When I first came to Vietnam in 2006, almost accidently during a long journey though Southern Asia, I fell in love with the place in barely two weeks. I stood on a small bridge overlooking a quiet, winding river just before you get to Cua Dai Beach, Hoi An, and decided I wanted to live here.
A picture to be displayed at Delightful Vietnam exhibition Photo: Tuoi Tre
Why? Why would I want to give up a comfortable life in Australia for a rougher existence? One part of it, I suspect, was the women. I do not mean lust or love. I simply mean their niceness and beauty. I haven’t been married for a long time, but I didn’t come here looking for a wife or a wild time, so the attractiveness of the Vietnamese woman slowly grew on me over time.
Who could not feel something when they see high school girls riding bikes in long, perfect, shining white Ao Dai, looking like a slow motion movie of sea gulls flying across the rice fields…?
As I toured the countryside, I noticed more and more that women were working everywhere and doing jobs I’ve never seen Australian women do. Building houses and factories, roaring down the highway with the chickens on an old Honda, walking miles with bamboo baskets balanced across their shoulders, and quietly following their kids, hand feeding them.
It’s not immediately obvious just how tough even the smallest young high school girl is. You only really see this when you live in a local street and the teenage girls are helping dad by shoveling sand and carting wheelbarrows around the house, and all the while flashing the whitest, widest grins at the bemused foreigner.
I’m constantly amazed at the small, tough older women standing in the hot, humid sunshine in rubber boots, Non La Hats and face masks on building sites. One time a small grandmother carting some fruits on a bamboo pole was stopped by a large European man in front of the restaurant where I was sitting. He wanted his wife to take a picture of him lifting the fruit pole across his shoulders…he could barely lift it. The wife laughed and laughed. The old grandmother just produced one of those broad grins and promptly picked up the load and totted down the road.
As I teach around Hoi An, particularly in the hotels and Old Town area, I constantly notice how many women are the managers, organizers, sellers, buyers, owners, negotiators and labourers. The women are everywhere doing something, not simply at home or in the office. It’s often one of the first things tourists and Expats notice here. The participation of women is utterly critical to Vietnamese development.
I remember being shocked when some of my students, all young adults, but looking much younger, showed me a photo of them at a military firing range learning how to use a machine gun! There were young girls in green with long, flowing thick black hair, posing like cute fashion models for the camera with machine gun parts on a table.
Somehow Vietnamese women can project an image of innocence and fragility that is mesmerising, yet doesn’t often show the true power and intelligence that is emerging in modern Vietnam. Women are staying in schools longer, studying longer and slowly moving into more commanding positions in Vietnamese society.
It’s sometimes said by Expats that while the men will make the money the women will change the culture though fashion, art, creativity and moulding the children of the next generations.
The other thing I notice here is the staggering variety of beauty in face, body and character from the north to the centre to the south. Add to this the Vietnamese love of a joke and a more tolerant attitude towards us strange foreigners, and it becomes a powerful mix of attractiveness and personality.
A women’s life can be hard here in a country where most people still live in the countryside and traditional values are clashing with modern desires, yet I’ve rarely heard a woman complain about her life, still cherishing love, marriage and babies even if that means less opportunities for herself.
So on Women Day’s, I will think of all the wonderful, funny, graceful, kind, gentle and clever women I have met here… salute them…and buy flowers for them!
STIVI COOKE
Source: Tuoi Tre
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