we decided to start the 'vietnamese video project.' it's a novel idea involving only three or four people and hopefully lots of return for the university.

the goal is simple: we want to increase the amount of teaching material we have here at the university without begging for it. we are going to make a series of video's that talk about different interesting aspects of the vietnamese culture and bundle them all up in a nice, neat and professional digital package and offer them to the west.

hopefully, if the videos are interesting enough and fairly fast paced, a university or two in the west will be willing to trade for them. we're going to set up an old-fashioned barter post where a university will offer some of the excess books they have in the library or some old computers to the university here. we need books, they, hopefully, would want to know some more about modern vietnamese life.

we don't want to be a beggar walking around with a faded conical hat and a small pan looking for alms. we want to establish relationships that will last and increase the level of education.

so, today we began filming. i am the narrator and script writer and interviewer and have to dress nice and somehow make things interesting. i keep imagining groups of uninterested students watching a video that has little to do with their immediate concerns of being popular, interesting and up on all of the latest news. i had to push the thought out of my mind or the video would have had no chance.

we started with an introduction of the market in long xuyen. the market is the heart of the city, a place where old ladies go every day in order to cook. in a place where many families don't have a freezer, fresh food is a must. most people will not eat anything that is frozen and buying fresh fish and fresh pork is something everyone needs. the market is also a place where people go to meet each other. it's a place where you can buy tomatoes from the same wrinkled lady who sold tomatoes to your mother and maybe even your grandmother. it's a fascinating study and the pictures of tight alleys with gigantic piles of fruit, meat and vegetables is quite eye-catching. we thought it would be an easy beginning.

i gave a few speeches and had to do them over a number of times because i fiddled too much or someone walked in front of the camera or something went wrong. i interviewed a number of people and that, in my opinion, was the most interesting. the images were wonderful. a lady who had worked in the market since she was a child sat on a wooden stool and chopped chillies up with two giant cleavers while i talked to her about her life. she didn't stop chopping for one second and answered all of my questions fluidly. the image of her on the chair and the chili seeds flying through the air was brilliant.

an old lady sitting on a large table cutting different pieces of pork. most meat vendors actually sit on the table with their product. she was casually sitting cross-legged in the middle of giant piles of meat trying to explain to me the difference between the different cuts. i wanted to know how they ordered. did they call? no. they simply guessed how much they would sell a week or so in advance and it came on the next boat.

we talked to a young man who was recently married and who carried papaya's from can tho to long xuyen every week. him and his wife lived on the boat which was small, slim and owned by his family. he was dressed very neatly and his hair was combed perfectly. his wife stood on the bow of the boat watching and giggling.

we went to the part of the market where they sold breakfast and talked to a man who was cooking 'bo ne'. 'bo ne' is cooked on an iron skillet and does most of the cooking on your table. they heat the skillet until it is flaming and then throw oil, beef, onions and butter on it. they do this all over an open fire and the oil evidently burns and there is the constant sound of screaming beef in sizzling oil. the man was busy and didn't stop for one moment as the beef and flames and oil lept all around. there was a moment where i got too close and, in the middle of a question, had to leap backwards as an unexpected flame shot up towards my face.

all in all the material was wonderful. we went home and watched it. things were not as glorious as we had expected but we will try again this week. all in all the 'vietnamese video project' will continue and we will eventually have a product the west will appreciate.

the electricians here all dress in hunter orange. if you miss them, you must be colorblind.

i met a large group of them at a restaurant and they invited me over. they talked to me about all the electrical problems of the university.

they would say things like, 'do you know that large wire that runs from such-and-such a street over to the corner? well, that has been giving us problems.' i would respond with a shrug of the shoulders and a feign of interest and they would continue. 'we have been trying to fix it for the past few weeks. we think there's a problem with the connection.'

and that was the end of the conversation. what do you say to the people who fix the wires around campus? i know nothing about electricity and smile and nod. sure, there's a problem and i'm glad you are all there to fix it.

the teaching profession here is very important. they all respect me right off the bat simply because i am a teacher. i told them that, without the help of our mighty boys in orange, we would have no electricity and therefore no class. you were the reason we taught.
they loved it and i felt wonderful. we all left thinking we contributed something valuable to society.

i've been famous in news papers. i've been flirting with the hearts and minds of everyone i've met in town for the past year and a half. they're all curious and maybe one quarter in love with the foreigner who speaks vietnamese. i've given speeches, organized large events and have been on television. now was my time with the vietnamese stage. i was going to act in a vietnamese play.

they had a part for me that was going to be played by a vietnamese person. they were going to imitate a foreigner. the old actor came down with some sort of sickness and headed back to their hometown this morning. the play was a few days from now and they needed someone else.

the venue was simple but elegant. it was to be held on the fifth anniversary of long xuyen's birth. it used to be classified as a 'town' but, five glorious years ago it was upgraded to the level of 'city'. there was to be a huge, festive celebration in the middle of town.

a few days ago, someone came to my room and wanted to know if i would be willing to memorize a few lines in english and vietnamese in order to act in this play. it was the event to participate in and i was more than willing. i took the script and began to memorize.

the part was simple. i came on in one scene and bought lots of fruit. i was a foreigner so i had a suitcase full of money just like any foreigner coming to the country. the play moved on and the farmer began to use too much insecticide on their crops and the fruit, while growing to a beastial size, they didn't have the same flavor. the foreigner came back with his suitcase and a full understanding of vietnamese and tried to buy more fruit. he tasted the fruit, almost died and didn't buy it. so, i spoke about 30 lines, half in english and half in vietnamese.

i had memorized the lines, and went to practice. where better to practice than with the security guards. they sat outside their shack and drank coffee around a small plastic table. i had a cup of coffee with them and told them about the play. they were interested and volunteered to help me rehearse. the larger guard was the old man selling the fruit and the smaller, younger man with the tall hat was the younger girl after much objection.

we sat under an old mango tree sipping strong iced coffee and reading from the script. they both got into their roles and even simulated the fruit with a large rock that they handed to me. the younger security guard even raised his voice a bit. they helped with my pronunciation and congratulated me with a slap on the back and a promise to pay for my coffee. i left.

it turned out that my brief flirtation with the vietnamese stage would not work out in the end. the play was actually going to be cancelled because it was impossible for me to fill the role. there would have to have been too much 'paper work' for the process to go along. so, there will be no play and i will not participate but, for one brief, glorious moment, i was going to stand on stage in front of hundreds of people in an open air pavilion and make them all love me. i would have been nervous walking out onto the stage with all the lights and the heat under the early moon but i would have done it and i would have done it with zeal. i would have been that small star hovering over a wooden platform in the middle of the plaza.

nothing at all happened to me the past couple of days. my life is becoming incredibly boring. i am sorry and will try to be more interesting. tomorrow will be incredible, like a tiny star falling to earth and settling somewhere in the middle of the pacific only leaving a faint, beautiful glow.

chinese chess.

in chinese chess, things are a bit different. there are two sides and both sides have different characters on their pieces, which are shaped like checkers. for example, there is a chinese character on the pawn of each side but neither character resembles one another.

i have a new founded respect for anyone who knows how to read mandarin. trying to remember the different symbols is a mystery to me. one must look at the character, which at first looks like a random assortment of lines and dots, and make sense of it all. one must look at the horse and find some characteristic that will remind them again of a horse. i tend to look at characters and remember them as the 'squiggly one with the box in the middle' or the 'one with long straight lines' or the 'one with the hook at the bottom.'

the pieces also move differently. the king is resigned to stay in a small box at the back of the board. he is flanked by two pieces that act as sentries. these two pieces also must stay in the same box as the king. that small space is fairly crowded. the piece to the left of the sentries works as a defensive piece. it is only allowed to move on your own side of the board. you see, the board is separated by a 'moat' and some pieces from either side are not allowed to cross this space. this defensive piece is only able to move in odd diagonal lines across ones own side of the board and seems to serve little purpose.

the knight is to the left of this defensive piece. the knight moves in the same way as a knight in western chess would move except it is not allowed to move when a piece is directly in front of it. the knight is able to cross the moat. to the side of the knight is the rook. the rook moves in the same way as a rook would move in western chess.

in front of the knight, off at an angle is the bishop. the bishop in chinese chess does not move as a bishop would move in western chess. it moves in straight lines just as the rook would but it can only attack when there is a piece between it and the victim. this makes the game quite confusing. normally, when a piece blocks the path of another piece, there is no way for it to attack. however, in chinese chess, when the bishop is blocked, it becomes dangerous.

in front of the bishop are the pawns. they are useless on one's own side but, when they cross the moat, they also become dangerous. they are able to move sideways and forward on the enemy's side.

all in all, chinese chess is quite different from western chess. i've seen many a game played between two very old, wrinkled men with cigarettes limply hanging from their mouths in a dank coffee shop. the game seems to more honestly depict an ancient battle. the king is not able to move from his strong hold. what sense does it make to have a king running all over the countryside with no support? surely a king would need an entourage. there are two definitive sides with a boarder running between. this would also be more accurate to an actual battle. also, there are some pieces that seem to have more use on ones own side as opposed to ones enemy's. this would make sense if you had a cook that didn't want to participate in battle but one who would gladly lay down the frying pan in order to defend his nation with a butcher's knife.

in vietnamese, there is an expression: 'failure is the mother of success.'

i don't think we have this expression in the west. we have expressions that deal with trying and then succeeding, but i'm not sure whether we have an expression that can be translated directly. we do not see failure as being important in success.

'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' says nothing about the need to fail in order to actually succeed.

i think there is a lot of merit in the vietnamese phrase. failure is such a vital part of sustainable success that one must be more than eager to try, fail and try again. this is especially true of someone learning languages. ask anyone who speaks a second language well and they'll tell you that one of the most important things in learning another language is the willingness to try and fail. one can not hesitate to use a new word or phrase. one must speak, speak incorrectly and do so hundreds of times. only then can one have success.

do we have any other phrases that talk about the need to fail and how that influences success? if we don't, we should definitely adopt some.

the general.

the dog is majestic. his nose is a tiny point on the tip of his face. his eyes are bulbous globes that stick out and resemble something found in the depths of the ocean. well, he only has one eye. one was lost in a duel. his cheeks are ancient and run from the sides of his nose to his jaw. he has jowls. his demeanour is regal.

his hair flows down to the ground. it used to be white but has faded into a disgusting brownish orange. he walks around the house like a god for he is the alpha dog of this home. his flat face, one eye and personality make him look like an old english general.

in the home there are five dogs. the alpha dog, tipi, is the oldest and commands the most respect. there are two german shepherds who wisely stay away from tipi (named julie and gold). when they were puppies, tipi gave them a run for their money and the image of that single eye glaring at them churns their stomachs to this day. these are giant dogs but tipi's personality is colossal.

there are two more japanese dogs about the same size as tipi. one is named susu and the other is named lucky. they both bow to tipi. susu was bought specifically to be tipi's girlfriend. she is a beautiful dog and tipi's owners were trying to erase the though that their tipi might be gay.

i spent a good deal of time talking to tipi's owners and they were concerned that it had no interest in female dogs. they coulnd't ever remember a time when tipi was caught with a female and they were sure that he hadn't fathered any children. because of this fact, they bought susu. they wanted this attractive dog to alleviate all of their fears. if anything, it compounded them.

tipi has yet to take any interest in susu. he walks around the house and controls every other dog. this tiny, one-eyed, gay japanese dog with a general's face and demeanour is happy and content. i think everyone should just stop worrying.

i spent the whole night trying to defend the food in philadelphia.

first, there were cheese steaks. i explained that there were two places to go in philadelpha: gino’s and pat’s. i told everyone that pat’s was the best but that most of the tourists went to gino’s which is much flashier and has many more pictures of celebrities on the walls.

i told them about cheese wiz. how do you describe cheese wiz except for saying that it is plastic looking cheese. no one understood and i told them they had to try it if they really wanted to understand it. who on earth would try plastic cheese.

i told them about the tastykake. i told everyone how famous pennsylvania was for having this kind of snack-food. i told them how their cake covering was so soft and supple and how their insides were so sweet and perfect. no one understood.

i told them about a diner. i told them you could order a cup of coffee and have it refilled hundreds of times before you left. they didn’t understand because they go to coffee shops every day where they can order a cup of coffee and have hundreds of cups of tea served to them. they especially didn’t understand when i told them the coffee was fairly weak compared to vietnamese coffee.

nothing was good. everything i cherished about home was not easily explained. names and descriptions did no justice to the true taste of a greasy cheese steak milling around in the mouth or the instant rush of chocolate and sugar one experiences from a tastykake or the relaxing conversation one enjoys over a cup of coffee that never seems to expire but never seems to be very good.

‘go to the bird coffee shop’, someone said to me. i agreed but didn’t know how on earth to get there. in a town like long xuyen, you get to know all of the coffee shops pretty quickly. i was surprised i had never heard of the ‘bird coffee shop.’

the coffee shop was someone’s front porch. we sat on small, reddish chairs and drank coffee that was too sweet. surrounding us were 55 bird cages.

i spent the beginning of our time there aloof from conversation and intent on observing the birds. the cages were made of wood and bamboo. they were covered in lacquer and hung from various branches of trees. they were beautiful cages and gave the birds ample room to move around.

the noise was overwhelming. the chirps and tweets and subtle twitters of the birds did not at all combine to make a beautiful harmony. instead the various noises were in unbearable dissidence. they were all screaming out for friendship or love or maybe they just wanted the world to know that they too had a voice. they, even though they were trapped in a glossy, opulent cage, were alive.

black headed birds with glowing blue feathers around their neck that could not have been any more brilliant. white strips down their black wings that curved violently. tail feathers that acted as a brilliant black ballast.

tiny lime colored birds that looked like they had swallowed golf-balls. their bulbous bodies bounced around the cage supported by microscopic wings. their brilliant bodies looked like stars floating and bouncing off of one another.

smallish, well proportioned birds with black heads and necks made of burning embers. white lines down their back and a wide tail of white, black and streaks of orange. they perched upside down and their necks throbbed.

brown, anonymous, small balls of feathers that darted from cage to cage. freckles of white and black thrown on a hideously boring body. the sparrows.

i wondered why they flew from cage to cage. they may have been enjoying the beauty, or they may have been bragging about their freedom. maybe they were jealous of the small tin of dish, or the piece of fruit and the bowl of water that was in each cage. maybe they wanted to sit and rest, to stop scavenging for a day or two. maybe, however, they were mocking the beautiful birds who, while being gorgeous, only had a small space to call their own. i wondered who was luckier. was it the sparrow in his dull brown suit who roamed from place to place at will, or was it the grossly overdressed birds of the tropic who would spend the rest of their lives sitting on a wooden stick in a shiny cage in the middle of a coffee shop next to a dirty river.

congratulations to mr. jason r. moyer, student senate president.

sitting beside salford mennonite church, there used to be a plot of land that was the community's to use. at the end of winter, you could sign your name for, if i remember correctly, a 40 foot space where you could grow anything you wished. i don't know if it is still available for everyone's use, but the patch of land sat pristinely overlooking the surrounding hills. it felt like you were at the highest point in eastern pennsylvania.

i used to grow things because i loved to watch them all sprout through the earth, bud and bear fruit. i used to work with a shovel and spend hours in the evening turning the ground over. i used to spend hours hunched over that patch of blood brown dirt. i used to sweat and feel at peace.

one day i was working. beside me there was a man from my church, a wonderfully intelligent man that i had known since childhood, tilling the ground. he stopped and i stopped. when this man spoke, it's in one's best interest to listen. he simply said, 'you know jon, working the earth is a sacrament.' as soon as the words left his mouth and the sweat fell from his forehead, he went to work again and left me with that phrase. that phrase has mulled around in my mind for almost two years.

today we decided to plant a small garden, to work the earth, to take part in a sacrament.

i stood in the unforgiving sun and repented. the sweat that poured over my entire body was my sacrifice. the burning in my shoulders and my back were my penance. we worked the earth for hours. the earth was hard and had been polluted by humans long ago. it was not pure.

the population pressure of this country is so great that there is virtually no earth to till. however, surrounding the international guest house, there is a small patch that runs alongside a giant concrete wall topped with barbed wire. the patch of land is not ideal, a row of small palm trees obscure the sun, but it is the best we have. also, because of such a dense population and a lengthy history, every patch of land has been worked over and over and over again. each piece of land bears the scars of humans. our patch of land was no exception.

we partook on an excavation dig while we were loosening the earth. we found giant stones, ancient bricks and styrofoam. we found shoes, two pairs from little girls. we found bottles and tins that had broken and rusted. we found plastic bags and plastic sheeting. the land had not been sanctified in a long while.

after we repented, we were forgiven. the land was, however slowly, free from human impurities. we placed our flowers in the ground, watered them and smiled. our reward was simple: a tiny sliver of pureness, an ounce of truth, a glimpse of perfection, blooming flowers in freshly tilled earth, blooming flowers in front of a barb-wire-covered wall. our sacrament was complete and we showered and felt fresh.

some of my chinese friends met me with a giant grin yesterday when i was playing basketball. they held out a newspaper and told me that lightning did strike twice.

more correctly, lightning struck three times and a couple of people got burnt.

the original article that was printed in the 'thanh nien' newspaper ended up being translated twice: once to the saigon times and another time to a chinese newspaper that i never knew existed but actually is printed all over south east asia.

i've gotten a number of letters. i average about one a day and they're all addressed to 'jonathan moyer, teacher an giang university, long xuyen.' none of them have a road name but they all somehow find me. the letters are not annoying seeing as how i can just pile them up on the coffee table in my living room.

a number of pilgrims came down to meet me and, after a bit, everyone got annoyed with them. they would come and stay and would not inform anyone before hand. they were rude and expected us to let them sleep on our floors. i'm not going to let any 18 year old stranger curl up next to my bed for the night. "(stretch) so, did you sleep well last night?" i can't think of anything more awkward.

now we have a security guard that stands outside of the international guest house. he wears a giant hat with a giant yellow star surrounded by a majestic red. he carries a stick and looks bored. now, everyone who wants to meet us has to go through this stick-wielding man. we officially have bodyguards.

here is the article in the chinese newspaper. i don't know what the fall out will be. as is clear, because my phone number is on the bottom, i will have to keep it unplugged for the next couple of weeks. either nothing is happening in the world or i'm actually interesting. i'm inclined to not believe i'm interesting.

what a dreadfully boring place this world has become.



and this is me surrounded by gibberish.

our dog has not been the most appropriate dog in the world. he has, as we all have, made mistakes. he has been coddled. he has been placed in an environment that his genes are not familiar with. his ancestors spent their lifetimes darting through rice paddies, chasing rats and birds. he sits in a room and is chained up outside. he has become territorial.

we have to build a cage to put him in. he has to have a defined space, boundaries. we started construction yesterday.

it was a simple plan and we were all simple construction workers. i ran down to the local wal-mart and bought what supplies i thought we would need. the local wal-mart is actually a small grouping of shops and tents next to the river. it is the industrial section of town and we rarely have reason to travel down there.

the first store i headed in was cramped and overflowing with metal tools. it was staffed by some of the cutest and most knowledgeable hardware workers i’ve ever seen. they were all sisters and all pranced around in their dirty pajamas with irresistible smudges of dirt on their cheeks. i bought things i needed (6 meters of fencing, a hammer, wire, wire cutters and a shovel) and moved down the aisle to the next store.

i was looking for cement. now, i have never worked with cement before and thought i’d give it a shot. how hard could it be simply filling in a couple of holes? i found my shop, an old lady sitting by the side of the road. she was plump and dirty as was everything in that part of town. she had a pulled in face and pulled back hair. her dress was an undistinguishable color, long ago masked by the dirt around her. she gave me instructions on how to make cement (3 parts sand, 1 part concrete. sounded simple enough.) and sold me 4 kilos of the mix. the mix came in large, clear plastic bags.

i went to buy sand, figuring that i should probably buy about 12 kilos. i drove down a road that was fairly abandoned and asked every other person where i could buy sand. then, out of the blue, a group of drunk youngsters poured into the street. they asked what i was looking for and me, being eternally trusting, told them and asked them where i could buy it. like any group of drunk adolescent males, there was a show of feathers. the biggest came out, told me to park my bike and said he would walk me there. being trusting, and at times naively so, i left my motorcycle. he lead me into a store and, it turned out, all the teenagers were employees of one old lady who sat behind a desk in a dimly lit office.

i said i wanted sand. she asked how much. i said 10 kilos. she asked me where she should send it. i told her the university. she asked me my name and i gave her my vietnamese one. she asked why i spoke vietnamese so well. i explained. she asked me if i knew who ‘trinh cong son’ was. i had studied about the famous vietnamese composer and even knew a bit of one of his songs. her wrinkled face broke into a smile. she stood up and told me i could have it for free. i had passed the test.

with everything that was required to build a house for the dog, i headed home.

i spent the early afternoon digging a giant ditch where we were going to burry the fence. the dog has already dug gigantic holes and we knew that, if this was going to be jota proof, it would have to be deep and sturdy.

i was a real worker and sweated in the near 100 degree heat. after the ditches were dug, we started to pound in the stakes and mix the concrete. it turns out that 4 kg of concrete mix does not make too much concrete. we only had a bit and, with the sand, it barely filled half the bucket. we would have to get more, but how much? and how would we transport all that sand?

ah, but prayers are answered and wishes are, when the wind blows just right and the sun shines pure enough, granted.

the security guard didn’t have any guarding to do and he came over to supervise our project. he saw our difficulties and said, ‘you need to get some professionals over here.’ and he did just that.

in five minutes he had rounded up 6 masons from a construction site on campus. we had 6 professional masons working on mixing concrete for the base of our dog cage. they scurried around and brought over buckets of sand and water. they mixed everything with zeal. they cursed to high heaven and there was not a moment where someone was no telling someone else what to do. the man mixing the concrete would tell the man who was fixing the wire what to do while the man who was fixing the wire would tell the man who was laying some bricks what to do. it was a continuous, uninterrupted cycle of criticism which no one seemed to take seriously.

within an hour, the professionals had finished the cage and i was left to scratch the dog’s name in the front, brick entrance that one of the masons decided the dog should have. they left and smiled and asked for 70 cents for all the sand they used.

every once in a while it is necessary to escape from the mekong and enjoy a nice weekend in ho chi minh city. these weekends normally consist of laying around in hotel rooms, ordering pizza (a luxury we are not afforded in long xuyen) and being generally as lazy as possible.

in our favorite hotel, the glorious 'huy hoang' (means 'splendor' but is far from wonderful), we normally watch hbo on television. every afternoon there is a series of movies and one can sit back and waste their life. the movies are the most horrible movies i have ever seen. here is the plot of two of them.

movie 1:
this movie stared dick van dyke, famous for his horrible cockney accent in mary poppins. however, instead of jumping from rooftop to rooftop and singing with his fellow chimney sweeps, he was saving the world from a group of bioterrorists. i kid you not.

mr. dick van dyke (an unfortunate name) was now old. he sported a mustache and a paunch. his top-hat and grin were replaced with a checkered shirt and a furrowed brow.

i only saw the end of the movie and regretted not seeing more.

movie 2:
this movie starred superman (the one that fell of the horse and is in the wheelchair), dr. quinn medicine women (don't know if you all know her, she's austrailian and stunning) and the von trapp family's father from the sound of music. it was a star studded cast and i expected a wonderful film.

well, superman is living in a nice hotel for the summer. the film is set in the late 70's and his hair is to be envied. he is, by profession, a play write. his life in the hotel is fairly bland. he is, in fact, working on a new play. the twist comes when he learns about an old actor played by dr. quinn. she is a stunner, one of the first actors ever to take america by storm.

the next twenty minutes or so are wastes by superman looking at pictures of dr. quinn on the wall. he starts to fantasize about her, he kisses the grainy black and white photo. it turns out that, before the lady died, she actually met superman in tokyo and had given him a watch she carried. the movie is, at this point, extremely bland.

oh, and then the twist!

superman goes to find one of his old professors and asks one of the most philosophically charged questions anyone could pose.

'professor so and so, i have a question.'

'yes?'

'is time travel possible?'

and that's it. the play write superman listens to the beanie headed professor talk to him about how time travel is possible and how, during a trip to italy back in the 50's, the professor stumbled on a secret. how do you time travel? easier than you think.

simply lay back on a bed in a bare room. you must be wearing the clothes from the time period you want to visit. you must repeat over and over again the time you want to arrive in. for example, play write superman, now clad in a comical brown tweed suit with a tiny bowler cap, laid on his bed and said, 'july, 1912. july, 1912. july, 1912.' for about 20 minutes of the movie. then, all of the sudden, it was july, 1912.

ah ha! perceptions of reality! what is real and what isn't! this was a philosophical masterpiece rivaling the dick van dyke thriller about bioterrorism!

so, he meets this actress and they fall in love. he doesn't tell her he is from the future, but he gives her the watch (the same one she gives him in the future! don't you see? it's all circular!) and they kiss. however, nothing can be this wonderful in such a thriller for so long.

the second twist.

after a wonderful meal where dr. quinn medicine women and play write superman who traveled back through time by thinking were talking, play write superman who traveled back through time by thinking stands up and admires his humours brown tweed suit.

dr. quinn tells him that he should by a new suit and play write superman who traveled back through time by thinking says 'no.'

he reaches through his pockets with a childish grin on his face. he pulls out something and, ah! no! it is a penny from 1979! such a time paradox could not possibly exist and play write superman who traveled through time by thinking is left screaming back to the present. he is lost without dr. quinn. he loves her and doesn't eat for a week. not eating for a week killed him. i can't verify the scientific support for this, but i'm sure it's possible if you travel back through time only to have your heart broken.

the last scene of the movie is dr. quinn and play write superman who traveled back through time by thinking and then had to return to the present because he saw a shiny penny from 1979 in heaven. they are holding hands and everything is bright and white around them. the credits rolled, i sighed and went to sleep.

valentine's day.

this is a holy day here. it's a day when, in the words of one of my students, 'the happy people are more happy and the sad people are more sad.' quite concise.

my mailbox was full of e-cards. they were mostly from students and there is a rumor that i have a secret admirer or two. they were mostly animated and showed hearts and flowers and what not. below them, written in poor english, was usually a message implying that i had a number of girlfriends (not true) and that i was probably going to visit them.

i asked a number of people what they did on valentine's day and they do just about the same thing you all do in the states. most people take their girlfriend/boyfriend out to eat, buy them flowers or a card. however, one thing that is much more acceptable is writing a card to a friend of the same sex wishing them a happy valentine's day. the day is not reserved for love. oh no, it is reserved for wishing everyone luck in securing loving relationships.

friday the 13th and all is well.

i woke up feeling fresh, worked in the office the whole morning and taught a beautiful class this afternoon. i’d say it’s all a hoax, if you ask me.

people here obviously do not believe in friday the 13th. as i said earlier, the number 1 is very lucky and the number 10 is not good luck at all. there are only two other numbers that have any significance, as i understand it.

the number 35 represents someone who is very good with the opposite sex. someone who has many girlfriends or boyfriends (though it is rarely used for girls and if it is it is usually used in a derogatory way) and who can talk to the opposite sex with grace and charm. the reason is this: 35 is the number that represents the goat and, in vietnamese, the word goat means someone who is very pimp-like. it is not taken as a compliment by all.

the number 70 is also interesting because it means you are double goat.

in english, the only slang we have for the word goat (that i can think of) is an ‘old goat.’ (now, i may have just made that up and it is a translation from a vietnamese word. if i did, i’ve been here too long and have ceased to think properly in english.) an old goat in vietnamese means someone who is old, disgusting and still tries to flirt with young girls.

goat in spanish is ‘cabra’ and a variation of the word is ‘cabron’. this is one of the worst insults you can heap on someone. as it was explained to me in spain (every spanish speaking country has a different interpretation of this word. i’ve been told that people have been killed for calling someone else a carbon in puerto rico. in spain it was quite common.), if you call someone a goat, you are implying that they allow their women to fool around on them. (once again, sexist. i think every culture has that in spades.) a goat, evidently, will allow his harem to trot around to other male goats and spend time with them. if you are a ‘cabron’, than you are a male who is not powerful in any sense. you are used by women. (the worst possible scenario in a misogynistic world.)

so, a goat is not a goat is not a goat. i would love to know if any of you all know a different use of the word ‘goat’.

oh, and good luck on friday the 13th (it’s just beginning for you all, i’ve survived).

i met a man today who sells ‘number 1’. ‘number 1’ is a terrible energy drink that tastes like a mixture between plastic and cough syrup. it is yellowish-orange and usually comes in a very tall, thin bottle. it is asked for in english and their slogan is ‘be number 1!’.

in vietnam, number 1 is the best and number 10 is the worst. most things are usually rated by people. ‘you are number 1.’ ‘he is number 10.’ normally, people stick to the ‘1’ and ‘10’ rating system but some people end up straying. they’re the eccentrics.

‘this food is number 3.’ ‘this motorcycle is number 8.’ it gets out of hand at some points but there are weirdo’s everywhere you go.

this man’s job was to drive all over the three provinces surrounding long xuyen and make sure that all of his retailers were well supplied and generally happy. he had a tired, sad look on his face but he talked about marketing and sales with zeal. he was wearing his official shirt which had a giant patch on the back that said, ‘be number 1!’ he looked about an 8.

he talked to the owner of the coffee shop i was in and got him to give me a free sample. i had told him i drank ‘number 1’ before and that i didn’t really like it too much. he said that it probably wasn’t cold. i said, no, i had it with ice. he said the ice was probably bad.

the sample came and my tired, sad looking friend sat across from me and looked on eagerly. i drank a little and couldn’t help but pucker up my face. his face changed from anticipation to disappointment at about the same rate my mouth curled into a pucker. it still tasted like plastic and cough syrup.

he looked at me and said, ‘why are you disappointing me?’ i said, ‘i didn’t want to disappoint you, i just don’t like the stuff.’ he said, ‘you insult me.’ i said, ‘no, you didn’t invent the stuff, you just sell it. i’m sorry if i’m not lying to you but it tastes bad. maybe you like it but i don’t.’

it ended like that. it was a little too abrupt for my taste but it’ll have to do. i can’t help it if i’m not a big energy drink fan but i probably should have put on my happy face and told him how wonderful it was. strings of white lies, however, somehow end up choking.

i have been promoted to office duty.

i worked in an office a long time ago. i used to call various kfc’s and ask them how many boxes of chicken they would like to order for the following week at a company called ‘wampler longacre.’. i was very young then, about 14. people on the other end of the phone would address me as ‘ma’am.’

it was very exciting.

now, the office situation is different. i will be placed in the ‘international relations’ office. i will be in charge of translations (it amounts to making sure grammar is correct, something i am not very good at), relations (making sure all the staff get along with each other) and anything else the rector of the university would like.

tomorrow i will walk in there with bright eyes and a busy tail. i will be excited and will spend the morning working at my new desk (it is covered with a large piece of glass. underneath the glass there are pictures from all over the world and i hope to stare at each one for hours on end!). i will do everything asked of me and will ask nothing in return. for some reason, even though i have a successful job as a teacher, i am very excited to start working in the administration building.

ask me in a few months how excited i am to get up at 6:30 and head off to work.

quote of the day:

‘I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.’

george w. bush


‘i’m a mennonite. you won’t have my vote.’

jonathan d. moyer

there we were. the coffee shop was like all others but something was wrong. the air was light but the sun beat down outside. there was something horrible about the way the sun was shining, like it was trying to do us all irrevocable damage.

the whole afternoon i was working in the library. the library is surrounded by a fairly placid piece of land which is spotted with small growths of weed-like grass. on the other side of the ground circling the library there was a large funeral party. at the party they were playing music and the music carried on all afternoon.

the music sounded like a soul leaving the body. there were drums banging slowly and rhythmically. there were cymbals and gongs that were played intermittently. most eerily, there was some sort of wind instrument that sounded like tears. it did not sound right.

there we were in the coffee shop talking about sparrows. my friend had seen some sparrows dead on the road the other day and we talked about them for a bit. we talked about dead sparrows and dead chickens and other things that were dying around us. the music played in the background, crying.

in that moment, i felt how horribly tentative our grip on life is. everything felt like a dream, a tragically short one filled with unhappiness and sorrow.

the music continued to play, it was a chinese funeral, and we continued to sip our coffee and feel the sounds creep into us and foreshadow our future here on this small, wet rock floating through its dark vacuum.

thing are getting out of hand. a second person has made the hajj to long xuyen.

i came barreling through the school gates on my ancient motorcycle and the security guard stopped me. he said someone was looking for me and pointed to a lonely bench under a giant tree where a frail boy was sitting. i drove up to him and we introduced ourselves. he had read a small article written about me in the saigon times and made the six hour trip from ho chi minh city to long xuyen to see me. he was going to make the six hour trip back this afternoon.

he saw me and half jogged over to me and majestically bowed. he had a wonderful grin on his face and proudly held his copy of the saigon times. he wanted to talk to me about everything and wanted to go to coffee and spend his life at my side. we went back to my room and talked.

this morning he woke up at 3 and started his pilgrimage. he drove through chaotic traffic for five and a half hours before finally arriving in long xuyen. driving a motorcycle through vietnamese traffic is not like driving a car down i-95. i am physically exhausted after an hour of driving let alone five and a half hours. he drove the whole way just to meet me because he read something in the saigon times. (this is an english language weekly magazine geared for businessmen. lots of english students read it.)

he is a frail person with a wonderful smile and very tired eyes. he is studying english and is 22 years old. he sat on my bench and fidgeted. he kept playing with his hands and looking up longingly. he kept repeating the phrase that was in the article, ‘if you have a chance to travel down to long xuyen…’ he repeated that over and over again.

after his hajj, i asked him if he wanted to take a nap. his eyes were heavy and he had another five and a half hour trip back up to ho chi minh city this evening. he went to sleep in my bedroom.

after he woke up, i wasn’t sure what i should do with him. i told him i had to get some work done this afternoon and he sat on my big wooden chair patiently waiting for me. we went for coffee, chatted and i bought him a sandwich. the rest of the day was very, very strange. it consisted of both of us trying to think of things to talk about. he said he was leaving at 7 and i kept looking at my watch to see what time it was.

he spent a lot of time asking me, ‘why are you so famous?’ his point was simple. there are many foreign teachers here and, for some reason, i have been singled out. he thought it had something to do with my vietnamese and i had no adequate answer.

he eventually headed back up to the big city waving goodbye to us all as he drove down our dusty lane. he said he was thankful that he came down to see me. after reading the article he said he couldn’t have lived with himself if he didn’t take the time out of a lazy sunday to drive five and a half hours down to long xuyen. he will drive home in the dark and arrive at 2 or 3 in the morning. tomorrow he goes to school at 7.

(don’t read this unless you read the one below first)

today i had breakfast with my friend who traveled all the way down from ho chi minh city to see me after reading an article about me. i didn’t live up to her standards.

the first time she met me you could see the glitter of expectation in her eyes. you could see the shear joy of meeting someone she had only read about before. i went from a grainy black and white picture and became a real person.

today, when we were eating and she was asking me questions, you could see her disappointment melting away like a mound of crisco in a warm pan. it wasn’t my vietnamese, it wasn’t my answers for her many questions, it was simply the fact that i was too bland and normal for anything she had ever met. i was over-glorified and she came to realize that. i was not some god-like human; i was simply a misdirected boy who had grown up a little but not too much.

we talked and i asked her if her trip down here was worth it. sure, she said. she had never visited long xuyen before and she was glad she did (even though she found it slightly boring). she was also glad she had met me and made me promise that i would meet her the next time i went up to ho chi minh city. however, there was a sparkle of disappointment in her eye. she didn’t look at me the same way she looked at me the first time i opened to door to find a tired, dust-covered girl with a gigantic smile and expectant eyes. i had melted away from a majestic mound of crisco that is white, pure and has character into a bubbling mess of fat in the bottom of an old, char-stained pan.

a vietnamese girl on her hajj to mecca.

there was a knock at my door. i was working on the computer and waited for a moment. there was another knock at the door. i went to answer it.

‘hello?’

there she was, tired and dirty. she fixed her hair, looked up at me and couldn’t stop grinning and trying to conceal her gigantic smile. she didn’t say anything for a moment or two and she never truly made eye contact with me. she was young and very modern. she was dressed well but looked exhausted. she had a pretty, soft-skinned face and warm eyes. i had never met her before in her life.

‘can i come in and wash my face?’

that was the first thing she said to me. she triumphantly walked in my room after removing her shoes and headed into the disturbingly dirty bathroom.

‘i haven’t really cleaned it yet.’

‘no problem.’

she had arrived in mecca and i was her savior. she emerged from the bathroom with a bright, slightly gleaming glow about her and told me her story. it was a heroic journey.

‘i come from ho chi minh city where i work in a bank. my name is ____________ and i read about you in the newspaper. i just quit my job and i wanted to come down and meet you. i can’t believe it’s really you. wow. you look more handsome than your picture. i’m only here for a day or two and i just came down to see you. i can’t believe it.’

she sat in the midst of my clutter and smiled very puppy-like. she sat staring at me with eyes that seemed to see everything at once. i could hardly understand her motivations and tried my best to understand what was driving her. i came up with nothing. in front of me was the type of person i had never met in my life. in front of me was a fan bordering on a stalker. i had no idea what to say so i started asking very non-invasive questions.

at the end of our hour long conversation, she asked me if i wanted to go out with her tonight. i made up excuses and made my relatively busy schedule impossibly busy. i was as shocked to meet her as she was to meet me. because she traveled so long, (six hours on the back of a motorbike) i assured her that i would meet her first thing tomorrow morning for breakfast. i will go with a friend as to not arouse suspicions. i don’t want people to think i’ve got a traveling big city girl as a girlfriend. i also don’t want her to get a false sense of any sort of relationship.

i am so famous i have people travel by themselves for six hours to stay overnight just to meet me. people i’ve never met and never will see again. i am such an attraction, i am the last point on a dusty and dangerous pilgrimage.

i think that’s the first time that has ever happened to me.

i would like to thank my aunt and uncle who live down in north carolina with my little cousin who is the most adorable thing ever to enter the world. you can’t look at that little kid and withhold a sigh.

it was hot and dusty and i received a package. merry christmas. last year i received a package in march or april from my parents. that was also a christmas gift. there’s nothing wrong with getting christmas presents in heat that is quite reminiscent of july.

inside the package were cookies and other wonderful things. (a slinky!) they were crumbled and i ate them ravenously.

there were also two gifts for the dog and he is still fearful of them. there was a bag of doggy treats and a large bone-like thing.

we tried to give them the ‘bone’ first. it isn’t really a bone but, in my best estimation, it is some sort of animal skin that is folded into the shape of a cartoonish bone. its appearance is more designed for human consumption than for a dog. our dog, however, has no idea how to eat the thing. in fact, he’s petrified of it.

we show it to him and soak it in water (if it’s animal skin, water should make it more succulent, i assume) and we try to make it look as interesting as possible. we’ve gone so far as to pretending to eat it. he runs under the bed.

she also sent us dog treats. they came in the form of a bone (once again, because any dog food company knows that humans think their dogs know the difference) and were made out of some sort of bread-like material. he had no idea what to do.

he licked it for a little, walked around it for a bit and then began to eat it. the bone is only a few inches long and a half an inch thick, but it took him about twenty minutes to eat it. he took the tiniest bites and spread crumbs all over the ground.

so, our dog is trying to adapt to an american lifestyle but he’s having some difficulties. he never eats bread and has no idea what to do with a gigantic piece of dried skin shaped like a bone. he likes to eat geckos and chase gigantic horse-flies.

once again, thanks for the present. i hope you read this in your gorgeous mountain home overlooking that pristine appalachian lake.

the bird flu.

so, the bird flu came to south east asia. in case you haven't been following along (i'm sure it isn't getting too much coverage back in the states), it has made life a bit more complicated for the several hundred million people that live here.

you see, chickens have now become the enemy. you see, you can contract the chicken flu by having very close contact with chickens for a long period of time. you will eventually get a cough and then, for some mysterious reason, you'll drop over dead. a huge amount of people have not died because of this disease however, there is room to fear. the disease has spread very rapidly and no one is exactly sure how to stop it.

they have been culling chickens and ducks for the past few weeks. one fairly important person told me that they already killed 100,000 chickens and over 1,000,000 ducks in this province alone. the local government subsidises the farmers for each animal killed. also, people are told to stop raising fighting cocks. this has been a blow to the esteem of many a manly man. the fighting cock (not to be used for fighting, which is illegal, but for show) is a sign of vitality and strength.

they say that if the disease finds a way to morph with the common cold or the common flu and eventually is passed from human to human that it will be disastrous.

when i was in spain there was mad cow and foot and mouth disease. now, in vietnam, there's the bird flu. it seems these odd diseases that attack both animals and humans alike follow me wherever i go.

my new hair cut

i had my hair cut on the street the other day. it was just one of those experiences. i was sitting in a coffee shop with one of my friends and he told me i should get a haircut. he said that there was a place in the alley behind the shop. we finished our coffee and ambled down the narrow street.

at the end of the street there were three chairs narrowly squeezed in front of ancient mirrors. two of the chairs were full and the third chair was being guarded by a very large man with extremely short hair. he didn't look at all amiable.

i was instructed to sit down and my new fat friend went to work. he circled my head cutting aimlessly. he snipped and little bits of hair floated in the air, up my nose and i spent the next minute trying to avoid sneezing. he took out a razor and cut around my ears. he combed it all over into what has now become my very comfortable part down the side. i still grin whenever i see myself in the mirror with such toolish hair. whoever thought i would revert to such behavior.

my friend then convinced me that i needed to get a shave. i remember when i wanted hair to sprout from my face. i wanted to be masculine and old and have all the women swoon. now, when hair sprouts from my face and makes me look like a disgruntled sailor, i regret all those pre-pubescent longings.

the man took at me with a straight edged razor after spraying some sort of lotion on my face, neck and ears. he started with my sideburns and then moved down to my chin. he then shaved my upper lip and lower lip. all was going well, thought i couldn't put the thought out of my mind that he was going to, at some point, slash into my flesh and i would be left running to the hospital holding my cheek. he then started to shave under my eyes. i didn't have hair under my eyes (that i knew of) but he went after my upper cheek with abandon. he then shaved my forehead and my hairline. i was told not to wrinkle my forehead and i did my best not to laugh. he then moved onto my neck. i sat in the chair and listened to the traffic. i pushed my head far back into the headrest of the chair and arched my adam's apple sky high. he worked slowly and each movement of the razor on my neck was unnerving. he reached my adam's apple without incident and i shut my eyes and tried not to breath. a dog barked beside us. his hand, luckily, was steady.

he then went on to shave my ears. i kid you not, he shaved my ear lobes and then moved onto the outer area of my ear making sure not to miss an inch. he shaved both ears and, i might add, quite well. when he was done there was no hair on my outer ear.

he shaved my neck and all was well. he washed me down with another type of lotion and i was done. i paid my fifty cents and left with a new lease on life. i carry no scars.

to recount what’s happening with the article and my newfound popularity:

yesterday i took my phone off of the hook because i was concerned that i would not have any time to relax and i would be talking to strangers. today i thought no one would be calling me and i put the receiver back.

mistake.

i came back from breakfast and immediately received a call from a little boy who had just woken up. he was from ho chi minh city and wanted to talk for a little bit. he was studying and wanted to study english but did so very badly. he thought i could help him if i ever came up to the big city. that was a nice phone call.

the next call came a few minutes later from a young woman who asked me if i could answer a question of hers. in the article it said that i worked more enthusiastically than other voulenteer teachers and she was skeptical. why was it that i was full of so much heart felt enthusiasm? i had a hard time answering the question but told her that my mother always taught me to work as hard as possible and with as much enthusiasm as i had. that seemed to appease her.

the next call was from a man asking for my help. he was going to interview for a the executive director position of a company in ho chi minh city and wanted to ask me if i could help him answer a question. what do i do when they ask me ‘why would you be the best candidate for this position?’ i couldn’t answer on the fly and told him i would email him back.

the next call was from a girl who had called two days before reminding me that i promised her that i would be visiting her home land. i reassured her that the hallow promise was still valid.

the next call was from an old lady who spoke softly and asked me questions about my life. she then told me she had a daughter that she wanted me to meet and that we would be wonderful friends. she put the daughter on and the daughter didn’t say anything. i had to milk her for information and decided she wouldn’t be the best wife.

the next call was from two sisters in ho chi minh city. they told me to come up to the big city and we would all go see a movie. the one girl talked on the phone while the other girl yelled instructions to her. they sounded sweet but i doubt i’ll ever see them again.

the last call i received before i took the phone chord out again was from a girl who had three questions for me to answer. how do i study english better? why did i choose to live in long xuyen when i could have lived in ho chi minh city? and do i have a girlfriend? i answered all the questions and hung up.

whenever i have a friend come over, i plug the phone back in so that they will see how many phone calls i receive. we normally wait a minute or so and i let them answer the phone. they immediately start to grin and smirk when someone asks to talk to me. it’s quite a fun game and i have become quite a celebrity.