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mr. tri celebrated his thirty-first birthday last night. me and jack were invited and we hopped on our bicycles and headed off.

mr. tri is half indian. his father is from india but lived most of his life here, in long xuyen. he married a pretty vietnamese girl and they now live comfortably in a house right near the center of town. the front of their house is less than ten feet from the road. the constant hum of traffic sooths. the bottom floor of their house is a sporting-goods shop. they have all sorts of tennis rackets, badminton rackets and running shorts. there is always an old, silent man with wrinkled skin and terrible teeth stringing rackets. he seems to work at all hours of the day and night. i never would have thought there were that many rackets to string in all of vietnam let alone lowly long xuyen.

mr. tri’s father is a small, thin man with a large nose. his hair is whispy white and his skin is reddish-brown. he always smiles and speaks four languages: vietnamese, french, english and cambodian. tri’s mother is a small, plump vietnamese woman. her face is very round and flat and she always smiles. tri’s sister is young and energetic. her skin is dark and her hair always seems to be wet. tri’s older brother doesn’t talk. i haven’t ever heard him say a word and i didn’t notice when he got up to leave the table even though he was sitting next to me. i only noticed that the seat was empty and he was no where to be seen.

tri’s mother and father sat next to each other across from me. i looked at them, one with dark, reddish-brown skin and wide eyes and the other with pale skin and thinner eyes. teir children sat on either side of them. they looked like they could have only come from this pair. they all inherited the thin eyes and the dark, reddish-brown skin. they all have such wonderful smiles that seem to be so familiar.

we ate chicken curry and bread. i haven’t eaten curry in months and it was a wonderful change from rice. it was light and spicy and my eyes watered. i couldn’t help but smile.

tri’s mother kept looking at me and i kept practicing my vietnamese on her. she kept saying that i was handsome. she said it so much that i was almost annoyed. (but how can you really get annoyed at such a compliment?) she also said i spoke vietnamese wonderfully. she was just full of compliments and kept staring at me and giving me more curry. tri’s father wouldn’t stop teaching us vietnamese. the word for spoon, toothpick, powder, bad smell, anything you could think of.

the meal ended and they brought out a large cake. it was heavily decorated with flowers. tri’s mother wondered aloud why it wasn’t decorated with roosters. tri had a few roosters up in his room that he raised since they were chicks. his mother thought that flowers were for girls and that roosters were for boys. his father said that if anyone every played with them that tri would hit them. i was keeping my distance.

before we cut the cake tri’s mother asked me to say a prayer. she asked me to pray that tri finds a wife before the new year. i didn’t know what to do so i prayed, “dear god, thank you very much for my good friend tri. i hope that before the year is over he will find a beautiful new wife.” what else could i possibly say?

everything ended and tri was teary-eyed. we walked out through the sporting goods shop and the old, silent man with wrinkled skin and terrible teeth was still stringing rackets.

i was wondering what tri’s new wife was going to look like.

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what am i to do with myself until tet arrives? the lunar new year falls on the first of february this year and that’s when this semester ends. i’m not going to be able to teach any courses until then so i guess i have the next two months off.

no one knows what to do with me. i ask people and they all keep referring me to someone else. it’s one big game and i don’t know whether to be frustrated or whether to just sit back and enjoy my time. i guess i’ll just enjoy it while it lasts.

oh, today they did find something for me to do: check over a document that was translated. it’s pretty basic but it made me feel like i was working.

what is this place like? well, i’m beginning to find out but am not sure i’ll ever completely know.

what an introduction to long xuyen! last night was incredible. fifty to sixty students threw a huge party for me. i’ve never had such a party thrown for me and it was an incredible experience. socially, however, i faced hurdles.

they assembled in front of our modern guest house. at the beginning of the evening i introduce myself to the students. they were all dying to meet me. (especially the girls) i walked from group to group of students and talked to them in my most professional voice. slowly, powerfully, and with compassion in my eyes. because i am a teacher, i’m required to convey some semblance of authority. for the first time in my life i had to pretend to be an adult. it feels like i have to hoodwink them into believing i’m older than i really am. they don’t know i’m just as old as them and i’m not about to tell them. in a culture where age implies wisdom, being a young foreign teacher is a challenge.

they laid out a large tarp on the concrete and placed ten or twelve small stoves and lots of small plates of food. we sat on the ground and people asked me question after question. where was i from, what had i been doing before vietnam, why was i over here, did i have a girlfriend, how long would i be here, would i be their teacher, did i like Vietnamese food, did i think it was hot… i could easily continue.

there personality is excited and innocent. when i spoke in vietnamese everyone clapped loudly. i said simple things like, “i know how to use chopsticks”, and they would all laugh and clap. the boys always were separate from the girls. the random enthusiasm and segregation of genders reminded me of middle-school.

there was a sea of people and hundreds of new names. these would be my friends for the next two years. we’re all kind of on the same journey: they’ll be graduating when i leave for home. we all want to see what the future has in store for us but we’re also dying to live right now.