June 16th, 2004 | The lowdown by Mary Ellen Hitt

Those Fake Rolex's Don't "Tell Time", They Just Look Real Nice.

A month ago, two girls teaching English at my university moved in with my host family. I had already suffered one disappointment when their arrival was pushed from January 22nd to February 26th, so I wanted a grand entrance and introduction on the morning of their arrival. I thought of buying a silk negligee to wear while standing at the banister with a martini in my hand, showing a little leg. I pictured them huffing up the stairs, cursing their luggage and then looking up into my face, which, whether they’re too shocked to hear me say it, would declare, “Get loose, pussy cats.”

Wake up, punk, this is Saigon! They were so late I met them downstairs before running off to class – fully clothed and zero-crocked.

In Saigon, people seem to have figured that timeliness is synonymous with stress and urgency, and have bypassed it altogether. Street stalls are centers of socializing as much as they are places of business. The idea that sidewalks are for people to get from Here to There, is absurd. Sidewalks are extensions of storefronts, for siestas, meals and gambling. They are bathrooms and restaurants and wastebaskets. On the bus to school today, the driver pulled over and quickly picked up some breakfast. For a while, I admired how laid-back everything was. Menus said: “OPEN 7AM – LATE”, and with no clock in sight, I believed it. It wasn’t until I depended on people that I began to feel let down instead.

During my first month the days melded together like an agonizing stalemate. I waited for someone from my program to assure me that my classes were being setup, or at least to give me a tour of my new university. Instinctively associating timeliness with logic and responsibility made everyone from my program appear careless.

Calling them careless was laziness on my part. I hadn’t fully-accepted that it was just a different culture. Oh, “It’s just a different culture” - the phrase that covers all manner of awkward situations, strange foods, customs and stares. Adjusting to another culture is no party. The truth is, you have to do as much as possible to preserve your self-confidence here. Otherwise, the things that make Vietnam “just a different culture” will serve to make you an increasingly distant person. You will become ostracized, feel de-valued by the people who are rarely on time to teach you, who call-in hung-over, who don’t say thank you and rarely show their emotions. You will crave anything passionate and “responsible” because you’re still using your values from home – trapping yourself in cultural jetlag.

Everything feels backwards, timeless and disorienting because we’re used to measuring things in order to see them – people, places, quality, quantity. How many stars is that? How long will it take? Let’s leave early to be safe. At home, time gives us a reason to care.

Anyone who’s traveled anywhere at all – from a small town to a city, state-to-state or overseas – knows the feeling of time passing differently in different places. Cities are stressed out, rush-hour hubs where someone always misses the train. In Saigon, it’s not the passing of time that is so different, but the way it goes unnoticed. Most people were not born in the city. People come from the country and seem to bring a timeless mentality with them. Teachers lock their office doors after lunch for a light siesta on a pair of office chairs. When the sun climaxes in Saigon, people eat.

100 days here has loosened my expectations about everything from timeliness to getting what I ordered. The clock in my host family’s kitchen is broken. I’ve stopped wearing my watch, initially to let a mosquito-bite heal, but I haven’t bothered to put it back on. My wrist is fully tan for the first time in years and I’ve come to depend on instinct to get me to class, at least before my professors do.

Travel makes us kids again. We leave home for places that guarantee our amazement and humility – things we’ve lost by creating order and stability. When you get to Saigon, buy one of those gaudy fake Rolex’s as evidence of your style and class, but forget about using it as a timepiece. Like earrings or broaches, watches in Saigon are foremost, pieces of jewelry, not functionality. People don’t wear them to prove their importance, like they’ve got somewhere to be. Besides- if you rely on time so badly, are you really your own master? Hell, wear two.

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Rolex’s, Wenger’s and swanky accoutrements:

Saigon Square – 39 Le Duan St. District 1
Ben Thanh Market – Le Loi Circle, District 1
Street sellers – Pham Ngu Lao area, District 1