Lila from 'Nam

Lazy Hazy

2005-06-28T04:01:00.000+07:00

So I realize that I am in fact extremely lazy and have totally left out the last month of my trip from this blog. I have recently quit my summer job (already) however, so expect these updates soon. This will make my grandparents happy. Things to look forward to:
1. a breakdown in the nothern highlands....hanging on a cliff. This might include pictures, once I figure out how to do that, becuase you will understand better with visual aid. Mr. Asian Man's Burden and Ms. Texas: lets just say they did some experiementation after picking some wild "weed." A bad pun. Mr. Ex-Army: finally lived up to his reputation as a red-neck by getting a sunburn on the back of his neck. As Mr. Asian Man's Burden proved, that fact was much funnier if you were stoned.
2. Several general anecdotes about the rest of our trip to the highlands...including a drunk group leader shouting "damn pinkos!" at the top of his lungs out of nowhere while spending the night in a small very pinko town. Nobody but me knew what "pinkos" were. Humph!
3. The tailoring madness....getting out last orders in almost shut down out tailor's shop and meant soooo many runs to pick things up, not aided by:
4. Blackouts blackouts everywhere! Hanoi runs out of power and the whole city acts like nothing happened. Motorbike madness continues. Who else has been in an urban mall during a blackout and had none of the stores close? Didn't think so!
5. Leaving. I spend four hours in the Tokyo airport but apparently that's not enough to avoid an earthquake.
so stay tuned!

The Many Faces of the Hanoi Hilton

2005-05-14T19:12:00.000+07:00

Sadly my mommy has come and gone and now it's just back to business as usual. It was nice while it lasted, especially since while it lasted I was staying at the Hilton and enjoying a life of total luxury (compared to my dorm room here). Yes, it was the most deserved luxury hotel experience in the history of hotel experiences. We had a lovely room with clean white sheets (already a plus, but there is more), a huge bathroom with a real shower in a seperate stall and everything, a nice big bathtub, a flushing toilet, hotel white bathrobes, little soaps that smelled good; all the perks. In case you hadn't heard, my bathroom here is a sometimes working toilet, a sink, and a faucet that sticks out of the wall attached to a hose. So all the perks were delightfully wonderful and well deserved by yours truely.
The first few days my mother was too nervous to cross the street by herself, since the traffic here is enough to make even the most hard-nosed New Yorker quake in their boots. It goes against all common sense, you have to walk slowing into traffic, the heavier the better, but running is dangerous. As a result, my mother spent two days hanging out in her hotel room until I was able to pull her out and dragged her across streets and (gasp) into taxi cabs, sadly the best way for non-motorbike riding tourists to get around town. Soon after, my mother began to actively search out the routes with least traffic while I had my morning langauge classes, and soon had found every not-scary intersection in a 10 block radius around her hotel. Her second day here I dragged her to my english class with me, where my studnets were waiting to ask lots of ridiculous questions and complain about the Vietnamese education system. In exchange, she complained about the American system and in the end everybody realized that nobody is happy with how their children are educated. That Wednesday they took her out on a boat-ride/end of class party. I couldn't go, I was busy riding the paper-clip bicycle to economics class, but there was Karaoke on board so I'm sure that my cheesy song-loving students were happy, and my mother had a great time as well.
Our next exciting excursion was to go visit Uncle Ho (you can never visit a preserved dead legend in a Soviet style marble box too many times). On the insanely long line we mused about squatting, and decided that we should learn how. Here, everybody can squat, and of course as we stood awkwardly around on line, all the Vietnamese people were comefortably squatting in their places. We even saw an entire class of elementary school students squat in unison on command and decided that if an American class had done that, the domino effect would have wiped all of them out immediately. I probably would have started the domino effect, come to think of it. Anyway, I will be happy to return to a non-squatting culture.
The other major activity of the week was of course tailoring. I've been designing clothing like a mad woman and my mom, being so small, wanted to get some things made, so we hit the fabric market, which is totally overwhelming but oh-so-much fun. I think my mother really enjoyed the experience, and got two pairs of pants, a skirt, and a shirt made. I get two coats made....I've been going a little coat crazy.
The week my mom was here happened to coincide with the festivities commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam war, and the entire Old Quarter was a mad-house as a result. After a night of bubble tea (my new favorite snack...for some reason I never liked it in NY but it just all makes a lot more sense here, don't know why), water puppets (which is entirely attended by tall Austrailians and therefore neither me or my mom could see), we stumbled into a concert on the street. At first it just looked like a normal crowd, until I realized that everybody was on a motorbike. When it ended, half of the crowd just drove away, while the other half continued to stand in the street and listen to cheesy music. At times in was impossible to get through the crowd, possibly because instead of walking around it, we unknowingly walked directly into the middle of it. On the way back to the hotel, we witnessed a frenzy that turned out to be caused by free posters of a male pop star being given out. As we walked up to the madness, a woman stopped and had her small child kiss the poster, then screamed happily and walked away. It was as if the entire city was drunk and on speed.
The other big activity of the trip was a day trip to Halong Bay, which we took in the company of two crazy Australians, on a boat that we had to outselves. The spent much of the time talking about how they needed to buy lemons to make gin-and-tonics (to appease their English blood, they must end each day with a gin-and-tonic). We found mangos, but no lemons. Crazy Vietnam. The woman was about eight feet tall and even though they currently live in Singapore (which is nothing but a crowded city), she couldn't stand crowds or people pushing her. They are visiting New York right now. Ha. Anyway, we visited this cave that was beautiful except that every tourist in Vietnam was in there with us and it was lit up like Disneyland (think colorful neon lights). We did learn one thing from the experience however. Life is easier on the tourist route. The boat we sailed around the bay on didn't look like was going to break, the cars and buses we road in had properly functioning air conditioning, and in general life was pretty easy. Not so on our next trip, a trip with my art class which was to a pagoda about an hour and a half outside Hanoi in some small town. They were have a festival in the town, so we had to walk through this market in horrible heat and direct sunlight after a hot and gross car ride. Then we had a generally uninteristing tour of yet another pagoda, which inevitably Ms. Free Spirit held us up at, and got into the hot van and turned around. This is where my mother met my group and was no so impressed.
Our last hurrah in Vietnam was ice cream with my Vietnamese tutor, who finally showed up to something (yay!) and had a nice conversation with my mother about (double gasp) politics and the Vietnam war. And that is when I realized that it's not that they don't talk about politics here, they just don't talk about politics with foreigners! I can't win. Anyway, my tutor made my mom's day and told her all about how her family had been effected by the Vietnam war. Our only other Vietnam War related experience while my mom was here was our visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" (Hoa Lo Prison, where John McCain was a POW). They show pictures of smiling Americans preparing Thanksgiving dinner, recieving packages from home, and thanking the prison staff before leaving. Very thoughtful. Most of the museum is devoted to how the French suck though.
The day my mother left, I went to a middle-of-the-day-cross-cultural-exchange-of-food party at the house of a friend of Ms. Texas's tutor (Tsao B....since there are 2 Tsao's). After an extremely confusing visit to a super-market, we made a very makeshift version of pasta with tomato sauce and garlic bread that had to be prepared on the stove (and when I say "we," I mean me and Ms. Thoughtful Sigh did as everybody else reclined in front of the fan upstairs). The Vietnamese crew made every dish in the whole world, so we were generally upstaged. We listened to a Michael Bolton CD throughout the entire meal, and then they wanted to do Karaoke to cheesy songs we had never heard before as an after-lunch activity. We barely made it out alive. Later in the day me and Ms. Viet Kieu had an afternoon swim at the Hilton and met Mr. Asian Man's Burden for dinner. After dinner was when the real festivities began, as we stumbled upon yet another middle of the street show. This is how the line-up went:
1. Acrobat guy on one of those pipes with the square at the top, doing handstands and stuff.
2. A roller-skating duo that usually perform at a club in the old quarter. They skated in circles, pausing periodically to do some shaky tricks, bow, then skate more in circles
3. A bird/animal call guy, wearing a velvet vest with bright green sequins. He was do a call, pretending to be looking for where it was coming from, then would do a ridiculously cheesy smile and bow.....for every single call. It began with birds, but progressed to other animals (his dog imitation was worse than mine I'm pretty sure), then to trains, airplanes, and other modes of transportation. He never failed to do the pause-and-cheesy-smile once....such talent. This was maybe the funniest thing I have ever seen, ever.
4. There was of course an "Uncle Ho" dance number, sing by a slightly discordant chorus of college students. Men in army suits and large Vietnam and hammer-and-sickle flags danced around with women wearing ao dais representing the many diverse people's who live in Vietnam. Yes, Vietnam really is a diverse country. Some people even wear headscarves...that's right, you would never have expected it, and these people were of course fairly and accurately represented in this dance number.
5. cheesy song
6. A girl in a pink leotard that did nothing but extremely seductive back walk-overs. Then men in the crowd immediately went rushing up to the front, making it difficult for me to see, even has one of the tallest people in the crowd.
7. cheesy songs
On our way back we also stumbled across a random play being watched by people on motorbikes, who were causing a bit of a bottle-necking incident. Then we ate ice cream.

Reality in French

2005-04-22T16:44:00.000+07:00

Because I've been sick for the past week, instead of doing anything I've lived my entire week inside my mind while sitting in my room. This has been easy since my roommate has been with her parents all week. As a result, a lot of hysterical fictional things have happened to me. Today though, something funny actually happened in real life, and I was just dazed enough to embrace the moment and yet still remember it. I was at a bus stop across town, sitting in the rain on a rail-sized seat. One old man was next to me and was joined by a friend, who sat between us. He stared at me for a while, which is not an uncommon occurance in these parts and yet still makes me incredibly uncomfortable. He then began the requisite "where are you from, how long are you in Vietnam, etc.?" conversation in spotty English. It ended, he ran out of English, and got up to talk to his friend in his other ear, who could evidently only hear selectively. He appeared somewhat older and was also staring. He moved closer to me and said something that I didn't quite understand and sounded like it was predominantly in gibberish. I took a moment. Then I realized that he was asking me where I was from in French! I responded in my own pathetic French while his friend laughed and explained to him in Vietnamese that I was American and therefore spoke English, not French. The other old man that continued to ask me what I was doing in Vietnam in French. His friend reminded him again that I spoke English, and he finally seemed to understand, then thought that perhaps this deserved an explanation. So he then explained to me in French that he knew French because of the French had colonized Vietnam a long time ago and that he had needed to know it then. I smiled and nodded, as did the entire line of people sitting next to me who were also in on the secret that I was an English speaker. Then the bus came and I waved and said "Au revoir!" to him. He seemed pleased with himself and waved back. This story proves one point. Old men are always cute, even when they are interrupting you in French while waiting for the the bus while you are sick. I am decidedly over people interrupting my bus rides to speak broken english to me (one guy today stared at me for four years before asking "what time is it?" as we sat with nothing to look at but the giant clock at the front of the bus), but I've decided I will make exceptions for people that still think that the French colonization was still in the recent past. And people that also still think that all white people speak French, because sometimes you just need a change of pace. Not many people actually speak French here anymore so the only other French-speaking experience I've had was with a xich lo driver in hue who asked me "Allez-vous to hotel you? You nom what?" during our ride. So that was my first reality of the week. Sometimes the absurdity is just too much. It was at the bank the other day, when, true to the Laurel and Hardy routine that my life here is, I was sent to every possible desk before being told that the bank was closed.
On a side note, my mommy arrives in two days!!! So I win.
Now I'm off to figure out why my bathroom smells like garlic. This situation was my fault the first time it happened, since I chopped garlic and cleaned the knife and cutting board in there. Now it just smells like garlic for no reason periodically though. I feel like a colony of garlic exists somewhere in the drain or something and just periodically releases "garlic smell." Anyway, it's very unpleasant and totally inexplicable. On another note, I've discovered that the water here smells life rice. Perhaps there is a connection.

Street-Fighting in Hai Phong

2005-04-18T15:43:00.000+07:00

I realize that you all hate me since I haven't posted in forever and left you a cliffhanger ending last time (....yes...I'm sure you were all heartbroken....) but I've decided to do something rash. I am putting the story of the rest of my trip on hold (it mostly went like this: tired, made clothing, bored) in order to make sure I get to tell you all the goings on since then before I forget them and they are lost forever. If you want to read about Hue, check another blog (although I promise my take on it will be less flowery and more interesting).
On a not very related note (I am sick so I clearly can't be expected to connect things): My mommy is coming in less than a week! Take that all you people who are having a fabulously luxurious time enjoying the food and sites of Europe! You don't have my mommy, and I will!
Now back to normal life. The day after we got back from the Hue trip was actually pretty exciting. A friend of mine from Vassar was here, and I had dinner with him while we both discussed how we don't like Vietnam and are ready to go home. On the way to dinner, as I explained my less-than-riviting social situation (he thought he could compete with stories of his own until...) we ran into every CIEE person ever on the street. I should say, we ran into "everbody and their mother," because my rommate's mother also came to town that day and we ran into her too. It would actually be impossible, therefore, to exaggerate the situation. Turns out, I win for annoying trip-mates. Anyway, I needed some good cynicism and sarcasm in my life, so dinner was a good time. On the topic of my roommate's mom, I have only one comment:
How can republicans look so normal sometimes?? (I would offer apologies to people that could be potentially offended by this comment, but a)you would have to apoligize first for voting republican and b)if you were offended that would also mean you don't know me, which would lead to questions about why you are reading this blog...)
Anyway, later that night I was chatting about international finance, as I often do (right....), with our offical Viet Kieu (foreign Vietnamese) and we decided to go for a snack since we hadn't had dinner. This is how the snacking went:
1) We went to a local bakery and had a glass of milk (people actually stop in there and just get a glass of milk) and a teeny tiny flan.
2) We were obviously still hungry, since I don't like milk and the flan was the size of my pinky, and went to a street vendor outside of my dorm. There, we ate dried squid and grilled sweet potato. Yes....we had a snack of milk, flan, dried squid, and sweet potato (On plastic kindergarden stools of course). Such confusion is my life here.
The next day classes started again and everything was pretty much business as usual, however during of the breaks in my three hour long Vietnamese class, there was finally some political discussion. My roommate (the Catholic one...I know, this is exciting!) was lamenting an article in the Vietnam News, our local English-language newspaper, that described how Bush is putting all these funding stipulations on family planning aid saying it can't go towards abortions, etc. And Ms. Thoughtful Sigh decided to lament how our "movement" was not as big as the "movement" in the '60s. No movement in particular, just the "movement." I was trying to be upbeat (of course taking advantage of my usual sunny disposition..HA!) and talking about how I think our movement is bigger, we just are up against different forces (namely, born-again christians who actually control everything). Mr. Uhhh agreed with me, and so Ms. Thoughtful sigh mentioned that she still thinks we should all be doing something, but that even she isn't. I mentioned that before I left for Athens, I was doing more than was probably good for me (that week was the RNC). And her ultra-insightful comment was this: (word for word)
"We have to stop thinking of our own good and start thinking of their own good."
In reference to nobody in particular...actually...in reference to nobody at all. That's right, this comment, which was aimed at me (not her or any of the non-doing-anything people), was also in reference to nobody. And then she got offended when we all laughed, and told me that it's not enough to just be involved in college clubs and say we are "doing" somthing. Apparently doing nothing is a better plan....as is ignoring the fact that I never mentioned involvement in a college club, since I'm not in one. Ugh...the blasphamy! Only people MORE involved than me are allowed to insult my measily contributions to "the movement." But that is only if they can tell me what "the movement" they are referring to is. This must be why nobody discusses politics in this group (although last night we did have a riviting discussion over whether you would shoot your dog in the head if he had cancer. Apparently, I am both stupid and overly sentimental since I wouldn't do that and instead would (and did) go through the trouble of paying somebody so that my dog could have a peaceful death. Mr. Ex-Army would take the high road, of course, and put the animal out of his misery himself. With one of the guns he owns...right there in his own backyard. This is the only way to be a man about the situation. In the many times we have had disagreements over random stuff, I have never seen Mr. Ex-Army get as upset about anything as he did about my cooky "peaceful death for my dog" ideas. I can can be crazy and impractical sometimes.).
The best part of that day was that I skipped economics and instead went to dinner with Kara!!! (One of my oldest and best friends from home for those of you not from NYC). Yes, Kara and I, famous Saigon Grill partners in NYC, have no how Vietnamese food in Vietnam! Except that Kara ordered a Greek Salad....so yeah. Anyway, it was super-cool and made me feel much better after a week straight of hanging out with nobody but my group.
And now for some excitement:
Hai Phong!! Yes, my economics class took a field trip to Hai Phong last weekend for one night. Hai Phong is an industrial city about two hours outside Hanoi, and is on one side of Ha Long Bay (the ugly side). Since it was with my economics class, it was just five CIEE people and 40 Vietnamese students. Brian, our group leader, and Ngoc, our CIEE office person, also got roped into coming, begrudgingly of course. So there we were, meeting the students at their University's campus at 7am to board the buses. We get on. Suddenly, Mr. Viet Kieu leans over to me and says "do you want to hear what they just said? Yes. "Don't get on that bus, that's the foreigner bus." Great. We get to the hotel and a few minutes after we sit down while waiting for our rooms to be cleared out she leans over again. "They are saying mean things about us in Vietnamese." Yes, 40 Vietnamese students were wispering about how annoying "the Americans" were as we were given the first rooms....great. A good begining. So much for bonding with the other students. So, we turned inward. Mr. Busybody's girlfriend from Hanoi randomly showed up and there was a room shake-up, but lucky Brian had left our hotel in a huff since there was a room mix up and he didn't have internet of phone service in his single that he had ended up purchasing with his own money (A whopping $10). So Ngoc, who had had a single, gave her room to Mr. Busybody and company and decided to move into me and Ms. Viet Kieu's double. That was actually a good addition, since the more friends the better was the rule in this crowd. Especially since excitement looked like it would be lacking, given that the hotel was not actually in Hai Phong, but was instead 30 minutes outside of it in a small and really horrible "beach town." (It deserves the quotes.) We ate the worst hotel lunch ever and finally left for our first lecture, and found outself in a very fancy conference room in Hai Phong. We sit down....and the real professor of our class starts making a speech in vietnamese. "He's probably just explaining the format or something" I think. Nope, nope, the speaker, who had confirmed that he would be giving his presentation in English to us just days earlier, began his presentation in Vietnamese and never stopped. During our break, the class moniter asked how it was going for us to me and another CIEE student, who tried to weasle out of answering. Ngoc wispered "just be honest" to me and so I blurted out "We don't understand the lecture." "His answer "well then you should ask some questions." Yes....ask questions. I didn't even know what the lecture was on. I still don't. So after the end of the three hour lecture we were so exasperated with bordom that we decided to just sit in a cafe and get food to recharge. While we waited for the buses to take us back, Ms. Viet Kieu, Ngoc and I practiced some street fighting with each other, just to make the Vietnamese students more uncomefortable, since that was our job. Back in the hotel room we watched a little VTV3 (the most exciting of the national television channels); a gameshow about singing (a major Vietnamese pastime) followed by a song and dance number in which little girls in skimpy hot pink tutus danced and sang about "Bac Ho." Yes, girls in outfits that would not have been appropriate for streetwear at all were singining about Ho Chi Minh and dancing on TV in front of a large Kotex advertisement. The show was apparently especially sponsered by Kotex, there were logos on every single thing on the set.
On the trip program it was written that we would be taking a group trip to a Casino, so we left to wait for the bus. Well, that didn't happen, the students all went dancing, so instead Ngoc, Ms. Viet Kieu and I decided to take "xich lo" (Cyclo taxi) to the casino, a good 6 miles away. We had to get out and walk three times on the uphills, so it was totally worth the $1.50 we paid for all three of us to get there. We also had to walk along up the hill that was the casinos driveway....so we got some funny looks. Despite the big sign that required all foreigners to show IDs at the door, they let us just walk right into the Casino, which was emply. We played the equivalent of $6 on the slot machines while we waited for a call from Ms. Busybody and guest, who were meeting us there. We finally got a call from him saying that they wouldn't let his girlfriend in. Being the only non-Asian in the group and therefore the only one likely to get in without ID twice in a row ("cultural currency" as Mr. Busybody refered to it), I went out to try to argue their case. When he found out they were with me, the guard gave letting them in a moment's though, but decided against it when Mr. Busybody gave him an ill-timed desparate look just as he was about to announce his decision. So we left, but not before Ms. Viet Kieu, being the best kind of loudmouth, gave the guard a piece of his mind. Apparently, we were right to assume that sending me out was the safest bet, since Ngoc and Ms. Viet Kieu had apparently gotten in on the assumption that they were Viet Kieu just because they we with me. Good thing nobody asked Ngoc for ID, since gambling is illegal for Vietnamese. Leaving actually proved to be a disastor of a greater sort, since there was only one 4 person taxi that refused to take in 5, and these xe oms that were overcharging just because they were the only ones there. After about half an hour of indecision, Ms. Viet Kieu decided we would walk. So we did. We walked a long ways, called some taxi companies who all said they were "out of taxis" (how does that happen?) and walked some more. After having a scary run-in with a large green truck that was obviously being driven by some drunk men (it became clear after it randomly decided to back up and rammed right into a large brick wall at high speed) and found a taxi. It's amazing the number of people you can fit in a Fiat-sized car. Six is our limit so this was roomy by comparison. The xe om drivers felt pretty dumb, since they had to go back to where we had gotten them in the first place and now had to do so without customers. Anyway, after getting back it was more VTV3 for us. This time it was a game show in which guys in large cardboard flip-flops with large cardboard turtle shells on their backs were racing to carry large cardboard bricks across the course to build a "wall." Oh, VTV.
The next day was, well, in Vietnamese, so frankly I don't know what we learned. After another lecture during which I blatantly played games on my cell phone, we took a drive through an "industrail zone," land that the government rents to corporations to build factories on. Every once in a while Ms. Viet Kieu would say "Hey Lila, in case you were wondering, that factory is owned by a Japanese company that makes bags." Of course I was wondering. We stopped at a rest stop restaurant that is supposidly famous or something for lunch. The Vietnamese students bought tons of boxes of candy as presents for friends and family (naturally being away for one night to the city 2 hours east of you requires bags and bags full of presents). So yes, that was my weekend. We returned to the raucous last night of the Lao New Years celebration (which had been going on with non-stop loud music coming from the dorm next-door for two weeks). I have celebrated three New Years this year so far. Then I got sick and don't really remember Sunday. Except that Ms. Viet Kieu, my new group best friend, and I went to buy Korean movies and eat expensive (but tasty) Pho for dinner. Next time I promise I will finish the saga of Hue...right now I am looking forward to soup...the only thing I feel up to eating besides bad bruschetta that I made in my room. Everybody focus all your energy on hoping I get better soon!

Hue Part I

2005-04-10T23:37:00.000+07:00

Well, we are finally back in Hanoi, after a train ride that I feared would last so long that I would never hear the horrendous sounds of Hanoi traffic and breath in the disgusting exhaust-filled air ever again. We left two Thursdays ago by sleeper train, which was definately much more exciting than taking the day-time train back. It started off with a bang when, after finally getting all our people and stuff into the train and finding our cabins, me and another student (a Ms. Rural New Yorker, since she is from Queens yet for some reason hates New York as much as everybody else here...or at least does not see eye to eye with me on it's merits, since she too felt that rural Cambodia was far superior to anywhere else) walked into our cabin to find a middle aged vietnamese man lying there reading the paper. We had all been promised that we were all in Cabins together and therefore this was unexpected. We sat awkwardly for a while (really awkwardly actually since none of the bunks were far enough apart to sit up in) and finally Ngoc, the 21 year old CIEE coordinator person, who is dating a 37 year old french man and passes much of her time smoking and giggling profusely, found us and her sense of vietnamese propriety (which she rarely exhibits making her much more exciting than the average person here) and said she would get some boys to stay in there instead. Well two boys said they would move but only one actually made the effort, and for a while there we all misunderstood what was happening and everybody got mad at me since I jumped at the first sign of anybody moving and got the hell out of there (guess who was the one who switched...grudgingly of course but all the boys have a crush on Ngoc so he couldn't say no since his crush is the worst....Mr. Asian Man's Burden). In case you were wondering, Vietnamese men don't smell the best of any men ever...and that is after a semester in Europe so I'm even being lenient, so moving was a major priority. After the moving festivities, in which Brian finally agreed to move too and everybody was settled, the requisite sitting around and waiting for sleep began. First we sat around as the conductor came through, took our tickets, and gave us plastic cards instead. We had been advised that this would happen, however nobody has ever figured out why they do this. Right before you get off the train they come around and take back the cards and give you your tickets again. It seems like if there were an actual purpose, they could do it by computer much more easliy, and if there isn't a purpose, they could think of something less obviously ridiculous for their extra staff to do. (The number of staff on the train I'm conviced must equal the number of passengers. They all sit around in the dining car smoking most of the time.) After this, we began an ill-fated game of "Never have I ever..." in true immature style, however that's a drinking game and we were a) not drinking anything b) on a train and c) some had apparently played it a few nights earlier and therefore already knew everything about everyone. Sleeping was also not the most comefortable experience out there. Brain had assured us that these days they have cushioning on the beds so they are fine for sleeping in. Well "cushioning" was a threadbare rug, so frankly they weren't fine for sleeping. That and the fact that one of the people in my bunk got three phonecalls expertly spread out in the middle of the night made sure I was awake to exeperience my discomfort. On the bright side, I didn't drink anything the entire time meaning I only had to use the bathroom once the entire 13 hour train ride....well done me!
We arrive in Hue at "7am" which was really 8am, since the trains on this line seem to run exactly an hour off schedule. Clearly they would not want to build that into their schedule though, since that would obviously be a silly thing to do. Hue is a relatively small city and because of this, everybody got off the train an immediately declared it their favorite place ever and agreed that it was much nicer than Hanoi. I thought Hue was relaxing until I realized we weren't actually in town yet. Once we got there I discovered it was just boring, and this was the impression that stayed with me and eventually even infected the rest of the group. Minus the guys since Hue school girls still wear the old fashioned white ao dai's and they were all immediantely smitten.
Anyway, more to come...

Just A Note...

2005-03-31T13:51:00.000+07:00

So as a super-sleuth, I was doing a little futzing around on the computers in the library and discovered that somebody else on my program has a blog as well. In case you were interested in seeing a relatively un-biased and humorless interpretation of the trip thus far, I thought I'd give you the address:
vietnamslim.blogspot.com

On another note, I was discussing Mr. Busybody's nickname with another student (the Marlboro College student, Ms. Free-Spirit) and we decided that a more appropriate nickname for him would be Mr. Asian Man's Burden. So I am going to take votes as to which is better in an effort to get people to leave me comments! Comment away....

Don't Make Me Go Pineapple Lady On You!

2005-03-31T11:54:00.000+07:00

Well, the official funniest moment of the semester just occurred, and while I have a lot to update about, I think you'll want to know about this first. So we have these ladies that sell pineapples off of the backs of their bicycles in front of our dorm, and they usually begin to arrive right before we get out of Vietnamese class. Well today, I was walking back from class and noticed that one of the baskets of pineapples had fallen over. Then I realize that one of the ladies is hitting one of the other ladies. Apparently, from what I hear from people that got there five minutes earlier, one of the baskets of pineapples got knocked over, and the lady whose basket it was, between picking up the fallen fruit, began to chuck pineapples at the lady who I guess had knocked the basket over. Well, this escalated quickly, and soon they began hitting each other with sticks (I'm not sure why they carry sticks around with them, but nobody was caught unprepared) and throwing pinapples if the other fighters were out of range. This scuffle began with two women, but somehow ended up involving four, one who was trying to mediate and one who was just mildly angry about the situation but not actually directly involved, who began to fight just in case I suppose. You never can be too careful. Anyway, This happened about half an hour ago and I'm still fully entertained by it. And all this one a morning that was already topping most other days in entertainment value. Perhaps the other entertaining features of the day were only entertaining to me though, since I'm both a cynic and and the only person on the program with any capacity for humor evidently.
First things first, today was military training day! That's the day (usually once a month or so), that Vietnamese college students are required to do mandatory military exercises in the sports field accross the street from our dorm. They all wear matching green hats and stand in perfectly straight rows with people crouching in the front, kneeling in the middle, and standing in the back (like on class picture day!) while somebody demonstrates how to crawl with a gun. They always do the same exercises. Also, every once in a while they cheer (why not?). Today, there were also spectators in the stands. I wondered if those were the equivalent of the asthmatic kids in gym who never have to do the exercise (me having been one of them).
Vietnamese class was just the same general boring thing...except that now the teacher has been "talked to" about letting us out early and doesn't do it anymore! Life can be so tough! What kept me from colapsing from general boredness for the last hour, however, was a very entertaining arguement that I took no part in (unusual), in which one yet-to-be nicknamed classmate (who from now-on will be known as Ms. Uhhhh....her favorite expression, denoting her place in life as the "spacy liberal sports enthused but only midly interested college student"), got angry at Mr. Busybody for implying that she was racist in a conversation at a bar a few days earlier. (Mr. Busybody has a few chips on his shoulder, as I'm sure I've made clear, and this conversation followed a comment by another student, a north california native with, as my roommate put it....sorry for the profanity..."a big stick up her ass," who will be known as Ms. "Thoughtful Sigh" due to her annoying habit of doing that). Ms. Thoughtful Sigh is obssessed with learning French, and Mr. Busybody had made a comment about how it was "innapropriate" it was for her to be obsessed with French given Vietnam's colonial history, and she had responded with "I hate colonialism in the morning," after a thoughtful sigh (of course). So Ms. Thoughtful Sigh and Ms. Uhhhh harassed Mr. Busybody about being angry and overly-arguementative and of course the conversation turned to race, as all conversations with him do. Mr. Busybody is intensly proud of his connection to his Korean heritage (only politically of course...he doesn't know any Korean, that would be ridiculous!) and is an "Ethnic Studies" major at Brown (So basically, he goes to the most elite school of any of us, majors in something with no job prospects but doesn't need to worry b/c he's got all sorts of connections, and is a walking imposer of guilt about anything at all, since he can do no wrong.) So Ms. Uhhhh said she was annoyed by his holier than thou attitude, and that calling a white person racist just because they are white (which is what allegedly he had done at this bar) is a form of racism in itself. So....Pause. On my trip to the boonies, Mr. Ex-Army made a comment that was a subject of much debate. He said that he hates it when people say "You don't know me" in an arguement, because he said it means they are assuming there is something unique about them while implying that there is nothing unique about you. We all thought about this a great deal, but I wasn't convinced that I needed to have an opinion on it at the time...now back to the story. Mr. Busybody's next comment was " You can not compare anything that has happened to me or my family to anything that has happened to you." At which point I interjected "You don't know me!" and everybody ignored me as usual. And that's the poin that a) I decided that Mr. Ex-Army had made his first correct statement. "You don't know me!" is a ridiculously condescending thing to say and b) our teacher walked in, not understanding the arguement that was taking place (since his english is not great) and just began to lecture again right in the middle of it while the hostility in the room mounted in silence. And I was laughing inside. Mr. Busybody and Ms. Uhh had a long and heartwarming discussion back at the dorm after class. Being a super-sleuth, I overheard three things:
Maya Angelou
I Love You
Constructive solutions
Do with that what you will.
Meanwhile, last weekend was plenty interesting. On Sunday night I went to an ex-pat production of Ianesco's The Bald Primadonnas. It was horribly done, as I could have guessed since it was community theater in Hanoi, but it contained some entertaining dance numbers. Of course Ianesco is very famous for his dance numbers so I expected as much (hehe). Earlier that day I had gone to my tutor's house for lunch, and made some important discoveries. We went to the market and she spent the whole time talking about how I could watch her bargain. Well, funny thing about Vietnamese, I've never actually seen any of them bargain. Ever. They talk about it endlessly though, especially to foreigners. True to form, my tutor did not bargain for a single thing, then complained that she was being ripped off after we left! She lives in a dorm-room sized apartment with her grandmother and brother near the main university campus in Hanoi. They cook on a small gass burner in the corner, and all sleep on one mattress. They made spring rolls for lunch and there wasn't even enough room for me to help so I spent to whole time sitting around flipping through her english books while they spoke Vietnamese really fast. Her brother came late, but made sure to play some American music for me. The selections were: a song by Greenday, Imagine by John Lennon (everybody here knows it), and two Linkin Park songs, and they all knew all the words to everything and since they are vietnamese, had no qualms about singing along at the top of their lungs. I went straight from her house to Easter Brunch at the Hilton to meet my roommate. So basically it was a day of extreme contrasts and musical numbers.
My enjoyment of the weekend, however, was mitigated by a secret war that my roomate has been launching against the cleaning staff. It only effects us though, they haven't even noticed. She has been furious that they don't give us enough toilet paper. As a result, she has been hiding all of our toilet paper so they will think we are out and give us more. Sadly, they never do this and I can never find the toilet paper, which means I spent the whole weekend using the bathroom at restaurants and such instead of in our room. Now obviously, although I offered, she would not let me just purchase toilet paper (at 15 rolls for about $2, we can afford it) because that would mean they had won. This was the weekend, however, that I discovered that she has been hoarding a roll of toilet paper in a cabinet that she brought from home and has been secretly using during her crusade. The insanity!
As for the last few days, and then I promise this post will end, I have been busy editing a 52 page paper that I am being paid to fix for a graduate level economics program. I kid you not, I can not imagine a worse job. The writer was not a native speaker, obvioiusy, but managed to use the word "they" only in places it didn't belong, meaning the job was extremely tedious. I was told I could share the job with Mr. Busybody, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction, so I trudged through on my own. It was a good excuse not to talk to my roommate, who has been pretty arguementative herself lately. Our most recenty arguments, all of which were topics I brought up just to strike up friendly conversation on the walk home from Vietnamese class so that we wouldn't have to walk in an awkward silence, have included whether college papers in the old days were better written then they are now and whether college students in the old days worked harder than we do (instigating comment by me: "College papers in the old days must have been much worse written since they didn't have spell-check and couldn't edit as easily as we can now." She was fiercly opposed.) and a conversation about exchange rates that ended in her being extremely frustrated with me for not being happy with her simplisitc understanding of how they work. (Instigating comment by me: "Why is it that when a currency goes up against one currency, it usually goes up against all the other ones too?" She felt this question was not clear and furthurmore was not neccessary.)
Meanwhile my english class students have now gotten bored of talking to me and have spent the entire last few class periods trying to get me to sing and dance for them. I tried to say that Americans don't sing, but that wasn't a good enough reason. Then, yesterday I taught them a song and they called out names of other songs until we realized that supposed "American music" here is not actually listened too by Americans. Perhaps this is because the music tastes here are effected by Vietnamese pop music, which almost always sounds like carnival music and is played loudly on all city busses. None of the songs would be acceptable grown-up music in the states, and the situation is funnier because all the bus workers are men, who work a job dominated by men (is seems most vietnamese men have that complex) and try to act very macho all the time. Well, let me just say, it is very hard to look macho when you are taking tickets to the rhythm of childrens sing-a-long music, especially with the entire bus knowing that this is your musical preference.
Well, this has been long enough. Next time I promise I will write about the Peter Yarrow concert mom!

Invitation Only

2005-03-26T10:14:00.000+07:00

We have officially entered the realm of the Junior High with my group of smart alecs and wanna-be cowboys (there is a perponderance of oversized belt buckles being worn by this group...and of course Mr. Ex-army, who in case anybody was curious, hates New York State because our strict gun laws mean that he can't carry his gun in his glove compartment while driving to visit his friends, since that would be carrying a concealed weapon.) Last weekend we were at this bar called GC (which stands for Golden Cock I found out on that visit....but cock in the bird sense) and were having a girls night out, I guess because all of the boys in the group prefered to prowl for vietnamese girls at sleezier places. Ms. Texas has a hairdresser friend who we always see out with his gang of foreigners and expats, being flamboyantly gay and having what I guess would be an a-fro (asian-fro). He's a very nice guy, however now two members of the group have gotten haircuts by him and in my opinion, not a great hairstylist. He talked to Ms. Texas for a while and then they come over to our table of six and he said he was having a party to celebrate the one year anniversary of his salon opening. He then gave us *three* invitations to the "black and white" themed anniversary party, and said "I hope you can make it, make sure you keep the invitations" and walked away. A wave of confusion passed over our table! Did the fact that he only passed out three invitations mean only three of us could go?? (Would that be an assumption you would make about a perfectly nice full grown adult coming to our table of six instead of taking Ms. Texas aside and giving her the invites?) It was the only logical answer, and naturally it was decided by the clique next door that they would be the ones to go, sans one girl who was going on an all-day trip the next day. They didn't worry about my roommate, since she is anti-social usually anyway, but spent the entire day avoiding me (and we had a make-up class that evening right before the party, so there was some confrentational avoiding going on), and then waiting until ten minutes before leaving for the party to tell me that they just didn't want to risk it since there were only three invites. They actually were forced to tell me, since I was standing in the hall as they came back from class and realized that I might just stand in the hall as they left. It was very rude of me obviously, after days of planning to avoid me, to be in the way like that. Anyway, luckly Mr. Ex-army was there to make them look ridiculous. As we left class, they asked him what he was doing tonight so that they could brag about their important invite, and he said in his best drawl, "oh, I'm going to this black and white party." Shock! Confusion! "Do you have an invitation?" "No, my friend Vin told me about it." "Well you need an invitation." Well actually, not. Mr. Ex-army, my roommate and a sick Ms. Free-sprit went to dinner, since he decided that being a country boy, that party was a bit "too metrosexual" for him. They then went home and Mr. Ex-Amry and I went to meet the guys from the group at a bar called 17 Saloon, and met their Lao friends who live in the dorm next door and are very nice. At exactly 12:35 I looked at my phone and saw two text messages from Ms. Texas. (1) Open party, you should come! (2) What are you doing? Good thing I had unintentionally missed the calls, so that I coulfd punish them with an air of aloofness. "Invitation Only"....how old are we exactly...and where? (since the nightlife here is not exactly crowded to the extent that you could even have an overbooked party.) After 17 Saloon we went to a room party in one of the Lao guys room's. We walked in to a room with such a thick haze of smoke that it actually obstructed my view of who was there. Good thing too. Once I was already in, I realized that I was in a room of about 15 drunk Lao guys and one girl who was on her way out. They drink boatloads of beer on a frequent basis by passing around one cup and all chugging from it (Lao tradition, as it was explained to me). They then play video games and listen to cheezy Thai pop music and Lao "pop" music. We watched a Thai music video in which a little girl was dressed up in traditional garb and singing about giving a guy "her carrots" while dancing with two carrots in her hands. Then, a dance scene in which she and six young girls in Britney Spears-esque schoolgirl outfits danced provacitively. It was a children's sing-along. Mr. Angry Guilt (named for another occasion for those of you who missed it) had spent five months in Thailand and explained that it was the most hyper-sexualized society he had ever witnessed. I believe it. Then we watched the most ridiculously tame Lao music video/ concert tape thingy. Apparently Laos is not know for a risque pop culture. They also had eminem videos on their comptuters, as well as every other video ever. They were some serious bootleg fiends I guess. It was interesting because unlike in the states, Lao guys hug each other frequently, lean all over each other (especially when drunk I'm guessing), have no qualms about sleeping in the same bed as other guys, etc. Anyway, they were all perfect gentlemen to me, and later that night the "invitation only" girls came by. Ms. Texas poked me and said "Why didn't you come to the party? I really wanted you there!" to which Mr. Angry Guilt, whow as drunkenly lecturing me about how learning vietnamese "just takes practice," said, perfectly timed: "Girls are so political" (commenting on an unrelated issue of his). I said "what do you mean, political?" thinking he was refering to the conversation with Mr. Ex-Army I had just had about the Code Pink shirt I was wearing. It was decided that girls are "schemingly diplomatic," and given the circumstances, I had to agree.

Comedy of the Bourgeois

2005-03-25T16:07:00.001+07:00

Yesterday I finally made it to the supermarket and stocked up on all my important imports: olive oil (a new kind), pocky sticks, a new piece of eating-related hardware (this time it was a plate), orange juice, chick peas or white beans in easy open cans, and udon noodles. I went with two new people who spent a good part of the time avoiding me so that they wouldn't feel compelled to buy any of these things and would feel happy with a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of white bread, and neon pink jelly. And milk, since god knows I don't buy that. (So far three people have developed "Lila-ized" shopping habits...one of them being Mr. Ex-army. That was a feat. He now eats olive paste daily.) We go shopping in this supermarket on the third floor of a mall in this brand new building that opened last semester. This building also contains an American style coffee chain called Highlands Coffee, many international make-up counters, a very sleek Nokia store, some extremely fancy electronics stores, and several international-ly furniture and clothing stores. All of the stores outside of the mall sell gigantic voltage stabalizers so that you can plug in these fancy appliances to Vietnamese outlets even given the unpredictable and at times useless currents. Only the richer, bougeois-types can afford to shop here, although it does attract a certain number of window shoppers which gives it a very circus-like air since nobody is actually there on business.
It seems that the idea of supermarkets has developed without some necessary training in supermarket-related services. Every section has a enormous perponderance of staff that don't seem to have any responsibilities other than to sit on stools and giggle in circles. Unlike in America, where the key to success is looking busy while putting in the least effort, these employees don't even have to pretend to be busy, however they do put a great deal of effort into not being busy. When I'm there, they spend most of their time following me around in groups and laughing at what I put in my cart. Little children are also huge fans of this activity. There are several crowd favorites:
a) watching me try to choose instant noodles that are not kim chi flavor, even though none of the packages are in english
b) watching me try to find somebody to weigh my garlic in the "produce section," (which is a table with some garlic, onions, and a bag of tomatos), and then watching that person take as long as humanly possible just for their ammusement
c) watching me walk around the store with one or more of these things in my basket: balsamic vinegar, olive oil, cheese, chick peas, or any type of cereal (they don't really know what that is here)
The most commedic part of the entire charade, however, is a laugh at their expense, not mine. Every time I go to the supermarket I buy a decent amount of stuff since I only go once a week. They have baggers at the check out and even two people scanning at times, but without fail they always try to put all of my stuff in one bag. They have special huge bags for this. In addition, they feel quite strongly about putting soft things on the bottom and heavy things on the top. This way everything is upside down when I get home, and something generally breaks or at least clatters omoniously the first time I try to put the bag down (keep in mind the bag weighs about 300 pounds since they put everything in it so not putting it down is quite a challenge). After I have fought off all the xe om drivers and have finally gotten on a bus, another routine starts. Apparently, along with not being able to walk places and have ridiculously touchable hair, white people also are expected to disperse their groceries to whomever asks. The bus conductor, without fail, always asks me to give him my groceries several times (depending on how crowded the bus is) on the ride home (and what did I say earlier about talking to skowling people on buses???). I have started going at rush hour as a result, and now am learning to wield one large and very clunky bag of groceries into a crowded bus (and crowded by Asian standards is a kind of crowded that doesn't even exist in the states) and not kill anybody on the way home from my Vietnamese supershopping adventures.

Inconspicous Bus Rides and the Hazards of Having Brown Hair

2005-03-23T21:15:00.000+07:00

So I just finished participating in another hairbrained stunt that would in fact be an everyday activity for a normal Vietnamese person, and "pumped" (the term meaning rode a bicycle on the back of which she was perched) Kaylene, our small Viet Kieu (Vietnamese-American) friend, home from economics class. We have been pracitising this regularly as a way to get me home from econ. faster and to get her home without having to do anything exercise(except sit up straight, which makes a huge difference when you are pumping somebody). We are both obviously too heavy for this rickidy Vietnamese-made, used (doubly dangerous) bike, but we make it every time and my balance skills are definately improving drastically. Good thing too, since we all feel a little off-balance after sitting for two and a half hours in a hot, echo-y room and oddly proportioned wooden desk/bench things (the benches and desks themselves are quite narrow, however they are very very far apart and therefore you have to sit at the very front of the tiny bench and lean over about seven feet to get to the desk). Today was extra special because in true sleezy teenager fashion, two guys on a motorbike began to follow us, making it extra hard for me to steer this 250 pound mass on top of the bicycle built of paper-clips. There was one close call but finally we out-pedalled them (think how slow they were going!) Makes me think how nice it would be to not be so obvious. I was thinking to myself the other day how much I miss being inconspicous in public. I was riding a bus and these boys behind me kept practising saying "hello, hello" until the finally turned to me (although I was fully sure they were talking to the friend I was with) and said hi. I wasn't facing them and thinking they weren't talking to me, and that it is rude to talk to somebody who is skowling on a bus (as I was thanks to the lack of climate control...), I didn't respond. Well, my friend screamed "LILA!! They just said hello! How rude of you!" Then I remembered she's from Texas, and obviously doesn't understand the joy of being alone in public, since when she is alone, she's alone in her car or big house or empty deserted field or something. And also Texans will talk to you whether you want them to or not. Anyway, being a westerner here is like wearing a clown suit while walking down fifth avenuse and holding a sign that says "please touch me." You even feel like the center of attention when you are in the middle of a big group of westerners since there are always enough Vietnamese to go around. People touch my hair when they are sitting behind me in restaurants or are passing me on the street, which is even more uncomefortable because in America it may be okay to talk to a stranger when you are curious, it is never okay to touch them, so I always end up feeling violated even though it's just a cultural difference. Xe Om drivers and Xich lo (Cyclo) drivers constantly are waving and calling to me, stopping me on the street, because apparently if you are western, you are also incapable of walking. I have actually had them proposition me as I was stepping off a city bus or even out of a taxi. And if I'm at a bus stop, forget it....they encircle me and just wave and talk until the bus comes. Anyway, that must be why I like New York so much, is the possibility of being alone in public....since I hate actually being alone but sometimes I also hate talking to people. Especially people who are touching my hair for no reason.

A Little Help from Mr. Busybody

2005-03-23T16:38:00.000+07:00

Well, happily, everything has worked out well, despite Mr. Busybody and his desire to help teach me a lesson. What he wasn't counting on was that I would solve the entire problem behind his back entirely while still using him....and I have! I will just take his place on the section of art I wanted to be in after he has finished his hours, which he intended to do in the begining part of the term and therefore couldn't possibly switch sections with me. I'm not telling him though, I will simply be a silent observer.
I had my second english class today. They understood me a little better than before; for the first class they didn't understand me at all and the teacher kept having to repeat me so that they could hear it in her accent and therefore understand. Funny how that works. Today we talked about food, however they were so sidetracked by some of the foods I talked about (your run of the mill hamburgers, salads, french fries) that they kept forgetting we were having a mandatory fake conversation! And I know what you are thinking: "well they are vietnamese, of course they don't know about hamburgers and french fries...." Well it turned out that part of the confusion was over the term used for french fries, which had been taught to them as "chips." Secondly, they knew all about spaghetti, pizza, etc, and asked me if I have ever had sushi, chinese food, etc., several times. They just don't have McDonalds here, and that's that. At the end of the lesson they were asking me what I study in school and I said politics and one of them asked me "So what do you think of socialism?" and the teacher got all nervous and I couldn't really explain anything in english that they would understand so I got all nervous and am now hoping that they don't think I'm an evil imperialist pig. I was just caught off guard since NOBODY every talks about politics here and I'm afraid to say anything at all for fear that Mr. Busybody will pop out of the woodwork and arrest me for "being a hypocrite" at which point I might have to resort to the throwing him off the balcony like orriginally planned and that would just create a scene unnecessarily. Luckly, I have found a way to use him without his knowledge, so things can only get better.

Hun Sen and the Dance

2005-03-22T15:15:00.000+07:00

Well I just recieved a lecture from another (busybody) student on the program who feels that I have no reason for being upset about the fact that we just now recieved our schedule for the art class and it conflicts with the English class I'm teaching (as if it were planned, it is exactly at the same time and only on days that I had scheduled english classes. The Gods are punishing me for.....maybe eating too many Chocopies). Anyway, Mr. Busybody is in the section that doesn' t conflict and Brian asked him very non-convincingly if he could switch for the begining on the semester so that I could do both, however he refused and was evidently quite offended because he felt I needed a "talking to" in front of the whole group, during which he informed me that it is not CIEE's job to "pad my resume" and therefore I should just suck it up. He gets into arguements with people about everything, since his main objectives in life are to make everybody look a) not Politically Correct and b) like a hypocrite. Somehow he still manages to maintain an "aura of cool" that makes everybody love him (except me, because I find it pretty repulsive), and means that I am all on my own in my fight to have him ignore my business. Fortunately he NEVER does anything hypocritical so it is lucky we all have him to guide us. It's also good that he chose to give me a talking to in front of the group, so that nobody else will make the mistake of switching with me either and I will learn my lesson. I was considering throwing him off of the dorm balcony but decided that I'm not condescending enough to try to teach him a lesson in return, and that violence is not the answer.
Meanwhile, I had another silly weekend, this time because I stayed in Hanoi. Thursday was St. Patricks day and marked the official first time I have ever celebrated that holiday. We went to a pub called Finnegan's and in true me fashion, on the one holiday that everybody celebrates with beer, I did not have a single drop to drink, except for an Orangina that I got right before leaving. My lack of beer drinking has really offended the other students on the program somehow, and they were pretty upset with me, but I stuck to my guns and after a while they were so drunk that they forgot how offensive I was being. They did have really good french fries at Finnegans though, fresh cut and everything. Some friend of Mr. Ex-Army bought some for our table, and they were sort of like my beer for the evening, since they made me forget my cares.
The next night, one of the girls on the program's tailors decided that she had brought in so much business since all of us have started to use her, that she would take us out Classical dancing, which turned out to be ballroom dancing to techno music. So we went with her after eating a rushed dinner at a fast food place in which the marinara sauce had packaged squid and the hamburgers were actually black. The dancing place was this large space-ship looking building about a block behind the opera house. We were the only foreigners there and that was especially clear after our first dance, in which me made total fools of ourselves. They have special men who are hired as waiters and dancers who danced our first dances with us. Then we danced with each other for a while until some sceezy men the next table over began to ask us to dance. As you might imagine, I was the only one who could follow even a little, but I had a lot of fun anyway and want to go back sometime. All that swing dancing needs to pay off somehow. After dancing her tailor said something about her friend wanting to take us out for dinner and so we agreed even though we had eaten, just to be polite. Whatever she had said while screaming over the techno music that people were busy tangoing to, it wasn't "dinner," and we ended up at a a concert at a fancy club that only serves red, black, and gold label whisky being given by a Vietnamese pop star named Hun Sen. I assume he was pretty famous because everybody knew all the words to his songs. Meanwhile, Hun Sen himself was dressed in all white with gold details and cargo pockets on his butt that made him look like he had a very very well endowed derrier and maybe were the least flattering thing I have ever seen. After he finished singing his unoringinal cheesy ballads, which you could tell have the same words in vietnamese as they do in english and were probably just transposed from English songs anyway, he rode this little elevator platform up to get offstage and in his place descended two DJs that looks like they were 15 or so, four pole dancers, and one very very affeminant looking and quite skinny man in a tight gold shirt and tight leather pants with cowboy books pulled up over them and shoulder length platnum hair (he was asian, by the way, so defiantely not natural). Him and the girls danced (not well but doing their best to look as attractive as possible) around while the club emptied out behind us and eventually we had to leave. So yeah....a cultural exerience.

food poisioning

2005-03-22T11:44:00.000+07:00

So it turns out that when I was feeling under the weather yesterday, so were a few other people, specificially all of the people I went to brunch with on Sunday. We ate at one of the nicest restaurants in the Old Quarter, a sort of "backpacker chic" place called Tamarind that serves very expensive vegetarian food (expensive by vietnamese standards....dirt cheap by normal people standards and about as much as you would spend on a greasy diner breakfast anywhere in the states). Anyway, you will all be happy to know that I have one of the immune systems of steel (imagine how badly everbody else is doing) because other people are doing much much worse than me. Oddly enough, we all got sick at the same time exactly a day and a half after the meal, then spent a long time discussing what it could be. Why does food poisioning need to have an incubation period to confuse you? Anyway, I'm feeling a little better now but still not great.
In other news I started teaching my English conversation class yesterday, right before I got sick, and that was a riot. The students are 35-45-ish and super excited to be meeting a real live American. They had all sorts of crazy questions for me. Anyway, time for group brunch...gotta go! I'll write more about the English class episode later.

Weekend in the Boonies

2005-03-18T12:19:00.000+07:00

So I think it is appropriate to begin this blog with the story of last weekend, when I finally did something other than sit on my ass in A2 (the dorm), and watch Sex and the City bootleg DVDs five episodes at a time. On Thursday, CIEE put us (the group of 12), plus two bilingual children (they belonged to people), a classical guitarist, a sociology professor (and only Veitnamese female "sexologist" probably ever), a Canadian rice-wine specialist, and Brian the group leader (and official social oddity) in a small bus and drove us up to a deserted beach which in it's season is the number one place to do something you probably wouldn't want to talk about later in Northern Vietnam. We were told not to walk barefoot in the sand in the dark to avoid needles. We ate at a seafood shack along the beach that had to motorbike their food in per order and got pretty annoyed when some of the more indecisive people in the group came in after our order had been placed and sat with the menu forever and ever trying to decide between shrimp and crab. After dinner we sat around while some of the guys got officially inebriated off of cheap beer and went to sit around a fire with a group of suspiciously alone-around-a-campfire-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-in-the-dark women who were "just being nice and chatting" (and later they admitted offering them "special services"). The next morning was the official peak of hilarity and began as a persistant woman with a cart full of ridiculous crap stood in front of the hotel and called out to, attracting the attention of the local Xe Om (motorcycle taxi) drivers and starting a chorus of people calling out to us, the only tourists around for miles to feed this tourist economy. As we are sitting, thinking about how Garrett has M&Ms and we'd like some to take our minds off of the shouting and waving, a man on a zebra (and by zebra I obviously mean small painted horse, which might have been even funnier since we spent a full five minutes before he arrivied watching him in the distance and discussing why a zebra would be in northern Vietnam) rides up to the front of the chorus and begins to call out to us. Thinking that this probably is not a funny enough picture, Mr. Canadian-Rice-Wine-Specialist, who is about 6' 5" and lanky, begins to do Tai Chi exercises right in front of the chorus and creates maybe the most surreal scene I think I've ever seen. As we rode off away from the beach, I did catch a glimpse of the man riding the zebra in sillouette along the beach as the sun rose over the horizon. It would have been the best picture of my life if I had had any sense to take out my camera, but seeing as we had just fought our way out of the hotel first thing in the morning as the xe om drivers continued to be convinced that the bus was just a cover and we were in fact in dire need of motorcycle transport, I was tired and already too worn to have any sense.
This day began the mad search for Choco Pies, Korean cookie/marshmellow thingys that are in fact totally disgusting but are the only recognizable cookie to be absolutely everywhere. What headed off the search was a tiring morning's activities followed by a meal that included every part of every animal that we don't eat in the states....and cabbage. We began the morning at some ruins in a small town that had no paved roads (imagine taking a bus down narrow roads through rice paddies, thinking you would probably find yourself in a muddy ditch before making it to the endless horizon you are heading to, only to find that the bus can't really fit into the town it is heading for). The ruins were of a dynasty somewhere and covered and endless amount of yardage and also included, as do most things here, a ridiculous number of buddhist shrines that we were required to place incense at. Instead of praying, I did a little dance at one, just to add some variety. I think the gods appreciated it. The tour took about two hours and was conducted by a creepy guy with a bad smoking habit who only spoke Vietnamese, left no time to translate, and yet insisted that we all pay close attention even though he was only paying close attention to the Vietnamese girls that were with us and secretly was whispering catcalls their way. So in Vientnamese I actually know quite a bit about the site, however I haven't learned to translate it yet. We spent the night in a town that had no hotel and had never had a group of foreigners before. The only accomidations were at the Communist Party Guest house, and sadly the rooms were nicer than they had been at the resort, which doesn't speak much for the conditions in either place. Only a couple of the rooms had hot water, and only people in cold water rooms took showers....go figure. We were served our first lunch there, which included (as mentioned above) cow intenstines, pig intestines (more fat than the cow's and kind of chewy), tripe (cow stomach lining), a chicken in a bowl in full (legs, feet, head...and only enough actual meat to serve like two people...which is what happens when you put a chicken in a small bowl and insist on including the inedible parts), and cabbage (perhaps the worst veggie ever). Oh, and dusty soda in glass bottles. So we ate some rice and cabbage (birdflu concerns mean that we have been avoiding chicken eating but some of us broke down at this meal) and then went on a mad search for choco pies, armed with the knowledge that one person had managed to buy them for 15,000 VND (about $1). I made sure to go with our best bargainer and yet nobody would sell them for under 24,000 VND and more importantly, nobody would bargain with us. Sadness... So we settled for some Chocovinas (Vietnamese bootleg choco pies) and began our mission to try all the different kinds of choco pie rip-offs. In case you were wondering, there are TONS and TONS. They are all, without exception, gross.
Anyway, we skipped dinner at the guest house that night and went to a local restaurant with some questionable sanitary standards but whose menu included parts of the cow that we would consider eating. Then we went and sat in the guest house dining room while the random adult additions to our group got drunk. At one point Brian disappeared and returned with the entire local police force, who all took shots of rice wine and promptly left as soon as beers were opened for all of them. People finished the beers and Brians four year old son (who had been present for all of the maddness...) built a tower out of the empty cans that ended up being 12 cans and two milk/juice boxes high. One of the group members decided that he needed a massage after the festivities and stumbled into to the massage place that was part of the complex with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and shouted "I want woman!" in Vietnamese, pointing to the one woman massuse, who was already busy massaging a half-naked girl who is also in the group and had to pass off the massage she was already doing to a man in order to take care of Mr. Drunk.
The next day we drove for years and years in order to get to an old wall in the middle of nowhere, which we climbed and then stood on for about an hour. Then we drove to the other side of the wall (which enclosed a large field), and stood there. Then we left.
We arrived at our last stop of the trip that evening, and immediately went to see the sites. It was Vietnam's first national park, so you can imagine that I was thrilled, especially after my "jungle lodge" experiences in Brazil. There were more mosquitos than God and it was reeeealy humid. We thought we were going for a hike but we were ushered into the bus and driven to a cave that we could explore. I walked around the cave with all of the "outdoorsy" people who had been teasing me about my dislike of nature, and then spent the entire time freaking out while I lead them around, calm and collected like I am. Then me, Kaylene, on the the smallest and least active of the group, Juhuyung, who was sick and upon leaving had to stop the bus so he could throw up, and Becky, our resident "free-spirit" climbed this rickity ladder what felt like a billion flights up into the upper part of the cave to have a look around. The bus driver was already there and told us that we could get down by going walking toward a part of the cave that led to the outside and climbing around. Well, he was right in a sense, but it was a scary hike straight down on spiky rocks and under and over trees all while at a 55 degree angle and with the least "outdoor friendly" crew we could have assembled. When we got to the bottom, all the outdoorsy people who had been "sooo excited" about this hiking opportunity scoffed at our feat and said "Well do you like nature now?" I would have to reply no.
We had a bonfire that night in the rain and drank a really disgusting rice wine out of a big jug thingy. The next day it was instant pho for breakfast (something about eating beef soup for breakfast just doesn't do it for me...and instant...well that's just bad) and then back to Hanoi. I babysat Brian's kid for most of the ride back, and he spent most of the ride back hitting me while pretending that that was tickling. So little kids and nature.....and small towns.....overall definately an adventure, however I will try not to leave an urban setting any time soon. Except that we have another trip coming up in two weeks.

to begin...

2005-03-18T08:05:00.000+07:00

I just started a blog...