It was twenty-five past two. I was sitting in the cafeteria on the ninth floor, just tucking into my Cajun chicken sandwich. 200km out to sea, and 10km down, (ref:European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre) tectonic plates shifted a bit to rustle up a 4.7 magnitude earthquake to lift us out of our pre-Tet torpor.
It was a relatively small earthquake, lasting no more than a minute, and it produced a not unpleasant feeling that the building was swaying gently in the breeze. Two of the younger teachers (who clearly don’t have my vast experience of such things) got quite excited but I remained unfazed and soon turned my attention back to my sandwich.
But it does leave me wondering if maybe I am a factor. When I first arrived students told me that Vietnam doesn’t have earthquakes. Am I some kind of seismological jinx? It occurs to me that I’ve now been in Vietnam about the same length of time I’d been in Japan when the Niigata Earthquake happened in 2004. And I’d been in Italy just a couple of months longer than that before the Abruzzo Earthquake in 2009… Oh yeah. Stick with me, baby. I’ll make the earth move for you…
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I was, as I say, delirious from lack of sleep (always a good starting point for yet another set of peer observers in your class – my beginners are beginning to feel persecuted). And this time I know exactly who to blame for it – my landlady.
Nice woman, very helpful, but a bit of a faffer. And, like most Vietnamese it seems, she’s a ridiculously early riser. So it came as no particular surprise on Monday when she texted me offering to come round at 7.10am the following morning and collect the documents needed to re-register my residency with the local police.
Wonderful. Tuesday’s my day off. I do have to go into school for a workshop but that’s not until three. Do I really have to get up and drag myself downstairs to meet her sooo early? And, for a bonus round, all being well, she’d return at the same time on Wednesday morning to bring the documents back.
Now, there is one teensy-weensy little problem with this master plan. My passport is currently in some undefined location getting my visa renewed. Not sure the police will accept a photocopy. Hmm… oh well, we can try, and here – take my work contract too, legend has it that sometimes they’ll accept that instead.
7.10am ticks round and up she scoots on her scooter. She looks at the photocopy of the passport and frowns, pointing at the expiry date on the visa – 23rd January. ‘It is old’. Yes, I know. I told you. My passport has gone away to have the visa renewed. Did she think when I said photocopy that I’d somehow manage to get one of a new visa I don’t have yet?
Anyway, off she goes to try her luck with what we've got. I hear nothing until I get to school later in the afternoon. Another text. ‘Sorry. The police won't accept photocopy and work contract. Please let me know when you have new visa.’
- So, are you still coming back tomorrow morning?
- No, I will wait and keep things until new visa comes.
- Right. OK. But what if the police come to the flat in the meantime?
The police periodically do sweeps of apartment buildings, checking that all the inhabitants are registered with them. With no passport, no visa, no work permit, no registration book, and now no work contract, I start to have visions of being thrown into some communist jail for the rest of my life, or being deported to die in a British snowdrift like great-great granny Mills…
- Don’t worry. If they come, just call me. I will talk to the police.
Then sometime later another text:
- Maybe I will come 7.10am tomorrow and give back work contract.
‘Maybe’??!! What do you mean, ‘maybe’?!! Do I have to get up at 6.30 again just on the off-chance?!!
Grudgingly, I set the alarm. I sleep badly, tossing and turning with an increasingly sore back. 6.30am the alarm goes off. I crawl out of bed and struggle into some clothes. 6.53am a text:
- Sorry, today I am busy. I will come 7.10am tomorrow.
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