Hien and Our Lessons in Vietnamese Culture

Hien, our Vietnamese tour guide, was a pleasure to be with.  

As we passed by them, he'd shout out greetings to the local fishermen, most of whom he seemed to know personally.  

An incredibly robust forty two years old, He gave  up fishing five years ago for a more lucrative career as a tour guide.  

Interspersed among the hours spent exploring together, he shared insights into Vietnamese culture with us, telling us of his arranged marriage and how he expected the same for his son and daughter.  

He also told us of how the Vietnamese government had previously "encouraged" couples to have large families of about five children, but had now changed the official position to two, instead.   

(I suspect government officials in Hanoi are getting fed up with traffic there!)

He spoke of meeting his daily family expenses of $12 per day, and of his aspirations that his son, to whom he was teaching English, would also be a tour guide one day and experience and enjoy a further improved local ecological environment.  

He told us of some of the unique difficulties in growing up in this area of Vietnam. 

For example, the kids who grow up on oyster farms in the bay have traditionally had a high incidence of drowning, due to the fact that as soon as they start to crawl and walk, they risk accidentally falling into and drowning in the  multitude of fish and oyster pens that are their version of a backyard. 

In response, parents have traditionally placed their kids on 1.5 meter leashes, attached to one ankle, from about the age of two to four years old.  

This is intended to  prevent the possibility of accidental drowning, but, as a solution, comes at an obvious high cost to both parent and child.

But then, with great pleasure and relief, Hien told us of how, just recently, a Vietnamese mobile phone company began providing free and highly effective backpack-based "floaties" to these children.  

The result, he informed us, was that the number of sccidental drownings had now, mercifully, dropped precipitously.    

Hien also assisted us in our efforts to communicate with our other crew members, Sachs and Trang. 

They'd both been a bit standoffish at first,  but our attempts to communicate with them clearly broke the ice.  

They laughed at our "good mornings" when we meant "thank you" and Trang, in particular, took an active interest in extending our vocabulary. 

These hours spent between the scheduled touring events were, indeed, some of our most rewarding and valued of the tour. 

We departed our visit to our Vietnamese Shangri La with images fresh in our minds of tireless Hien walking in flip flops up a steep hiking trail,  our fellow crew members laughing, in a good natured way,  at our early attempts to speak Vietnamese and of Hien's promise to quit smoking before our next visit