As a matter of fact the police in Vietnam seem to rarely intervene directly in anything as far as I've seen but instead serve as a general threat to certain types of behavior with the matter often settled by direct cash payments. Initially to a Westerner this may seem outrageous and simply a Mafia-like form of extortion, and in some cases it definitely is, but there's more to it than that. It's accepted that that's just the way it works here. The police don't get paid very much in the form of salary, but instead work on "commission" to put it diplomatically. Like any commission-based job, some individuals prosper more than others and there are police officers in Vietnam who live in very nice houses and drive very nice cars when off-duty.
The owners of any business with a street front in Vietnam get regular visits from members of the local police and pay their "taxes" directly to them in cash. It's the way it is here and for better or worse seems to work fairly well, but it would be better to ask a business owner how he feels about it.
Conflict resolution is also handled much differently here than in the West, usually involving only the parties directly affected and usually settled on the spot with a cash payment or a fight or argument that no one else wants anything to do with. In the case of vehicle accidents rarely do the police appear unless there was serious property or bodily damage. But they don't show up in Los Angeles and most other US cities either. There does exist liability insurance in Vietnam and all drivers are legally required to carry it but it seems to be only sporadically enforced. Currently it's very cheap, about $4US/ year, and carries low liability limits on the order of $500. I would be really interested in knowing if anyone has ever successfully filed a claim and collected any money by using it. But again, contrast that with the West where insurance is mandatory and strongly enforced and people, especially attorneys, certainly do collect money from the system but there is still enough left over from premiums paid in to support large highly profitable corporations. The insurance industry transforms the conflict from a street dispute to one involving highly (over?) paid professionals to sort out our problems for us at whatever enforced price they dictate. Which system is better? More efficient? To me the insurance industry is just one example in which the free and open Western system is completely socialist and authoritarian in nature meaning that there is often mandatory participation with legal and cost penalties for those who choose not to participate. Many people don't see it that way because the industry is private and for-profit.
I was relaxing in the park beside the Reunification Palace in Saigon 2 days ago after receiving my 3rd and final hepatitis B vaccination at the Columbia Asia medical office when I witnessed the Vietnamese conflict resoluton system in action. As an aside, I highly recommend Columbia Asia for Westerners and others in Saigon for medical services as they have a mix of competent foreign and Vietnamese staff in a clean relaxed environment and very reasonable prices. I believe they even operate a hospital in Saigon. Anyway I heard a man shouting and turned around to see, about 25 meters away, a Vietnamese man picking up his motorbike from in front of a nice new black Audi that had stopped at an intersection. It was apparent the car had hit the bike thereby violating the one cardinal rule of driving in Vietnam and the car driver was therefore completely at fault.
The bike driver was clearly angry as he picked up the items off the street that he had been carrying before being knocked over but there was apparently no serious property or bodily damage to anyone. The car driver, a man most certainly also Vietnamese, just calmly gestured but made no attempt to move or get out of his car. The bike driver was clearly expecting something (money?) from the car driver and finally marched over to the driver's door and simply opened it. The car driver hadn't even locked his doors. He then delivered 2 or 3 punches towards the car driver's head before shutting the door and jumping on his bike and driving angrily away.
The truly incredible aspect of this incident was the car driver's behavior. The punches must have been misaimed or feeble as the driver didn't really react other than to reflexively throw his hands up to shield himself. After the bike left, the car driver calmly turned on his left turn signal and proceeded to finish the turn he had started before stopping again at the right-hand curb about 5 meters away and picking up a female passenger who had been waiting for him outside Columbia Asia and who no doubt witnessed the incident. She got in and he drove away as if nothing at all had transpired!
It seemed that the car driver knew and accepted that the accident was his fault and made the conscious decision to allow himself to be subjected to the punches instead of reaching into his wallet to fork over 1 or 2 hundred thousand Vietnam dong in restitution to the bike driver. The fact that he didn't lock his car doors or make any attempt to leave the scene was remarkable.
On the one hand, Vietnamese rarely apologise for anything, but on the other they do seem willing to accept blame for incidents when they are clearly at fault.
On another topic I attended a Vietnamese engagement party yesterday with 2 friends who knew the families involved. It was a full-on Vietnamese event at a house down a narrow alley somewhere on the edges of district 7 that I would never be able to find again and I was the only foreigner there. There were only 2 or 3 people there whom I could speak any English with. The party took place from about 11 AM to 2 PM on a Tuesday and most of the attendants had taken the day off and there were about 25-30 people there.
It all started as a civil enough affair with polite talk and tea drinking followed by the serving of a very nicely prepared and tasty lunch of hot pot, boiled chicken, and noodles. But then during the lunch I saw it, the thing I was fearing, the case of Heineken beer being brought out and glasses with ice being placed in front of all the adult male guests.
I've made reference in previous posts about drinking with Vietnamese and how much I dislike it. It's certainly not that I don't like drinking, as anyone who knows me can attest, but I don't like doing it the way the Vietnamese do it at social events and I especially don't like it if I know that I'll become a target because I'm a foreigner in their midst. The events over the next hour or so were tediously predictable.
I participated in all the toasts and glass clinking (một hai ba yo!!) and judiciously took moderate swallows of my beer after each even though there was no shortage of encouragement for me to bottoms up my glass after each. This is the part I dislike, the idea that you're supposed to pound down the beer whether or not that's what you want to do and that fact that you're watched and admonished if you don't. I also usually refrain from drinking while the sun's up as I just don't like it.
At another table next to mine I noticed the volume of chatter had ratcheted up noticeably and then saw they were knocking back not beer but some sort of wine or whiskey from a bottle. It was less than 5 minutes later that I felt the hand on my shoulder and looked up to see a grinning Vietnamese man whom I didn't know and who had said not a word to me prior holding 2 cups in his hand and offering one of them to me while I became the focus of attention. So I had no choice but to throw down a small cup of this banana-based wine which actually wasn't bad tasting. I had to empty 2 or 3 more with another man before it finally stopped. Turns out it was the 2 fathers of the engaged couple who had wanted to do wine shots with me so I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand I was being treated in a special way but on the other I was just an object to them. A special object, like it or not, take it or leave it.
Later, one of the 2 fathers, clearly inebriated at that point, wanted to know how much money I make in a month and other details of my financial picture. This is also common in Vietnam. I simply declined to answer but have decided the next time it happens to first turn it around and ask how much my questioner makes and see how that goes. If he or she is fine with telling me then maybe I'll also be forthcoming. If not, then I'll respond with some English phrases that I know no one there will understand. BTW everyone all over the world knows Coca Cola, the $100 US bill, and the 'F' word so don't ever use it thinking they won't.
I managed to make it home only slightly buzzed but highly annoyed and vowing not to put myself in that position again. But of course I will because it's just part of life here. Maybe I should stick to only nighttime events and bring my own wine.
The engagement party at the initial pleasant stage of chit chat and tea drinking.
Tao Dan (Tao Đàn) Park on the border of districts 1 and 3 is always a pleasant place to escape from the bustle of Saigon. It's over a kilometer from the backpacker area so the usual tourist parasites are not found there.
