the second coming of the new year. tonight was festive.

we gathered around the large, bronze statue of uncle ton. he was the second president after uncle ho and grew up in the area. the streets, normally crowded with motorcycles, were now crowded with people, balloons and new year zeal.

there was a large stage with the words, “mung xuan quy mui”, plastered behind it. we were all wished happiness and prosperity in this new year of the goat. there were a number of acts performed on stage. everything from pop music to traditional dance. it was a cultural tossed salad all united by the ranch dressing of the new year.

hundreds of roving packs of children yelled, “hello.” countless ladies sold balloons twisted and shaped into a variety of animals. there were dragons and monkeys, people and snakes. all was wonderfully loud.

some children had strange haircuts. small boys, about three or four years old, had their hair shaved to the scalp except for three patches: the forehead and above both ears. it looked quite odd to me but i’m sure it had some cultural significance.

jack bought me a balloon. it was large, red and suspended on a thin bamboo pole. i walked around with it proudly for a bit but then gave it to the cutest little child i found. she smiled sincerely and i felt good, like i had saved the world.

back home we can still hear the sounds of bands walking through the streets. we’re two hours away from the year of the goat and we have to reverently say goodbye to the year of the horse. all is well in this strange, strange world.

three motorbikes and no one knew where they were going. it was utter chaos.

jack and i mounted the bikes of two fellow teachers from can tho that decided that they would show us a good time. the third bike only carried one person: the boss. we were going to get something to eat and enjoy supper. if we only knew what lay ahead.

my motorbike was lost within the first ten minutes. we circled around a small park where we thought everyone was and emphatically gave up. my driver, the english teacher, decided he would try to find someone’s phone number. i sat around aimlessly for more than an hour waiting and drinking fresh coconut juice.

after another twenty grueling minutes had passed, we got a hold of the group. we met them at what appeared to be quite a festive place. there was a large archway made up of glowing dragons and crabs. people milled about. i would have liked to spend some time there but, because of our tardiness, the rest of the group was bored. we were off to supper.

no one told anyone where we were going and within ten minutes we were all lost again. my driver had asked directions but the leader gave him the wrong street name. we ended up in some back alleyway. we were looking for a bun bo hue shop. bun bo hue is a bowl of noodles, beef and chilies fashioned in the hue style. it’s quite good but there were no shops on this street. there was nothing but cigarette vendors and odd bums lounging about.

we found the restaurant after passing many bun bo hue stands. we ate our meal and, by this time, i was fed up. jack too. we were ready to go home but everyone was determined to show us the university in can tho. this is where most of the teachers at an giang received their education. the university was huge and ghostly. because it was the lunar new year, only the security guards and their dogs lounged about. the large, stone buildings stood firmly in the marshland. they glared at us like skeletons in the dark, cool, night air.

we were lost again. we were going to coffee but no one told anyone else where we were going. we ended up simply going home.

in the morning we met again but had the same problem. we couldn’t find each other when we went for coffee. three motorbikes and no directions. no one told anyone anything. i really could have used a cup of coffee. i yawned and yawned as we drove eventually ending up back at our hostel. no direction, no action, nothing.

can tho.

down the mekong river about sixty kilometers you'll stumble across a hot-to-trot town that calls itself can tho. its much larger than long xuyen. its streets are larger, cleaner and generally smoother. i haven't stumbled across any dirt roads yet.

can tho is home to a few important sights. it's home to the can tho university where many of the teachers at an giang university studied. it's a large university and i've yet to visit it. because this is the lunar new year, everybody travels home. all of the english teachers from can tho are here now and we were told to come down, see the sights and spend some quality time with them.

the next important sight in can tho is its statue of uncle ho. it is a massive statue of the man raising his right hand and smiling. it was superbly placed right next to the river and is surrounded by a delightful park. the chain surrounding the fence is made up of large, metallic, five-pointed stars. the statue was humorously referred to as the, "tin man", by jack. it's supposed to look like it's made out of silver but it appears to be fashioned from tin. he looks remarkably like the tin man from the wizard of oz.

the final sight to be had here is the floating market. i'd heard many glorious stories of floating markets that one could pass from boat to boat as if on land. it was to be a sea of boats all linked by vegetable/fruit commerce. it was to be wonderful, glorious, a surreal nirvana on the river. it wasn't as exciting as the descriptions promised (but what ever is).

we boarded a small boat that we paid twelve dollars to take us out from five in the morning till twelve noon. our driver was a shy, youngish girl with long, stringy hair and calloused feet. jack and i sat in the front of the boat and we roared off. it was just after five in the morning and everything was mist. the mekong looked like a solid sheet of ice and we seemed to easily push through. the trip down the river was slow but watching the sun come up over our left shoulders. it slowly peered at us through the jungle growth as a huge glowing orange. it rose and gained energy. eventually, it blinded and burned us.

the floating market was a good hour away. we saw it as we rounded a bend in the river. it was a tangled mass of wooden boats all floating aimlessly. some boats had large bamboo poles died to their bows. at the top of the poles were tied a variety of vegetables. this served as a type of advertisement. whatever that particular boat was selling was hanging there.

we entered the middle of the market and it looked less like a myriad of boats creating a new land mass in the water and more like a jumble of boats all sliding, bumping and grinding past one another. we were hungry because we woke up late and had no breakfast. we asked where we could eat and the girl took us to some random house boat and we boarded.

the inside of the boat was all wood and it made you feel like you were in a cigar box. the roof, walls and floor were all worn with age and we sat at a small, wooden table drinking fresh coconut juice. i chatted with the owner of the boat for a while. he was very interested in my story and i was very interested in his.

him and his family usually stayed in the floating market. they sold things generally but led a peaceful life. his wife, daughter-in-law, son and two grandsons lived with them. it was a relatively large boat and most of the family eyed us cautiously from hammocks. one of his grandsons approached us holding his brother. his brother couldn't have been more than six months old. he was pudgy and curious. the older grandson said he was fifteen years old. he looked like he was eight. he was thin and short but had a well proportioned face.

they had no food on this boat and someone went looking for the roaming breakfast boat. it approached and we enjoyed some sort of pig-feet and noodle combination. it was really quite good once you got past the little hairs on the pigs feet. we chatted a bit more and eventually headed off.

the rest of the trip was much too long. there was another market that she wanted to take us to but the sun was burning us and the motor was roaring a bit much. we complied (we had paid and this other market could have turned out to be this semi-floating nirvana we were searching for). it turned out to be nothing of the sort.

we slept the whole ride home. having fresh water spewed in our face, the boat continually weaving under us, everything was beautiful. tomorrow we return home. back to what has oddly enough become the familiar.

jota, our puppy, our pride and joy, seriously needed some boundaries.

keeping chickens and roosters as pets is quite a popular past time here. i already recounted stories of one of our friends, tri, and his roosters. they are majestically colored and strut aimlessly as only flightless birds can. they are normally followed by a harem of loyal hens.

these roosters are kept in large, bamboo baskets. the baskets are about three feet high and about four feet across. they are turned upside down and the roosters and placed underneath. this is to keep them safe from thieves (oh yes, roosters are stolen) and from their own aimless wandering.

we are trying to train jota to go to the bathroom outside. we decided to get him a rooster cage. we bought the cage at the local market and carried it home on our bicycle. while i was driving, my left forearm straining under the weight of the cage and my shirt soaked from sweat from the noon-day sun, a man pulled up next to me. he asked, “how many roosters do you own?” i wasn’t about to explain that the cage was for a dog so i simply answered, “one, beautiful rooster.”

jota doesn’t like his cage. he tries to eat his way through it and we had to put some text-books on top so he wouldn’t move it about the room. he sits on his lime-green blanket/towel and sulks. he looks up at us and mopes. people come in the room and comment. they make fun of our dog sitting in a rooster cage. i think jota is slightly offended.

the lunar new year is approaching and all is hectic.

last night i was invited to go to a pre-tet celebration of the chinese-vietnamese organization here in long xuyen. i was picked up by one of my bosses.

we first went to a traditional chinese temple. the outside was decorated to the hilt. the inside was full of weathered chinese men and golden statues. all was dark and the smoke from the incense hung quietly in the air. we went to a table. sitting around it were eight old, chinese men. they all looked like sages and all had very unique faces. one face seemed to swallow up the eyes. another face had too many cheeks. one face was worn and wrinkled. another man had only one tooth on the right side of his mouth. he looked like an ancient snake that had lost one of his fangs in some sort of terrible cosmic battle.

the chinese temple was only the meeting point. we moved from there to a large hotel room. there were tables and heavy chairs. the room was thin and long with large pillars in the middle. the front of the room was decorated with signs that said, “happy new year”, and some things about this next year being the year of the goat.

there was a band. i use the term “band” loosely. they had a synthesizer, a bass, a guitar and a drum kit that was a throwback to a terrible 1980’s music video.

we listened to speeches in chinese and vietnamese. i understood some things but the only thing i really needed to do was to clap when everyone else did. there was a roving video camera with a huge floodlight. the camera man would blast this light in our direction and we would all pretend that we didn’t notice. he was like zeus hurling lightning bolts around.

some of the people had a wonderful idea. they thought i should sing. they asked if i knew any songs and, stupidly, i said i did. i asked the band if they knew any song by bob dylan. they didn’t. they said i should play guitar.

i stood in front of a silent room of over one hundred chinese people living in long xuyen. i played, “down in a willow garden”, which is an old bluegrass number. it’s sad and slow.

“down in a willow garden where me and my true love did sleep, twas there we fell a courtin’ my love fell off to sleep, i had a bottle of burgundy wine my true love did not know, and there i poisoned that dear little girl down under the banks below. i stabbed her with my dagger which was a bloody mess, i threw her in the river which quickly ended her life, my father often told me that love would set me free, the day i murdered that dear little girl whose name was rose connelly. my father stood at his cabin door watching with tear filled eyes. he watched as his only son mounted the scaffold high, my race is run benieth the sun and hell is waiting for me. all cause i murdered that dear little girl whose name was rose connelly.”

it’s quite a misogynistic and disturbing song.

so the band decided they would join me in the middle. i was standing with the guitar slung around my neck and a small, shy waitress holding the microphone. the drum kit started up. i could have been in a boy george video. the drummer wasn’t listening or didn’t care. he played some strange drum beat that belonged to a hard rock song. the bassist couldn’t follow and the synthesizer was creating chaos.

when i thought all was lost, a table in the back all stood up and started shouting and clapping. in the middle of the song they all ran to the front of the stage and surrounded me. they danced. when i was talking about, “stabbing her with my dagger which was a bloody mess” one of them men handed me a flower.

surreal. the only way to describe it.

the night came to a close and i was dragged up to the stage a few more times to dance with some old men. they were short and wrinkled and were determined to have me spin under their hands. i was the girl, they were the man. so i complied and spun around and around.

the lunar new year is approaching and i had no idea it was going to be this wonderful.