.i teach a business class in the foreign language center. the students are all members of the government in one way or another. some of them work for the people's committee and others work in state run enterprises. we've been talking about globalization and all the characters involved.

i asked them to form groups and decide how globalization would affect this country over the next few years. here were their answers.

economically:

positives:

-enliven the economy
-benefit the poor by providing cheap goods and services
-increase investment
-more loans available
-more jobs
-gdp increase
-more new technology

negatives:

-erode resources
-local enterprises will suffer from foreign competition
-more homogeneous
-division between the rich and poor will grow

culturally:

positives:

-learn about new cultures
-more opportunity to study
-media development
-educational development

negatives:

-it will take away from this culture
-bad fashion
-youth will be worse off
-this tradition will be invaded by other inferior traditions

politically:

positives:

-international cooperation
-avoid economic wars

negatives:

-change many laws especially laws relating to foreign currency exchange
-ideological shift

the bluffton students had a profound effect on the an giang students. most of these students haven't been out of the mekong delta and have had little contact with foreigners. jack, julie and i are the first foreigners that they've been able to spend some serious time with. having a large group of english speakers come over is a wonderful treat for them and they had a lot of time to interact.

i also gave a test today. it was a final. i sat behind a large desk and important people milled behind me. students walked in shaking. they bowed and forced a smile. they were in their sunday best. i furrowed my brow and pretended to be concentrating for focusing. must look important. they presented dialogues and then i asked them questions. their dialogues were about any topic they wanted. here is one of the dialogues.

t: hi, what's new?
h: nothing much, and you?
t: er... er... maybe, i'm falling in love.
h: really? i'm eager to hear. what happened?
t: you know, many students from bluffton college have visited our university for two weeks?
h: yea, i know.
t: i met such a good man. i think he is my. . er... er... what's the word i'm looking for?
h: you want to talk about your ideal boyfriend, right?
t: yes, that's right.
h: so, what's his name?
t: he is... er... er... the name escapes me. it's on the tip of my tongue.
h: refresh your memory. let me suggest eric, cory, charles, randy, josh or... dr. dan?
t: now that you mention it, his name is _________________.
h: wow, i couldn't believe it.
t: yeas, i thought so. but you couldn't imagine my feeling when i saw him at the first sight. i was shocked like lightening and said nothing. something to that effect.
h: umm..... and...
t: yes, i'm telling you. it seems that i have met him before.
h: oh, when?
t: maybe, in my dreams. umm, whether he has any girlfriend or not?
h: who knows.
t: he couldn't know i like him so much. he is so sweet. not only that, he is intelligent and honest.
h: tell him your feeling. what have you got to lose? i mean, it's a piece of cake. you can do it.
t: but how should i say? i'm afraid he has a girlfriend, laugh at me or doesn't want to see me anymore.
h: no, really, go for it. i think you stand as good a chance as any.
t: oh, i hate myself. i'm too shy. he'll leave here tomorrow and he'll never know how much i am thinking about him.
h: you never know until you try.
t: yes, i know. oh, my god. here he comes.
h: come on, give it your best shot. it's now or never.
t: yea!!!

i'll leave the name out and let you all guess or imagine or hope. in one of the other groups, a student said this: "i like to swim but i don't know how." that made me think.

after a long few weeks working with the bluffton group, heading home alone was an interesting change. for once i didn't have to worry about who was where and what we were doing next. i simply laid back in my seat and watched the odd scenery pass.

going home you have to pass a large bridge. it was a joint venture built with the help of the australian government. the bridge is mammoth and stands out as a human mountain in the otherwise flat mekong delta. it's towering poles are bright blue and it shoots up at least one hundred feet.

i wasn't too shocked by it at first. i have seen plenty of bridges in my time and this one was no different. the only oddity was watching it grow out of the horizon as you approach it. it seems very modern and that's a bit striking here.

i was talking to some people on the bus and they told me that many farmers come up to the top of the bridge and spend hours there. there are two small sidewalks that run on either side of the busy road and they're normally packed with people. sometimes families come up and bring a lunch. they stand and survey the landscape. they watch small boats struggling through the water under them. they can see further than they have ever seen.

i asked why people liked to come up on such a busy, relatively dirty bridge and spend a few hours. they said it's the highest point in the province. they said it was like stepping into another world. imagine never being higher than a coconut tree for your entire life and then being able to stand one hundred feet in the air and look down on the earth. what a shock that must be.

we slowly peaked the bridge and i saw people selling candy, gum and food. other people were standing by waiting to take pictures of people who didn't have cameras. they would then mail the pictures to them for a small fee. we rolled down the other side of the tourist bridge and i thought about perspective and experiences and smiled a bit. i've been quite a lucky camper.

going to the ben thanh market is always an interesting experience. i went there with some of the bluffton students and we had a riotous time.

we bought coffee (mostly weasel coffee because it's such an oddity), shirts, game boy games, conical hats and anything else to appease the void inside of us created by watching thousands of advertisments and spending hours mindlessly filing through malls.

at one point we were outside chatting. we were accosted by the normal array of vendors: lottery ticket sellers, cyclo drivers and men walking around with sandwich boards covered with odd things. there are rows of lighters of all shapes and sizes. there are sunglasses that one could find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of no where. there are pictures and postcards and other trinkets to take home and put in your attic.

two lighters caught my attention. one of them had the twin towers on one side and bin laden's face on the other. the vendor tried to push that onto us but we weren't biting. i thought it was quaint and would be a bit offensive. the worst was yet to come.

the last lighter he tried to sell us before we headed back inside was another lighter depicting nine eleven. it had the two trade towers on one side just as the other did but, to their right was a plane. when you opened the lighter the plane would flash red. that not being enough, the flame came right out of the top of one of the towers. that put us a bit over the edge. we explaned to the vendor that it was a bit sacrilegious and that we would probably be arrested if any of us ventured to buy it.

the bluffton students leave in a couple of days and tonight we had a going away party in the main hall. the hall is normally all decked out with a large vietnamese banner and a marble bust of uncle ho chi minh. today all of that was removed and huge, yellow letters proclaimed it to be a "get together".

the masters of ceremony were a couple of english teachers. they introduced every song and dance with a thorough analysis of something. one song that was sung by a member of the bluffton faculty was about orphans. the mc went on a bit of a rant about how happy we were and about how miserable orphans were. she asked us all to think about what we could do to help orphans while the song was being played and we were supposed to have an answer by the end.

i thought maybe some orphans were happy.

more singing and dancing.

there was also a fashion show where all of the bluffton students who had ao dais made were able to walk down the runway and expose all of their human beauty for the world to see. all of that went well and we clapped and enjoyed the walking masterpieces.

i sang a song by johnny cash. "don't take your guns to town" i told everyone that it was a song that my dad always used to listen to when i was a child. i'm not exactly sure why i did this. i know my dad used to occasionally listen to old country music and i know he's mentioned all the greats to me: buck owens, merel, johnny, hank. i don't really remember him ever playing them though. i guess i wanted the crowd to think the song might be sentimental. maybe then they would pity me and not listen to the singing or butchered guitar playing. maybe i was apologizing for playing such an old country song that normally would illicit groans. if the song had sentimental value to me then they would surly empathize.

then the party ended and we went home. i walked home with eric and wore his conical hat and played guitar and walked through muddy streets not caring at all what happened or where i was on this crazy spinning ball of dirt.

eric- i don't really want to go home right now.
jon- why?
i'm just getting to finally know some people here. It's a critical point and now we have to leave.
how long would you like to stay?
another month or two.
what would you do?
someone would find something for me to do, wouldn't they?
what would you like to do?
what would i like to do? something to do so that i could interact with the local people, learn a bit of the language and delve into the culture more. (delve was emphasized)
what are you gonnna tell people at home?
about what?
about this place.
if they ask, "how was vietnam?", or whatever? i'm gonna say, it was awesome, if you get a chance go there. and then i'll relate somewhere around fifty stories involving coffee and buying flags.
what was the best part of this whole thing?
i don't know dude.
what was the worst part?
too many bug bites. getting frustrated sometimes at the language barrier and my american ignorance.
american ignorance of what?
of other languages and other cultures. pretty much being ethnocentric. everyone learns english.
what's the best part about this culture.
the best part about this culture? the people i've interacted with, they're pleasant. i've only been here two and a half weeks and that's not enough. even with people who don't speak the language. i mean english.
what's the first thing you're gonna do when you go home?
i'm gonna turn on the radio and order a pizza.
right on. anything else you wanna say?
i want your job.
*chuckles all around


so, uh, josh, what's up?
just finished packing. getting bit by mosquitoes.
why'd you come here?
thought it would be a very unique experience.
in what way?
in that no one outside of bluffton my age has been to vietnam that i know. you can word that a little better.
no, dude, this is vernacular. so, um, what are you gonna tell people at home?
it was a great experience.
in what way?
i learned a lot about a different culture and i also learned about the stuff that i kinda take for granted back home.
like what? what do you take for granted?
um, i don't know, like, hot shower whenever you want it. cold coke, soda or pop. like little things that are like so normal for us but it's actually a huge difference. stuff we're used to and we just think, "yea, this is normal and we deserve this." stuff that you don't really need. it's nice but you don't need it.
do you feel guilty?
not so much guilty, it's just, i don't know i feel better knowing about the way other people live now. i mean i'll definitely treasure kind of respect the things i do at home more. like, the littler things. i won't take them for granted as much at least not right away. it's hard to always remember, jon's half way around the world right now without a bean burrito.
yea, thanks for the beans.
no problem dude.
uh, whadja think about tonight?
it was definitely very interesting. like when, whenever they would announce a song they would relate it to either icc, the world in some way, particularly sticks out in my mind the orphan song, about how they, just, the orphans in the world are miserable but lets be happy now with this dance. i know the thing that i found different was, about three or four acts in, they just said, "how does everyone feel about this tonight?", and everyone didn't know what to do and they just clapped.
yea, that was hilarious. she said, "how does everyone feel? happy?" and that was it. her english was, a, well, how do i say it...
missing a word every now and then.
how much of this is fake and how much of this is real.
what do you mean, "this."
i mean, this, me sitting here typing stuff you're saying talking about something neither one of us really understand.
i don't understand it enough to say what's real and what's fake, jon.
yea, but does any of this feel really real? or is it all some... um... i can't even put it into words...
a lot of this trip has felt surreal. you can't really capture it. it's so different and amazing, you just can't really think about how to put it into words. you want to take a picture of something but a picture won't even do. you can tell a story but what i really want to do is go home and grab someone and take them here. i wanna take them to this spot and that spot.
you think the world would be better if more people came here?
eric- no, because people will come here for four days and declare the country atheist.
josh- if people came here with sorta the same mind-set as we did, than yes. but if we just said, "ok, everybody has to go to vietnam for three weeks." it'd be different. if everyone came here i don't think vietnam would stay the same so i don't think people would be able to take the same things we took out of this culture. i think it should be a requirement that everyone have a cross cultural experience, i think it would open up their mind, just a little bit. it's hard to stay close minded when something's in your face for three weeks.
eric- god, why don't you just be an ad for bluffton college.
josh- i'm not a mennonite.
*random discussion about bluffton and mennonites and foreign exchange students
jon- anything anyone wants to say before i end this?
eric- i've seen pretty people just appear like smoke. (singing)
josh- *long pause
eric- this is an ad for bluffton college!

last night some bluffton students julie and i went out to eat supper. we took them to one of our favorite restaurants: viet phong. it's a restaurant that juts out into one of the mekong's tributaries. you sit on top of the muddy water and listen to boats putter by.

we ordered food and sat around and talked and laughed and made fun of each other. we spent a wile listening to julie's accent. at one point she said, "you cheeky bugger", and the american's thought she said, "you chicken bugger", and everyone laughed. she also said some things in her new castle slang. the american's said it sounded like she was speaking vietnamese. it's amazing how homogeneous american's accents are as compared to the rest of the world.

we ordered rat because everyone who comes to vietnam needs to eat rat.

these rats are not city rats. they don't scurry around in the gutters and in the sewers and eat dead things and carry diseases. these rats are country rats raised on fresh air, young rice and warm, summer nights. these rats are healthy. now, mind you, we do have rats in the city. you see them daily running from trash pile to trash pile.

the rat came on two small plates grilled and resting on a bed of unripe mango slices. some of the bluffton students were excited to try it. some were hesitant. some were apathetic. comments ranged from, "oh, that's really good!", to, "it's all bony and disgusting", to, "it's just really greasy." well, at least they can all say they tried it.

my computer started to make some terribly annoying noise. i decided it was coming from somewhere near the fan. it probably was the fan. i'm not a computer genius and i should never be trusted with things that are expensive. i started taking the computer apart.

taking things apart is easy. the screws all come out and things slowly open up. next thing i knew i was staring at the inside of my computer. green and silver and wires. i took the fan out and blew into it and moved it around. i don't know what i was thinking. i was just hoping that, by giving it my undivided attention, it would stop being delinquent. i put things back together and tried to start the computer again. it didn't start.

the screen was black and then, when the screen wasn't black, it didn't respond to anything i told it to do.

my computer is sitting on my bed waiting for someone with more intelligence and experience to look at its insides. i may have offended it.

every night the gates close at ten thirty at night. sometimes it’s closed earlier. the guards go to sleep then.

i live in a compound. i’m perpetually surrounded by a wall that has large sticks of metal and broken glass sticking out the top of it to thwart would-be intruders. i have a nice view over the gate. i see the farmer behind me and a small graveyard. there are also fruit trees.

the front gate to our university is about eight feet tall and is painted an off-yellow. it looks like the yolk of an egg mixed with white paint. the top of the gate has spikes but it’s easy to climb over.

i’ve come back late a few times and had to wake up the guards. you have to bang on the gate and the guard trudges out of his house in his underwear. three guards live in one small house next to the gate. it has two rooms and they sleep on hammocks. the guard never looks happy and we’re never happy to do it. i begrudgingly knock and wait. i shuffle my feet and think about how stupid it is to come home late. the guard opens the gate, i apologize, he silently closes it.

i arrive safely back to my compound but i have disturbed his sleep. what if he was having a wonderful dream about slight, strawberry breezes and beautiful women. what if he was dreaming about flying and swooshing through cotton clouds. he could have been dreaming about his childhood and what fun him and his brother used to have chasing a dog around. the though makes me sick and i sleep uneasily as if i’m making up for his disturbed night.

today we talked about farming. i talked to vietnamese people about my history and they talked to me about theirs. i learned an incredible amount.

we talked about how important the land is. we talked about how the land provided us with life. the vietnamese people i talked with explained how much one small piece of land can mean to a farmer. that small piece of land is what sustained his parents and their parents and their parents all the way down the line. that dirt is what provided the nourishment that was required for their life. the soil is sacred.

“working the earth is a sacrament.” i don’t know if that’s a direct quote but it’s close. john ruth told me that when i was working in my salford mennonite church garden plot.

i thought back to my mother’s parents; kenneth and violet. they tilled the soil in north west ohio for years. they drove tractors over it in the hot sun. they planted and watched and waited. they fed pigs in the cold. they harvested and celebrated. they smiled and ate. the earth provided them with life. i owe my life to that patch of dirt in north west ohio.

the more i learn about this culture the more i realize i don’t know enough about those who have come before me. i don’t know enough about my grandparents and their parents and their parents and what sustained their life. i haven’t learned enough from their mistakes and their successes.

ancestoral veneration may sound strange to us but there’s a piece of it that really makes sense. we don’t spend enough time learning from the past in our culture. we don’t look back enough. we don’t ask enough questions and appreciate the dirt that is responsible for breathing life into us.

here were some answers from my english lit final.


“barnhouse effect” is one of the nevel of kurl throuac. he was also a witness the bombing of Detroit. this novel was written in the cival war. the war between ussa and us.

finally, the worst thing is that after war man y shouldiers became impotent because of being poinsionous from the weapon. so they can not get married and they have to say goodbye to their girlfriends while they love each other so much.

secondly, new technology can cause the unemployment of workers. for example, telephone can help people to communicate with each other. it means that drivers have no work.

who wrote huckleberry finn? charle dickens

charle dickens was born raised in the south america. at this time the north still remained slavery.

secondly, the war destroyed happiness. after injury, a lot of people became impotent, for example jake. they desired to live in a happy family but how could they did? it is very unequal for them to live without relatives, without sex. it is not their false. some live with a hand, a leg even a eye or not.

all of christian believe that their action, whatever good or cruel one observed by angel and devil who they never see. when they die, they will be in heaven or in hell belong to their action. if they did good action, they will go to heaven but if they did cruel me, they will be in hell for punishment. i think that it is not real it does not base on any science proof and there is no one prove about it but all of Christians believe that.

i didn’t live when the war happened. now i ma living in peace. thus i couldn’t see how people lived miserably and how soldiers died, i only see them on television or newspapers. i feel terribly. however, nowadays, the result of the war is more serious. now i talk about eh war in vietnam. it happened many years ago but now every vietnamese remembers it very clearly. now, some old mothers or fathers are very lonely, their lives are very miserable because their children died in the war. besides that, some couples must be far away forever because one of them died and one has to live sadly or one’s children doesn’t have mother or father. some soldiers came back oafter the war, they had serious injuries such as blind, loss of hand and leg. they can’t get married and have children. moreover, some places in vietnam today have the result of war. the land is destroyed, trees can’t grow the life of the people live there very difficultly. even now there are a lot of bomb in the land when the war between vietnam and america, america gives my country a lot of bomb and chemical poision. it effects children very much. when they are born their bodies become very strange and ugly. thus, war destroys more lives than just on the battlefield.

“what everyone believes is not always right.” for me, i think this point of view is not completely exactly. it is wrong because of many reasons. firstly, in our life, many people think ghosts exit and i am on ein those peole. moreover some peopel say that they have seen ghosts so many people are very afraid of when we say about ghost. but up to now these scientists still say there are not ghosts. so is this statement right? it’s a serious problem.

people wanted to buy flags and i knew where to go.

i gave them a brief tour of our favorite place to get frozen fruit drinks and then we walked through the market. i felt like a tour guide and it wasn’t fun. i spent the whole time worrying about where people were and how they would get back if they did get lost and what i would do and this and that and it all was really quite pathetic.

our last stop was the flag shop. it’s a small shop on one of the busiest streets. they sell all sorts of signs and banners. i asked for twelve flags and we waited while they called other shops to fill the order. i sat on a blue chair behind a desk.

someone gave me one hundred thousand dong and i put it on the desk. it was blown off by the fan. people trusted me with their money for some reason.

i laid my head down after securing the one hundred thousand dong bill under a stapler. i was tired and didn’t feel like thinking or watching or doing anything. the lady behind the counter put the flags in a bag and i reached for the money.

it wasn’t there.

i asked her if she took it already. she said she hadn’t. i asked the others in the group if they had taken it as a joke. they hadn’t either. i remembered seeing one small boy walk in with us. he had a pastel colored shirt on and an odd mole just below his lower lip. i went searching for him. one of the older men that also worked at the shop came with me.

we found the boy about one hundred yards down the road. he was standing next to his mother who was selling lottery tickets in a wheelchair. the man asked the boy if he stole money. the boy said he hadn’t. the man asked again and grabbed the boy’s arm. the boy squeeled and held onto his mother. the boy’s mother asked if he had stolen money. the boy denied it.

all the while i was standing to the side. i was the foreigner and i wasn’t supposed to understand the language or know how to respond. i casually said, “i have no problems calling the police.” the boy looked up at me and his face changed. he started to cry. his nose started to run. the snot was thick and brown. he clung to his mother and the man searched him. he found the one hundred thousand dong bill in his left pocket.

we went back to the store and paid.

i woke up at quarter till six on a sunday morning. i was apprehensive. i didn’t want to take my driving test. i sat in my room after my shower and tried to read through the one hundred questions again and memorize them. i panicked a bit. i didn’t know them all.

a vietnamese friend picked me up and we went for coffee before the test. he was relaxed and tried to pretend i was. i couldn’t imagine why i was so nervous.

i had forgotten the helmet i was supposed to use during the driving portion of the test. it is actually julie’s helmet and it’s disgusting. it’s large and purple and gold. it only has a small, square hole for your eyes and that’s covered by a visor. it also didn’t help that it was about 90 degrees outside.

we went home and i put the oven on my head. we headed to the driving center. we didn’t know where it was. well, my friend told me yesterday that he knew where it was but it turns out he didn’t. he said it was seven kilometers away and we drove about three at normal speed. he then slowed down to a snail’s pace looking for the building. i was supposed to arrive early to pick up my test number because i’m a foreigner and things are done very differently for me. we pulled in late. my stomach was flopping, i was sweating and i think one of my kidneys was looking for a way out.

the test ground is a square, dusty, concrete area surrounded by a rope fence. the testers sat behind a desk and looked ominous. they spoke into a microphone and everything was a jumble of static and vietnamese.

today there were about three hundred people taking the driving test. i was number two hundred and sixty. that meant that i would have to wait for another two to four hours. we went to have coffee.

my friend said i could drive. i drove out of the driving test facility before i had taken the driving test. i thought about that for a bit and smiled.

we came back and i was bumped up to the front of the line because they said i had to go to saigon this afternoon. i really didn’t have to go anywhere but i just nodded and pretended not to understand completely. i was the last of fifty people taking the written test.

the room was stuffy and rectangular. there were benches and two people to a bench. a group of men sat at the front of the class with ties on. they all looked professional. i was nervous, as i said. i sat down and filled out the necessary forms.

the test came. it was twenty questions out of the one hundred that i had studied. it came in a laminated booklet that was glossy and professional looking. my friend said that i would have friends in the test taking institution because i was a foreigner and a volunteer teacher. they didn’t want me to fail. somehow my book magically had all of the answers previously marked. i guess there was a mix-up along the way.

i passed with flying colors, i’m proud to say.

the next section of the test was the driving section. fifty people are mounted on motorcycles in front of a course that looks terribly ominous. their number is called and they proceed to drive. they first drive through the large figure-eight. next they drive a long, thin, strait line. the third step involves weaving. the last leg of the test was a straight section with oddly shaped wooden bumps.

i was the last person to go. i placed the oven on my head and secured the latch at the bottom. i felt like an astronaut. i weaved through the figure-eight with ease. i drove down the straight line a bit too fast but i staid between the lines. i weaved flawlessly and i maneuvered the bumps like a pro. that part i passed on my own. i had a terrible song stuck in my head the whole time.

we left and my license will arrive in about three weeks. i’m excited.

tomorrow i have a driving test.

i've been practicing for the past month solid. i have to memorise 100 multiple choice questions in vietnamese. i don't know vietnamese. i have a slight grasp on the language and the questions are proving difficult. another challenge has arisen because the questions are in northern vietnamese which is quite different from southern vietnamese.

there's also a driving portion to the test. you have to drive around in a figure-8 without touching the white lines. i practiced that the past day or so. there's also a straight line driving test, a slalom driving test and a rough road driving test. i haven't practised those and am prepared for a surprise.

driving a motorcycle in vietnam is a challenge. you sit directly on the front of the bike. you sit on the front wheel. most of the motorcycles don't have clutches and you shift on the fly. that takes adjusting. the bikes are small and light and have small engines. the driving test will be a challenge.

i am the only foreigner that has ever taken the test in an giang province. that's not an overstatement either. i've been told that by just about everyone. i guess if you're going to be a groundbreaker with something, driving tests are a good start.

i'll tell you all tomorrow how i did.

i sit on my porch and think about things. life feels like practice for a test that’s never going to happen. sometimes i make myself forget that fact. i enjoy the small moments that no one can account for. i enjoy it when the dog stretches out next to me and sleeps without fear. i like it when i look up at the sky on a night where the clouds are high and thin and i see the moon. it looks like a pupil and it lights up the clouds around it and it makes an iris around the pupil. sometimes the strands of clouds look like the thin, wavy lines in the eye that shoot out of the pupil like an electric explosion. i like strawberry breezes and cups of coffee in the morning. i like it when my mind realizes something new and wonderful and everything connects and there’s a beautiful moment of clarity. those moments are only that: moments. i sit on my porch and remember that the test will never come. i try to forget about it but the thought lingers. the thought sits inside my monkey brain shooting around aimlessly. my heart pounds in my chest and my lungs capture oxygen and i continue to breath slowly. breath. breath. i look up at coconut trees and their long, thin trunks. the inside of the coconut is wonderful and sweet and fresh and alive. i see dead palm branches on the ground. soon enough they’ll be sucked into the earth. soon enough they’ll be the juice inside of a coconut. they danced their dance and their test never came. they lay dead. someday we’ll all be in their shoes.

right now i’m going to stare up at the moon and pretend it is the eye of god. s/he stares at me and i stare back. a warm strawberry breeze pushes against me and i forget that, one day, i’ll be the inside of a coconut too.

i’ve been running in circles. i sit now and reflect on of my recent experiences that i really didn’t speak to properly.

we went to the american consulate in hcmc last weekend. it is situated on one of the higher floors of a sheik, glass building. we boarded an elevator and, when the doors slid open again, we were greeted with a large, glass wall bearing the seal of my country. the seal is familiar and my eyes always fix on one point: the thirteen arrows in the left claw of the eagle. thirteen arrows. i don’t really ever notice what’s in the other claw. i assume it has something to do with peace. i think the emblem should be modified and arrows should be placed in both claws.

security was an incredible mess. about four vietnamese security guards sat behind a desk directly in front of the glass seal. they wore uniforms with american flags on their shoulders. one at a time we were asked to step through a very sensitive metal detector. i was one of the first through it and i set it off. since i didn’t have any keys, coins or large metal weapons on me i was a bit put off. it turns out my belt was the culprit. i took the belt off and walked through quickly. they searched the belt incase i was hiding anything dangerous in it.

we were seated in a large room surrounded with new periodicals and a carpeted floor. it didn’t feel like i was in saigon anymore. the magazines were from all over: forbes, the nation, newsweek, time, the journal of democracy, money, and so on. i took my sandals off and enjoyed the carpet. there’s nothing nicer than carpet. it makes your feet feel light and pampered.

four people entered the room and sat down. they were diplomats and all had smiles that could have won prizes. their personalities were very professional but oddly casual. they tried to joke and make light of things while at the same time trying to discuss very important global events. they tried to make us all feel good while still getting across their idea. they were smooth talkers. they were bright and well educated. they talked of fourth of july parties while they were talking about sensitive current events. hotdogs and politics.

one lady began to chat very tactfully about democracy and transparency and change. she was very negative and didn’t have one good thing to say about the place. she talked about “freedom”. (whatever that word means. you can’t throw a word like that around. if you’ve ever been to a place where people are wired quite differently from you you’ll realize that a word like “freedom” isn’t universal. “freedom” means one thing in crawford texas and another thing in any other part of the world. the word “freedom” is treated a lot like the word “love”. “love” means so many different things to so many different people in so many different situations that the word itself looses most of its meaning.) she made many references to the “opening of markets” and the “exposure to foreign trade and investment” and anything other piece of rhetoric she could muster up. all of this was spiced up by her whimsical planning for a large fourth of july party. hotdogs and politics.

i became quite frustrated with her description. she was painting a terrible picture that wasn’t true. some people said things that put her off a bit. i think she was expecting a group of eager, red-blooded americans to come storming through the door and to sit back and nod at her analysis of the place and laugh at her fourth of july planning problems. “oh, and we all come in suits and it’s quite formal. we do have a good time though!”

*open mouth broadly, toss head back a bit, breath deeply and force yourself to laugh.

she didn’t have such a group. this group really understood a lot about vietnam. dan had lived over here for a good number of years. he was one of the first people to be granted a visa after normalization in the early nineties. he talked about how, at first, he couldn’t get any official news from outside sources. the united nations would hand deliver a sealed package to his house. that was twelve years ago. earlier in that day i bought the economist on the street corner. it was being sold with the nytimes, the new herald tribune, usa today and any other assortment of news print. times have changed radically.

we then talked a bit about trade. i noted that this country was quite an interesting example. it’s developing rapidly and really emerging onto the global market. if you drive from saigon to my home in the mekong you can’t help but notice the large bridges being constructed. factories are being built all over. this place is really booming. i brought up the fact that this country also was doing everything that the world trade organization, the international monetary fund and the world bank said not to do. how could a country be a smashing success when going against the three institutions that were responcible for international development? surely something was awry. she mentioned that she had worked for the imf previously and that it wasn’t a bad institution. reassuring.

the rest of the meeting was a bit awkward. we had other observations and they had counterpoints and people shuffled their feet and i took a bit of a break to feel the carpet again under my feet. it was soft and lush and i think i was enjoying it when another fourth of july party joke was cracked. i didn’t hear it but put on a wonderfully fake smile.

we left and handed back our clearance passes. the lady that had such a negative perspective on this country will walk out of her plush high-rise office building, hop in a car and drive home. i’m sure she doesn’t live in the slums. i headed out of the building and the next day we returned to my lovely home in the middle of a city of 300,000 people and only three foreigners. i smiled sincerely and continued to try to understand this culture and this people.

six months without rain. finally, the sky opens up and water cleans everything.

what’s it like to go six months without rain and then to experience a drizzly day? well, at first it’s refreshing. you initially notice how cool the air feels. it brushes against your skin when your riding bike or just ambling around. it feels like autumn in the states. then you start to get wet. at first you enjoy it because it’s been a long time since you’ve gotten wet outside of your shower. then you notice that the rain has cleaned a lot of dust off of surrounding buildings. that makes you happy.

then the tide turns.

the mud from the street starts to seep into your sandals. then your bike splashes mud up on your pants. the water washes through but leaves a nice trace of dirt and rocks. then you notice the sky. for the first time in a long time there is no sun. the sky is covered thickly with grey clouds. then you become depressed. six months without rain and you can’t even last a day. six months without rain and the grey sky is already ruining your day.

i have six more months with grey skies and drizzle. it should be quite an adventure but i’m looking forward to it.

saigon to long xuyen to can tho to long xuyen… oh my!

we left monday morning for can tho. the bus ride was packed but energetic. can tho is a city that lies to the east of long xuyen. it’s about an hours drive and they’re quite a developed place.

we stopped at a couple of temples that day. one temple was celebrating a festival that revolved around the idea of ancestral veneration. there were a couple of important people who had died and people were worshiping them. one person was a farmer and his shrine was massive and laden with gold. people would fall to their knees with lit incense sticks in their hands, raise the sticks to their forehead and repeat this motion three times. the man had been a farmer and had done wonderful things with rice and what not.

another man being venerated was a revolutionary fighter. he had mainly fought against the french. he was sporting a flashy suit in the portrait.

we went to a pagoda next. there were large statues of the buddha lounging in all sorts of positions. the smoke filled the room and stung the eyes. the gold statues were all in their separate caverns and people lit incense and prayed to them. i said a prayer but it wasn’t to the buddha’s. i am not sure who i prayed to.

there was a third religious site on our visit to can tho. we stopped at a khmer pagoda. we were greeted by a small monk who spoke beautiful english. he told us all about buddhism and what he believed and why he believed what he believed. he wasn’t casting his net and converting, he was offering information.

that pagoda was beautiful in so many ways. the architecture was uniquely khmer. its walls were all carved with murals that seemed to snake and drop and curl as unexpectedly as their script. it’s statues were all tall and colorful. the visit was made all the more wonderful by our tolerant, bi-lingual guide.

our schedule was packed but fascinating. we visited museums, took boat rides and ate inintersting restaurants.

i have much to say but am too tired to type. tomorrow i will relive some of those experiences.

floating down the saigon river, eating dinner, watching all the industrial zones pass quietly by.

we ate in a three story boat. it was covered with yellow lights that were arranged to look like a fish. tacky is a word that could be used to describe it.

ordering was chaotic and no one seemed to understand anyone else. there were twenty people and the head waiter had his own ideas and he listened without hearing and we were not speaking clearly. he stood and ordered people around and had a tie and a bit of a belly. it wasn't a lazy belly but rather a power belly.

we ate until full and then the boat began to move down the river.

normally a river boat tour at night (it was a beautifully cool night) should be full of romantically lit shore-line. the shores of the saigon river are covered with industrial zones. we passed countless numbers of boats all bearing different national flags and interesting names. the boats were all being loaded or unloaded. huge cranes would lift rough metal boxes and stack them like they were legos. other nets would be lowered and raised into hulls bearing bags of grain and rice. everything looked small.

the industrial zones were all well lit and tiny people bustled about. our boat reached an indiscriminate point in the river and turned around slowly.

saigon.

tourists everywhere and everything's wonderful. everyone smiles and talks to you and tries to sell you all sorts of strange things.

i've been asking some of the bluffton college students what they had expected when they arrived in vietnam. for the most part, they had expected a very different country. some of them had expected a poor, drab and grey place. they expected moscow in the 80's except much hotter. they were pleased to realize that ho chi minh city is nothing close to that perception. there are lights and neon and flashy things everywhere. there are huge billboards and lots of movement. the city is more vibrant than they thought.

it's fascinating to see a place through someone else's eyes. i'm taking this opportunity to really see vietnam through the eyes of these students. they'll see things that i've overlooked. they'll notice things that have become old-hat to me. they will make vietnam fresh again. they'll be here for a month.

it's raining outside but it's a fresh, light rain. the sky is grey but it's a cool grey. it's hot and muggy but the heat surrounds you like a blanket.

life is wonderful. smile and live.

saigon with a group of teachers and students from bluffton.

today was full of activity. we went to the large, history and culture museum located right next to the zoo. it is full of glowing tales of earlier civilizations and humiliating occupation and then the thrilling rush of liberation.

later we went off to one of the branches of the american embassy. that specific office was placed on one of the higher floors of an office building. we walked off of the elevator and were greeted by a large, glass, wall bearing the country emblem. thirteen arrows clutched.

we slowly passed through security and were issued red badges that said something important about us not leaving without supervision. we walked through the nice, carpeted, cool offices and i felt like i was in another world.

everyone was rushing around doing very diplomatic things. i'm sure they were all pacifying and soothing and helping and what not. they all had stern looks on their faces and those that smiled must have been gloating over some recent diplomatic victory.


we were sat down and we met a few people working in different sectors. they were representing our country.

the first lady had an odd perspective on vietnam. it was very negative in nature and she couldn't really find anything nice to say. the meeting room felt extremely important but i mustered up some courage to ask a few questions. i'm sure i turned a bit crimson, as i'm not accustomed to disagreeing with professional diplomats, but i think what i said was coherent and understood.

the next two men we met had different perspectives on this country, which i appreciated listening to. i'm glad they're representing the land i happened to be born in instead of the other lady who may have just eaten something that didn't sit well with her earlier.

tonight was the national song night competition.

the students filed onto the stage in classes emotionlessly. they formed five tight rows. they looked out onto the crowd with stoic faces. they looked like an old photo or a group of mannequins. the lighting was strange on the stage. it seemed to light the first row’s faces from the bottom up and each other row was caught in a strange kaleidoscope of shadows.

a person on the front right would bark three sharp commands only one of which i could understand. the group stood up straight, lifted their heads and began to sing. the shadows lit them from below.

the songs were void of flow but passionate. they didn’t seem to have any rhythm at all. somehow the students retained unity. their voices eerily moved together. everything was strange because the breaks in the songs were odd. i’m sure it all made perfect sense to them but the unity, the passion and the lack of any noticeable rhythm was different to me.

the singing stopped and they filed off stage. the next group took their place. they sang with the same passion and fervor and the lights and the shadows continued to play tricks on their faces.

my mcc representatives are here to visit me and we all drove back together in the university car. we talked about the singing and the uniformity and i felt wonderful because everyone was a mennonite and we were all the same in some way and the car ride felt like we were going to church somewhere on a bright, spring, sunday morning and that we were going to open up the blue hymnal and start singing something and it was going to be perfect and everyone was going to sing in a different direction but the ingredients were going to mix together perfectly and all end up like a beautiful angle food cake; light and fluffy and heavenly.

i started to sing something and someone started to sing an alto part and we sang the song for a bit and then sat. the road was bumpy but i didn’t notice. we drove through campus and a rat ran along a fence. i could barely make it out in the moonlight but didn’t tell anyone. i was in a car heading up a windy, pennsylvanian road and it was sunny outside. i smiled.

julie lives in newcastle which is somewhere in england. she keeps saying it’s in the north of england and i keep reminding her that’s like saying that new jersey has a west coast. the north of england is scottland. (of course, all is in jest)

she is a big fan of the newcastle football team which i refuse to name at this time. all i know is that their manager is bobby robson because she has a large picture of him on her wall signed by his secretary or his wife. it’s not the signature of a football manager.

she received a jersey from her team and was excited to give it to one of the vietnamese students. the students decided that they should have a football tournament (not american football which requires much too much preparation and protective gear). they organized their three classes into teams and everyone was ready for the big match.

the teams all sported new jerseys. some of them had “j. j. j.” on the chest which represented, “jack, julie and jon.” it was a nice gesture. two of the jerseys were the exact same color and make and you couldn’t distinguish the two teams.

they also made a banner for the tournament; white letters set on a red background. it said, “julye’s cup” or something or other. i can’t remember exactly but all i know is that her name was spelled hilariously wrong in bold lettering. i believe a couple students asked her if that was how she spelled her name and she obliged.

jack and i were chosen as referees because we always dictate things in class, we’re tall and we’re different looking. we were given whistles, watches and red/yellow cards. i had to think back hard to my high school days to remember the rules.

the games began and jota and julie and a few hundred vietnamese students stood on the dusty sidelines. the teams played with passion and we blew our whistles too frequently or at inappropriate times. we have learned, though, that when you make a mistake, if it’s a minor one, to save face you must stand by your decision. i decided kicks should go one way with fervor. i said that throw-ins should be given to certain teams with authority. in reality, i didn’t have any idea whose it was.

the games went smoothly and the students ran around on the dirt field and kicked and scored and fouled and lost and won all at the same time. i gave out one red card and two yellow card. the throngs of people on the sidelines cheered and jeered (there really were hundreds of people watching the game). i gave them out when the game didn’t mean anything and when i wanted to test out my new-found authority. it was fun.

in a place where the heat soars to absurd heights people need ice in their drinks. this constant need for ice presents a problem when people don’t have freezers.

the ice industry in the mekong is booming. there are small, ice works all over. normally they receive a shipment of ice early in the morning. on my way to coffee i see large blocks of water sitting on the sidewalk. the ice is long and thin and is shaped like a thick stick of gum. they are placed in square blocks five or six feet high and about as wide. they sweat and people scurry.

the blocks are then chopped into more manageable squares. they are chopped with a large, metal tool that has many long teeth and a wooden handle. it looks like a set of teeth from some deranged, robotic dog. it’s used like a hammer and the ice comes apart fairly easily.

the ice boys then take the ice on scooters to different restaurants. they drive quickly while the sun slowly eats away at their profits. when they arrive at a restaurant the ice is quickly ushered into the back where it is mashed up into smaller bits suitable for drinks. each bit is a different shape and size. they all look like diamonds and disappear quickly in your glass.

all of the ice must be delivered fairly early in the morning. the afternoon is spent cleaning up the shop and clearing out all of the pools of water that have formed in front. they scoop up this brown street water with a bucket and toss it into the road in order to evaporate quickly.

at home i didn’t have to imagine where ice came from. everyone had their own freezer and, if the need arose, you could open the door, let out a cool blast of air and grab a few pieces. a cold drink in a developing country is just one more conundrum you never really bother to think about.

my neck is soar from the inside out. my head feels like some hot cooking utensil. my stomach won't stay put and anything i try to give it is quickly refused.

being sick in a developing country is quite an adventure. it's quite difficult to point to exactly where you got it.

tonight i had a conversation with julie that went something like this (she is just as sick as me):

'where do you think we got this bug?'
'beats me'
'do you think it was that weird fish we had the other day?'
'don't know, i had that fish before and it looked cooked.'
'well, maybe it was the frog we had yesterday for lunch. they were kinda cold.'
'yea, they were but i've had cold frog before.'
'you think it was a mosquito? maybe we have malaria? what are the symptoms of malaria?'
'umm, i think just about what we have but what are the odds that both of us have malaria?'
'don't know, maybe the same mosquito bit both of us. i hate mosquitoes.'
'yea. who doesn't.'

and that was it. you're left wondering what happened and how to avoid it the second time. your mind races from worse case scenario to, 'i'll be better tomorrow.'

some people just don’t take a hint. i met a man about a month ago and he asked me for my phone number. knowing where such an encounter can lead, i was hesitant to give it to him. i did anyway because i’m a sucker.

he called me a number of times and i was always busy. if i wasn’t busy i mustered up the courage to lie to him and tell him that i was anyway. finally he was able to ring me in.

we were driving home from supper when we saw someone waving to us driving the other direction. i didn’t think anything of it. maybe it was another teacher. he turned around and followed us. when we got home i realized who it was. it was he.

i promised him to go to have coffee with him the next day at two. i hoped he would forget or have another engagement but, at one fifty, he knocked on my door.

he is a very stylish person. his hair is cropped close to his head but he gels it in a very interesting way. every strand of hair seems to be pointing in a different direction. his clothes were only the finest. his shirt was ribbed and his pants had more pockets than i had ever seen. when he drove he wore a dkny hat and sunglasses that stretched across his face and make him look terribly fast.

we had coffee and it was pleasant. he is a modern, independent vietnamese man. he talked about life and what he did and what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go. we got on the subject of girlfriends and he said that he had one but his parents didn’t approve.

i thought surely this man wouldn’t have problems with his parents. he was older than me. he said his old girlfriend was too modern for his parents and that he couldn’t date her anymore. he had stopped dating her because of his parents. old vietnam meets new vietnam and guess who wins?

he took me to karaoke. where else would you take a stranger in long xuyen? we sang a few songs and he sounded like smoky robinson. we had a wonderful night.

today is international labor day. i don’t know how much it’s celebrated in america, if my memory holding up, i don’t think it is.

today no one works. well, no one works except for the skinny girls that serve coffee in small cafes and waitresses, cooks and taxis.

flags line all of the streets and they are relatively empty. it looks a bit like the tet holiday. people are spending their time with friends in bars, restaurants and at home. international labor day is one big party.

there is a large statue of uncle ton in the middle of long xuyen. he is bronze and tall and firmly built. his face is stoic and he looks quite impressive. he stands, immortalized, on a large, marble pedestal. he was the leader of vietnam after uncle ho chi minh. he was raised on a small island on the river. today there will be small marches and parades and banners and people milling about. everything is red and gold. signs proclaim the prowess and pride of workers.

i think international labor day is an important day to celebrate. i guess america doesn’t bother with it because it has its own labor day which i fondly remember as falling sometime before school starts. it was a dreaded omen when i was a child. i never understood its significance.

without labor we would have no shoes. without labor we would have no computers. without labor we would have no cars. without labor gates, buffet, walton, bush, cheney, lay and any other host of incredibly rich and powerful white men would not have their power or their wealth. if anyone should be celebrating international labor day, it should be america. take a moment out of your busy day to say, “thank you” to the hundreds of developing countries throughout the world for providing you with dirt-cheap wages and equally cheap natural resources. walk proudly in your soft, south-east-asian-made tennis shoes.