The Amazing Race

The days feel like years here. I think it’s mostly because of the sunshine: it rises at 4am and doesn't set until 8pm. I suppose I’m making up for living in Seattle with a serious vitamin D deficiency.

 As part of our orientation we had a mini “Amazing Race”. We had four challenges:

1. Learn a Vietnamese card game--The superstition is that if you lose this card game you will fall in love soon. I lost only once (we played at least 20 times) take that as you will

2. Be able to read/pronounce a few new phrases in Vietnamese ( I can now count to ten, ask what your name is, and how much something costs)

3. Take a bus to the famous market Ben Thanh and buy watermelon seeds

4. Crack 20 watermelon seeds with your teeth and pull them out whole (hardest thing I've had to do in quite a while)

Pigs feet!

Ben Thanh Market 

so. many. shoes. <3

At night we had dinner with Papa G (aka Father Garanzini, aka the president of Loyola University Chicago). He was doing the whole circuit, Rome, Beijing and finally Vietnam. He seemed very out of place in Vietnam, but even still it was very cool to sit down to dinner with him.

You haven’t really lived until you’ve ridden on the back of a motorbike in Ho Chi Minh at night. It was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. Perhaps because of the tropical air, the late night, and the breeze. Or maybe it was the fact that there are no actual lanes and most of the time is spent driving head on into traffic. Either way, it was incredible. May drove me around the city for a while, showing me all her favorite places. We got bubble tea (taro root flavor) and ate seafood ramen. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go back to Top Ramen again.

As I mentioned before, some things don’t translate. Tonight one American student (hi Joe!) was a bit tipsy and was trying to explain that in America we have jokes on our popsicle sticks. To give an example he said, “you know, like ‘why did the chicken cross the road’”. “Chicken” in Vietnamese, is another word for slut.  This caused an insane amount of confusion, as the Vietnamese students couldn’t understand why a joke would start with “why did the slut cross the road”.

Things I learned (among other things):

• Sometimes they turn off the water and the electricity to save money. There’s nothing you can do but wait until they turn it back on

• Pantomiming a swing is harder than it seems (try it)
  
•  The first two years at a Vietnamese college is devoted to memorizing/learning Lenin and Marxist theory. Each semester they take 72 credit hours (comparison: Americans usually take 18 credits) 

• Loyola University Chicago is the only American university allowed to teach in Vietnam. The only other university is the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology – from Australia. Everyone else is banned.