Everything in Vietnam is stamped in red, an endless conveyor built of bureaucracy bathed in blood. The blood of the red stamp. Paperwork, handwritten ledgers, massive books holding the information of all the citizenry in which it upholds. A red stamp on a grocery receipt that denotes it’s been paid. The red stamp on my Visa, the red Stamp on our marriage certificate. There are entire businesses that specialize in manufacturing personalized red stamps. It’s a land that reminds me of America in the 80’s. That land were everyone wields a stamper, partially wired for electronic commerce, mostly not. A land where plastic has begun its march to dominance, but only in the upper casts and only in the major cities. Visa is still a term only understood as travel documentation and the concept of debt is vastly misunderstood. The idea of acquiring an item and not paying for it in full is something not yet accepted here. Maybe it’s best that it never is. It’s strange to see the food business here from a western perspective. Street food is incredibly cheap and amazingly healthy. Western style eateries including KFC and McDonald’s are very pricey and filled with upper class families trying to show their western prowess. With no welfare programs or government funded cell phones, it’s the wealthy who become obese here and not the middle and lower classes. In fact a chunky individual is seen as privileged much like they once were in renaissance Europe.
Back to the bureaucratic stamp, oh the stamp. On our second day of marriage we had to go to the local government office to pick up our marriage certificate. This is where things began to derail. The local government had our paperwork for weeks, but oh how the wheels of the communist cog turn ever so slowly. The pictures I had taken at Walgreens, even though to international travel standards, were no good here so we had to rush off and have a local guy nearby take new ones. $$$. After our return with the new photos the committee informed us that they did not accept my general practitioners health screening and I would have to seek a new one from a local doctor. I can only assume the local doctor was a relative to the man processing our documents, the wheels needed grease and I had the lubricant and it was clear they intended to humble this assumed arrogant westerner as much as they could.
Off we went to a local hospital and yes, it was exactly what your thinking. Classic South East Asian, right out of a tsunami disaster movie. Wide open, concrete and tile, fans mounted to the walls, intensely hot. We waited for quite some time, were ushered from this waiting area to that, when finally I was taken into a small doctors office with another gentleman who was Chinese, grew up in Japan and had been living in Hanoi for ten years and was also getting married. He was bogged down in the same quagmire I was and he had been living with his wife for 5 years had a small child and one on the way. His advice to me was simple, let them do what they feel they must and smile. Eventually it will conclude. The doctor spoke very good English and he interviewed both of us together. It literally took 5 minutes and we were done.
Most offices of any kind are old school here and close from 11:30 to 1:30 every day and as it was around 11:00 when I retrieved the doctors health release we would need to get lunch and hang tight for a few hours. This is where things became both human and humbling. The way taxis work here is if you get one in the morning and have a lot to do you keep him for the day, if you like him that is. Our driver traveled two hours one way every day to get to Da Nang and make money for his family in the countryside. After the medical papers were retrieved he stopped off at a street vendor and Diễm procured food for more than herself and I and what happened next was an absolute expression of community and something you would not see any longer in America. We drove to a street between the hospital and the government complex and as we drove down the rustic lane A woman and two children stood in the doorway of their humble and a bit primitive dwelling. Diễm said a few words to the driver and we pulled over in front of the home. A few words were exchanged and we were invited in to use the home to eat lunch and freshen up.
At this point I assumed the driver or Diễm knew the family, but as our conversation continued over lunch it was made clear that no one knew each other in this exchange. We brought food and offered lunch and in exchange the lady of the house offered us her home to eat in while we waited for the office to reopen. It was such a beautiful moment, a reminder that community is still something practiced heavily here in Vietnam. I’ve said it before, I have never felt more safe and secure than walking the streets of Da Nang even at the late hours of the night. After lunch the oldest son of the house prepared a pallet of blankets and pillows for me to lay on in the heat of the tropical sun. It took little time before my full belly, the indochina heat, the fan blowing on my face and Diễm’s ever protective presence next to me lulled me into a deep, hazy jungle nap.
I awoke some time later to Diễm’s gentle touch telling me it was time to go. The driver was sitting in his car under the shade across the street, legs dangling out the window also enjoying an afternoon nap. He cranked the car and started the a/c as we climbed in and off we went back to the government building. What transpired after this was much discussion, checking of Visas, passports, documentation a total of 4 hours of in the end nothing. The people’s committee knew my flight was to leave on Sunday, but they insisted they would not issue our marriage certificate until the 10th some 3 days after I was due home. What was I to do? If I left as scheduled then our marriage would not happen. All of the effort, time, money, sacrifice that was made by Diễm and I would be for nothing. If I stayed it would cost a price beyond simply money. Missing work, Children, commitments back home including Church and community, the transfer cost of an International flight. It was clear in my mind however, that there was no choice to be made here. I would stay, I would stay as long as needed or as long as I could to resolve our situation and preserve our marriage. A very good friend of mine once told me, and I paraphrase here, life will be rocky and full of storms including marriage, but for it to survive it better be mostly calm seas. I have never in my life set sail in such a beautifully calm sea. I will do what I must and whatever it takes to secure my marriage with Diễm. What she is and what she means to me I will not degrade by trying to put it into words for others. I love you Diễm and I will always champion for you, for us.
