My cousin and I recently went out for a drink near her house in Saigon. We met up with a large group of friends who were well into an evening of beer and banter.
After a couple Heinekens and 333 Bias, some longon fruit and good laughs, my cousin and her two girl friends pulled me away from the table to go to the ladies room.
What followed was a very. strange. experience.
Now, going to the ladies room in groups is nothing new to me. This is common practice all over the world. A party in the powder room (the “toilet” if you’re in Australia, the “WC” if you’re in Asia, the “loo” if you’re in the UK) consists of many things. It may be to gossip, re-apply lipstick, feel someone’s new boob job, spritz perfume, yay it up. Sometimes it does actually involve going tinkle to relieve the body of too many cocktails (yes I said tinkle, get over it).
This night in Saigon is special. We four girls cram into a single unisex bathroom complete with a toilet, a urinal, a sink and a bucket of water. Kind of your run-of-the-mill Asian bathroom. Being the last one in, I shut the door and lock it.
I turn around to find that no one is using the perfectly good toilet in the room.
Instead, I find three ladies in a semi-circle, lifting up their skirts, posing in the perfect Asian squat…and tinkling on the floor!
My eyes bulge out of their sockets and I immediately blurt out, “Oh my gawd!” and take a step back. They start laughing and, in Vietnamese, insist that I join them.
“Vui lắm!” It’s fun, they tell me.
“Uhh, no, I…I’m good, thanks.”
In my discomfort, I continue to smile & giggle. I shuffle my feet to avoid the yellow streams of this pee party. But careful enough not to splash (I know, ewww!). And the scarf around my neck I’m now holding loosely in front of my nose. Not because it smells though. It’s just an instinctive defensive stance against an awkward situation.
I’m not grossed out or anything. This traveler has seen a lot of weird shit and is usually the first to jump in when a new & strange opportunity presents itself. In this case, my thirst for “new & strange” is satisfied as a mere spectator.
The girls finish off with a shake-shake-shake (no toilet paper) and pour water out of the bucket to rinse all evidence of the pee party down a drain.
All the girls are giggling now as we head back to the table. They’re as amused by my reaction as I am shocked by what I’ve just seen.
Surely this is the first of many Tinklegates to come, and who knows…maybe I’ll join in the fun someday. Ain’t that a pretty picture.