In Singapore, there is a drinking town in Newton Street, a small area less than 1,000 meters square, with hundreds of chairs and tables. You can order beer and snacks from any of the diners in the area. Every time I get a chance to go to Singapore, I often visit the place for a drink.
Surprisingly, or may be not surprisingly at all, once they know that I am Vietnamese, the waitresses often bring me a whole case of beer — on the assumption that this can help save them the trouble of having to return with more beer later. This is because many Vietnamese, who are either businessmen on a trip or overseas students (who love beer more than study), often drink a lot here. The locals and foreign tourists, in contradistinction, only drink two or three bottles before heading home.
Why do Vietnamese drink so much? I have asked many elderly both in the north and south of Vietnam about this. And I was told that in the old days, before Vietnam was reunified in 1975, drinking beer was not popular in the north. At the end of a hot day, people would line up, buy one or two jugs of draft beer to quench their thirst and then go home. In the south, people often rewarded themselves with a 750 milliliter bottle of Bière Larue after a long day of hard work.
I have met many Vietnamese who drank beer like it was water in Vietnam, but after their immigration to the U.S. in the 1990s, they would no longer want to hear any suggestion about “nhau” (drinking). In the U.S., this has been pointed out to me, there are many reasons for alcoholics to quit drinking.
First, people in America only drink with family and close friends, who they only meet every two or three months. Every time they get together, they only drink two or three bottles to oil the social wheels and facilitate the conversation.
Second, they dare not drink themselves to oblivion like in Vietnam, for fear that they cannot drive home. If they are caught driving while under the influence of alcohol, they have to pay a heavy fine-- not like in Vietnam, where however drunk you get, you can drive home and, if caught by the police, paying the fine is not such a big deal.
The first reason gets more of my attention: people only drink with family and close friends. I wonder if drinking has become rampant in Vietnam because it is closely linked to the common practices of favoritism and patronage. When transparency is poor in Vietnam, if you want to get something, you have to “ask” for it nicely, you have to curry favor with those who have the power to grant it to you. And nowhere is a better place to ask than at the drinking table. The more beer is drunk, the more easily you can “ask” for it, and the better the chances your request will be granted.
Obviously, Vietnamese are different from the rest of the world – we may not like each other at all but we still sit and drink together.
The ability to drink is now becoming an indispensable skill to many professionals in Vietnam. A sales representative said that drinking is the final test he has to pass before being offered the job. A businessman revealed that he loses many good contracts because he cannot drink. To return drinking to its proper place in our culture is definitely not easy.
HUY TUONG
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