-^-for posterity-^-

when it rains it pours, right?

i went to the yokohama tire dealership this afternoon. i thought maybe i could catch some vietnamese before supper. i knew my buddy wasn’t going to be there (he is in long xuyen for the week) but i also knew that there would be plenty of people to talk to. turned out to be quite the language session.

i studied vietnamese with them for a couple hours. they told me i had to be the sales person. i stood behind the counter waiting for customers. i stood there, my pale face to the road, waiting for people to stroll up and look at motorcycle tires. a couple did. i asked them in my rudimentary vietnamese if they wanted to buy something. it sounded rude to me but everyone loved it. “what do you want to buy?” was what i asked. what a rude question for a salesperson. they would rattle something off and i just stood there while everyone laughed. haha.

so, i did that for a couple hours. actually sold a couple tires. they were wrapped in green tape that said “yokohama” all over it. the sales people now wanted an english lesson and i obliged.

today we studied the word, “cool.” how on earth do you explain this. the dictionary doesn’t have anything close and i haven’t found anything suitable in use here. i started to describe someone who was cool. someone who had, “all the girls” and “wore the right clothes.” so, they wondered, were they rich? “no”, i said. they just were cool. they knew how to act. they had tires in the store one of which was, in my opinion, ugly and one of which was very, well, cool. i pointed to them and said, “this is cool and this is not.” so, they wondered, were they just rich? the one tire was much more expensive than the other. i was getting no where so i dropped the lesson for now. i’ll pick it up later.

do teachers give up?

one of the customers asked me to go out and give her english lessons in exchange for vietnamese lessons. she gave me her number and said to call her after 9:00. haven’t decided if i will yet.

after all of this chaos, i decided to go and eat where i always do: a small restaurant that doesn’t have a name. the owners seem very poor and food is cheap. they all know me and i can practice my terrible vietnamese on them. i met a man there who wanted to take me for coffee. i obliged.

we went to the river. i was never there before and it didn’t seem to be moving. it was dark and the lights from surrounding buildings cast their wavering shadow. i looked at it closely. you could see trash slowly floating down. large dark objects jutted out of the water as it ambled by. everything seemed dirty but i told people that the view was, “beautiful.” they loved it. my friend bought me french-fries and coffee. i don’t think i’ll sleep tonight.

he talked to me in his english. terrible. just terrible. the first vietnamese person who spoke english worse than i spoke vietnamese. i guess it’s a milestone. i decided i shouldn’t loose this friend.

at first i thought it was a mistake. some scantily clad women ambled towards us with dyed hair. some was blonde (orange) and some was red (bright, cherry red). i thought, “great, hookers. just what i need.” (sarcasm) i thought maybe my friend thought i looked lonely. he quickly shooed them away. one of them told me, “my god is jesus too.” that disturbed me. she showed me a necklace that had the virgin mary’s face on it. agh. what a terrible combination. hooker with the virgin around her neck.

my friend told me he liked to play pool. (all through hand gestures) i told him i liked it too. we decided to leave the filthy river with it’s filthy inhabitants and head for the local pool hall.

i knew nothing of vietnamese pool. i can play back home but here i’m a novice. the game is played with three balls. one white, one yellow and one red. the red is neutral. the goal of the game (i found this out by making many wrong shots) is to hit your lead ball (either the white or yellow, depending) off of both of the other balls in the same shot. this requires much skill and i was quickly defeated. if you hit your lead ball off of the other two you get to shoot again. my friend explained that one time he succeeded 20 times in a row.

well, i had my fill of vietnamese for the day. i’m going to read now and probably won’t sleep well on account of the coffee. that and the virgin mary.