Beer with Strangers

She waved me down with a small crab in her hand. I thought she was trying to sell me something so I smiled and waved know. She waved harder, insistent, this time she offered beer. I smiled and shook my head again. Finally she reached fort the watermelon sitting in over-sized pieces on a plate.

The watermelon I took, the sweetness bursting in my mouth.

The only photo I got (after I left)

She smiled and handed me the crab – the size of the palm of my hand, pink shell and white underbelly. I stared at it, unsure of what she expected me to do. She pantomimed cracking it in half. A little flustered, my phone in one hand and a small crab in the other, I looked around the table. There were six people assembled around the table with another two women sitting on separate seats but clearly a part of the group.

Everyone smiled as the crab woman gestured to her seat and then scooted over to make room for me.

I sat. my phone and backpack settled in my lap. And then I cracked the crab in two.

I looked for the meat, dug my fingers into crannies and pulled out bits of soft white flesh. She handed me a small bowl with a chili sauce and I dipped what meat I could find into the bowl.

Then came the beer.

Drunk people cannot be reasoned with, no matter the country- no matter their beverage of choice.

I watched her pour a beer from a bottle in to an ice-filled mug. She thrust it cheerfully in my hands and gestured for me to drink.

I demurred, as much as one can demure when I don’t speak Vietnamese and the group assembled doesn’t speak English.

Desperation to avoid drinking the beer encouraged me to use Google Translate- to no avail. Whatever I said was met with raucous laughter and inspired a side conversation in the group that I had now way to participate in.

so there was beer.

I drank a little and tried to put the mug down. She insisted I drink some more. I tried again. More drinking. The mug finally drained she smiled and gestured for another round...just for me.

The enthusiastic peer pressure reminded me of marula beer season in my village in South Africa. A small green fruit that ferments and notoriously gets elephants drunk, is also fermented on purpose in rural areas. The go-gos (grandmothers) would sit outside next to a frothy bucket of marula beer and insist I have some. “O nwa, Lerato, O nwa!”( Drink Lerato, Drink). Rather than face the wrath of a village go-go, I'd drink up and exaggerate how good it was.

Outside on the sidewalk next to the ocean in Vietnam, I reenacted my South Africa days.

As we continued to battle over the beer she began to hand me other things on the table. Squid (overcooked but still squid so I happily ate it). Everyone seemed surprised that I ate and presumably liked it. Next was a mystery...something pickled maybe. It tasted a little like cabbage but much thicker. Then more watermelon.

By now she was insistent that I have more beer and I was insistent that I not. The older woman sitting on my right, on a small stool next to me gestured for me to go. She pointed at the woman while she was supervising the beer and shook her head in the universal language of “my friend is drunk”, so I took her advice and departed.