American Errorists

On Wednesday I had lunch with people I don't normally hang around with.  Three are coworkers and two aren't.  Of the two that aren't I'd met one of them before.  A middle aged American guy who is an agent for some company I'm not familiar with.  We were eating lunch at The Sanctuary north of Vung Tau.  It's a pretty nice place, but the food isn't that great considering the price.  It's unfortunate because the restaurant is the only one which offers Western food in the area. 

As we sat and ate we made small talk about the area.  One of the guys at the table recently moved from Saigon to Vung Tau in order to be closer to work.  The whole group besides me spends most of their week nights in Vung Tau, only spending a few days a week in HCM.  The conversation mostly revolved around the best bars to visit in the evenings.  The American I didn't know turned to us and said, "Those places are pretty great, but have you ever been to Tiger Massage?*"

"Nope" replied one of my coworkers.
"You should check it out!  The first time I came to Vung Tau I was only supposed to stay for one night, but I ended up staying five.  That place is great!"
"Happy Endings?"
"Twice.... and not just with the hand either."
Everyone around the table laughed. "I guess I know where we're going tonight!" announced Coworker #2 as I fought to keep from regurgitating my pizza.

 *That is not the actual name he used. I honestly can't remember the real name.

Allow me to take a moment to describe the people involved in this conversation:

Speaker #1: Try to picture in your mind the most out of shape man you know that hasn't been on a reality televisions show about fat people.  He's probably in his mid-fifties.  HIs stomach is so big a grown man could comfortably curl up inside it.  He's the kind of guy that gets out of breath eating a sandwich.  Couple that with the average temperature/humidity hovering around 95F/95% every day, and you get the idea.

Coworker #1:  Also fat and in his late fifties.  He is red-faced with spider webs of burst capillaries from drinking*.  Captain Red-Face is my coworker, so I can also tell you he's married with two grown kids.  His wife lives in Middle America, and as far as I know is not aware of his evenings out in Vietnam.  The richest detail of all is he's a dedicated follower of, you guessed it, Rush Limbaugh.  He refers to Rush as "real news," and if he's in the office alone (or thinks he's alone) will blast it from his computer speakers.  At that same lunch he went on to tell us that he believes his recently missing phone was stolen by a prostitute outside a bar while he was drunk.  The night before our lunch he'd been "woozily" (his word not mine) walking home from the bar when he was accosted by a prostitute who grabbed his crotch and called him by name.  He couldn't remember ever meeting her, but also realized that two nights thense he'd blacked out and couldn't remember how he found his way back to his apartment.  He deduced that the hooker had stolen his phone during the blackout period.  Needless to say, this variation on the story had not been reported to the office adminstration.

*On my birthday last summer Reyna threw me a little surprise party at Bernie's, one of our favorite bars. There were about a dozen people, only three of which drank beer that night. Two were a couple who had about 4 beers between them. This particular coworker had the rest. When the bill came, we had been charged for 33 beers. I'll leave the math to you, but know that we were at the bar less than five hours.

Coworker #2: is in his late forties, is married and has two young kids.  He has a family photo on his desk.  He also has at least one girlfriend under 20**.  I know this because in the few times I've had to stay in Vung Tao overnight, a girl is waiting for him outside our hotel.  I've also ridden in the company car with them to our out of town project.  He has the company driver take her to the beach while he attends his meetings.  He is in the process of getting divorced from his wife who moved with the kids from LV to Shanghai when she found out about his hobbies.  She was originally hired by our company to join him in Vietnam.  Clearly that didn't work out.  Just to clarify the extent of his obsession with girls, we discussed watching the Rugby World Cup semi-finals together because he was supporting France and I was supporting Wales.  When I told him I'd be watching at Bernie's (a normal bar with normal servers), he was no longer interested in watching with me.  If there wouldn't be girls, he wouldn't go.  We were going to watch Rugby, not pick up ladies; or at least that was my plan.

**It's possible that she's had a birthday since I saw her last, so she may not be a teen any longer.

Since we moved, this has been one of the biggest problems I have with the expat community.  I've sat down a dozen times to write about it, but I never feel like it comes out correctly.  I find the sense of entitlement of male expats regarding Vietnamese women sickening.  I ask myself, how do you go from being repulsed by prostitution in the US, to happily paying to be jerked off in a massage parlour by a stranger who doesn't speak English?  These guys wouldn't be caught dead trolling for hookers in downtown Las Vegas or hitting the Bunny Ranch in Pahrump.  That's gross.  But a small town in Vietnam?  No problem!  This is to say nothing of the sanctity of marriage I hear Republicans drone on and on and on* about.  I guess they plan to claim the "different area codes" exemption when it comes to having sex with girls who are the same age as their kids.  My current theory is the costs associated with American hookers are a massive deterrent.  I'm pretty sure no one takes the bait when LV strippers whisper that they'll join you in your hotel room for $1500, do they?  The same treatment for a $40 bottle of tequila tends to illicit a different response.

*and on.  Marriage is between one man and one woman.  Or between one man, one woman and the one man's 12 girlfriends in SE Asia.  Has Mitt Romney said that on the campaign trail?  I admit I haven't been following that closely.

You hear stories in America about guys going to SE Asia to do horrible things to underage kids.  There are a whole series of highly offensive child prostitute jokes I heard from various roadies back in the day.  But to live with it and see it regularly is tough.  Watching a 50+ year old fat white guy walk down the street holding hands with a pretty, but bored-looking girl that is young enough to be his grand-daughter is something I can't get used to.  When Reyna and I see it, we turn to each other and say "They're in love. You don't know what they have!"  What do a 57 year old expat and a 20 year old Vietnamese girl have to talk about?  The answer is nothing, which is why you always see a digital toy being toted around by the girl* (smartphone, iPad, Galaxy Tablet). 

*I have a friend who is working on a project with me is in his late 50s.  He owns his own company in Macau and opened in office in Vietnam.  We meet about once a month, when he comes to Vietnam from Macau to to discuss our common project and see his lady-friend. Usually we arrange to meet at the bar after work or at the very end of the day for meetings.  That way we can watch sport and have a beer while we discuss work and I can unchain my desk padlock a little early.  He generally brings his early 20-something girlfriend to these meetings, because they go to dinner after we chat.  She sits and listlessly tends her Farmville farm on a Samsung tablet while we discuss work.  In the 10 or so times I've been around her I've only heard her speak twice.  One time we met at Bernie's and the owner pulled me aside while I was walking back from the bathroom.  "I don't like your friend.  I see her in here with many men" she hissed.  How's that for putting a guy in an awkward position?  We don't go to Bernie's anymore.

My working theory is that the "sexpats," as they're known locally, become that way because they aren't getting laid in the homeland.  They're fat, they've got bad teeth, they have a drinking problem, people tend to find them generally irritating or strange at home, they've been married for their entire adult lives and wifey doesnt' really "do it" for them anymore.  Essentially the teen hypothetical, "if you could do such and such and no one would ever find out, would you?"  The answer apparently is always YES when it comes to men and secret, no-strings-attached sex.  And not just yes, but yes with relish and very little thought or reflection.  I then ask myself how they sleep at night.  How can Coworker #2 stand to talk to his kids on the phone -he had to do it in the office because of the time difference before they moved- knowing there's a girl, who under normal circumstances would be attending the same school as his kids, sleeping off a hangover in his apartment?

I ask myself regularly if I had moved here alone would I behave differently?  Living in Vietnam alone would be tough.  I came with my best friend and it was still incredibly hard.  Finding a Vietnamese "girlfriend" comes with the added benefit of having someone around who speaks Vietnamese in addition to sporting a willingness* to roll in the hay with a guy who hasn't seen his genitals in 20 years. 

For a man it's a win-win situation.  But I don't ever like the feeling that people are merely tolerating my presence.  This is why I'm not a fan of strip clubs.  No matter how nice a stripper is to you inside a strip club, it's all an act to get your money.  I spent two years taking photos for a lingerie company owned and operated by strippers**.  I know this to be true.  Getting to know a few strippers ruined strip clubs for me for life.  I suppose it's not a bad thing since strip clubs are nothing more than a money toilet.  At least slot machines occasionally give money back to you.  Granted all the strippers I knew drove better cars and lived in fancier neighborhoods than me.  But the American stripper operates in a relatively secure environment.  There are big dudes wandering around strip clubs whose only job is to kick the asses of people who get out of line around naked ladies.  If you've read this blog before, you already know that security guards only exist in Vietnam as window dressing. 

*Not a desire.  There's a big difference.

**This might sound like the greatest job ever.  It's not.  It was miserable work.  The money was great -I was the only person I knew who had strippers paying him- but I earned every damn penny.

Can you really blame a woman who makes $75 a month for exploiting that male weakness? Not really. The fact that men are willing to overlook this obvious reality is what I find most surprising. What this boils down to is the boner.  I never realized how powerless it makes many men.  I don't claim to be immune to the power, but it doesn't control me.  It doesn't matter how beautiful you are, if I don't like spending time with you; or if I'm not sure you like spending time with me, then I'm sure as hell not paying you to hang out with me.  Why would I pay someone to sit around and look bored next to me while I'm out having drinks with my other expat friends?