The Obligatory Noodles and Police Story

Sometimes I just sit and stare. Stare and reminisce. Reminisce about those first few weeks, when you dive into a new country head first and bask in the glory of culture shock. How it sounded to hear a new language spoken, how it smelled to pass a food stall on the street, how it looked to see people wearing different clothes. Every experience feeds the traveler's addiction - to see something new or to feel something fresh - and you grasp frantically at anything that will keep that feeling alive. But as you paddle furiously upstream, you know what's waiting for you downstream. Comfort and rest. Adventure gives way to routine and you find comfort in the things you know - your favorite TV show from back home, a bar that reminds you of your old hangout. Slowly, the feelings of culture shock - once so visceral and green - become stories. Did you ever really feel that way or are is it just a story you make up as you sit and stare? Stare and reminisce?

And then, boom, something happens and you realize that as much as you might slip into routine, this will never be the life that you knew. It starts with something simple. I'm sitting at a street-side noodle shop. No, not shop. Kiosk? Cart. A noodle cart. On the sidewalk. With a few small tables and baby chairs spread around. These noodle carts are Vietnam's kitchen. Dotting the city like a bad acne breakout, they feed half the population of Saigon for dinner. The noodle cart is not something you contemplate, it's just a part of the landscape. If you trip and fall, chances are you land in a noodle cart and order a bowl of noodles for dinner or lunch.

And so I find myself, rubbing my knee from a bad fall, ordering a bowl of noodles. Thinking of work I need to do. Thinking of how long it's been since the last blog post. Thinking of pretty much anything but the nature of the noodle cart. Expecting to hear someone shout "check please" or "another bowl of noodles and meatballs". Expecting to hear anything but "POLICE, POLICE!"

I swing my head around to see where the action's at. Is someone getting arrested? What foul crime is being perpetrated? And so you must forgive me when I realized that I was the criminal, and froze up. Paralyzed not with fear, but with utter confusion at the noodle girl telling me to pick up my bowl of noodles, then deftly sweeping the table out from under me. All around me, people are hustling. Tables are swept away out of sight and customers scramble. The noodle cart disappears under a tarp. And me, looking stupid in the middle of the sidewalk, holding a bowl of hot noodles.

"Look casual!" says the noodle girl. Ok, probably not. She probably didn't say that. But she did blurt out something unintelligible, and given the tone of her voice and the situation, I consider it a pretty fair translation. How to look casual standing in the middle of the street with a bowl of noodles? I lean against a tree and strike my best contrapposto.

And then they pass, in slow motion. An army green truck, or maybe not a real truck at all. Maybe a movie prop, from some World War II movie with the seats in the back and the canvas cover on top and soldiers in the back. And as the back of the truck passes, furtive eyes scan the sidewalk. It's ok, you're just a guy with some noodles. It was hot in the house, you took a walk to cool off the noodles. Look casual.

The whole incident is over before I know it and by the time I peel my eyes off the departing truck of police, the tables and cart are already back. What was I thinking about before? Who knows, but I know what I'm thinking of now - the nature of noodle carts and how something so ubiquitous could possibly be illegal. One thing is for sure. That culture shock was no memory, no made up story of my imagination. And this is definitely not the US of A.