Storytelling in Hanoi Slam

The Hanoi Slam in CAMA ATK last Wednesday was all sorts of awesome: cool people, stories and drinks all night. It was all for a good cause too! The proceeds of the event went to the Humanitarian Services for Children of Vietnam (HSCV).

I don’t remember how I found out about the event, but when I knew about the storytelling competition, I didn’t think twice to sign up.

I have never joined a story slam before. But I’ve been to poetry nights back in Davao; they were pretty much like telling stories in front of an audience.

Toi khong hieu!

I keep on getting slapped in the face with realities about language and communication, and how these have become mental workouts for me.

A Vietnamese woman yelled at me because I was blocking her way while she was dragging her motorbike in the sidewalk, looking for a spot to park.

“Peep peep peep!” she yelled, her voice blended very well with all the other vehicles honking in the narrow alleys of the Old Quarter in Hanoi.

I turned to my friend, after the silly encounter.

“Toby, a woman just yelled at me,” I started. “She yelled: peep peep peep!”

Toby laughed. I laughed with him.

That encounter was hilarious because I knew exactly what was happening: the woman, who was dragging a heaving motorbike, knew that I wasn’t Vietnamese and she wasn’t exactly sure how to yell “get out of the way” in English. She used her instinct and mimicked a sound that would communicate the same idea (cleverly, albeit ungracefully).

Conversely, I have been subjected to several situations where pointing and nodding are my only means for communication. I even mispronounce my ever-reliable survival phrase “toi khong hieu,” which I’m pretty sure caused me to become the laughing stock of the Vietnamese.

Clearly, hazy communication had me driving down a rough road with a clunky vehicle. Daily interactions and even language classes often ensue hilarity; but in the end, the Vietnamese and I get our ideas across the language barrier.

You are not a living proofreader

Stop making fun of other people’s English. It’s not fun anymore and it doesn’t make you seem intelligent.

There. I said it. This isn’t news, but it’s a good reminder and I’ll tell you why.

I used to be a stuck up bitch about the English language and grammar. Like most of my friends whose line of work was in either media, PR, or marketing, I took pleasure in laughing at someone’s broken English and wrong pronunciations. Like most of my friends who shared my interest, I felt superior over others because I felt that I had above average communication skills.

This doesn’t come to me as a surprise because I spend most of my waking moments in a newsroom where zero tolerance for mistakes is practised. Journalism and print media production requires me to be apt, correct, and nitty-gritty about details.

I was a newspaper proofreader too. I have spent literally hundreds of nights on a desk with a red pen and the AP Stylebook next to me.

“You are in the business of making things perfect!” my editor reminded me.

Any mistake that goes beyond my walls of judgement are bound to be cringed at. Or scratched by red ink.

Fast forward to today: I’m in Vietnam and massacred English sentences are everywhere.

Do I freak out and draw my red pen to wage war against typos and word misuse?

No.

I have grown to become tolerant towards wrong English. But that doesn’t mean that my communication standards have deteriorated in quality. It only means that I am making a bigger room for improvement and learning.

And I think that anyone who thinks that they are educated should do the same.

English language penetration in some cities in the ASEAN region are relatively low. But I don’t think that should hinder anyone from being productive and from expressing themselves.

In 2011, I have been to a media camp in Thailand where I’ve seen my fellows from Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, and Vietnam engage in oral debates, gracefully discussing media, law, lifestyle, and human rights. They didn’t speak fluent American English but they were able to clearly express ideas that none of us would have ever heard of had they not been given opportunities to speak.

Earlier this year, I met a throng of professionals in FK Norway’s prep course (where my journalism exchange is listed as one of the projects in the program). There were nurses, doctors, social workers, human rights advocates, artisans, and agriculture experts; not everyone could speak fluent English. But I didn’t find that bothersome at all.

The truth is that language barriers are not strong enough to prevent anyone from sharing good knowledge.

Today, I now cringe at how some of my friends back in the Philippines make fun of people who don’t have perfect English. They don’t seem smart at all; they appear condescending and devoid of social grace.

Correcting other people’s English isn’t a new idea. Maybe the Vietnamese, who perhaps don’t speak perfect English, have something better to say.

Kids from the unknown

I don’t know how kids think anymore.

That’s because I haven’t actually been talking to any of them in a long time. Until I found myself in Vietnam and in a house with two kiddos.

The way they think is a mystery to me.

Me: I like Selena Gomez. She is Justin Bieber’s girlfriend.
Bin: No. They broke up.

The conversation above showed my attempt to be innocent, while talking to a kid in the most basic of ways. I don’t want to introduce adult concepts of breakups and relationships whatever.

But read again what I got as a response.

Next.

Me: I like Chowder (Cartoon Network).
Bin: I don’t like him because he’s fat and stupid.

Kids today are a mystery. I feel so old saying that.

Language lamentations

Language lessons start on Wednesday and I find this a great chance to actually rant about my plight here in Hanoi—or how much I have overused the sentence “toi khong hieu (I don’t understand).”

My mental notes in bullets:

• I always see days where finding someone who can speak in English a blessing.
• I resuscitate the paralyzed social butterfly in me by speaking to French/American-looking people that I bump into cafes. Yes, I am a freak like that.
• I don’t intend to be offensive when I say this but talking to the Vietnamese in English feels like doing RareJob again—that online English tutoring job that I used to have back in my university days (hey, RareJob could make good business here in Vietnam). Whenever I talk to someone, I have to speak slowly and kill the machine gun-like talking machine embedded in my body. I have to speak simple English sentences and in slow paces. I have to hibernate that crazy part of my self that shoots puns, sarcasm, and green jokes; these could potentially offend anyone who selectively understands every word that I blurt. And unfortunately, there’s no way for me to ask someone to repeat what they say because I don’t know what “mo ichido onegaishimasu” is in Vietnamese.
• Typical conversation: “If I decide to go to the center (of the city), what do I tell the taxi driver?” I asked someone whom I can’t name just yet. “Yes,” she replied.
• Communication has proven itself to be the biggest challenge for me so far. Food comes next (but I’ll talk about that next time).
• I saw this coming the moment I left my comfort bubble: the English-blabbering Filipino was temporarily shut up in Thailand and almost completely in Vietnam. So you can just imagine my desperation when I found the need to rant in rapid English (this is something that I do for catharsis back home). I was walking from my Vietnam newspaper office to home when I saw a bunch of French people eating noodles by the pavement. I barged up to them like the creepy Filipino freak that I am and started ranting.
• “Apparently, if I say a street name with a different tone, I could end up being driven somewhere else entirely. And the unfortunate truth is that I don’t know how to control my tone; worse, I’m not learned enough to distinguish different tones,” I ranted.
• To keep my sanity, I sometimes also call Levi–as I normally would when I was back home. Crazy minute details of daily life are our conversation starters. The sucky part: there is a split second delay of the transmission of our voices; lag on voice calls makes me want to punch the sun.
• I always heave a huge sigh of relief every time someone answers yes to my question “Do you speak English?” I overact sometimes.
• I also wonder what translators think about. I was in a conference last week and I had to wear this headphone thing. I feel so lost.