Vietnamese police are widely regarded by foreigners living
in Vietnam as a source of annoyance and there's no doubt some of them like to
make special trouble for expats, though that of course doesn't stop them being
good blokes once they've hung up their jungle green uniforms and brushed off
their red epaulettes.
If you stay for a while in Vietnam, the two classic
situations you will find yourself getting into with Vietnamese police are as
follows:
Situation (a) A Vietnamese traffic cop pulls you over for a
minor traffic violation - possibly one which all the Vietnamese driving down
the same street are also flagrantly committing. The cop then rubs his thumb
against his index and middle fingers or says the word "money"
straight up. When you ask him how much he wants, he names a sum that in Western terms is
a trifle, but in Vietnamese terms is excessive. The cash you hand
over disappears straight into his shirt pocket, after which he waves you
on in a testy manner.
(b) Knowing that foreigners in Vietnam are supposed to stay in places that have an official permit, you go down to the local police station with a
Vietnamese friend to get yourself put on the local register of foreigners
resident in Vietnam. Your friend explains the situation to the local police
chief, exuding a sort of matey integrity as he does so. The local police chief
looks you and your friend up and down in a very testy manner, hints that
something irregular is afoot and in general sounds as if he's ready to have you
driven to the Cambodian border and thrown out the back of the vehicle. (In the meantime, you stare at the red
communistic banners on the walls, trying to ignore the greasies you're being
given by the plainclothes officers sitting around, mainly without clothes,
watching tv.) Your friend continues to exude matey integrity. Gradually the
tone of the conversation between your friend and the local police chief softens.
Forms get handed over and filled out. And an envelope containing an agreed-upon
sum passes from your friend into the possession of the local police chief.
Everyone pats each other on the back and - off you go.
Obviously we are talking about low-level graft here -
something that in Vietnam is, if not rampant, then at least widespread.
Today's entry will give you some basic strategies for dealing
with low-level graft in Vietnam.
But, before that, there's the question - why does low-level
graft exist in the first place? Foreigners who come from places where
governments have taken the issue of graft firmly in hand over the past 20 - 30
years tend to be horrified when they encounter situations like (a) and (b) in Vietnam and
some of them jump to the conclusion that graft and the various behaviours
associated with it exist because it is somehow ingrained in the Vietnamese (or
some sort of general "Asian") psyche. Others will tell you with
admirable self-assurance that it has its roots in Vietnam's political system.
In this writer's view, both explanations are wide of the
mark. There is no such thing as "the" Asian psyche. And though the
Vietnamese political system plays a part in facilitating graft, it is not
the main reason graft exists in the first place.
The most tangible reason graft is a problem in Vietnam (and
in plenty of countries with more liberal political systems too) is that Vietnam
is still a relatively poor country and because police and state officials are
paid a pittance. A simple example: the salary of a low- to mid-ranking member
of the police is approximately one third of what is needed to live a modest life in a Vietnamese city. The remaining two-thirds comes from various irregular sources.
Graft is expected and, in a lot of cases, quite necessary for survival.
A job in the Vietnamese police is what is technically known
as a sinecure. It is not something Vietnamese folk do for the regular wage, but
for the unofficial licence it gives them to make money from kickbacks, special
fees and paid-for favours. Like most sinecures in other parts of the world, a
police sinecure in Vietnam has to be paid for too; it is part of a wider system
of sinecures. Thus, to land a moderately lucrative job in the police, prospective
recruits have to pay a plum sum amounting to several years' wages to a police
official higher up the chain of command. Inevitably, a lot of a junior
officer's "extra earnings" over the first few years of service
involve recouping the fee he paid for the job in the first place.
What is sad and annoying for all involved is that a similar system
of sinecure-mongering operates within most parts of the Vietnamese government,
not just within the police. Throughout Vietnamese society, low salaries call
forth a need for extra earnings and a need for extra earnings leads to the
extraction of special fees for various para-legal and extra-legal favours.
No doubt everyone involved in the arrangement feels like a
victim being sorely pressed by economic necessity.
And no doubt the traffic cops and petty government officials
who cause foreigners a hard time are small cogs in the overall machine.
So, as irritated as you might be when 500,000 đồng ($25) of
your money disappears into the pockets of the Vietnamese traffic cops of this
world, try at least to be angry in a sociologically informed way.
Recall for one that things are much, much better than they
were in the quite recent past. 15 years ago there were many parts of Vietnam where
Westerners couldn't travel outside of big cities without having their papers
checked and their wallets emptied every 10km by local border guards. Nowadays,
by contrast, foreigners can go a-lurking pretty much anywhere they want (except
in the vicinity of Vietnamese military bases). And they tend to do this rather liberally.
Recall also that ordinary Vietnamese have it much worse than
you. Yes, you have to pay steeper "traffic fines" than the locals.
And, yes, there are residency permits and visa checks which give a range of
officials plenty of scope to extract special fees. On the other hand, you don't
have to live your whole life in the grip
of the system, like normal Vietnamese people. Before you get hot under the
collar about graft in Vietnam, recall what living within the system means for
normal Vietnamese. At the most basic level, it means possibly not having access
to the law unless you can give Vietnamese police an inducement to investigate a
crime that has been committed against you.
But I said at the start of this series that I wasn't going to
say anything that might endanger my Vietnamese visa, so maybe let's move on. .
.
*
As a Westerner in Vietnam, how to deal with Vietnamese
police and Vietnamese bureaucrats, if they demand a kickback? Or just if they
are being rude and unhelpful, as some of them are in their own special
Vietnamese way.
It is always an option to refuse to pay all kickbacks and I am guessing that some of you will be tempted to stand on principle in this way. This is a course of action I would sternly recommend against for
two reasons: firstly, because the man (it's almost invariably a man) demanding
the kickback probably has ways of causing you bureaucratic pain which you haven't even thought of; secondly,
because corrupt cops and officials in Vietnam almost never act completely outside the scope of the law. What they do instead is this. They present you
with the fact that you have broken some bylaw (driving your bike in the car
lane, residing at your friend's place even though he doesn't have a special
permit, etc), then they offer to fix the situation - for a certain consideration.
The idea of refusing to pay kickbacks is fine in theory, and
you definitely shouldn't rush to pay them if you're being asked for a sum in the millions. But recall two things.
The first is that you don't know Vietnamese law back the front. (If you want to
know more, this piece is a good place to start.) The second is
that the man in the green safari suit probably has the law at least half on his
side . . .
A much more realistic option when confronted with a
situation requiring payment of a kickback is to accept the necessity of
kickbacks and work out ways of paying them quickly and effectively.
The key to this strategy is to gather the right people
around you; it is Vietnamese friends who will need to instruct you on the
essentials - how to pay the kickback, who you need to pay it to, how much is an
appropriate sum. The main thing to note here is that there are culturally
appropriate and culturally inappropriate ways of paying the kickback. Whether
or not you offer to buy the local police chief coffee using the right pronoun,
or bring some flowers into the office for his wife - with a little red envelope
containing cash fitted into the back of the bouquet - could make or break the
deal. The secret is to make the kickback look like a gift you're giving in
return for his help and generosity. (And that, in 53% of the guy's mind, is
truly what the kickback is.)
In dealing day to day with Vietnamese officials, whose
repetitive, low-paid jobs often turn them into fantastically crabbed creatures,
your general principle should be to cop the sourness sweet. Raising your voice
in English or invoking the high-minded ways of Ho Chi Minh (often inscribed in
huge letters on the wall behind the official's desk) will get you exactly nowhere.
Play by the rules of higher Vietnamese authority when dealing with the rude or
self-important use of petty Vietnamese authority: act as if nothing is
happening. In simpler terms, if you're going anywhere near the waiting room of
official power in Vietnam, try to avoid looking
impatient and frustrated. Bring your MP3 or a book to read.
But above all, before you go anywhere near the waiting room
of official power, get organized. Knowing that some Vietnamese authorities will
apply the letter of the law so they can squeeze an extra quid out of you, give
them as few opportunities as possible to do so by having your papers in order
when you arrive. If you want to work in Vietnam, make sure you bring all your
paperwork with you from home: copies of your qualifications certified by the
institution that issued them, a police check, plus all the details of the
places you've lived and worked in the past. Have the same first name, middle
name and surname on all those docs, or else the extra-testy guy from the
Ministry of Labour will make you go and get a sworn affadavit at the consulate
of your home country.
If you want to drive a motorbike in Vietnam, then get an
international drivers licence and don't go for a whizz in the car lane just
because various Vietnamese revheads are doing it. If you're still worried
about being booked by Vietnamese traffic cops, then remember the following:
(a) Don't carry too much cash on you. Vietnamese traffic
cops have a habit of demanding all the money they can see you have in your
possession.
(b) Pretend you don't understand what they're saying,
whatever language they start speaking to you in. If it's Vietnamese, then I'm guessing
you won't need to do much pretending. If it's English. . . well, though Vietnamese
cops know the word "money", let's just say the expression "There
is a fictive problem with your indicator. If you pay me 1 million đồng I will
choose not to impound your bike for 10 days" is several grammatical
bridges too far for most of them. If you're feeling game, try out a bit of your
high school French. That'll make them want to get you off their hands in no
time.
(c) Negotiate the fine. Unless you are standing in the road
with a big wad of cash in your hand, bargaining a traffic cop down to a
"fair" amount ought to be possible. The standard sum they are willing
to let normal Vietnamese go for (depending on how flashy their bikes are) is
150,000 đồng ($8). For foreigners - it's at least double. If the sum they demand is
in the millions, they obviously take you for a noob. Which is insulting. Fight
for your right to bribe them reasonably!
(d) Don't be scared, start crying or threaten to call the
consulate. Unless you've done something really stupid or dangerous - and it'd be a
serious challenge to do stuff that is more stupid and dangerous than
what some Vietnamese boys do on the roads - the man in the bone uniform is not going
to impound your bike. His aim, in this situation, is actually quite similar to
yours: to get away as quickly as possible - with as much of your money as
possible. Just like you, he's not going to want to waste his time writing an official report, transporting your bike to the station, etc.
(e) Don't ask for the ticket. Once the kickback has been
paid, consider the whole episode closed. And lastly,
(f) Boys, if a traffic cop tries to hit on your Vietnamese
girlfriend, then - put up with it. Vietnamese traffic cops are notorious for
using their powers to obtain the phone numbers of pretty girls and some pretty
girls are known to give in to their demands. Put it this way, if your girl
genuinely likes you, she won't respond to the attentions of a goatish looking
individual in a bone-coloured uniform wearing an egg-shaped helmet.
*
In case I'm making it sound as if Vietnamese officialdom is
peopled solely by rude, hopelessly embittered individuals working at or beyond
the margins of the law, let me add that in my dealings with officialdom over
the years, I've come across many, many Vietnamese people who are friendly and
consummately polite.
For every Vietnamese official who just grunts when you ask
"How many weeks till I can come and collect the paperwork?", there
will be several who'll tell you regretfully that the process takes three weeks
and then ask what country you're from with unfeigned curiosity.
For every minor functionary who won't grant your simple
request on the grounds that he "has to act exactly in accordance with the
guidelines" (làm đúng theo quy định), there will be several willing to
find another guideline that fits your case or point you towards a loophole in
the guidelines.
For every Dickens character who orders you around in a
bilious tone, there will be a few - in my case they're always middle aged women
or gay men - who smile shyly or start batting their eyelids at you.
For every starched apparatchik whose aim is to turn
your life into a nightmare worthy of Kafka, there will be several who know how
to open out a distance between impersonal laws and spontaneous human
relationships and fill the gap with a melancholy cheerfulness that is
distinctively Vietnamese - and distinctively their own.
Once you've experienced all the ups and downs of this treatment
for a couple of months - which, by the way, is how long it normally takes to organize
a proper Vietnamese work permit - try paying a visit to the consulate of your
home country and make a quick comparison between the attitude to customer
service within Western and Vietnamese bureaucracies.
If my experiences in the American, British and Australian
consulates here are anything to go on, what you'll find is that everything is
subtly the same, yet entirely different.
Western bureaucrats have less ways of rhetorically beating
round the bush than Vietnamese bureaucrats.
In Western bureaucracy, there are certainly fewer shades of
human sadness in play.
No doubt, Western bureaucrats are more consistent, more
organized and more predictable in their dealings with the public than their
underpaid Vietnamese colleagues.
And the point on which they're most predictable of all is in demanding large sums of money from you straight up.
The stamp of approval you need to get out of the Vietnamese
Department of Foreign Affairs might take two weeks and a fair bit of running
round. The sum you'll end up forking out will be $10, $20 if there's a kickback
involved.
The stamp you need from the British embassy will take you
three-quarters of an hour, but it'll cost you $150, payable by credit card only.
Faced with a choice between Vietnamese graft and Western scams,
the former beats the latter hands down in a certain sense . . .
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