The first night in Vietnaam

Keiichi Iwasaki

22年前

It’s the end of our first day in Vietnam.

I had to find a place to sleep,” I thought.

There was a vacant lot with a few houses, so I decided to sleep in the corner.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up to the sound of a motorbike.

I open my eyes, the lights of the motorbike are dazzling my sleepy eyes, “someone is coming” I think, and before I know it, he is coming towards me and saying something, but I can’t understand him at all, plus I can’t write, so I get up thinking

“what am I going to do?

In China they wouldn’t have known I was a foreigner until I spoke to them, but in Vietnam they immediately knew I was a foreigner.

I said the word “Japanese”, which I had just learned, and gestured that I would sleep here.

I don’t know what came over him, but he said

“OK, OK”

and went back to the road. Just as I was beginning to fall asleep again, I heard the sound of an engine and then the sound of talking.

I got up again and explained verbally and non-verbally that I was Japanese and that I was going to sleep here.

They’re both talking, pointing at the sky, miming something falling, something falling from the sky:

“It’s raining.”

I knew immediately.

“Is it going to rain?”

“It’s coming down,”

and then the other guy makes a gesture that could be taken as,

“Follow me, I’ll show you where there’s a roof, it’s just around the corner,”

so I folded up my luggage and followed the pair of bikers, not suspecting anything.

I walked in and saw a couple of men coming out the front. I didn’t think it was a bad idea, they were all very curious and excited about what was going on.

They seemed to be saying,

“If you want to sleep there, you should go there,”

One of the men unlocked a room in another building and showed me to a room.

It was a beautiful room with emerald green walls, a table and chairs and a ceiling fan running.

“sleep here”,

it seemed to say.

I were suddenly in a beautiful private room from a field. I was honestly happy, and the development that is rare in China suddenly happened on the first day in Vietnam.