000, after I took the bar exam. I was traveling with a group of friends from law school; we started out in Hong Kong, then spent about a month in Vietnam, and finished it off with a couple of weeks in Thailand. We did everything on the cheap, sleeping in $20-a-night rooms (which weren't as bad as you might think; maybe the beds were lumpy and the decor minimal, but we always had air conditioning and our own bathroom) and taking buses between in-country destinations, sometimes for 15 hours at a stretch. Most of the time, the roughing it aspect was a part of the adventure and therefore took on a patina of glamour in its own sense; but on a few occasions, such as riding for ten hours on a NON-air conditioned bus (a/c had been promised, but turned out to be on the fritz) in approximately one thousand degree heat with about 800 smelly backpackers and 1200 pieces of luggage, I yearned for something a bit more upscale.
The second time, in September 2002, I went for two weeks with my husband. Being gainfully employed, we did things on more of a luxury level this time, and we flew around or hired private drivers for our day trips and between cities. We did, however, skip the French-style, cloth-napkin restaurants in favor of hunching over pho on the side of the street and rode a couple of ancient bikes (mine sans brakes, requiring Fred Flinstone-style maneuvers to stop) amid the clamor of traffic and sometimes through torrential downpours.
Both times, for whatever reason, I felt as at home in Vietnam as I would in any previously unvisited American city. Almost as soon as our plane touched down and I peered out the tiny window at shimmering green rice paddies and distant, towering limestone formations, the country seeped into me. By the time we took our first heart-stopping walk across a street teeming with hordes of traffic, I was hooked.
I loved the clanging of the street vendors at dawn; the brisk slapping steps of the women carrying twice their body weight on shoulder yokes as they bustled to the market; the constant cacophany of horns as motorbikes and cars and bicycles and cyclos jockeyed for position on the steaming asphalt; the late afternoon blare of karaoke from the bars down the street. I loved the oversaturated colors, the brilliant yellow of the French-style opera house, the blood red of the flag, the piercing green of the endlessly lush countryside, the stark white of the schoolgirls' ao dais, fluttering as they walked like legions of angels through the city.
I loved every bite of food I ate -- pho, the ubiquitous beef noodle soup sold every two feet in every part of the country; banh mi omelets, crusty French baguettes stuffed with fresh eggs and bits of cucumber and hot sauce; bun cha in Hanoi, grilled pork over noodles, made on a smoky charcoal grill on the side of the street; coa lau in Hoi An, a pork and noodle dish with crunchy rice crackers laid across the top; bun thit nuong in Saigon, another pork and noodle staple; che, a dessert of shaved ice, fruit and coconut milk; and banh beo, squishy white-bread buns filled with ground pork, vegetables and a hard-boiled egg. All of these were best washed down with either Fanta, bottled in 1970s-style glass, or beer, preferably Bia 333 (Ba Ba Ba) or, in Hue, Huda.
To a one, every person I encountered was friendly, thoughtful, and terribly flattering (such pretty skin, they would say, or how handsome your husband is!). One young girl in Hoi An who brought us to her mom's tailor stall in the market whispered to me that my husband was "very sexy, very opulent -- he is like cowboy"; I think he still considers this the greatest compliment he's ever gotten. Sure, the requests for money or to buy things we didn't want or need ("Where you from? You will buy?") got a little old, but most of the kids who were peddling stuff -- usually bootleg copies of books, postcards, chalk paintings or jewelry -- were charming and curious, and we were drawn to their open faces and entrepreneurial spirit.
Most of all, we loved sitting on the curb having an iced Vietnamese coffee (delicious with a swirl of sweetened condensed milk) and watching the world go by. Vietnam is a place of constant action, constant kinetic energy, yet there's a strange calm that pervades everything. People rush around and work from dawn to dusk and beyond, but there is a sense of stillness there that's difficult to capture. In the midafternoon, in the feverish heat, you see vendors slumped against their carts, dead asleep, and women crouching next to buildings chattering over tea, and on Sunday nights the streets fill with families zooming around on motorbikes and gathering in town squares -- somehow, it is clear that what matters most is not money or ambition or fame but family and food and friends, conversation and babies and community.
I think one thing I love about Vietnam is that it's an underdog; over its millenia of history, it has been invaded countless times, occupied as a colony, and, of course, decimated by war. Yet it goes on. The people are not hardened or bitter; they are welcoming and reflective. They are proud of their country, as they should be. They are philosophical about the past but hopeful for the future. They persist.
Through our daughter, and hopefully future children, we will have a connection to this haunting and beautiful and dreamlike place for the rest of our lives, a connection that goes beyond this ineffable sense that it's somewhere we belong in some way, somewhere that speaks to our very souls. I hope that, as she grows up a product of two lands, one of her birth and one of her home, she will find that same sense of belonging in both places.
