grab me, pick me up and turn on the throaty engine, do you have change for a 50,000?
I’ve been waking up to a new sun, one that burns brightly over the streets of Hanoi and washes my new bed, my new sheets, my new floor. The coffee is almost alcoholic in its intensity, meant to be drunk on the banks of a lake or a five-way intersection. I’ve said goodbye to my days of walking upon stony village paths and have fallen into a more reckless rhythm. I don’t know how to ride a motorbike (yet) (ever) (this brain was very expensive and the warranty has since expired), so I let myself be grabbed.
Singaporean start-up behemoth, Grab, has decimated the ride-sharing competition in Southeast Asia, comfortably holding onto 73% of the Vietnamese market share in third-party taxi hailing services, and from where I’m standing, leading the market in lime green outerwear. But the crux of the ride-hailing industry in Vietnam, nay, I dare only speak from my limited perspective, in Hanoi, lies in GrabBike. You can read as many Economist articles as you please, ruminate with furrowed brow on the future of the gig economy, or deliver sage oratories on the Asian Century, but nothing prepares you for the intimacy of climbing onto the back of a stranger’s motorcycle and letting go.
It’s trust. Corporate compliance trust that lights up my screen, “Make sure you’re getting on the right bike. Check the license plate to confirm.” I am who I say I am. You are who you say you are. He trusts that I will sit still. I trust that I am safe in his care. We both trust that everyone else on the road has as much of a stake in their lives as we have in ours.
in his nook
It’s closeness; real physical proximity. Sometimes we cut corners so tight, I get spooked and must stop myself from throwing my arms around the driver. On particularly narrow stretches of road I am tempted to scoot into his back and form one binding unit. If we’re tossed, we’re tossed together. But it’s also the strangeness of a stranger. I keep my body tense and firm, thighs clenched so they don’t press against his torso (read: straddle him). Still, touch is inevitable, and unfailingly, I fumble with the helmet’s straps upon dismount. The driver motions me to him and, holds my head in his hands, helps me unclick.
But I can’t unclick because we’re moving at full tilt. Vietnam at a glance: “lower middle-income country”, but with the GDP growing at rates of 6 to 7 percent each year. The fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia. Grab ate Uber for the tasty sum of 27.5% stake in the company, and it’s anyone’s guess who will be the next to succumb to its omniscient power. What does that mean for drivers? Sorry, independent contractors AKA those not “core” to the business AKA nonessential to the function of transporting a combined 327 pounds of human mass from one place to another. GrabExpress, GrabFood, GrabFresh, GrabPay, and GrabFinancial do seem uniquely positioned to argue that point. Yet the roads continue to teem with those willing to drive more hours for less pay, in a more noxious atmosphere and under constant surveillance in perpetuity in perpetuity in perpetuity.
Author Esmé Weijun Wang says the soul leaves through one’s feet, and I believe it when I’m aloft on a bike. My head is heavy under a helmet, my legs fused to the seat, unwilling victims of the unholy trinity: flesh x sweat x leather, but the soles of my shoes are exposed and unspooling my essence right there onto the highway.
We are tearing through these roads together, in the thick of wind. First, I close my eyes in fear, then in acceptance. Really, I can’t say it any better than Jorge Drexler does in his song Movimiento –
“si quieres que algo se muera, déjalo quieto”
Movement - if you want something to die, keep it still