Chao cac ban

I apologize to anyone who may be checking our site regularly because we haven't been doing many postings lately. But we've found a couple of internet cafes very close to where we're living so we should be able to write more. Things are going well. I haven't always been thrilled with living in the heart of Saigon, but I think it's growing on me. We're a five minute walk away from the big park -- I can never remember the name, it's Cong Vien something or another, but Cong Vien just means park so that doesn't really help -- that includes the Reunification palace at one end, the sport center, the music center, etc. It's really very beautiful, and I love to just sit in there and drink coffee and watch people. There are always people exercising there -- walking, doing aerobics or martial arts. We've seen some pretty strange workouts in the park -- Vietnamese people are not very self-conscious about these things. A few days ago, we saw a guy whose workout had even the locals staring and talking. He was doing some kind of vocal workout that involved repetitive barking and yelling. Although I'm becoming less self-conscious after having been here only about six weeks, I still couldn't bring myself to join him. Hoa and I both have done some more public singing. Last week, Hoa and one of the other students from our class were walking around the campus of the School of Education and Hoa heard singing coming from a classroom. With her usual boldness, she walked into the classroom. About 40-50 students had gotten a hold of a microphone and amplifiers and were taking turns singing acapella solos. They were excited to have Hoa and Maggie join them, and insisted that Hoa and Maggie sing. They sang a children's song that we learned in class (Con Meo) about a cat climbing a tree looking for a mouse who in fact had gone to a far market to buy salt and fish sauce for the anniversary of the death of the cat's father. I don't really get it either. But the students were very enthusiastic about Hoa and Maggie's performance and gave them a standing ovation and began to sing the "ABC" song. Hoa came and got me in the cafe and told me I had to hurry to see something, without telling me what. I walked in, and Hoa told me the rule was that you had to sing a song before leaving. The MC approached and told me he wanted me to sing. I figured "when in Vietnam . . .", took the microphone and attempted to say in Vietnamese that the Vietnamese people sing very well, but I don't, and then sang "Proud Mary." When I finshed, one of the students came up and was saying something to me in Vietnamese that I didn't understand, but apparently he wanted me to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." So we did. Last night we went to a party for Teacher's Day put on by the Vietnamese Language for Foreigners/Cultural Exchange program. It was fun. Our class of 4 students sang the previously described cat-and-mouse song. We played a couple of games. The party was at a Vietnamese buffet restaurant that was excellent. I'm not even close to being sick of Vietnamese food -- in the six weeks we've been here, I've eaten pizza twice and Korean once, but otherwise every meal has been Vietnamese. There really is nothing I'd rather have for breakfast than pho. But back to the party: we also met someone from the U.S. consulate at the party. He was very nice, and I think he was only the second American we've talked to since we've been in Vietnam. We're spending very little time in the tourist areas of the city, and of the two other studnets in our class, one is Australian and the other, Maggie, is Chinese-Canadian. Yesterday, we went to see Maggie at her place in Phu My Hung, a very new and very expensive area in South Saigon. It was completely different from anything we've seen in Vietnam. It reminded me a little of an American suburb. It was quiet and green and had very little traffic. But, like an American suburb, it seemed that it might get a little boring, and I was glad to return to the craziness of District One. Time to study.

Cha Cha Cha

We have finally settled into a routine here in Ho Chi Minh. We recently moved to a new home. Our program director referred us to a family who rents rooms in their home for students. It is very clean and centrally located. We are 3 minutes from a very large city park, community activity center, and movie theater. We have made use of all 3 already. The family we are staying with consists of: mother, her cousin, and her young daughter about 9 years old. They have all made us feel quite at home. The mother is about 42, working, going to law school in the evenings, and studying English. She has an older daughter attending high school in Canada and her husband spends most of his time in Nha Trang (he works on a ship and travels everywhere). Last week, we spent a couple of evenings doing karoake. The little girl is teaching us a Vietnamese song.

Our Vietnamese studies are progressing. Our teacher has found students to work with us in the afternoons in exchange for free English lessons. Our day now consists of: up at 6am to go running at the park, eat breakfast or hang out at the park cafe, class at 11am until 1:30, lunch break for an hour, meet with Vietnamese students from 3pm to 5pm where we do an hour of English teaching then an hour of Vietnamese practice. I am enjoying every minute of it no matter how exhausted I am at the end of the day.

I have recently joined a ballroom dance class at the local community center, 3 days a week. I haven't been able to convince Tom to join me. Dancing is definitely a universal language! If you can count to 8 in another language and follow steps then you have it made! My teacher and classmates have been great! The class is in a large room with 3 other classes going on simultaneously. The room is packed with people of various age groups. On the left side of the room, the women learn their steps while on the other side the men are learning their steps. Once both sides have learned their steps, then you are paired up and dance nonstop. You are lucky if you get a short break between dances. It is equivalent to an aerobics class! It is also a great way to meet people and practice a little bit of Vietnamese.

Tom and I are becoming experts at using the public bus system. Yesterday, we took the bus to an island town about 30 minutes from our home. It was nice to get away from the traffic and busy city. My favorite part of the day was hanging out at an outdoor riverside cafe while it was pouring rain. It was nice to sit back and enjoy the sights and sounds of Vietnam. I loved listening to the music and the group of people talking behind me (I'm starting to understand about 40 percent). It still amazes me from time to time that I'm actually here and sometimes I wonder why it took me so long to get here.

We have been very fortunate in our journey. We have met lots of kind and friendly individuals. Everyone seems eager to lend a helping hand. I'm looking forward to the point where I can become totally integrated into the culture and lifestyle of Vietnam.

Hoa

Ups and Downs and Saigon

Life in Saigon definitely has its ups and downs, at least for me. There are some great things about living in Saigon and there are some pretty crappy things as well. The crappy things are overcrowding, heavy traffic, and nasty air quality, especially along the main streets. It also had seemed to me that people aren't nearly as friendly as in Vinh Long. Probably part of the reason for this is people here see many more foreigners than in Vinh Long. Vinh Long is a city over 100,000 people with only one or two foreigners living there. And most of the tourist only come for the day and don't spend even a single night there. So foreigners there were a novelty. Here in Saigon, they're used to seeing lots of foreigners, but almost all the foreigners the average resident sees are tourists who are only here for a few days. Many of the Vietnamese that foreigners who here a short time, including us so a far, meet are just trying to make a buck off you, which is understandable.

But now we're starting to meet some regular HCMC residents, who aren't trying to earn a living off the foreigners. Today was our fifth day at HCMC University, and the first Vietnamese student approached me to strike up a conversation. Once she approached, the floodgates were opened, and I was soon surrounded by 7 or 8 Vietnamese students. One of them said I was the first foreigner she had spoken with. I wasn't sure she really meant this, so I tried to clarify, and my understanding was that she really did mean that I was the first foreigner she had ever talked to, not just the first foreign student at the University. One student said she was afraid to talk to foreigners. I guess this shouldn't be too suprising to me -- I'm sure many Americans are afraid to speak to foreigners in the US as well.

The students were very friendly, and I enjoyed talking to them. A couple spoke pretty good English, certainly better than my Vietnamese. We made plans to get together to study English and Vietnamese together. It was a very nice experience, certainly better than some of my other contacts with the people of HCMC. A couple days ago, I went to a nearby park and began to study Vietnamese. A young man approached me and told me, in his very limited English, that he was studying English. I thought he wanted help studying, and maybe he did. But soon, three of his friends showed up, and one of them was trying to tell me something. He was rubbing his belly with a pained look on his face, and I thought was asking me if I'd been sick. Eventually, I figured out that he was trying to tell me that he was hungry and wanted money. I knew how to say, "I don't believe you," in Vietnamese, and I said so. I've gotten the impression that hunger is rare here, after speaking to Vietnamese people about begging and seeing food everywhere here. Still, I hope I wasn't wrong about this. After the friends left, the guy who approached me asked me if I wanted a "ma-sa" or something like that. It took me a while, but I eventually realized he was asking me if I wanted a massage. And when strange men in parks ask you if you want a massage, you tend to assume they're not talking about legitimate massage therapy. Again, maybe I'm assuming too much. Regardless, I left quickly. One nice thing about being in Vietnam is that you don't, at least I don't, feel threatened in situations like this.

I'm reluctant to write anything about the traffic in Vietnam, because every foreigner to ever visit Vietnam must have commented on this subject, but still some of you may not know what it's like. It's crazy. There are something like 8 million people living in Vietnam. There must be 8 million scooters. People don't drive cars, they drive scooters. In Vinh Long, the only cars or vans I saw appeared to be used by people using them to earn a living, for example by driving people to and from HCMC. Here in HCMC there appear to be a few cars used by the owners for transporations, but there are still very, very few. The nice thing about scooters for pedestrians is that the scooters are very manueverable -- if you step out into the street and walk a slow, steady pace, the scooter drivers will anticipate your movement and go right around you. But don't make any unexpected moves. The cars and trucks and buses are a different story, though. They don't have enough room to manuevere around you, so the same rules don't apply. But, fortunately, there aren't that many of these on the road. There are traffic lights at some intersections, but you certainly can't assume that they'll be obeyed.

As long as I'm writing about things every visitor to Vietnam must mention, I should talk about the weather. It's hot. Saigon is even hotter than Vinh Long. I think Saigon is one of the hottest places in Vietnam. And it's humid. It hasn't rained in four or five days, so I think the rainy season may be over. It will be intersting to see if the humidity is noticeably lower during the dry season. I hope so. Usually it's not unbearably hot and humid when you're sitting in the shade, but if you're not sitting and in the shade, it usually is unbearable. We have AC in our room. The buses have AC. Most of the restaurants we eat at don't. This internet cafe I'm at now doesn't. But with fans going, it's not too bad.

Our studies are going well. We just finished our first week at HCMC University. We've been working mostly on pronunication. We're learning some of the subtleties that had escaped us until now. And some of these things really aren't subtleties -- a difference in pronunciation or tone that seems very subtle to us makes all the difference in the world as to whether we are understood. Our teacher is excellent and a stickler for getting the tones right, which is exactly what we need. I'm really glad I started studying in the US. It seems that I've got a good head start on the average beginning student.

We're still plan to study here for another 4 or 5 weeks, then travel around Vietnam. I'm really looking forward to travelling. I just bought an atlas of Vietnam, and I'm amazed at how close we were to some pretty interesting places when we were in Vinh Long. I'm wishing I'd had it then. The maps in the Lonely Planet travel guide just aren't very good.

On Sunday, we're moving to a place recommended by someone at the University. I'm looking forward to getting into more of a routine after we move. It will be good to start frequenting the same places so we'll meet more people.