Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
i love being loved
Alaina and I get lots of texts from students, since we give out our mobile numbers. Some of my personal favorites have been:
• I’m nga. You are extrovert- a girl with lovely smile☺could you give me your nickname,please?when are you going to come back USA?have a good trip!
• What are you doing now? Are you sleeping? Do I annoy you? This morning we all were so excited when talking with both of you. You are two friendly Americans
• We are all nice to meet you.And I want to make friend with you so much. You are pretty social, talkative. Do you want to visit more tourist attractions in Hanoi?
• Hello Eliza! I am Ha.We met each other at my class on Tuesday.Do you remember me? I am very glad to make friend with you.Welcome to Vietnam.If having problem,don't hasitate to tell me! I 'll help you.If I have a chance to visit America,will you agree tobe a tourist guider.?hihi.Goodluck for you
• WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU TIRED?
• OH. I AM FINE. THANK U. I LOVE U HAVE A GOOD NAP .
• Excuse me.hello.my name hien.we can do frjend.sometime we can talk eachother through telephone.ok.now you are student.or you work.i can do make frjend. ok
• I’m nga. You are extrovert- a girl with lovely smile☺could you give me your nickname,please?when are you going to come back USA?have a good trip!
• What are you doing now? Are you sleeping? Do I annoy you? This morning we all were so excited when talking with both of you. You are two friendly Americans
• We are all nice to meet you.And I want to make friend with you so much. You are pretty social, talkative. Do you want to visit more tourist attractions in Hanoi?
• Hello Eliza! I am Ha.We met each other at my class on Tuesday.Do you remember me? I am very glad to make friend with you.Welcome to Vietnam.If having problem,don't hasitate to tell me! I 'll help you.If I have a chance to visit America,will you agree tobe a tourist guider.?hihi.Goodluck for you
• WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU TIRED?
• OH. I AM FINE. THANK U. I LOVE U HAVE A GOOD NAP .
• Excuse me.hello.my name hien.we can do frjend.sometime we can talk eachother through telephone.ok.now you are student.or you work.i can do make frjend. ok
Monday, November 2, 2009
I'm a Professahh! Kinda
Every Tuesday and Thursday is an adventure, some better than others. These days I have my internship with Alaina at Hanoi Open University where we teach English. Or rather, we sing, work on pronunciation and answer lots and lots of questions on a good day. Originally I liked my internship there because we would go into classes (we never have the same class twice) and the students would be very excited to be able to talk with us. If we were lucky the teacher would be there to help facilitate a discussion, since our Vietnamese is lacking. Lately though we are left to teach pronunciation by ourselves to classes. This is fine by me, I don’t mind independence. The hard part though is when they hand us a class of 90 students and a shotty microphone. How can we work on pronunciation with 90 students, who can’t even hear what we are saying, let alone understand, with no one to help us translate to Vietnamese? The other difficulty is the fact that often we will go into a class, and try incredibly hard to motivate students with our extensive lesson plans, but some just don’t care and talk during our class. For example, we read out a story for the students and then asked them to take three minutes to write out one sentence explaining the story. We got back blank stares, so we asked if they understood the assignment. They said they did. So we told them to write sentences. A few students tugged out a pen and paper and started to scribble, while others just stared into space or leaned their head against their hand for three minutes. After seeing this I asked them where their sentences were and they just looked at me and started to write down something, while making a weird “what do you think you’re doing” face. This has happened multiple times and it makes me feel so frustrated because I try so hard to communicate and to help them learn, but if they are not even willing to help themselves then I can’t do anything. Sometimes I feel like the students, and sometimes the teachers as well, think that since we are there we can simply hand them English proficiency. Which is not the case.
Anyhow our internship is difficult and sometimes feels pointless, but we are definitely learning a lot about the Vietnamese education system and its inner workings. When we do have the chance to teach with a teacher, we are often told to have punishments for the students that do not say correct answers. This is somewhat of a cultural and moral dilemma for me; being a student of the American educational system I tend to think that as long as a student tries, then they are doing a good job and that they do not deserve a punishment: rather, they need encouragement. Another cultural difference is communication. At one point a male teacher invited Alaina and I (but Alaina thinks he has a crush on me) to a Halloween party the same night of ours. We declined and said that although we wanted to go, we were hosting our own party, and invited him to it for after his. I definitely said something wrong because he looked physically in pain after I declined him, as if he had asked me to marry him or something and I declined. He kept fidgeting and gulping, also averting his eyes. I apologized and left, and later learned that I need to skirt around the subject of not attending, rather than outright saying it. Ooops. Yet another cultural blunder I’ve had was in class, when the students were taking turns reading out loud a paragraph on Halloween we had handed out. Not only do the students read in a whisper so that you can barely hear, but everyone around talks. I kept announcing that people needed to stop talking because they were being rude. When they didn’t stop, I picked on some girls in the front laughing and making a lot of noise by sternly saying, “please stop talking and disrespecting the person who is reading.” They proceeded to eye me and themselves and stopped talking. I at that moment realized what I had done— to them, it is not considered rude to talk when others are talking, including the teacher. I have seen this everywhere and in each class. Even more, what is disrespectful to me is not disrespectful to them. Being American I have a more individualized perception of the workings of the world, and thus talking while another person is talking out loud for others is not showing them respect for what they are doing— whereas here it is much more about the group, so if people in the group want to talk, they talk. And boy is it frustrating, especially when your Vietnamese is lacking and you can’t hear your students reading.
Our day at the internship goes a bit like this. We walk twenty minutes and on the way cross the busy highway and walk through a local market, trying not to step on animal blood but enjoying the sights. As we near the school we spot the trusty bo bia ngot lady selling her delicious creations from a white box at the end of her bicycle. She’s there every morning and afternoon, and Alaina and I are absolutely addicted to bo bia ngot, which is a crepe filled with sugarcane, shredded coconut and black sesame seeds. It melts in your mouth and has the most satisfying caramel and coconut aftertaste. Anyhow we also stop for ca phe sua da which kicks us into gear and gets us buzzing for our first two hour class. Whenever we get to work we’re ushered into one of the teachers rooms and told to sip little cups of tea as we watch students watch us from the hallway. At this point in time one of us is usually offered a vow of marriage by one of the two unmarried male teachers, which is awkward. We then wait until a teacher comes to stake their claim on us (lately it’s meant a free period for them) to teach in their class. Like I said before, if we are lucky, students will for the most part be very excited to have foreigners visiting their class and we will answer questions about America and Vietnam for two hours, with the help of the teacher. (We are often asked about our boyfriends, why we don’t have them, when our wedding is and why we don’t know when it is, and whether we find Vietnamese men attractive.) This could be also mean us singing songs for two hours with or without a teacher— or just going ahead with our lesson plan with no teacher and upwards of 90 students at a time. We never know what we’re gonna get, which is both thrilling and frightening. We always attempt to fit in our pre-made lesson plan into the abilities and attention span of the students we’re given for that period of time and sometimes it’s more challenging than others. After the first class of surprises we head to the local Bia Hoi restaurant, complete with a hanging mutilated goat carcass which becomes more skeletal each time we visit. We sit facing the other wall and we order by pointing to random dishes and seeing what we get. We cross our fingers that it does not contain goat. Later, in the second class, we have another set of surprises awaiting. The second class is always more tired and solemn, maybe after a large lunch and a busy morning, and it’s much more challenging trying to teach. Usually at this point we've held it long enough and we decide to brave the bathroom. Bathroom is a loose word, you need a bath after you go to this room. But that's just the way it is. Typically, upon entering, your nostrils hit a wall of urine stench which doesn't cease and can be explained by the puddles on the floor. There are three "stalls": one wide open with no doors and a wide trough, like a woman urinal, and a bucket of brown water for flushing/pseudo-toilet paper; one missing a door and often you'll get the back view of some girl peeing; and finally one with a door. Oh, and they're all squat pots. Meaning a hole to aim for and places to put your feet. Sometimes when I'm done I just come out laughing; it's the one thing that I just can't seem to get used to while living here. You've just gotta laugh it off and then wash your shoes.
Overall the experience teaching at Hanoi Open University thus far has been ok. We still have plenty of time to grow into it and become better at it, but we are faced with many challenges. This is good for me though, since I may want to teach as a profession when I’m older.
Anyhow our internship is difficult and sometimes feels pointless, but we are definitely learning a lot about the Vietnamese education system and its inner workings. When we do have the chance to teach with a teacher, we are often told to have punishments for the students that do not say correct answers. This is somewhat of a cultural and moral dilemma for me; being a student of the American educational system I tend to think that as long as a student tries, then they are doing a good job and that they do not deserve a punishment: rather, they need encouragement. Another cultural difference is communication. At one point a male teacher invited Alaina and I (but Alaina thinks he has a crush on me) to a Halloween party the same night of ours. We declined and said that although we wanted to go, we were hosting our own party, and invited him to it for after his. I definitely said something wrong because he looked physically in pain after I declined him, as if he had asked me to marry him or something and I declined. He kept fidgeting and gulping, also averting his eyes. I apologized and left, and later learned that I need to skirt around the subject of not attending, rather than outright saying it. Ooops. Yet another cultural blunder I’ve had was in class, when the students were taking turns reading out loud a paragraph on Halloween we had handed out. Not only do the students read in a whisper so that you can barely hear, but everyone around talks. I kept announcing that people needed to stop talking because they were being rude. When they didn’t stop, I picked on some girls in the front laughing and making a lot of noise by sternly saying, “please stop talking and disrespecting the person who is reading.” They proceeded to eye me and themselves and stopped talking. I at that moment realized what I had done— to them, it is not considered rude to talk when others are talking, including the teacher. I have seen this everywhere and in each class. Even more, what is disrespectful to me is not disrespectful to them. Being American I have a more individualized perception of the workings of the world, and thus talking while another person is talking out loud for others is not showing them respect for what they are doing— whereas here it is much more about the group, so if people in the group want to talk, they talk. And boy is it frustrating, especially when your Vietnamese is lacking and you can’t hear your students reading.
Our day at the internship goes a bit like this. We walk twenty minutes and on the way cross the busy highway and walk through a local market, trying not to step on animal blood but enjoying the sights. As we near the school we spot the trusty bo bia ngot lady selling her delicious creations from a white box at the end of her bicycle. She’s there every morning and afternoon, and Alaina and I are absolutely addicted to bo bia ngot, which is a crepe filled with sugarcane, shredded coconut and black sesame seeds. It melts in your mouth and has the most satisfying caramel and coconut aftertaste. Anyhow we also stop for ca phe sua da which kicks us into gear and gets us buzzing for our first two hour class. Whenever we get to work we’re ushered into one of the teachers rooms and told to sip little cups of tea as we watch students watch us from the hallway. At this point in time one of us is usually offered a vow of marriage by one of the two unmarried male teachers, which is awkward. We then wait until a teacher comes to stake their claim on us (lately it’s meant a free period for them) to teach in their class. Like I said before, if we are lucky, students will for the most part be very excited to have foreigners visiting their class and we will answer questions about America and Vietnam for two hours, with the help of the teacher. (We are often asked about our boyfriends, why we don’t have them, when our wedding is and why we don’t know when it is, and whether we find Vietnamese men attractive.) This could be also mean us singing songs for two hours with or without a teacher— or just going ahead with our lesson plan with no teacher and upwards of 90 students at a time. We never know what we’re gonna get, which is both thrilling and frightening. We always attempt to fit in our pre-made lesson plan into the abilities and attention span of the students we’re given for that period of time and sometimes it’s more challenging than others. After the first class of surprises we head to the local Bia Hoi restaurant, complete with a hanging mutilated goat carcass which becomes more skeletal each time we visit. We sit facing the other wall and we order by pointing to random dishes and seeing what we get. We cross our fingers that it does not contain goat. Later, in the second class, we have another set of surprises awaiting. The second class is always more tired and solemn, maybe after a large lunch and a busy morning, and it’s much more challenging trying to teach. Usually at this point we've held it long enough and we decide to brave the bathroom. Bathroom is a loose word, you need a bath after you go to this room. But that's just the way it is. Typically, upon entering, your nostrils hit a wall of urine stench which doesn't cease and can be explained by the puddles on the floor. There are three "stalls": one wide open with no doors and a wide trough, like a woman urinal, and a bucket of brown water for flushing/pseudo-toilet paper; one missing a door and often you'll get the back view of some girl peeing; and finally one with a door. Oh, and they're all squat pots. Meaning a hole to aim for and places to put your feet. Sometimes when I'm done I just come out laughing; it's the one thing that I just can't seem to get used to while living here. You've just gotta laugh it off and then wash your shoes.
Overall the experience teaching at Hanoi Open University thus far has been ok. We still have plenty of time to grow into it and become better at it, but we are faced with many challenges. This is good for me though, since I may want to teach as a profession when I’m older.
Friday, October 30, 2009
balance
A few weeks ago I would have bludgeoned the following thoughts of out my mind: I like Vietnam. I am having a good time. I am learning a lot. About myself, about the world.
A few weeks ago my homesickness was clouding my whole outlook on everything. I had a very negative attitude, as a sort of "defense" against what was frustrating and challenging me. Yet that was only making it worse (silly brain). Luckily I've come to face the fact that this experience is a good one (which grows on me by the day) and although there are many challenges, there are so many more gifts. At this point I miss silly things: pancakes, my bed, clean bathroom facilites... which I will have again soon enough.
Vietnamese awesomeness:
banh xeo (vietnamese savory pancake)
the fact that my mattress has "good time" written all over it
LITTLE MUNCHKIN CHILDREN that may find their way into my suitcaseI've come to find that although life here seems on the surface utterly chaotic, it's actually rhythmic, even harmonious: all the parts work together, like one big organism. Motorbikes practically choke you as you attempt to cross the street, yet as you make your way one by one they swerve out of your way, like water going around a rock. Trash is everywhere, yet is (usually) picked up by trusty street workers, who even sort the recyclables.... more on this later
halfway through
Today I noticed I am halfway through my time in Vietnam. I also realized that this corresponds with the amount of toenail which has grown since I left the US:
I wonder if I will be able to clip off the last sliver of blue the night before I return home.
I wonder if I will be able to clip off the last sliver of blue the night before I return home.
Monday, October 19, 2009
surprise performances and "when is your wedding?"
Sunday: Woke up for 8 am and went to Hanoi Open University, the place Alaina and I will be interning at. There we attended the ALOHA (English Club) women’s day celebration. Apparently whenever Vietnamese get together, they sing. And so do their guests. So being the guests of honor we were informed minutes before the start of the presentation that we were required to get up and perform some songs. All eyes on us and not having any choice in the matter Alaina and I got up and sang the chorus to the “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King, “Under The Sea” from The Little Mermaid and “Oops! I Did It Again” by Britney Spears. I’m not sure if they thought it was funny or just pathetic, but they laughed and clapped when we were finished. Then the whole 2.5 hour program proceeded, with 2-3 songs performed between each woman day feature. Twice we got up to answer the same questions, but asked in different forms, like “How do you feel about women’s day?” or “how do you feel about a day dedicated to woman?”.
Monday: Today I attended my first Vietnamese class in Hanoi, where we practiced talking about our future wedding and husbands. No joke. The teacher kept asking us— for an hour— when will you get a boyfriend? (I don’t know) Why don’t you have a boyfriend? (I don’t know) When will you have your wedding? (After I have a boyfriend) What will he be like? Handsome, rich or intelligent? (Ummm…)
Later for the VNLC course all of us went to the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum.
Afterwards Cathy, Brittany, Kelly and I went to “Olympia Gym” to sign up so that we could work out on occasion. We walked in and although it was dirty and old (what isn’t, though?) it was also hilarious. Huge muscle men posters plastered the walls and techno music blasted from the floor above. The first floor seemed to be the men’s muscle building floor, and the second was the cardio/aerobic class are, which was all women. Working out in… bikinis? Yes, bikinis. Even leopard print ones. They were also all doing outdated calisthenics. We climbed to the last floor to find some actual treadmills and one elliptical machine— and a woman wearing all spandex and a marble-colored thong leotard over it. Fabulous!
Monday: Today I attended my first Vietnamese class in Hanoi, where we practiced talking about our future wedding and husbands. No joke. The teacher kept asking us— for an hour— when will you get a boyfriend? (I don’t know) Why don’t you have a boyfriend? (I don’t know) When will you have your wedding? (After I have a boyfriend) What will he be like? Handsome, rich or intelligent? (Ummm…)
Later for the VNLC course all of us went to the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum.
Afterwards Cathy, Brittany, Kelly and I went to “Olympia Gym” to sign up so that we could work out on occasion. We walked in and although it was dirty and old (what isn’t, though?) it was also hilarious. Huge muscle men posters plastered the walls and techno music blasted from the floor above. The first floor seemed to be the men’s muscle building floor, and the second was the cardio/aerobic class are, which was all women. Working out in… bikinis? Yes, bikinis. Even leopard print ones. They were also all doing outdated calisthenics. We climbed to the last floor to find some actual treadmills and one elliptical machine— and a woman wearing all spandex and a marble-colored thong leotard over it. Fabulous!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
men with long nails, girls peeing in front of stores.
I was sick, as I wrote, and ended up having to go to the hospital, It was a cultural experience, though, that may have made up for the others (don’t get me wrong, I would have definitely preferred not to have gone). Ruby insisted that I go, so we hopped onto her motorbike and headed over. Beforehand she warned me that they might try to make me buy medicines I don’t need and we might have to pay bribes to see the doctor—we didn’t have to pay a bribe, as far as I understood, but we did convince them to see me because I was from a group of American students, two of whom are interning at the hospital. Thankfully I got a bed in the back of some waiting room/office area, away from the real emergency room. Like any hospital the emergency room was filled with emergency cases, but unlike in America (or any hospitals I’ve been to there) everything was out in the open, with blood and pain and everything. So I was thus thankful to be in my own little corner. After I saw the doctor and he examined my stomach, they drew a little blood and put me on an IV. There was a serious lack of communication. The nurses didn’t know how to work the IV because for both the flow was incredibly slow and a few hours later the doctor would check it, tsk tsk the nurses and turn it much faster, so that it would run down in an hour instead of twenty four. At one point a few hours into the experience the nurse came in and told me she needed to take a liter of blood, and naturally I was like why the f do they need a liter of blood, they already took blood twice. But somehow that got forgotten and then the nurse came in with a mysterious white pill which when asked she didn’t know the purpose for and went to ask the doctor. Finally I was let out after getting my blood results back, which said I had normal results but may have a minor infection in my stomach or intestines. They gave me a prescription for antibiotics, as I assumed they would, and I went on my sick but merry way back to the dorm where I watched Pride and Prejudice for the second time and fell asleep. The next day, Friday, I continued having stomach pains and occasional dizziness but was able to go to photo class by Hoan Kiem lake to take pictures of the “urban ghosts.” Saturday I still had mild stomach pains after eating but I had an appetite and rewarded it with a delicious burrito. Thankfully I am feeling much better and hope to be able to finally start getting into some sort of normal routine in the upcoming week, which I was unable to start while sick.
Now that we’ve been touring all around Vietnam (Saigon, Mekong Delta, Central Region, Hanoi) there are some behaviors I’ve seen take place in all parts of the country that I find to be interesting, and some disgusting. First off is the one I noticed right off the bat: the woman who covers herself from head to toe, most commonly with special socks, pants, shirts/jackets, gloves, face mask and sometimes head scarf, so as to remain pale. This is of course interesting to an American girl who grew up with the image of tan skin as beautiful, and who until just recently was somewhat insecure of her very white skin. I also find the dynamic between men and women interesting— I tend to only see couples at the parks, where they can hide in the shadows and make out. I’ve also seen men with long nails (which I find rather disgusting) and was informed that this is a sign of class in that you don’t have to do manual labor and thus your nails can be long. It’s so weird to have a male waiter who will lean up against the wall and pass the time by cleaning and picking at his nails. The last thing I have seen, which at times can be shocking, are people openly peeing in the streets. I find this just gross, because then people step in it and track it everywhere at it also just adds even more smell to the place. But also, how can the Vietnamese, who seem so conservative about showing cleavage and about male/female relations, just openly pull down their pants to pee? In the middle of the day, in the middle of a busy street, in front of a store!? I’ve seen grown office men, little naked boys, semi-clothed teenage girls, but not adult women thus far. I may faint when I see that.
Now that we’ve been touring all around Vietnam (Saigon, Mekong Delta, Central Region, Hanoi) there are some behaviors I’ve seen take place in all parts of the country that I find to be interesting, and some disgusting. First off is the one I noticed right off the bat: the woman who covers herself from head to toe, most commonly with special socks, pants, shirts/jackets, gloves, face mask and sometimes head scarf, so as to remain pale. This is of course interesting to an American girl who grew up with the image of tan skin as beautiful, and who until just recently was somewhat insecure of her very white skin. I also find the dynamic between men and women interesting— I tend to only see couples at the parks, where they can hide in the shadows and make out. I’ve also seen men with long nails (which I find rather disgusting) and was informed that this is a sign of class in that you don’t have to do manual labor and thus your nails can be long. It’s so weird to have a male waiter who will lean up against the wall and pass the time by cleaning and picking at his nails. The last thing I have seen, which at times can be shocking, are people openly peeing in the streets. I find this just gross, because then people step in it and track it everywhere at it also just adds even more smell to the place. But also, how can the Vietnamese, who seem so conservative about showing cleavage and about male/female relations, just openly pull down their pants to pee? In the middle of the day, in the middle of a busy street, in front of a store!? I’ve seen grown office men, little naked boys, semi-clothed teenage girls, but not adult women thus far. I may faint when I see that.
Friday, October 16, 2009
thoughts at 9:22 on a saturday morning
Sometimes I want to fall asleep and wake up on the other side. Am I allowed to complain for a second? Or vent, I should say? Will I allow myself to be ok with complaining?
I am so tired of not being able to breath because of dust and pollution. Of walking down the street and having no space to walk between parked and oncoming motorbikes. Of stepping in god-knows-what on the street... or even taking in an initially unsuspecting breath of air, then come to realize it's a lung-stabbing, choking cloud of urine fumes. Of being stared at, even laughed at, wherever I go. Of having food poisoning. Of being dirty. Of questioning everything I eat. Of not understanding what people are saying, and them not understanding me. Of not seeing the sun or any kind of natural scene. Even the trees look sad and sickly here: they live off motorbike exhaust and smog light. How could they be happy?
Like I said at the beginning: sometimes... but the status quo has been most times... I just want to wake up 2 weeks before I get to return home, so that I could get on with enjoying what Vietnam has to offer and get on with it. Sometimes I find myself incredibly jealous of friends who are in Europe or Australia because I honestly feel like it would be a vacation compared to this. But then again, I chose Vietnam because I wanted a challenge and because I knew it would be completely foreign. And I got what I signed up for.
I realize I can't keep having this attitude and still be able to enjoy the experience. It has to let up at some point. Mostly, I am having a hard time getting used to the area I live in. But I do have to give myself a break, I've been lying sick in my bed for the past five days, and since we only got to Hanoi two days before that I haven't even had an adequate chance to acquaint myself with the place. I think the things I will like are going on the trips to Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa-- we get to hike while on both trips and we'll be in the countryside, thank goodness, and I really want to go kayaking while in Ha Long Bay!! That would be so great. Going to Cambodia will also be good, I really want to see Angkor Wat. I have also no had the chance yet to even fall into a routine here, since I was sick and had to miss class for a few days. A schedule would be very nice. And my internship-- I'm a university professor (!) at Hanoi Open University, teaching English to freshmen. Haha. So yeah... I just want to be in a schedule and on those trips... and NOT having food poisoning.
I miss fall so much right now. What I would give for a bagel with cream cheese and a hike up Mt. A with my mum and sib, and sunshine, turned leaves and a crisp breeze. And a cozy sweater.
But when else am I going to be in Vietnam? According to Leslie I have a long life ahead of me, and thus many falls to come, so I need not worry... I will be back soon enough, in the fluffy snow and boots and a thick jacket...
Comic relief:
I am so tired of not being able to breath because of dust and pollution. Of walking down the street and having no space to walk between parked and oncoming motorbikes. Of stepping in god-knows-what on the street... or even taking in an initially unsuspecting breath of air, then come to realize it's a lung-stabbing, choking cloud of urine fumes. Of being stared at, even laughed at, wherever I go. Of having food poisoning. Of being dirty. Of questioning everything I eat. Of not understanding what people are saying, and them not understanding me. Of not seeing the sun or any kind of natural scene. Even the trees look sad and sickly here: they live off motorbike exhaust and smog light. How could they be happy?
Like I said at the beginning: sometimes... but the status quo has been most times... I just want to wake up 2 weeks before I get to return home, so that I could get on with enjoying what Vietnam has to offer and get on with it. Sometimes I find myself incredibly jealous of friends who are in Europe or Australia because I honestly feel like it would be a vacation compared to this. But then again, I chose Vietnam because I wanted a challenge and because I knew it would be completely foreign. And I got what I signed up for.
I realize I can't keep having this attitude and still be able to enjoy the experience. It has to let up at some point. Mostly, I am having a hard time getting used to the area I live in. But I do have to give myself a break, I've been lying sick in my bed for the past five days, and since we only got to Hanoi two days before that I haven't even had an adequate chance to acquaint myself with the place. I think the things I will like are going on the trips to Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa-- we get to hike while on both trips and we'll be in the countryside, thank goodness, and I really want to go kayaking while in Ha Long Bay!! That would be so great. Going to Cambodia will also be good, I really want to see Angkor Wat. I have also no had the chance yet to even fall into a routine here, since I was sick and had to miss class for a few days. A schedule would be very nice. And my internship-- I'm a university professor (!) at Hanoi Open University, teaching English to freshmen. Haha. So yeah... I just want to be in a schedule and on those trips... and NOT having food poisoning.
I miss fall so much right now. What I would give for a bagel with cream cheese and a hike up Mt. A with my mum and sib, and sunshine, turned leaves and a crisp breeze. And a cozy sweater.
But when else am I going to be in Vietnam? According to Leslie I have a long life ahead of me, and thus many falls to come, so I need not worry... I will be back soon enough, in the fluffy snow and boots and a thick jacket...
Comic relief:
Sunday, October 11, 2009
some serious and/or comic relief
Some lessons learned for today:
1. Do what I want to do. Not what I think I should do.
... (keep promises)
2. Make a decision and stick with it. Stop over thinking it and changing your mind. All the time.
3. Don't care so much about what others think about you.
4. Do not stand on slanted sidewalk barriers.
5. (added 10/18) do not trust vietnamese hair stylists
1. Do what I want to do. Not what I think I should do.
... (keep promises)
2. Make a decision and stick with it. Stop over thinking it and changing your mind. All the time.
3. Don't care so much about what others think about you.
4. Do not stand on slanted sidewalk barriers.
5. (added 10/18) do not trust vietnamese hair stylists
Friday, October 9, 2009
some thanks i thinked
My belly is full of wine, pizza and water. After a small piece fell off, my laptop has started to send little shock waves of electricity into my upper thighs as I sit and type. There's soft lighting; CNN is on, reporting Obama's nobel peace prize win. To my left, there are unfinished postcards. To my right, there is a half-packed suitcase, clothes strewn atop, surrounded by various gifts for people back home which I have accumulated along the 10 day Central Vietnam trip. I am sitting on starchly-linened hotel bed, cross-legged, typing a new blog entry.
On my way home from DMZ bar (don't worry Dad, with 2 guys and 10 girls) I became stalked by two rather stickly little girls, probably around the age of ten. They handed me a hastily written, pre-prepared note in English about how they need money to go to school and get this by selling cards, which became apparent when a stack was shoved into my face. I don't usually buy things from kids on the street because the money doesn't necessarily go towards what they claim or to them in the first place. It may just go to some thug. Anyhow, I was slightly tipsy and feeling more than slightly emotional, so I tugged out 30,000 dong from my bra (classy, right?) and bought a card. They then, seeing that I had some cash to burn and seemed... easily persuadable, started chanting "cookies, cookies!!" and tugged me into the conveniently located convenience store right beside us. And what did I do? I bought them two boxes of cookies. And went back to the hotel and cried.
What I wonder most while on this term abroad is, how did I get so lucky to be born to my parents? To be born in the US? To go to college? To come to expect certain rights and ways of life? To be loved? Why me?
---------------
That was last night, now this is the morning. I am completely freaking out on the inside because I can't find my notebook with ALL of my journals in it. FUCK. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY it is on the bus... If not, there goes my grade. Great.
In an attempt to push those thoughts to a far, out-of-reach corner of my mind, I will now relate some thoughts I've been having over the past couple of weeks.
Basically, I miss home. I miss the home I used to have... and I miss my home that I still have... my family. The funny thing is that back in the US, before going abroad, I was completely certain that I wanted to leave the country. For good. I was also a little tired of my family (sorry, family). That seems silly thinking about it now, but I really wanted to find my place, and I was certain it wasn't in America. I was also afraid of living a meaningless life, and at the time, to me, a meaningful life meant traveling. I would often complain to friends and family about how I felt so trapped and bored, that I needed to be "doing things with my life." Which to me at that time meant living abroad. And now that I'm doing just that, living in Vietnam, I've come to find that I complain about "needing structure, a daily routine, something to hold onto."
What I've come to realize is, traveling is fun (amazing actually) but I'm definitely not the trail-blazing, foreign-country inhabiting Ex-Pat I had come to invision myself becoming. I'm a dreamer, yes, but I'm also a homebody, and there's nothing wrong with that. What I'm also trying to say is, I am so sick and tired of living in every other time frame except the one I'm currently inhabiting.
My thoughts are really scattered right now... I'm gonna take a break.
On my way home from DMZ bar (don't worry Dad, with 2 guys and 10 girls) I became stalked by two rather stickly little girls, probably around the age of ten. They handed me a hastily written, pre-prepared note in English about how they need money to go to school and get this by selling cards, which became apparent when a stack was shoved into my face. I don't usually buy things from kids on the street because the money doesn't necessarily go towards what they claim or to them in the first place. It may just go to some thug. Anyhow, I was slightly tipsy and feeling more than slightly emotional, so I tugged out 30,000 dong from my bra (classy, right?) and bought a card. They then, seeing that I had some cash to burn and seemed... easily persuadable, started chanting "cookies, cookies!!" and tugged me into the conveniently located convenience store right beside us. And what did I do? I bought them two boxes of cookies. And went back to the hotel and cried.
What I wonder most while on this term abroad is, how did I get so lucky to be born to my parents? To be born in the US? To go to college? To come to expect certain rights and ways of life? To be loved? Why me?
---------------
That was last night, now this is the morning. I am completely freaking out on the inside because I can't find my notebook with ALL of my journals in it. FUCK. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY it is on the bus... If not, there goes my grade. Great.
In an attempt to push those thoughts to a far, out-of-reach corner of my mind, I will now relate some thoughts I've been having over the past couple of weeks.
Basically, I miss home. I miss the home I used to have... and I miss my home that I still have... my family. The funny thing is that back in the US, before going abroad, I was completely certain that I wanted to leave the country. For good. I was also a little tired of my family (sorry, family). That seems silly thinking about it now, but I really wanted to find my place, and I was certain it wasn't in America. I was also afraid of living a meaningless life, and at the time, to me, a meaningful life meant traveling. I would often complain to friends and family about how I felt so trapped and bored, that I needed to be "doing things with my life." Which to me at that time meant living abroad. And now that I'm doing just that, living in Vietnam, I've come to find that I complain about "needing structure, a daily routine, something to hold onto."
What I've come to realize is, traveling is fun (amazing actually) but I'm definitely not the trail-blazing, foreign-country inhabiting Ex-Pat I had come to invision myself becoming. I'm a dreamer, yes, but I'm also a homebody, and there's nothing wrong with that. What I'm also trying to say is, I am so sick and tired of living in every other time frame except the one I'm currently inhabiting.
My thoughts are really scattered right now... I'm gonna take a break.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I haven't written for weeks... and I really need to clip my toenails.
I have been on cultural overload the past few weeks and have thus neglected the whole blog thing. Sometimes I experience so many new things in one day that I have such a brain fart, I go straight to bed. And apparently ignore clipping my nails as well. But here are some highlights from my journal that I'm required to keep for my culture course, and I promise to actually write from now on:
Maggie and I had the chance to go to an orphanage with Lana and her friend Erin. I’m not quite sure how Lana knows Erin, but she is an artist currently on a Fulbright scholarship. Her parents live here (she is half Vietnamese) but she grew up in the states. (Chicago if I remember correctly). She has a clover tattoo on her arm that says “Made in Vietnam”. Anyhow, we woke up early, walked with Lana to the bus station, waited for Erin, and took the bus to I don’t know where. We got off at one indoor market so that Maggie could buy a face mask, Lana and Erin could buy chè for the nurses, and we also all got some ca phe sua (vietnamese CRACK) (just kidding, means "coffee with milk (sweetened condensed milk)). This market was very Vietnamese—no tourists in sight— which was refreshing, although especially smelly and dirty. It was really cool, I got lots of sludge on my shoes (no more flip flops at markets). Afterwards we walked around the corner and found ourselves at the orphanage. At first they weren’t going to allow us to enter because there had been an outbreak of the H1N1 virus amongst the kids, and they were afraid that either we would bring in a new strain or that we might catch it too. But they allowed us in after some debate (naturally all in Vietnamese Maggie and I could not understand). From what I understood, this orphanage is specific to kids abandoned because they have a mental or physical illness or disability. We got to play with some of the older kids (meaning maybe around 4) with Downs Syndrome. They were really cute, and Maggie and I soon had a few of them stepping and piling themselves on us. One in particular kept sitting in my lap, I tried to ask him his name but he would respond in undistinguishable Vietnamese, or would just make noises. After 15 minutes the nurse came back and said that we had to leave because they were still afraid that we would bring or catch the virus—there were a few kids in the hospital with it. So we left, unfortunately. It would have been nice to spend more time with them. The experience affected me in weird ways. With situations like this I put up a guard and seem immune to feeling, when really the feeling is just buried deeper inside. I felt saddened, naturally. I wondered what the kids would do when they grew older. I also wondered if these families who abandoned these children had a little bit more money in their pockets, then maybe they would have spared their children and would have been able to take care of them.
One thing that is has been especially hard is that I can never blend in or slip between the cracks for even a second. When I walk down the street I create a stir; it's like a rock being thrown into a pond. I create lots and lots of ripples. Enough with the analogies: basically, people stare. Sometimes I stare back, in good humor. But after a while it gets very tiring because I cannot ever blend in. I am always being watched. Not only that but I'm thus constantly the target for street vendors, they call miss miss one dollar, one dollar... And it's even worse when we're all in one big group, like we are so often.
I have recently noticed from the road trip up central Vietnam is how much trash there is, everywhere. It was one thing in Saigon-- trash was everywhere, but that is somewhat expected in a huge, overcrowded city. But for the last few days we've been snailing up towards Hanoi and there's been no change in litter. We just crossed a bridge where the water was littered with full trash bags and where the whole river bank was full of discarded waste. Anywhere you look, too, there is litter. Including around people’s houses. I realize this could be from a serious lack of organized waste removal but one would think that people who often live so close to and in sync with the earth would want to take care of it, especially within the confines of their own land. This may be a completely incorrect observation, but I feel like this may have something to do with their development. If you think about it, back in the day, one didn’t really have to worry about where they put their waste because it tended to be natural and from the earth anyways. You could toss it anywhere because it could return to where it came, eventually disappearing. But now that we have all of this manufactured synthetic crap like packaging and plastic bags and other such things, when they are thrown on the ground, they stay. And accumulate. So people who to this day still live very close to the earth, say as farmers, and who are starting to, within the last few decades, enjoy the luxury of prepackaged and synthetic goods, are not necessarily worried about their affect on the environment. I could be wrong, though. The Vietnamese may simply have an entirely different attitude towards their environment that I have not yet begun to understand. I’ve seen that typically their trash is burnt, but you can’t really burn some of the trash that is created… burning is also horrible for the environment.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Happiness to every body!!!!!!! ^_^
Soooooooo I haven’t written in a while. The days go by fast and I am always doing fun fun things. When I do find the time I’m still tired from jet lag. I’ll try and recount:Monday: First four hour session of Vietnamese!!!!! It was intense. We move very fast. I think I have learned more Vietnamese in 5 days than I did in a whole term of Arabic at Union (granted it was somewhat of a joke). Vietnamese is hard but fun too. It has 6 tones, meaning each word must be said in the pitch that it needs to be or else it could mean something else. Depending on how you say “ma” is could mean ghost, rice seedling, tomb, but, horse or mother. Additionally there are a lot of sounds that we never make in English. All of this will require a lot of practice… but besides that Vietnamese is nice because all the words are one syllable and it has relatively simple grammar. It is also in the Latin alphabet, thanks to the French. Anyways I really like my teacher Co Thrinh (Co means teacher and Thrinh sounds like a cross between “chin” and “gin”). She is so great! She tells us dirty and politically incorrect riddles everyday before class. She is much more lively than the other teachers. She actually makes me want to be one… which is what I have been contemplating for a while. If I were a teacher, I would want to be like her, sans the politically incorrect riddles. I don’t know if I could get away with them. Later that evening most people were in the mood for some western food after mild tummy troubles. Alas, we found ourselves at Sheridan’s Irish Pub… I got risotto. Note to self: do not order an Italian dish at an Irish restaurant in Vietnam. It will probably not be very gastronomic.
Tuesday: Another language class, in which I almost cried in frustration. I was a little tired.
Wednesday: Had lunch with Van and My after 4 hours of Vietnamese… they showed us where we could eat lunch from the Lunch Lady (she was featured on Anthony Bordain). On the way we saw a little boy, probably around 8 years old, sitting at the side of the busy street, crying with his hands on his head. Nearby lay a metal serving tray and on the side of the street was a large pile of fried something; it was obvious that his day’s income had just been lost by the slip of a few fingers when a motorbike passed by too close. He worried about what his mom would say. A few of us gave him money… I gave him 20,000 dong (about a dollar) and we continued on. At a place nearby we had an interesting pink noodle soup complete with chicken skin, pepper pork sausage, a chunk of ham with the fat, a shrimp. Also My had us try sour meat. Sour meaning tasting sour. But I am pretty sure it was uncooked i.e. bad life choice. Not wanting to be impolite I took a teensy taste and still got a mouth full of hot pepper. Yum.
Thursday: I felt the repercussions of sour meat and interesting soup. I got a stomach ache, and, well, some other gastrointestinal complications. Alaina and I went to a very western café called Highland Coffee for some toast with butter and jam for dinner… something a bit more neutral. In Vietnamese class I learned how to spell my name in Vietnamese: “Ilaigio“ (without accents) !!!!!!!!!! And I also learned how to ask for my banh mi or muffin in the morning… or anything really…without any packaging (Meghan would be proud): Xin bo vao tay toi, Toi khong can hop (again without vietnamese accents).
Also, I have it so easy. I can eat 3 meals a day with snacks for like 100,000d or around $6. It's fun... except that I learned today that most construction workers only make around 35,000d a day. And this does not change with inflation. Not to mention every other Vietnamese person making lower and scraping for funds to feed their families.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Vietnamese noodles and Bah Bah Bah equates to Pizza burps
The day started at 4:30 am, when Maggie and I both stirred awake due to jet lag. It seemed to be happening to everyone, so we all gathered and went hunting for our breakfast at around 7:00 am. Life for Saigonese Vietnamese seems to run from 5 am to 10 pm. Luckily we didn’t have to venture far outside the confines of the university gates to find a Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich) stand. Man, was this the best breakfast I think I have ever had, not even kidding. Lily was the first to order and got a baguette (made with rice flower) filled with mayonnaise, pickled vegetables, basil, cucumbers, some interesting spicy soy sauce, baby bell cheese, and a fried egg. Actually sounds rather disgusting but it was a flavor explosion. We were standing, stuffing our faces, when we realized that no one else, meaning Vietnamese people, were eating standing up. So we found some little miniature stools (which everyone sits on in the sidewalks to eat) and sat. And ate our miniature feast. We supplemented it with some Vietnamese ice coffee, which is extremely strong coffee with a generous amount of sweetened condensed milk on the bottom. The coffee was so strong it almost tasted alcoholic.
Later we had our orientation. We walked around HCMC and went to the market. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It’s at the beginnings of the backpacker’s section of the city, i.e. tourist/white westerners central, and thus we are targets for their business. The market was especially draining. The vendors will come up and touch you and say “Miss nice shirt for you? Very nice, many colors…” Over and over. We walked through the covered alleys and every single vendor would grab and say “Miss, miss…” It was actually hard. I am not the kind of person to shut people out or say no to people. I want to be polite. But if you are polite and show more interest in talking to them they will pull you over and show you more and you just dig yourself deeper and deeper. I hated saying no because I knew that they need my money more than I actually need it. But its not like I can buy everything from every single Vietnamese woman/man who approaches. We were eating lunch and like 15 counterfeit Ray Ban sunglass vendors walked by and asked each of us to buy. So I have learned how to smile and say "không."
We walked, we got some noodles for lunch, some sugar cane juice, some beer (called “Bah Bah Bah”, meaning 333), some strawberry Fanta, and I bought some undies. Actually, one pair. In the biggest size they had. By US standards I am a skinny girl, not stick skinny, but, you know, thin. By Vietnamese standards I am giantess. I got XL which just fit me. Made me feel great. At least they didn’t say I was fat.
I will write more but I am exhausted
Ok, 6:54 in the am now, so Im good. Last night we went for our orientation dinner to meet our Vietnamese "buddies" and also ate a traditional Vietnamese meal, family style, as they always do (which is great). We had some sort of sour chopped up salad on rice cakes, chicken (with the heads), snail patties, a sort of fried salad with shrimp, another sour chopped up salad with pork, and then fish, rice and crab soup as the main course. Dessert was pineapple, watermelon and other fruit with this mixture of salt and chili pepper to go on it. It was all very interesting... my favorites were the snail patty, which tasted sort of like a leaf covered meat ball although the texture was a bit off, and the fish was great. My favorite part of the whole meal however was talking with the Vietnamese students, who are our age. I sat next to My who is really peppy and outgoing, we talked about Britney Spears and I explained the sexual connotation of "if-you-seek-amy." She's so cute, I can’t wait to spend more time with her. She also likes to dance and when she asked me how I like to dance in America I jumped up and down, waved my arms and my head and she was so happy. I also met a girl Vân who is also very sweet-- she reminds me of a Vietnamese Aiko (a very good thing). She had a nice temperment and was easy to talk to. On the other side of me was Huu Anh, who was very smiley guy, shorter than I and probably a size -2. I'll just have to get used to being a giantess. Anyhow he was very sweet and we talked a lot, and would get me food whenever a new dish was brought to the table. He told me that I hold my chopsticks very funny and showed me how to do it. I'll still have my training wheels a while, Maggie and I are going to do some conditioning to strengthen out chopstick grip. Pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, is the best way to do this, which we will probably be eating every day, so I have high hopes of becoming chopstick master. I also met Quyên, who I didn't get to talk much to, but she loves the color red and is also great.
The one thing thus far that has thrown me off about living here is my sustainable habits. In the US I purposely try to not buy containers that aren’t recyclable, I don’t buy bottled water ever, I try not to eat meat, I recycle any paper I have, I unplug appliances, you know. But here I can’t even think about the first four things on that list. If you get street food, which is what I can see myself living off, they come in Styrofoam or plastic containers that, well, can’t be recycled. Also, there are no recycling bins, and I felt a little bit naïve inquiring about that. Alice, one of our Vietnamese CET people, said that often people go through the trash for them, but not necessarily as much anymore because of inflation. Also I naturally can only recycle paper by reusing it. The meat here is local, naturally, and the food too, so that’s cool. But basically I have to through that whole environmentally conscious side of me out the window for the next 4 months, which is very, very hard. I practically shiver whenever I have to throw a can or bottle in the garbage. It’ll be ok though. They Vietnamese seem to use and re-use everything, very little goes to waste.
This is going to be a great term, Vietnam is a great place.
Later we had our orientation. We walked around HCMC and went to the market. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. It’s at the beginnings of the backpacker’s section of the city, i.e. tourist/white westerners central, and thus we are targets for their business. The market was especially draining. The vendors will come up and touch you and say “Miss nice shirt for you? Very nice, many colors…” Over and over. We walked through the covered alleys and every single vendor would grab and say “Miss, miss…” It was actually hard. I am not the kind of person to shut people out or say no to people. I want to be polite. But if you are polite and show more interest in talking to them they will pull you over and show you more and you just dig yourself deeper and deeper. I hated saying no because I knew that they need my money more than I actually need it. But its not like I can buy everything from every single Vietnamese woman/man who approaches. We were eating lunch and like 15 counterfeit Ray Ban sunglass vendors walked by and asked each of us to buy. So I have learned how to smile and say "không."
We walked, we got some noodles for lunch, some sugar cane juice, some beer (called “Bah Bah Bah”, meaning 333), some strawberry Fanta, and I bought some undies. Actually, one pair. In the biggest size they had. By US standards I am a skinny girl, not stick skinny, but, you know, thin. By Vietnamese standards I am giantess. I got XL which just fit me. Made me feel great. At least they didn’t say I was fat.
I will write more but I am exhausted
Ok, 6:54 in the am now, so Im good. Last night we went for our orientation dinner to meet our Vietnamese "buddies" and also ate a traditional Vietnamese meal, family style, as they always do (which is great). We had some sort of sour chopped up salad on rice cakes, chicken (with the heads), snail patties, a sort of fried salad with shrimp, another sour chopped up salad with pork, and then fish, rice and crab soup as the main course. Dessert was pineapple, watermelon and other fruit with this mixture of salt and chili pepper to go on it. It was all very interesting... my favorites were the snail patty, which tasted sort of like a leaf covered meat ball although the texture was a bit off, and the fish was great. My favorite part of the whole meal however was talking with the Vietnamese students, who are our age. I sat next to My who is really peppy and outgoing, we talked about Britney Spears and I explained the sexual connotation of "if-you-seek-amy." She's so cute, I can’t wait to spend more time with her. She also likes to dance and when she asked me how I like to dance in America I jumped up and down, waved my arms and my head and she was so happy. I also met a girl Vân who is also very sweet-- she reminds me of a Vietnamese Aiko (a very good thing). She had a nice temperment and was easy to talk to. On the other side of me was Huu Anh, who was very smiley guy, shorter than I and probably a size -2. I'll just have to get used to being a giantess. Anyhow he was very sweet and we talked a lot, and would get me food whenever a new dish was brought to the table. He told me that I hold my chopsticks very funny and showed me how to do it. I'll still have my training wheels a while, Maggie and I are going to do some conditioning to strengthen out chopstick grip. Pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup, is the best way to do this, which we will probably be eating every day, so I have high hopes of becoming chopstick master. I also met Quyên, who I didn't get to talk much to, but she loves the color red and is also great.
The one thing thus far that has thrown me off about living here is my sustainable habits. In the US I purposely try to not buy containers that aren’t recyclable, I don’t buy bottled water ever, I try not to eat meat, I recycle any paper I have, I unplug appliances, you know. But here I can’t even think about the first four things on that list. If you get street food, which is what I can see myself living off, they come in Styrofoam or plastic containers that, well, can’t be recycled. Also, there are no recycling bins, and I felt a little bit naïve inquiring about that. Alice, one of our Vietnamese CET people, said that often people go through the trash for them, but not necessarily as much anymore because of inflation. Also I naturally can only recycle paper by reusing it. The meat here is local, naturally, and the food too, so that’s cool. But basically I have to through that whole environmentally conscious side of me out the window for the next 4 months, which is very, very hard. I practically shiver whenever I have to throw a can or bottle in the garbage. It’ll be ok though. They Vietnamese seem to use and re-use everything, very little goes to waste.
This is going to be a great term, Vietnam is a great place.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
I'm Here!!!!
At the moment I am sitting on the last leg of my trip, headed straight for Ho Chi Minh City, slightly drunk off sleep deprivation. I’ve had a long— but very exciting— journey (which technically began yesterday at 9 am, but since I crossed over the international date line on my way here I skipped a day and thus it’s been “2” days since I left) I keep glancing out the window hoping to see my first glance of Vietnam.
I began the trip in Orlando, Florida, strangely. My family is in the process of moving from Maine to Florida so I was down there with my sister, dog and mum. Saying good-bye to my mom was harder that I anticipated. It happened very fast and I wanted to cry but was headed through security. I didn’t want to be tearing up on them as they bark instructions. She looked very sad as we said our goodbyes and I watched her walk briskly away, crying I’m sure. I cried too, a little. But like I said, I swallowed them up.
From Orlando to New York I had a 2 hour flight and then a 9 hour or more delay before the actual flight to Hong Kong. That was rather annoying since there was only one Cathay Pacific flight headed out that night—mine—and the desk didn’t open up for check-ins until 5:30, but I had been there at 2:30. The flight left JFK at 11:10 and then headed to Vancouver, where we disposed of old passengers and refreshed with some new ones. Lauren and I got a greasy bleach blonde Canadian male seat-mate, donning a Hong Kong t-shirt. He was headed for Beijing and considers China to be “the second Mother Land.” Lauren and I stayed up for the first 5 hours, ate two dinners, and then I Tylenol PM-ed myself to sleep which was off and on for the rest of the trip, with periods of in flight entertainment in between.
We landed in Hong Kong 20 hours after initial departure (!). A few of us went exploring and ran into a Cantonese candy shop, also conveniently supplied dried fish and many kinds of rice cakes. We purchased a big assortment of candy, our favorite flavor yet being red kidney bean. Naturally I was trying desperately to document the entire thing via camera until the
AHHH I JUST SAW VIETNAM
…. Nice cashier said “sorry no picture.” The packaging was just so cute and colorful and Chinese. I wanted all of it. Forever in a picture. That’s ok though. There are plenty of other chances. We explored a bit more, exchanged some dollah billz into Vietnamese Dong and headed back, boarded, and voila, on plane, destined for Ho Chi Minh City. We did get to eat some mediocre Chinese cuisine on the airplane—I got chicken and noodles with hot chili sauce and some interesting fruit that looked like an albino kiwi. Lauren, being lactose intolerant, got a special meal consisting of potatoes and vegetables with some ban curd dessert, which was essentially sweetened, silken tofu. The texture was interesting but it wasn’t bad. Like watery, more gelatinous pudding.
And here I am now, writing, eyes heavy, belly bloated, hair a little poofy, but also excited/nervous/exhausted. It all feels so surreal and indescribable—I can only attempt to explain by relating what I’ve done and seen. But the emotions don’t seem to seep through. As we were landing in Hong Kong, Lauren and I kept laughing and whispering “ahhh we’re in Asia, ASIA!!!!!” Yes, I’m in Asia, but it has happened so fast, it hasn’t hit me. I keep expecting to feel this sudden feeling of “so this is Asia, so this is where I am, so this is what it is like, you are in ASIA, you are in VIETNAM” but I don’t know when that will actually come, or if it will… I’ve noticed in the times I have traveled before that it sometimes doesn’t fully hit me that I am thousands of miles away from my home and family in a different culture. Yet, since my last experiences were in much more “Western” places, Switzerland and Brazil, maybe perhaps in Asia I will finally feel like I am in a completely foreign place. We’ll see… in a few minutes ☺
This trip has also showed me just how small the world really is. Our tiny little planet. I can’t fathom that I’ve traveled half of it in the past 24 hours.
motorbikes!
our room!
Monday, September 7, 2009
quotes
Some interesting quotes to think about...
From Vietnam and Other American Fantasies by H. Bruce Franklin:
1. “While the war was going on, Reagan unambiguously defined what he meant by victory… ‘It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.’”
2.After the Tet Offensive the US became desperate: ‘It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.’ 'Better dead than Red.'
From The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
1. “Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha’s gray eyes gazing back at him. He understood. It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. He almost nodded at her, but didn’t.”
From Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not To Learn From The Past edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young
1.“(Basically McNamara’s project sends young recruits (who would normally not be accepted into the military) to the war when they were in need of more men) Project 100,000 was touted as a liberal effort to uplift ‘the subterranean poor’ who had ‘not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this nation’s abundance.’… despite the high-minded rhetoric, Project 100,000 merely served to send many poor, terribly confused, and woefully uneducated boys to Vietnam, where their death rate was twice as high as it was for American forces as a whole. This was a Great Society program that was quite literally shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam.” (Appy 138-39)
2.“Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2003 is not 1975 or 1968. Saddam Hussein was driven out of power and his regime collapsed last spring. The is no independent sanctuary named ‘North Iraq’ for his Baath Party henchmen to fight from, no Soviet Union to keep them supplied with arms and fuel, no equivalent of Laos or Cambodia in the Middle East for whole divisions of his loyalists to hide in, no Ho Chi Minh trail that suicide bombers can use to drive to Baghdad. Nor is there an allied Iraqi government yet, elected or otherwise.” Craig Whitney, New York Times (Elliott 21)
3.“Convincing peasants that the United States was on their side was one aspect of counterinsurgency, and counterinsurgency greatly interested Kennedy and his advisors. Proud of their knowledge of how the enemy operated— not necessarily the Vietnamese, but any enemy— they quoted Mao: the guerrilla is a fish swimming in the ocean of the people. Dry up the ocean and the problem is solved. No one paused for very long over the metaphor: what, after all, would it mean to dry up the ocean?” (Young 217)
On an entirely different note (and tone and mindset), is it weird that I am actually rather excited for my 20 hour flight across the world? I can just sit on my butt for almost an entire day and no one can give me crap about it. I also get lots of "free" food (with the option of Asian OR Western), in-flight entertainment, attractive stewards, good books, diphenhydramine, a blow-up neck pillow...
From Vietnam and Other American Fantasies by H. Bruce Franklin:
1. “While the war was going on, Reagan unambiguously defined what he meant by victory… ‘It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.’”
2.After the Tet Offensive the US became desperate: ‘It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.’ 'Better dead than Red.'
From The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
1. “Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha’s gray eyes gazing back at him. He understood. It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. He almost nodded at her, but didn’t.”
From Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not To Learn From The Past edited by Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young
1.“(Basically McNamara’s project sends young recruits (who would normally not be accepted into the military) to the war when they were in need of more men) Project 100,000 was touted as a liberal effort to uplift ‘the subterranean poor’ who had ‘not had the opportunity to earn their fair share of this nation’s abundance.’… despite the high-minded rhetoric, Project 100,000 merely served to send many poor, terribly confused, and woefully uneducated boys to Vietnam, where their death rate was twice as high as it was for American forces as a whole. This was a Great Society program that was quite literally shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam.” (Appy 138-39)
2.“Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2003 is not 1975 or 1968. Saddam Hussein was driven out of power and his regime collapsed last spring. The is no independent sanctuary named ‘North Iraq’ for his Baath Party henchmen to fight from, no Soviet Union to keep them supplied with arms and fuel, no equivalent of Laos or Cambodia in the Middle East for whole divisions of his loyalists to hide in, no Ho Chi Minh trail that suicide bombers can use to drive to Baghdad. Nor is there an allied Iraqi government yet, elected or otherwise.” Craig Whitney, New York Times (Elliott 21)
3.“Convincing peasants that the United States was on their side was one aspect of counterinsurgency, and counterinsurgency greatly interested Kennedy and his advisors. Proud of their knowledge of how the enemy operated— not necessarily the Vietnamese, but any enemy— they quoted Mao: the guerrilla is a fish swimming in the ocean of the people. Dry up the ocean and the problem is solved. No one paused for very long over the metaphor: what, after all, would it mean to dry up the ocean?” (Young 217)
On an entirely different note (and tone and mindset), is it weird that I am actually rather excited for my 20 hour flight across the world? I can just sit on my butt for almost an entire day and no one can give me crap about it. I also get lots of "free" food (with the option of Asian OR Western), in-flight entertainment, attractive stewards, good books, diphenhydramine, a blow-up neck pillow...
Thursday, September 3, 2009
three days left
I'm leaving for Vietnam in three whole days. Actually. Thats a lie. If today were tomorrow it would be three days.
My itinerary: Beginning Tuesday September 8th, I'll leave Orlando at 11 am for JFK, arrive at 2-ish pm, meet the crew. Hang for a while. Peruse the airport facilities, eat food. At 10:40 pm take the 20-hour flight from New York to Hong Kong and get in Thursday, Sept 10th at 7 am (Wednesday 7 pm Eastern Standard time). Take connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh City, arrive 10:20 am.
I'm going to use this blog to record my journal entries required for my Vietnamese Life and Culture Course. Having them online will prevent them from being erased somehow on my computer (or if it crashes) and will also allow all of my fans to read them, or just my mom. (love you mom)
My itinerary: Beginning Tuesday September 8th, I'll leave Orlando at 11 am for JFK, arrive at 2-ish pm, meet the crew. Hang for a while. Peruse the airport facilities, eat food. At 10:40 pm take the 20-hour flight from New York to Hong Kong and get in Thursday, Sept 10th at 7 am (Wednesday 7 pm Eastern Standard time). Take connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh City, arrive 10:20 am.
I'm going to use this blog to record my journal entries required for my Vietnamese Life and Culture Course. Having them online will prevent them from being erased somehow on my computer (or if it crashes) and will also allow all of my fans to read them, or just my mom. (love you mom)
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