My mom’s more easy listening than rock-n-roll, so after the first sleepless night we move away from the city center. Each time we hop into a cyclo, we negotiate the price first. We’ve learned there are local prices, foreigner prices, and viet-kieu prices. When I’m charged the viet-kieu price I say, “How do you know I’m not local? I was born here.” I watch a triad of girls linked by the arms walking toward us. They are dressed as I am, in low rider jeans, a tight t-shirt, and platforms.

The cyclo driver follows my gaze and then looks over my outfit. He says, “It’s not what you wear. It’s how you wear it.” I had imagined my return as a homecoming. Instead it’s as if he works for Vogue and has called out my counterfeit purse and faux labels. I fold my arms and lean back into the seat. The hinges squeak. To rub it in he says, “I can tell by the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you chew your gum in the crowd.”

We leave behind the crowds, the McDonalds, the Japanese electronic stores, the shiny facades of Clinton’s doi moi. My size-zero fashionista cyclo driver peddles us and our luggage through the skeleton of the city. The busy downtown area is lined with outdoor bars and cafés. It reminds me of Paris. Little round white plastic tables and striped umbrellas are pushed together so that people can enjoy each other’s company beneath the sun. On a closer look, I see that the seats are filled solely by male patrons. I think maybe we’re in the gay district. But as he peddles us from district to district, all the cafes appear the same. Rarely if ever is there a woman in sight amongst these clusters of body heat and watery beer.

I ask my mom, “Where are all the women? How come there are only men at the bars?”

She says, “In Vietnam, only prostitutes drink beer.”

“That’s ridiculous mother. I drink beer and I’m not a prostitute.”

“Elle, you shouldn’t drink. It looks cheap, it means you’re available.”

We check out hotel after hotel, room after available room. Each time, my mom enters, closes the curtains, shuts her eyes, and shakes her head in disapproval when yet another honk seeps its way through the cracks. Our cyclo driver peddles us deeper and deeper into a maze of alleyways. Laundry lines overhead, noodle stands on the curb, the roads so narrow cars don’t fit, and suddenly, a blanket of silence.