A Taste of the Dark Side

About 7:58 this morning, I awoke to someone yelling and banging on the door. I took about two minutes to get up and dressed while whoever it was continued to yell and bang on the door. Finally, I opened the door to some guy yelling in Vietnamese and pointing at the power box. Luckily one of our English speaking neighbors walked by to interpret.

The translation of all the yelling was that I needed to pay our power bill right then or he would cut our power. I was confused since we had already paid for December in early January and the next bill usually doesn't come out until the beginning of the following month. So I explained that we had already paid for December and asked if this was for January or "one month" - thinking maybe they collected early before Tet.

Our neighbor translated what I'd said (or so I assumed) and then turned to me and repeated the first message, "You have to pay now down at the post office or he will cut your power."

I got a little defensive then asking why it was such a problem when we paid our bill every month and he said again, "You have to go down to the post office to pay your bill or he will cut your power."

So I said, "Does he have a bill that I can see? How can I pay a bill, when I don't have a bill?" So he said something to the guy that was yelling and he handed me a bill for 400.000 (or about $23) which I thought was somewhat reasonable. I thanked our neighbor and stood in the door way studying the bill while he walked away.

As I was looking at the bill the new electric guy started peering around me into the apartment, so I moved my body to block his view. Then he did it again, so I said, in English, "I'd rather you not do that" and I closed the door so that I was blocking the small space and he couldn't see past me. Then I held up one finger and backed into our apartment closing the door behind me.

When I checked the bill against the other bills, I saw that it wasn't the same company and it wasn't even for our address. So I called Mr. Viet, our landlord, and opened the door and handed the phone to the electric guy still standing outside the door. He yelled a bit and passed the phone back. I tried to explain that it was not our bill, but Mr. Viet just repeated what the guy said to him, "You owe 600,000 for power for two months and you need to go pay now." I tried to explain, in broken English, that the bill was only for 400,000 and we had paid our bills and it wasn't even for our address but nothing was getting across, so I thanked him and hung up. Just then our regular bill guy walked up, said something to the other guy, took one look at my relieved expression and waved me away, shutting our gate protectively (or so I felt). I smiled and thanked him and shut the door.

After putting away the paid bills I had retried from their file, I went to the computer to email Steven all about the would-be-shyster faux bill collector and noticed that the internet wasn't working. I looked down and the lights on the surge protector were off. I tried the light switch and sure enough the guy had cut the lights.

I gathered together all of our bills, my Vietnamese language dictionary and my ATM card and went downstairs. On my way I thought to call Phuong, the woman who had helped us find our apartment, so I called her, explained everything and asked her to call Mr. Viet. While I was explaining the situation to her, some of our neighbors walked by - a couple and a new tenant - and when they walked outside I saw them talking to the gum lady and pointing at me as I talked on the phone in the stairwell. When I hung up the phone, I went outside and saw that our regular bill guy had joined them, so I went over to them and asked them what the problem was. They said that there was no problem. I explained that I had paid all of our bills and they translated to our bill guy and he shook his head yes. Then I explained that our power had been cut. When they translated, the bill guy looked shocked, shook his head and headed back into the apartment.

I followed him up the stairs and opened the door, demonstrating that the lights didn't work. While he worked, I stood in the doorway, comfortable in my faith that he wasn't casing our apartment for a future heist, thinking how lucky I was to have developed a trusting relationship with our bill collector, without having ever had a verbal conversation. He flipped a switched and the lights came back on. Just as I turned to thank him, they went out again. He frowned and did something else and they came back on. He held up one finger and went back down the stairs.

I went back inside and started an email to Steven and there was another knock on the door just as the phone began to ring. I picked up the phone and it was Phuong saying that Mr. Viet had said that the guy said we owed for December, that they had come and we hadn't paid. I explained to her that we had, and our regular guy was right there (fixing the light - that had been tampered with? - with a screwdriver). So I handed him the phone and he talked to Phoung for a minute and handed the phone back. She said that he said that you have paid all of your bills. I thanked her and hung up; thanked the bill guy and shut the door.

The whole ordeal only took about 45 minutes to sort out, but it made me realize how lucky we've been not to have run ins like that before over other things. It is good that we have built some trusting relationships here, for people to help us out when something like that happens. I thought about what it would be like if I were some poor Vietnamese woman, really behind on my bills, and that jerk came and was yelling at me to pay money I didn't have and threatening to do something worse than cut off my power. It made me realize, in a little bit more real way, how life might be scary for the Vietnamese.