days like this make you want to live forever. cool breezes seem to follow you everywhere and people seem to smile a bit more broadly.

trees all dance in the wind and ants seem to have a bit of a shuffle in their step. bicycles seem to be the best way of getting around but you really don’t even notice the rumble of motorcycles. food bubbles in your bowl and life is generally sweeter.

the vast, blue, vietnaemse sky is the same sky that watched over me when i was a young boy in harleysville. the stars still come out at night; a quadrillion security guards with lanterns. the moon still peers down like one giant, white pupil. the pupil of god.

i’m so wonderfully small on this huge planet. i’m so wonderfully huge in this room. i’m so wonderfully weathered and yet so beautifully innocent. vietnamese people think just like me. they’re shaped by their bowls of rice and noodles. i was shaped by potato pie and shoofly. they’re molded by mosquito nets and ancestral alters. i was molded by heavy, hand-made quilts and an arching graveyard that you could see from our kitchen window.

this world’s a wonderful place if you let it be.

we had a test in speaking class today. you are powerful when you give tests.

we had been talking about addictions. we covered addictions to food, work, smoking and drinking. it was an interesting topic that was able to spark a good deal of conversation. our test was a monologue. they could choose any two of the addictions that we covered and compare them. they were asked to decide whether one addiction was more dangerous than another.

everything went smoothly. all the students ambled to the front of the class, presented shyly and sat back down. there were giggles when someone stumbled over a word and murmurs when a speech was rather dull. i sat in the back of the classroom and graded. i sat handing out fate.

the students didn’t understand addictions to food. many compared being addicted to work and being addicted to food. they believed that being addicted to work was a valuable thing. it showed that you were diligent (not a word they used), motivated and a go-getter. they mentioned that, by being a workaholic, one was able to earn more for their family and increase their standard of living. they compared this to compulsive eating.

compulsive eating, they said, was something silly. they didn’t really know many people who sat around like couch potatoes all day. they have never opened a bag of ruffles or set foot into a mcdonalds. people could easily lose weight.

there is not one student in the class who does not have a pronounced set of cheekbones. they’re not starving or even hungry, they just don’t have the fast-food culture that we do. i explained to them that over 60% of americans are overweight. in one ear, out the other.

in another ten years, i’m sure they’ll have to deal with obesity. right now, it’s not their main concern to say the least.

i used to take electricity very much for granted. when it’s shut off all day, things change. the traffic lights stop working, the restaurants mostly shut down, school comes to a screeching halt. today there was no electricity.

normally i sit and read in my room. the fluorescent lights illuminate everything with a terribly pale glow. today i read in an open-air café. i was preparing for my english literature class. it was incredibly refreshing to read outside in the blazing sunlight and it made me felt alive, real and wonderful.

the air was fresh and poured all around me. nothing was illuminated and the hum of traffic quickly became white noise. everything felt so much more alive and peaceful reading outside.

i think that we spend too much of our lives indoors working, reading and generally living under the glow of terribly fake fluorescent lights. they make everything look like the morgue. our skin turns green. the pages in our books turn yellow. nothing is natural.

the electricity finally came back after dinner. the pale, fluorescent lights now glare from above. life can be so much better when it’s simple.

the dog was wearing jewelry. whose idea it was, i don’t know. well, i do know. it was a small, green buddha that had much sentimental value.

i was walking the dog and the leash was attached to his collar like a businessman and their tie; not quite strangling him but seriously hindering his movement. the small, buddha fell off.

jack and i went searching for the buddha in the leaves. small, greenish-brown leaves that each could have been our little pendant. we searched a large, rectangular area while the dog sat tied to a bench.

first, students came up to us and asked us what we were doing. secondly, they started to look too. thirdly, the security guard came up to us and questioned us. he started looking too. thirdly, a small, frail man who normally fixes the wooden benches and desks came up to us and offered us a few brooms to sweep away the leaves. within five minutes we had about eight or ten people helping us in our quest for the small, illusive, green buddha.

after about ten minutes we all gave up. the area was too large and the leaves were a mosaic of complexity. one of the students came up to me and asked me what, exactly, we were looking for. i made a mistake.

i said it was a small, green buddha that our dog was wearing. what? why was your dog wearing something so valuable that you spent the last fifteen minutes sweeping away leaves? i didn’t know how to explain sentimental value. i left feeling dejected.

we put it on the dog because we wanted him to look attractive to other dogs. our dog is lonely and needs a girlfriend. we walk him around the neighborhood and, with the small, illusive, green buddha, our dog seemed to be quite a bit more handsome. the female dogs would stare a bit longer as he happily trotted by. the male dogs would look with a bit more spite in their beady, black eyes. it all turned out to be a mistake.

everyone knows that, if they see a small, green, illusive buddha, they should come to us and we’ll quickly give it back to its rightful owner. our dog looks depressed without it.

saigon is full of white people. they lurk around every corner. they ride in every taxi and they all have black socks and large backpacks that they wear on their chest.

in long xuyen there is only jack, charles and me. a population of a few hundred thousand vietnamese people swallows us whole. i have become used to the absurd situation. i have become used to being the albino rhino running with the thousands of other, normally colored rhinos. i understand.

when i lived in ho chi minh city i never really noticed that many foreigners. i never saw them around every corner and sitting in every other café enjoying a coffee. it’s amazing how your point of view can change so rapidly.

i want to stand on the street corner and yell, “i live here! i am not a tourist!”, but i know it is only because i want people to know that i am not here for the t-shirts and museums. i am here for other reasons, reasons unexplainable even to myself. i know i can’t stand on street corners and yell. i know no one would understand and i would only look like a moron.

back in long xuyen i feel at home. i enjoy driving my bicycle around and having people stare at me. their albino rhino has returned. i feel so much more real here. when i was in saigon i felt so real too, but things have changed.

a mass of white pours out of the local elementary school. all traffic stops out of necessity. the students are dressed in their clean, white shirts with small red scarves. they pour out, some ambling across the street laughing and others filling the sidewalks.

the main street here in long xuyen is forced to stop every day around this time. the candy vendors eagerly stand ready to hawk their goods. as i pass, slowly walking beside my bicycle through this eager mass of white shirts and red handkerchiefs, i am greeted with many friends, “hello!”’s.

the students normally play in front of their giant, u-shaped school. they play in circles singing, dancing and generally yelling. they kick small balls and boys run after girls. they kick up large clouds of dust and are completely focused on themselves. their universes revolve around their dusty playground completely covered with smiling children.

they wear square backpacks with cartoon characters on them. they look like uncomfortable briefcases with two, small, shoulder straps. they are red and yellow and pink and the children look impressively important when they carry them by their side. they look like miniature businessmen with colorful cases. i’m sure they’re all full of crumpled up papers, crayons and an assortment of old candy wrappers.

my life is different but only subtly. my universe still revolves around my physical experiences and my needs are generally satisfied by people who sell sweets. oh, and my briefcase is full of old candy wrappers. i’ve moved on from crayons though, to colored pens.

today we spontaneously decided to travel to the big city. we’re preparing for an incredibly busy month of march where i will end up teaching twenty five periods a week.

so, to go to saigon, we’re forced to leave our dog with our housekeeper. she doesn’t live here and commutes to and from work. it was incredibly heart wrenching.

i was standing on my balcony watching our housekeeper try to corral jota while keeping her motorcycle upright. jota wouldn’t come and was obliviously playing in the large grass.

i walked down the steps to see if i could help. jota came running to me before i said anything. he jumped in my arms and licked my face as he normally does. i walked him over to our housekeeper and gave him to her. she thanked me and started up her motorcycle. jota kept staring at me and struggling to get free. he wanted to come home.

our housekeeper drove away and the dog looked over her shoulder until they were out of sight. i was frozen in place watching our little boy being sucked away into the unknown. what if she would drop him while she was driving and he would be covered in brush burns when we returned? what if worse would happen?

i felt fear and i hate fear. i guess i have a small understanding of what my parents must go through when they say good bye to me. i know my experience pales in comparison but i’m beginning to understand what compassion really means.

the small, dirt road that leads from my apartment to the main campus of the university is littered with interesting things. roving packs of dogs stand guard or bask in the sun. random chickens and roosters peck in the dirt and run frantically when a motorcycle or a bicycle comes their way. children with backpacks walk to and fro talking and laughing.

there is an entire family that lives on this street. they have two beds that are situated along side one of the university’s walls. during the day, the family sells cigarettes and takes care of their children. at night, the mosquito nets go up and the family goes to sleep. it’s surreal driving home at night with only the moon to light the road and seeing two pastel mosquito nets covering a sleeping family.

they have a couple of children who stare at us when we pass. the youngest is about two and the oldest is either five or six. she waves happily at us and says, “hello!”, in her piercing voice. if we respond she runs to her mother and playfully hides behind her.

the rest of the day the family sits around talking, playing cards and generally looking content. they live on the street guarded by stray dogs, roosters and pastel mosquito nets. what does it take to make us content?

someone asked me to write about how it felt to be in vietnam while our country is preparing for another war.

what is it like when your country slides on the cowboy had and pulls out the six shooter? what’s it specifically like to be in vietnam? it’s frustrating.

the vast majority of vietnamese people think that the war’s a sham. they believe that america is going about this all wrong and that other alternatives are present. some vietnamese people are very vocal with their opinions. i was asked by one student in class what i thought of the whole situation. i’ve been approached by random people on the street wondering what i thought. i get a sinking feeling in my stomach every time someone asks me where i’m from.

“which country are you from?” stomach turns, head cocks to one side and shifts to the ground in anticipation of the reaction, “america.”

i’m not ashamed of where i come from. i’m not ashamed of the people that raised me or the community that i was brought up in. i’m ashamed of what our country has come to stand for internationally.

are other countries jealous? well, that argument could be made. is their hatred solely based on jealously? that’s absurd. their hatred is based on so much more (and it is obviously not a simple, blind hatred of “freedom” as our president claimed after 9/11).

the hatred is based on small, selfish actions taken by our nation. for example, there is a problem in vietnam with catfish. the united states, in the interest of a few, large catfish farmers, has recently ruled that the catfish that vietnam sells to america is being sold under cost. they are dumping their catfish on the american market and driving american competition into the ground. before the anti-dumping ruling, the us tried to change the name of vietnamese catfish claiming that it was something different entirely. it was called “basa fish” and the american variety was still called “catfish”. the name change didn’t hurt sales for “basa” fish. good fish is good fish.

so, america wants vietnam to join the wto (world trade organization) and vietnam is complying. they’re following all of the restrictions and freeing up their markets. they are being told that they should stop protecting their national industries from foreign investment. free trade is good. then the us goes and says that it is going to protect its catfish industry from vietnamese intrusion. this ruling hurts about 300,000 poor catfish farmers in and around long xuyen. this ruling helps a handful of large, catfish industries. it is blatantly selfish.

i live along the banks of the mekong river. i see poor fishermen every day. when someone asks me what country i’m from i squirm. catfish is just one example of a foreign policy that’s for the birds.

some people believe that we’re going to kill thousands of civilians, create more recruits for bin laden (where is he by the way?), and generally destabilize the region. but, even if you think we can go into iraq, install a democratic (and american friendly) government and liberate a nation you still have to understand that small foreign policy reaches further than you can imagine. the catfish controversy has not created any pro-american sentiment here. ironically, i’ve created the most pro-american sentiment around here since who knows when.

we don’t live on a north american island. catfish is just one example. if you want another, just go to google.com, type in “virginia vietnam flag” and see what’s been cooking there.

living in my small, suburban enclave in eastern pennsylvania, i was never aware that such a variety of tropical fruits existed.

rambutan: it’s prickly and oh, so good. you crack it open with your teeth or hands and the outer cover peals away. the cover is incredibly intimidating for the sweet flesh. it looks like a small hand grenade covered with spikes. the inside is translucent and juicy. put the whole of the inside in your mouth and chew around the seeds. it wallows around and you never want to swallow.

jackfruit: it’s huge, it’s orangish and it’s deeeelicious. the outer cover of the fruit is almost as intimidating as the rambutan. i’ve never had it ripe but it’s wonderful dried. we have huge jackfruit trees outside of our building. they grow preposterously large. some are as large as a toddler except covered with spikes and filled with tropical goodness.

dragon fruit: a stranger fruit couldn’t have been created by a demented child. the outside is fire pink and tough. small, green leaves grow down towards the stalk’s base like shingles on a roof. the texture of the cover is rubber and styrofoam. grab an end and peal away. the inside is one giant, sweet, white kiwi. the juices drip off of your chin and onto your shirt and the small seeds lodge in your teeth but it’s all worth it. when you’re finished, all you have is a pink carcass ready for the trash.

milk apples: they look like real apples but they are full of milky flesh. you can eat them one of two ways. you can either slice them into quarters and scoop out the flesh and seeds with your teeth or you can squeeze them in your hands until they have softened, cut the top open, and drink. be careful of the skin though. it has a terrible aftertaste something like gnawing on a candle.

somehow these trees and vines sprung from this jungle ground centuries ago. the miracle plants take the earth and combine it in fantastic ways. filtering out some goodness here and siphoning some other from over there. it’s amazing what dirt can become.

last night we were taken to the only disco in long xuyen.

i have traveled to dance clubs in america and spain and find them to be fascinating. hundreds of people all bouncing and gyrating this way and that to bouncing music so powerful it seems to even control the beat of your heart.

in america clubs vary from the small, bluffton variety to the larger philadelphia variety. in philadelphia, clubs are meccas for the insecure to dance their fears away in a place that removes the majority of your senses. you can’t hear anything because the music is too loud. a conversation requires a trip to the bathroom. you can’t see anything because the lights are either off or randomly flashing in your eyes. there are also roving bands of beefy men dressed in black making sure everything is kosher. you have to walk through metal detectors and pay ten dollars to enjoy all of this.

in spain clubs were slightly different. well, i take that back. things were exactly the same except they were open much later. they usually closed at five or six in the morning while the american variety closes from two to three.

this vietnamese club was different in a number of ways. you entered the club feeling quite important. there were black doors and curtains and large men standing about. you could hear the music thumpidy-dumping from inside and were sure people were having lots of fun. you walked in past the head security guard (who was wearing a shirt that looked like it belonged to someone who piloted planes in the 80’s and old, army issue pants) and entered the allure.

inside you found table after table of people sitting around talking. talking in a dance club. the music was still deafening and the lights still had a habit of blinding you whenever you began to look around but people were sitting around trying to have conversations. oh, yes, there was a small dance floor but it was no bigger than my living room. it sank into the floor somewhere in the middle and the tables and chairs were placed around in a semi-circle.

most of the people there were high school students. they had dyed hair and the newest fashions on. it was valentines day.

the dance floor was empty when our group entered. it slowly filled (it’s not hard to fill a fifteen by fifteen foot space) and people bounced aimlessly as everyone else tried to jabber over the thump of the bass. in the middle of the show there was a valentines day raffle. everyone sat around waiting to see who would win what and, don’t you know, a girl from our group had a winning ticket. being shy, she didn’t want to go to the front so they decided that i should go up. i wasn’t really a part of this decision and found myself being dragged up by another girl. so, i found myself in front of a large group of high school students with an older lady that i didn’t even know about to accept a prize that i didn’t even win.

the man with the microphone was a small man with a happy, round face. he had a large mole hair growing from the left side of his neck. he asked us our names and we answered. he found out i spoke some vietnamese and wanted me to say something in front of everyone. by this point my legs were actually shaking. i’m pathetic.

i said some ramblings and everyone clapped and they gave us our prize. i went back to my seat and the dancing (if that’s what it can be called) commenced.

the dry season was aptly named. about a month or so ago, some heavenly being turned off the spigot. since then things have slowly turned from soggy to wet to moist to damp to dry to arid to dune-like.

the dirt road outside of my home used to be a small river overflowing with muddy goodness. the river has turned into a sand pile and biking becomes exponentially more difficult. driving a chinese made schwinn in the sand is a challenge. small, grip-less tires are no match for rocks and loose dirt. one minute the bike is firmly rested beneath your body and the next it is sliding oddly to one side.

dust overtakes everything. a small wind can kick up quite a cloud and one has to clear small dirt chunks from their eyes when traveling.

if some heavenly body turned off the spigot, they also turned up the thermostat on our collective oven. the temperature has steadily risen the past few weeks. it went from brutally hot to scorching hot to could-fry-an-egg-on-any-sunlit-surface hot. they say that the temperature will only continue to rise until may.

the sun also plays tricks on your skin. it has a nasty habit of burning it. my face is the color of a rose and my arms are a bit brighter. my feet are tanned but my legs are pasty white. (i have to wear long pants to be a teacher but still am afforded the comfort of sandals) i met two dutch people who were bicycling around the mekong. sunscreen must not have reached that part of the world because they obviously hadn’t applied any. their faces were beacons. it looked like they had fallen into a vat of red food coloring except their hair was still white.

two seasons doesn’t make for too much diversity. we don’t have the leaves that slowly fall and die in the autumn. we don’t have the blistering cold and exciting snows of winter. we don’t have the rebirth of spring that makes everything lush, green and wonderful. we do happen to have the scorching heat of summer. it’s like i’m standing on 52nd and market at the end of july surrounded with small campfires and covered head to toe in crisco. the first rain of the rainy season will be incredibly refreshing. i’m already daydreaming about it.

there’s no need to throw out old tennis shoes. everything’s reusable.

my old shoes were in desperate need of repair. the humidity and ho chi minh city basketball had taken a toll on them. small holes had turned into larger holes. you could tell if my socks were dirty or clean. you could almost smell them simply by looking at them.

my friend, tri, told me that he could have them repaired in saigon. for a dollar thirty i have new shoes. well, relatively new. fixing a sneaker is a delicate process. one must take the soul from another shoe and place it on the old shoe. one must glue this soul in place and sew it around the edges. the old soul is thrown away and must wait for junkyard judgment day.

the holes were never fixed but the bottoms are nice. they squeak when i walk and i’m proud to be in my hybrid shoe with a new soul. if only it were that simple to purge our own souls. take them to the big city and have them replaced with a new, squeaky model. we could simply discard the old one and wipe away all the blemishes. i still suspect that it would only be cosmetic.

storefronts boarded up like there was a riot. the streets empty like something’s rotten in the air. all vendors and taxi motorcycles have fled to higher grounds. a small piece of paper blows across the street and your eye fixes on it. the only movement are flags blowing firmly in the breeze. the sky is blue and calm like you’re in the eye of a hurricane.

that’s what tet was like.

streets suddenly swarmed with people on every means of transportation available. people have flooded out from their warm caves and into the town. routine life has picked up again. the storm has passed, the floods have receded, the rottenness that was once in the air mysteriously vanished. all is normal again and all is hectic.

riding down the street on my bicycle, everything becomes an obstacle. buying a large chunk of banh bao for the dog is a chore. the sun is setting and nothing is clear. ghostly bicycles appear out of nowhere and disappear in the same instant. i almost hit a small child crossing the road.

banh bao is a doughy dog treat. it’s warm and soft and the middle is filled with pork and eggs. not a mixture of pork and eggs but rather whole, hard boiled eggs and minced pork.

you set it on the ground and watch the carnage ensue. jota goes right for the middle and devours the eggs and pork in swift gulps. he gnaws at the doughy part eventually polishing off a piece of bread and pork that’s about a third the size of him. he becomes thick and wobbles around. he’ll sleep for the next three hours and barely move after that until all the large, un-chewed pieces of bread and pig find there way through his itty-bitty stomach. he’s an eating machine and long xuyen has returned to normal.

phan van khai, the prime minister of vietnam, visited an giang university. that’s why i needed to buy shoes. i couldn’t show the leader of this country my unsightly toes.

we were told he was coming at nine o’clock in the morning. we got up early, groomed and primped and were ready for breakfast at eight. we were both wearing long sleeve shirts, ties, long pants and dress shoes. sweat poured down our backs. as we left campus, one of the friendly agricultural faculty members told us that the prime minister’s visit had been canceled. this chap had always been one to joke around and we weren’t sure if he was being serious or if he was pulling our leg.

it turns out he was only relaying what he had been told. the prime minister had only delayed his visit by an hour and a half. he was coming at ten thirty. the next hour and a half was spent on the internet gleaning as much information about the prime minister as we could. he’s led a fascinating life.

we arrived at school and there were already two long lines of students standing directly inside the gates. they were all dressed to the nines. boys all had long sleeve shirts and ties and the girls all wore ao dai dresses. each person held a small vietnamese flag and all the boys had tall, white hats on that said, “dai hoc an giang”, or, “an giang university.” we walked behind these lines and stood with the rest of the faculty that had gathered.

everyone stood mumbling in the hot, morning sun. heat waves rose up from the dusty earth. people passed outside the gate wondering what was going to happen and everyone inside the gate fixed their attention on the intersection in the distance. we all waited for his car to appear.

the prime minister’s entourage arrived. about fourteen cars all pulled up and circled in unison. the prime minister swooped out of his car but not before a large group of journalists surrounded him. they snapped pictures and scurried this way and that. he walked through the gate and between the two rows of students who were all silently waving their flags. he is a tallish man with a very strong face. his eyes seem to be stern yet full of curiosity. his hair is still brown and held fast to his head. you could see each individual comb mark and nothing was out of place. he wore a smart shirt and an even smarter tie. we walked past the students who were still silent. i expected there to be some sort of music. either a marching band or the soundtrack to some movie playing in the background. anything to heighten the moment.

he walked up the steps to where all of the faculty had gathered. we stood in reverence and someone finally started to clap. applause rang out from the school and the prime minister clapped too. everything felt wonderfully sincere.

we walked through the library and dr. xuan, the president of the university, talked to the prime minister about the benefits of computer technology. they talked quietly but were easily heard. the crowd remained eerily silent. he was introduced to charles, the scottish man who’s doing doctoral research here. charles said some eloquent words and the prime minister smiled and shook his hand. we were pushed towards the front of the pack. we stood silently by as the prime minister passed. dr. xuan made a passing reference to us as they walked by. the prime minister shook my hand and smiled. his visit was a short one and we were soon walking back our thin, dirt road towards home. sweat was pouring down inside the sauna that our long sleeved shirts had become. it didn’t really matter though. i never had the opportunity to meet the leader of a country before and this was no let down. he had an air about him that is indescribable. he had the glow of power.

phan van khai, the prime minister of vietnam, visited an giang university. that’s why i needed to buy shoes. i couldn’t show the leader of this country my unsightly toes.

we were told he was coming at nine o’clock in the morning. we got up early, groomed and primped and were ready for breakfast at eight. we were both wearing long sleeve shirts, ties, long pants and dress shoes. sweat poured down our backs. as we left campus, one of the friendly agricultural faculty members told us that the prime minister’s visit had been canceled. this chap had always been one to joke around and we weren’t sure if he was being serious or if he was pulling our leg.

it turns out he was only relaying what he had been told. the prime minister had only delayed his visit by an hour and a half. he was coming at ten thirty. the next hour and a half was spent on the internet gleaning as much information about the prime minister as we could. he’s led a fascinating life.

we arrived at school and there were already two long lines of students standing directly inside the gates. they were all dressed to the nines. boys all had long sleeve shirts and ties and the girls all wore ao dai dresses. each person held a small vietnamese flag and all the boys had tall, white hats on that said, “dai hoc an giang”, or, “an giang university.” we walked behind these lines and stood with the rest of the faculty that had gathered.

everyone stood mumbling in the hot, morning sun. heat waves rose up from the dusty earth. people passed outside the gate wondering what was going to happen and everyone inside the gate fixed their attention on the intersection in the distance. we all waited for his car to appear.

the prime minister’s entourage arrived. about fourteen cars all pulled up and circled in unison. the prime minister swooped out of his car but not before a large group of journalists surrounded him. they snapped pictures and scurried this way and that. he walked through the gate and between the two rows of students who were all silently waving their flags. he is a tallish man with a very strong face. his eyes seem to be stern yet full of curiosity. his hair is still brown and held fast to his head. you could see each individual comb mark and nothing was out of place. he wore a smart shirt and an even smarter tie. we walked past the students who were still silent. i expected there to be some sort of music. either a marching band or the soundtrack to some movie playing in the background. anything to heighten the moment.

he walked up the steps to where all of the faculty had gathered. we stood in reverence and someone finally started to clap. applause rang out from the school and the prime minister clapped too. everything felt wonderfully sincere.

we walked through the library and dr. xuan, the president of the university, talked to the prime minister about the benefits of computer technology. they talked quietly but were easily heard. the crowd remained eerily silent. he was introduced to charles, the scottish man who’s doing doctoral research here. charles said some eloquent words and the prime minister smiled and shook his hand. we were pushed towards the front of the pack. we stood silently by as the prime minister passed. dr. xuan made a passing reference to us as they walked by. the prime minister shook my hand and smiled. his visit was a short one and we were soon walking back our thin, dirt road towards home. sweat was pouring down inside the sauna that our long sleeved shirts had become. it didn’t really matter though. i never had the opportunity to meet the leader of a country before and this was no let down. he had an air about him that is indescribable. he had the glow of power.

i went to go shoe shopping for some undisclosed reason. that will remain a secret unless someone emails me and asks. shoe shopping is quite a chore.

i wear a size twelve shoe in america. in vietnam i will remain shoeless. every room is given one pair of sandals for use in the shower. my sandals are quite small and it’s not because they’ve under compensated. they never met such a giant.

we went to one shoe shop after another looking for suitable shoes. i needed something that would hide my disgustingly ugly toes from admiration. i needed something appropriate. the first shoe shop had nothing in my size. here, (and in europe and in the rest of the world) i would wear a forty six. i asked everyone and their mother where i could find an appropriate shoe in a size forty six. no one seemed to have anything remotely close.

we (jack and i) went to the first shoe shop. we asked what their biggest size was and they pulled out a forty three. we went to the next shop. they said they had a forty four in a couple of styles. i decided that i would try some on. one was a sandal but basically appropriate. i tried it on after squeezing and pushing for a few minutes. i had no socks on as is the custom. it fit but barely. my feet felt like they were in a pressure cooker. it was much hotter than my sandals and much tighter. i felt the very life being squeezed out of my toes. she asked if it hurt and i said with a grimace that it surely did.

the next shop said that they had a forty four also. i decided to try it on. it was a nice shoe with a dull front. i would have been happy buying it but, once again, it didn’t fit. i squeezed it on my foot (without socks) and suffered immeasurably. my feet began to sweat instantly. my body started soon after. i was a sweating, suffering shoe searcher.

we continued our holy, ambiguous quest. none of the other stores had anything close to a forty six. everyone else had forty threes or forty twos.

tomorrow i will go to the nameless event wearing some of jack’s shoes. he said that he bought some sandals that would be appropriate. he will give me his good shoes. i owe him for the fancy shoes i will wear tomorrow and i blame myself for my poor preparation. shoes were not designed for the mekong delta.

pounce. run a bit, slide. grab the dust broom with your mouth and swing your head back and forth violently. stare at it for a bit as it helplessly lies on the ground making sure you killed it. amble into the bathroom. stand on your hind legs and peer into the tub. search around the toilet looking for the source of the smell. lick the drain in the corner that’s full of old water because it never drains right. exit the bathroom and stare at the dust broom. lower your body to the ground and dart at it. you’re not quite coordinated enough to pounce quickly so you loose your footing a bit. grab the dust broom and swing it around again. stare. walk over to the wall and look for bugs. if you find one put it in your mouth. walk under the desk and lay there for a bit. get up. find one of jon’s shoes and stick your head in it as far as possible. smell and snort. pull your head out and eat the shoe laces. search around the trashcan. amble back into the bathroom because you’re still not sure where the smell is comming from. lick the drain some more. come back and chew on the phone chord. walk around the room smelling things and trying to put them in your mouth. pull things off of benches and chairs. hopefully you can find food somewhere. food or bugs. bugs are nice because they run around a bit before you eat them.

that’s what jota normally does because he’s terribly bored with us. we’re terrible parents. all day long we sit in our rooms reading or occupying ourselves with things that don’t involve bugs, other dogs or putting things in our mouths. i’m sure he’s mildly depressed but i’m no pooch psychiatrist.

dogs here are all tenth generation mutts. there are no two that look alike. there is the large grey dog with no tail and a pug nose that sits at the university’s gate. there is the very hairy dog with stubby legs and a wide body. he looks like he has a self esteem problem. there is the small, lean dog with ears that stick straight up and odd blotches all over its body. he is the alpha dog. then there’s jota: small, floppy ears and well proportioned legs.

they roam in packs. they all run around at night and dig and play and bark at each other and, i’m sure, at other packs. the other night i watched four dogs dig a hole next to a coconut tree. they took turns butting each other out of the way and yelping. jack and i are not nearly that interesting. i’m reading “great expectations” and jota will have none of it.

our poor little beast still hasn’t learned how to control his bladder. he has it down somewhat but, when he does make a mistake, we punish him. one of our favorite methods is to give him a quick bath. there is no hot water here which really isn’t a problem for us. it’s at least eighty every day. we put the dog in the shower and he yelps and cries. what sadistic parents we are. i’ve never seen an animal that’s wearing a fur coat shiver for so long. he sits on the roof in the late afternoon sun and shivers pathetically. he looks like an orphan or a boy that lost his favorite toy or maybe an orphan that lost its only toy.

debacles come in all shapes and sizes. you can have simple misunderstandings or instances that seriously impact.

this was a combination of small debacles.

first we couldn’t get tickets to chau doc. chau doc is a small town that is nestled along the cambodian boarder. it is home to the lady pagoda and some quaint mountain. we’ve been told that you can hire people to carry you up this mountain if you can’t make it up under your own strength. you sit in a hammock between them as they struggle along. this, i wanted to see.

the bus companies were making too much money running between long xuyen and ho chi minh city. they were in no mood to travel short distances. most prices are slightly inflated during the lunar new year and bus tickets are one of them. the price for a one-way ticket went from 40,000 to 80,000.

communication was a problem. they said that the bus would leave at noon, then one, then two. we sat, and sat and sat eventually giving up. that was the first debacle.

the second debacle happened when we tried to eat lunch. we ordered bun bo hue which is noodles, beef and broth all fashioned in the styling of hue city. it’s a bit spicy and not too filling. we asked for the bill and the waiter quoted an outrageous price. it was three times what would normally be paid, or so we thought. we were sitting with all of our bags and looked like tourists. we thought we were being had.

we told the waiter that we lived here and that we were teachers at the university. we said that we were volunteers and that we didn’t earn a salary. the small man looked on with no empathy. we made a bit of a stink about it and, it turned out, we were paying the normal price. i found out later from friends and felt terribly that we had made such a scene.

nothing terrible happened. i’m still able to breath, talk, laugh and sing. today was just a combination of frustrating events. waiting and waiting followed by poor communication, ignorance and fear on our part.

the second version of the chinese new year.

jack and i went to the local chinese highschool to participate in the festivities. during the lunar new year, the first three days each have specific functions. the first day of the new year you are supposed to spend with your family. the second day you are to spend with your in-laws. the third day is reserved for teachers. we heard this and thought, “wow, our room will be a joyous mess of phone calls and visits. how much fun is this going to be!” we ended up sitting around all day reading. no one called.

the chinese high school is a u shaped building. jack and i were adorned in our lunar new year’s best and we sat in one of the front benches reserved for guests of honor. we listened to speeches in vietnamese, chinese and cambodian. we understood a bit of the vietnamese but the chinese and cambodian was only an odd mixture of hand gestures and sounds. the treasurer of the chinese cultural preservation society in long xuyen stood up. we had no idea what lie ahead. we sat through a solid hour of number reading and an entire analysis of last year’s spending. i could feel my eyelids weighing my face down and my stomach was angry with me.

he ended after banging his glasses into the microphone randomly. he was so absorbed in the numbers that his depth perception was off. we all turned to watch the dances.

a large dragon carried by nine men ran about to the rhythm of a large drum and some sort of bell looking thing. the dragon was an incredibly bright shade of green and yellow. the nine men all ran and swooped and dipped the dragon while three smaller dragons danced with some fat man with a mask. the three dragons in the middle were teams of two men. the man in the back would bend all the way over to make the back legs of the dragon. the man in the front would hold the dragon’s head over his own and jump up and down and sway back and forth. the head was connected to the man in the back by a large cloth that made everything look bright. each team would move in unison. they would crouch low to the ground and then jump high in the air. the fat man in the middle was actually a skinny man wearing a prosthetic paunch. he wore a pink mask and carried a fan. he would run among the smaller dragons and they would respond in ways that i could not interpret. i had no idea whether they were all friends or whether the fat man was evil and the dragons were good or whether it was the other way around.

that dance ended and the treasurer stood up again and had some more numbers to report. we sat and listened again to his mumbling which was only interrupted by his glasses banging into the microphone.

the next dance was a group of about forty boys and girls from the high school. they came out and all ran around with fans and long pieces of cloth. the pieces of cloth were in all sorts of colors. there was fluorescent blue, day-glow orange, cosmic pink and bright, bright, green. some of the dancers were leaders and others were followers. some of the girls spent all their energy trying to get everyone to dance in unison and others just giggled and danced oblivious to the beat.

that dance ended. the next dance was less of a dance and more of a stunt show. a large bamboo pole was set up in the middle of the school. it was at least twenty five feet high and one of the members of the dragon team climbed up on it. he reached the top and put on one of the smaller dragon costumes. he proceeded to defy gravity and all laws of rationality for the next five minutes. the crowd was please and he was too.

we sat around eating un-ripened mangos and talking. some of the agricultural department invited us to their shack and we were more than happy to oblige. one of the men asked us if we liked mangos and we said yes. he ran out of the room, climbed a tree, and picked some off. they taste like sourness and had the texture of dirt. we’re not sure why people eat mangos when they’re green instead of when they’re fleshy and orange. i guess people’d rather eat un-ripened mangos rather than not eat any at all. if they let them wait, someone’s bound to take them first.

i learned a really important lesson. we were talking about age and culture. how, in vietnam, it’s not offensive to ask anyone anything. there are four basic questions that strangers ask: what’s your name? how old are you? do you have a wife/girlfriend? and how much money do you make? you surely are able to answer these four questions after a month of vietnamese training.

we went around the table talking about age, birthdates and the year of the goat. the year of the goat is jack’s year. he doesn’t look like a goat at all but i’m sure he exhibits some goatish qualities. my year is the year of the monkey. nothing more needs to be said.

the man across from the table said he was also twenty two years old. i smiled and we looked at each other and pretended to have something in common. i don’t believe either one of us decided in what year we were to be born.

it turns out that he was twenty two according to vietnamese standards. the year of your birth counts as year one. you gain another year every time the lunar new year comes around. the man was only nineteen. it turns out i’m twenty four.

i can’t tell you how difficult it was to understand. all this time i had thought i was twenty two. i thought that every june seventeenth i gained another year. i cut another notch. it turns out i’m much older. twenty four. twenty four. i should be doing something else if i’m twenty four.

i looked in the mirror today and still looked twenty two.

the first day of the new year is not that exciting for foreigners. the streets are empty. the shops are boarded up and nothing moves, only the red and yellow flags that are perched outside every house.

we went for breakfast fairly late. nothing was open. all the normal shops were boarded up. all of our usual cafés were closed. tet is a time for family, not business and having no family around makes for a boring lunar new year.

we finally found some young, enterprising lady who was selling some sort of meat and noodle combination. we ordered a couple bowls but without the meat. the flesh looked old and was sitting in the early morning sun and had attracted flies.

the soup was good but nothing else was. streets that are normally packed with people were deserted. it was as if an air-raid alarm had sounded and all had fled for their lives.

later on in the day things started to pick up. there were large bands that roamed the streets banging drums. they were headed up by a small dragon that directed by two young boys. they would strut around proudly as the drums thumped out a loyal rhythm. the dragon visited many random houses and we were able to watch from our balcony as it danced towards a small, tin-roofed shack where it was greeted by a flock of children. the dance ended and the dragon moved on.

hopefully tomorrow the streets will have come alive again.