Back in Hoi An, I stopped in one of the many shops to try on a dress I’d spotted in the window. As I struggled out my sweaty clothes and into the dress, I was acutely aware of the other presence with me behind the curtain. In Vietnam, there’s no such thing as privacy between women. They have no compunction about dropping trou and peeing in front of you, and so think their assistance and expert opinion in a dressing room is both necessary and appreciated.
Anyway, we had ourselves a little convo. It went something like this:
“Oooooh! Ver cue. Ver cue. So dorble. Ver cue.” (Translation: Very cute. So adorable.)
I twirled this way and that and thought, “Yeah, this is pretty cue.”
And the sales lady confirmed it, “You buy. Ver cue. So dorble. You buy.”
Ok. Sure. I buy.
Cut to a couple of days later as I’m sporting my ver cue, so dorble new dress. I happened to catch my reflection in a window, and in that one brief moment, I saw almost as much of myself as the doctor and nurses saw bringing me into this world. In fact, other than my electric blue undergarments (that were crawling, I might add), I was virtually naked.
How mortifying. Of course, I quickly reviewed the many places I’d been since donning the dress. They included:
• A French bakery
• A functioning pagoda full of monks
• Some ancient tombs
• A Buddhist temple
• The entire city of Hue
Why, oh why, am I such a dumbass? And why didn’t the sales lady tell me the dress was see-through basically everywhere other than in dimly lit corners of clothing shops?
Ver cue, so dorable my ass. And not literally, of course, because I've seen my ass and it's anything but.
a picture...?
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