It takes a few days to adjust to Vietnam for the first time visitor. Initially, the virgin tourist may be inclined to say “No, Thank you.” when people offer services such as transportation and conical hats on the street. Once the would-be vendor hears this level of politeness, they have assessed your freshness and can then repeatedly ask you to purchase their service, for a small amount of money, extracting either a barage of “No, Thank you.”, or some foreigners’ dong (Vietnamese currency, ma)

Over time the visitor can tune out the pleas for money, either responding with a swift shake of the head, completely ignoring the plea, or simply not hearing it (enlightened state focussing on listening but not hearing). At first, I found it harder to ignore the pleas originating from young children, women, and old hags. Old hags being bent double, with heavy burdens attached at either end of long poles slung over a shoulder.

I’m not particularly interested in a debate about foreign money, poverty and begging, but I do have an idea for them.

The scam is based on the following observations:

• It’s harder for people to ignore pleas from women and children
• Men scammers want a piece of the pie
• watching innocent people get beaten is quite unpleasant for most people
• there are only a few ATMs in each city where foreigners can extract healthy dong and dollars
• Authorities turn a blind eye to begging / scamming

Picture the scene as family exits bank laden with fresh currency. They see, or look without seeing, hags and children begging, and walk past. But what’s this? An alarm clock goes off, and then a man suddenly starts beating what must surely be his wife and children with a rubber hose pipe. Thwack, thwack, wail. The beaten are huddled by a sign and the alarm clock. The sign is essentially a rate card. Father goes up to the man to petition him to stop the pounding, which he does for a moment, before returning gleefully to punishing the family. Thwack, lash, squeal. Maybe the mans breath, should little Zak get close enough to smell it, would be perfumed with a cheaper version of the whiskey stench, just like Daddy’s breath when he comes back from The Club in a taxi.

Mother reads the sign and nudges father, “Honey, I think he wants money.”

Thwack, thud, shreeik.

“Wha..?”

“It says on the sign that you can sponsor his family for a few hours to remain unbruised. Look, a dollar an hour. And then he sets the alarm clock.”

Thwack, blat, scream.

Father petitions the man once more, who this time ignores him. The beaten child, bruised face gushing blood from a split lip, points to the sign, plucking at the wallet strings of the potential tourist saviour. “Pleeeese,” he gasps, his cry showing missing front teeth uncharactistic on a child of this age.

Thwack, thump, groan.

Father reaches into his pocket, hands over enough dong to ease his conscience, and get his family out of the scene. The punisher accepts the money, and stoops to pick up the alarm clock. Maybe father kicks the bending man, prompting a nearby bent copper to come over for a slice of the action, maybe he just walks on. Either way, the scam family get a few bucks. Perhaps some of the scammers don’t even use rubber hosepipes. Perhaps some use other people’s families to spare their own. Details, details.