Fili’s world

The Aussies sold everything and hit the road, leaving behind family and friends and heading to the unknown. The first is a somewhat heavy woman at her 60th that has waited patiently till her children will become self sufficient and for her husband to get drunk and uncaring enough for her to be able to leave it all behind. The second is her former employee at her mid 30th with high energy levels. As most women that come to Hoi An they’ve spent most of their spare time shopping around and looking at all the tailor shops. Ever since I’ve first met the Aussies at the hotel’s pool, we’ve seen each other at least 5 times. Funny thing is that each of those times was while I was sitting with different Vietnamese friends at different shops across HoiAn, and every time they were totally amazed at the interaction they were witnessing.

First time was at around 22:30 while I was sitting with Anh and Sister outside their cloth shop and they joined in the fun. We’ve met again today morning when they came to the shoe-shop I was volunteering in near the market. It was great, noticing the astonishment at the local people’s faces as they saw me helping Phuong, my so-called boss, open the shop, take out the shoes for display outside and dust-clean everything. As I sat with them outside all day, calling in costumers and humor bargaining with the surprised tourists, the locals approached and kept asking questions – wondering about the unexplainable phenomena. Very typical of the Vietnamese way of thinking, it seemed like the only explanation they could dig up was that Phuong and I were lovers, and nothing anyone would say would convince them differently.

Finally, the last time - the Aussies waved hello while riding their bikes at me and Lieu (pronounced Li-O, or Willow) next to her family’s cloth shop. The deal I make with the my local friends is usually very simple : I come in and help them out – usually doing a good job of making conversation with ongoing tourist traffic and maybe making them take another look at the cloths, and my friends teach me Vietnamese (language and culture). I admit that my Vietnamese hasn’t improved too much, but I’ve had some great laughs.