Complimentary Comb and Compulsory Toothpick
It is odd what sensory snapshots the brain chooses to reference when recounting an experience of a country. What the congealed grey matter selects, as though from a honk of research papers, to highlight in a lurid pink, green or yellow. Our poetic license tries to hold onto the delights, the scenic spectacles, yet the grey blubber continually dredges up the oddities. Maybe this is why we are so keen to take pictures, to capture a visual souvenir to quell our brains’ quagmire.
The blob plonked under my scalp chose to highlight Combs and Toothpicks from my recent outings in Vietnam. This is by no means a futile attempt to undermine the splendours of this third world country, just annoyingly what my foolish matter held onto.
The complimentary comb was the first oddity singed to my database and this was perhaps more of a comment on my own ignorance then an observation of Vietnam. I was aware of complimentary slippers, gels and toothbrushes, but my matter had failed to ever before notice the complimentary comb. Yet with every hotel I frequented in Vietnam, the complimentary comb persistently lay alongside the other bathroom delights.
More concerned with getting the air conditioner onto full cooling, I ever increasingly grew frustrated with this homage to the comb. The very idea of dragging a comb through my sweaty locks, when struggling to suppress a forty five degree wall of heat, was ludicrous. I could only imagine that the comb was sacred in Vietnam and that the prospect of leaving home without having groomed one’s head was a sin.
On countless occasions, once moderate body temperature was resumed, teeth cleaned, shower cap laughed at and complimentary comb left very much undisturbed, my imaginings of a groom crazed nation were quashed. My visions of impeccably combed partings and immaculately furrowed Fonze-like quiffs, populating the streets of Hanoi were shattered. I was disappointed, the hair on view was very much everyday and although I am sure groomed, not notably. The Comb therefore, despite my grey matter’s mongering, was and is indeed just a part of ‘The Complimentary Bathroom Set’ and not as fantasised a Vietnamese fetish.
The country’s fetish without a doubt is growth, not grooming, and seemingly growth as a nation, not just as a strong hold of pilfering entrepreneurs. The looking glass of a taxi window is not the greatest vantage to form an opinion on a country, nor is a sightseeing Junk boat, but it is a pleasure to edge your way through a country and see so much productivity. I cannot comment on the void between a farmer and a tycoon, but the very fact rice fields carpet the landscape to the foot of each village, town and city speaks volumes.
Vietnam is interested in feeding itself and when increasingly other countries look to gamble and import their food, as though stocks and shares, this surely puts them in a good position to slowly climb the world league table. After all, with a full belly the Vietnamese can take their time, pick any remnants from their teeth and merrily look to serve the drones of tourists baying at the gates.
So pick their teeth they do, endorsed by the militantly sat receptacle of toothpicks accompanying every dining table. These seemingly compulsory toothpicks served as the final fruit that planted itself in my quagmire. Considerably more celebrated then the mere acknowledgement of the complimentary comb, the toothpick for me was representative, not just an encouraged and enjoyable pastime whilst awaiting a bill; it encapsulated Vietnamese hospitality. The presence of toothpicks on any table top shows
a willingness to go that extra mile.
It might be slightly regrettable if one dislodges a filling or witnesses another’s findings, but as a dispensable table top accompaniment, its presence is ingratiating. The toothpick illustrates the Vietnamese appetite to please, flatter and welcome. Understanding tourism as a valuable commodity the Vietnamese are clearly making hospitality one of their specialities.
Four Complimentary Combs and a Compulsory Toothpick or two later Vietnam sits proudly as a great country, at least from under an air conditioner in a tourist’s bubble.
