Meanwhile in Hanoi.....

I think at this point I can safely say, on record, that this rainy season has been the worst I've experience in Vietnam. Lots of tropical storms, lots of tropical depressions. Ho Chi Minh City remains well-situated to catch the tail-end of these howlers, not to mention the fact that most of the very southern part of Vietnam is naturally buffered by the Phillippines (who are currently catching TONS of weather). So the worst we get are unexpected power outages and a few extended hours of floods. And, wet. You will get wet. Nothing short of a full-body rain suit will protect you, and even then you've got to watch out for the nasty rain/street water that gets kicked up in your face from all the other motorbikes around you. Cars, though the individual usage of them would make traffic in HCMC unbearable, aren't such bad things for safe wet season travel. But who can afford that import tax? (Currently: 100%).

I've poached some pictures from various news sites that show what they're dealing with up north. Next week, I head to Danang/Hoi An for some R&R; though technically "Central" Vietnam, and though Hoi An itself is protected somewhat from the coast, I expect things will remain very wet indeed.

Another piece of Vietnam News: Last week in Quang Ngai, a central province that saw a lot of fighting during the American War (this is the province is where My Lai is located), a father and son were discovered living in a tree in the jungle for something around 40 years. The father, now 80-something, fled with his infant son, now 39, after their village was bombed. You can read the story here: Thanh Nhien.

It's been a while

And now, life lessons in the form of fiddle-jigs.

Double-bonus if you can whistle.

Con Dao, or: Christmas is over when I say it's over

In my living room there is a small artificial Christmas tree, somewhat haphazardly decorated but still festive in its own imperfect way. Though April is almost gone, no effort has been made to pack it up and put it away, wherever it would get put away; it perhaps has been standing in that same place for years on end for all I know. It was there when I moved in, and it will most likely be in that exact spot when I leave.

This is the amount of control I choose to exert over my surroundings. It makes no matter to me that the tree is there—it's an ornamental sort of object, as much an appropriate decoration for the living room as a picture on the wall. It does not offend me that the tree is there well into spring—if it were a menorah or some kind of mutant dreidel, it would still be there without any intervention on my part. In my mind, the tree, however plastic and sad, has a right to exist wherever it will, and at this point the whole place would feel almost empty if it were to suddenly disappear.

Still, it's got me thinking: what am I going to write about? My poor neglected blog, ignored for months because I've somehow developed the idea that I don't have anything to tell anybody. That's just silly and wrong.

So call this a retrospective.

Where were you December 25^th, 2012? I was on a plane for the second time in two days, trying to land on the seemingly-mythical group of islands called Con Dao. Now, I don't mean to seem ungrateful for this, because I appreciate to a great degree that most of you would have given your left kidney to be on a tropical island in December. But this island is situated just so that landing planes on the only available airstrip the tiny place can offer becomes a feat of almost super-human endurance. It tends to put a damper on the whole “relaxing island getaway” idea, but still adds to its mystique. We might as well have been trying to land on the island from LOST.

Christmas Day was take two. The day before, we'd boarded a mid-size plane for a 25 minute flight from the stinky, smoggy chaos of Saigon to the Place Where Christmas Dreams are Born. A three-day getaway to the small island (still technically in the province of Vung Tau--seriously, stupid close to HCMC) seemed like the perfect Christmas trip for a pair of friends and me. After a certain amount of time in a huge city like this, you start planning small escapes here and there, just to remind yourself that the world is not filled with motorbike beeps and a near-constant fear of any and all manners of death and/or dismemberment.

But the universe had other plans. The flight went smoothly enough, everyone on board with extra parcels and some amount of Christmas spirit, that general vibe of being happy to go wherever you're going. When it came time to land, the pilot switched on the seat belt sign, then announced that there was some slight turbulence ahead. Which ended up being the understatement of the year.

Every time the plane got ready to make its approach, it would list to the left and right so violently that the pilot had no choice but to abort the landing and pull up, circle around, and try again. The first time, two alternate thoughts were in my head: 1) I can't believe my pants are dry, and; 2) Trust, trust, trust. Next time will be better.

Next time was not better.

And the third time was the worst.

By this point people were starting to whimper and even scream when the plane attempted its landing. Children were crying, I was inhaling loudly through my teeth and holding my breath, trying to figure out if and who I should be praying to in moments such as these. Or whether I should be praying at all, and just drinking all the whiskey.

After three attempts the pilot, who is a goddamn hero, declared the island's wind conditions unsuitable for landing and turned the whole mess around back to Ho Chi Minh City. So on Christmas Eve I basically took a plane ride to the air above a beautiful tropical island and back.

We collected our things at the airport and went to make alternate arrangements for our trip. The airline put us on the first flight Christmas morning, 6:45 AM. I hoped this meant that we could land in less terrifying conditions and get on with the getaway already.

Enter the universe.

When I woke the next morning, the sun was way too bright and the sounds of children playing and screaming and singing at the school outside my bedroom window immediately signaled to me that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

My phone was dead. Why? We may never know. The battery was fully charged, the alarm set for a reasonable time, it must have just grown sentient for a split second during the night and decided it needed a break (after all, it was Christmas) so why not just shut off for a while?

By the time it powered up, it told me the time was now 7:05.

I wandered around my apartment going, “No! Nooooooooooo! Uggggggghhhhhhhh!” For a few minutes then resolved to check availability for later flights. Damn it, I am going to have my tropical island Christmas getaway, whatever the cost! Fortunately, I got everything ironed out (for a small-ish fee), had a quick Christmas hello-Skype with the fam, and set off to try this whole merry adventure again.

This time, the plane aced its landing, shaky though it was. Many of the people from the previous day were on our flight this time too, and we actually applauded. We were feeling good. Good enough to congratulate ourselves for sitting in one place for a while, hauling our luggage throughout the city, sleeping through flights, sitting in another place for a while, and managing to survive:

The entire story of my Christmas island getaway is practically contained in the journey of getting there. In the days that followed, we celebrated Christmas with copious amounts of spirits, exchanged gifts, and explored this veritable hidden gem of Vietnam, with all its attendant oddities. The day I left we discovered what is quite possibly the dopest beach of all time, well-hidden, full of coffee and beer vendors as ecstatic as any coffee and beer vendor can be to actually have customers, and absolutely, completely, ours:

See all those other tourists crowding around and being loud and generally disgusting? No! You don't! 

Wonderful, right? I had a whole 45 minutes to enjoy this magical discovery before it was time to get back to real life. 

The islands of Con Dao--the largest one called Con Son--are hands-down gorgeous, in many ways the incarnation of that 'tropical island getaway' I harped on about earlier. But they also have a turbulent past, involving several attempted conquests/settlements by several countries, eventually culminating in its use as a penal colony by the French, South Vietnamese, and Americans. There are several markers around the island describing various tragedies and atrocities perpetrated upon the Vietnamese. You can even visit several prison sites, though I opted not to do so because of time and, frankly, the lack of heart needed to process the terrible things that seemed to happen to people wherever Europeans went. I mean:

Click to enlarge!

At present, the island seems to have been purposed as some sort of military base, and boasts a relatively small Vietnamese population due to its geography and preservation status. This makes the local culture vastly interesting. There are elements of the Con Dao islands that remind me of the less savory aspects of living in Vietnam: bored, under-utilized citizenry just kind of sitting around and resenting you for taking time away from their phones, rats, rats, rats!, horribly inflated prices for foreigners, and the general distaste with which many Vietnamese approach their environment, but it also is a special sort of experience you don't get elsewhere in Vietnam: that is, an ecologically responsible one, with very few tourists and very little spastic development. 

This probably has a lot to do with this "preservation" status: The World Wildlife Fund in Vietnam has been working with authorities to preserve not only the islands of Con Dao themselves, but also the marine ecosystems surrounding them. For example, do you know what a dugong is?

Hello!

The rarity of these manatee-ish animals, in addition to throngs of Sea Turtles that use the islands for nesting purposes, have prompted this sort of intervention from the WWF. The conservationists, partnered with a military presence on the island, creates a very different travelling experience in Vietnam. It ensures that the tourist population remains low, and that development is structured and executed within reason. Elsewhere, you might find that people have gone absolutely bonkers trying to capture tourist dollars. In Con Dao, the approach to tourism, while definitely structured, seems so much more relaxed. And by extension, lovely. It will cost more to get you there and back, to eat the food you want to eat and drink what you want to drink, but just remember the pilot who got your ass alive and kicking to the place to begin with. It makes everything all OK.

Nature photos!

Up Next: Epic Tet.

Teacher's Day

First off, let's just go ahead with the requisite apology for being a deadbeat blogger the past few months. There's been a lot going on. If we crossed paths in August or September, let me say I was very happy to have seen you. If we didn't, I'm very sorry indeed that we missed each other.

The long and short of it is that I've returned to Ho Chi Minh City for the foreseeable future, until I can decide what the next step is. Since my return two months ago, I've been hectically trying to re-assume the lifestyle here, while also starting a job with a new company whose presence in Saigon is much, much bigger than that of my last school. The sheer scope of this school's ambition was made well-evident by their Teacher's Day banquet. In some places, things like Teacher's Day would be an excuse to sell more Hallmark Cards, but in Vietnam it's an actual holiday. Though, when you work for The Man, it's not guaranteed you'll have the day off.

And VUS Teacher's Day is a big deal indeed. People wear evening gowns to this type of thing. In typical form, I showed up in the same foxes-in-a-wood patterned dress I had been wearing all day. With my hair all disheveled and tangly, smelling like crayons, coffee, and hand sanitizer.

The first thing that had to go was my hideously unpainted face. Weeks before, I got Shanghai'd into participating in my branch's contribution to the entertainment portion of the evening--"Shanghai'd" meaning that I was approached without having fully processed my morning coffee, which we all know makes me powerless to decline any and all requests. Like a Godfather on his daughter's wedding day.

Anyways, this meant I had to get all done-up, squeeze into various items of "traditional" clothing, dance around in them, and then (presumably) drink ALL the wine. Lucky for me, they were smart enough not to leave me to my own devices in the makeup department. Unlucky for me, this meant I had to go with whatever look they decided on, and this particular one meant fake eyelashes. One of my foreign-teacher-dancer cohorts was barely suppressing giggles as these eyelashes were being applied and finally asked me what they felt like (she was next, and had as much experience as me in advanced cosmetics). I replied that it felt like having an arm that was six inches longer than normal--awkward, and heavy.

But it was all great fun. There were awards I did not win and levels of distinction I did not rise to, but at least I got to prance around in ballet slippers that covered one-half the length of my feet in front of several dozens of colleagues who probably didn't even notice that my lashes were silken and voluptuous or that I teetered every so often when my skirt got stuck in between my foot and the flap of my unfastened slipper. So, all things considered, success!

Aaaaand, there's video! Thanks to my good buddy Steven Happel for capturing these magic moments.

The Power of Pronunciation

I've been going deeper down the YouTube rabbit hole lately, having exhausted my previous reserves of cute and/or absurd videos to pull up on a whim. In my travels, I've come across everything from the cleverly entertaining:

To the amusingly unfortunate:

And finally into full "......Um?" territory:

What's the strangest thing about this last one? Is it:

1) Women chanting disturbing phrases with cartoon-like smiles
2) Women chanting disturbing phrases while performing low-to-no impact aerobics
3) The exercise suits that are ostensibly required for this kind of language learning
4) Chest zooms
5) One of the male actors' weird (method?) interpretation of how to wear a face mask/bandanna, or
6) The Super Nintendo background music

I just can't put my finger on it.

By the way, if you liked that one, make sure you watch this:

Oh Rain

These days I've got a real Minnesota heartache. Nearly hitting that one-year mark, so I figure I'm allowed.

Reflections

It's almost eleven months to the day that I've been here in good ol' HCMC.

One residual effect of working in Mental Health for so long is the occasional sense that it's time to establish some personal goals. This probably would happen regardless of my professional background, but I give it credit all the same. 

The last few months have seen an almost hedonistic enjoyment of life, the kind that is satisfying in the short-term but isn't really propelling you to new heights of existence in the long run. Like everything else, it can become meaningless once you stop working at it.

The life of an expat in this country can be a blissfully ignorant one. Foreigners are largely kept away from the goings-on of daily life--there seems to be a built-in expectation that you don't care about these things, you're just here to work and get your money and then go home. But no man is an island, so you go out, you find little expat-pockets to hang out and get comfortable in. After nearly a year, your initial curiosity goes into hibernation--maybe you got lazy, or just plain tired from the extra effort put in to trying understand a new and chaotic place. After a while, it can start to congeal into a real malaise. 

I've been trying to tap into some sort of community involvement work to keep me busy in my spare time. That's nice, and it's constructive, but even that sort of keeps you at arm's length. The language barrier doesn't help. A lot of people doing volunteer or charity projects don't have the time or the money to learn English, so asking questions and learning more about their projects can be a hard thing to accomplish. Not to mention the fact that most of them are dumbstruck a white person turned up, willingly, to begin with. 

Goal #1: Keep with the community projects, however painfully awkward they can be at first.

I can recognize a variety of terms in written Vietnamese, but still have alot of trouble with listening, and I can't speak to save my life. It doesn't help that many people here just don't expect you to know Vietnamese, so when you try to say something, they have no idea what you're trying to say. All I can really say with good tonal pronunciation are numbers, and even that gets a wide-eyed response: "You speak Vietnamese?" Or a much more complicated answer involving language I can't hope to comprehend.

Trying to say anything other than numbers or common pleasantries brings more misses than hits. Example: the street that I used to live on was Cong Quynh. This is pronounced something like Kawm Gwin. Whenever I got into a taxi, I would say Kawm Gwin. Blank stare. Kawm gwin. Kawm gwin? Kawm? gwin. Kawm gwin! Finally, I'd have to get out a piece of paper or something and just write out the damn thing, to which the taxi driver would reply, Ah! Kawm gwin! 

It was like a bad Abbott and Costello routine (I don't know! That's what I said! Third base!). Maybe once, I got someone to understand me, and that was either because I had a moment of greatness, or the driver was the odd think-outside-the-box type, the kind that could infer probable phrases limited to a taxicab setting--he could at least guess that I meant a street, and not something nonsensical like My hovercraft is full of eels.

Goal #2: Renew effort to learn/use rudimentary Vietnamese.

My first few months in Saigon were devoted almost entirely to mastering my job and figuring out which street I was on. After that, I set to developing a social network. At first, I simply could not believe the characters that wandered in and out of my life every day. Now, of course, I am from a small town, spent most of my formative years in the country, am Midwestern, and have a track record working in a sort of sheltered, do-gooder community, but I'm no bumpkin. I've experienced some pretty intense things, the number of which has tripled since coming here.

The Vietnamese, or any other Asian non-American person, have been the least of my problems, socially. This country loves foreigners, even foreigners who come from a country that carpet-bombed the shit out of their countryside a generation ago. Of course there's crime and theft and corruption and drugs and prostitutes, but have you ever heard of a place called Las Vegas? All of that exists there too, only with more guns.

My point, and I am building to one, is expats here are nuts. Absolutely bonkers. This can be a good thing and bad thing. The good thing: There's never a dull moment. Never. There's always some character who's up to something, and whether it's good or ill-natured, it is rarely not hilarious. The bad thing: There's never a dull moment, even when you want one. There's always some character who's up to something, and it could be something you in no way want to associate yourself with.

There was a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to connect socially with anyone who wasn't acutely mentally ill. So, like any analytical being who uses experience to form applicable logic, I worked out two theories regarding people who live abroad: 1) They're crazy to begin with, and they've finally found a place that's accepted them; and 2) Spending a lot of time alone with fickle social connections in a place where the rules of polite society as you know them do not apply along with a lingual/cultural barrier that prohibits understanding of the nuances of personality allows you to take some liberties. But, what are you, a saint? You never take just some liberties. You take every liberty.

Imagine if you could get away with saying all those awful things that run through your head and indulge every fleeting and questionable impulse just because no one would be there to shun, shame, or humiliate you for being an idiot. You've lost the anchor, the grounding social concept that keeps the id in check. This is why you have all manner of gross old men running around thinking they're Casanova and avoiding the basic foundations of human decency. And I don't mean that in some sheltered puritanical way, either. I mean it in a way that's able to confirm the evolution of men from apes.

But I digress--My point is not to rant about gross old men in Saigon (as fun as that was)--I'm more concerned with this "loss of anchor" theory. I am ridiculously privileged here. I have a maid. This is a bewildering concept, so bewildering that I actually tidy up my room before the maid comes, thinking that it will somehow reinforce my reputation as a good person by doing so. What can I say? I was taught personal responsibility at a young age, and of course I'm not perfect, but the only people who've ever cleaned up after me were my parents. So this is an intimate sort of relationship. I've got a pile of underwear in the corner, what will she think of me?

I'm not the sort of self-congratulatory douchebag to say "Well, I am giving this person a job, good for me!" Especially considering what you pay for people to handle piles of your dirty laundry (Hint: it's nothing). But I won't lie, having that attitude from time to time does help mitigate the built-in guilt complex.

But again. The point is, cleaning up after yourself, cooking, working, buying household supplies, scheduling routine dental appointments and health check-ups, and generally being a level-headed and decent human being, this is what constitutes the world of an adult. This is what grounds you in everyday life. Take away these things and you're just a giant helpless child who somehow got a hold of some money to pay people to be your parents for you. Without the requisite unconditional love or concern for your overall well-being. In other words, these are not people who will drive you to the hospital if your appendix bursts. 

I do practically none of the above things, except the health stuff, because, duh. But I can't even tell you the last time I swept the floor or washed the dishes or cooked a meal that was not cereal in milk or hot water added to a bowl of instant noodles. By the way, our electric water jug makes the water hot. I literally haven't even microwave-boiled a bowl of water. It's a real blow to my well-crafted self-sufficiency. I mean, if the apocalypse happened tomorrow, I'd have a can of halved pears, some banana chips, a couple of beers and some orange juice to go on. Oh, and some ketchup and chili sauce packets (presumably, for the pears). I used to be to much more responsible for myself.

Goal #3: Do everyday normal stuff that you enjoy, just because you enjoy it. 

Sure, I don't have to cook, but I'd like to.