The Ho Chi Minh Tale

Cat Tien--the edge of reason

2007-02-14T17:30:00.000-08:00

Road trips in college always created a euphoric feeling, didn’t they? They implied adventure on a monumental scale for our sad, myopic, pathetic, little lives: staying in hotels shaped like Shake and Bake boxes and castles, drinking copious amounts of wine from a box, singing along to the Spice Girls at the top of your lungs, doing finger puppet theatre in the back-seat for the folks in the car behind you, putting a water-gun under your sweatshirt and holding the tollbooth person at pretend gunpoint (unbeknownst to them of course) just because you forgot small change…

Those were the days. So you can imagine my delight when I heard that my Vietnamese language school program proposed taking a road trip to Cat Tien. I started filling up the water guns immediately, before remembering, sadly, that there are so few toll booths in Vietnam. Hmm, the security checkpoints would have to serve in place of the tollbooths instead, I decided. Where were we headed, you ask? Cat Tien National Park, second only to the Grand Canyon National Park in terms of its grandeur. Actually, not really. I gotta be honest, unless you’re totally into birds, which I am not (come on, they are BIRDS), there is nothing to see. We were promised crocodiles, elephants, Javanese Rhinoceros, frozen cavemen and lepers (just seeing if you’re paying attention), and gaur. What did we see? Rabbits and deer. Not even crazy, three-eyed psychedelic rabbits and deer or something like that, but the normal, healthy kind.

The trip went from bad to worse as soon as we arrived. I was hoping we would be camping, but turns out we had rooms with air conditioning…at least the mattresses were made of foam, so that helped. Then we took a tour of the guesthouse grounds and to our delight found a canteen and a karaoke bar. Peaches and Cream Barbie! There was even a massage parlor, but, given that it had “massage parlor” written on it instead of “spa,” we decided karaoke would be a safer evening activity. While waiting for our jungle safari, some friends and I embarked on a karaoke journey with Madonna, Vanilla Ice, Lionel Richie and so, so many others. With enough Tiger beers, anyone would have loved it.

After we settled in, our first activity was a two-hour trek in the “reserved core area.” We saw dozens of really old trees and learned that leeches don’t actually look like those fat, disgusting buggers in Stand By Me. We discovered that leeches are actually tiny (when not fattened up on obese American blood), wormlike creatures that move like inchworms. Kinda cute, huh? We found a few in our shoes, but since we were constantly checking, none of them had actually attached to our legs, although I did get an untreatable form of Lyme Disease. But that’s about all we learned, besides the fact that when trees die, they die from within, so it’s not always apparent from the outside that a tree is dead. Really, though, don’t we all die a little inside every day?

After dinner and a team quiz with our language teachers on what we had seen that day (was a quick quiz, let me tell you), we divided into two groups for the “two- hour night cruise deep into the jungle by jeep watching wild animals and hearing the calls of rhinocerous.” Now, I’m no Ork, but again, there was disappointment. Because some other couple (rumored to be Brangelina) rented one of the jeeps for their own private “cruise” in the jungle, we had to split up into two groups and do only a one-hour trek deep into the jungle. As I mentioned, we saw deer and rabbits and heard no “calls of rhinocerous,” although luckily, the peyote we had smoked earlier allowed us to see dragons and unicorns—does that count? I even remembered the song from The Last Unicorn—“When the last eagle soars over the last crumbling mountain…” **To spare you, I leave the entire set of lyrics for you at the end of this blogorama of a blog.

That night, I curled into a ball and gently wept on my foam mattress of a bed until morning (my sister said that she falls asleep to the sound of her own screams). The next morning was quite a bit more interesting—we took a one-hour bike ride through the area where we had been the night before in the jeep. We heard dozens of birds (few of which our guide could identify--hey, he’s just a guide, what’s he supposed to know, you know?) and saw nothing, although getting away from the Ho Chi Minh City air out into the cleaner countryside air with an actual blue sky was soooooooooooo nice. Again, we had split up, so half of the group did the bicycle ride, while half did a canoe trip. The “canoe” trip ended up consisting of the group being loaded onto an engine boat with no paddling whatsoever. At least our bike trip had bikes; and we propelled them ourselves as well. Frankly, I don’t know and I don’t care what the boat people did—I’m sure they yachted around on their little corporate yacht drinking Veuve Clicquot and being all corporationy while laughing at how provincial we countryfolk were on our little bikes. I bet they even tried to pretend they were pirates.

After completing our morning chores and activities which were divided along class lines, we loaded up the van and headed back to Ho Chi Minh City, stopping along the way only to dispose of the dead bodies of those who were eaten during the night safari. Would we go back to Cat Tien? Should you go to Cat Tien National Park??? Why the heck not??? I just changed my mind about how I felt when I first started writing this fantastic piece. I’ve decided that you should go, too. You just should.

**The Last Unicorn (damn, I wish I had written this…)

When the last eagle soars over the last crumbling mountain

And the last lion roars at the last dusty fountain

In the shadow of the forest though she may be old and worn

They will stare unbelieving at the last unicorn

When the breath of winter through the flowers is icing

And you look to the north and a pale moon is rising

And it seems like all is dying and would leave the world to mourn

In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn

I'm alive, I'm alive

When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning

And the future has passed without even a last desperate warning

Then look to the sky where through the clouds a path is torn

Look and see how she sparkles, it's the last unicorn

I'm alive, I'm alive...

My comment: even if we all die inside a little every day like the trees.

What is happening to the neighborhood?

2006-12-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

I recently watched an episode of The Sopranos in which two of Tony’s “employees” try to shake the manager at a Starbucks-implied coffee shop into paying monthly “dues” for protection. After approaching two more of the new businesses in town, they realize that they are not the typical mom-and-pop shops, and, thus, “corporate” won’t respond to their attempts to extort money from them. Asking what has happened to the neighborhood (actually, they asked, “what the &*(! is happening to the neighborhood”), they imply that globalization is definitely putting a cramp on traditional mafia ways and that it’s over for the little guy.

Perhaps the same can be said here in Vietnam, although the local police are not giving up as easily as Tony’s guys. Without getting into too much detail, the NGO where I was working just moved into its own independent office space…unintentionally next to the ward (neighborhood) police station. And when I say local, I mean, bumbling, bored, Barney Fife kind of local. During the first two weeks of our being the news kids on the block, the police visited seven times—sometimes in plainclothes, sometimes in uniform—but their demands have slowly softened, as they realize that we are a non-profit that operates on a bare-bones budget. To give you an idea of how bare-bones, I used to pick up paper clips off the floor and add to them to my collection because we had no budget for office supplies. And for post-it notes, I would cut up the back of used printer paper and staple a booklet together for writing notes. Oh, and the used printing paper was from another office—I was strongly and frequently encouraged not to print anything. So, while the obnoxious local (and Ministry police, I might add) police have slowly become bored, that still hasn’t stopped them from going into the computers and erasing emails and other important documents from them.

My point is that when I took the job in the education sector, I thought I would be more shielded from corruption, but, sadly, it is one of the most corrupt sectors, particularly when it comes to international education. New scandals crop up every week, like the one involving the Minister of EDUCATION, who gave himself a highly competitive scholarship to study in England. And while the newspapers report some of the scandals, everyone knows there are many more stories that the government does not allow to be printed. The Party fully subscribes to the “peaceful evolution/transformation” theory the John Foster Dulles put forth during the height of the Cold War. “Peaceful evolution,” as the Vietnamese government explains, is how the Americans defeated the Soviets. Through cultural and educational exchange programs, the Americans surreptitiously and single-handedly made the entire Soviet Empire and Eastern Bloc collapse, subjugating them to the evils of consumerism, Wheel of Fortune, and morbid obesity. Never mind the fact that the Soviet Union was facing imperial overstretch alongside internal rot and collapse, and had a leader who advocated political reforms before economic changes. Let’s not even get into the arms race, the Pope, or as the Repubs like to point out, Reagan. In fact, the Vietnamese government regards the Fulbright program as one of the most suspicious things to happen since the country opened its doors to foreign governments. Fortunately, they haven’t found out yet that several alumni have already returned with the newly developed Raymond Shaw computer chip in them. Sadly, operating a business here faces less harassment and annoyance than working for an NGO. That’s not to say there is less corruption in business, but to say the corruption is more straightforward, with less suspicion involved. And golf. Lots and lots of golf. And Jack Daniels.

Ultimately, I gave up that job with the NGO. The glitz and glamour were simply too much.

I was prepared to mention all of this to Jorge when he came to visit two weeks ago, but there simply wasn’t time. Jorge and Dr. Rice kindly made time for a meet and greet with the Consulate folks on their 19-hour visit to Ho Chi Minh City. Knights of Columbus, does he ever look fit, that president. I knew he wouldn’t have, oh, to be kind, let’s use the word “time” instead of a reference to his intelligence, for a deconstruction of the Peaceful Evolution theory, so instead of shaking the president’s hand, I thought of something else instead. My five readers, it always comes down to South Park, doesn’t it? Okay, so, there is a South Park episode about Jennifer Lopez. Cartman does a hand puppet version of Jennifer Lopez where she sings “Taco-flavored kisses for my Ben (as in Ben Affleck).” Actually, it’s “Taco-flavored kisses for my Beh-en.” I came upon the brilliant idea of replacing, “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. President,” with imitating a hand-puppet version of J.Lo and saying “Springroll (eh, fish sauce also works)-flavored kisses for my Jorge.” I decided against it, though. Duke’s short career flashed through my head, so I decided to stick with the vanilla phrase instead.

A few days later, Brangelina rolled into town, those crazy bastards. They went all around the city centre on their motorbikes and ate at one of my favorite restaurants in town. Where were we? Stupidly, we were at the beach a few hours outside of Saigon (recently dubbed the “Hamptons” of Vietnam, in a recent NYT article, but I beg to differ), drinking mojitos by the resort’s new Infinity pool. We were also working on the next move after Pakistan—it’s complicated, but so far, we’re only a few connect-the-dots away from completing a bird’s eye view of Tom DeLay’s profile in our moves around the world. I was cursing myself for letting Tom DeLay and mojitos lure me away from the possibility of seeing Brad Pitt in my city, but alcoholism can have that effect.

That’s the skinny on us for now. You stay classy, United States.

From Middle Earth to Down Under

2006-09-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Or, From the Land of Flightless Birds and No Predators to the Land Where Every Dangerous Animal Known to Humans Dwells and Even the Giant Earthworms Can Kill

Many of you know how much I LOVE to fly, so the thought of taking a total of eight airplanes for the upcoming New Zealand/Australia trip terrified me. In the end everything was fine, but my nerves were definitely shot by then, as well as Duke’s circulation in his hands. The trip started off on an exciting note when we landed in Auckland in fog and rain so chowda thick that you could not see the runway until the wheels touched down. And they don’t call NZ the Roaring 40s in terms of wind patterns for nothing, no sir. Yes, flying in and out of NZ was, as Larry David would say, pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty turbulent.

Let’s move along. When we arrived to Queenstown via Auckland, we expected Prime Minister Helen Clark herself to greet all tourists arriving at the airport. You know, like Blair does in the Simpsons episode when they go to Merry Old England? Sadly, no there was no Ms. Clark welcoming us to her country, but we did see some hobbits. I don’t know how those nasty barefoot hobbits could take the weather—we went from 35 to 5 degrees Celsius (figure it out, I’m too lazy to convert) in 10 hours. Definitely not Shire weather.

In Queenstown, dubbed the Adventure Capital of the World for its, well, adventure tourism, we engaged in such dangerous activities as watching skydivers and bungee jumpers and feeling even colder, taking in the local (VERY local…as in “Yeah, and John Smith just added 10 new sheep to his herd, yeah, yeah”) news on TV, and going on a wine tour. After a few days there, we headed to Te Anau where we spent three days touring a glowworm cave and two amazing sounds in Fiordland National Park. We saw things we had never seen before—rainforests co-existing with glaciers (apparently, NZ and Chile are the only two places in the world where you find that), fiordland crested penguins, fur seals, people actually from Wyoming, and a mail system where you need only write a person’s first name on the envelope.

From Te Anau on the west coast of the South Island, we headed to Dunedin on the southeast coast, a city whose name reflects its Scottish founders. We arrived late and found ourselves in a hotel room that was a bit smokier than we wanted. We simply couldn’t say no to the hotel manager, however—he was about 5 feet tall (not a hobbit, don’t worry, I checked his papers) and went out of his way to answer any questions we asked. He reminded me of a man whom my sister and I met in Ireland called “Little John.” Little John had a wooden-leg, he did, and was about 4.5 feet tall. He almost drowned when he was a child and remained little ever since, he did, or so the story went at the pub. Anyway, meeting the hotel manager reminded me of my Irish friend, he did, so we simply had to stay at that hotel, smoking room and all. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to enjoy the Cadbury Factory, as there was a snowstorm expected to hit that area and close all the roads. Instead, we got an early start and headed up to Christchurch further up the eastern coast. Just as well, we didn’t want to be tripping on chocolate, like the Simpson children parodying Trainspotting, while driving.

In Christchurch, we learned about Antarctic exploration history, glugged NZ’s microbrews, caught a glimpse of the famously shy kiwi birds, and took in some Maori history. In fact, Duke was chosen as the “Chief” of our tourist group, which meant that he had to negotiate peace with the Maori tribe that we would be meeting that evening. Luckily, Duke hongi-ed (the traditional Maori greeting where they touch noses) correctly and our fate did not go the way of some of Captain Cook's men. Later in the evening, all of the men learned how to do the haka. You might know it as the dance where Maori men grimace fiercely with their tongues elongated and show the whites of their eyes. It’s also the All Blacks national rugby team’s pre-match intimidation/motivation routine. Duke definitely needs to work on his haka moves before joining the rugby team, though.

The rest of the trip was filled with more glaciers (at Mt. Cook, where they filmed the final scene in the first Lord of the Rings movie), gold-mining history, some great hikes, more wine with red meat, and cold, but beautiful runs.

We met some interesting people along the way, besides the hobbits. During our Fiordland cruises, we met an American from Virginia who had moved to NZ to be a vet. In Christchurch, we met a Swissman who had been living in NZ for 20 years running his own café. He was very Swiss and very Old World—no credit cards, only cash, even if it meant losing customers, and he complained that NZ/Aussie/British backpackers drank too much and the NZ women looked “jez like ze men; zey are too manly.” We also met many people working in the NZ tourism industry from all over the world. NZ has been experiencing a large increase in tourism, but still has a significant labor shortage. Young foreigners are taking advantage of the country’s liberal “working-holiday” visa program, so we saw more nametags with “Roma,” “Masa,” and “Ali” than “John” or “Kylie.” We had some great conversations about living overseas.

After 11 days in NZ, we flew on to Sydney. We did all of the touristy things there—the Opera House, the bridge, the Botanical Gardens, the aquarium. Although disappointed with not meeting Helen Clark in NZ, we were delighted when Howard came through for us. We were out for a run early Sunday morning and saw Prime Minister Howard himself out for a brisk walk—well, okay, I actually noticed the large, fit bodyguards surrounding him, while Duke noticed the Prime Minister. I was too busy wondering why anyone would wear such a loud green and yellow tracksuit to pay attention to who was actually wearing it. Too busy pondering his sartorial taste, I missed my chance to say g’day, but Duke was ready and got his “Hi, Prime Minister Howard!” in.

If you were hoping to hear stories about our adventures with dingoes, crocs, vegemite sandwiches, Mordor, the ghosts of Shackleton’s men, or fistfights with Russell Crowe and "Tugga", you’ll be sorely disappointed, readers. This was a pretty tame trip—we’re saving the adventures for our next trip there, which will probably involve even more planes.

Of Snakes and Monkeys

2006-08-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

When I was little, I loved Indiana Jones movies. One of my favorite movies was the uber-culturally sensitive Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, particularly the scene when Jones and Willie were served chilled monkey brains, python meat and eyeball soup, among other delicacies. While my mother would turn away in complete horror, I would gleefully watch, munching away happily on my dried seahorse chips. At times, I would lop off a piece of our hamster’s head just to play along. That was wrong—one should never “lop off”; heads should be sliced properly at an angle.

Who knew that years later, I would find myself in situations where I would be faced with eating sheep eyeballs, horse liver, bloody rooster soup, duck embryo and cobra meat? Family friends who were visiting Ho Chi Minh City were the catalyst for our latest culinary adventure. On my recent trip back to the States, I had casually mentioned at a party that in some parts of Asia, including Vietnam, it is considered very manly to eat snake’s blood and even the beating heart of a snake. A certain someone remembered that idea and brought it up when coming to visit. Toward the end of their trip, I asked a local friend to recommend a good (and, somewhat safe, but safety, of course, would be secondary) snake restaurant.

A few hours later, having text-messaged a few people, our small group turned into a party of eleven. The menu was daunting, where to begin? There was armadillo (or, as they preferred the alternative spelling “armadilla”), gorilla, rat, panda bear, and bat. Unfortunately, they were all out of Ross’s Holiday Armadillo®. We decided to go with cobra and turtle. The waiter let us choose our turtle while it was still alive, and brought the lovely little guy to our table. A member of our group thought it would be funny to tease the turtle with a wrapped packet of chopsticks. Tommy the Turtle snapped off several pieces of the paper wrapping and spit them out, as if to say, “how original, you stupid f%$king Americans.”

Then the snake handler brought out the cobra while we took turns kissing it on its head. Unfortunately, Duke got bit, but took it like a man until four hours later we had to rush him to the hospital—just didn’t seem right to continue watching his face turn bluer and bluer. After we sent him off to the hospital (joking, by the way), we continued our adventure at the restaurant and watched as several people held down the snake’s head (wrapped with tape) while the snake handler chopped it off. He carefully took out the beating heart and gall bladder and put them into mini wine glasses. Next, he held up the snake’s body and slit it down the middle, draining the blood into a bottle of very cheap vodka. Our mouths watered as the waiters poured the bright red vodka into our shot glasses. Our visiting friend (let’s call him “Kram”) seemed somewhat anxious when the still-beating heart and gall bladder were set in front of him, cameras flashing. But…after two gulps, it was done, and we all followed suit by downing our own bloody mixture of vodka. Yum—just like apple cinnamon tea.

The waiters then brought out chopped up, grilled snake meat (tastes like toddler meat, in case you’re wondering), along with grilled snake tails and grilled Tommy the Turtle. None of us were too pleased with how the turtle looked—he was pretty much just grilled sans shell, then thrown on a plate with lettuce. Tommy’s head had been cut off, but his shell was put back on (I suppose for the sake of decency) and the claws were still there—someone had even thought to give him a manicure and pedicure. I tell you: it was a night full of magic, laughter, gumdrop smiles and tears, and I was sad to see it end. The owners of the restaurant played “Turtle-flavored kisses” by Hennifer Lopez, as we left. I almost wept—I had checked off an important box on my “things to do before I die” list.

I was even lucky enough the next day to check off another box on my list—Make Friends with a Back-flipping, Chained-up Monkey. This unexpected treat came after we hit the tailor’s shop. For whatever reason, in the year that I have been traveling up and down this street to get to the tailor, I never noticed the back-flipping, chained-up monkey. Unlike the monkeys we had seen in Cambodia the week before, this little guy had a particularly volatile intensity. That monkey seriously needs some ritalin. Kram’s sister suggested the monkey should go free, but Kram and I laughed at that idea. Silly Kram’s sister, everyone knows that monkeys are for Homer's entertainment and space experiments. As if I needed it, now I have even more incentive to visit the tailor. In fact, the next time I go, I plan to slip a Vietnamese copy of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to the owner to see if I can convince him to give raw simian grey matter a chance. Viruses and anatomical similarities be damned.

Much Ado About Nothing

2006-06-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is winding down this week after much ado in the city leading up to the event. As soon as I arrived back from a long visit to the States, I knew something important was going to happen. (The States, by the way, were the same as I left them, except what is UP with the TomKat and Brangelina baby watch…if they gave birth to a three-headed hyena that could say “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,” THEN I would care.) The streets were being paved, the bottoms of trees had sparkling new coats of white paint (a Soviet/Commie thing, I think), buildings that had been left in mid-construction for over a year with a cartoon-like frozen crane next to them were humming again, and sidewalks that had previously dropped off were being lengthened by Shel Silverstein himself. My, I thought to myself, something is afoot.

I honed these skills while I was in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan, in fact. My first experience with city-wide preparations for an important visit was when two large Russian men came to the English Resource Center where I was volunteering. In broken English, they said, “Ve be need for chair-ez. Prezident vill be come.” From this, my students wisely deduced that the Uzbek president would be coming to our humble city for a visit, and that these nice gentlemen wanted to make his stay as comfortable as possible. As Boris and Ivan started to take the couch out, I inquired as to where they were taking it and when they would return it. There was no time for an answer because the two had decided they could not get it through the door and would have to take the door off of its hinges. No, let’s make that rip the door off of its hinges. The wacky 72 year-old Peace Corps Volunteer (another story in itself) who was with me squealed and made preparations to pack up the entire Resource Center in her purse, should the doorway be permanently left open. I tried a more rational approach—showing Boris and Ivan how to turn the couch sideways and angle it such that it would, indeed, fit through the doorway. Seelly Amereekan Peace Corpus Volunteer, their stares said, ve don’t have time for thees crap. So, long story, short--they did rip the door off of its hinges and we had to pack up the entire Resource Center in luggage that we had to run home to get. What ultimately happened to the couch, my anxious readers want to know? It was used for the President’s possible, but never realized, visit to the prestigious International Lycee. It was eventually returned to the Resource Center sans one of its side cushions.

So, back to APEC. The city was alive with (in addition to the rats) preparations! What I noticed most, however, were the signs around all of the construction touting “Cotecin Construction—Safety First,” above hatless workers and welders dangling precariously off of the 20^th floor, with lightening providing a glimpse of their profiles. Drivers pulled up on their motorbikes, having transported a giant, glass window pane between themselves and a passenger behind them. Pedestrians wove throughout all of this, not a barricade or warning sign in sight. Even the Mini-Kiss midget cover band (see Daily Show story) that was here on tour as part of APEC was able to roam freely through the chaos. It reminded me of the time when Duke and I were at the airport in Hanoi and someone was stripping a carpet off of a spiral stairway above the check-in counters. Nails, threads and large chunks of carpet were raining down through the steps. Finally, an airline employee thought to put up makeshift gate that is used to guide the passenger lines near the counters as a blockade. It only served to encourage people to stand directly under the flying debris. As if in a movie, a woman with her baby walked under the open staircase and took a call on her cell phone, pausing long enough for us to wince, then walked on just as a very large piece of carpet fell behind her. She didn’t even notice.

Sadly, I was having popcorn last night. Sad, because it was popcorn and sad because I was watching it turn around and around and around and around on the microwave carousel. The other sad part was that as I watched it turning around in the microwave, I noticed the “This end up!” and “Side of bag!” and “Do not pick up from this end!” Really, Orville takes more concern for his consumers than the Cotecin Construction Company took in its workers or fellow citizens. Let’s not even discuss the lengths to which Hotpockets (cue “Hotpockets!” theme song—that was a good one, wasn’t it?) goes to save its customers’ from tongue-burn, or how McDonald’s warns its slow-minded patrons about the amazing concept that the contents of their coffee cup are, indeed, hot, or even that Conair must spend thousands of dollars to tag its hair dryers with large signs for users not to operate the product while in the bathtub. I digress.

Mmmm, hotpockets—pizza inside a hot bread-like pocket. Great idea. Breakfast, all mixed together into one delicious hot pocket that is always soggy and cold in the middle and crispy hot on the outside. Such a contrast, you are, my little hotpocket. Anyway, safety in Vietnam—not so safe, no. Perhaps we need to create a jingle for Cotecin Construction Company, a la Team America—“What would ye-oo do-oo if you were asked to give up your dreams for safety? Safety isn’t free—it costs folks like you and me. And if you don’t give us your buck o’five, who will? Safety costs a buck o’fiiiiiiiiiiiive.” Perhaps the Mini-Kiss midget cover band can sing it for them.

Be Aggressive, B-E Aggressive

2005-12-31T22:25:00.000-08:00

“Why are Americans so aggressive and combative?” read the question on the list of FAQs for soon-to-be-departing southeast Asian students to the U.S. My director once headed up a scholarship fund, and this was one of the questions that came up repeatedly in pre-departure orientation sessions. He sent me and my assistant the list of FAQs for some humorous reading before a holiday weekend. “Do you agree that Americans are combative and aggressive?” I asked my assistant, pinning her on the ground so she couldn’t escape. Indeed, no one in the office seemed to have a straight answer, but all agreed that Americans could be hot-tempered at times.

This question continued to bother us as Duke and I waited in line at the airline counter to check in for our flight to Hanoi. For Christmas weekend, we decided to go to Sapa, which is a remote place in the northern highlands near the Chinese border. It is home to several minority ethnic peoples and one of only two minority sites that tourists are allowed to visit. I still couldn’t shake the question after yelling at the woman checking in passengers. My God, I thought, she definitely needed to be more organized. We were told to wait in a second line, since the first line, in which we had waited 15 minutes, wasn’t the correct one. And who knows, yelling and threatening to hurt her family might not have endeared her to help us either.

“Watch out for the guy behind us, he’s lurking,” I whispered to Duke as we queued up for the second time. Having lived in Uzbekistan and now Vietnam, I’ve become more than a little sensitive about mobbing and disregarding the sacred code of queuing conduct. Duke subtly turned his head to see whom I was referring to, and from then on the airport trip went from bad to worse. The old man behind us instantly snapped at Duke when he turned around. He said in almost unaccented English, “What are you looking at? What is your problem?” To which Duke replied, “Uh, I was just making sure you didn’t cut in front of us.” Now, clearly, the man behind us was a bit off, which was obvious from his excessive shaking and head ticking, so Duke should have simply said, “Sorry, nothing” and turned back around. Yes, as Duke himself often points out, it’s amazing how a functional illiterate like himself can get a PhD in our society. The man was not happy with Duke’s answer, of course, and let out a string of insults, which included, “white trash”, “jerk”, and “mixed…(inaudible)….piece of shit…(inaudible)…goddamn.” Amazingly, he did not end up next to us on the plane or even on our flight, although we saw plenty of him in the pre-boarding area.

We were two for two when we arrived to the train station in Hanoi, and got into a loud fight with a strange man who grabbed our bags and took them the ten feet to the other side of the station, holding out his hand for money.

Duke and I were getting so good at fulfilling the combative stereotype that we thought about creating our own show modeled after Russell Crowe’s ‘Fightin’ Round the World’ on South Park. We got into a fight with our luggage valet, however, before we could really develop the concept further.

After an eight-hour train ride, we arrived to Lao Cai, a village near Sapa, on Saturday morning. We took an hour ride to the top of the mountain to get to our hotel, eager to begin our Winter Wonderland Adventure.

But wait, where was our hotel? Where was the town of Sapa? Where were the mountains? The fog that had just settled in upon our arrival to the hotel was thick as clam chowda, making it impossible to see. Then came the rains. Our first two days of the trip, during which it stopped raining, em, not at all, we hung out around town, drinking cup after cup of hot chocolate. We also talked to other travelers, all of whom seemed compelled to tell us how beautiful the weather was the day before we arrived—clear, sunny and in the 60s. In addition to hearing how great the weather was, we also spent some time dodging the ethnic minority group gangs accosting travelers. In particular, we were followed by the Gang BlackH’mong Gang (it’s a Power Puff Girls reference, people), from whom we managed to escape only after I gave them some blankets covered in smallpox. When we tired of going out around the town, we played round after round of pool in the hotel lobby, then retired to our room, looking longingly at our tennis rackets (too foggy and wet to use), swimsuits (indoor pool was being fixed from the day we arrived until the day we would leave), and gym clothes (“gym” consisted of a rickety, rusted stationary bike, I kid you not a thighmaster, and a vibrating belt that you put around your waist ostensibly to whittle it down to Kate Moss size, according to the picture).

For our last two days, we decided to kick it up a notch and do some day treks in the rain and thick-as-chowda fog. On the first day, we hiked to the Su Pan and Ban Ho villages, and met some people from the Red Dao and Tay ethnic minority groups. We had lunch at the new Starbucks in town, then our guide took us up a “shortcut” to meet the car. The shortcut consisted of a steep, muddy path with what seemed like 40% inclines. Picture, if you will, a Slip ‘n Slide with flowing mud laid out on The Cliffs of Insanity, a la Princess Bride. Add some weary travelers and their bored guide. Throughout the trail throw in some disturbingly cute black pot-bellied pigs, CHICKENS! and water buffalo. For the finishing touch, add several ethnic minority children running up and down the path in sandals, dresses and (I cannot make this up, folks) large pieces of corrugated roof or baskets of heavy wood on their backs. The hardier ones had both roof and wood on their backs. Once in awhile, we’d also see the occasional elderly man out for a stroll on the perilous path with his umbrella. Salt to the wound, man, salt to the wound, as we labored up the hill with our walking sticks, gortex gear and $100 hiking boots. To be fair, this path would not be nearly as bad during the dry season—it would simply be tricky, rather than ludicrous, which is what we were dealing with. From time to time the mist even cleared enough for us to see what a truly magnificent landscape it was. The hillsides were terraced from top to bottom with silvery pools of rice fields, forming what looked like giant steps. Again, I’ll let the pictures tell the story, as waxing poetic is not my thing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hochiminhtale/

The second day was much the same, however, we were able to see a very cool bamboo forest, a precipitous waterfall that our guide expected us to cross, and even more children hauling corrugated roofs and wood.

For me, the highlight of the day was trying to balance along the narrow ledges of the rice terraces, where on one side was a six inch-deep pool of water, and on the other was a six foot drop to another pool. If possible, the fog was even thicker this day, the Cliffs were somehow more insane, and we were attacked several times by pirates wanting gold and booty. Luckily, we had the gold and booty. We fell on our bums more than a few times, but the greater worry was that we would slide over the edge of the path and down the steep cliffs. As I mentioned, the local people have no problem negotiating the trails--they think our clumsiness and falling over is quite hysterical. At several points while I was considering whether a particular divot in the path would collapse under my weight or not, a woman and her children from the village below would saunter up and demand, “You buy pillowcase!” While I was grateful to them as there was no Bed, Bath & Beyond around (as far as I could tell through the fog, anyway), there is a time and a place for buying home furnishings—balancing on the edge of a precipice isn't one of them. I politely, but aggressively, declined. After all, I had a stereotype to fulfill.

The highlights of the trip included a very skinny Santa Claus giving out gifts at the hotel on Christmas Eve, everyone assuring us that Sapa, magical place that it is, had no avian influenza, and me yelling at our tour guide to make the rain and mud go away. Humph, aggressive American, my foot.

I've Been Everywhere, Man

2005-12-10T00:37:00.000-08:00

My most humble apologies for such a lag in writing time. I wrote a fantastic piece in October about the essence of bullshit, and its relevance to my most recent experience of planning a major event in a Communist country. I ended the piece with an imaginary scenario that started out with an American child playing peacefully with his Vietnamese counterpart. Playtime, however, degenerated into a pissing contest between the two children about who’s country’s form of government was superior. If I recall correctly, the Vietnamese child won when she brought up Dick Cheney eating toddlers for breakfast. It was a good blog, she was. Unfortunately, I foolishly misplaced the paper on which I had written the blog, as Luddite-me likes to write everything out by hand (okay, in truth, I dictate it to Duke), then type it into the computer.

That Pulitzer-prize winning piece is lost forever, but here’s an update on life in the last few months:

Work: Work continues and I continue to show up. Questions from students and educational administrators continue to baffle me, this week’s what-the-bleep question being, “Do you know of any Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in English around Ho Chi Minh City? I have a friend who is an alcoholic coming to town to visit.”

Travel: My sister and her friend came to visit for two weeks—our first visitors! We took them around HCMC and some nearby sites for the first week, then did Angkor Wat and Ha Long Bay for the second week.

Angkor Wat: A&W is one of those places constantly featured in National Geographic magazine or on the Discovery Channel, so it’s pretty amazing to actually stand in front of AW proper and see it in person for the first time. We spent three days walking around the various temples and cities that were built over hundreds of years. There was one question we couldn’t shake: Why in God’s name do we learn about the great “western” empires and completely skip over the Khmer and Cham and Siam Empires in school?

The beggar children we saw at all of the temples were heartbreakingly adorable, savvy, depressing and quick-witted. They had their sales pitches, we had our answers, and they had their counter-responses…they didn’t miss a beat. Their skilled sales pitches could make any Cutco or Amway representative blush. We ended up buying many a useless item from them that will probably end up at your doorsteps as this year’s Christmas present. Just kidding. But not really.

For the uninitiated, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hochiminhtale/), so that I can spare the readers the formulaic and uninspired descriptions that plague the usual accounts by novice writers.

Ha Long Bay: Our next junket was to a bay in northern Vietnam that spills into the Gulf of Tonkin. It is an area of 3000 incredible islands made of limestone, scattered around emerald waters under hazy skies, so says Lonely Planet. We spent two days and one night on a boat in the bay, which was a great experience. There were tons of other boats and lots of tourists, but we still had a great time exploring a (Disneyland-like) cave, canoeing (in circles), watching the sunset and sunrise, catching our dinner (just kidding), and explaining to our French shipmates that not all Americans call them “Freedom Fries.” After all, we said, some of us know that Americans can’t always claim to have a monopoly on freedom. Sure, some of the time, heck, even most of the time, but certainly not all of the time. He, that would be silly. Moreover, we applauded them, first, for their resolution to stay out of Iraq (as Jon Stewart says, “why go all the way to the Mideast when you can fight Muslims in your very own suburbs?”) and second, for not surrendering Paris even after a week of heavy rioting.

We even managed to squeeze a day of touring in Hanoi, including Uncle Ho’s mausoleum (he was getting a tune-up in Moscow, however), the Lake of the Restored Sword, the Temple of Literature and the famously narrow streets of the Old Quarter. My sister and her friend were able to see the interesting array of characters that gather at the lake each morning, including aerobicists, badminton players, tai chi masters and calisthenics diehards. We even saw someone who looked suspiciously like Suzanne Somers leading a thighmaster session.

Despite the autumnal weather in Hanoi, we couldn’t get out fast enough—we grew tired of the taxi drivers, painfully narrow streets, and seemingly less friendly attitude. Coming “home” to Saigon was refreshing. It’s hard to explain, but Hanoi lacks the emotional range, the fire in the belly that Saigon seems to have cultivated.

On our last big day together, which was Thanksgiving, we had an especially tough day at the spa. We subjected ourselves to massages, facials, manicures and pedicures in the name of beauty. “God curse this beautiful face,” I was heard to have said numerous times throughout the ordeal.

Then, we had American-style burgers and fries—rice does wear on a girl, sometimes—at a restaurant where pictures of Tom Selleck and yellow-eyed, crazed looking stuffed tigers co-exist on the wall in a friendly, but somewhat tense manner. While the burgers were excellent, the restaurant’s atmosphere has an unholy mixture of Polynesian décor and Gary Glitteresque horror. Friends, if you don’t know who Gary Glitter is, type in “Gary Glitter” + “Vung Tau” into Google and read away.

Before dinner, we had a swim and a Jacuzzi break. I tells ya, life is tough here. For Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up eating a hodgepodge of food that was anything but American at an Italian restaurant owned by a Frenchman. The Frenchman, whom I’ve met several times, likes to give unsolicited wine recommendations, answer questions in the most elliptical manner possible, and open his eyes widely like a hamster being squeezed too hard, then squint them so tiny you can’t even see them anymore. Again, we complimented him on his countrymen’s restraint to surrender Paris, or France for that matter, to the rioters. We also offered to send in American troops if necessary.

We left the restaurant only to find HCMC was experiencing its own “riots” after a FUTball win…but unlike their University of Maryland counterparts who set cars on fire after even pre-season games, these young FUTball fans were happily riding their motorbikes up and down the center of the city, Vietnamese flag in hand and victory-sloganed bandanas on head. We managed to seek shelter on the rooftop bar of the historic Rex Hotel, famous for entertaining journalists during the American War.

Safe among the plasticine statues of elephants, tigers and crocodiles—a visual simulacrum of Barnum and Bailey-like delivery—we had a few refreshments and watched the excitement from above. After an hour or so, things died down and we were able to resume our discussion about Fibonacci numbers and Germain primes. But, we were distracted again by the party of 12 next to us who broke into a French version of “Happy Birthday”. Convinced that they were speaking in tongues and starting their own riots, I sprinkled some of my mojito drink on them, yelling “avaunt thee, Satan!” My sister took her cue and guided me away. I conceded that it had been a long day and the fun had to end.

Two days later, Duke and I said a sleepy, but tearful, goodbye to our guests as they checked-in for their 6:00 a.m. flight. We were left alone to ponder the highlights of the visit, such as the tail-less gecko sightings, running away from the aggressive CHICKENS! that gave new meaning to “free-range”, paddling through the rain-swollen streets, trekking up the hill to see the giant Jesus statue, and revealing that joining the Foreign Service (hell, we found this out when we joined the Peace Corps) gives you a chance to get in touch with prejudices you didn’t even know you had.

Walk This Way

2005-09-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that my Vietnamese is progressing not at all, I continue to attend language classes. You may recall that, for whatever reason, my teacher has it in for the minority tribes in Viet Nam. Luckily, we have been working with a new textbook that highlights different Vietnamese cultural topics for each chapter. This has been helpful in distracting her from launching into tirades about the “unbelievable demands” and protests of late by the Montagnards. It also sometimes distracts her from asking me how she can get a visa to go abroad, but not usually. Last week’s topic was sidewalk cafes. Now, the term “sidewalk café” probably brings to mind strolling down streets in Europe where impromptu biergartens pop up, or restaurants spill into the walkway when the weather is nice. For my fellow Washingtonians, it might also remind you of spring or summer, when during the work-week and on the weekends, it might take all day to organize who would secure the all-important outdoor table at a bar or restaurant.

Here, sidewalk café has a different meaning. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived here was that sidewalks are multi-purpose. By no means does a pedestrian have ANY right to think that it is a protected space meant for walking. Why, today, in fact, the man in front of me on the sidewalk who was hit by a motorbike sure did learn his lesson. And if he didn’t, well, I’m sure he’ll have another chance to learn it soon. To date, I can count 8 uses for a sidewalk, besides the usual means of transportation for bipedal beings. I’m thinking of creating a piece for Schoolhouse Rock Viet Nam as a service message to those who aren’t in the know in VN. I would call it “Elbow room”, after the Manifest Destiny episode, and I would include the following uses for a sidewalk:

A parking lot. At any time in any place someone may decide to open up a parking lot business for both cars and motorbikes. Even on the narrowest of sidewalks, it can be done, forcing those walking (usually the elderly and tourists, but, let’s face it, both of them are expendable) to go in the street and pray that they are not clocked by a moving motorbike.
A shortcut for those in a hurry on a motorbike. Who are we walkers to think that a sidewalk is a convenient and safe way for us and us alone to get around town? When turning corners, it is extremely important to listen carefully and check. It’s useless for me to count the number of times I’ve almost been hit head-on when turning the corner. I used to get mad and indignant when it happened…why, I even yelled “hey” (“oi”, you may recall, in Vietnamese) a couple of times. But luckily I have learned that it is not for me to get angry. People are in a hurry and if there’s a sidewalk just sitting there, it’s actually wasteful NOT to use it. In any case, the elderly and tourists are society’s dirty little secret—they NEED to be taken out.
A store. Who said that corruption and lack of transparency is a problem in Viet Nam? You can’t get more transparent than goods and money exchanged right on the street. And when you’re in a country where intellectual property rights mean nada, it’s even better.
A restaurant. This is probably the most common thing you will find on the sidewalk. The problem is that the “restaurant” consists of chairs and stools about 1 foot high, with no rhyme or reason to the layout, thus causing the ignorant pedestrians to have to zigzag their way through and hope that they won’t step on a soup bowl or, worse, crush a Buddhist altar to the owner’s relatives. If there’s a special event, the restaurant will take the up the entire sidewalk, again, forcing the walker into perilous traffic, usually consisting of on-coming, wildly-swerving motorbikes.
A barber shop. Take a chair, scissors and a rusty mirror to hang on a wall or fence, and you have your own hair salon. Bubbles Salon it is not, but these are still quite popular. It’s all done sans electric razor, so it takes forever. And by forever, I mean one to two hours. For men.
A motorbike repair shop. An old tire propped up with a ribbon tied to it, along with a usually tired-looking owner, indicate it is a repair shop rather than a parking space. They are at almost every corner, and some are fancier than others. Some have juggling jesters for customers waiting, and others just have the usual stale, civet-digested coffee and donuts from the local Dunkin’ Donuts shop.
A dentist. I am not making this up. I have seen this not once, but twice. At first, it looked like a barber shop, with the dirty mirror hanging precariously on the wall and a man sitting in a barber’s chair. But when I got closer, the “owner” was wiggling around with a wrench in the guy’s mouth—a wrench. In truth, I haven’t seen any others since the rainy season has been gracing us with her presence. The rain, she can’t be good for business.

After I told Teacher about the last use of a sidewalk, she refused to believe me. She started to give the “we are not savages like those people in the hills” speech, but I managed to cut her off and distract her with the topic of China Rising. Like many Vietnamese, it’s not that she doesn’t like China—she HATES China—and lectures me often about the need for Vietnamese youth to develop their own sense of cultural identity, as if I am somehow part of either the solution or the problem. In any case, after careful research and asking around, I have found out that, yes, there used to be sidewalk dentists (mayhaps an import from the French?), and there may still be some around. I will not mention this in my next language session, however, for fear that she’ll either bring up the highlands tribes or China’s one-child policy. But if she does, I will simply tell her in Vietnamese about the time that I jumped ship in Hong Kong and made my way over to Tibet, and I got on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. This will be to kill time with Teacher, see? A looper, I will say in English, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I’ll tell her I'm a pro jock, and whom did they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald, striking. I’ll tell my teacher about how I was on the first tee with him. How I gave him the driver. How he hauled off and whacked one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. And I’ll ask her if she knows what the Lama said? Gunga galunga gunga - gunga galunga. And if she knows that we finished the eighteenth and he was gonna stiff me. I’ll tell Teacher I said, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And that he said, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I’ll tell her I got that goin' for me, which is nice. That ought to quiet Teacher down for a bit.

I would then tell Teacher that having received the gift of total consciousness, I’m now thinking of getting into the sidewalk business myself. Specifically, I would open up a bank called Capitalism Schmapitalism. I would model it after the Vietnamese banks and carefully follow the rules for the foreigners. Based on anonymous tips from avid ex-pat readers of my blog in VN (read: me), these rules include:

If someone wants to open up an account here, she must show proof that she is working (via a labor contract) and proof of the source of every damn dime deposited. If you think this is a tinge illegal and an infringement of rights, you would be right, but you need to be reminded that capitalism, my friends, is a discussion.
Said bank account will be in dollars, as that is what your paycheck will be in, but if you’d like to withdraw money, you may only do so in Vietnamese dong, of course.
Let’s say someone doesn’t want to open up a bank account here because she thinks the rules for foreigners are stupid and nonsensical. If she wants to deposit her monthly paycheck, which is written in dollars and issued by an American bank (oh, say, Citibank), into her account in the US by mail, she cannot. Why? First of all, checks here are only valid for two weeks. Second, even if they were valid for longer, they are only good in Viet Nam. Why? Too many questions, you ask. As Billy Madison would advise—talky, talky, talky. No more talky.
Now, let’s just say that this ex-pat opened up an account with HSBC and her checks are issued by, say, Citibank. She thinks to herself, I prefer HSBC, so I will simply deposit my two paychecks into this new account. Au contraire, says HSBC. HSBC says these checks cannot be deposited because they are issued by Citibank…checks in the future, however, done by wire transfer can be deposited, but these particular checks must be cashed, then deposited into the HSBC account. The bank reminds the customer that she MUST keep her receipts from this transaction because, as noted, the source of all goddamn deposits must be accounted for.
Are you with me so far? The silly girl follows this advice and tries to cash her check at Citibank. Citibank says, “Madame…you can only receive dong for this, although it is made out for USD”. The silly girl tries to argue and the bank teller informs her that the Madame, she can deposit checks in dollars, but cannot get them cashed in dollars—she must receive dong only, for it is against the law. The teller assures Madame that she can deposit the dong into her USD account at HSBC with “no problem”. The silly girl cashes the two paychecks, then walks over to HSBC with a shitload of dong only to find out that, indeed, she cannot deposit dong into a USD account. The girl thinks to herself, “Mmmm, so I have a USD account, but if I take money out it can only be in dong. The money going into it, however, can only be USD. Brilliant!” What followed after Madame entered HSBC to deposit her dong and found out she could only deposit dollars was not pretty, so I will not go into it. Just know that it would require several additional pages of explanation.

The take home, folks, is that, as my favorite history professor, Otto Campbell, at Mary Washington College once remarked, “Socialists, mah friends, they will spend yaw mun-ay. Oooooooh, yes. But they aw surely capitalistic with they-yuh own mun-ay.” And the second take home is that I’m so quitting my job to open up a sidewalk combination bank/dentist. It will be like the swimming pool stores you pass on Route 1, where you ask yourself, why is that swimming pool store also selling fireplaces? When the Vietnamese pass by my shop, they will say, Tai sao chi ay co cua hang via he ve ngan hang VA ve nha khoa???? Oooooooh, yes, they will. Then an astute companion will remind them that a healthy business is prepared for all seasons, rain or shine. And if my language teacher is around, she will remind them that minority peoples cannot even figure out how to answer the phone, thus they should not be allowed to bank.

Godsmack

2005-08-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

Five GOL-den rings! Four calling birds…this is the latest ice cream cart announcement song in our neighborhood. Last week it was “Happy Birthday”, while the week before it was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. Reading this, you may make the mistake, dear friends, of thinking a new song is being played each week. Would that were the case. These are three examples of The three songs that Ice Cream Cart Man plays. One is tempted to think the reason why these songs are played so often is that either he does not know how annoying the songs can be to westerners’ ears or he simply must choose from a limited selection. After all, why invest so much into an ice cream cart? But then I started noticing that I hear the same Vietnamese, Backstreet Boys, Black Eyed Peas and Abba songs on repeat. It’s not just at the cafes, but at events, clubs—even my co-worker has the same songs on repeat: “I Feel Pretty”, “I will Always Love You”, “My Huckleberry Friend”, and “What is a Youth” (from the film version of Romeo and Juliet, 1968). Are people here afraid of change? Of being overwhelmed by too much selection, as I am when I’m in the cereal aisle at grocery stores in the States? Do people here know something we don’t know about the microtonal makams of Whitney Houston? I have a hard time believing they are focusing on the sharps, flats and crescendos that Mr. Nick Carter is able to reach in “Quit Playing Games with my Heart”. Like the Literacy Campaign for Bikers in the Washington Area that I tried so hard to launch after seeing how many bikers on the Mount Vernon Trail blatantly ignored signs to dismount for bridges and tunnels and to yield to joggers/walkers, I long to start a reverse Mike Meyers campaign here called, If it’s American it’s Crap.

Then I think of the TV shows that Duke and I get sucked into here. Again, American shows. We were the type in the US to watch Anderson Cooper, Bill O’Reilly (just seeing if you’re paying attention), South Park, Simpsons, Best Week Ever—basically, the deeply intellectually challenging and cerebrally stimulating shows for which American television has become famous. Indeed, an entire Sunday was often spent in the apartment flipping between John McLaughlin, Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer, George Stephanopolous and Fox & Friends (again, just checking). Here, I find myself watching, “Yes, Dear”, “King of Queens”, that horrible “INXS” reality show and “Built for the Kill” (National Geographic’s answer to WWF for animals) with complete disregard for how I will get this time back. I mean, these are the shows to which critics point as evidence of the death of network TV. Apparently, here, it is perfectly normal for me to get absolutely sucked into “I Survived: Being struck by lightning” or (I swear I am not making this up) “I Survived: Impaling”. Yeah, that’s right, an hour-long Discovery Channel show dedicated to freaks who survived horrific and ridiculously unlikely events such as being impaled. Impaled. The worst, though, is my propensity for watching “Airplane Crash Investigation” where National Geographic highlights a crash due, mostly, to human errors. The conclusion, inevitably, is that the aviation industry is in crisis and in major need of an overhaul. Indeed, as the show points out, while the commonly cited statistic that you are more likely to die in a car crash than an airplane crash is true, when factoring in the amount of time spent in each mode of transportation so that it’s broken down into an hourly rate, you are far more likely to die in an airplane crash. Yes, TV choices here are that limited. But it’s even worse for other ex-pats—there is only one French channel, one German station—Deustche Welle, which airs half of its programs in English--and two Japanese/Korean stations. For variety’s sake, Duke and I will watch these channels, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that we have no idea what is going on.

Let’s take, for example, say, the Vietnamese channels. I went home from work for lunch the other day to watch myself on TV. That’s right—after two weeks on the job, apparently, I am qualified and knowledgeable enough about my position and organization to give an hour-long interview with a local TV station. So, the reporter who interviewed me called me to tell me it would be airing that day…I rush home to try to catch it and spend the next 30 minutes confusingly watching a music concert. I check to make sure I have the proper channel, which, indeedily do, I did. Finally, an announcer comes on and some commercials follow. Uh-oh, I realize. They are speaking Bahasa (Indonesian), NOT Vietnamese, thus alerting me to the fact that perhaps I was not watching the correct channel. 30 minutes went by before realizing this. 30 minutes.

So, I hope at this point, I have shattered any of your illusions, dear readers, that I speak Vietnamese in even the most limited capacity. 30 minutes is a long time to think that you’re on the same page linguistically as the performers you are watching. Bahasa isn’t even tonal for God’s sake. And while we’re on the subject, two examples of how well I grasp the tones:

Situation One: Setting—a mobile phone store.
Me (What I think I’m saying): “Hello little sister, is this phone new or old? Big sister wants to buy a new phone.”
What the saleswoman hears: “Hello garble garble, is this phone a penis or is it new? Big garble garble wants to buy a new garble.”

Situation Two: Setting—a food shop.
Me (What I think I’m saying): “Hello little sisters, do you sell ‘spices’ (said in English, as I do not know the word for spices)? You know ‘spices’, like salt, pepper, etc. Do you have that here?”
What the saleswomen hear: “Hello plural garble, do you have whomp whomp whomp here? You know, whomp whomp, like mosquitoes? Do you have mosquitoes here?”

How could I substitute such radically different words for what I intended to say, you ask? These words have the exact same spelling, but different tones. And since there are six tones, if I don’t hit a tone correctly, it’s a completely different word. When I mispronounce a tone, I have the choice of repeating the word with its five other tones and hoping for a sign of recognition on the listener’s part, or simply walking out of the store. Either way, I continue to reinforce the notion that Round Eye is innately, yes innately, incapable of learning a tonal language. You don’t know how many times I hear that here.

Gotta run. “I Survived: Decapitation” followed by “I Survived: Defenestration” is on TV. Really, when it comes down to it, “Married to the Kelleys” is as much a dramatic celebration of humans’ evolutionary prerogative as “The Sopranos”, right? The TV, she is calling.

Unemployed, parasite of society no longer!

2005-07-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

My last entry detailed an exciting, or not-so-exciting, window into the daily rigors of my life. You may have been thinking to yourself while reading it, “Say, when does Morning Star (my Vietnamese name) have time to fulfill her self-described occupation of being a supermodel (as listed on the website…read it, people)?” Yes, I have decided to quit the world of glamour and beauty for a world where I advise on and possibly shape the educational future of young Vietnamese. Thus, I have gone from a lady of leisure/supermodel to a woman of action. I know what you’re thinking—is she now going to be bitter about finally having to work like most normal people? Pas du tout, my friends. I’m just bitter about not being able to see my girls at the ladies’ guild, so that we can wax nostalgic for the days of the French and their mission civilisatrice. I will make one comment about the position, however—luckily, the salary is such that I know Duke isn’t in it for the money with me. Friends, it was touch and go there with my Peace Corps allowance and graduate school stipend. I was constantly worried that Duke was only marrying me for the frighteningly high salaries I was able to command. My current salary and total lack of benefits helps me rest easy that this is not the case.

Now, to bring you up to speed on the past few weeks…I spent a week in Bangkok with a friend and former co-worker. Well, I didn’t so much as spend the week with her as I bummed off of her hotel and played all day while she attended a conference. I was worried that the less-than-fun flight out would portend an eventful trip…my section had all of the usual suspects—the screaming baby, the bratty foreigners traveling on mummy and daddy’s money, the priest next to me disconcertingly making the sign of the cross as we took off, the adult-onset ADD/half woman-half kangaroo passenger behind me who kept kicking and pulling my seat, the completely oblivious person in front of me who kept the seat reclined all the way back, even at mealtime…While it wasn’t as funny as when Dave Barry accidentally spit his throat lozenger into the lap of his sleeping seatmate, it was certainly Seinfeldian enough. Oh, did I mention the man diagonally in front of me, who was sweating and coughing so profusely that I had a difficult time concentrating on the article I was reading about avian influenza? But I had much more important things to worry about when I arrived at the hotel on Wireless Road, which was anything but. There were wires everywhere—dangling dangerously low to the sidewalk, wrapped around the pedestrian overpasses we were forced to use to cross the streets, teasingly tapping at our 18^th floor-window at night. The hotel, however, was gorgeous—the kind where the staff call you by name, you have to have a key just to get on your own floor, and a room that could take an entire day to learn how to use all of its gizmos and gadgets. I found time, however, to get out of the hotel each day to face the chaos of Bangkok. BKK, as we sophisticates call it, while fun and intriguing, is everything I hope Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi does not become, with its 12-lane streets, traffic that would make Washingtonians blush, a bowing, Sawatdee Kaa-ing Ronald McDonald, and visible pollution, the effects of which I am still feeling two weeks later. Indeed, the pollution is bad enough that I take back my chimney sweep comment for HCMC and apply it squarely to BKK. Yes, dear Wendy, an alert reader of mine from northern Virginia, this is where one really coughs and snots up the black goo. One thing BKK does share with HCMC and Hanoi, however, are the occasional unfortunate English translations, especially for shops. While in Hanoi this week, I saw a cosmetics store named Poopa, which was almost directly across from the Leaky Jeans store. In BKK, enticing signs, such as “deep throat sharp sales” almost lured me into a buying frenzy at those stores. Other than these little things though, I had a great time shopping, eating, touring, and enjoying the hotel facilities. In fact, I became so used to the service at the hotel that now I make Duke turn down our bed every night and put orchids and chocolates on the pillows. Alas, the fantasy week ended and I returned to HCMC, black goo in tow.

After arriving home, I was quickly reminded that the vacation was over and work was soon to follow, particularly as the Fourth of July approached. From what I vaguely remember as a former American, this holiday consisted of wearing flip-flops, sporting a cute sundress, eating freshly barbequed red meat and drinking Sam Adams. This year, however, the weekend was spent in high heels, a (still cute) cocktail dress, hotel-catered pigs in a blanket, and rice wine. Ah, yes, and party tricks, such as eating a tube of toothpaste or straining my neck like a turtle, were strictly verboten. This was too bad, as it forced me to rely on my conversational skills at a time when my English has degenerated so that it is almost as bad as my Vietnamese. I do believe at one point in the evening I said, “What is that number between 7 and 9? You know, the circular-looking one? Ah, yes, 8—well, the G-8 summit will be in Scotland this year. How in the world is Russia part of the G-8? It is neither fully industrialized nor a democracy. And don’t get me started on “Vla’mir” Putin, as Bush refers to him. Did you know that there is strong evidence that he orchestrated the apartment bombings in Moscow that were then the ‘impetus’ for the second Chechen War?” Staring back at the angry-looking Vietnamese students about to embark on a trip to the States for various PhD programs, I considered doing my one-eye-opened-one-eye-closed party trick to lighten the atmosphere, but something told me these science, computer and math students would not truly appreciate the trick’s charm. Instead, I mumbled something about Moscow’s exciting bid for 2012 and how it would blow London and Paris out of the water with its more subtle and, um, laid-back approach.

As I write this, I am in Hanoi for consultations and meetings for the new, said job. Hanoi is currently experiencing a bit of a drought, and consequently, as they have been relying more and more on hydroelectric power, have been “exporting” power from HCMC. So, while Duke is dealing with rolling black-outs in HCMC, I am running around turning all of the lights on, cranking the air-conditioner to 11, and writing this as the TV is mindlessly blasting. Hanoi certainly has a different feel than HCMC—it’s a much slower pace and lives up to its reputation as the “Grande Dame” of Southeast Asia, with its beautiful lakes and better-preserved French colonial architecture. And now, as I sign off from the airport in Hanoi, where I am stuck due to a three-hour delay of my flight, I realize that it must be a good sign that I miss “home” already. I suppose when you’re living abroad, you cling to anything that gives even a modicum of well-being and familiarity. Yes, walking past the charity boxes “for especially difficult children” in the passenger waiting area, I remind myself not to feel guilty for not being as adventurous with site-seeing in Hanoi as I was in Bangkok. In any case, it was much more fun to enjoy the electricity that Duke was being denied in HCMC.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass, so are the Days of My Life (cue high-pitched flute-like music)

2005-06-12T02:59:00.000-07:00

6:00 a.m. Wake up from sunlight that is screaming into the room…curse myself for not remembering to close the drapes the night before. Head immediately to do e-mail, as the later it gets in the day, the slower the internet is, if that is possible. What’s that you say? We pay a sizable monthly fee for “broadband”? Why yes, yes, we do. Never mind, I actually like having to click everything twice to get it loaded onto the page, which then takes twice the normal time in the States.

6:10 a.m. Restart the computer and log in as a different user each time to try to connect to the internet. Often spend the next 30-40 minutes doing this and wondering what’s more sad—the fact that it takes this long or the fact that I allow myself to do this for such a ridiculous amount of time? Hear roosters crowing. Remember that when I was in the Peace Corps, I did not set my alarm clock on the first morning, assuming that the roosters would wake me up at sunrise, like in the Kellogg’s cornflakes commercials. Start laughing, then stop when I remember that these roosters may have the chicken flu and perhaps that’s why they are crowing so damn insistently. Remember friend’s host family’s creepy one-legged rooster in Uzbekistan and hope that they don’t have those here.

8:45 a.m. Greet our cook, Apple, who comes three times a week. We spend a few minutes in a hilarious mix of Vietnamese and English trying to communicate about food. Apple has been bringing various local fruit for us to try. I have yet to like the more complicated fruits, like durians, rambutan or lychee, and my reactions range from mild dislike to offensive disgust, such as when I tried durian, a fruit so pungent that it has been banned from passenger planes. Apple shakes her head, thinking not only is this a stupid American who speaks like a slow child, but this is a stupid, wasteful, ungrateful American who speaks like a slow child.

9:00 a.m. Run down to Tae Bo and observe our little U.N. of a class, while pretending to exercise. There is a variation of Japanese, Australian, French, American, South African and Vietnamese women who participate. I must say we're damn good. Think to myself what a funny-looking group we'd make for a Billy Blanks video, though.

10:00 a.m. Run back up the apartment, change into poolside attire, argue with Apple over why I think it is okay for me to eat M&Ms and cookies for lunch, so she need only make dinner. After all, M&Ms and cookies would be just plain silly for dinner, I tell her. She shakes her head and says that it’s a good thing I exercise a lot. Threaten to fire her.

10:15-12:30 p.m. Lounge around pool area, swimming laps, reading and practicing my bad Vietnamese with some of the pool staff. Given that our language training in the States focused on either very simplistic or complicated exchanges and nothing in the intermediate range, I usually talk about the weather, the devaluation of the Dollar to the Euro, subsidies for farmers or American Idol.

1:00 p.m. Eat M&Ms, cookies, Lay’s chips, peanut butter sandwich, and/or Ramen noodles. Contemplate making brownies, but then laugh as I realize that would require getting out a recipe and actually baking them. Become sad when I realize I’m watching Oprah, since BBC and CNN have a nasty habit of repeating the same stories. What's an unemployed girl to do, though?

1:30 p.m. Wander around town, shopping or doing errands. Think about running around in a Batwoman costume, since I already attract so much attention. Wave with a backwards Miss America wave, which is the signal for no here, to the fifty motorbike and cyclo drivers all waiting in a row who say “You go mo to?” and put their hands in handlebar vroom-vroom positions in case I don’t understand (this is an everyday ritual, by the way). Try to avoid the motorbikes that careen onto the sidewalk because driving in the street is too safe.

3:00 p.m. Return home, sweating like a priest at a, well, I won’t use that metaphor, okay, am sweating like crazy. Hop online just in time for the amazing enormous thunder, rain and lightning that are the rainy season to start. Image of my dad pops up on my right shoulder, telling me that I will be electrocuted if I continue to operate an electrical object, particularly the computer. Image of the Nike swoosh pops up on my left shoulder, telling me to just do it. Shake my head and open a second bottle of wine, but continue to type. Sometimes hear birds thump against the window and fall to their death.

5:00 p.m. Head off to Vietnamese class and meet Duke there. Today, Teacher decides to talk about “The Minority Peoples of Viet Nam”. Spend the next hour and a half listening to her talk about how stupid, lazy and fat they all are. Hear about how they cannot read or write, and all they want to do is lay around, do smack, ride motorbikes, then get into accidents because they don’t know how to drive when they are high. Also hear about how scared they are of telephones, and how THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SAY “ALLO” when answering said telephone which they don't possess. Silly people, I am supposed to think. By the end of class, find myself wondering if they grow their own smack or import it. Wonder what climate smack grows best in. Wonder how it got the name smack. Worry that if there is a channel in the U.S. devoted to golf, 24 hours a day/7 days a week, then what is to stop someone from creating the billiards channel. Also wonder how Teacher knows this stuff, since the people about whom she is speaking live in the highlands, pretty far from Saigon. Think about giving her a copy of Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden." Decide against, since she might think that I, too, am of this 19th-century mindset.

7:30 p.m. Ravenously eat Apple's carefully prepared dinner with Duke and watch the rejected shows from the U.S. like Miss Match with Alicia Silverstone. Pray that Alien 3 will not be shown yet again. Become even more disappointed when I realize Jeepers Creepers is that evening's movie. Become really depressed when I remember that Duke and I already watched it a few evenings prior.

10:30 p.m. Head to bed and forget to close the drapes so that the sun doesn’t wake me up at 6:00 a.m.

Michael, You're Never Far from Our Hearts

2005-06-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

Our Memorial Day weekend started out just like any other. On Friday, I waited around for our Household Effects, or HHE, in the alphabet soup jargon of the Foreign Service world. The moving team consisted of six Vietnamese men, compared to the three we had in Washington, DC. I’ve decided that many jobs here that would normally take one person or even a machine to do require at least three. For example, the toll booths on the highways have four people—one person to collect the money, another to issue the ticket, yet another to watch the other two, and a fourth to tell jokes and spit watermelon seeds at motorists. In our case, the moving team had three men to transport the boxes, while three others stood around and shouted. They seemed much more in shape than the ones we had in Washington, where the head of the team was Porky, or Puh-Key, as he pronounced it, a large, 64 year-old man who had been with the same company for 42 years. Graciously, the two younger men let him move all of the heavier items, while I watched in horror as he maneuvered our way-too-large couch out of the way-too-small doorway of the apartment. Unlike the move from Washington, however, the men here unloaded the truck during a torrential downpour. While I was lucky enough to wait inside during all of this, it was a bit distressing watching our boxes being unloaded. After all, how sturdy can cardboard be during a monsoon? In the end, all of our boxes arrived safely and, while, funny enough, the contents smelled like they had, well, been on a ship for three months, luckily the movers in Washington managed to pack the most important items, including potatoes, onions and garlic cloves that apparently had been lying around in our pantry, as well as scrap paper and a bag of trash from the kitchen.

Duke and I sorted through some of the boxes—those three-month old potatoes and garlic cloves really hit the spot—then gave up and prepared for our trip the following day. We decided to go to Mui Ne, a small beach about four hours away on the southern coast famous for its high sand dunes. We took a tour bus, where we had the misfortune of sitting in the front seat, so we could see exactly how close our driver came to hitting vehicles and pedestrians in the other lane head-on, as he passed even more impossibly-slow trucks and tractors. I tried to ignore the signs every kilometer or so warning about wearing helmets and keeping one’s speed down in order to reduce the alarming number of highway deaths. It was comforting to see that the drivers, and bus drivers in particular, had cultivated a complicated series of signals for speedtraps. Sometimes it was a simple honk and a flash of headlights, other times it was headlight flashes and a horizontal arm rapidly moving up and down, still others executed a Macarena-esque arm move followed by some head jerks. What was amusing, though, is that usually the passengers would do it, too, perhaps in case our driver did not see these obvious gestures. It turns out our driver had perfected the art of slowing down just before the radar gun and speeding up right after we were out of range, just in time to pass a large truck and careen over a blind hill. After four hours of this, we arrived to our hotel, only to discover that the place had given our room away. This was both amusing and annoying, as it was the off-season, and there were all of 10 people staying in Mui Ne Beach, so we found it difficult to understand that there were no more rooms at our hotel. In any case, we walked a few meters up and settled on a place with the unfortunate name of Indochina Dreams.

Despite what Lonely Planet said about it being “dreamy,” with “well-appointed” rooms, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough, although we did have to stay the first night there. Our bungalow, while quaintly situated right on the beach, was a sweatbox, as the power kept going off so that neither the fan nor the air conditioner—for which we paid extra—was able to work. While our bed only had a few dead mosquitoes, ants and spiders on it, the room was missing a certain je ne sais quoi. What sealed the deal, though, was our young waiter/cleaner/beach attendant. He really wanted to practice his English, to the point where after serving our lunch, he actually sat down with us and talked at length, in barely understandable English, I might add, about karaoke and Michael Jackson, breaking only to run and get some very sadly drawn sketches he had made of the sand dunes. I didn’t have the heart to tell the poor kid about the Michael Jackson trial and the state of the Neverland Ranch. Later, when he came to sit with us on the beach, again uninvited, I bit my tongue as he showed off his Michael Jackson moves, complete with head snaps and arm waves. You see, it was too sandy and uneven to do the moonwalk. The next morning, our new friend seemed upset when he saw that we were leaving, as he was sitting in the beach chair directly outside of our room, waiting, I’m sure, to debate which album was better, Farewell My Summer Love or Thriller. Perhaps it was better that the Michael Jackson for him was the pre-1985 Michael, before he had his third nose pinching, his hair caught on fire during a Pepsi commercial, he dangled his precious Blanket over the balcony, and he climbed trees with Martin Bashir. Oh, Michael, how far you’ve come since The Wiz and Ben the Mouse. No, for the waiter/cleaner/beach attendant, he will always be the hoo-hoo-ing, jamon-ing, chika-chik-ow-ing, crotch-grabbing Michael.

We spent a second way less eventful night in a much better hotel, where the staff outnumbered the guests three to one, we had a large pool, a spot on the beach with raked sand and some unfortunately dressed and very sunburned Russian female guests to keep us company. Getting to the second hotel was interesting, as we took our first motorbike taxis, which are called xe om, or hugging vehicles. They are all over Saigon, but I’ve been a huge wimp about even attempting to get on one, which is good because apparently there is such a thing as xe om etiquette. Had I used one in Saigon, I would have hopped on and put my arms right around the driver’s waist, thinking that, well, it’s a hugging vehicle, so one must hold on that way. Normal passengers, of course, do not do that. For skittish westerners like me, you hold on to the metal bar in the back. If you’re more confident in your balance, you can rest your hands on your thighs. If you’re an expert, you can do a handstand and practice juggling tricks while riding on the bike. Although we only went about two kilometers in the xe oms, it was just long enough to be intoxicating for Duke and ridiculously terrifying for me. The xe om drivers in Mui Ne, after all, have much more of a free reign than their counterparts in Saigon, who are slowed down by cars, buses, cyclos and occasionally intersections.

After a short three-day, two night holiday, we unwillingly headed back to the city. We were smart enough not to sit in the front seat on the way back, which gave us more time to concentrate on the rain that was seeping in through the less insulated parts of the bus. Despite the fact that it is officially rainy season in southern Viet Nam, Mui Ne Beach does not receive much rainfall due to the sand dunes, which help create a microclimate. Not too far out from Mui Ne, however, we were reminded of what was waiting for us back in Saigon, as the Dutch man across from us was frantically trying to stop up the cracks in his window. I found some irony in the fact that a man from a country that should be under water was unable to stop the roof and windows near him from leaking. Stay dry, everyone.

Communism for the Modern Bourgeois Capitalist

2005-05-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

In Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, the British journalist warns Alden Pyle, the naïve American diplomat/CIA spy, about his shallow comprehension of the situation in Viet Nam, as if to suggest that history, not ideology, is at the heart of Hanoi’s fight. Thirty years later, I think that many scholars and researchers of the region would agree. Ho’s ambitions were much more rooted in nationalism and land reform than in a desire to emulate the Soviet industrial complex. Economically speaking, since the so-called Dark Years preceding the mid-1980s, Hanoi has opened its markets, replacing Karl Marx with Adam Smith. The south, however, has had a much easier time adapting to these changes than the north. The writer and journalist David Lamb describes Saigon as having the “soul of a hustler” or an entrepreneur, while Hanoi seems to be content with its poets and thinkers. I’ll save my reflections on Viet Nam’s version of Communism for later, but its inconsistencies and ambivalent relationship with its political system remind me of my confusion with Tashkent’s version of “democracy”. Which leads me to the subject of this week’s missive—Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, and his jacked-up system of government.

The central Asian states were not exactly eager at the prospect of full independence from Moscow when the Soviet Union broke up. Contrary to the eastern bloc and the European/Caucasian states, the central Asian republics seemed more or less content with their status, as long as ethnic Russians didn’t run the secretariats and parties at the republic-level. Following independence, all of the presidents of the new states were—surprise—former Communist Party bosses, with the exception of the Kyrgyz leader, and we all know where he is now. Er, we know where he is not. The point is that the same men who had grown up studying Marxist economics and Informatics were now calling themselves democrats and trying to get into the World Trade Organization and the Paris Club. Still, intentions and memberships don’t mean much if you only allow Coca-Cola and Nestle into the country, while adhering to a non-convertible currency policy. Complete lack of transparency, rampant corruption and regionalism are no substitute for a command economy. While Karimov claims that the latest violence in the Ferghana Valley, our old neighborhood, is the work of radical Islamists, those of us who study the region know it’s much more complicated than that (unless you’re Fred Starr). A combination of severe political repression, religious restrictions and lack of genuine economic opportunities comprise the factors that have contributed to the riots and demonstrations in Andijan and on the Kyrgyz border. Unfortunately, Karimov, unlike Akaev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, is most likely not going to leave quietly. While Tashkent’s reactions to anti-government protests may not reach the scale of Tiennamen Square or the Soviet crackdown on Budapest students in 1956, they will continue to fuel resentment unless the government engages in more open and serious dialogue. Without turning this into a boring lecture, I will simply say that the U.S. has major leverage in the region, even with and because of the army and air force bases there. The U.S. should not allow an authoritarian thug like Karimov to legitimize his actions based on terrorism. Along with the UN or the OSCE, the U.S. needs to insist on conducting an independent investigation of what happened in the Ferghana Valley and get serious about withholding foreign investment and aid in the country. Until such actors do more than slap Karimov’s wrist every once in awhile, the Uzbek president’s ideological pursuit of state repression will take far greater precedence over his claims to reconcile history.

To end on a light note, I leave you with what should have been a Tony Award-winning song, America, FY! The “FY” stands for “f&*k yeah,” with which I have simply replaced the abbreviation. It reminds me of why leaving the U.S. wasn’t so tough to do. Oh, and the song is from Team America: World Police soundtrack, by the autodidact Trey Parker. The first line contains the original lyrics of the song, while the second contains my comments. Thanks, Clint, for inspiring me to include this.

McDonalds, FY!

Well, we have Chicken Town, KFC, AND avian bird flu.

Wal-Mart, FY!

Dear God, that is why I left the US.

The Gap, FY!

Yes, having clothes made cheaply by tailors and suited to your tastes is so overrated compared to buying what everybody else is wearing.

Baseball, FY!

You obviously haven’t seen the badminton players here juiced up on ‘roids, have you?

NFL, FY!

Again, that is why I left the US

Rock and roll, FY!

No, no, no, no, no, American Idol alone cancels that out.

The Internet, FY!

Oh yeah? Well, our “broadband” here takes three times as long and is monitored, so take that.

Starbucks, FY!

Again, I refer you to last week’s piece about Vietnamese coffee beans processed through weasel excrement. And might I add that the weasel is closely related to the civet, to which scientists trace the origin of SARS.

Disney world, FY!

Oh, yes, because Cinderella and Country Bears far outshine UNESCO world heritage sites, don’t they?

Valium, FY!

Please….you don’t even need a prescription for that here.

Reeboks, FY!

Intellectual property rights are so yesterday.

Taco Bell, FY!

Try fitty cent pho on the street, makes you just as sick as Taco Bell does.

Rodeos, FY!

Midgets vs. lions, wait, that was Cambodia, wait, that was a hoax.

Bed bath and beyond, FY!

Where do you think all that stuff comes from?

Liberty, FY!

Statues of a thin man with a very cool looking beard.

The Alamo, FY!

Are you kidding? Angkor Watt is closer and has about 1000 years on the Alamo.

Band-aids, FY!

Again, Valium doesn’t even require a prescription here.

Las Vegas, FY!

Only non-Vietnamese, bourgeois capitalists can gamble here.

Christmas, FY!

The whole country shuts down for Tet for DAYS, and you don’t have to go to church.

Popeye, FY!

Viet Nam has Creepy Hugo, who looks like Super Mario in caveman gear and hangs out with what appears to be Toonces the Driving Cat.

Republicans, FY!

The Party, need I say more?

Now go tell everyone you meet about the great things the USA does! (Trey Parker’s words, not mine).

City of Contrasts

2005-04-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

Gravest apologies for the ultra-cliché title, but it’s all I’ve been thinking about since we arrived. Having had the Peace Corps experience, and now living the ex-pat life, I am definitely noticing the divergent lifestyles here. Walking past such stores as L’Occitane and Lacoste, I’ve see a man with only the upper half of his body going past on a skateboard, begging for money, his “employer” (the one who actually gets most of the money he collects) not far behind. I’ve seen a monk weaving through traffic on his motorbike, while an elderly woman is fully relieving herself in plain view on the open sidewalk. And last Friday night, we enjoyed a fashion show given at our apartment complex, with an elegant catwalk built over the pool. It was hard to imagine that a few hours before, the pool employees were drilling old refrigerator doors together to make the catwalk, which was then covered with material to hide the unevenness of it. But everyone noticed the wires connected to the lights along the catwalk dipping into the pool and out to the power sources. It was a reminder that safety in this country is definitely not up to western standards. Overall, though, in a country where 2/3 of the population is under 30, this city is extremely vibrant.

Speaking of safety, I have one more analogy for crossing the street—I promise this is the last. On the days or at the intersections when I’m not in Tim Buck Adrenalitis mode, I feel like Eddie Murphy from Bowfinger. To give some quick background information, the premise of the movie is that a sleazy, no-talent director (played by Steve Martin) does not have enough money to actually hire the actors that he wants in his film. He manages to find Eddie Murphy’s “twin” brother and casts him in some scenes. In one of the scenes, Eddie Murphy has to cross a wide stretch of an insanely busy L.A. highway. As there is no budget for a fake set, let alone a stuntman, Murphy is forced to run across the actual highway. We see him screaming and flailing his arms like Ann Coulter trying to avoid being hit by a pie at the University of Arizona, as he plays a human game of Frogger across the road. After making it across, he begs not to have to do the scene again. So that is the other emotion I feel when crossing the street, only I’m a much easier target.

When I’m not out dodging traffic, I am finding out how well I can adapt to Viet Nam. Gastrointestinally speaking, I have not been so successful. I will spare you with other tales of my pathetic fight with the Ho Chi Minh Rumbles, but I’ll share one story with you. The Rumbles decided to say hello to my tennis instructor. The instructor, I must say, was running me pretty hard and since I haven't played in a year, it was tough keeping up with her. I kept asking her for a water break, and she kept talking in her crazy Vietnamese/English (which was a series of nonsensical, unconnected English words followed by a bunch of fast Vietnamese, ending with "you understand?" after every phrase). So, it would be something like, "wickety-wackety, glamour, consistency, Vietnamese word, bear, hot dog, cow, power, Vietnamese word, Vietnamese word, Vietnamese word, table, do you understand?" Unfortunately, her wild gesticulations and pantomimes were equally strange and of no help in comprehending her. She did, however, keep telling me how happy I looked and like I was having a good time. Oh, dear teacher, far from it. I was, of course, laughing at her and how she thought I was able to understand her. Telling her I understood made me laugh even harder.

Anyhoo, she wouldn't let me take a break. Finally, I started to feel dizzy and told her I had to sit down, but she kept talking, so I calmly walked over to the trash can and threw up several times. Continuing with her Englishnamese, she ignored me entirely, even though I told her I absolutely had to go, since The Rumbles don’t mess around. Her 15-year old son, who had been collecting the balls during the lesson, looked uncomfortable and was able to convince her that it was time to go. The lesson ended as such, and I’m hoping that I never have to take her again. Friends, I thought I wanted dengue fever to shed a few unwanted pounds and not feel like such a friggin’ Andre the Giant among the Vietnamese. I realize now that dengue fever would be like The Rumbles on steroids.

Speaking of steroids, I had the creepiest dream last night that orangutans with elephantiasis of the face were chasing me and a friend through the woods. They were actually trying to eat us. I guess I had monkeys on the brain since we live near that damn zoo and we hear the Screaming of the Monkeys all the time. I feel like Clarice. But thank god I’m not taking the anti-malaria medication, since that stuff gives you nightmares…if I were on that, I’d probably have dreamt about ME with elephantiasis of the face chasing the orangutans down and trying to eat them.

Sweet dreams, everyone.

Risking Life and Lung

2005-04-26T18:32:00.002-07:00

Xin chao, everyone!

It’s about 5 a.m. now and I’ve been up for an hour. No matter, I have the news on and I’m comforted to see that news of Britney Spears’s pregnancy is still important here. Thanks, BBC World.

We arrived late Saturday night to a ground temperature of 86 degrees. We’ve been told that this is the hottest month before the rains arrive, which should last until about September. Once the rains come, though, they tend to cool things off, so we’re very much looking forward to that.

Our digs are quite nice—we have a three bedroom apartment with a balcony that overlooks a karaoke club, which we have discovered goes well into the night, even on Sundays, and emits a crazy kaleidoscope of lights that would test even the hardiest of epileptics. The staff here is wonderful, and our complex has a large pool, a jacuzzi, tennis courts and a gym. It doesn’t get much more colonial or bourgeois than that, does it, folks?

So, Duke and I woke up around 3:30 Monday morning. Yes, jetlag is a bitch. We headed out for a run when it became light at 5:30, thinking there wouldn’t be many people out. Oh, how wrong we were. The streets were full of drivers on mopeds, bikes, cars and monkeys (just kidding) and sellers had already set up shop on the sidewalks. The zoo, which is near our house and, we were told, is a good place to run, was already hopping. Getting to the zoo was a challenge, since it required crossing the famously crowded and constantly flowing streets. Once we got there, the zoo was teeming with walkers, “badminton” players (who use either feet or racquets), Chinese businessmen on their cell phones and young boyfriends/girlfriends escaping from the confines of family supervision. While it was heartening to see so many out exercising, particularly compared to Uzbekistan, where we felt like zoo animals on display while running, it made for a stressful run. We were barely able to do a full lap around the zoo without having to dodge people or those creepy badminton shuttlecock things. Moreover, we were oi-ed by a policeman when we unwittingly tried to go down a path that was off-limits to pedestrians. The art of “oi-ing” requires a separate e-mail in and of itself, but basically, it’s a way to get one’s attention that can range from extremely polite to exceedingly rude, depending on the context, tone of voice and form of address used. We hope to have learned the subtleties and intricacies of oi-ing after our two years here.

In any case, by the time we were oi-ed and made it back to the apartment, we had only been running for 15 minutes. At this point, we were also coughing black goo, and upon returning to our apartment complex, were mistaken by other residents for Dick Van Dyke, the besotted chimney sweep in Mary Poppins. The pollution is definitely a factor here when exercising, even at that early hour. Sadly, after only 15 minutes of running, we succumbed to the indoor treadmill. The pool and BBC will be my views while running for the next two years. No worries, though, I plan to swim as well, and apparently, there is a Tae Bo instructor here. Amazingly, the apartment complex was able to get Billy Blanks to teach here. Who knew that doing those videos in college would have helped me out here? We’ll see how the kickboxing routine compares to my sister’s experience with her boxing trainer, Nee-kolai, Champion Boxer from Bulgaaaria (insert stereotypical eastern European accent here).

As for regular interaction with the traffic as a pedestrian, it’s more than a bit unnerving. I had been warned about this before coming, so I tried to mentally prepare myself. I also didn’t want to seem too much like a tourist (since I blend in so well here), so I have been trying to cross the street like the locals. See, traffic lights and signs are not so much directives as suggestions, thus one must have a plan when crossing the street. Mine is to not look and just go, yielding only to cars and large trucks. How much can getting hit by a motorbike hurt anyway, right? I was told that if you look the motorbike drivers in the eye, they won’t yield to you, and effectively they “win”. We-he-hell, I yield to no one, mister, so you’d better believe I’ll be damned if I look these drivers in the eye and yield to them. I’ve also been told that it’s good to follow the locals’ lead or find a woman older than God to hide behind. Way too boring. So, instead, I’m afraid I’m taking too zen of an approach to crossing the street. After having to do it several times by myself, I feel like that guy, Tim Buck, from the Toyota commercial, who suffers from “adrenalitis” and is shown in several situations that depict his lack of enthusiasm for life, including being almost mauled by a dog while tying his shoe. He shows no reaction and feels nothing about being almost killed. The audience is led to think, my, what that Tim Buck needs is a Toyota Takoma—that’ll learn his case of adrenalitis. In my own bout with adrenalitis, I can be seen crossing the street and almost being hit many times by trucks, cyclos and mopeds with almost no reaction. I fear this could get even worse…my dad always said (in his mumbling, inaudible-to-even-dentists voice) “familiarity breeds carelessness”. One day, I think this may come true, and I may find myself flattened under the wheels of a large 18-wheeler on I-95, having not been able to readjust my pedestrian know-how to the US. Perhaps I, too, should get a Toyota Takoma.

And speaking of the

, I will end on this note. Duke had a few days of consultations in San Francisco, so I was able to walk about the city while he was in meetings. I was struck by the fact that almost every traffic light had countdowns for pedestrians to cross and there were mirrors and flashing lights for nearly every garage that led out into the street, lest a person on the sidewalk be hit by someone flying out of a garage with his or her SUV. Weeeeeell, that is so not the case here and I find it laughable, nay, hysterical, that I catch myself automatically looking for such gadgets. I must say, though, that it is not as uproarious as me trying to speak Vietnamese. That will be your treat for the next newsletter.