Uncle Ho

.


Late afternoon with Phuong. The gulf of language could only be bridged slowly and patiently. Nothing came easy. When it came there were smiles, laughter, some mutual relief at the progress. An inept hammer and sickle drawing for example resulted in immediate recognition. Phuong proved the case with the response of her five pointed star, drawn in the schoolgirl way of two long-sided triangles intersecting. A square frame completed the representation. Wikipedia confirmed it later: yellow five-pointed star on a red background — the flag of gallant and honourable Vietnam. A couple of verses of what must be a stirring national anthem followed, prompted again by the title provided by Wikipedia. Phuong perhaps knew the whole, but she couldn't be persuaded.
HoChiMin - SG return was $SG170. A few million dong. Perhaps even tens of millions in the Vietnamese currency. One red Singaporean ten dollar note equaled four or five 100,000 dong notes, a 200,000 note and one or two additional smaller denominations. Phuong's bulging purse was crammed with mainly Vietnamese dong.
Hmm! she nodded decisively. It was so. Difficult for a foreigner to believe perhaps. An Indonesian hundred rupiah note it might have been added up to five twenty cent Singaporean coins. Nothing more. Another weak currency.
A strong jaw and broad forehead accentuated Phuong's resolute replies. Phuong was not one of the delicate young flower girls who hung around the Karaoke place at the base of the hotel. She was thirty-eight. A stout, firm sort. Rambunctious possibly in youth; dependable and reliable now.
Uncle HoChiMin seemed to feature on all the Vietnamese notes, each denomination Phuong brought out of her purse and displayed. It was the well-known portrait of the calm, benign leader who had started his rebellion against the French. Uncle Ho in his late fifties perhaps, from the time of the war, receding hair and goatee. Phuong knew Ho's original name too, the name he had been assigned at birth. Uncle Ho had been a Nguyen.
— Same, same, Phuong explained.
Again Wikipedia the source.
For equivalence Phuong used "Same, same". It was possible she was able to decipher the tee-shirt favoured by the young teenagers here that bore that message. In her case it was an important functional aid.
Some kind of waitressing job it seemed she held somewhere in HoChiMin city. The Malay makan she knew. She had been to Singapore numerous times. She was staying with a friend in the Malay quarter of Joo Chiat. Thirty day visas was the arrangement for the Viet girls. The pattern seemed to be a month here and then two back home." Makan," with the usual gesture of the three fingers brought to the mouth that the old Chinese without English waiting on the tables of the food stalls used for foreigners. Following the fingers to the mouth, Phuong's hand went out roundabout doling out the food on the plates. Waitressing seemed to cover it. Not cooking and certainly not running an eatery of her own. Were that the case no need for the regular resort to Singapore.
Yet Phuong had visited Hanoi. The airfare to Hanoi seemed to be the equivalent of that to Singapore. She had not been to Hanoi for work. No. Pointing to her eyes and taking the sight outward. Touring her own country. Constrained as Phuong's circumstances were, domestic tourism was still within reach.
What she thought of America could not be conveyed. A number of times the attempted question had been put. No doubt she had never been asked that question before. Did the common people truly forgive the American aggression, as has been claimed by reliable sources? After all that devastation? All that unspeakable devastation that still produced victims two generations later? How was that possible? How much credence could one give it? The Montenegrins still retained a powerful abhorrence of the Turks more than ten generations later. No exaggeration. Difficult as it is to comprehend for those unfamiliar with the processes of foreign domination and all it brings. Both Phuong's parents were dead. Death in English she knew. "Died, died". The hand up into the air denoting vanishing corroborated. At thirty-eight herself, the war was an unlikely cause. A young son she had, looked after back home during her absences by someone we couldn't establish. The father it was not, nor siblings seemingly. Five fingers one hand and three the other: the boy was eight. For other, larger order numbering we used pen and paper. Accommodation immediately offered in HoChiMin. On arrival Phuong should be telephoned. No money, no money.