When a cop yelled out at my friend, “Stop in the name of the law!” , my friend, naturally, said, “Huh?”
(That picture is not from the event I am about to retell)
I never go out. Ever. Partly because of a need to hold on to my money (and then spend it all on expensive things in the US to bring back to Vietnam), and also, well I don’t really like people. Talking, spending time, etc.
But I do, from time to time.
A couple of weeks ago, met with some friends here(I will withhold names simply because it’s a cop story, which is quite a sensitive issue here) in District 1 along with my cousin. Had a pretty big group, quite possible close to 15 people, that died off as the hour got late. Had a few drinks at this first bar, went on to Cage Bar, which is not really a bar but more of a club, next to Legend Hotel, had more drinks, and an emerging late night full of alcohol but no dinner was starting to ware some of us (me) down.
On to the motorbikes and food, we cried!
On the way to a Chinese food place on Nguyen Trai, one friend, whom I shall call the Human Thong (HT), wasn’t wearing a helmet. A few blocks before we got there, a cop saw him and rode up next to him to get him to pull over.
The Thong said no, but in an “Huh?” manner, like a foolish dumb-witted foreigner (which he definitely is not).
Again, told to move over. Ignored!
Third time, the cop (he had a buddy in the back of his motorbike too) was a bit pissed and basically forced HT to stop. It looked like he was going to swing at him.
After this was at least 20 minutes of HT acting like he didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t understand any Vietnamese. Not only that, HT was a bit of a belligerent drunk, so when one cop tried to hold his arms down (handcuff hold), the Human Thong struggled, crying out, “What’s going on, what’d I do?”
We were on a busy street, and because of the his refusals, causing unwanted attention.
Ideally in this situation, you want to do English only, but also do it quietly so cops can save face and get paid off or whatever it is so they let you go.
No face saving here. The crowd was here, people were talking trash (arrest him!), and I (and other friends) was worried.
Arrest. Jail. An invite to leave the country.
Meanwhile, my cousin snuck off and went to pee in a corner. A building guard saw him and was not so pleased.
Back to the Human Thong. There was a guy there who seemed to have weird relationship over the cops. Some of us later thought maybe he was a gangster, and at first he told the cops to let HT go, he was a foreigner. Then as HT was a bit of a jackass, he changed his mind, saying, arrest him.
How this all went down is still a bit confusing. On one side, the cops really don’t want to bring foreigners in- that could mean trouble for their own careers in case that guy knows someone. Plus, they just want they money, so bringing the guy in doesn’t help.
On the other side, you have to save face with the crowd around. You can’t show everyone, if they’re watching, that people can just do whatever they like, even if everyone knows it’s true (for some).
In the end, the cops got another helmet, put it on HT’s head, and HT nodded “OH! Wear a helmet! OK! OK!”, and they let him go.
And off we went to discuss the story together over some Chinese, with me really needing water and food to avoid going over that “one drink too many” line. (Success!)
A little bit of luck, a little bit of drunken stupidity, and little too much excitement for my wussy butt.
On another note about nightlife, one of the topics of discussion at the restaurant was, “I wonder how old that prostitute is?”
What one man called 40, I felt was 28, not because she looked that young, but in VN people can look very old very quickly. A little like white people, yes.
Once we were outside the restaurant, I noticed prostitutes were everywhere, almost like sitting down in front of the restaurant waiting for customers. And it’s not even like that area is some dirty red light district or something.
This is Vietnam.
