Turning Back, Looking Forward

The Indomitable Spirit of Vietnam

I was winding through sloping, snaking mountain roads when I suddenly stopped and turned around.

It was day three of my trip through the Hà Giang loop, a staggering, other-worldly stretch of road through the highlands of northern Vietnam. I was joyfully whirring and clanking my way through this undulating landscape on my trusty 125cc Honda Future.

Instead of descending from these dramatic peaks, officially marking the start of my return journey, I pulled over the scooter to a grassy patch of roadside. I consulted the loosely constructed schedule in my head. What’s one more day?

The best plans are easily unmade.

When I arrived at my newly-booked homestay in the heat of early afternoon, I was greeted by a charismatic figure.

“My name is Cane, like Sugar Cane!”

It’s really Kahnh, he explains later, but he likes to make it easier for foreigners.

He was short, lean and strong, with a close buzz cut that accentuated his perfectly spherical head. He welcomed me with wide, theatrical gestures and a ready smile.

He led me out to a tiled balcony overlooking the breathtaking expanse of Ma Pi Leng Pass. In the hazy afternoon light, distant, pillowy peaks piled across the horizon.

Kahnh’s son, named Kahnh Dat, watched on curiously. About thirteen, the boy shared the closely-shaved head of his father, but with softer, gentler features. He possessed the observant awkwardness of adolescence, existing in the endearing space between childhood naïveté and adult assertiveness.

The father and son had come for an extended visit to this picturesque homestay, owned by a family friend, while the boy was on school holidays. Here, they could spend time together among the mountains and the younger Kahnh would assist with odd jobs and practise his English with foreigners.

Although the elder Kahnh was an expressive and confident English speaker, it was not always so. He grew up on Catba Island in a family that could not afford to send him to school. He worked his way onto boats full of tourists, who were visiting the lush beauty of his home and neighbouring Ha Long Bay. He gradually picked up some English on these meandering, sometimes boozy boat trips. At the age of twenty-three, Kahnh had saved enough to fund three months of formal English classes in Ho Chi Minh to consolidate his knowledge. But he learned more back on the boats, he said, slinking below deck each night to scribble down any new phrases he had learned.

“The best classroom is DOING!” he exclaimed with a broad wave of his hands and a booming laugh.

His approach to language learning reflected his eagerness to try anything and everything. This attitude made him a likeable tour guide but also led to some diversions. He described a long and exotic list of drugs with which he had experimented. He had given all that up now, along with drinking and smoking, in favour of a vegetarian diet and hours-long meditation sessions each morning. I sipped my Saigon Lager guiltily.

Then, unprompted, Khanh leapt up and flung his arms open into a Christ-like posture. He closed his eyes and took a deep inhale through his nostrils.

“The mountains! You can feel the ENERGY!”

This guy was high on life.

After years of enthusiastically guiding and then managing boat tours, Kahnh saved a deposit for a hefty mortgage and opened his own hotel-cum-homestay in the mountains. Yet, when the pandemic struck, stopping travellers in their tracks, his burgeoning enterprise floundered.

“I could not pay back the bank”. He shrugged.

He cut off my sympathetic glance with a genuine, eye-crinkling smile.

“No worries! I will get it back again soon. I know it.”

And I believed him.

Kahnh epitomises the industrious spirit of a generation of Vietnamese people. He would have been a toddler when, in 1986, the Vietnamese government implemented economic reforms known as Đổi Mới, shifting the country from a rigidly planned economy to more open markets. Less burdened by the central control of the Communist party, businesses blossomed and investment flowed, making Vietnam one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia. History still weighs heavily on this nation but Khanh’s generation is more inclined to look forward.

After dauntlessly describing the foreclosure of his business, Kahnh gestured towards his son.

“My job as a man is to show him we will keep going”.

He nodded a few times to himself before another unexpected burst of enthusiasm.

“KEEP GOING!” He boomed in inflected English. He echoed this in Vietnamese, I assume, and the boy smiled.

Leaning in, Khanh added a thoughtful addendum.

“Children are like a mirror. Always looking back. Making you want to be better.”

Young Kahnh Dat had inherited something of his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, having started an online store to sell the bitter, fortifying green tea growing in these mountains to buyers all over Vietnam. Kahnh glowed with fatherly pride as he retold his son’s exploits but he also had some reservations.

“I encourage him but sometimes it’s too much. Always on the phone. Too much time. Life is short. We need to enjoy.”

A few hours later, what seemed like dozens of bowls were laid in the centre of the dining table for our enjoyment. There were only six of us in the otherwise empty, vast, wood-panelled dining hall. The two Kahnhs sat next to each other, while the young female hostel manager smiled amicably as she deftly plucked unidentifiable vegetables with chopsticks. The young, sharp-jawed chef chuckled as he refilled my shot glass with local corn liquor he suspiciously translated as “Happy Water”.

With most of the conversation in Vietnamese, I could only observe, feeling like an awkward teenager myself. But I enjoyed silently watching Kahnh’s animated storytelling. I found myself instinctively smiling and laughing along. I had no idea what was being said.

With the table cleared and melodramatic Vietnamese jazz swooning from speakers, only Kahnh and I remained. He stretched his arms out in a satisfied, pensive posture. Steam rose from the porcelain cups containing a rather strong variety of local tea.

As can sometimes happen after a good meal with good company, the conversation turned philosophical.

Along with around 15 million other Vietnamese people, Khanh practised Buddhism. It’s hard to imagine this excitable man being completely still during morning meditation, but he wore his compassion openly.

“If you want a good life, make other people’s life good. If you want to be happy, give happiness.”

The truest things are sometimes simple.

Birdsong could be heard in the deep green darkness beyond the pining jazz.
“I have nothing to give you,” he said with a cheeky grin, “Just smiling and conversation.”

He thudded his hand on the table, punctuating his statement like a lawyer making a closing argument.

“It’s very good price - FREE!”

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