2012 Vietnam - Hoi An Tailors

Yesterday was a stressful day at the tailor shop. We got there about 2pm, after a long mid-morning nap. I must have been tired after the flight. It was a bit hot and they didn;t have the materials I wanted and kept saying they don't exist even in the other shops. I was expecting them to take me to a warehouse.

Then I got hungry and we went to the riverside cafe, Friendshio Cafe or Huu Nghi. We had the local speciality, cao lao noodls, and grilled banana leaf parcel of pork with aromatic herbs. This was such a good choice that we returned today for dinner. Right now Jay is watching football over my shoulder while I watch a group of Vietnamese men singing vietnamese music under colourful silk lanterns behind the yellow chrisanthemums of the restaurant. One of them has a guitar and another some sort of small guitar like an ukulele. It's mellow, their song, the song of a warm mellow night. I tune out the motorbikes that pass us by. A girl is getting off a motorbike and is changing intoo high heels, helmet still on.

So yesterday after lunch, as Jay had another well-deserved beer, I went for a stroll on the river-front. I walked into a tailor shop and asked about a suit of pink wool. They had no pink wool there, but the woman called up another few women, and one of them took me to the cloth market. Very close, she said. So we walked, past souvenir sellers, laquer sellers, T-shirts with brand logos, fruit sellers, noodle sellers, fresh curled up noodles in various sizes and colours, pungent fish, fresh aromatic herbs, mint, basil, lemongrass, chives. We finally turned two more alleys, increasingly narrow, and I was starting to worry about Jay waiting for me while I get kidnapped by an old Vietnamese woman with a har that isn't even conical. So we got to the cloth market. A cackle of women gathered around talking Vietnamese. It felt very strange. At last one emerged that could speak English, and she produced a couple of materials I was happy with.

Later we went back to the tailor shop, and the owner, a lady around 40-50, was there. Things got easier as she was more helpful and probably more persuasive. I ordered a few things and chose some materials. Then she sent me with another shop-girl in a taxi to cloth-shops, and we saw about six, cris-crossing a busy street with noisy motorbikes. We did eventually find one good colour.

Airplane to Hanoi, day 11.
Finally leaving Hoi An, after a couple of very tough days. I thought making clothes was fun, but man, my back is killing me after two days of standing up trying on clothes and debating over wrinklles and stitches. I hope I have made the right choice of colours, cloths and styles. Too late to change anything now anyway.

She had four tailors working on my clothes. A man making the trousers. An older woman with a group of young girls or women, shall we say. This one kept getting a bit irritated every time I pointed to the wrinkles, bumps and imperfections. But she was the one who seemed to know the solution to all the hard wrinkles that the others were debating for 10-15 min per wrinkle while I was standing up modelling. Then there was the big house with a large flat-screen TV in the living room where four tailor women were working on the porch. We wento this one on the motorbike.

I feel sorry I didn't visit the historic merchants house in Hoi An, but I got the experience of riding the motorbike behind the very diligent shop girl who took me to the tailors. Her body was so slim and minute it felt like holding on to a bamboo reed.

She did irritate me. She kept saying every time how perfect the clothes were, and how they were going to be smoothed out by ironing. "Jus iron!" I did manage to keep calm and speak slowly all the time, and after insisting a few times she would explain my complaint to the tailors, who never argued. They knew my complaints had a basis every time, and corrected it. Of course, it took a long time.

Yesterday night we left the tailor shop at 11, their whole house dark and asleep, and this morning we had more fittings from 8.30 until 11.30 when we got the taxi to the airport. I had hoped to get at least one hours' break to visit Hoi An in day-time, but what with all the adjustments, it was just not possible.

I have to say I do like the new clothes, they fit really well in all the places where shop-bought clothes don't.