“Người nhà quê” and Humor in Nghệ An

Figure 0: Chilling out in Nghệ An. (Taken by author, 2020).

There is a reason why Derrida’s post-structuralism theory could not have been named “anti-structuralism.” As human beings, we conceptualize the world in terms of binary oppositions, which is why structures of meaning within a culture can be uncovered by mapping out binary oppositions (Lévi-Strauss 1963). Dualistic thought easily morphs into interrelational antagonisms subsumable to the commonly seen, casually invoked term “us versus them.” While the three-word shorthand merely alludes to a distinction among people, the thinking behind it entails a hierarchy in favor of “us.” The “us versus them” mindset not only differentiates, but privileges the former over the latter. 

“Người nhà quê”

An example of this latent hierarchization is the (re)production of the Vietnamese term “người nhà quê” (country bumpkin) in opposition to “người thành phố” (city slicker). In my experience, “người nhà quê” refers to a group rather than any specific individual. I remember being told that “người nhà quê,” accustomed to riding in the middle of empty countryside roads, are likely to get into traffic accidents if they replicate this behavior while navigating the crowded city. Nguyễn Ngọc Tư, a Vietnamese author famous for her poignant writings on life in the southern countryside, reflects on the popular imagination of this group:

Who are they? They are the people who use the toilet without flushing it, who step onto a glossy floor without taking their shoes off. Because they are unaware of traffic rules, they cross the road right in front of our vehicles (as soon as we decide to stop and wait for them to cross, they furtively retreat and refuse to move forward). They are stingy and prefer cheap, unhygienic street food. Their faces are always begrimed, their teeth covered with plaque. They dress monotonously and sloppily, and look crude and rustic even if they dress up, from wearing brightly yellow earrings to having frizzy haircuts. Their handwriting is extremely ugly (because sometimes they love talking about politics and literature despite only finishing third-grade education), and they credulously believe in stories of divinities, in amusing unfounded rumors…. (Nguyễn 2009, translated by author)

The “us versus them” mentality is visible from the omnipresence of the word “they” juxtaposed with the word “we.” In this case, the term “người nhà quê” indexes a category of personhood (Hacking 2007) typified by certain characteristics and behavior, which, based on Nguyễn’s vivid portrayal, include ignorance, lowbrow tastes, and a lack of hygiene. When inquired about the term’s connotations, a family member of mine, echoing Nguyễn’s description, brought up interwoven keywords “chưa phát triển” (not yet developed), “chân chất” (pure), and “thật thà” (honest). A young relative blurted out the term “không sang” (not posh). While the first relative’s comment is neither humiliating nor dehumanizing, it does inferiorize the invoked category of humans by framing them as “not yet developed,” implying that there exists a specific reality defined as “developed” and these people have not ascended to this reality (although it remains unclear if “developed” is equated with goodness). The other relative’s comment displays inferiorization more clearly, given that “sang” (posh) carries positive connotations. As indicated by Nguyễn’s prose, most people, like my family members, tend to associate “người nhà quê” with personal demeanors, behavior, and lifestyles that render them below “người thành phố,” who embody modernity and sophistication. A visually provoking sentence from Nguyễn’s writing emphasizes this hierarchical relation: “Their image is a smudge on the spectacular background of the city, as if [somebody has] conveniently picked [their] nose and recklessly smeared elegant and luxurious flowers [with boogers]” (Nguyễn 2009, translated by author). 

It must be noted that “người nhà quê” and “người thành phố” by no means describe all country-dwellers and city-dwellers. Rather, these are ideologically loaded terms that are descriptive in the sense that they originate from instantiated observations of country-dwellers’ behavior, generative in the sense that they generalize these observations into a category of people, and prescriptive in the sense that they tighten the grip of initially observed behavior over the individuals consigned to this category.  Unfortunately, the common usage of the term "người nhà quê" has erased its function of generation and prescription, naturalizing it into an epithet that can readily describe anyone’s kins living in the countryside. As a consequence, the “we” approach their rural family members from an elevated position, a mode of self-positioning internalized but not necessarily verbalized. According to Peirce (1932), beliefs are essentially habits. Habitually labelling country-dwellers as “người nhà quê” leads to the entrenched belief that undesirable character traits are inherent in them.

The belief in the “người nhà quê” ideology is entwined with perceptions of power relations. Identifying oneself as “người thành phố” interacting with “người nhà quê” breeds one’s predisposition to disparage country-dwellers. Trần (2014) criticizes a segment of Hanoians’ discrimination against residents from other cities and provinces: “That Hanoians often distinguish between ‘city [slicker]’ and ‘country [bumpkin]’ has caused many ‘country bumpkins’ migrating to Hanoi to feel that they are always discriminated against and disdained” (translated by author). It is the belief that superior characteristics are intrinsic to the city-dweller status that drives a number of city-dwellers to look down on country-dwellers, whom they typecast as “người nhà quê.”

The Power of “Do you understand?”

In December 2020, I took the legendary SE6 train to my paternal grandpa’s birthplace, a mountainous village in western Nghệ An, in search of sanctuary from the rat race. Only after spending twenty-five hours on the train and roughly two hours in the car did I finally arrive in the village, which I had not visited for five or six years (Figure 1). To me, the hometown has been a place of simultaneous familiarity and strangeness: it is familiar because it is where my beloved grandpa hailed from and where his warm-hearted brothers and sisters live (Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2), yet it is strange because most of my childhood has been spent in urban Hải Phòng and specifically because the local accent is incomprehensible to me. As a child, I used to freeze when a relative from Nghệ An told me something over the phone. The communication between me and my Nghệ An kin was mostly one-sided as the best  I could do was awkwardly smiling back at them. I did not make conscious efforts to understand what they said, smugly convinced that the heavy Nghệ An accent is impenetrable.

Figure 1: The village road I frequented during my stay. (Taken by author, 2020).

To my surprise, I found myself understanding most of what my kin told me when I visited them in 2020. Considering that I had not been exposed to the local accent for nearly a decade, it is probably my change of attitude—one of my key goals was acquiring a decent understanding of my kin’s lifestyles—that cured my ears of “sound-blindness” (Boas 1889, 47). This extends Boas’ theory by revealing that an individual’s open-mindedness influences their ability to accurately perceive the phonetics of a new language. Needless to say, I was elated. I was finally able to have uninterrupted conversations with my family members, and with heightened ease of communication came an enhanced sense of belonging. However, it still took me a while to make sense of certain sentences that were challenging in terms of both vocabulary and intonation. In these instances, I would put on an awkward smile and gently say “What did you say?” (Cô nói gì cơ ạ?) or simply “Yes?” (Dạ?). 

Figure 2.1: My grandpa’s warm-hearted younger brother and his lovely wife, happily engaged in their afternoon routine. (Taken by author, 2021).

This is when I noticed an interesting exercise of power on the part of my Nghệ An kin. Usually, their first reaction to my confusion was laughter. Even before I admitted to incomprehension, my kin sensed the confusion on my face and laughingly asked: “Do you understand what she said?” (Có hiểu không?). It is worth noting that our conversations almost always involved three parties: the speaker, the hearer, and the metarecipient (Dynel 2008). As the confused hearer, I was asked by the amused metarecipient if I understood the speaker’s message. In distinguishing teasing from putdown humor, Dynel (2008, 250) argues that the latter often involves rapport-building between the speaker and the metarecipient at the expense of the hearer’s sense of inclusion. This exclusionary configuration of solidarity occurred in my conversations with my kin, although the question “Do you understand?” was meant to be understood literally and thus cannot be categorized as teasing (Dynel 2008, 255). As the observer questioned my understanding on behalf of the interlocutor, an act accompanied by laughter, while I had not had an opportunity to speak for myself, I felt excluded from the in-group, stereotyped as a foreigner who readily fails to understand the local language. To be honest, my kin’s haste to question and laugh somewhat annoyed me. Much as I wanted them to notice my improved ability to understand the accent, their reactions communicated to me that they still viewed me as my former self, a kid from the north struggling with comprehension. To some extent, they might have been resigned to the fact that I may never manage to understand what they say.

Figure 2.2: My grandpa’s endearing younger sister, who insisted on seeing my boyfriend. (Taken by author, 2021).

How does this experience relate to the concept “người nhà quê” and power differential? From the perspective of the audience, my Nghệ An kin can easily be labelled as “người nhà quê.” My paternal grandmother, who is from and has been residing in Hải Phòng for most of her life, once noted that “the family members in the countryside are accustomed to walking barefoot in winter.” At first sight, this is an innocuous observation. Nevertheless, in that specific context, her emphasis of “accustomed to walking barefoot in winter” implies the identification of our family members in Nghệ An as “người nhà quê.” By singling it out as a talking point, my grandmother seemed to suggest that “walking barefoot in winter” is not “normal” (in urban settings), and her acceptance of the linkage between this “abnormal” behavior and our rural family members reveals her internalization of the “người nhà quê” ideology. By dwelling in the countryside or, to be specific, a small village forty kilometers away from the center of a remote mountainous district in western Nghệ An, my kin can be perceived as the inferiorized “they” in Nguyễn’s depiction. 

On the basis of this assumed power imbalance between “người nhà quê,” presumably represented by my Nghệ An kin, and “người thành phố,” presumably represented by me and my family members living in urban Hải Phòng, I contend that my kin increased their power by questioning my understanding of their accent. It is worth specifying which power is being discussed here. Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac (2017, 121) emphasize five types of power conceptualized by French and Raven (1959): legitimate, referent, expert, reward, and coercive. By default, my kin have legitimate power, derived from “the formally institutionalised social roles of the participants in relation to each other” (Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac 2017, 121), since they are the children of my grandpa’s brother, thus familally and socially superior to me. However, as a presumed cultured “người thành phố,” I am endowed with referent power, “the power a person has due to the qualities they are perceived as having by others” (Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac 2017, 121), over the uncouth “người nhà quê.” Thus, my kin are more powerful than me in one aspect and less powerful in another. This is why I use the term “increased their power” rather than “reversed the power dynamics,” which will be more accurate if my referent power is proven to be more important than my kin’s legitimate power, meaning that I am more powerful than them in the first place. As it cannot be ascertained which power is more important, it is open to question who is more powerful and thereby impossible to discuss the reversal of power. 

 By questioning if I understood their accented messages, my kin assumed expert power, the third kind of power theorized by French and Raven (1959), in addition to legitimate power. Native to Nghệ An, they are obviously more conversant with Nghệ An people’s pronunciation and ways of talking than me. Asking “Do you understand?” in a laughing tone, my kin accentuated my lack of expertise on the language and reinforced their power as native speakers. In response to their challenge, I tried to reinstate my linguistic ability: “I do understand” (cháu hiểu mà). This statement, born out of the desire to save “face” (Goffman 1981), was nevertheless made in a frustrated manner. Even though it restored my “face,” it failed to eradicate my discomfort of being doubted and overpowered. At those moments, I could not help but feel belittled and unrecognized. 

It must be noted that the above analysis is performed from the viewpoint of those adopting the “người nhà quê” mentality. Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac (2017, 121) maintain that “the dynamics of the interaction will depend on whether these assumptions are (correctly) presumed shared.” It is possible that my Nghệ An kin did not self-identify as “người nhà quê,” thus not feeling inferior to me as a “người thành phố.” They may not have thought of the “nhà quê“/“thành phố“ binary opposition at all throughout my stay. The question “Do you understand?” could have been no more than a sincere attempt to know if I really understood, and the laughter might have been purely instinctual. Nonetheless, reflecting on my emotional reactions to the question and the way it was delivered convinces me that power was, even if unintentionally, established, at least from the hearer’s perspective. Inspired by the tripartite model of (im)politeness developed by Haugh (2007) and employed by Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac (2017), I call this “classificatory power,” with “classificatory” meaning “interpreted by hearers” (Spencer-Oatey and Žegerac 2017, 124). Conducting such analysis means adopting a sociocultural approach, which Mills (2017, 56), interested in what constitutes (im)politeness, defines as studying both the speaker’s production and the hearer’s reception. Similarly, power lies in not only the intentionality of those who exert it, but the recipient’s reactions as well. 

Teasing in Nghe An: “Quả khu mấn”

My uncle’s wife, an endearingly humorous person (Figure 3), asked me from the very beginning of my stay: “Would you like to eat quả khu mấn?” (ăn quả khu mấn không?). Although I had no idea I was being made the butt of a local joke, I noticed my aunt’s unusually funny facial expressions and refused to give a clear-cut answer. I smiled as usual, this time mischievously. A tough teaser, my aunt persevered with her joke until the last night I spent with my kin. It was the third birthday of her son, a chubby toddler whom I enjoyed carrying around in my arms and sometimes on my back. Upon distributing portions of gateaux to all the children and livestreaming the party on Facebook, my aunt asked me if I had grasped the meaning of “quả khu mấn.” Recalling the experiences of being trolled by my parents, I ventured a guess: “Does khu mấn mean a fart?” (khu mấn nghĩa là quả rắm ạ?). Everyone burst into laughter. My unabashed aunt gave another hint: “Your uncle likes eating my khu mấn” (chú thích ăn khu mấn của thím lắm). Intensely curious, I looked up the term on Google. This is what I found:

This is a fruit that youngsters from other cities and provinces, especially big cities like Hà Nội and Sài Gòn, often wonder about and constantly ask interesting questions about. It is known that this is a  famous specialty of Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, but not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy this special fruit in terms of figurative meaning. Even if they do, the enjoyment is restricted to a look or bouts of laughter [...] The meaning of this fruit is: Khu mấn is the butt covered in raw cloth dresses of female workers in Nghệ Tĩnh in the 60s and 70s. After laboring hard, these women entertained themselves by engaging in tittle-tattle, placing their butts everywhere without the need for chairs [...]. (translated by author) 

Figure 3: My aunt—a quirky, caring, and extraordinarily genial person. (Taken by author, 2020).

In short, “quả khu mấn” is a Nghệ An slang term for a woman’s butt, which was sexualized through my aunt’s framing of it as my uncle’s favorite stuff. It did not surprise me that the joke had sexual undertones. Kuipers (2009, 222) observes that “transgression” is one of the main ingredients of humor, exemplified by the prevalence of jokes about sex, gender, decadence, disease, and death. Khuat et al. (2009, 158) highlight Vietnamese adults’ enthusiasm for making “dirty jokes” among themselves. Throughout my childhood, I had frequently been exposed to sexual jokes, which I consider, perhaps in opposition to popular conception, rather innocuous. From my observations of, for example, the interactions between my mother’s colleagues on company trips, making vulgar jokes (bậy) is a form of reinforcing rapport and solidarity among intimates. Rather than getting offended, my mother used to laugh when commenting on her “bậy” co-workers. This does not mean female sexualization, if involved at all, is positive and should be encouraged. Instead, my whole point is that making sexual jokes is a means of consolidating the bond between those whose “social distance” (Dynel 2008, 251) is low. 

Apart from facilitating bonding, my aunt’s cracking the “quả khu mấn” joke exhibits her power in two ways.  Firstly, it is a manifestation of collective expert power that triggers feelings of exclusion. My aunt must have known for certain that it was impossible for me to understand the connotative meaning of “quả khu mấn,” but she decided to baffle me with the term nevertheless. When she asked me if I would like to eat “quả khu mấn,” the rest of my kin with knowledge of the term participated in the knowing laughter. Although I was neither annoyed nor offended, I certainly felt differentiated from the family for my unfamiliarity with the local vernacular. Kuipers (2009, 219) aptly remarks: “Humor is strongly related to social boundaries.” He notes that the connection of humor with “sociability and inclusion” paradoxically renders it a tool of social exclusion, which happens when one is either laughed at or unable to join in the laughter (Kuipers 2009, 223). As I failed to grasp the humorous connotations of “quả khu mấn,” I was left out of my kin’s collective fun and thus their “shared sociability” (Kuipers 2009, 222). 

Secondly, the act of teasing per se presupposes the teaser’s power. The power enacted by teasing has been explored in terms of camouflaged aggression (Grainger 2004; Holmes 2000). From this standpoint, teasing indexes power as it can be exploited to clothe aggressive messages. Departing from this line of thinking, I argue that the power associated with teasing need not be represented by hostile teases, but it can lie in the benign derivation of pleasure from playing tricks on naive individuals. My aunt’s “quả khu mấn” joke was not aggressive in any sense, although it set me apart from my native kin. Yet, the fact that my aunt dared to tease me with a sexual joke and derive pleasure from my confusion sufficiently demonstrates her power relative to me. In a society where authority is equated with sobriety, making fun of a person, which means subverting their sobriety, is synonymous with undermining their authority, an act that entails comparatively great power. 

Conclusion

Throughout this essay, I have accepted the premises of the “người nhà quê” ideology to analyze my interactions with family members in Nghệ An. Far from purely descriptive, the term “người nhà quê” is a prescriptive judgment conveniently passed on people born and raised in the countryside. Ascribed negative traits, those labelled “người nhà quê” tend to be perceived as subordinate to “người thành phố,” a category of personhood invested with enviable characteristics. Against this assumption, my Nghệ An kin’s derivation of fun from questioning my ability to understand their accent and teasing me with a local joke, which made me feel inferior, is an interesting example of defying expectations. Contrary to the popular depiction of country-dwellers as gullible and unsophisticated, my family members in rural Nghệ An comported themselves as discerning and playful individuals.

While writing this essay, I texted my cousin (Figure 4) to ask why everyone had laughed at my failure to understand the accent at the first attempt. She texted back: “Everyone found you innocent.” The idea of a naive city-dweller being outsmarted by witty country-dwellers is no less imaginable than that of astute “người thành phố” ranking above uncultivated “người nhà quê.” Indeed, in the context of Vietnam, worldly country-dwellers’ diversity of life experiences may even render the former more realistic than the latter.

Figure 4: My kind-hearted cousin, who patiently carried me around on her motorbike despite the chilling cold. (Taken by author, 2021). 

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