Not Speaking: Learning Silence in Vietnam

When I first learned of their existence, they didn't know a word of English.

I mean, they knew a few words: "OK," "yes," "no," "hello," "how are you," and probably a whole lot more than I'm giving them credit for. It's impossible not to know some English today. That would almost be like living in Alliance-controlled territory and not knowing at least a few Chinese curse words.(Sorry. I've been lacking on geeky references lately and desperately wanted to fit one in).

The point is - these half-cousins of mine couldn't really carry a conversation with me in English.
And, though I might be able to name very specific kinds of food (like pho and fish sauce), I certainly didn't know any Vietnamese.

They showed me around the city of my mother's birth by tugging on my arm whenever it was safe to cross the street (I'm still convinced it never was). They gave me a face mask when I reached for a helmet, in preparation for a ride across town on a motorbike. Somehow (and I can't remember how), they communicated to me that face masks were a necessity on these bikes, but helmets were only for people who were legally adults. I was old enough to wear a helmet anyway, and though I was confused, it wasn't up to me to question their logic and demand that a much younger cousin wear one too.

I remember struggling to peel the shell off some local shellfish, only to have a cousin reach across, grab it from me, and strip off its exoskeleton in one smooth motion. She handed it back to me and, though embarrassed, I thanked her. Afterwards, I was careful to keep my food just out of her reach. Peeling the rest myself was a matter of pride.

Though I was older than my cousins, my unfamiliarity with the streets, the language, and even the foods infantilized me in a certain way while simultaneously reminding me of my privilege as an American citizen abroad. I recognize what international students deal with in the US, and I'm pretty sure that most don't get the kind of welcome that I was getting back then on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

The only time that we could actually speak with one another was through connections of theirs who knew Cantonese. Or through my mother, whose Vietnamese was about as good (or just a little bit better) than her English.

When we met again last night, after what's been about a ten year gap, language was no longer an issue. These half-cousins of mine speak English as well as anyone else who lives and works in the US. I was excited to see what they were like, to interact with personalities that we often assume only comes through in language.

And then... well. I don't know what exactly I was expecting before we met up, but I found out that they are pretty much the same people and personalities that I encountered so many years ago. They wanted to see some magic. They still wanted to feed me (they have been in Boston for years now, and I just moved here, so once again, I took up the part of the newcomer to a new city - a role that's comforting in its familiarity but exhausting, at times, in its frequency).

I learned that, before, though we might not have been able to speak with one another, we certainly could communicate. Communication is not and has never really been about language. All I have to do is think about all those awkward moments when what I meant was the complete opposite of what I spoke.

I started this post intending to write about how magic is a bridge across all countries, cultures, and languages - that, with magic, performers can still communicate astonishment, surprise, and happiness. And here I am, ending with a different conclusion: magic can certainly do all that. But magic and performing magic - a crutch often used in place of other more common kinds of social interaction, I think, for me as it was for many other beginning magicians in our formative teenage years - only manages to bridge these cultural gaps because of something even more basic than that.

Magic, as a universalish language, only makes sense because of people's capability for empathy. It's something that I think Teller, of Penn and Teller fame, understands every time he dons the role of the silent magician. As he notes in a rare moment of speech, "Not speaking is just about the most intimate thing you can do." (Thank you to fellow magicians for the article).

There's something there that aids in communication, even when words are taken out of the picture. Though I'm a little ashamed to put forth such an universalizing yet vague idea, I still put it forth because, though my cousins and I weren't really able to directly speak with one another until we met again last night in the US, we were definitely continuing a long-standing relationship - one that started with nothing more than hand motions, shrugs, and smiles.

We were speaking with each other for the first time, but we were only continuing a conversation that we had started ten years ago. Maybe that's all magic really is: communication, of a specific sort.