""Khom Fai Vietnaammmm!!"" a Hanoi Travel Page by mizzzthanggg

I went to Vietnam a lot in 2002 when I was a lawyer because we were working on some project negotiations. Let me just say that those guys were TOUGH negotiators... yes indeedy! The lead counsel for the Vietnamese state-owned enterprise was an Oxford-trained legal eagle and he gave us so much hell when we tried to change so much as a couple of words in one of the contract clauses.. yet we were greatly encouraged to accept when they wanted to take out full sentences!!! Oohhh...

They also work extremely hard, are very persistent and determined, and they had the advantage of being on home turf. We were placed in meeting rooms with hard wooden chairs and given really bitter Vietnamese cha (took some getting used to, but I liked it!)... meetings were from 8.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. with few breaks but 2-hour lunches 'cos the Vietnamese like to have a siesta after their midday meal. What was most disconcerting to me was that at the end of the meeting rooms there was a 2-way mirror!! So there was another room behind it where god-knows-who could have been observing us in there! Brrr... that was great training for a young junior lawyer like me alright... for the first time in my life, during that project, I had hypertension headaches and was on medication for 2 weeks after!!

Strangely, everywhere I went in Vietnam the locals spoke to me in Vietnamese and thought I was Vietnamese (apparently I could have been from the south or even from the hill tribes, hahah!).

Which was great for 2 reasons: I could walk around the markets relatively unharrassed and not asked to "buy buy buy" so much... and I got Vietnamese prices for goods (some 30% of foreigner prices!).. that is, until I opened my mouth lah.

Therefore, the first phrase my dear friend Mai Thanh taught me was "Khom fai vietnaammmm!!" (sp?) which translates as "I am not from Vietnam" or "I do not speak Vietnamese!"