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.