"...he's been widowed seven times." or,I imagine the asker's reaction to one of these statements might be encouragement, a pat on the shoulder, and positive thoughts. "Don't worry, you'll find someone." People's reaction to the truth is much more grim. One time, Mike told someone that I have high expectations, to which the response was, "oh, no wonder he's single."
"...he's saving himself for the princess of Monaco." or,
"...physical contact causes him to lose bowel contol."
The first follow-up question (directed at my translator) is often: how does he eat? The idea that a man knows how to feed himself causes further bewilderment. What we have here is a cultural dissimilarity. In the states, every man knows how to find sustenance. He just opens a can of tomato soup, pops a frozen waffle in the toaster, and calls it dinner. Men in Vietnam seem equally incapable in the kitchen, but they stubbornly refuse to subsist on the American male's scavenge diet of chocolate chips, jarred olives and dry cereal. Instead, as I've been told, Vietnamese males live at home until the moment they get married. Then they grab what they can carry from their room in their parents' house and make a run for the new home before starvation sets in. This procedure safely guarantees the men will never need to bother with learning how to peel a potato or to boil water. He simply trades his mother's cooking for that of his wife.
The Vietnamese people I meet seem to doubt I'm capable of so much as lifting a spoon to my mouth, much less cooking for myself, when you consider how often people comment on how skinny I am. But comments on your deviations from beauty standards are not meant to be rude. On the contrary, these comments on your weight and skin just mean people care about you. The other day after the bánh tét rolls were wrapped and boiling, I sat down to lunch with the ladies in the kitchen. One of them said to another, "you're getting fat." I didn't catch what the second lady said, but the first lady went on: "and you've gotten really black*; what on earth are you doing in the sun all day?" These comments aren't meant to be, or perceived to be offensive. They're just observations, and it's up to the listener do decide whether it's a bad condition or not.
I wouldn't be so skinny if I only had a wife, they say. As if marital status could change the fact that I have the metabolism of a teenager with a gut full of tapeworms. I'm not sure why I'm so skinny, but I blame genetics, and not for want of nutrition. I've always seen myself as a voracious eater. But Lữ recently has begun to tell people that I only eat a lot when food is put within line of sight, and otherwise, I eat rather little. This comment induces further pity for my perceived state of emaciation. And the solution, they say, is to marry, since a wife will fatten me up good and proper.
To kindly help get me a wife, they ask me two kinds of questions. One question is, do you want a Vietnamese wife? This question is sometimes obscured with the more indirect phrasing: do you like Vietnamese women? The other question is, do you want to live in Vietnam? This question is less direct than the first. Interestingly enough, it's also asked almost exclusively by women, whereas the first question is most often asked by men. There seems to be a significant difference here. To the men, all that matters is that the wife is desirable. The women, however, are concerned with whether my wife would be taken away from Vietnam or not. They seem to understand the personal hardship of separation more than the men do.
Women being taken away from Vietnam is a modern epidemic. The cliche is of the old western bachelor who flies to Southeast Asia to find a wife to bring home with him. This cliche is not without merit, but like most cliches, it paints a narrow picture. Many Asian foreigners also take Vietnamese brides back to their countries. The first time I heard of this was in Taiwan, when our teacher told us how Taiwanese bachelors with low prospects would travel to Vietnam in search of wives. What the teacher didn't know was that one of her students was half Chinese, half Vietnamese, and he was not too amused by the teacher's disdain for the practice. And a generation of the One-Child policy in a country that exceedingly values male children has resulted in many thirty-something men in China with a serious lack of marriage options. So they come to Vietnam to fill the gender gap. Most of the marriages between foreigners and Vietnamese women are voluntary to an extent. But many women, and even children, are kidnapped and sold to be brides. There must be a sense that Vietnamese families suffer from losing their daughters. The women I talk to seem particularly sensitive to this.
Assuming the foreigner presents himself honestly, to marry a foreigner isn't necessarily bad. But going back to the husband's country means she leaves behind her home, her family, her community, the life she knows, the language she speaks. Her connections will fizzle and fade. She won't be able to find that certain brand, or regional specialty. She won't be able to have conversations like, "you're getting fat," without inadvertently offending someone's western sensibility. Going back to the husband's country must create an awful feeling of disconnectedness. Mike summarized this idea in a phrase that means the Vietnamese in America are living in luxury, yet living in sadness.
I asked Lữ why someone would choose a life of sadness over a life rich with close ones and cultural comfort. She said, so they can send money and support to their family at home. Marriage has a different meaning here than it does in the states. It's not about the relationship between the two people, but how the couple fits into the larger family group. Often, the family pressures the woman to marry a foreigner in the hope that she'll send money back home. A marriage that benefits the larger family group will be imposed on her, not a marriage based on mutual admiration, the joy of togetherness, and a deep connection.
I respect the sense of familial responsibility that could compel a woman to marry a man she doesn't love so she can provide for her family back home. But the sorrow that separation brings her would weigh on me, as would the idea that her reasons for marriage were familial pressure. There was another question someone asked me in the kind attempt to find a way to fatten me up. It was, would I find it easy to be married to a Vietnamese woman? The answer is, it would be as easy, or as hard, for me as it would be for her.
What began as a post ripe with levity has descended into alarming gravity. This all unraveled from the oft-asked question of why I'm not married. I suppose the best thing to do while I'm in Vietnam is to wear a ring and have my siblings tell people I have a wife back in the states, and she's a great cook. I'm just skinny 'cause I'm allergic to food.
* In this sense, black means tanned, and tanned skin is devalued. In my experience, Asian cultures associate skin tone with socio-economic status. Darker skin indicates low-class outdoor work, like gardening, street-sweeping, and construction. Lighter skin is associated with higher class. As a result of this distinction, the markets are saturated with skin-lightening products, and the sweltering streets are stocked with women in full-body clothing--face included--to hide their skin from the sun. It's like they're wearing UV suits.
