happy new year
lately, people have been peppering me with the question, ‘what song do you sing on new years?’ i have no answer. there’s that old song, ‘let old acquaintances be something or other’ but i don’t think anyone actually sings that. i sometimes hum a line or two of that song using invented words that make no sense. no one understands and they smile and i giggle.

there is one song that i never knew about. it is by a band called abba. my mother once bought my brother an abba cd and he only listened to it one time and decided it wasn’t any good.

for some reason, people here listen to abba. last night, to celebrate the upcoming new year, i went to a friends house to eat and be merry. his house is small. his family is wonderful and no one took the new year seriously at all.

it was 11:55 and i was pretending to be excited. they all wanted to go to bed but i asked them if i could stay until it was 12:00. they all slouched in their chairs and stared at me wishing i would go. someone decided to put on the ‘happy new year’ music video by abba.
here are the lyrics and i’ll describe what happens in the music video in parentheses.

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
(a blonde girl and a guy with dopy, long hair are sitting on a white couch. they did their best to make it look like there was a party, there is a hat, a streamer and a glass on the table, but it is all poorly done.)
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It’s the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Now’s the time for us to say...
(now, for the big chorus, they go to a huge party scene with about 20 people all dancing and throwing confetti into the air. when the camera pans out a bit, you can see how hilariously small the part is. at this point, it’s about 11:57 and i’m wishing i was anywhere else.)
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
(now, for the most depressing line of the whole song…)
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I
(they change styles a bit. you see, there are two men in the band, both with dopy hair, one small and one tall, and two women, one with poofy black hair and the other with straight blonde hair. they put the two men back to back and the two women back to back. they put them on some sort of a spinning thing and they ask them to sing. what you see is one face go whizzing by singing a word or two and the other face going whizzing by. i don’t know what they were thinking. it’s terrible and makes you dizzy. i’m thinking about leaving.)
Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
(they go back and forth to the party scene and people jumping and dancing and throwing confetti. this song is much too serious for new years day.)
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he’ll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he’s astray
Keeps on going anyway...
(once again back to the heads spinning around and around and around. it’s now 11:59.)
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and i
(once again with the dying line)
Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
(i had been watching the clock on the wall for a long time. the second hand was snaking around slowly. at this moment, with five or six of my vietnamese friends slouching in their chairs just wanting to go home, i stand up and scream, ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!’ and they all look at me like i’m a moron. one of them starts to clap and another one turns the sound up on the television. well, it was the new year here. most of you were having ham sandwiches or something. it was noon on wednesday.)
It’s the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we’ll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine...
(just to show you how old the song is…)
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I
(what a wonderful way to end a song and usher in a new year with a line like, ‘if we don’t we might as well lay down and die, you and i.’ after that line, i got up, mounted my motorcycle and left driving through empty streets making sure i didn’t just lay down and give up my tenuous grip on life.)

i used to teach a business class that was for people involved in the government here. it was a mixture of wonderfully bright and engaging people that either worked in administration or in state-run businesses. the class ended and they suggested that we have a speaking club.

we meet every tuesday in the agriculture center of long xuyen. i drive my motorbike there, weaving through the marauding traffic. the building is at the end of a long road. it has a large blue sign out front and is about three stories high. we meet on the upper floor in a large conference room.

today the room was packed. there were about twenty to twenty five people there sitting around an oblong table. we all sat on those comfortable, grey swivel chairs that are made for a cubicle. in the middle of the table was a plastic arrangement of flowers. they were all orchids and they were all red. at the end of the table is a place for speakers to present. it is a large podium made of some sort of majestic looking wood. behind that and off to one side is a portrait of ho chi minh standing and smiling to a group of children. it is made out of lacquer and is quite life-like. behind the picture is a large, green curtain covering the entire front wall. the green curtain is made from a very metallic looking green material. it seems to have its own source of energy. in the middle of the green is a thick, red banner hanging from the ceiling. it flows and creates a sense of worth and presence. in the middle of the red banner hanging in front of the green banner are a giant yellow star and a giant hammer and sickle. they are well positioned and i figure that they would be just about exactly above the head of anyone giving a speech. they would frame the speaker nicely. above the two emblems is a large sign running the entire length of the front of the room. it is shiny. the background is vibrant red and the lettering is a mixture of gold and yellow. the sign says ‘the communist party is glorious forever.’

today we talked about sending technology jobs abroad. there was a recent article in the new york times about the new phenomena of sending computer programming jobs to India where people would work for a quarter of what americans would work for. this is creating quite a stir and some think tanks have predicted that, in three years, america stands to loose 3.3 million technology jobs. some people are worried that the ‘offshoring’ would end up removing america from the ‘top of the technology food chain.’

we talked about globalization and free trade and who benefits and who ends up getting the short end of the stick. i sit at the top of the table and talk about the article. i ask questions and we have a discussion. the topic ends up turning towards intellectual property rights. who has the right to say that their idea, their creativity must be bought and sold? the conversation is lively and we sip coffee and talk about generic drugs for hiv/aids patients and cheap dvds in ho chi minh city. the members of the speaking club are incredibly intelligent and argue very clearly in english, their second and, for some, their third language.

i tell them a bit about america’s history with free trade. i talk about nafta, japan and wal-mart. this new technology offshoring seems to just be another step in the cycle. our hour is up and i say goodbye to all of my friends. i will come back next week with another article that talks about china and america’s recent trade disputes. i said goodbye to the red, green and yellow wall in front of me, mounted my motorcycle and headed home.

i drove my motorcycle to the post office today through chaotic traffic. i was carrying my passport and my customs pass with me in my back pocket. i kept checking to make sure they were there.

the post office is a magestic building with neon lettering at the top. in bright, gigantic letters, it says ‘buu dien’. i walked up the steps and turned left towards the customs desk. the room was small and there was a man sleeping on a small cot in the corner. an older lady wearing a very ornate ao dai dress greeted me and took my passport and customs pass. she walked into a room that had about 20 packages in and looked around for mine.

the suspense involved in getting a package is incredible. who on earth would have sent me something? what on earth could it be? the suspense greatly outweighs actually opening the package and finding out what is inside. it could have been anything from summer sausage to a book.

she found the package and trudged out. she took my passport and looked all over it and finally asked me where it said where it was issues. i pointed to the space and she wrote it down in a book along with my passport number. she asked me to sign a space and i took my package.

the writing on the front of the package was very familiar. it was my father’s quick, block letters that seem to take over the whole page.

the package contained two things: a ball of some sort of christmas decorations and a bag of my mother’s famous chocolate chip cookies. the cookies were smashed beyond recognition. the bottom seventy percent of the bag was nothing but dust-like crumbs. the top still held a few pieces that were relatively in tacked. they were about one tenth of the size of a normal cookie.

i threw a piece into my mouth as i left the post office. it was sweet and chewy and memories came flying back. the ancient stove we used to cook on when i was a child. the giant blender that was always filled to the brim with cookie dough and barely had enough room to add the chocolate chips and nuts at the end. the whirling beaters that were always a centimeter from cutting your fingers off. the plastic spatula that we used to stir it all and the sink filled with dirty measuring cups, teaspoons and other things that needed to be washed. the joy of dolloping cookie dough onto a hot pan, always trying to sneak a large cookie into the oven under the watchful eye of my mother. the anticipation of watching them brown behind a stained, glass door. the ever so dangerous act of removing them from the oven and placing the hot pan on top, one slight move and you were done for. then, the wait. you must wait and wait and wait until they are cool enough to remove them from the pan. that wait was the worst. the piercingly soothing smell of the chocolate and browned dough wafting though the kitchen was enough to make anyone go crazy. once they were removed and placed on the kitchen table, it was time to take out a mug of cold milk, a warm cooking with all of its insides melted and gooey, and dip, soak and slurp up the rich goodness. that was heaven.

i stood on the street eating the crumbs and thinking.

reality.

sitting at a table across from my friends. the table cloth is checkered red and green and looks Scottish. the music pumping in through the sound system is old rock ballads from the american 80’s. the waiter is vietnamese and speaks poor english. he wears a nike t-shirt that was made in china somewhere outside the watchful eye of intellectual property rights. we order food that is italian.

one of my friends orders a pizza and we debate where pizza was invented. some say it was invented in america and taken back to italy and others say it was invented in italy. one person speculates whether or not it was invented in american and italy at the same time. we drink soda that was bottled in the central highlands of vietnam. i drink coke. it tastes the same as every other coke i’ve ever had at any one of the hundreds of the mcdonalds i ate at as a child.

i am wearing a shirt that is an advertisement for coke written in thai. the shirt was made in cambodia. i’m wearing shoes my brother brought for me from america. the shoes were made in china, sent to the states, bought and brought back to asia.

the food comes. i ordered chicken. the ingredients came from all over. they don’t make flour noodles here so they were imported. they don’t make cheese here so it was imported. the tomato sauce could have been made here but tastes a little to canned. who knows where everything came from.

sitting around the table, we are an odd mixture. i am mennonite hailing from south-eastern pennsylvania. jack is hungarian, second or third generation, hailing from the north west. virginia is vietnamese/japanese hailing from the north west also. one of virginia’s friends names be is vietnamese born in vietnam but raised in america. the man sitting behind us is french and has a vietnamese girlfriend. she is tiny and beautiful. he is large and oafish. they talk but her french isn’t that great. they eat italian food and wear clothes from who knows where.

a lanky american man walks in and orders rice. he does what a lot of expats do in these places and orders in english and then tries to say it again in vietnamese, thus establishing his place as a local. his vietnamese is terrible and we giggle. he complains when it doesn’t come and tells them he wants it to go. he went to an italian restaurant in da lat and ordered white rice to take home. i guarantee they don’t have the best rice in town.

we sit in a country that my government was bombing about thirty years ago. we were all invited to come here and teach. no one is sure what they believe and we could all find faults with everything. there isn’t one system of power we particularly enjoy. everything is a little right and a little wrong. we live with a million contradictions and are happy enough to ignore them. we sit back and enjoy a life of luxury and have all developed a wonderful ability to ignore beggars and crippled people. we talk about social justice but none of us has any idea what to do about it. we all want to change the world but are all fatalistic to realize we can’t do anything.

we also don’t know what real culture is. everything is such a strange mixture of authentic and fake that it’s really hard to put a finger on anything. we, however, ignore all of this. we talk about silly things, ignore the children outside, order another coke and eat our imported food wearing our well-traveled clothes. that’s life and i haven’t even decided if i like it, love it or just put up with it.

we ate christmas dinner at a small, western cafe yesterday. it was quaint and dark and, for a moment, i wasn't in vietnam. i walked through the doors of the restaurant and felt free for a moment. i sat down and ate bread with butter and remembered hundreds of meals back home.

we were sitting among the expats. there were about thirty of us in the room from a variety of different countries. we ate quietly at first, enjoying the food and the escapism. as the meal wore on and the turkey came, our conversations warmed and we began talking to one another. the chats were informal and friendly at first. 'what are you doing here?' 'how long have you been here?' 'how long are you planning on staying here?'

then, the conversation shifted. one person, an older man with wispy hair, would make a comment about how long he has been in vietnam. then another person, a young, overweight girl, would slyly add that she has been living in south-east asia for so many years. then, another man would talk about how long he lived in spain and a girl would talk about europe. they conversations would fly past each other and no one would hear what anyone else was saying. the comments were made to impress but they were not heard. no one bothered to ask anyone else a single question about anything. everyone was too busy rambling on about their lives. no one was exchanging wisdom or insight, they were all simply listing their achievements. the last half of the meal amounted to everyone reading their curriculum vitae aloud. it was a tornado of egos.

as the conversation shifted, my attention waned and i started to think about other things. i started thinking about family and how much fun i would have had at home. i started to really miss the tradition, the family and the friends. i also started to miss vietnam. i walked out the door and listened to the whizzing motorcycles and felt more free than ever.

i was sitting in my room on christmas eve minding my business. i was reading from a magazine i bought in ho chi minh city. someone knocked on the door. i was sitting in a comfortable patch on the bed. it was warm and i was sinking into the mattress. i got up and walked across the cool floor in bare feet. there was a meek looking vietnamese girl on the other side of the door. she must have been about 28 years old and was wearing simple clothes.

it took a second for me to recognize her. she worked in the hotel i was staying in. she was the girl who walked around in a large, black jacket carrying things too and fro. she was the maid.

i guessed she wanted to clean my room or supply me with clean sheets or towels or something of that sort but she had other things on her mind. she asked if she could come in. she heard that i spoke vietnamese from the people downstairs and wanted to chat about something.

she sat on the edge of the bed which was a mess. i made sure the door was open because i really didn't know what she wanted. she started talking to me about nha trang, a city about four hours north of here. she said it was her homeland and that she had been away for the past five years. she talked in a low, sweet voice. she told me that if i ever went there, one of her cousins would love to take me around and show me the place. she took out a piece of paper and wrote down his phone number.

i told her i appreciated the offer and next time i came up to this part of vietnam i would be happy to take her up on her offer. i thought that would be enough for her to leave. i thought i was cordial enough and kind enough and she just wanted to give her cousin some business. she stayed firmly planted on the bed.

she told me the story of her life. her family was too poor and couldn't keep supporting her in nha trang. they told her to go out and find work. they told her that she would probably find some sort of job in da lat. she left and that was five years ago.

she rarely communicates with her family and is more or less on her own. she can't marry anyone because she is too poor. she found a job at this hotel but the manager of the hotel is a very strict boss. she only paid her 500,000 dong a month which is about 35 dollars. she couldn't live on that much in one month.
as her story grew juicer, her voice lowered until i had to strain to hear it. she had to work all hours of the day from sun up to sun down. she had to cook all the meals for the family and clean all the rooms in the hotel by herself. she had to do all the washing and all of the preparing. she even had to sleep on a couch in the front of the hotel incase someone came late at night.

she had wanted to leave for months but she couldn't. she had an uncle in america and he was going to come over next year and he promised to find a way to take her to america. she said she would be happy in america and that she could not keep on going here. if she had enough money she would move down to saigon and find a new job. she said that all of her hopes rested on moving down to saigon and finding work. that was where the opportunities were. she would wait there, in purgatory, before her uncle swept in and took her off to the promise land of america.

she told me this whole story and i wasn't sure why. did she want me to finance her trip? did she want me to give her money? how much would the whole trip cost?

she looked at me with the most sincere eyes you can imagine. they were large, brown saucers. she turned those saucers up towards mine and asked the question. 'could you give me some money so i can leave this place?'

she said she needed 60,000 dong, about 4-5 dollars.

i was stuck in a situation i never wanted to be in. do i give her the money out of pity? will she use the money to leave or will she use the money for something else? was i being swindled or could i possible do something to help her? i was in a position of supreme power.

did she ask many foreigners for money? no, there weren't many foreigners who would stay in a hotel like this and there are even less who speak vietnamese. did she just see me and see an opportunity? maybe.

i hate being swindled and i hate being cheated. i hate being lied to and i hate being taken advantage of.

i took out my wallet and gave her 100,000 dong, about 7-8 dollars. she took it and told me how thankful she was. she said she would never forget me and that this money would help her leave, help her escape. i smiled and watched her walk out of the room.

i wasn't going to give her any money but then i remembered what jesus once said, 'whatever you to the least of these, you do to me.'

merry christmas.

the trip to da lat is terrible. first there are five hours on a bus from long xuyen to saigon. you roll along side branches of the mekong and have to slow every half-mile or so to go over a one laned bridge. you leave the green jungle only to find yourself trapped between concrete buildings and thousands of people all going in different directions. the trip from saigon to da lat is six hours on a buss that's about the same size as the original bus but that holds more people. the seats are miserable and there is no leg room. the drive from the city to the north is beautiful. the land changes color. it becomes reddish-brown. hills start to grow in the distance and soon enough you're winding your way up narrow mountain roads. the bus operates differently. there is a man that sits next to the door looking for people waiting by the road. the bus slows down and he asks them where they want to go. the bus keeps rolling slowly while they haggle a price. they hop on. at one point we had 25 people on a 18 seat bus. three people were piled up on top of one another by the door.

we arrived in da lat before supper. this is the perfect place to celebrate christmas because it's cold up here and there is a large ex-pat community. the weather is wonderful. you walk outside and your hands are cool. you have to wear a long-sleeved shirt and shoes. i got a cold and it's great because it really feels like it's winter. it feels somewhat like it's christmas.

i remember christmas when i was a child. we would sit around the living room and light the last advent candle. i would always play with the fire in the fireplace. i would add more and more logs until it raged out of control and someone had to tell me to stop. mom would read the christmas story from a gigantic bible that had to weigh at least 20 pounds. we would open presents and laugh and have fun. one time my great aunt sarah gave me a bottle of ketchup.

christmas here is different. we're going out to a western restaurant to eat a meal with a bunch of strangers. they say that there's going to be a santa there. they also say that we're going to get small gifts. i don't like christmas with strangers.

i bought presents for all of my friends here and they all bought me something. that will be the most special part of the holiday. we will celebrate together and show each other that, yes, in vietnam we all have someone who cares about us. i will like that part of christmas.

you never fully appreciate something until you don't have it.

the chinese house.

one friend of mine speaks perfect english. the words just flow from his gut, gracefully passing his throat and mouth. he never studied in a foreign country and is truly an anomaly. he works for a translation service. it’s the only place in long xuyen where you can get a document translated from chinese, german, french or english into vietnamese.

he seems to find surreal joy in teaching me vietnamese. i sit in the office of his translation company as he walks in front of a white board. he doesn’t require any money and the other staff members who don’t have anything to do amble about and help.

he’s been taking me to his friend’s house lately to teach me. his friend lives at the end of a small, grey alley. the alley will teach you anything you want to learn about vietnamese culture. the alley is a hotbed of action. people amble up and down on ancient bicycles carrying goods to and fro. they are all actors on a perfect set. the alley turns left and right and is cracked and worn. the walls of the buildings are a million different pastel shades. there is barbed wire and concrete. there are windows and doors.

the house is wooden and one story. five people live there and they all greet me friendly. we move to a back room and have a vietnamese lesson while one of the younger girls makes coffee for us. i sit and absorb everything.

after the lesson, it is time for lunch. lunch was prepared by a small lady and a few young girls. she tells them all what to do and how to cook and they listen and do not talk. at lunch, we talk about strange things. we talk about how much this vegetable cost at the market and how much beef costs in america. we talk about where fresh water comes from and how people in vietnam are used to eating while sitting on the floor. they laugh when i shift positions.

after lunch, they take me out back. that is where the action is. the family makes money by raising roosters. outside, they have seven roosters of different quality.

the outside courtyard is small and dirt covered. there are roosters sitting in cages constantly cock-a-doodle-dooing. they throw their heads back and their pea sized brain rattles around as they let out a scream of passion. one screams, then another, then another. they call for women and companionship. they hate their lives constantly battling with other males for some phantom women that never appears.

they take two roosters out of their cage to let them practice. cock fighting is legal here and betting is illegal. this is my first cock fight.

they put little boots on their feet to cover up the protruding spur. the boots are black and leather and are tied on. one man holds one rooster and another man holds another. the two roosters see each other. the feathers on the back of their neck spring into action. they are ready to kill for women. i know men like this.

the roosters are placed on the ground and they instantly attacked. a ring of men stood around them watching with anticipation. the two birds jumped at each other and the larger jumped higher. they flailed with their feet jabbing at one another. the birds swung around in a cloud of dust and jumped again. they circled slowly. the two birds were golden-mustard in color for the most part. their tails were green and blue. they stood and started at each other as only two birds with beady, black eyes can. they extended their necks flat and straight towards each other. the feathers on their necks were long and fanned out broadly. their heads were framed in a circle of golden mustard feathers. from the top, their necks looked pink and vulnerable. they circled some more and then jumped. they were locked in mortal combat and the winner would be the most virile. after five minutes of flapping and circling, they got tired. they started to do what boxers do when they get tired: they hug each other close and jab. their necks were wrapped around one another and they picked at each others feathers with their beaks. they pulled out clumps of golden mustard feathers and the owners pulled them apart. they jumped again but once again they resigned themselves to a tired match of pulling feathers. the fight ended and neither bird was more virile.

the owners removed the straps and put them in cages. the birds picked in the dirt and continued to scream lonesomely into the air.

i asked how much the birds were worth and one of them was worth 50 dollars. the 50 dollar bird walked around a small cage and ate rocks. the 50 dollar bird looked like it would be good to eat but i would only pay about .99 cents for a wing and a biscuit.

christmas in long xuyen.

we had quite a party thrown for us by all of the important people at the university and in the province. it was held on the first floor of the guest house and was catered by a local restaurant. there was a small army of waiters, a wonderful menu and two giant speakers and a karaoke machine.

for the first few minutes, we all milled about chatting aimlessly. some of us were trying to appease those above us and others were trying to patiently listen to the subordinates. it’s very easy to find your position in this society. lines are firmly drawn and no one has to ask questions. i spent a good deal of time talking to the vice-head of the province. he is a wonderfully amiable man and we had a nice chat. he got his masters in political science from harvard back in the 90’s and then returned to hanoi. he talked about his travels in america and what he remembered. he talked about nebraska and new york city. he talked about pennsylvania and, after a pause where he rolled his eyes back and furrowed his brow, lancaster.

lancaster? how long was he in lancaster?

he said he spent a good amount of time there and had some good friends there. he talked about amish people and how wonderful he thought it was that they were still holding on to their tradition. he talked about their appearance and their homes.

i told him about my grandparents and my father and my memories from childhood weekends spent roaming through the beautiful farmland. we both were standing casually and fantasizing about another world. for a moment, both me and the vice-head of the party in an giang province were recalling blue skies, corn fields and the peaceful, rolling hills. he stopped for a moment and said, ‘i stayed with a family there.’

my ears perked up. so, he wasn’t a tourist roaming through lancaster and gawking at the strange amish people. he actually had a connection. ‘did you stay with an amish family?’

‘no, i stayed with a family named…’ he trailed off here, once again trying to recall a name that had long been placed in the back of his memory. ‘kaufman’

my shock turned to wonder and amazement. kaufman? that was surely a mennonite name. ‘do you know the mennonites?’

‘of course. the family i stayed with were mennonites. they worked for the… the… mennonite central committee.’

now this i couldn’t believe. this very important man who i, being in a lower position in society had the honor of speaking with, actually knew about mennonite central committee. my two worlds collided in an instant, brought together in the strangest way.

‘i am in vietnam because of the mennonite central committee. i was raised as a mennonite.’ i stammered on for a bit not really knowing what to say.

‘the mennonites are the reason that i went to harvard. the kaufman family introduced me to harvard and helped me get in there.’ things, at this point, could get no stranger. this man owed a good deal of his success to mennonite compassion and generosity. we sat there and smiled and i couldn’t think of anything to say. i was thinking about lancaster and akron and pennsylvania. i was thinking about being a mennonite. i was thinking about this very important man in front of me and how much power he had and how incredibly interesting and wise he really was. the contradictions of his bmw sitting out front and the memories of the click-click-clicking horse and buggies could not be rectified. i was a mess.

we sat down to eat and chatted some more but my mind wouldn’t settle.

at the end of the meal, we all stood up and sang karaoke songs. we sang in vietnamese first and then someone found some christmas carols for us to sing along to. we sang ‘silent night’ ‘joy to the world’ and ‘o little town of bethlehem’ in vietnamese and english. that was also too much. reading such religious words in vietnamese and listening to the huge group of people sing brought too many things into my head at one time. the mixture swirled around and around and refused to rest. i went to bed and couldn’t sleep. nothing made sense and yet it was all so perfectly simple and clear.

the origin of the watermelon.

once upon a time, during the reign of the hung king, there was a man named mai an tiem. he was a poor and desolate man. he was a slave and was routinely bought and sold and moved about the country. one day, he was bought by the king to be used in his court.

at the king's palace, mai an tiem worked very hard. he moved up quickly in the ranks of the servants and was noticed for his hard work.

one day, the king's daughter fell in love with mai an tiem. she saw how hard he was working and how smart he was. she wanted to make him her husband. they were married and mai an tiem moved from a servant to a very important person in the king's court.

people began to get jealous of mai an tiem. the king loved him and treated him as a son. he had a lot of responsibility and some of the court's advisors were subject to his rulings. they plotted against him.

one day, at a party, they asked mai an tiem why he worked so hard. mai an tiem responded 'cua cho la cua no', which means that you are indebted to those who gave things to you. he was trying to be respectful to the king by telling him that he was trying to pay back his kindness by working very hard for him. the king took this as an insult. the king thought of mai an tiem as a son. the king lost face in this process and had to do something drastic to mai an tiem and his family.

the king, instead of killing them, banished them to a deserted island. they were not allowed to take anything with them and they were sure to die. they had to search all day for food. they tried fishing but didn't have much success. they were dying.

one day, mai an tiem found a small piece of fruit on the ground. it had been partially eaten by birds. he tasted it and it was very sweet. he decided to plant it in the ground and it grew and grew. one day, he had a whole patch of water melons and his family survived. he sold them to a passing boat and the boat brought back food in return. the watermelons were very popular.

one of these watermelons was offered to the king. the king tasted it and found it to be wonderfully delicious. he asked where they came from and they told him that they came from mai an tiem. the king decided that he wasn't angry at mai an tiem any more and he let him come back and live in the palace. that is where watermelon's come from.

(i was told this legend by my vietnamese teacher. the watermelon is very important during the upcoming lunar new year. i asked her a bunch of questions about mai an tiem. i felt like a little kid asking about a fairy tale. i asked if mai an tiem was handsome. it sounded important at the time. she said that it wasn't at all important if he was handsome or not. in asian culture there is a saying, 'tot go hon tot nuoc son', which means wood is better than paint. it basically means that the men of the story don't have to be handsome. they only have to be smart and hard working. this does not apply to women.)





this is my work id. thought you’d all like to see what i’ve become. don’t worry, it’s not permanent.

most of my vietnamese money looks ancient. some of the bills look as if they’ve been in circulation for the past 30 years. all of the notes of lesser value are well worn. i regularly trade 1000 dong notes that have holes in the middle. 2000 dong notes that, while originally yellow, have long since turned brown. it was time for a change.

that change happened. it is now all the rage to possess a newly minted bill.

there are two new bills. there is a new 50,000 dong bill and a new 500,000 dong bill (so many zeros!). before yesterday, the highest denomination bill was 100,000 dong. that’s about 7 dollars. if you ever wanted to buy anything of substance, you had to walk around with a huge wad of cash. because the banks here aren’t that developed, it’s not common for transactions to happen electronically. everything happened with large bales of cash. now the bales will be a bit smaller.

the new 50,000 dong bill replaces an old bill that was bright green. the bill, as all vietnamese bills do, had a picture of uncle ho chi minh on the front. on the back, it showed an industrial scene. the new bill is very fancy. it is pink and purple. it still has uncle ho’s picture on the front but he is now surrounded by pieces of silver paper. the silver paper shows through on both sides and, i would imagine, it is very hard to counterfeit. the new 500,000 dong bill is green and also has the flashy pieces of silver embedded on both sides of uncle ho’s portrait.

this money revolution brought along with it three new coins. there is now a 200 dong coin, a 500 dong coin and a 5,000 dong coin. the coins will replace the well used, torn pieces of dirty paper most people carry around. before yesterday, there were no coins in vietnam. all transactions were carried out with paper. now everyone walks around with small pieces of silver in their pocket. everyone is happy and now everyone’s pocket jingles.

in my old english literature class, we studied dante’s ‘divine comedy’. in the book, dante goes on a journey with his pal, virgil, through hell, purgatory and heaven. in dante’s hell, there are nine horrific circles. in dante’s hell, if you land in one of the circles, you stay there for eternity. in dante’s hell, satan lives at the bottom guarding and punishing judas.

i find the story interesting and thought that such an idea would be unique to western culture. i had no idea that there was a buddhist equivalent.

two of my students offered to take me out to a pagoda about a half of a hour from long xuyen. the pagoda was relatively famous because it was covered in pictures depicting what happened in the different levels of buddhist hell.

the pagoda was placed next to a small tributary of the mekong. it was peacefully surrounded by green rice paddies and the sky was milky blue. the pagoda was yellow and red and we drove our motorcycles inside and parked. the first thing we did was walk in and talk to the monk.

the head monk was a quiet chap. he didn’t seem to interested in our being here and answered each of our questions as if we shouldn’t really have been asking them. the pagoda was 123 years old. the monk said he mostly prayed for dead people. he said he used to follow the teachings of the buddha and then, one day decided to give his life over to the religion entirely. that was 23 years ago.

we went outside to look at the different circles of hell. they were brightly pained on the walls of the pagoda and they came with instructions. they would all list the circle, the crimes that the people had committed and their punishment. the punishment was always painted graphically. here are the circles of buddhist hell (they are only the beliefs of a small sect of buddhism. this not universally applicable):

circle 1:
this circle was for people who killed other people, committed suicide, were hopeless, angry or who loved someone else when they didn’t love them back. they were sent to some sort of hellish prison where they were killed by ghoulish looking guards with blonde hair. this was also a place for people to go who were guilty but claimed to be innocent. they were placed in front of the ‘truth mirror’ and then killed. this was also the place for people who were thieves. they were eaten by animals.

circle 2:
this circle was for those who did not respect elders. they were being crushed by rocks. the whole crushing operation was administered by the blonde-haired demons. also, this circle was reserved for those who hit their daughter-in-law when she came to live with them. if you remember, the daughter-in-law has to live with the son’s mother after they get married. the daughter-in-law has to listen to everything the mother says and there is sometimes tension. the people that hit their daughter-in-laws are also crushed. this is also the place for those who fornicate. they are ground like rice is milled by blonde-haired monsters.

circle 3:
this circle was for those who were corrupt or unfair. people who were not fair to others were disemboweled by blonde-haired monsters. people who ate animals (after all, what did that pig ever do to you to deserve to be sitting in your denny’s grand-slam breakfast?) were killed like the animals were killed. they were killed by a blonde-giant acting like a butcher. people who made things that were fake were tied to large wooden spikes and nails were hammered into their flesh.

circle 4:
this circle was for those who had more than one wife or husband. they were boiled in blood. the blonde-giants stirred the soup with a long stick that doubled as some sort of a weapon. this circle was for women who had an abortion. they were sawed in half. this circle was also for those who liked to watch and bet on cock fights. their eyes were poked out with a long stick by a blonde-haired giant with fire eyes. this circle was also my favorite. people were sent to this circle if they ever ate ‘hot vit lon’. those are the boiled duck eggs filled with semi-developed fetus inside. they are disgusting and should be banned. people who eat semi-developed duck fetus’ are forced to eat fire.

circle 5:
this circle would be for those who cheated others in business contracts. they were thrown in a snake pit (watch out kenny lay). this circle was also for those who swore a lot, lied or started arguments. their tongue was cut out by a blonde-haired demon with long fingernails. this circle was also for those who mistreated handicapped people. they were bludgeoned by a number of forks. this pit can also be used by those who can not control their anger. they are made to sit in a pit of fire.

circle 6:
this circle was for those who killed their mothers. they were tied, naked, to a large, metal chimney that was under a very large fire. this circle was also for someone who withheld food from a child. they were locked in a small, metal cage. also, if you sold things but cheated people, you were hung by meat hooks like slabs of beef. and finally, if you didn’t respect your family, neighbor or relative, your flesh was eaten by birds.

circle 7:
this circle was for those who killed birds. they were shot by arrows while they were tied to large, wooden poles. the guards doing the shooting all had blond hair and now they had horns. this was also for those who did not follow ‘hieu’. they were beheaded. ‘hieu’ basically means piety. it is an idea that is supremely popular over here. it means that you have to honor and respect your elders and understand your position in society. this circle was also for those who used religion for personal gain. their hands were cut off. this circle was also for those who drank too much. they were made to drink lava.

circle 8:
this circle was for those who told serious lies. they were tossed off a cliff onto a bed of nails. they were tossed by blonde-haired guards. this circle was also for those who bought goods that they knew were stolen. they were crushed in some sort of a pasta machine. this circle was for women who washed their clothes in the river. they were made to soak in blood. i don’t understand the importance of not washing you clothes in the river, probably because it’s dirty, but i’ll do some more research.

circle 9:
this circle was for those who do not respect their teacher, their friends or betray their country. i use this to my advantage whenever the students get a little unruly. these people were all crushed under giant chariots being driven by blonde-haired demons. this circle was also for those who do not respect god. they were crushed by elephants controlled by blonde-haired demons. this circle was also for those who ate dog meat, cat meat or beef. they were killed with spears in their back. also, this circle was for those who abuse religion. they were crushed in the hand of god. god was a giant with blonde hair and huge horns and a grimace.

so, there are similarities and differences in the two stories. in dante’s story, everything is a little more clearly lined out. we know that, for example, all the gluttons will go to circle 4. this hell is a little more ambiguous. also, there are some sins here that we wouldn’t consider sins. the washing clothes in the river, or the not respecting a teacher, or the eating meat. those are all cultural differences. the main difference between the two religions is this: infinite vs. finite. people go to dante’s hell forever. if you sin on earth, you will suffer in hell for eternity. if you sin on earth in buddhism, you only have to suffer through hell for a little. for example, if you ate dog mean you would have to be killed by blonde-haired giants throwing spears into your back. after that, you moved on to circle 10 (read on). if you did a number of bad things, you would have to suffer a number of deaths. for example, if you ate dog mean, did not respect your elders and made something fake, you would have an appointment to be killed in circle 2, circle 3 and circle 9. (crushed by rocks, had nails hammered into you and got shot in the back with spears)

circle 10:
there is only one person in hell forever. her name is thanh de. she went to hell to save her mother who was being punished there. this was all against the wishes of god. she is forced to kneel on a bed of nails for eternity. she is the only exception. after you suffer through the 9 circles of hell you are given a bowl of ‘chao lu’. ‘chao’ is a kind of rice porridge that everyone eats here when they are sick. they say it makes you sweat out all the badness. ‘lu’ means to be forgetful or absent minded. it’s basically amnesia rice gruel. then, you walk through a large rainbow and you are turned into one of a number of things. if you are very bad, you become a blonde-haired demon. i don’t think it would be the worst job in the world, but it wouldn’t be best either. then, if you’re not that bad, you become an animal. i see how much out dog sleeps and am sometimes jealous of him. if you lead a normal life, you become a person again. you get another shot. if you are wonderful, you become an angel. i guess that would be great but i don’t like to wear white.

in a way, it is permanent. if you are very terrible, you become a demon. however, you do not suffer forever. the difference is that everyone has to suffer for the things that they did on earth in the afterlife. they don’t suffer as long, but they can’t be forgiven as christians believe.

there aren't too many old people in these parts. war and what not has taken its toll.

i sat down for a cup of coffee this afternoon at my favorite coffee shop. one of the waitresses asked me to tell her something about america. i asked her what she wanted to know. she wasn't sure what she wanted to know. she wanted to know something. i told her about diversity, how expensive things were and how different life really is. she stood there and listened as i spoke. she didn't have any questions afterwards. how do you sum up my country in a 5 minute speech given to a waitress in a coffee shop?

i sat and read from a book and sipped violently strong coffee. a man sat down across from me. this isn't all together uncommon. sometimes you'll look up from your book and there'll be a random person sitting across from you. they're always men. they're usually young and they normally stare at you as if you're an animal.

today was different. an ancient looking man sat down across from me. his ears had grown into gigantic saucers. his face was wrinkled and sagged. he was missing teeth in all the right places. if he had teeth in the top of his mouth, he was missing the teeth directly below them. if he had teeth in the bottom of his mouth, he was missing teeth directly above them. when he shut his mouth, it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle magically fitting into place. he wore an old hat with a button on it. it used to be white. he wore glasses that were obviously repaired a number of times. they were silver and circular and had marks from soldering all over them. he had what amounted to a mustache. it was more like thirty or forty grey and black hairs spread out across his top lip. he wore old clothes.

he asked me a question, at first hesitating. i asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee. he ordered and we sat for a bit.

the man was 81 years old. he saw france, japan, britain and america come storming through the south. i was interested to know what he remembered. the whole time i was plotting how i would ask him. i had to yell at him and speak slowly and as clearly as possible.

he used to work as a truck driver driving between saigon and long xuyen. he did that for about forty odd years. he couldn't remember. he had 9 children and could not describe what they all did. he said most of them bought and sold things to make a living.

he was very interested to hear how much money i made, who took care of me and where i was staying. he was very proud of the fact that the vietnamese paid for my salary, my house and all my expenses. he told me that was very good.

i brought up the question. 'what do you remember from when the french were here?' i had to repeat it twice and very loudly. it felt awkward being said in a crowded coffee shop. everyone turned their head. he looked at me after the question registered in his head. he frowned a bit. i realized i had walked too quickly into a place i shouldn't have been. he said, 'i remember when the americans were here there was a teacher who was as handsome as you and who could speak vietnamese as you can who taught english in long xuyen.'

i said i was sorry.

he changed the subject by asking if i had a wife. i said no, i hadn't. he told me that i needed to find a vietnamese wife and fast. i was in the prime of my life and there were so many beautiful vietnamese girls around. he said that veitnamese wives were the best. they would make you feel comfortable, clean up for you. you lived like a king. i told him i was trying to find a vietnamese wife. that's my cookie cutter answer.

the conversation ended and i had to go to work. i said goodbye and paid for both of us. he stood up, took my hand and reverently bowed. he respected me by calling me a teacher. he could have waved and given a half-hearted smile. he didn't. he, the man who has so many changes, so many countries entering his and telling them what was right and wrong rose, bowed and respected me in ways that i surely didn't deserve.

another vietnamese wedding.

one of the teachers at the university was going to get married. we were invited because we are albino tigers. we are special. they put us in a cage.

we sat at the most important table. we sat with administrators and other folks who were to be known. we were supposed to sit and look pretty. we, at times, were supposed to say witty phrases in vietnamese to woo everyone else. they made us do tricks and made us eat things. we were special, but in sigmund and freud kind of way. we did our tricks and pleased our superiors.

the wedding was held on the second floor of the most posh hotel in long xuyen. it’s called the dong xuyen hotel and it sits right next to the grey catholic church. it has a giant blue neon sign. it has a breakfast buffet where, for 10,000 dong, you can eat all you want and have waiters and waitresses serve you in bow ties.

the room was crowded. there were televisions in every corner. one man with a video camera watched everyone and it was fed through those televisions. we, the white tigers, were filmed a number of times doing tricks.

the wedding began. the bride and groom walked out of a silver elevator. there was a lady coordinating everything. she wore a pink ao dai and looked rather like cotton candy. she told us how happy she was, the families were and how happy the hotel was to have this wedding. we were all happy to hear it.

the father and mother of the bride and groom both walked to the front of the room. the groom’s father wore a very fat tie and his collar was well undone. the bride’s father wore a white button up shirt that had two buttons missing. he also had a pair of sun glasses hanging from his neck. the two mothers were wearing ao dai dresses. all four of them had no expression on their faces. they stood their as their children were about to walk down the ‘aisle’ and they were emotionless. maybe something was going on under the hood, but nothing was showing on the outside.

the bride and groom appeared from a silver elevator. the music changed. the girl in the pink ao dai would speak in short sentences. they would be interrupted by bursts from the sound system. they were playing some sort of guitar solo from the mid 1980’s. she would say, ‘we would like to welcome the happy couple!’ and then a guitar would come bursting forth. she would say something else and another guitar would play. the couple walked down the aisle.

the bride was wearing a dress that looked like cellophane and glitter all wrapped up in one. if she got caught in a fire, the whole dress would melt on her. she wore small, see-through gloves and high, white shoes.

they reached the front of the room. in the front of the room there were the two sets of parents standing somberly. there were also balloons. the balloons were pink, yellow and blue. there was also a tower of champagne glasses.

when they reached the front of the room, everyone applauded.

then things turned macabre.

the music changed. instead of being guitar solos, we heard the them from titanic. celine dion at her finest. the lyrics played as the two were married. here is what happened:


Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you,
That is how I know you go on

the couple stood behind the tower of champagne glasses. they opened a bottle champagne and made sure to point the cork towards the ceiling. then, the two of them poured the bottle onto the tower of glasses. the crowd stood silent. they opened three bottles on the glasses.

Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on

the couple moved back to the middle of the stage. huge amounts of confetti went off. the father and mother of the bride and groom stood silent. they acted as if nothing happened. the confetti poured over everyone and the bride and groom looked around for what they should do next.

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

they moved to the cake. it was a three-story cake and they cut all three levels. the father and mother of the bride and groom were looking on but expressionless. the bride and groom cut awkwardly with a large knife. we were all beginning to hate celine dion.

Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're one

Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on

the bubbles came. somewhere, from the ceiling, there was a bubble machining. the bubbles were the same kind of bubbles that i would have made as a child. they poured over the stoic parents and the happy bride and groom. the bubbles and the champagne tower and the balloons and everything was kitsch. i didn’t know how to react except to smile and clap. i didn’t really know when the couple was married. everything was so absurd and surreal that i don’t think anyone knew when the couple was married.

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

and that was the wedding. we ate, the bride and groom walked around to every table and we were finished. i’m still not sure when they actually married. however, i am sure that neither the father or mother of the bride or groom was particularly happy with all the glitz and glamour.

one english teacher that we don't know very well has a brother. his brother is 12 years old. his brother has survived 12 years. he is in good health. he sleeps well. he has not died. he lived through all the different animals of the chinese calendar. he survived the goat, monkey, dragon, rat, tiger, dog, horse, rooster, buffalo, snake, rabbit and pig. he was finished his first cycle of life.

this is an important day. a child has an important birthday on two occasions: after they have survived for one month and after they finished all twelve animals in the chinese calendar. he was born in the year of the goat and the cycle has refreshed.


i find parties like this hilarious. we all went to this english teacher's home in a town called 'o mon'. the town is famous for their grapefruit. i didn't know they were famous for their grapefruit until i actually arrived and people told me. so, the party is in celebration of a young boy. we saw the young boy one time and no one bought him a present or actually really took note of him. people spent the whole party talking about the family and the house and how wonderful grapefruits were. it was really a celebration of the family and their ability to keep this boy alive for 12 years. they did a wonderful job.

one man from o mon was very interesting. he was an important member of the government and he came to our table to chat. we had a very nice time. his hair was long and parted similarly to mine. it looped down across his forehead and over to his right ear. it was beginning to grey. he had a broad smile and nice set of healthy teeth. he had a wide nose. he wore glasses that somehow covered his face from the lowest part of his nose to the lowest part of his lengthy bangs. they stretched from his left ear to his right ear. they were black framed and square. the lenses were so thick that, when you looked at his eyes, they were notably distorted. they looked much smaller. the glasses looked like some sort of diving goggles that jacques cousteau might have worn.

he was such a wonderfully warm person. his english wasn't good so we talked in vietnamese. he kept yelling to julie 'forget me not!' he would look at her, the idea would flash across his mind underneath that mat of floppy hair and his expression would change. he would raise his hand and yell, 'forget me not!' he did this repeatedly.

he would tell me i was handsome. his character changed in a similar way. he would see me, stop, the idea would flash across his mind and he would scream 'em dep trai lam!' he said this repeatedly and gave me a very solid hug at the end.

we also watched a game being played by about 8 old men. they were sitting around a table across the room and laughing and yelling. we walked over to see what all the commotion was about. it turns out they were playing some sort of vietnamese drinking game with a duck's head. they had a duck's head in a large bowl covered with another smaller bowl. someone would shake the bowl and rotate the duck's head. no one could see what direction the head was facing because of the covering bowl. the bowl would be placed in the middle of the table. all the men would grin and think. the host would ask if anyone would like to 'fix' the bowl. some men would rotate the bowl a little to one side and a little to another side. they would yell at each other 'it's pointing at you!' and 'i'm going to fix it because i'm sure it's pointing at me.' the host would then ceremoniously place his hand on the top bowl. silence. he would lift the bowl and all would see what direction the head was facing. immediately, everyone would erupt in laughter. the man who the duck had chosen would have to drink something that looked like dirty tap water.

we left the party and headed home. the school van was filled with famous o mon grapefruits and coconuts. for some reason, we were bringing coconuts home even though there were maybe 100 coconut trees surrounding the campus and you could buy fresh coconut juice for about 7 cents a cup. sometimes things just don't make sense.

i'm almost done my second cycle of the chinese calendar and all the thanks and gifts should be directed at my parents. they are the reason i have survived so long. the party will be in june of next year. if you have questions about accomidations or want more details, email my dad. davidray123@yahoo.com

i have spent the last week translating things from english to english. the agriculture department has about 300 rice recipes they want to post on the internet. they wrote all the instructions in english but, well, the english isn't the best quality. also, they have a little patronizing section at the bottom of each recipe called 'recommendation'. here are some of my favorites.

Recommendation:
- Perhaps add water of fragrance grass to make the crust green and fragrant.
- When rolling, remember to manipulate lightly to get the whole cake.
- Have to stir thoroughly on the bottom of the pot while cooking. The good cakes have got tough structure, fragrant and green of fragrance grass.
- While pouring the syrup into the flour, should rub the flour constantly to get the surface of the cake fine and mouth.
- Cake should be wafer-like and close-grained.
- Wash your hands before doing every stage.
- When steaming, it necessary to keep the cake enough time to get good product. The time can be adjusted for each real kind of sticky rice. Over steaming can lead to wetting cake.
- Wash your hands when manipulating.
- All the equipment must be clean before and after using.
- When getting the cake out of the steamer, you should manipulate lightly to keep the cake in whole form.
- The cake must be dry to store for further distribution.
- Mixture flour kneaded should be knead regularly, to avoid flour is cloted.
- At household demand, people mainly use the small milling machine.
- At commercial need, people use the milling machine in the factory.
- Boil down sugar should be notice sugar haven't bitterness.
- If not plunge boil down sugar, while to knead dough make the cake add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 50 gram sugar.
- The crust must be brittle, leathery and transpicuous.

cosmetic shops. i've never been keen on perusing through the lotions and powders and other odd things women put on their face and skin to make themselves 'beautiful', but today was quite a treat.

a friend of mine invited me over to his house. his family is renting out the bottom to a korean cosmetic company. the name of the shop was 'lanaige' which is french for something. the shop was glistening with plastic beauty. there were well spaced out plastic and glass bottles in every shade of every interesting color imaginable. there were large, oddly cut mirrors on the wall that one could stare into. i walked around the shop for twenty minutes not thinking where i was. it was commercialism at its finest. the well packaged, frivolous items were home to me. i was in the montgomery mall walking around with friends. i wanted to buy, buy, buy and never stop.

i didn't actually buy and foundation, lip gloss or anything else.

my friend's family doesn't run the shop. that job is left up to the korean business man. i imagine he's fat. my friend's family runs the only certified translation shop in all of long xuyen. they translate documents to and from chinese, german, english and french. i walked in and the mother asked me if i spoke french. i didn't so we spoke in vietnamese. a man walked in with a long ponytail and started speaking french with the father. he was getting married to a vietnamese girl. he was a belgian film star and fit the role. he had a metallic brief case (i thought he was selling diamonds at first), a shirt that was disturbingly unbuttoned, a thick pony tail that was graying and a large, golden nug of some sort hanging from his neck.

behind this korean cosmetic shop, there was a back room filled with languages and sounds that mixed and meshed together. the cultural mixture was wonderful.

tonight, i drank the water.

every time we play basketball, i end up dying for something do drink. we play at an elementary school and everyone tells me that it’s safe to drink from one faucet. one mistake you don’t make is drinking tap water here. if you want to end up with dysentery or some other disease that geases your insides and allows everything to just slide right through, drink the water. if you want to stay regular, drink things from a bottle that has a seal.

tonight, however, things were different. i was very thirsty and very tired. i walked over to the tap with the rest of the basketball players and stood in line. if they were able to drink the water, i should be fine. i have yet to hear of any of them passing out because of some mysterious bug they got from drinking the tap water.

i drank, but only a little. i had one small cup full. it tasted like dirt and metal all at the same time. it was warm and thick. it went down slowly. i didn’t enjoy it and it didn’t quench my thirst. i was also now paranoid. i felt the water sit in my stomach. it felt like a large bag of disease just waiting to burst. i sat out the next game and watched everyone else play. i had a cup full of tap water waiting to cause havoc. i wanted to see what it would do. as of now, i’m ok. who knows what will happen in the coming days.

vietnam made it past the qualifying rounds of football. this was the semi-finals. tonight they played malaysia for the rights to play on the championship game. would they be playing thailand for the most holy of seagames prizes? would they win or would they have to settle for playing myanmar for the humiliating bronze metal.

i watched the game with some of my friends from basketball. we sat in a room the size of my living room at home. well, maybe it was a bit bigger, but not much. i counted and there were 63 people in the coffee shop. everyone was seated on small chairs behind hilariously small tables. we were all facing the same direction. we were looking at a television that couldn’t have been more than a foot high. it was mounted high on the wall.

everyone was wearing their vietnamese finest. we all had shirts on. i was wearing a vietnamese football jersey that i bought in ho chi minh city. it has the number 10 on the back. that’s important for later in the story. most of the girls had stickers on their faces. they were all red flags with a large yellow star in the middle. the boys all had bandanas on their foreheads that said a number of things. “vietnam is invincible” “vietnam victory” and “vietnam is resolved to win” someone gave me a bandana that said “vietnam is resolved to win”. i wore it.

the game started and vietnam came out with passion and energy. they slid and tackled. they jumped and sprinted. they used every bit of their energy to achieve the victory.

at one end of the stadium there was a large sign that said ‘vietnam 3 – 1 malaysia’. it wasn’t an amateur sign. it wasn’t made out of cardboard and there were no markers involved. this sign was at least 50 feet across and 10 feet high. i thought it incredibly audacious. who on earth would commission a sign that predicted the score of an international sporting event? also, there were a number of huge, professional signs that said ‘vietnam is invincible’. everyone believed it.

the first goal was scored by vietnam. all the coffee shops across the nation rose to their feet and screamed. everyone started beating on things. at first, people hit ash trays. then, they started to bang plates. then, someone brought out a whole lot of pots and pans and handed them around. someone had raided their mother’s kitchen. then, all the waiters somehow made some sort of whistling humming thing a ma gigger that made quite a lot of noise. they banged and crashed all night long.

vietnam was rolling to victory and no one had a care in the world.

at half time we watched ricky martin sing and shake.

the second half began and everyone believed the signs; vietnam was invincible. there was nothing malaysia could do to score. malaysia (yellow) would charge down the field and vietnam (red) would casually pass the ball back up field. it was as if the field was tilted in vietnam’s favor. everything they did was roses. it was all wonderful.

vietnam scored again. pandemonium. we would have hugged each other but, with that many people in such a small space, we could all barely stand up.

the game dragged on. each team had a few opportunities but nothing came of them. i started looking at my watch waiting for the final whistle. it seemed all the signs were telling the truth. all the signs except the 3 – 1 sign.

then the unthinkable happened. the malaysian goalie punted the ball. it was raining in hanoi and the ball tends to skip a bit when the pitch is wet. the goalie punted the ball hard and far. it seemed to carry and carry and carry. it flew all the way to the other team’s 18 yard line. there, it landed. it landed in a group of players (yellow and red, but the red was, up to this point, invincible). the ball skipped and lollygagged over the goalie’s head.

the last time i saw something like that was when i was in middle school. i went to a school called penn view christian school. we had a football team (then called soccer). i was a member of the team, but a member that did most of his participating from the right side of the bench. we had a goalie named eric kratz. he had a crew cut and was tall and thick. i remember one game in particular when he did the same thing (on a much shorter pitch (then called field)) to the opposing team’s goalie. agh, the memories.

no one said a word.

it turns out that, yes, a goal could be scored. our communal hopes were shattered. however, no matter. we were still winning and there was only 20 minutes left.

vietnam scored again. it was a beautiful goal scored by the player who was wearing number 10. everyone started pointing to me because i was wearing a vietnamese jersey with the number ten. everyone started calling me van quyen. that was my name tonight. so, the signs did not lie. it turns out that yes, vietnam was invincible and yes, the audacious sign that still limply hung from the side of the stadium was correct. vietnam would win 3 – 1. i would never doubt a sign again. there was only 5 minutes that remained and this sign led euphoria would continue. or so i thought.

with two minutes to go, malaysia scored again. it was a terrible goal. you see, there was a corner kick and it went through the legs of one, two, three people. yes, three people. the fourth person kicked it in. ok, the ground is a bit wet but under no circumstance should a ball go through one, two, three people’s legs on the way to a goal. just as under no circumstance should a ball bounce over the head of the opposing goalie after a eric kratz style kick.

so, it was only 3 – 2. at least i didn’t have to put much more faith in signs. i sat back and waited for the last few minutes to tick away.

malaysia scored again.

the coffee shop was silent. it was as if we all died in our seats, a gas leak or something. it was a bad dream that we would all wake up from and find ourselves shaking our heads and grinning. we would thank ourselves that it wasn’t reality.

could life go on? what if it was a tie and we went into extra time and lost? or lost in penalty kicks? what if we only won the bronze? what would the value of life be?

the vietnamese team was not about to find out. in the remaining injury time, we scored again. the unthinkable happened: three goals in three minutes. we rose to our feet and screamed. the banging and clanging continued but it was no matter. vietnam had won and one sign was right: ‘vietnam is invincible’.

we left on motorbikes and thus starts the second part of my story. what do you do after you have moved on to the finals in the seagames? you parade around town on your motorbikes. we drove, rather crawled, through the streets. the police had cornered off a track around town that we could all drive on. motorcycles and bicycles were driving 8-10 abreast on the streets. people were waving flags and shouting. people were screaming and singing. people were yelling “vietnam is invincible” “vietnam victory” and “ho chi minh forever”. i was the only foreigner in the whole lot and i got a lot of stares. my friends did a wonderful job averting the confusion associated with me participating in a vietnamese flag waving nationalistic event by showing everyone my jersey and telling them that my name was van quyen. i liked that. we yelled and honked and ambled through the streets. we were stuck in a hot, dusty whirlwind of vietnamese passion. i have never seen so many people in one place all celebrating the same thing. they were all driven by pure ecstasy. they were motivated by nationalism and pride. their country, their people had been wonderfully victorious.

they were a sea of traffic. it was a giant circle that stretched from the bridge to the church to the statue of uncle ton to the lake back to the bridge. it went on forever. we went around the loop once and took a break. we sat back and watched thousands upon thousands of people slowly drive past. it was electricity.

i tried to drive along side my friends slowly and watch. i watched the passion and the fervor. i have never seen anything like it in my life. my insides were pure adrenalin. i had played the game. i lived vicariously through their experience of living vicariously through the lives of 11 humans they had never met playing a strange game in a city thousands of kilometers away against a country they have never seen or have ever cared about.

i am doing my best to learn traditional vietnamese music. i know a few songs but they are all helplessly tinged with western musical taste. they follow melodic patterns and have choruses. i want to learn something authentic.

one form of music that is very authentic to the south of vietnam is called ‘cai luong’. the word ‘cai luong’ literally means reform. this style of music was developed after wwi. it was originally a kind of opera. there would be a plot line and the stories would gently flow into song. the songs are very popular and they take a while to get used to. there is no melody. the singer follows the tones of the words as they rise and fall. the singer determines what kind of stress to put on certain words. things follow a loose framework.

i have spent the last few days trying to learn a very famous ‘cai luong’ song called ‘hoa mua trang’ or white corn flower. the word corn flower might sound a bit strange but a corn flower is rather beautiful. it floats on the water and has petals that violently shoot from the middle.

the song is about a person who was traveling across the river with a group of soldiers. the driver of the boat told them the story of their life. the story focused around the time the americans were fighting in the south. the story is about how this flower came to symbolize her, her mother and her life floating on the river. it’s amazing how poetic the song is when compared to the harshness of war.

i have done my best to translate:

I took a group of soldiers across the river. The boat driver told me a story about a girl. I asked, “what is this girl’s name?” She didn’t reply but pointed to the wild flowers on the river. I asked, “which wild flower is that?” She said, “Corn flowers.” I wondered if she was joking. In a forest of flowers, who pays any attention to the Corn flower?
She suddenly looked at me with much compassion, with her hand she softly stroked my hand and said, “Keep calm.” She told me that here there were no orchids, no lilies, no roses they only have flowers that suffer through the morning dew and sunlight but the color is not faded, but rather it is pure white. The Corn Flowers meets the sun which makes them more brilliant. The Corn Flowers meet the moon which draws a sparkling stroke of light on them. The Corn Flowers are born in the good-natured mountain forests and they beautify life with perfume.
An invader thunderously came into the countryside like a violent whirl-wind, springs quieted and birds suddenly stopped singing. On the river’s dock, my mother said goodbye as father went to follow the fire burning in the woods. At that time, mother became a boat driver and from that time on, I also grew up. The guests that cross the river complement her. They say she is gentle and time makes her beauty splendid. Out of nowhere an official named Chau appeared and wanted to buy us with his silver.
Who buys and sells the Corn Flower? Mother couldn’t agree on a price that would satisfy the official. One day, mother’s heart was broken because I was taken away by the official. Mother looked like she didn’t know what to do. She went to the bank of the river and watched the current flow. When my mother started to remember her husband, she would go over the burnt fields. When she remembered me she would admire the Corn Flower. Mother’s ears perked up when she heard the sound of the pagoda’s bell and every pedal of the Corn Flower would fill her hair. Mother had vivid dreams where she saw me die an atrocious death at the hands of the enemy. My father knew that I was taken away by the enemy and it brought him great pain. The August Revolution drove the misery away. Father constantly returned and admired the Corn Flowers.
The Corn Flower of my parents became more and more beautiful. The Revolution came back to me like a bird with a frayed wing flying through the early Autumn sky. To see me joining the army of the Revolution was like a pure tear gushing forth. To see my countryside for a second and to see the change, to think of it as only a dream. Alas, the Corn flower of my mother, to imagine it so weak and smeared with the color of dust and sand. The Revolution let me experience how I was a pedal drifting in the translucent eyes of my mother. On the side of the river, there was the ferry rushing so quickly like so many years ago. I would row groups of soldiers early in the afternoon and see them off at the other shore. A group of young men would walk up the road towards the battlefield. Now I realize the value of the Corn Flowers. They are my mother carrying people up the river to meet their desires. They are the people living out the desires of my father and brothers.
My parents are the people that went first. Me and the boat lady continue the work of those that came before. From that autumn to now, the Corn Flower still blooms sweetly, filling the spring river as the ferries carry groups of soldiers. Whose shadows are they? Those as pure as the Corn Flower.

today was jota’s birthday and here is what he did.

0:00-10:00 sleeping

10:00 wakes up. stretches. the dog has two kinds of stretches. he puts his two front paws out and leans all the way back until his chest touches the bed. his second stretch is to push himself all the way backwards. he normally sits on the bed for a few minutes looking disoriented. sometimes he cleans himself. today i walked over to the bed and wished him a happy birthday.

10:00-10:30 random ambling around the room. he steps off the bed and gets a drink of water. he’ll walk to the door, sniff, walk back to the bed, sniff and then cycle through the room. he’s basically making sure everything is ok. he does a good job.

10:30-11:00 walk. when we take the dog for a walk, he bounds, sniffs and goes to the bathroom. he inevitably scares a few girls along the way. he will spend a few minutes smelling an otherwise indistinguishable mound of dead grass. he’ll spend an eternity deciding where he is going to go to the bathroom. he sniffs and circles and sniffs and looks and finally makes a decisions. today we didn’t see any other dogs which is a good thing. if we see another dog, he’ll chase it.

11:00-12:00 we all went to lunch. when we go to lunch, we tie the dog up outside. we can’t leave him in the room because he’ll fiddle through the trash and take all the good bits up on the bed. he seems to enjoy being on guard duty. he likes to dig and sit in the shade. we tie him up and he watches us leave.

12:05-12:30 jota’s present. we bought him half of a smoked pig’s head for a birthday present. we also made him pose with his birthday hat on. he didn’t like the had but has been working very hard at finishing off the head. he didn’t understand why we were being so incredibly nice to him.

12:30-12:45 he bores with the head and starts going after flies. we have gigantic flies here. they are about the size of a dime and jota has taken it upon himself to rid this part of the world from them. he chases them around the room and snaps at them with his jaw. he is rarely successful and when he is, he ends up being more confused than anything. he caught one today and, after killing it, he just watched it for a minute or as it lay dead on the floor.

12:45-13:45 sleep. when we are up and he is asleep, he sleeps on the far corner of the bed making sure that he can see our every move.

13:45-14:30 he is up and playing with his toys. he has a number of squeaky toys that he throws around. sometimes he decides to find them all and pile them on the bed. he also has a stuffed bull which he was especially violent with today. he tore all the stuffing out of it and left its mangled, wooly corpse on the floor.

14:30-16:30 sleep. lots of playing wears him out.

16:30- 17:30 guarding outside while we get food. no one is exactly sure what he does out there, but we all end up speculating.

17:30-19:00 we all eat on the roof. it’s a special, jota celebration. we give him all the left over bones but he seems to be full from the pig earlier today. he walks around and never strays far. we sing happy birthday for him and he only looks when we say his name in unison. i think he’s a bit worried.

19:00-23:59 sleep. he’ll wake up whenever anyone comes in the room or goes out. he’s a big fan of barking. i don’t understand why he barks when people come in or out. he doesn’t realize that he isn’t really scaring them at all. well, he’s only 1.

total of 18 hours sleeping.




the hat reads 'happy b-day jota #1 dog

there’s a new dorm building going up next to our home. i stopped to watch them work while i was taking the dog for a walk.

they were pouring concrete into steel frames. the frames were tall and long and, i guess, will be used for something structural and important. the frames were spread out in an open patch of grass. they were working on the last column of the day.

there was a greenish-blue cement mixer off to one side. it had three people working at mixing the cement. they would pour in water from a large bucket and open a bag of mixture. once the mixture was finished fermenting, they would turn the mixer over and it would pour out onto a large piece of plywood. two of the men mixing the cement didn’t have shirts on. they were thin and muscular. the third had a long sleeve shirt on. he looked hot.

the next people to work on the beam filling project were two men who were incharge of keeping the concrete in a small pile and shoveling it into buckets. the one man spent most of his time shoveling and the other man spent most of his time collecting what was left over. they both wore no shirts and were covered in cement. the cement was dry in some places and it looked like grey skin.

next came the women. there were six women who formed a bucket line from the mixer to the beam. they wore long sleeves and long pants. they all had hats on and bandanas to shield them from the sun. they wanted white skin. they would sweat all day carrying buckets of cement and wear long pants and long shirts. they would cover every square inch of their body except their eyes for white skin.

the buckets were squat with a wire handle. they were not very big, maybe a gallon at most and none were filled to the top. the first women would pick up one from the ground. she would hand it to the second women who was barely in arms reach. this would start the momentum of the buckets. the second women would let gravity take its course and hold on for the ride. the bucket would swing from her right to her left. when it peaked on her left, the third lady was there to grab it. she, covered head to toe and standing in the blazing sun light, would take the bucket and let it fall. it would swing up to her left side and the fourth lady would grab it. she followed suit and it eventually reached the sixth lady. she was in charge of pouring the concrete into the steel frame as quickly as possible. by the time she was done pouring another bucket was on the way. normally, the buckets would come without interruption. they would follow one another and the women would grab, swing while holding the weight of the concrete, turn back and repeat. if someone didn’t do their job, the whole system broke down quickly. one girl had a problem grabbing the bucket. the fourth girl would swing it to the fifth girl. she was taller than the rest and wearing a pink bandana. she would miss it with her hand. the fourth girl would have to lift the bucket against gravity and try to hand it to the girl. lifting was hard work. sometimes it took two hands and the rest of the girls would have to wait. the fifth girl couldn’t have been popular.

there were other men there too. one man who stood with a shovel over the steel frame. he made sure the concrete was even. another man walked around and supervised. a couple people seemed to be on break and a crowd of students watched. the whole process was fascinating. there was something like 14 people working on filling a steel beam. to think, these beams will be the sole support for a new building and they’re being built with rubber buckets, tired ladies and a few men smoking cigarettes.

i have the cat virus.

a few days ago i noticed some red spots on my face and my left hand. i didn’t think anything of them because, in this tropical environment, we’re exposed to a number of strange flying and crawling things that bite. inevitably you end up with odd bug bites that sometimes hang around for a few days. this, however, was different.

the red marks stayed and grew. they didn’t itch as all red blotches on the skin are supposed to do, but they hurt like a bruise. i put some antibiotic cream on them for a day or so hoping that would cure them. it turns out it was the cat virus.

after about three days i began to worry a bit. the blotches grew and hurt more. they one on my arm turned white in the middle. i asked my friend if i could go and see a doctor.

the doctor’s office was in the middle of long xuyen. it was on the bottom floor of someone’s house. the sign out front said ‘dermatologist and heart disease’ two doctors were working in the same ‘office’. the ‘office’ was two pieces of white wood that were hanging from the ceiling. the room was about 10 feet long and 15 feet wide. the actual office was hidden behind the hanging wood. the waiting room was a row of metal chairs along a wall. we sat and listened to motorbikes and cars scream by.

i was waiting behind three old people. they were all accompanied by younger children and all had a difficult time getting up and around. one old man had spots on his face. one old lady had a sore on her arm and the third old lady had a mystery illness that could not be immediately seen. i waited thought about what it would be like to be old and have skin problems in long xuyen.

finally the doctor arrived. he had been out eating lunch. his motorcycle was not new, but respectable. it had a number of stickers advertising condoms on the front. his hair was long and he wore a hat from the 50’s. he treated the old people first and then it was my turn. i walked in the doctor’s office and sat down. i leaned against one of the wooden walls and it swayed back and forth. there was a short bed to one side, the doctor sitting in the middle, a nurse talking to the doctor and a young girl who handled the money and the medicine. the doctor asked me what was wrong with my arm. i explained what was wrong. he looked at my arm under a large lamp with a magnifying glass. he looked at my eye for a long while. he said something quickly to the nurse and she agreed.

the diagnosis. i had cat virus.

i have no idea what cat virus is or how one can acquire the virus without any contact with cats. i have no idea why one would call something a cat virus if it created red splotches on your skin that hurt like bruises. it should be called the painful red blotch virus. i guess there’s a reason for the name.

i was given medicine and told to rest at home for three to four days. i’m fine. no one worry. i’ve got jota by my side and a good book. the dog’ll surely chase away any cat in me. (couldn’t resist the pun. sorry.)

ny had a black-out and it was the front page of every newspaper in the world. long xuyen has a black-out and no one notices. people here really don’t even seem bothered.

it’s quite normal to have mini-black-outs for entire days. normally, the black-outs are confined to the summer months and then they only last for a morning, an afternoon or throughout the night. today we had a black-out at the most inopportune time.

i was about to print off a test for my business class. we have the final examination this week and everyone has been studying hard for a long while. i was about to take the test to get printed when the unthinkable happened. all the lights went off. the air conditioner growled to a halt and everything became quiet.

i drove around town trying to find an internet café with electricity so i could print off the test. i drove to the other side of long xuyen, waited in a long line and finally printed the test off. i drove again to find a photo copy shop with electricity. the shop was jammed with other poor souls looking for power. i wasted half my day trying to find electricity. i came home to a stuffy, dark room and took a long nap. we end up relying so much on technology and only realize our addiction when something goes awry.

every time i send an email i imagine what the weather is like in america. i say, 'bet the leaves are turning', or, 'wonder how cold it's getting', or, 'wow, i guess spring's just around the corner.'

besides the fact that i'm getting more and more corny as days pass, i'm being quite serious.

before writing those brief lines, i always shut my eyes and try to imagine home. the beginning of december was always a disappointment for me when i was a child. i always assumed that it should be colder or that we should be having snow, which would obviously cancel classes. i used to bundle up and be frustrated that we couldn't play football in the back yard. the ground was usually getting too hard. only rarely did it snow.

when i was older, the beginning of december was a beautiful time. i used to wear plain sweaters and dark coats. i used to wear beanies and gloves. i enjoyed looking at the naked trees. they were skeletons without their leaves. the hard ground didn't bother me because i never bothered to play outside in the grass. the cool air was biting and reminded me that i was alive. the frost on the car window in the morning was art.

the closer winter comes to pennsylvania, the more i miss home. i was walking around this morning fairly early and something in the air felt like a beautiful july morning. i reminisced back to the days i would get up early for work. i remembered so much. still, i do miss days walking around covered in thick clothes. i miss seeing my breath and naked trees. i miss the hard ground and opening your window when you're driving to feel a rush of freezing air push past you and through the car.

school has finally ended. we have finals and nothing more. i have been worked raggad for the past few months and now i have a chance to sit back, read and relax a bit.

i left my last class feeling like i was leaving highschool for the last time. i was humming that one song by that one terrible band in the 1980's. 'schooooooool's out for tha summer....... schooooools been blown to pieces...' and so on. i never thought teacher's had those same feelings of elation when school ended. i never knew they were really skipping in their head as they slowly trudged down the sidewalks.

i am now giddy. i am giddy enough to post a picture of what i look like with my teacher's hair. some people have emailed me asking me about it. here's what i look like. i am sorry for all of those who had higher expectations and dad, yes, i do look like i did in my 5th grade picture wearing a blue shirt and a side-part.

english speaking club.

this is the last one for a few months. the semester is ending and teachers are getting a well deserved break.

tonight we had about 120 students come for games, prizes and lots and lots of yelling. we play games that involve powerpoint or some simple computer program. we play 'box of fortune' which is obviously a smaller version of 'wheel of fortune' except without ms. white, the wheel, pat and the flashing letters. the students pick pieces of paper from a box hoot if they get money, yell of they get a lot of money, moan if they loose their turn and scream if they get bankrupt. by the end, if it's a good game, we have about a hundred students standing, clapping and yelling things in vietnamese.

tonight we had some teachers there from other departments and they also got into the fervour. they started in the back quietly observing and, by the end, were standing in the front translating what i was saying in a high-pitched yelp. i had about three translators tonight; they seemed to be all fighting for the job. i kept giggling.

the end of speaking club always is dramatic. we give the 'necklace of greatness' to whichever group performed the best (they are divided into groups depending on what department they are in). the students sit quietly as i ponder the decision. i wear the necklace of greatness, which is actually a silver knob you would screw into the end of a banister tied onto the end of a piece of black cloth that was ripped from a cape i wore during halloween, and furrow my brow. the time comes for a decision. i exhale slowly and dramatically. i put on my most serious face and, in my lowest, most authoritative tone, announce that economics has won tonight. everyone stands and cheers. they come up, i put the necklace of greatness on them and we all leave happy and tired.