My Poorly Titled Cambodia Post

Cambodia is an absolutely fascinating country, and three days was far too short a visit. I doubt it's possible to see all of Angkor Wat in three days, let alone get a good taste of Khmer culture, and right now a part of me yearns to cancel my flight home, rent a bike, and explore every last nook and cranny of the place. Of course I can't, and I won't. But Cambodia really had that much of an impact on me.

When I say I'd like to bike the country, I mean that very specifically. Unlike Vietnam, Cambodia is a very rural society: about 60% of the country's 14 million people live as rice farmers. There are two major cities: the capital, Phnom Penh (pop. 2 million, in comparison to Saigon's 10 million), and Siem Reap, which is not even 200,000. Everyone else lives in the countryside, which looks like this:





Only most of the time, there aren't nearly that many trees.

So basically, Cambodia is a giant rice field, with a couple cities and some palm trees tossed in. And a lot of temples. Not just ancient ones, but beautiful, enormous modern ones as well. They stick out like a sore thumb. You'll be driving along through a tiny farming village of stilted corrugated iron huts, and suddenly this will pop up out of nowhere:



Or this:



It's surreal.

So anyway, Cambodia is basically a giant rice field with a couple cities, a few palm trees, and a bunch of spectacular temples thrown in. And that's what I love about it. It was so much more relaxed than Vietnam. Even Siem Reap, where I spent most of my time, felt like a relief from Siagon's constant hustle and bustle. Of course, if I were to go back to Cambodia, I would spent as little time in Siem Reap as possible. It's a tourist town through and through, having exploded in recent years due to its close proximity to Angkor Wat. Walking down the street, it's not uncommon to see more Westerners than Cambodians. Which is not to say that all the tourists are Westerners; Angkor Wat attracts a very international crowd. There were also a big number of Japanese and Korean tourists, and a few Indian tourists as well. But anyway, while Siem Reap was a pleasant place to stay for a couple days--safe, clean, relatively quiet--it's not a great place to learn about Khmer culture, and tourism has inflated prices all over town.

Phnom Penh, which I explored for a couple hours waiting for my next bus, is a completely different world. Siem Reap paints a picture of Cambodia as a third world nation climbing into newfound prosperity. Phnom Penh paints a much more accurate picture of the country as a whole: the prosperity certainly isn't being spread around. Although I didn't get much time in Phnom Penh, I heard stories of rampant drug trafficking, prostition, and robbery at knifepoint. The traffic was not nearly as bad as Saigon, but the city felt a great deal less safe.

So why do I love Cambodia again? Mostly for the countryside, and there's just so much of it! That's why I'd love to take a bike trip through the country. It would be a good way to see all the temples as well; we passed at least ten on the way from Phnomh Penh to Siem Reap, which was about a six hour drive.

Our bus stopped a few times along the way, and I got to talk with some of the locals. I was stunned by their level of English-speaking ability. Granted, the people I talked to are probably not representative of the country as a whole (they probably had had a lot of experience speaking to tourists, since I'm assuming the bus stops in those places every trip), but I was uniformly impressed. I was able to carry on a relatively sophisticated conversation with almost everyone I talked to. The people were incredibly friendly. They sold fried beetles and spiders. I ate a whole beetle, but could only eat one spider leg. Even I have to draw the line somewhere.





The bathrooms were interesting. They were all non-flush, "squat" toilets. In each stall there was a tank of water and a bucket. I'm guessing it was probably not very sanitary.



Hmmm . . . What do you think?

The Mekong Delta Adventure - Day Two

Only good news this time: I got my pictures back. It's a good thing, too, because I was really hitting a brick wall trying to describe the second day without them. I'm still not sure exactly what the problem was, but I had a hunch that my computer's SD slot might have been the source, so I bought a little USB SD card reader. It reads my card just fine.

We woke up early the next day and set off for the Can Tho river market. I'm not quite sure what was going on the whole time, but it seemed as though we drove into someone's back yard, asked if they could give us a tour with their boat, and they agreed. I'm not sure how my friends knew which house to go to, but it seemed to work out.

Here's the back yard:





And here's a row of houses from the front:



And a few shots of the market in action:







The market is basically like a giant game of bumper cars. Only in the water. And instead of bumping into you for the fun of it, people bump into you so they can sell you things. Usually they'll wave at you from a distance, and you can respond by waving them over or refusing them, but some of the bolder ones will actually ram your boat and start tossing fruit at you. Well, okay, they don't toss the fruit. But boat ramming does occur quite a lot, and it's a big part of what makes the river market such an incredible experience. I also enjoyed ducking to avoid giant poles and motors and whatnot. It adds a whole new dimension to the shopping experience.

If you look closely at the first picture you'll see a pole sticking up with some fruit tied to it. Most of the boats have poles like this; they're like billboards, advertising what each boat sells. Most boats sell fruit, but there are boats selling cigarettes and water bottles and things like that. One boat served us coffee, and another boat made us breakfast.



I'm not quite sure what was in it, but it was good.





In these two pictures you can see the "fruit pole" more clearly. The second picture also provides a nice broad view of the whole thing. And I'll close with this nice view of the living conditions in the area:



After the river market, we went to a park where we fed crocodiles. Or, well, where we were supposed to feed crocodiles, I think. Most people tried to keep from feeding the crocodiles as long as possible. This is how it works: you pay a little money, and they give you a long fishing pole with a piece of meat on the end. You get to keep the pole as long as the meat is still on there. So naturally, everyone tries to keep the meat from the crocodiles as long as possible. In this way it's evolved from simply feeding the crocodiles to an elaborate crocodile teasing game, in which you dangle the meat in them, wait for one to lunge, and then pull it away as fast as you can (preferably while jumping high in the air and shrieking; everyone else will do this with you). It's a great time. I was terrible at it. Those crocodiles are just too fast for me. They're also incredibly creepy.



I mean, look at that guy! The really creepy thing is that they just sit like that, heads poking out of the water, jaws agape, for minutes at a time. You can tell he was looking right at me when I took the picture, too. He's smiling for the camera! I'm going to have nightmares over this.

After feeding the crocodiles, we watched a pig race. The pig race was about as lame as it sounds. It didn't even have the dignity of being anticlimactic; an anticlimax requires the expectation of a climax, and I had set my expectations pretty low. It was also hilarious and incredibly fun, despite the complete lack of tension and the fact that it was over within a couple minutes. I practiced my Vietnamese by shouting out the number of the pig I wanted to win (everyone else did this as well). Then we all stampeded down to the finish line to cheer them on from there. My pig didn't win.



Finally, we went to an old house which apparently has featured in several films (I gather a French film, L'Amante was shot entirely in and around it).





And that's the trip. Next is the trip to Angkor Wat.

The Mekong Delta Adventure - Day One (Now with pictures!)

Well, I have some good news and some bad news.


The good news is that my weekend trip to the Mekong Delta was absolutely mind-blowingly fantastic, and a definite highlight of my trip so far. The bad news is . . . I don't have pictures.

Well, that's not quite right. I do have pictures, an absolute wealth of them. And I must say a lot of them are pretty darn beautiful. But for some reason (Karma? Fate? The wrath of God?) the SD card on which they reside is no longer functioning. Or maybe it's the computer; I'm not quite sure. See, the problem is that when I stick the SD card into the little slot, the computer doesn't recognize that it's been inserted. Nothing happens. The card doesn't appear on the "My Computer" screen. I'm currently researching ways to fix this, but haven't found much. Some sources suggest that heat can warp SD cards, which leaves the data intact but renders the card itself useless, because it can't be detected. I certainly hope that isn't the case.

I still have to test the card on another computer, which I should be able to do tomorrow. If it works, I'll make a new entry full of pictures for you guys. If it doesn't, I guess you'll have to wait until I get home . . . to look at them on my tiny camera screen. Believe me, I'm as disappointed as you are. I'm really proud of these pictures; I think some of them are some of the finest I've ever taken, and I really wanted to share them with you, my wonderful readership, especially since I've left you so picture-deprived. But this is life, I suppose.

So enough bad news. Now onto the Mekong Delta trip itself, which is very good news indeed.

I woke up at 5 o'clock on Saturday morning. I took a shower, put together a bag of necessities, and met my three friends outside the house at 6. The rest of the morning was spent traveling to the city of Can Tho, which is the main hub of the Mekong Delta region. Now, I had been informed beforehand that this trip would take about three hours. I am fairly certain it was at least five. It felt twice as long. Let's just say traveling by motorbike is basically like traveling in a car, only slower, a lot windier, and not nearly as comfortable.

Thankfully the weather was glorious, and by glorious, I mean mid-sixties and overcast the whole day, with no rain. There was also some fascinating scenery along the way. It's easy to forget, living in the city, that the country of Vietnam is basically a big jungle. After all, the only signs of this in Saigon are a few palm trees here and there and the heat. It's remarkable, then, when leaving the city, how quickly you find find yourself in what is basically . . . a big jungle. A wall of palm trees lines either side of the road, punctuated by the occasional tiny village or lotus field. We stopped at what I suppose you could call a roadside cafe (a roof made of palm branches propped up with big sticks, with hammocks underneath to sit on) and ordered coconuts. The woman took us out back, grabbed a long stick with a hook on the end, and yanked them right out of the tree. Then she cut off the tops, stuck in straws, and handed them over. Coconuts are really pretty good.



Unfortunately I wasn't able to get many good pictures of the country, since we were moving and didn't really have time to stop.

Poverty is rampant in the city; in the country, it is omnipresent. The most common building materials are corrugated iron, scrapwood, and bedsheets. You see whole villages like this, propped up over the rice fields on little stilts. Whenever the highway crosses a river, there's a little fishing community built right on the water's edge. The houses all have porches jutting out over the water, where the boats come to load and unload.

The city of Can Tho itself is more or less indistinguishable from Saigon, to the point where if you took a picture of each place and asked a Vietnamese native which was which, I doubt they'd be able to answer. We found a hotel and rented one room for the night. There was another guy in the group, so we shared a bed; the two girls shared the other one.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. It was only about noon by the time we arrived in Can Tho. We had lunch immediately, and then set off for a nearby temple, which is apparently one of the oldest in Vietnam. It had some really neat architecture, and the Buddhist iconography inside was spectacular. Unfortunately I can't really describe any of it, and even if I could, it would hardly be an adequate substitute for actually seeing the stuff. This is where a functional SD card would come in handy.

Aha! Indeed it would.













The next stop was the Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary. It was about an hour's drive away from Can Tho, so we arrived around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, which it turns out is the best time to visit because dusk is when the storks all fly back to roost. To get to the sanctuary we had to drive deep into the jungle on a tiny, incredibly bumpy dirt path, and cross these terrifyingly skinny little stone bridges with no railing whatsoever. It was definitely worth it. It was astounding.

You can hear the storks from a long way off, but it isn't until you get there and kill the motor that you get the full impact. It's overwhelming. The air is filled with squawking. The trees are white with . . . well, you know. We went up a rickety spiral staircase to an observation deck, from which you could see out over the tops of the trees. The trees were completely covered in a layer of flapping, squawking stork.

Trust me, this is a lot cooler when you actually see it.

And now you can!





Anyway, since it was getting dark, many of my pictures of the stork sanctuary didn't turn out particularly well. But there are still a couple good ones, and I did manage to get a video. We came down the staircase and had dinner right at the sanctuary, which was probably my coolest dining experience in Vietnam so far. You'll never guess what they serve there. That's right, stork! A woman brought out a little grill and a plate of various stork, uh, pieces, including the heat and feet. At one point the power went out, so she set a few candles out on the table. There are few things more romantic than a candlelit meal of stork feet in the middle of the jungle, with a cloud of insects buzzing around your head.



After that we drove home and went to bed, because we were tired. I am also tired right now, so I think I'll go to bed, and save the next installment for tomorrow. No, this is not a pathetic device to raise my number of entries for November. Okay, it is. But I truly am tired. I think if I continued to write, the rest of my story would take a noticeable dip in quality, and I don't want to shortchange you guys like that. But before I sign off, I'd like to close with another bit of good news:

Tonight I bought my bus ticket to Angkor Wat!

One more month

With a whole month left, it might seem a bit premature to say my trip is drawing to a close. But in a way it’s the truth. It seems like yesterday that my trip was at its halfway point. That was when I first began to have this feeling—a vague sense that my time in Vietnam was finite, and that it would eventually draw to a close. Now the halfway point is long past, and the feeling is much more tangible. In a month, I will be back home. Before I left for Vietnam, I had difficulty imagining what life in Vietnam would be like. Now, after only three months here, I am having difficulty remembering what life was like before.

Some big changes will soon be occurring in my life here, contributing to this overwhelming sense that I am nearing the “last leg” of my journey. Tomorrow I will receive my paycheck for the month of October and will subsequently be quitting my side job at Aston. This was a difficult decision to make: I truly love my job at Aston, the children and the staff. But it’s necessary. I have to see at least something of Vietnam outside of Saigon, and traveling is impossible with two jobs. The month’s paycheck should be plenty to support any traveling I do within the country. Even airfare.

With this major change there will be an accompanying shift of focus from work to . . . everything else. I have to finish my papers for the ELTAP program, begin planning weekend trips (the first of which I think will be to the Mekong Delta region, but more about that later), make a souvenir shopping list, and begin planning my BIG trip, which I will be taking over the last twelve days of my stay. The current plan is to fly to Hanoi (the capital city of Vietnam, located in the far north) and take buses back down to Saigon, effectively touring the length of the country, and hopefully arriving back in the city in time for my flight on December 12th. Preparing for this will take up a lot of additional time.

The bright side is that with all of this travel, I think we will start to see blog entries coming in greater frequency, and with a lot of pictures. The main problem I have been having for the past couple months is that, while I am enjoying my life here enormously, it has not been exactly what you would call “exciting.” This is not a criticism. It simply means that I have been living more or less as a working class citizen of Vietnam might live. I love Vietnam, and at this stage in my life I’d much rather be a working class citizen here than in the US, but still, I think there is a limit to the amount of excitement you can experience with such a lifestyle. Now, as my role changes from full-time teacher to part-time traveler and eventually full-time traveler, I should have a lot more to write about.

I’ve received requests to talk more about Vietnamese culture in my blog. These requests were eye-opening. First of all, I apologize for the self-centered nature of my blog; here I am in a foreign country and all I can talk about is myself! But the requests were eye-opening in another way too: before receiving them, I truly felt like I had integrated into Vietnamese society. I had made lots of friends, was able to get around the city, even learned a bit of the language. But when pressed to write about Vietnamese culture, I struck a brick wall. How much have I really learned about this culture, anyway? Just because I can function within the culture doesn’t mean I’ve even begun to understand its subtleties. I’m sure there are hundreds of tiny cultural details I miss on a daily basis.

One major difference that I have noticed between Vietnamese and American societies is that Vietnamese society is much more collectivist. Now when I say “collectivist,” I don’t mean it in the sense that Vietnam is a communist country. The fact that it’s a communist country has very little to do with it. In fact, I wouldn’t classify the country as communist at all in the theoretical sense; business here is more or less free market, with probably fewer regulations than in the US. The government is rigid and controlling, but in a social rather than an economic sense. It’s probably closer to fascism than communism.

The collectivism I refer to in Vietnamese society is a characteristic I suspect has been around for a very long time. It’s not a national unity but rather a very powerful unity among small groups. These are usually family groups, but can also be groups of coworkers or plain old friends. The ties within these groups are far more binding than ties between coworkers and friends in the US. With a job in America, it is understood that you will probably, at some point, have to move on, and any friendships you have made up to that point could very easily be severed, or at least will fall to the wayside. In Vietnam this is not always the case. Often people will have the same job for their entire lives. Coworkers become part of the extended family.

The importance of family is immediately apparent. Each home has a shrine to dead relatives. The death day, rather than birthday, of a relative is celebrated as a holy day. Family ties go back generations. The New Year holiday, Tet, is celebrated over several weeks, during which I am told Saigon becomes an empty shell. Everyone floods to the countryside to visit their “family.” Think about that. 8 million people live in Saigon; most of those people live in what we would consider an extended family, with grandparents, aunts, and uncles often living in the same house. And this “family” goes to visit more “family” in the country. How far do these family ties reach? I’m just sorry I have to miss the holiday; I really would’ve liked to be around to experience it.

Anyway, I’ve taken quite a few more pictures of Saigon, but the more I take, the more I realize pictures aren’t the best way to give you a sense of the place. One of the city’s intrinsic characteristics is that it’s always moving, and without that sense of movement, the feeling of the city is lost. So instead I’ve composed a brief video tour of the streets at night. I think unfortunately the video gives off a bit of a creepy stalker vibe, which was certainly not my intention, but I was trying to be as discreet as possible with the camera. Still, this is probably about as close as you can get to actually experiencing the city, so it’s a compromise I’m willing to make. The lights have a funny effect on my camera, but overall I think the video turned out well.



I mentioned earlier that I plan on going to the Mekong Delta region, the southernmost region of Vietnam. I’ve arranged to go this weekend with a friend, so hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures for you next time.

A Masterpiece

I really, truly promise I will write a proper blog entry in the very near future. I've been keeping you all waiting for too long. But take this as a sort of prelude, if you will:

WARNING: Contains a graphic scene of childbirth.

This video says a lot of things that I can't really convey in writing. It displays the Vietnamese accent, which is very distinctive but difficult to describe in writing. It also takes some getting used to; you may not be able to understand much of what they say at first. But more importantly, the video displays how much fun these kids are. My supervising teacher did warn the kids that they might end up appearing on Youtube, so I don't feel too bad about posting this. And most likely they won't find out.



Here's another one. I didn't have time to do all the fancy editing I did with the first, but it's also quite a bit more organized, so editing wasn't really necessary.

The Moment of Truth

Yes, here they are at long last.

Pictures.


I picked up new batteries the other day, and they seem to be working. I gather the reason the other batteries weren't working is simply that they were made in Vietnam; Vietnamese batteries are notorious for being cheaply made and ineffective. So I went to MaxiMark and picked up some Duracells, which seem to be working fine. Pictured above is the alley in which I now live. My hotel isn't actually visible; to get there you have to walk all the way down and take a right.





Here we have a cup of cafe sua da, which roughly translates to "iced coffee with milk." These beer crates are always stacked next to the little place where I have coffee. The Vietnamese word for beer is bia, which cannot be a coincidence. It sounds exactly like "beer" said with a British accent. I've asked around about it, but no one seems to know exactly how that came about. I'd also like to know when beer was introduced to Vietnam, and by whom. It's extremely popular here.



The one thing I find interesting about this advertisement is the model. She's Vietnamese, but you can hardly tell. She's so pale. Compare the color of her skin to that of the guy on the poster behind her - and even he is light-skinned compared to most Vietnamese. Vietnam is a tropical country; there is a lot of sun here, and people spend a lot of time in it. They have dark skin. Vietnamese models, on the other hand, all look pretty much white. Pale skin as a standard of beauty has a long history in Asia (and elsewhere), because it was a sign of nobility; it meant you could afford to spend all your time indoors, as opposed to the vast majority of the population who spent their days working out in the sun. So I understand where this standard of beauty comes from. I'm still surprised by the fact that it continues to exist. I guess it's no different from America's obsession with tanning.





I'm still working out how to take decent pictures in low light. Being rainy season it's overcast most of the time, so often it's hard to take decent pictures. Of course the fact that I took these at night did not help. These are just a couple traffic scenes. I need to get some pictures of this street around rush hour; it gets incredibly busy. It's a pretty narrow street, but sometimes it can take me a few minutes to get across.







Here we have a few photos I took around the neighborhood. The first picture features a couple gates; the gates here are really artistic and picturesque. The middle picture is a nice quiet street. The restaurant pictured at the bottom lacks the distinction of having a tarp. In case you've noticed, I'm trying to avoid taking pictures with people in them as much as possible, just because it makes me feel bad. I probably wouldn't like some guy going around taking pictures of me. I feel slightly less guilty when taking massive crowd shots, for some reason.



Oh, and one person you haven't seen for a while:



Playing around with the bathroom mirror. Anyway, I'm just getting warmed up on the picture front. Hopefully from now on I'll have a few more pictures for you every week. Also I hope to get another blog entry with a bit more substance up early this week, since this is basically just a showcase for the fact that my camera is again functional.

Striking a balance

My first month living in Vietnam was probably the most exhilarating and exhausting time of my life. I spent those thirty days in a constant state of wonderment. Everything was so new. The city was new, the culture was new, the food was new. The traffic, the noise, the street vendors, the makeshift wheelchairs. And the attention. I probably did more socializing in those thirty days than I had done in the whole previous year. Believe me, it was not due to my own efforts: everywhere I went, people wanted to talk to me. That was very strange and took a lot of getting used to.

It was an absolutely wonderful time, and by the end of the month I was getting pretty sick of it. I moved to my new apartment away from District 1, began socializing less, and got a new job working 15 hours a week on top of my 20 volunteer hours. This might sound a lot less exciting, but it was also a wonderful time in its own way. I found the lack of social obligations incredibly refreshing. I rediscovered having time to myself. And as my responsibilities as a teacher increased, I gained a new understanding of the profession. And after a month I was sick of living like this, too. I wanted to have a social life again.

So here I am, in the third month of my stay. I think the first and second months were both very important and natural stages of my development here; I had to go through both to arrive at where I am now. The next two months will be the tricky part. I’ve lived at both extremes; I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum. I’ve learned that I can’t live much longer than a month at either end. Now I have to try to live somewhere in between.

I’ve already started going out with my friends a bit more. That’s been a welcome change of pace. I’ve also started a more thorough exploration of my area, and rediscovered Vietnam as a place of wonderment. Believe it or not, after my first month of living here I actually thought I’d seen just about all that Saigon had to offer. How could I possibly have thought that? You could live in this city your whole life and not see everything. In my recent walks I’ve discovered a tiny department store with all the basic necessities, eliminating the need for a fifteen minute walk to MaxiMark, the giant and much more expensive general store down the street. I’ve located a number of new cheap restaurants, a hair salon (if you say ‘barber shop’ here no one has any idea what you’re talking about), and a bakery.

I had my hair cut at the hair salon. This is actually the first time I’ve had my hair cut since I came here, because honestly I was a little afraid, and NO JOEL I AM NOT RACIST. I am merely unable to speak Vietnamese, and was therefore worried that I would not be unable to communicate with the barber. But it worked out really well. The barber spoke a little English, understood me perfectly, and I emerged with one of the best haircuts I’ve had in a while. It cost about $2.50.

I want to hold off talking about the bakery, because the world of Vietnamese pastry is so vast that it deserves its own entry, and several pictures. Speaking of pictures, the camera situation unfortunately remains unsolved, but I have made progress. I asked around about the possibility of purchasing a new camera, and it’s—well—not a possibility. Basically, there is no such thing as a Vietnamese camera, meaning they are all imported. And while most things in Vietnam are incredibly cheap, anything imported is a huge exception. A box of cereal here costs about $6, for example. Even the cheapest camera here is around $300.

But all is not lost. I talked to some more people at AIS, and some of them have had similar problems with Vietnamese batteries not working for them. Apparently it’s not that the batteries are incompatible with American electronics or anything, just that they’re so incredibly cheap and worthless that they can’t power anything. But higher quality batteries are available in the country; it’s just a matter of tracking them down. They’ll probably be expensive, but I should be able to find them somewhere.

And when I do, trust me, there will be a lot of pictures. I will make a serious effort to atone for depriving you for a month and a half.

Dear Tourist,

You know who you are.

I used to see you every day. Back when I lived in District 1, I’d see you walking around the Pham Ngu Lao area every time I went out. You’re that guy who lives right in the center of the Backpacker District, in a guesthouse with a couple college friends you brought along. Somehow you managed to convince your friends it would be fun to backpack through Southeast Asia. I’d really like to hear the logic you used on them. Was it the same logic you used on yourself?

At any rate, now that I’m living in District 10 I don’t see you anymore. I guess you haven’t left District 1. And why would you want to? You have everything you could possibly want there: all the city sights are within walking distance, there are lots of clubs, plenty of nice restaurants serving non-Vietnamese food, and even a few karaoke places. What more could you need? Of course, you’ll have to leave the vicinity to check out the new bar that just opened; all of your American friends say it’s great. How is the American beer there? I hear it tastes like it’s from America.

I can spot you easily in a crowd, except when you’re walking around the Backpacker District and everyone looks exactly like you. Since you’re always walking around the Backpacker District, I guess I can’t spot you easily in a crowd. But if you somehow wound up in the company of Vietnamese people, believe me, you wouldn’t stand out just because you’re tall and white. It would have more to do with the $500 backpack you carry around everywhere, your plaid Abercrombie shorts, and that old Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt you've worn for about six days straight. In case you haven’t noticed, Vietnamese men all wear collared shirts when they go out, and they don’t wear shorts. You really should have picked a different Pink Floyd album, by the way; you’ll get awfully hot wearing black around here.

In case you’ve yet to detect my snide, condescending tone, I’ll say it outright: I don’t like you. I know I shouldn’t form an opinion without talking to you first, but I just can’t help it. I see you on the street and I cringe. You see, I have a moral objection to your lifestyle. It’s not that I have a problem with bars or clubs or fancy restaurants; I’ve been to all of these myself on occasion. There’s nothing wrong with going out and having fun. It’s more that I have a problem with your reasons for being here.

Why are you here, anyway? Maybe you’re “taking a year off” from college. Maybe you’ve just finished college, and are doing a little backpacking before you have to go to work permanently. Maybe you’re trying out the ESL teaching bit, or maybe you’re just taking a vacation. It doesn’t matter. The one thing you are not here to do is live in Vietnam. You are here to be in Vietnam, which you equate to living here. Personally, I think you want the social status of being “well-traveled” without having to actually travel. You’re probably doing this so you that when you go to a party back home, you can tell the girls, “You know, when I was in Vietnam, this guy tried to pickpocket me….” I realize I don’t have the right to make this kind of judgment. I have no idea why you’re here; I’m just trying my best to think of a plausible reason. This is the best I can come up with. You certainly aren’t here to gain cultural experience. Your contact with the Vietnamese people is limited solely to the commercial plane. You stay in your role as buyer; they stay in their roles as sellers. Everyone stays comfortable and safe. You treat the country like it is an exhibit in a carnival sideshow: you observe, but always keep a distance.

I met someone the other day who is the exact opposite of you. He has given me newfound faith in what tourism can be. He is in his early twenties, is from the Netherlands, and has biked through Mongolia, China, and most of Southeast Asia. He left for Jakarta yesterday. Most of his six-month journey has been spent in small villages where no one can speak English. He eats their food, sleeps in beds they provide, and is constantly struggling to adapt and communicate. He confided to me that after a few weeks living like this, he has to stay in the city for a while; he has to eat something without rice and talk to someone in English. This is perfectly understandable; I don’t expect you, as a tourist, to go to the remotest village of the Amazon rainforest and live there without outside contact for three years. But what I do expect of you is respect for the country you inhabit, and therefore a willingness to spend time living among the people, experiencing their way of life. That is what separates this man from you. I can guarantee that when he gets back to the Netherlands, he’s going to have a lot more to tell girls at parties than you will.

I’m probably going too far in judging you. I have to step back. You’re not a bad person, probably. I really have no way of knowing. All I know is that you could be like this man I met, and are not. Instead you’ve chosen to waste your time here—time that has the potential to be truly life-changing—and waste it in a way that shows disrespect to a country and its people.

I feel sorry for you, really. Whenever I see you, you look lost and out-of-place. Perhaps because you are.




Sincerely,
Aaron

A New Routine

Okay, so I've settled into a new routine.

It really doesn't take long. I fell into it almost immediately after the move, and there hasn't been much variation since. I guess it's inevitable. And it's not really a bad thing; I'm still enjoying my time here. I enjoy work at both my schools, and although my social life has diminished somewhat since leaving District 1, I'm still getting out at least a couple times each week. So far I'm content.

I've refrained from talking about AIS in the past several posts because a lot of truly awful things have gone on there. I can't go into detail on the blog, but I'll tell you all about it when I get back. The way I see it, this is a great experience for me, because I'm being exposed to the dark underbelly of the education world without having to worry much about consequences. If I say the wrong thing, there isn't much they can do to me, since I'm not technically an employee. I've signed no contract. The students are still wonderful, of course, and most of the staff are friendly. There was a somewhat scary incident a few days ago: one of our students asked to use the restroom, and on her way to the door, she collapsed. She didn't try to catch herself at all. I froze for a second, unsure of how to react; Tim was closer and went to help her up. I eventually got up, held the door, and watched the class while Tim took her to the nurse's office. We're still not sure exactly what caused the collapse; it didn't seem like a normal faint to me, and she couldn't walk for a while after. Apparently the student has had a long history of episodes like this, of which we were not notified by the school.

We started a poetry unit, and the other day the students had to write haiku. One student asked me to write one, and since I was missing Minnesota winter, I wrote this:

A bare tree stands cold
Sweet fire consumes winter
Eyes like falling snow

I wrote it in about five minutes, so it's not particularly good, but it sparked an interest in me. Haiku is fun to write because it doesn't take up much time and you have to work within specific parameters, which for me makes the process a lot easier; I can't write anything without some sort of formal rigidity. The only thing I don't like is that the form doesn't give much space to rhyme, and I love to rhyme. Anyway, I think I'm going to try to write one haiku a day, and then at the end of the week I can post all of them for that week. That'll give me something to post if I don't know what else to write about.

Working at Aston's has been an enlightening and challenging experience so far; I think it's taught me more about teaching in these three weeks or so than I've learned in my entire time at AIS. This is of course because at Aston's I'm in charge of the classroom, whereas at AIS I'm in sort of a periphary role. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings I teach teenagers and adults (mostly around 14 and 15, a few around 18, and the occasional adult), and then on Saturday and Sunday morning I teach younger children, anywhere from pre-school age to 12. The transition from teaching older children during the week to teaching younger children on the weekend is a difficult one; during the week I adapt to teaching at a higher level, so on the weekend I often find myself giving instructions that my younger students don't understand, like "Get into partners!" It's a real challenge to constantly change the level at which you teach, and to remember which class is which in terms of what they have learned and what they will understand. But the students are generally pretty good. I will admit I much prefer teaching older students; they're less rowdy, more willing to listen, and I can actually converse with them, as opposed to the "call and reponse" style of teaching I have to adopt when dealing with very young students. But it's all good experience, I get paid for it, and for the young classes I get a teaching assistant. It all works out.

Hmmm. What else? I guess I probably shouldn't make it so transparent that I'm writing these off the top of my head. You deserve quality organization in your blog entries!

I'm on a really cheap diet right now, and I'm probably eating too much. Within the past few weeks, the most I've spent on food in a day has been about 3 dollars. I eat a giant bowl of soup and a loaf of bread for breakfast; a big pile of rice with pork, vegetables, and tofu for lunch; and then for dinner I do whatever I feel like. Sometimes I eat so much for breakfast and lunch that I don't even need to eat dinner. It's a very different diet from what I'm used to in the US; at college I usually skipped breakfast, had a medium sized lunch, and had a big dinner. Here it's almost the opposite.

I still can't stand coriander. It's actually gone from being a mildly humorous problem to being rather serious. I've almost been sick just from the smell of it. It is without a doubt my least favorite taste, smell, and sight in the world (if I knew what it sounded/felt like, it would also be my least favorite sound/texture). I usually figure out a way to communicate to the restaurant management (the people standing up rather than sitting down beneath the tarp) to leave it out, but sometimes even the smell of it is too much for me and I have to leave. Originally I thought I didn't like it just because it was in everything, but now that I've gone a few weeks without tasting it and it still makes me sick, I'm more inclined to think I just really, really hate everything about it.

Vietnamese pork, on the other hand, is incredibly delicious. No offense to our own pigs at home, but they just don't stand up to Vietnamese pigs. And our pigs are quite a bit better than pork you buy in a store! I'm not sure what makes the pork here so amazing; the beef isn't very good at all. I suppose it might actually have to do with how they cook it rather than the quality of the meat. But whatever the secret is, I need to find out, because Vietnamese pork completely makes up for the existence of coriander. It's really that good.

One other food-related nugget of wisdom: if you are ever presented with a mysterious purple sauce that smells rather uncannily like decaying flesh, just go with your gut instinct. Please don't make the mistake I did and actually try it.

Actually, scratch the previous entry.

I'm pretty sure I just ate a duck fetus.

I feel good.

Today I felt something I don't believe I've ever felt in my life.

I felt really, genuinely proud of myself.

It hit me after my second day of working at Aston's, the new job. I worked five hours in the morning on Saturday and four hours today, teaching children anywhere from 5 to 13 years old. I continue teaching in the evenings during the week. The class schedule is mind-boggling: teachers are shifted from age group to age group by the hour and by the half hour. Sometimes one class has two or three different teachers; usually when you arrive at a class they've already had a teacher before you, possibly two, and you have to assess what the students have already learned to even know where to begin with the lesson. It's an awful system, and I'm glad I don't have to stick with it for too long. But it's really not all bad. I'm paid $15 an hour. I have a Vietnamese teaching assistant in each classroom to assist me (they are all young and female, so this is even more of a bonus than it sounds). The kids are great. And today, after my final class, my assistant turned me and said, "The kids really like you."

"How do you know?" I said.

"They said it in Vietnamese, as they were leaving."

This made me feel great, yes. But it wasn't until I was walking home that it really, truly hit me. I am eighteen years old. I am eighteen years old and living independently in a foreign country. I am eighteen years old, living independently in a foreign country, and teaching English here, successfully. When I first left for Vietnam, I had some serious doubts about whether I could really survive such a huge transition. Well, I've survived it, and more. I've adapted to a new culture, quickly and without too many bumps along the way. I've found a job in this new culture, on my own, and so far, I seem to be doing my job well. It's not an easy job either; I'm teaching a new language to young, energetic children. And I'm eighteen years old. I'm doing this without a degree, without any sort of teacher's training, and with little experience.

Yes, I am proud of myself. It's even deeper than that, though. For the first time in my life, I feel like other people have reason to be envious of me. I'm truly privileged to be where I am right now. How many people can say they've taught English in a foreign country at 18?

This all must sound insufferable. I apologize. I can't keep it in. I'm really happy with my life right now, and I need to share. To me, this feels like the culmination of all the maturation I've done in my life, especially in the last few years. No, culmination is the wrong word. It implies an ending. This is not an ending, but a new momentum that is just now getting underway. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am moving toward the future.

I've decided that this is what I want to do. It's pretty much official. Teaching English overseas is what I want to do with my life, at least for a few years after college. I figure if I'm happy teaching at a not particularly good school, it's probably a good indication that I like the work. And I do. I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy traveling. I enjoy the challenge of adapting to a new culture. I like trying new foods and meeting new people. Of course, I'm not a naturally extroverted person, so I can only take so much at once; I think I hit my limit a couple weeks ago, after a straight month of almost constant interaction with new people, and had to hide in my room for a while. But I even enjoy that: trying to find the right balance. And I'm surprised at how long I went without needing time alone; this is about the farthest I've ever stretched the boundaries of my personality. The move was conveniently timed, though; apart from the initial move-in weekend, my life in District 10 has been much slower-paced. This has been a relief; I'm not sure how much more District 1 life I could have taken. Now I'm able to spend a few hours alone every day, which is nice.

I was going to write a long entry about how teaching English to preschoolers breaks the language down and builds it up again brick by brick, allowing the teacher to reexamine the language and it's intricate, frequently nonsensical construction through fresh eyes, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

The Big Move (and the numerous and varied experiences that followed it)

Okay, I am officially moved in. I was officially moved in about five days ago, actually, but was unable to tell anyone about it due to problems with the new hotel's wireless internet (something to do with security settings). I managed to fix it somehow today. I'm not entirely sure what I did, and the internet connection is still a bit spotty, but it exists now, and that's what matters, right?

Internet troubles aside, the move went very smoothly. Not much effort was involved. I put together my three bags, flagged a taxi, and hopped in. The trip to District 10 was about 80,000 dong ($4.50), although it probably would've been a bit cheaper if I'd left at a better time; I left around rush hour without thinking, and we encountered some pretty heavy traffic along the way. Upon arrival, the cab driver helped me with my bags. Conveniently the new room is only up one flight of steps; this is an improvement over my old room, which was up about five (although I will get less exercise now). Unpacking was pretty easy. I set up my laptop on the desk, dumped most of my stuff in the desk drawers, and hung up clothes in the closet.

The new location has a few downsides. The hotel is not quite as nice as the old one; it has the same basic amenities and the room is roughly the same size, but the furniture is of noticeably lower quality, and certain things that were provided in the old hotel are not provided in this one. Like towels. This posed a problem that I will discuss later on. There is no laundry service here either, but I actually prefer being able to do laundry myself; the only problem is that in Vietnam they hang everything to dry, which would be great in a dry country, but is not really very convenient in a country with daily monsoon rains. Another problem is noise. Before I came to Vietnam I read a lot about how noise was a big problem for foreigners, often keeping them awake at night. I was initially puzzled by this, since I never had a problem with noise at all in my old hotel. It was a bit noisier than rural Minnesota, sure, but it certainly didn't keep me awake. I now realize I was extremely lucky. Since most hotels are in alleys, I think it basically comes down to the character of your alley: either you have a quiet alley, or a noisy one. The old hotel was in a quiet alley. The new hotel is not.

The noise starts around 6 AM, with trucks and motorbikes thundering past. The invention of the muffler does not seem to have spread to this part of the city yet. Dogs bark from morning to night (once I was sorely tempted to go out onto the balcony and shout, "Just shoot them and put them in a soup already!"). There is an unimaginably squeaky gate that, for some reason, must be opened and closed about eight times every morning, and then a few more times at night for good measure. A squeaky gate might not sound that bad, but you have not heard this gate. It produces the most excruciating sound you can possibly imagine.

But believe me, the move has not been all bad. Far from it. It was definitely a good idea, and a lot of good things have come of it. I'll begin a series of interesting dining experiences. I realized the other day that I haven't said too much about dining here overall, and since I had quite a few good meals recently, I figure now is a good time to talk about Vietnamese food.

The first thing I did after moving in was go out with a friend for dinner. She lives in District 10 and picked me up at the hotel. We went to a very "local" place. And by "local," I mean our meal was interrupted by a stray cat with a missing eye and half a tail leaping up onto our table. The food was great. Soup was served with these huge crispy rice cake things. The idea is that you crack off bits of the rice cake and put them in the soup. The meal also came with a plate of leaves (very common), which could be added to the soup for flavor, or rolled up in rice paper with these little . . . uh, things. I'm not sure exactly what they were, but they were good. You take a piece of rice paper, put one of these yellow cylinder-shaped things in, toss in some leaves, roll it all up, and dip it in a red sauce. It looked like ketchup, but was not ketchup. Very good, though.

After dinner we went to a coffee shop and bought what the menu advertised in English as "fruit ice," which turned out to be more or less accurate. It was a bunch of fruit pieces with crushed ice in a cup. And it was delicious. I'm not sure I could name all of the different fruits, and there were a lot of different kinds, but they were all good. There was banana, apple, watermelon, papaya, avocado, something that looked and tasted like cranberry that my friend assured me was not cranberry, mango, and a lot of other things. Thankfully no durian. Durian, as a lot of people here will tell you, is an acquired taste. All in all, it was a great night out.

The next morning was Saturday, my first full day in the new location. Of course, I immediately began the search for cheap food. I was afraid I would have to walk quite a bit to find the sort of quality and variety of cheap food that was easily available in District 1, but this was not the case at all. All I really had to do was walk out of the alley, and I was immediately bombarded. My first discovery was a woman who sells fried sesame rolls, which are believe it or not bread rolls fried in sesame oil, for 500 dong apiece. This is roughly 3 cents. I bought two, enjoyed them immensely, and having been going back to her stand every day since.

The next big discovery was a stand that sells an enormous bowl of hu thieu with a loaf of bread for 12,000 dong (75 cents). Loaves of bread here are like the kind you might see used in communion at church; they're about 10 inches long, rounded, and not cut into slices. You eat them by tearing off chunks. In this case of this stand, the chunks are then dipped into the hu thieu, which is one of the many Vietnamese varieties of rice noodle soup. As with any bowl of Vietnamese soup, you first toss in a few slices of hot pepper, a bunch of bean sprouts, a few mint leaves, and squeeze in a couple slices of lime (which everyone here calls "lemon" although there don't appear to be any actual lemons, as in the yellow kind, in the country). Then you test the broth with the spoon (held in the left hand) for temperature and flavor. If it's suitable to eat, you grab the noodles with chopsticks (held in the right hand), and hold the spoon underneath to catch any broth that might drip down onto your pants. Then you eat.

Hu thieu is apparently a breakfast food. At least, the stand is open mornings only. So hu thieu and banh mi (bread) is now a part of my morning routine. Another part of my my morning routine is coffee.

This may come as a shock to some of you, who know of my deep-seated prejudice against the beverage. It comes as a shock to me. In the past I have been quite vocal about my dislike of coffee. I have always considered it awful-tasting stuff inferior to tea in every way, and even went as far as to go my entire Freshman year of college without drinking a cup. But Vietnamese coffee has changed my mind on the issue. I drank my first cup because I felt it would be rude not to; I was with some friends at a coffee shop, and they bought a cup for me. I hesitantly drank it and was pleasantly surprised: it was good. Since then I have drank a lot of Vietnamese coffee. It's all good. I'm not sure why I like it so much more than American coffee, but I have a few theories. First of all, it's grown right outside the city, so it's very fresh. Second of all, they make it with a "slow drip" process that concentrates the flavor. Finally, they mix it with sweetened condensed milk, and serve it on ice (no one drinks anything hot here, and why would they want to?). Also it could be that tea is so common here, whereas in the States it always seemed like the underdog beverage. It's difficult to find water here that has not been infused to some degree with tea leaves; it's the only thing people really drink. This also means a lot of the time it's very watered down. So there might be something to the different coffee-tea dynamic here. Anyway, I found a place that serves a cup of coffee and a pot of tea for 6000 dong (35 cents). I mean, you get the coffee and the tea both. For 6000 total. It's pretty nice.

Anyway, for dinner on Saturday I went to I guess what you might call a house party with this girl I met and her friends, and her sister and her sister's husband (I think). We grilled shrimp, mussels, chicken, and pork on a miniature grill out back. Grilling the shrimp was a little disconcerting (they were still moving around on the grill), but it was a lot of fun. We had bread and salad with it (salad is eaten rather inconveniently by picking one item at a time with chopsticks), and watermelon for desert. My friend's older sister's husband (I think) was pretty good at English, so we talked a lot. It was a really nice evening.

On Sunday, I went with pretty much my only male friend to visit his university. Most college students over here, I've found, really want to show me their universities. I'm not sure why exactly. Anyway, I figured it was a good opportunity to experience the life of a Vietnamese college student, so I went with him. It was certainly an interesting experience. About 100,000 students attended the college (I gathered this by asking around), and they were all cramped in a space probably about 1/8th the size of the Morris campus, if that. The boys' dormitory resembled a military barracks; the rooms were lined with bunkbeds, and apparently each was supposed to contain 24 students. Most of the students stared at me, which took a little getting used to, but I talked to a few of them, and they were all very friendly. Very very friendly. I'm glad that in Vietnamese society it is acceptable for straight males to put their arms around each other while singing Backstreet Boys songs. If that's not a sign of social progress, what is?

I had lunch at the university. It was basically like college food, only Vietnamese. You got a bowl of rice and could choose some different things to put on it. I'm not quite certain what all of the different things were. There was fish in there somewhere, I think, and some things that resembled vegetables.

Immediately after the college venture, I went to English Club. English Club now meets on Saturday and Sunday evenings, so I have a bit more flexibility in when I choose to go. This week we actually had two visitors from Japan, tourists just staying for the week, so I spent most of the time talking to them. They taught me some Japanese, most of which I have forgotten already. They were impressed with my pronunciation, though. I don't see why Vietnamese pronunciation has to be so ridiculously difficult.

After English Club I went out with friends to another "local" establishment. We had a very interesting dish that I'm going to have some difficulty describing. It was basically like a fried egg with noodles fried in it. With papaya on top. It was difficult to eat but was good. I'm also starting to really like papaya.

Monday was back to school. On weekdays, I typically eat lunch at the same place. It's right across the street from the school, and most AIS teachers eat there. You get a plate of rice and a choice of three toppings (various meats and vegetables and things I'm too afraid to try), and a bowl of soup for 20,000 dong (about 1 dollar).

After school I planned a walk to the nearest department store. It turns out the nearest department store is about more than a mile away. Not that I mind walking. I was going to the department store to buy a towel. You may remember, near the beginning of this giant thing I said something about how the new hotel does not provide towels. Well, over the weekend I realized that I would need to buy a towel at some point, or I would be unable to shower. Or, well, I would be able to shower, but I would have to air dry, or find something lying around the room with which to dry, and I didn't really want to head down either of those paths, so purchasing a towel was clearly a necessity. Thus the trip to the department store. Getting there was simple enough. Finding a towel considerably less so. The department store had three floors, and so I went from one to the next, scouring each thoroughly. Alas, no towels. Finally, just as I was about to give up, I found some towels in the corner of the kids' section. Bright baby towels. I hovered around the towel rack for a while. I passed them, trying to look as though searching for something else. Finally I grabbed one and looked for a price tag. Unfortunately a woman working nearby saw me, and out of the goodness of her heart decided to assist me in the purchasing of my bright pink baby towel. She showed me the price tag, led me to the checkout counter, put the towel in a bag for me, and handed me the bag. A garish Mickey Mouse bag. I thanked her and quickly fled.

The way back home could have been better, I suppose. There was a huge traffic jam, and naturally, when the street is jammed, traffic will spill over onto the sidewalks. The problem is I was walking in the opposite direction of traffic. So I spent the majority of my walk home trying to navigate a maze of oncoming traffic . . . on the sidewalk. With my Mickey Mouse bag in hand.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Somewhere during the weekend I went around passing out resumes at local language schools. Anyway, on Tuesday I got a call back, did an interview, and now I have a job.

And now I'm too tired to write any more.

Decisions, decisions . . . (or, actually, only one decision, but it's big enough to deserve two plurals)

So my life could have gone down basically two different paths:

Path 1: Stay in District 1 but move to a slightly cheaper hotel (a hotel owned by the English Club people actually), start a private English tutoring business in the lobby of the hotel (the idea was proposed by the English Club people), and travel to AIS each day by bus.

Path 2: Move to a similarly priced hotel within walking distance of AIS, look for a job at the 10 or more English schools in the immediate area (it’s sort of a language school hub), and walk everywhere.

I decided a few days ago to go down Path 2. The decision has its pros and cons, but I think the pros outweigh the cons, or at least Path 2 has more pros and fewer cons than Path 1. Both options are better than “stay where I am and run out of money.”

The price of the living space wasn’t much of a factor in my decision. The two hotel options were roughly the same price—about $30 cheaper than what I’m paying now, either way I’m only saving about $100 in the long run. Much more important was the location of the living space.

Living in District 1 is nice, because there is tons of easily available cheap food, tons of easily available more expensive food, and I know lots of people who live in the area. I know the area itself, too; I’ve walked all around and basically know how to get everywhere. There are, however, a few problems with living in District 1, and most of them have to do with transportation. Getting to AIS by bus is cheap, but it takes about an hour, which is a hassle. Finding a job is also difficult, because while there are many language schools in District 1, they are all on the edges of the district, which means none are within walking distance; the closest school is probably more than a mile away, and believe it or not, I don’t particularly feel like walking a mile in tropical weather through nightmarish traffic two times every day. Especially if I’m only going to be working a few hours. Which leaves the bus option, but frankly I’m not a huge fan of getting places by bus. It’s extremely cheap and there are slower methods of travel in the city, but trying to figure out how to get anywhere is more or less impossible. I have a “bus map,” which from its name you might infer is a map of the city’s bus routes, but alas—it appears to be some sort of modern art piece. There are lots of colorful lines everywhere, and looking at it makes my head hurt. When I told the people who run the English Club about my job hunting difficulties, they suggested that I use the hotel lobby to house private tutoring sessions. They told me I could advertise through pamphlets handed out to local students at the end of the school day. I considered this idea pretty seriously, but eventually decided it was a bit too much for me at this point. I would essentially be teaching and running a business at the same time, and frankly, I’m not sure I can even teach. I certainly can’t run a business. I told them it was something I would consider in the future, but that in my current financial state I wanted to find something less risky.

Living in District 10 has a different set of benefits and problems, but in the long run I think it’s the wisest choice. The hotel where I will be living is, as I said, just a short walk from AIS—probably no more than five minutes—which eliminates the need for bus travel. The hotel is also in the middle of a language school area of concentration; there are usually a couple schools on each block. This environment is much more conducive to actually finding a job. I can set aside a day to travel from school to school until I find one that will hire me, without having to set aside an additional day to decipher the bus routes and map a long expedition from one to the next. I’m pretty confident that I can find something.

The downsides are that I don’t know the area, and I don’t know anyone who lives there—aside from AIS teachers of course, who are in general a pretty great bunch. But they aren’t local, and I was really enjoying getting to know the local people. I can still go to English Club every week, but I’ll have to take a bus. I’ll have to search for cheap food, for an ATM that works with my card, for new friends.

Anyway, I made my decision on September 14th. I asked a Vietnamese friend of mine that very day to ask the hotel staff (of the hotel where I am currently living) what date I had paid up to, so I could know when to move out. He asked, and they responded that I had paid up to the 25th of December. This seemed a little fishy to me, since I’d arrived on the 14th and only paid a month, but I figured if they wanted to give me ten extra days, who was I to deny them? Still, just to make sure, I inquired again today. It turns out the lady had read the wrong piece of paper, and that in fact I had only paid to the 14th—when I’d first asked. Thanks for that, hotel people.

So now I need to move out quite a bit earlier than I’d planned. Tomorrow, actually. I discussed this with the owners of both hotels and they seem fine with it. So tonight it'll be lots of packing.

Hmm. Anything else?

Weather's been very nice lately, up until today. Today reminded me that Vietnam is hot. I'd nearly forgotten. It's been raining a lot (more than usual during rainy season), which cooled things off for a while; we had 70 degree weather for about a week, and occasionally it might have even dipped into the 60s. I can't tell, of course, because everything's in Celsius. The locals didn't seem to mind the cooler weather. In fact, I think they enjoyed it even more than me. This makes perfect sense—when you live in a place that's hot all the time, you like a little cool weather now and then—but for some reason I found it surprising. In the classroom, the kids always want the air conditioning on full blast, so I guess I have no reason to be surprised.

I had one memorable rainy season adventure: trying to walk down a flooded street. In nice shoes I didn't want to ruin. Now, when I say flooded, I mean there was about a foot of water covering the entire thing. It was a river. Fortunately, all of the sidewalks are raised about a foot above the street, so there was walking space. Unfortunately, this space was not easily traversed. Remember what I said about sidewalks a few weeks ago? They aren't for walking. But it wasn't until trying to walk all the way down a sidewalk that I learned their true purpose: they are sadistic obstacle courses designed specifically to make a mockery of silly foreigners who wear shoes that aren't suitable for walking through a foot of water.

Yeah, it was bad.

Fun with finances!

Many of you have probably noticed that my recent blog entries are coming farther and farther apart. I apologize, but it's a trend I'm having difficulty preventing. For whatever reason, I'm just not compelled to write the way I was my first few weeks here. I have a hard time thinking of things to write about. Even simple weekly updates are difficult; I find myself asking, "Did anything happen this week worth putting in the blog?"

It's certainly not that life here has ceased to be exciting. I still see things, usually on a daily basis, that I've never seen before. But I don't feel the same excitement I did when I first arrived. I have fallen, for better or worse, into a routine. Walking down the street is no longer a relevatory experience; it's simply another part of my life. When I ride a motorbike down the street, I don't feel the same wonder I did the first time. I've grown used to living here.

Routine isn't a bad thing; it's useful for daily life and can be comforting. But I don't want to be comfortable; I want to feel like I'm in a different country! Perhaps it's a good thing, then, that my current routine will soon be almost completely upended.

Frankly, I don't have enough money to live here as I am currently living for another three months. I need to make some major lifestyle changes to afford the rest of my stay. I can't keep eating on Bui Vien street, for one. You can get an incredible meal on Bui Vien street that would cost at least $15 in the US for about $4--but that's still unfortunately about 3 more dollars than I can afford. So the fine dining is out. I also need to start taking the bus to and from work. I am currently paying my xe om about $2.50 a day; in contrast, taking the bus would cost about 20 cents a day. Over a entire month, that's a lot of money saved. Over three months . . . well, you get the picture. It's a good idea.

I also need a job. The job opportunity I mentioned previously would have worked well under different circumstances (not having to volunteer 4 hours every day), but I think that, because of my arrangement with AIS, I'm going to have to back out. So it's back to the drawing board. There are plenty of language schools in the area, though, so I don't think I'll have too much trouble. Job searching will certainly give me more to write about.

Finally, I need to seriously consider a new housing arrangement. I'm currently paying roughly 5 million a month to stay at the hotel ($270), which is a good rate, but it's too much for my current financial situation. I'm considering a wide variety of options; if any leads look promising, I will be sure to keep you all informed. Location is an important part of life here; it affects almost every aspect of your life. If I make a big move, it could change my routine more than any of the things I've mentioned.

Oh yes, and regarding pictures. I've been experiencing problems with my camera lately, so until they can be solved, new pictures don't seem like a possibility. The camera itself is fine; the problem is with the batteries. I brought rechargable ones along with me but the charger I brought doesn't work with the Vietnamese power system. I went to buy new batteries, but they did not work with my camera. So once I sort out the battery situation, I should be able to start taking pictures again.

Finally, everything has been worked out with the English Club. Don't worry about it. All issues have been resolved.

So, I guess we'll see where things go from here.