Vanity, vanity, it’s all vanity...in Vietnamese

Vanity vanity, it’s all vanity ....in Vietnamese.
For my friend Tanya Payette, who gave me her pen 🙂

I got my nails did yesterday by a Vietnamese woman named Lan. She was speaking to another woman in the salon in Vietnamese forever...her friend moved to another nail station like 20 feet away and they continued talking. Well, I thought they were talking to each other anyways because they were both speaking Vietnamese. Every once in awhile one of the Vietnamese guys who worked there would chime in.

As the conversation went on , her back was turned to her friend I thought she was conversing with. But her voice got quieter and quieter , I knew she wasn’t talking to me because I don’t understand a lick of Vietnamese. The other woman kept responding to her...and I’m thinking “how on earth could she possibly hear her?!”

So time goes on and now I’m convinced they all must have mics pinned to their nail tech lab coats and theyre all on the same phone call? there’s clearly some drama going on. So I’m looking hard for a microphone clipped to her shirt to rule out that she’s not nuts and talking to herself , or her friend has supersonic bat ears. I’m looking so hard at her chest for a lapel mic clip, the girl next to me probably thinks I’m an interested lesbian cause I’m really intent on figuring this thing out. No luck. Is she just talking to herself? Is she muttering to herself complaints about me?! I need to learn Vietnamese.

AnywAys, as all this is going on I’m also looking at the color palette and settle on black cherry #42. So when Lan looks up and says to me in English, “43 okay?? “

I said , “no 42”.

“no, no 43 okay?” Lan insisted .

“no 42” I shot back.

Then one of the Vietnamese fellas scrubbing another ladies foot chimed in....”43 okay?”.

I’m thinking what on earth, are they actually saying 42 and 42 just sounds like 43 with a Vietnamese accent? So I say again, “the black cherry color , #42?#

“The price is 43 okay?”

Clarity. I thought she was trying to convince me to get another color , she thought I was haggling to get a dollar off my pedicure. No wonder why she’s talking in Vietnamese to herself about me. We both started laughing when we realized what was happening.

Then she went back to her secret Vietnamese whispering in her undetectable lapel mic. She did convince me to get acrylic nails instead of dip and they’re way longer than I intended. I have so much trouble with the accent I just nod my head and agree with everything she says and you just get what you get. Nails look decent though, Paris nails in norton shores, highly recommended.

Anyone out there that knows Vietnamese want to come with me to my next nail appointment and translate?