Ta Prohm

Perhaps one of the more popular temples at Angkor (besides Angkor Wat itself), is Ta Prohm--famous for being a staging area for parts of Tomb Raider 2, but also famous for its atmosphere. Largely unrestored (though more restoration work is in place today thanks to generous donations from Germany, Japan, etc), the temple is a textbook example of how we might picture "ancient ruins"--crumbling evidence of once immaculate structures, now encrusted with lichen, jungle overgrowth, and bursting at the seams with trees.

In fact, my Khmer guide referred to Ta Prohm repeatedly as, "the temple with the tree."

Badass.

He also excelled at finding pictures in the tangled roots of the trees:

"This has the root like cobra snake."

Historically, Ta Prohm was built in the same period as the Bayon, by the same king. Built as a tribute to his mother, the temple grounds were an important monastery and place of study during its time. With, of course, the requisite dance hall. Which needs some work, by today's standards:

Here's the album: Ta Prohm.

The Bayon

Another temple at Angkor, the Bayon, is a rather famous temple set in a complex known as Angkor Thom. Built by Jayavarman VII (say that five times really fast), it's known for it's numerous spires, all sporting the four faces of the Buddha. According to our Khmer guide, there are 256 Buddha faces carved into the stone at the Bayon, and I was seemingly on a mission to take a picture of each one.

In contrast to the king that built Angkor Wat, Jayavarman VII was more into Buddhism, believing it provided a clearer path to enlightenment,and by some accounts, believing he himself to be the next incarnation. However, it doesn't seem to me that either religion was exclusive of the other; in several places you will still see recreation of Hindu mythology, and random carvings a smaller patron gods obviously carried from that tradition. Hindu ascetics were allowed to live side-by-side with the Buddhist monks--I can only guess that the people, who spent their lives in service to the king and building and maintaining his temple-cities, went with the flow.

Demon

An example of the two traditions consorting with one another is the entrance to Angkor Thom. Two major Hindu myths get recreated several times in just the four temples I saw at Angkor: The Ramayana (Rama and Sita vs. the Demon King) and The Churning of the Ocean of Milk. This last epic is the one you see walking the causeway into Angkor Thom: It tells the story of Gods and Demons joining together to stir a cosmic sea in order to obtain their immortality. I think. I was absorbing a lot of information this day.

God

As for the cohabitation of two previously competing schools of thought, not all kings were as open-minded. Jayavarman VII's story makes a great Khmer legend--the guy was kidnapped in a war, grew up in exile, returned to his homeland to oust the occupiers, became king late in his life, built loads of stuff--Angkor's roads, hospitals, libraries, rest-stations for pilgrims coming to the temples--and then he disappeared. So he's something of an enigma--credited for being an empire builder, even though no real account of his reign survives. And then, seemingly, he vanished. Siddhartha-ish, almost.

At any rate, the king who succeeded him wasn't really that into Buddhism. They wouldn't necessarily destroy former king's temples, but he made a point of removing what Buddha images he could from the Bayon, to relatively little effect,

Your face here.

considering what he chose to leave up.

Want more pictures? I got a million of 'em: The Bayon.

By the way, my accounts of these temples should in no way be interpreted as historical scholarship. What I understand about them is a mixture of several different points of view, those I've encountered through reading material summarizing the different scholarly approaches to the history of Angkor, and folk accounts from my loquacious Khmer guide giving the generally agreed upon historical points fit to deliver to tourists. How the culture developed thousands of years ago, and how Buddhism and Hinduism intermingled to drive the kingdom forward, is far too complex a thing to be able to articulate after one day's exposure to this evidence of a turbulent, yet somewhat prosperous, empire. What is interesting is that Angkor existed at all, outside the sphere of references we attach to ancient civilizations.

Up next: Ta Prohm, the temple "with the tree."

Thais Defeated

So, my Thanksgiving adventure consisted of a short little excursion to Siem Reap, Cambodia (literally, Thais Defeated, Cambodia) to check out Angkor Wat and its bevvy of ancient temples. In preparation for the trip an Australian colleague of mine, formerly an Angkor Wat tour guide, armed me with three different books about the Angkor period and the tumultuous history of Cambodia in general. He also gave me Khmer language lessons, but I've forgotten everything except Admin Loi Te, which means "I don't have any money." The spelling of that phrase, by the way, is a total invention.

The first thing I noticed about Cambodia was the smell. When I landed in HCMC, the smell was immediately distinctive to me as well, but it was more complex. It took weeks to differentiate the aromas in the bouquet--eventually, I settled on a description that included a strong sewer presentation, with an undercurrent of durian fruit and a soft finish of spent cooking oil.

Siem Reap smelled like a campfire. It was lovely in comparison.

Every person in Siem Reap who is not Cambodian is there to see the Angkor Wat complex. I have to admit, before coming to Asia, I had never heard of Angkor Wat. Turns out, it's a pretty big deal. A large majority of the country's income can be easily attributed to travelers coming from all over the world to visit the temples. I visited as many as I could in one day-- 4-- but you could stay there for a full week and still not have run out of things to see.  What you probably will run out of is the energy to care about seeing another temple.

And I took hundreds of pictures while I was there. So many that our tour guide worried that my camera's battery would die and wouldn't stop reminding me to charge the battery over our midday break.

I'll start with the main attraction, Angkor Wat itself. Something you'll notice about Cambodia is the rather strong influence of Indian culture, particularly Hinduism. During the "Angkorian Period," the kingdom was generally prosperous enough to allow each king to build a temple to whichever Hindu deity he aligned himself with. The glory of the temples showed each king's devotion to his patron god, and helped develop a sort of notion equivalent to the "Divine Right of Kings"--that is, each king is an instrument of the gods.

Angkor Wat would have been a major religious city back in the day. The King dedicated it to Vishnu, one of the primary forms God can take in Hinduism, generally credited with creating and keeping the universe in balance.

This guy right here.

The most "interesting" thing about Angkor Wat is that it is oriented to the West, which drives history scholars nuts trying to figure out its meaning. The west is often associated with death, the place of the sunset, the place where darkness comes from etc. So, people debate the King's intentions for building an enormous religious building with an orientation to the death part of the sky.

For the layperson tourist, it means that the sunrise at Angkor Wat is the most spectacular sight. In favor of avoiding the crowds, we elected not to see this wonder. You can google it though. I'm sure someone, somewhere, has a a backlit shadowy Angkor Wat against a purple pink sky, probably on prints you can buy if you're so inclined.

So without further ado, I give you the Angkor Wat photo album. I'll be back soon with pictures from Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, The Unknown Temple, and Tonle Sap Lake. Soon.

Callouses.....Materialize!

Got me a git-fiddle. It's a happy day.

To celebrate, I give you this picture I took of myself. The "Intelligent Auto" function of my camera evidently chose the "flophouse 1971" setting.

In other news, Angkor Wat photos are coming soon, I promise! Like, maybe even this week, if I get all my work done. For now, I'm soaking my fingers in cold water and choosing not to respond to the pain notifications being sent to my brain. I'm just happy I can still play.

As a footnote, the guitar, nylon case, and capo cost me around $30. In the shop I bought it from, they had an exquisite looking mandolin going for 900.000 VND (about $45). God help me. I'm in a place that's practically begging me to resume my favorite pasttime of collecting instruments I have no idea how to play.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Electric Company

Hello! I've been busy, busy, busy this month with work and preparing for a recent excursion to Siem Reap, Cambodia, home of the Angkor Wat temple complex, the area of which proved too immense and spectacular for a one-day visit. While I'm sorting and collating the some 300 pictures and videos I took, I give you this picture of people either working on or worsening the state of city electricity.

They are strapped to the poles with those industrial cloth tie-downs I have used in vans designed to accommodate wheelchairs; their shoes are outfitted with something similar to bicycle clamps. These guys are actually practicing a greater degree of safety than the average public works employee--I once saw about five more guys about twenty feet higher in the air, with just their shoe-clamps. It's either amazing or incredibly irresponsible, I haven't decided which one yet. Either way, it says a lot about how things are done in a society whose citizens don't really have the liberty to be litigious.

As for Thanksgiving, I'm afraid it came and went without much thought on my part. Typically, I love Thanksgiving. It's a holiday that features tons of great food, and the chance to connect again with family and friends. Who wouldn't love it? But over here everything is pretty much the same--the weather stays hot, it's the "dry" season (though I'm learning that that means "less rain, but same humidity," contrary to my prior hope that things would actually be drier), the restaurants in the tourist neighborhoods start playing horrendous Christmas music, but really life goes on without much thought about parades, football, turkey-comas, and people trampling each other to death at some unlucky Wal-Mart in the early hours of the morning.

In that vein, can someone explain "Cyber-Monday" to me? What is it, please? When I first started using the internet, "Cyber-ing" had some pretty, ahem, adult connotations. I can only assume that "Cyber Monday" carries different ones.

And also also--while I don't like to use this blog as a platform for my political opinions, I gotta say I'm a little shocked at what's coming out of the US these days vis-a-vis the Occupy Wallstreet movement. I am of course removed from a firsthand account of what's going on exactly, so doubtless my perception of the movement is a bit skewed. However, I struggle to understand how, in a country that protects people's rights to protest military funerals with signs insisting that our fallen soldiers are going to hell, or a parade/public demonstration of hate groups like the KKK, this movement is getting beaten down just to (seemingly) make a point.  A picture floating around Facebook provides a timely assessment of what is/isn't (seemingly) allowed in the US:

Granted, we can start an argument about private/public property rights and different legal definitions of what constitutes "trespassing" or "unlawful loitering" or whatever. The point is in the perception.

At the end of the day, a movement is a movement is a movement. You don't have to agree with Occupy Wallstreet, but you have to let 'em have their voice, however Smartphone-coordinated it may be. That's what America is all about. I mean, you know who suppresses freedom of speech and the press, and responds inappropriately to nonviolent demonstrations that seek to expose and correct corruption in high-level government corridors?

Communists.

And with that, I wish you all Happy Holiday Season! :-)

Driving Lessons

"Never think you are right. You think you are right, you're already in the cemetery."


Depending on how you apply it, the above quote may seem needlessly intense. Apply it to Saigon traffic, and it's more than apt.

One of my Vietnamese colleagues at SEAMEO is a man whom I will call Mr. H. Months ago, Mr. H gave me his phone number with the promise: "Call me, I will teach you how to drive."

Well, months passed, and nothing doing. Occasionally Mr. H would make a remark at school, something to the extent of: "You have not called me yet." or: "Come to my house this Sunday. We will go driving."

Finally, after months of waiting, Mr. H could not wait anymore. Last Wednesday he informed me: "Next week, tell your driver not to come. I will bring you home. Then you will drive."

Sometimes, decisions are made for you in Vietnam.

Not that I'm opposed to driving. Sure, I value my life, but you can't argue against the innate convenience of being able to go somewhere when you feel like it, regardless of how lazy of a person you actually are. However, in the four months I've been here, I've found some definite advantages to using a xe om  (literally, 'motorbike hug'), as follows:

1. My driver. Whatta guy. I'd call him a sidekick, but that would be getting it all wrong. This is someone who found me a phone and bought me a SIM card, shares cigarettes with me, went apartment hunting for me while I was off being a tourist, cautioned me against goods and services that were too expensive, recommended a bank, negotiated the INSANE traffic outside the District 5 hospital where I had to have a health check, continues to negotiate the INSANE traffic day in/day out, displaying only the slightest evidence of road rage (He stops, looks at the person annoying him, and shakes his head slowly. He once did this to an oncoming bus. I was like, Dude, I know you have a point to make and everything, but can you please go!), he gets me to work on-time, he does it in the pouring rain, at 6:45 AM on the weekend. He gives me extra rides for free. If that's a sidekick, then I am a piss-poor hero.

2. After all that, how can I put the man out of work?

3. I don't have to worry about traffic. I don't have to worry! Of course, I worry about the psychotic buses weaving through three "lanes" and an endless supply of errant motorbikes, but I don't have to worry about it directly. I have an expert in Vietnamese driving right in front me, within hugging range but not being hugged for the sake of personal boundaries, doing all of the legwork (pun intended) for me. Life is grand on the back of a motorbike.

4. I get to see the scenery. I routinely conduct scouting missions while on my way to different places, noting the little fashion kiosks, a different supermarket, a store where I can buy USB modems, interesting looking cafes, guitar shops, safe shops, luggage shops, helmet shops, etc. I wouldn't be able to do any of this if I were driving, because I'd be dead, and dead people can't see.

5. No gas. No Maintenance. No problem.

It is true, I am paying my driver $5--$10 more a month than I would be paying someone to rent a motorbike, but I'm fine with that. You know what, I can afford it. Plus, that whole 'no maintenance' thing is really a kicker. A blond-haired big-eyed Western girl can get the runaround pretty damn easy in a place like this, and what's more, I have no idea about motorbikes. This precludes me from being able to bring the pain to an unscrupulous motorbike establishment, although it probably wouldn't stop me from sending a scathing yet cleverly-worded email that would never be understood well enough to be fully appreciated.

What's more, the motorbike rental places usually hold your passport as collateral, and that's a whole different set of pros and cons.

But anyway-- driving lessons. Mr. H is determined to teach me how to drive. While I thought my first lesson would consist of a few do's and don't's, I realized about halfway through that Mr. H is not just a careful and serious driver, he is a traffic analyst.  If harboring well-developed insights into the intricacies of Vietnamese behavior coupled with a preternatural ability to simultaneously narrate and implement traffic strategies were a super-power, this guy would be Batman.

So, I was getting a serious education earlier tonight while swooshing through traffic, craning forward to hear all of Mr. H's hard-learned and carefully crafted lessons. I learned to always stay outside in a traffic circle (why would you ever want to be on the inside of a traffic circle, anyways? It's an inherent flaw in the whole system), don't trust your mirrors, signal with your blinker and your hand, wear a bright-colored rain jacket at night, never think you are right, and left-turn etiquette, which to the untrained eye is probably best understood as: turn left, and ask questions later. In actuality, turning left has a whole, for lack of a better word, philosophy behind it.

My favorite strategy of Mr. H's was how to use cars and other large vehicles as secret weapons. When you can, stick by a car that's turning left on the same road you are, and turn with it on the inside, but stagger yourself behind, effectively using the car as a shield against the legions of motorbikes while not putting yourself in the position of being smashed against the boulevard. Aha, very clever, Mr. H.

This is only part one. Next week, I drive. Though hopefully not on Trang Hung Dao, the West Broadway--94-interchange-with-construction-during-rush-hour of Saigon.

Temple of the Holy See & An Update

Hey, remember when I told you a few weeks ago I would upload pictures from the Cao Dai temple I visited? Well, here you go:

Admittedly, I know very little of the Cao Dai religion. Here are the things I do know:


1. Cao Daism originated, and is practiced almost exclusively, in Vietnam. The closest thing it has to a holy city is Tay Ninh, where the Temple of the Holy See is located.


2. The religion itself mixes philosophies and beliefs from the Chinese Confucianism/Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. These belief systems are represented, respectively, with the colors Yellow, Blue, and Red.


3. The original Christians missionaries to Vietnam must have been tickled pink about this.


4. Every tour in Ho Chi Minh City brings you to the temple during the midday mass, so you have worshippers

And then dozens of tourists snapping pictures from the balconies.

5. As you might guess, I was one of those tourists.


6. This isn't really a list of what I know about Cao Daism anymore.

As a tourist, I have two minds about this experience. The first: knowing what I know about all three (technically four) of these belief systems, Cao Daism intrigues me rather deeply. I found myself wondering how the tenets of each translated into practice--Jesus Christ? Yin-Yang? Humanism? Enlightenment? What sort of weight do each of these beliefs hold in Cao Daism as a whole?  The hymns and the music were entrancing, but I didn't understand any of it. The most interesting parts of the temple were parts that I, perhaps rightfully, was not allowed to see up close.


The second: what the hell was I doing there?  It was clear that we were being shuttled in just to see the service, and that most people there were there for the photo opp. While I took advantage of this, I felt as though we were an enormous intrusion. Not being a religious person myself, I can still understand others' beliefs to the point where you should respect someone during their practice. I couldn't help but feel that the temple had made some large concessions in order for me to see this practice.


There's not a lot of literature on the religion itself. It's very small, even in terms of what percent of the Vietnamese population practice it (Like, 1 or 3%). In broad terms, I can see how Confucianism and Buddhism and Christianity can blend, but those ideas are all my own. As to what the average Cao Daist thinks and believes about the world around him/her, I'm afraid I can't even hazard a guess.

In other news: Sorry for the delay in posting. I've somewhat reverted to my old ways--meaning I've been working, working, working! They aren't afraid to give you work once you accept it here--sometimes it just keeps coming and coming, to the point where you've got to tell them to back off.  Starting next week, I'll have two days off during the week, which feels like a long-forgotten luxury.


For the past month or so, I've been covering for an absent teacher at a Nursery School in District 3 of HCMC, at the recommendation of a teacher from my school, SEAMEO. Really, Nursery School barely qualifies as work--it's more like: Play with these kids, and speak English to them. But it takes a good chunk of time, not to mention energy, out of my day.


Tomorrow, I start a Business English class for my school, which requires me to travel to  Binh Duong Province. Where's that, you ask? Good question, I say. I have arranged a taxi, so my plan is to show up, give the driver  my map, and hope for the best. 


In addition to that, I've picked up some administrative work for my school, helping them coordinate a language project with some linguistics scholars from Hong Kong. Aaaaand, later this month, a Vietnamese friend of mine is opening her own English school, so I've accepted the position of "Content Editor" for her school's website.  This is something I'd do for free for friends back home, but I don't think she's going to let me get away with that.


So! I can't complain about the income that will result from this work, but right now things are quite hectic. They'll settle down later this week, at which point I'll try to entertain you with more tales of building cultural bridges with Heineken.


For now, I've got to get to planning. Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back.

Caught off Guard

Today I was tasked with beginning a unit in the most annoying textbook ever, a series called "American Adventures." As if the global indoctrination of American corporate culture weren't enough, it's been standardized and integrated now into textbooks for teenagers. It's not altogether terrible--I usually end up flying through the unbelievably thin lesson materials to find more real-to-life examples, a handy excuse for playing music videos and newscasts, or other pop culture clips, always repeating to myself, "at least it's not Disney."

So yesterday we began a unit titled, "News and Views." I hadn't been keeping up on the news lately, so I asked a newsgeek friend of mine what was happening in the states. He looked kind of tired, and shrugged, saying he'd been falling behind lately. So I looked up the New York Times, and without helping myself, exclaimed loudly to a classroom of Vietnamese teenagers, "Holy f***ing Christ it's 9/11."

I am a terrible American.

But-- in the course of preparing a listening activity for them, I rediscovered StoryCorps, a mobile band of oral historians that travel the country and record little anecdotes of American life. I'd become very interested in their project a few years ago, when they were data-collecting, but I'd forgotten they existed. Stumbling across their project yesterday was pretty exciting, and made a great springboard for listening to different voices. They've animated their stories now, which helps students immensely in understanding a normal-paced, diversely-accented language:

http://storycorps.org/animation/

What I did was play a couple of retellings from New Yorkers about 9/11, and had them write down words or phrases that they recognized The stories themselves were tremendously sad, though I think the real-life pathos was largely lost on the students. But it was a way for me to get my news fix, while giving them one hell of a listening activity.

Afterwards, I switched to this story instead. Y'know, to lighten the mood. They've got an assignment to bring me a weird news story (written in English) for next week's class. Let's see if they do--they're teenagers, after all. The only news they really care about is whether or not Justin Bieber is engaged, or which girls will be at the mall later.

I guess the point of this whole little anecdote is that I forgot about 9/11, which confuses more than perplexes me. I'm confused that it is September, for example, because it's 90 degrees outside, and no trees are changing color. There are no Labor Day BBQs, no commercials for back to school sales (none in languages I understand anyways), no general feeling of change in the air. The only thing that's different is that there are more tourists, I suppose, which equals more cyclos hawking you while you sit in a cafe eating breakfast. It's one thing I'm settling myself in for missing the most: change of seasons.


In the end, though, I expect I'll get over this. Especially when I see y'all's Facebook status updates come January.

Cu Chi Tunnels

Vietnam celebrates independence three times a year. It's an interesting thing--we have the Fourth of July, Vietnamese have the Second of September, Sometime in April, and Another Date I Don't Know--all independence or "National" Days. So while I didn't get the Labor Day weekend, I had one day last week to get outta town.

National Day, Sept. 2, is the date the Vietnamese mark their independence from the French in 1945. I decided this would be a good time for a day-trip out to Cu Chi Tunnels, the network of underground bunkers and bases that virtually allowed the VC to launch the Tet Offensive, a big turning-point in the American War.

Cu Chi District lies about 60 km north-west of Saigon city-proper, though Cu Chi itself is still considered a "district" of Ho Chi Minh province. I bought a day ticket to Cu Chi and Tay Dinh for about $7 round-trip, and found myself in a Dodge Sprinter with four others, initially relieved I didn't have to take a giant bus. Relived, that is, until we started driving, and I realized our driver was a holy terror on wheels. Once out of the city he opened up the Sprinter like it was Monte Carlo for Light Commercial Vehicles, harassing every one who dared to set foot on the road, occasionally yielding to buses. Seriously, this guy was a menace. Imagine a lovely, lush, peaceful Vietnamese countryside, perhaps some birds chirping in the distance, animals grazing lazily, a light breeze swaying in the trees. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, the angry roar of an overworked engine approaches, horn going beeeeeep beepbeepbeep beeeeeeeeeeeep, bulldozing through the countryside, leaving everyone to wonder what just happened.

But enough of the Terror of LacHung Tours.

The Cu Chi Tunnel site itself was a very interesting place. We spent about 2 hours or so getting an education on the various tactics used by the guerrillas during the French and American wars. The tunnel system is absolutely amazing, considering they were built almost entirely by hand, featured entrances that were underwater, and formed a network so extensive that it once reached Saigon city-center itself.  A schematic from the Tunnel site gives you some idea of what parts of the system looked like:

A more extensive map of the tunnel system is harder to find online,  so this will have to suffice. 

We started above-ground. The tunnels were extremely important in positioning the VC for ambush and full-scale invasions, a threat to which the Americans responded by bombing the f*ck out of it (as is our custom). The area was carpet-bombed and defoliated for several years, trying to oust the guerrillas. But for every weapon the Americans implemented, the guerrillas seemed to have developed an equally clever deterrent.

Above is our guide, Lionel Richie. He preferred to be called this, for reasons known only to him. He is explaining here how the guerrillas used termites to create decoy tunnel air-holes. American soldiers would try to locate the tunnel air-holes to find entrances and also to attack the guerrillas' air supply; using termites to create holes in wooded mounds around the area helped the guerrillas detract attention, so Americans would end up gassing a bunch of bugs.

They would also go out scavenging for unexploded artillery, and subsequently dismantle the bombshells, extract the gunpowder, and make their own booby-traps and explosives. They also made networks of false tunnels with dead end and hazardously narrow passages. When the American "Tunnel Rats" tried to bust in, they would often get trapped in the tiny passageways, or blown up. It goes on-- The Americans brought in dogs to sniff out the tunnels, the guerrillas started wearing the uniforms of American soldiers they had killed.  They also melted shrapnel and metal down to make some gnarly-ass spike traps:

 This is what you stepped in.

This is what you got stuck with.

Then it was into the tunnels themselves.

The 1st and 2nd level of the Tunnels are the only levels open, as the third levels are so heavily booby-trapped and laced with explosives that it's not considered safe for tourists (Whew!). The Tunnels were built to accommodate the slight frame of a Vietnamese person, so even a svelte Westerner has to squeeze in. To wit:

The descent--level one

Level two.

You basically have to crab-walk through the tunnels, or hit all fours. The tunnels at this particular site were left in their original state, while tunnels elsewhere in the network have been made wider and taller for the western tourists. I preferred the real-deal, but only went about 40-50m into the tunnel passage open for tourists (about 150m altogether).

That was good enough for me.

There's obviously a good bit of history here. A visit to Cu Chi provides some real insight into how the world's biggest and most well-funded army could have been taken down by an army of deeply committed and equally ruthless nationals. 

But of course, as with all sides of history, there comes a healthy dose of propaganda. We may think that the socialists are the propaganda kings, but that isn't necessarily true. Everyone tells history from their point of view, that's why it's such a contentious issue, and one that doesn't emerge for years after the fact. To be an American, a young American, observing the history of the American War from the Vietnamese perspective must be something like being a modern Briton learning about the American Revolution from the Freedom Trail in Boston. The narrative is one-sided.

What doesn't change, no matter which side is saying what, is that war is hell.

So I watched the video at the end of the tour that venerated the fighters at Cu Chi as "American Killer Heroes," and then went and shot a war-era Carbine rifle.

And with requisite hipster aplomb, made the image my Facebook profile photo.

I teetered at the prospect initially, I will admit. I had never shot a gun before, and was wondering if I should break that streak and also spend a bunch of money doing it-- the shooting was free. But the bullets were what cost ya. They charged about $10 for 10 bullets, about $25 for 10 bullets if you wanted to fire a machine gun (those bullets, undoubtedly, went much quicker). The people that were part of my tour were all young British teachers, who jumped at the chance to do it--one of them said to me, "We don't get to do this at all in Britain, I imagine in America you can do it all the time." Which may true, to a point-- we can own and shoot guns whenever we like, but we can't go around firing off AK-47's willy-nilly. That doesn't stop people from doing it, but they're what I like to call the "crazy people with guns." They're exceptional in the fact that they are completely insane.

In my case though, my nationalism eventually got the best of me. I mean, what kind of American would I be if I didn't shoot a gun? And pay a lot of money for bullets while I was at it? 

Consumerism and Militarism, together for the first time!

Eh well. It was fun. Fun, and scary. The size bullets I was putting into the rifle would rip a man apart, and here I was firing them blindly into a sand hill, giggling a little each time as the shells popped out of the register/clip/whatever you call the place where the bullets go.

Strangely, after the Cu Chi Tunnel visit, we went to the Cao Dai "Temple of the Holy See" at Tay Ninh, which provided a somewhat bewildering contrast to a morning spent squatting in tunnels and learning about homemade weaponry set to the backdrop of gunfire. The pictures from the temple I'll post a little later, so stay tuned.

The Sweet Smell of Success

It was raining tonight, rather heavily. When it rains in Ho Chi Minh City, everyone avoids going where they need to go, because they're usually getting there on a motorbike and I don't need to tell you the odds of a motorbike vs. a monsoon.

So I walked into my class and found two students staring back at me. They rather matter-of-factly informed me that no, we can't have a class with only two students. I asked them, then, what they came to school to do.

One student, Quyen, promptly answered: "Dream on. Aerosmith."

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

After all, these were the same students who, two weeks ago, shocked me by revealing that they'd never heard of Jimi Hendrix, and perplexed me further by suggesting that it didn't matter whether or not they'd ever heard of Jimi Hendrix. Can you imagine? A world where there exists such people totally without quality rock 'n' roll standards is a world I don't want to live in.

I mean, they come from a place where the most popular music falls somewhere in the ca. 1995--present cheesy pop spectrum. I don't even want to tell you how many times I've heard a guitar-and-flute version of "Kiss From a Rose," or "My Heart Will Go On." Just when I thought both of these things were locked safely away in the Cultural Vault of Shameful Atrocities, here they come again. I think these sorts of things are government subsidized here, a lulling tactic to keep people sedate and disconnected from the dark realities only an electric guitar can convey to you.

So the fact that this kid wanted to see an Aerosmith video was, as far as I was concerned, a step in the right direction.

As we watched the video, I tried to explain that I had once camped out for Aerosmith tickets, which wasn't really getting through and was really diminishing Quyen's viewing experience. So I settled for explaining Steven Tyler's trademark scarf-bedecked microphone stand and then finally just shut up to enjoy some good old-fashioned man-shrieking.



I hope that this post doesn't find you in shock that someone could be so arrogant and culturally insensitive. I lay no claims to American culture being the best culture, but it is hands-down my favorite culture. Go ahead, admit it. We, as a people, produce some amazing things. We also produce some amazing loads of crap, but such is the duality of a great civilization*.

At the end of the day, I was happy just to talk about something like Aerosmith with my students because I am homesick, and the pieces of home that reach me here, be it an incredibly well-timed care package containing a giant bottle of Pepto Bismol, or The Glee Project, are not always my cup of tea. It's always energizing to find some common ground.

I am, of course, going to see how far I can take this. Today, Aerosmith. Tomorrow, Purple Haze.

*This statement is tongue-in-cheek.

Reunification Palace

Hey y'all, got some more photos uploaded today. Please enjoy Reunification Palace, the headquarters of the South VNese government and then the unified Vietnam Communist Part after 1975. Today it is the occasional meeting place of the People's party, but is largely ceremonial. The retro architecture and interior design were my favorites--it was kind of like visiting the Kennedy-era White House.

Anyways. Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/amanda.biever/ReunificationPalace?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL6fyMuKm6i5Kg&feat=directlink

It's Electric!

Somehow, and we may never fully understand how exactly, this works just fine. Not all electrical poles are as decorated as this one -- it's so popular a photo subject, it could have its own postcard. On occasion, I've seen the electric guys up there working, doing God knows what. I always kind of hold my breath when I see it. I mean, that's a lot of electricity right?

On my photo stroll today I also saw this building, which I've no doubt walked past hundreds of times:

Dope goods, yo! Kick it.

ab out.

Competency, lack thereof

The whole point of why I'm here teaching English to Vietnamese is to establish what is known as, "Communicative Competence," or the ability to understand and be understood in communicating with English-speakers.

I've developed a little bit of a Communicative strategy of my own, a complex system of grunts and nods and other gestures to (hopefully) advance my point and meaning to individuals that don't speak a word of English to my not speaking a word of Vietnamese. Sometimes we get within the same mile of understanding one another. Other times, I struggle to imagine how my carefully implemented hand gestures were so grossly misinterpreted.

A lot of the things I think here and the assumptions I make are horrendously incorrect. At times my anxieties evolve to the point where I'm not thinking sensibly on the ground level, much less on the elevated and more complex level of cultural navigation. But I think it comes from a lapse in focus. There are days when the traffic din and the street ruckus represent to me so much stress that I begin to resist them, and start almost immediately feeling those little sparks of irritation.

The biggest spark is the one that suggests people are doing things to spite me. I'll be walking along a stretch on unoccupied sidewalk, and someone on a motorbike will just pull right up into my path, running over my feet if it weren't for my own efforts, as if on purpose. I mean--look at this stretch of sidewalk. How is it that this person and I arrived at the same point in space at the same time? And how is it that it happens once every ten minutes?

These are thoughts that occur to me when I have not yet had my coffee. You all know that I am many things, but I am not a morning person. Wait-- OK, I would be a morning person, if I were at a cabin in the middle of the woods facing east across a serene lake pulsing with sweet birdsong. The cabin would also have a programmable coffeemaker in the kitchen. I would be a great morning person in that very specific circumstance.

The logical answer to the people in my way question is the obvious one: There are a lot of people here. So many, in fact, that it is difficult to have peripheral vision. You're not paying attention to others because the second you stop looking straight in front of you is the second you run right into whatever is inevitably there. It's a fundamental law of the universe: the moment after you stop paying attention is the exact moment you should have been paying attention to all along.

The issue of competency comes from a sort of fatigue, on my part, of having to constantly re-calibrate expectations. I find myself lapsing more and more into the old American way of doing things, like standing on a corner waiting for the walk signal. I found myself standing at a corner for several minutes the other day, just staring. There was no walk signal coming, there wasn't even a light posted on that particular corner, but I stood there waiting for it all the same.

But it's all part of the process. As a small-town Midwesterner, I was taught to be almost brutally self-conscious about my actions and how they fit with everyone else. It's a much more forgiving experience here--you can walk into a restaurant soaking wet from an impromptu downpour and no one casts a second look.

It's still very much a learning experience.

As for the standard news, I've moved to a cheaper and somewhat noisier room. I'm sad to leave that sunny beautiful palace I stayed in last month, but the economic advantages are undeniable. There are some comforts here as well--I can use the kitchen so I can start cooking again, and there's an excellent rooftop patio that's a nice beer-and-cigarette hangout for when I get home from work. The major drawback is that there is no WiFi, so I'm at the mercy of public wireless networks and coffeeshops for uploading pictures and registering new blog posts. Be patient, I'm still alive.

Just a little distracted!

Keanu Reeves

I've been catching up on my British comedy.

Enter Keanu Reeves, a creation of Steve Coogan who, if you don't know him, is worthy of some youtube investigation:




"He just don't look well."

Classic Conflicts

Thought I'd start out with a little music, since I've worked two hours in the past two days and am getting a little lonely for social contact.

I've got far too much free time.

At first, this wasn't a problem. In fact, it was downright luxurious--as one coworker put it, "an almost criminally easy lifestyle." I spent it wandering around the streets, practicing saying the two phrases in Vietnamese I am confident to enough to say to native speakers (Hello and Thank You), learning directions, getting the hang of crossing the busier streets to open up new neighborhoods to explore.

But this week, I encountered a conflict, one classically known as "Man vs. Nature." The daily downpours in Ho Chi Minh City have subsided, and--though I have no technical qualifications to back up this hypothesis--all the allergens multiplied in the air. And went straight into my respiratory system.  Like my allergies knew I'd been fine for two weeks, and decided this wasn't right. Oh, no. Sinus infection time!

Coming down with a sinus infection in the middle of 90-degree sunny humidity makes you particularly miserable. Luckily though, I don't have to walk far in any direction to find a decent bowl of Pho, which is a miracle for sinus infections. I was eating entire leaves of basil like a koala bear chomping on eucalyptus.

My condition wasn't lost on my students. "Teacher, you look like you are not well." They're smart kids.

They're also fun to challenge. My favorite class at the moment is one I teach two nights a week and is comprised mainly of adults. They are pre-intermediates, which means they spend most of their time learning how to develop their English fluency by practicing language surrounding specific topics. It's a good approach--in my opinion, the best in helping students overcome shyness or hesitancy by giving them some practical applications, a great deal more interesting than simply memorizing the lexicon.

The texts they follow, though, aren't always up to par. The topics are scattershot, can be confusing, and follow a liberal definition of "pre-intermediate." For example, last week we talked about nutrition. This week, we're talking about Psychology and Personality

My mental playground.

But a difficult concept to present to students who are all largely without any sort of education beyond Secondary School. The first lesson they listened to contained more words they would have no way of understanding, words like: environment, genetics, patterns, behavior, emotions, nature, nurture. So we talked about them. It was great.

It's always great, when you're teaching people who want to be taught. We ended up having a prolonged discussion about what "Nature Vs. Nurture" means, and I had the most mentally stimulating conversation in class so far, mucus-filled as my mental faculties were. At one point I had muddled my explanation so much that I no other recourse but to turn it over to another student, who explained things for me.

They're smart kids.

Not many people in the class understood, at first, that there was controversy surrounding human behavior. That there were differing opinions about what happens to make us who we are. So I took the liberty of separating science and culture for them, which maybe walks a line between what I am and am not qualified to teach. But--and I think this is important--I wasn't doing it to instill my principles in them, but because I was so seriously floored that they were using so much language to process the concept. They were starting to think in English.

Progress!

I suspect some would call it neo-colonial. Or, classically: Man. vs. Man.

But in all seriousness, I don't believe that what I'm doing is neo-colonialism. I'm not seeking to replace Vietnamese with English, I'm seeking to build fluency and understanding in the language that has, for better or worse, become the universal language of commerce. The motorbike driver that can speak three phrases in English-- namely, "Hello!" and "Motorbike?" and "Where do you go?" has just tripled the amount of business he can conduct each day.

The child that can say, "Buy something from me?" will help her mother make a few thousand dong for groceries. And they use those children strategically too. Some even know a few more manipulative phrases like, "Buy something from me?" (You refuse) "Do you want me to be hungry?" (You refuse, feel like trash)

And there are other influences that language brings along with it, for better or worse. For example, one of my landlady's daughters was walking around the other day in a bright-blue t-shirt that was peppered with two words in bright yellow bubble font. Those words were "fun" and "fuck." At the bottom of the T-Shirt was the line, "California! Fuck and Fun!."

I did multiple takes to make sure I was seeing this right, and then decided, in total American Puritanical fashion, that her mother should be notified. What followed was a terribly embarrassing attempt to convey what the word 'fuck' means to a pleasant and smiling woman who nodded enthusiastically despite an obvious lack of understanding. I eventually gave up, somewhat safe in the knowledge that even though her t-shirt said something totally inappropriate for an eight-year-old, most of the people she interacted with throughout the day would probably not register this.

Or if they did, they did so without having full understanding of what the word fuck actually means.

Which brings me to strangely worded t-shirts. The best thing about this is, that t-shirt isn't even the weirdest one I've seen here. There are several others, and if I can ever remember to bring my camera along my aimless walkabouts, I'll try to sniper some photos.

For now, think I'll stick to doing my job.

Hot with Five T's

My favorite comic is Wondermark. If you know me well, you will understand why.

This one is especially relevant today. Two days without rain in Ho Chi Minh City makes the whole place an absolute steambath.

On Trust

Earlier today, while I was a passenger on a motorbike passing through a particularly harrowing traffic circle, I looked down and noticed there were two flip-flop sandals more or less flattened into the pavement. One was adult-sized, one was child-sized. A few inches away, a broken off piece of motorbike handle.

Last night, while I was a passenger on a motorbike in the worst traffic jam I've ever seen, I thought about how much of a role trust plays in everyday life. Granted, you don't necessarily have to be on a motorbike here to be taking your life into your own hands--just google "crossing the street in Saigon" to see some videos of how it's done in a place where traffic is the perfect example of a free-for-all.

With confidence

At 6:45 AM, this can really get to you.

There seems to be a silent contract between drivers on the road here--don't do anything stupid, and I won't hit you. That being said, people do the stupidest things while on motorbikes, sometimes stacked four deep, with little Jimmy right up front in a kiddy lap chair. Or, Sparky the family dog. Or, a refrigeration unit. There's really nothing that can't be done on a motorbike, except the hauling of my luggage, which I had to demonstrate first-hand to a girl at my guest-house before she would call me a taxi.

At any rate, there's a lot of trust at work here. Bikes swish from every direction into traffic, trusting that the other drivers won't completely flatten them. Pedestrians step out into a never-ending stream of motorbikes and buses and taxis and bicycles, trusting that everyone will slow down, or at least go around them. I hop onto the back of a motorbike everyday trusting that a person I've had maybe two or three full conversations with will get me to my destination alive.

There's not much more you can do.

I liken it to getting on an airplane. One of life's grand illusions is the one that suggests we are in control, and though we are far more likely to die in traffic than fall out of the sky, flying frightens us because we are not in direct control. We have to trust a perfect stranger to negotiate the physics for us, and a handful of other people on the ground to guide us in.

So I trust my driver, and to some extent the others on the streets.

This isn't to say I haven't had some close calls. My knees have come disturbingly close to being tapped by several bumpers, and on at least one occasion, a mother-trucking bus. But I'm thanking my lucky stars that my flip-flops haven't flown off yet, because that can only mean one thing.

I used to marvel at this in the US--the concept of driving vehicles, or being in traffic. That is, I marveled at it before I allowed it to completely unravel my humanity. I remember a Jerry Seinfeld routine about cars, and our fascination with them, how we're "Outside, but still inside, moving, but sitting still." I wrote in one particularly bad poem that cars must "Move together, move in order, but we must never touch."

It's a shared experience, minus the intimacy such an experience might suggest.

In countries like the US, it's a shared experience that no one wants to share. It can introduce homicidal fantasies to the most mild-mannered American around--it's made me invent some particularly creative ways to use curse words at least, and probably spiked my blood pressure a few times.

In Vietnam, traffic is approached with pretty much the same attitude the Vietnamese approach everything: Meh. What're you gonna do?

Because you have to go to work, you have to make deliveries, you have to bring your kids to school, and you have to make that money. I'm just thankful everyone's on motorbikes. If they were in cars, I don't think they would be as forgiving.

For one, they certainly wouldn't be going anywhere.

Photos

I'm having good luck with the internet tonight, so here's a link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/amanda.biever/SaigonDayOne?authkey=Gv1sRgCKXZor3M8NTAkgE

Enjoy!

New Room, New View

Guys. I just had the most delicious sausage roll in the history of mankind. I'm not using hyperbole here. I may be sun-drunk and hungry, but damn do the Vietnamese have a way with the French rolls. It consisted of two mini rolls baked into one another, slices of sausage baked into the top, pieces of chives and garlic here and there, a generous sugar glaze, topped off with some stinky and delicious cheese.

It was nearly the size of a sandwich, and I paid about 43 cents for it.

Anyways, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to brag about my new digs, which I found on Craigslist. Yup. Craigslist. Compared to the tiny little room I was staying in initially, this is an absolute palace:

It's a little pricey, but cheaper than the guest-house I was staying at, and a couple of blocks removed from the tourist din of the area my guest-house was in. We'll see whether or not I can swing it in the long run, but for now it's some comfort. My fellow house-mates are a Vietnamese family, from what I can tell I am their only boarder. They are terrific people, very friendly and helpful. They noticed I had a lot of books from the school, so today while I was out they put a desk and chair in the room for me, a nice surprise.

Here's the view from the balcony:

If I crank my head over to the left, I get a good view of Bitexco Financial Tower at night, all cantilevered and glowing. My camera doesn't really get a good shot of it, but it's nice to look at.

Right now, it's a beautiful night. Nice and cool--actually turned the AC off for once and have the windows open. It's raining a little, and there's some wicked lightning in the distance. This is a welcome relief from earlier today, when I was out at 7 am--it was already tremendously muggy and very, very smoggy. I actually ducked into a pharmacy to get a couple of those cloth surgical masks to wear while walking around and riding the xe om (motorcycle taxi, pronounced kind of like zoom).  I felt like Michael Jackson for a moment, but after a while I didn't feel weird at all--I was breathing better, for one, and for two, everybody wears them for the same reasons--air through a cloth filter is better than air through an exhaust filter.

As for my activities today, they were nothing short of spectacularly bureaucratic. I was talking with an old friend who lives here on the phone last night, explaining my task-list, to which he replied, "Welcome to communism, Beev. Welcome to communism."  If there's one things I can say about the communists, it's that they can departmentalize like champs. And--they like stamping things.

So my training in Social Services has prepared me well.

The most interesting thing that happened to me today was having a health check-up for the purposes of securing a work permit. I paid $33 and got a tour of the hospital, meaning, went from department to department, having various parts of my body checked. In this room, somebody talked to me about the United States and then looked in my ears. In the next room, somebody complimented me on looking younger than my age and took my blood pressure. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but enough to kind of turn me off from socialized medicine. I saw a lot of sick people, just waiting, in un air-conditioned hallways.

So I will end my day with a nice bottle of water and Emergen-C. Gotta fight the sickness.

Historic Truths

Day two, Saigon. After day one was spent being a tourist, paying through the nose for things like only a tourist does, I spent today lying low. Practicing my tasteful declinations, taking short walks, learning the streets, and learning to trust. Maybe not trust, but to decipher. Decipher the well-meaning individuals from the ones that are just being nice to you to get your money.

These are some of the things I am here to learn. I can tell already that this venture will hinge on my ability to develop some firm business skills. Everything here is business, and self-advocacy is second to none.

Here are some things I saw yesterday on my motorbike tour of several districts of HCMC:

Stop #1: War Remnants Museum. On my way to Saigon, a young Chinese woman's cell phone rang to Lady Gaga. I almost swelled with pride, feeling somehow connected to this person through the virtue of my own culture. Then I visited the War Remnants Museum, where any burgeoning American patriotism was quickly and ruthlessly crushed.

 "Tiger cages" Not for actual tigers.

Large portions of what is inside the Museum are collections donated by Western wartime correspondents and photographers, or in some cases donated by whoever earned the copyrights to their work after they died (which many correspondents did, in the bush). There is no censorship to what images are on display. You see some very disturbing things.

As I looked through these photographs, the thing that stood out to me the most was not necessarily the atrocities of war. The Vietnam War is well-documented (and well-fictionalized)—what I saw, in effect, I had seen in countless movies. I suppose that's the general problem of the desensitized American public.

The disturbing difference is that what you are looking at here was not simulated. American soldiers using water-torture or posing next to headless VietCong were not acting.

"The above picture shows exactly what the brass want you to do in the Nam. The reasons for printing this picture is not to put down G.I.'s but rather to illustrate the fact that the Army can really fuck over your mind if you let it.  //  It's up to you, you can put in your time just trying to make it back in one piece or you can become a psycho like the Lifer (K-6) in the picture who really digs this kind of shit. It's your choice." // (Only it kinda wasn't)--ab

Someone took that photograph, someone bore actual witness to this event, leaving its image as proof, no commentary. The most chilling photographs were taken of people who were about to be killed at the hands of GI's. If the photographer had survived the war, there would sometimes be captions:“These two boys popped out of a ditch, the GI's shot at them, and the bigger one fell on top of the smaller, as if to protect him. I took the picture and turned away. The GI's moved in to finish them.”

Blunt. Perhaps not without remorse, but you can never tell that from text alone.

I once saw an episode of This American Life that examined the humanistic integrity of candid photography. There was a video confessional of sorts from one photographer who was covering a hurricane off the Southeast coast in the 70's or 80's.  He saw a woman standing on this embankment not far from shore, just watching the storm, a beer in her hand. He was snapping pictures of the surf, trying to get coverage of the wind damage going along the shore. He took a picture of the woman standing there. He then said that in the next moment, a huge wave crashed into the embankment, sucking the land and woman into the sea. There were others along the shore that rushed to help her, she had her hands out, crying for help, trying to grasp the arms reaching out to her. Another enormous wave came up behind her, and her would-be rescuers had no choice but to retreat. She was lost. This man took pictures of the entire sequence. He said then that of all the people that rushed to help, he was the closest, but his mind was centered on taking the pictures. You could tell he was racked with guilt, thinking that if he had put the camera down and went to her aid, he may have been able to save her before the waves took over. But he had become an observer, an historian. He had removed himself from the immediacy of the moment in order to capture it.

I've managed to find a shortened video of his story:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcGZhXAi9M8

I wonder if that's what the wartime photographers did. Of course they had no power to stop it, they were noncombatants. Documentarians. I'm fairly certain they were armed, but they would have most definitely been outnumbered in sentiment. All they could do was what they were there to do.

So their images survive for the unexposed generation to ponder.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Stop #2: Notre Dame Cathedral.

  

Now it was my turn to feel like a disconnected opportunist; it was a beautiful church, it the midst of conducting two or three beautiful weddings. Honestly. There was a couple taking wedding pictures outside, another couple just-wed getting into a vintage European-looking convertible on the other side, and a wedding in-progress inside. My guess is this place is hard to book.

Eh. It's a church. There's one in every town.

Stop #3: Central Post Office. The most interesting thing I saw here was a souvenir Titanic model, filled with colorful blinking lights for some reason. 

The architecture there was nice. And now I know where the Post Office is.

Stop #4: The History of Revolution Museum. Most of the placards were not translated into English. Except this one:

Then we were on a wild dash through the Central ward of District 1, past all the Embassies and Consulates. I saw the American Embassy, where it all went down in 1975. I saw the Chinese Embassy, heavily barricaded and with graffiti on the outside walls.

Then we got down to business: Pagodas. I saw four Pagodas. What the names of them are, I couldn't tell you. I have the hardest time remembering names of people, streets, and places, because they are all so named in a fashion that's utterly incomprehensible to me at this point. My system of recognition has not yet shifted to the written. Here are some pictures of the unguessable.

These are probably the most well-treated turtles in Vietnam.

And the Educatedly-guessable Chua Quan Am, thanks to a picture investigation:

Incense coils

 These girls followed me all around Chua Quan Am. They liked my camera.

Cholon (Chinatown), street.

After this, I found myself in Cholon, Chinatown. I also found myself a little apprehensive of my guide, who was taking me farther and farther away from the familiar. And also, seemingly taking the long route, this coming from someone who still doesn't know north from south (I'm getting better, to the point where I can give pointy directions to major landmarks). After a brief stop at Cholon's Binh Tay Market, where I discovered my lousy negotiating skills, I told my driver it was time to head back.  

An intense discussion ensued, wherein I discovered that his idea and my idea of our agreed-upon  fee were two entirely different things.

I was left to basically bluff my way back to someplace familiar-looking, throw him about three times more than what the tour was worth, and walk briskly towards a busy-looking restaurant. Not the best end to an otherwise lovely day.

Today I had a completed pleasant interaction with a different Cyclo driver, who insisted the room I wanted to rent was too expensive ($300mo. 4^th floor with balcony, private bathroom and service), and took me to several other places he knew of for no charge.

Gotta get back on the horse.

PS I will upload more photos to an online account as soon as I can. I'll thank you in advance for your patience. The internet is mercifully moving at a decent speed today; I'm sure the ladies that run my guest-house think that all I do is sit on the computer and drink beer, which is only somewhat accurate.