Wedding Crashers

It all started with an innocent text from my Vietnamese friend Tung. “Hey do you want to go to dinner with my family tonight?”  As a college kid it is universally accepted that if your friend's parents are in town and invite you to dinner you know two things: 

1. It will be good 

2. You most likely will not have to pay

Free dinner and delicious Vietnamese food? Count me in!

One thing I’ve learned here is that the Vietnamese rarely tell you the essential details that you need to know. This was not just dinner. This was not just with Tung’s parents and sister. I soon realized this as we walked outside only to find a mega bus filled with all of Tung’s extended family inside. “Where on earth would we find a restaurant big enough to fit all of these people”, I wondered. I knew we were definitely going somewhere very nice.

When I asked Tung where we were going she casually mentioned that some family friends were in town celebrating their 30^th wedding anniversary. Ah-ha! Now we’re getting somewhere. Unable to get any more information out of her than that, I assumed we would be going to one of the big hotels in Saigon to eat a fancy meal. Although I felt a little bit awkward about going to someone’s wedding anniversary that I had never met before, Tung assured me that no one would notice that I was there.

When we pulled up to our destination, I realized she was right. We were not, in fact, in front of a hotel or a fancy restaurant. We were in an amusement park. As we walked through the canopy of lights we stepped into a grand ballroom, which just happened to be floating on a lake. As I turned to my left I saw a swan boat approaching through heart shaped balloon arcs with the married couple in full wedding attire inside. This was only the beginning.

Throughout the 7 course meal, the speeches, the drinks and the entertainment, I had a grand time.

First was the cake cutting ceremony. There was a huge tiered cake which the couple delicately sliced into. When I asked Tung what kind of cake it was she responded, “Fake. We don’t eat cake here, we just want to be like Western weddings”

Next came the complicated champaign pouring scene, where the couple popped and poured champaign into a complex array of glasses which drained into one another. Of course there was dry ice and fireworks as the liquid was poured.

Then came the dancers. Guests are not allowed to dance at Vietnamese weddings despite the fact that there is constant music. (My favorite was the 4 minutes it took for me to realize I was listening to a Muzack version of “Yesterday” by the Beatles). However there is a paid troupe of dancers, decked out to look like a wedding party, whom had no relation and/or connection to anyone at the party. They danced flamenco, modern, pop, jazz and big band swing (although none of it to the correct type of music). It was very much dinner and a show.

Finally after a mildly offensive speech in broken English by the drunk former best man (“there are three rings in marriage: the engagement ring, marriage ring, and suffering”) we all got up and left. We said goodbye to the bride and groom, got back on our bus, and that was that.

On the bus ride home, I looked over at Conner, one of my fellow American students and said, “I’m expecting to wake up in just a few seconds and none of this will have been real. Promise you’ll remember for me?”

“A night like this?” she replied, “you’ll never forget it” 

Mekong Delta

I haven’t written in a while and I apologize as sometimes it gets to be overwhelming and then thinking about writing and trying to describe my experiences is even more overwhelming and so on and so fourth. The whole thing compounds and alas I don’t post for nearly two weeks. The general consensus over here has been that describing our trips and sometimes even our day adventures is such an overwhelming task that many of us don’t even bother to say anything at all.

That being said, a lot has happened and instead of a narrative this might read a bit more like a laundry list.

This weekend our program visited the Mekong Delta! 

A new accessory piece: a boa!

The pavilion where we had lunch

The ladies and the boa

Snake wine! (Made with a different boa)

Traditional Vietnamese music

the guest house where we stayed, quite literally IN the Mekong River

our beautiful mosquito net canopies 

I totally blend in

During our trip we traveled by boat, saw native music performances, ate a TON of food and native fruit, drank snake wine, went on bike rides, fished, swam, and generally enjoyed the region. Since this week I am struggling with words I will let the pictures do the speaking for themselves.

You Love Me, You Really Love Me!

A really quick shout out to the wonderful, incredible, truly terrific people back in Chicago who sent me some pictures today:

The lovely Caley and Elana holding 2D versions of Me, Abby, and Alyssa

(NB: Abby, Alyssa and I all live together. Abby is in Beijing and Alyssa is in Rome)

The best people to work with in the whole entire world

You guys are the absolute best :)

Three Weeks In

My magic number is three. Almost exactly three. It takes me three weeks to process. Whether it be a major life event, death, moving, a new job, a new semester, whatever. It takes me three weeks to process. And then the freak out begins. At nearly exactly the three week point in every one of these situations, I have a meltdown. An “I-hate-everything-about-what-I’m-doing” kind of meltdown. Usually I want to go home (regardless of where I am). Usually, that is not an option.

A little taste of home

I have been in Vietnam three weeks. If I see another bowl of soup I think I might cry.  Not to mention that fish sauce is poured over everything! On the table in nice establishments they have full tea kettles of fish sauce. FULL KETTLES ON EVERY TABLE. Now I generally like fish sauce, but that is taking a good thing just a bit too far.

Also, they do not have adequate ice cream here.

I may or may not admit to having stashed a bag of Hershey kisses in our mini fridge/freezer, and these said but most likely fictional pieces of chocolate might have run out finally today.

I’m not complaining. I’m just struggling. I know struggling is part of this adventure and when I look back I will be surprised at how strong I am and I’ll just think of all the wonderful times I’ve had here…yadeyada.

But right now, I’m tired. I’m hot. I’m sweaty. I still don’t speak the language.  And I’ve run out of chocolate.

This was a previously taken photo, but it captured how I was feeling so well that I had to use it

----

So right after I wrote the above piece, I decided to go forage for some food (or maybe just chocolate) before publishing. The only thing I managed to eat today was some garlic naan, which while it was good, was a solid 8 hours ago.

As I was walking down the street, feeling pitiful, praying desperately that although it was the first day of Tet perhaps maybe some poor pho restaurant would be open, I only found shutter after shutter closed. Finally I see a man grilling an entire fish-- skin, bones, head, the whole nine yards-- on a makeshift bbq. I felt pathetic as I stared most likely hungrily and a bit curiously at the entire charred fish. The man grilling saw my face, and he must have picked up on my self-pity vibes because he offered me a chair. At first I was confused. Do I want to watch you grill the fish? Sure. But then I realized, I was invited to the family celebration. It was wonderful.

They grilled in front of me an entire fish and an entire chicken, which is no small feat on a grill the size of a piece of paper. Guests started to arrive shortly after I was invited to sit down. One woman, who became my favorite, arrived with a huge bowl of soup and she talked louder than anyone I’ve ever met. She was one of those people who I didn’t have to know very much Vietnamese for because all she wanted was an attentive audience. Although I had absolutely no idea what she was saying, I said “uh-huh” and “oh my” and laughed in all the right places. She rewarded me with extra servings of soup.

I’m proud to say that my Vietnamese is good enough for people to understand what I’m saying. Unfortunately I can ask more questions than I can understand the answer to. Needless to say I’m not a particularly good conversationalist. That didn’t seem to stop this family from welcoming me in to their patch of sidewalk though. They even gave me a fake $2 American bill to burn for my ancestors so that they might be able to afford a better place in heaven.

Since the family runs a pho shop not too far from me, I’m sure I’ll be back. They said they would love to see me again, and can’t wait until I come eat with them after Tet.  I don’t know how I got so lucky, but I’m so very glad I did.

Every time my enthusiasm for this country starts to waiver, something incredible, such as being invited to a family celebration right on the street, happens and well, it’s love all over again.

Things I learned (among other things):

Everything looks a bit bleaker when you run out of chocolate

The gratitude I felt when I was invited to dinner was so strong that I don’t think I will ever forget it. It doesn’t take much to invite a straggler to lunch. It might even make their day.

It doesn’t matter how good or bad you might be at a language, it’s the effort that you put into your interactions that count

Walking in Flowers

I bought my first pair of Tevas today. You would think that living in the great Pacific Northwest I would have at least one pair of Tevas/Chackos/Brooks etc. Nope. None. While I believe that Tevas are an abomination to fashion footware, I don’t think my feet have ever been happier.

Vietnam eats shoes. It literally swallows them up whole. My little white flats that have lasted me years in perfect condition? Trashed. My TOMS no longer have backs to them. My gladiators are still hanging in there, but it’s a struggle, they don’t have much left in them. I do have cute tennis shoes, but surprisingly no one wears tennis shoes here, as you have to take off your shoes upon entering a lot of places, and socks are just not a thing. So I bought a pair of Tevas. But me being me, I can find a sale no matter what country I am in. I don’t support buying fake or stolen goods, so I found a legitimate sports store and then found my new Tevas….70% off. My feet are happy, my wallet is happy, and as long as I don’t look down and think of how dorky I feel, I am quite happy as well.

Tonight “Flower Street” for Tet opened up in downtown Saigon. Think of the largest farmers market you can, and then combine it with the crowds of 4^th of July, add 90 degree heat, and over a million people, and you have a good picture of my evening.

One huge street was closed off and everywhere they were selling flowers. I’m not sure if there is any significance to the flowers, but there was a huge variety of them. The most common ones that I saw were tiger lilies (my favorite) and orchids. 

There were also mini orange trees, carved yet still growing grapefruits (don’t ask me about the biology of this, I don’t understand how it’s possible), dragonfruit trees (they look like cacti) and poinsettias. This street was the only point in my three weeks of being here where the city actually smelled nice.

The street was also decked out in beautiful flower lights, signs, and decorations. We wandered around with the crowd, listened to the music, nibbled on some street food, and generally enjoyed being part of the celebration. As different as everything is here, I really enjoyed this festival because it reminded me of being home in the summer. Besides the complete and total obvious differences, the sentiment was the same. It was just a whole bunch of people getting together to celebrate and view something lovely. There were kids running around, food vendors, and general happiness in the air. It’s amazing how some things are so completely different, and yet feel almost exactly the same.

Downtown an Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop opened up. And since soft pretzels are one of the best (and seemingly most traditionally American, though I think they originated in Germany) snacks, I decided to education my Vietnamese friends about the deliciousness of American snacks. They were very confused by the large soft pretzel, but overall they agreed it was actually pretty decent. One friend even admitted that he would love to eat one with a beer. You can’t get much higher praise from a college kid than that.

Things I learned (among other things):

While I’m learning so much, I realized I have knowledge to share too

It’s perfectly acceptable here to whack a little kid when they are misbehaving

While Western influence is seeping in to Vietnam, they still preserve their culture: like having shrimp flavored soft pretzels

Rio de Vietnam

A follow up to my adventure in Vung Tau!

While we spent a good part of the weekend bumming around on the beach, we also went on an adventure.

There is a huge statue of Jesus, reminiscent of the one in Rio de Janeiro, on the highest hill in Vung Tau. Of course, I had to climb the hill to see him up close. It turns out that on the climb up to Jesus there are small terraces with marble statues of bible stories. You start at the bottom of the hill, and as you make your way up to the top, you view some of the most famous Christian stories all described in engraved Vietnamese placards.

Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain

the 12 apostles

Jesus preaching on the mountain

Jesus and the woman at the well

the last supper

All of this culminates in a huge grand stairway to an 8 story tall Jesus. I can’t make this stuff up. You can climb all 8 stories in Jesus and sit on his shoulders to look out over the South China Sea.

 

I have minimal words to describe this experience. An accidental pilgrimage perhaps, I spent well over 3 hours at this spot, marveling over the incredible strangeness of the situation

A Vacation from My Vacation

This weekend some of us decided to take a vacation and get out of Saigon/HCMC. We caught a boat and went to Vung Tau, a resort town on the south peninsula of Vietnam.

Vung Tau was very interesting. The best way to describe it is as a mix of Port Townsend and Miami, if both of those towns had been deserted for 10 years, and people came back now to live in them. It was a bit eerie actually, and at times felt a bit like a ghost town. Regardless, we got a hotel room for $5 a night, across the street from the beach

We all have our hobbies, our pride points, or our collections. For me, it’s less about the tangible and more about the experiences. One of my goals is to touch as many major bodies of water as possible. As weird as that sounds, it’s actually quite challenging. I’ve touched both sides of the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, one side of the North Pacific, and now the South China Sea. (Interesting side note: the Vietnamese hate China so much that they refuse to call it the South China Sea, and instead call it the Eastern Sea). Vung Tau has beautiful beaches and we spent most of the day Friday swimming and lolling around in the sand. What I failed to remember is how close Vietnam is to the equator. Why is this important? Well, the sun is hotter, brighter and fiercer here. I currently look like a lobster crossed with a cherry tomato.

The weekend was spent lounging on the beach with a cooler full of ice and beer and running into the water when it got too hot in the shade.

  

One of my favorite moments of the weekend was when I was sitting on the beach finishing a bon mi sandwich. The rest of the group was back at the hotel, but I wanted to spend my last few minutes in Vung Tau on the beach. While I was sitting there, watching the tide come in, there was a pack of boys, about 7-9 years old playing soccer on the edge of the waves. They were just kicking a few balls around, and every so often a stray ball would come my way. I kicked it back to them, and after a few times they realized I actually knew what I was doing with a soccer ball. Now little boys enjoy showing off more than anything. So once they figured out that I was watching they started doing headers and dives and tackling each other. When I got up to throw away my wrapper, one of the little boys panicked and sent a ball flying my way, which hit me square in the back. Now, it’s been a while since third grade, but if I remember correctly, being pelted with a soccer ball is equivalent to a handwritten love note. Well I couldn’t let this go by. The next ball that came flying my way, I trapped and started juggling. The look of utter shock and joy made my day. I scrimmaged them for a little while until it was time for me to leave. As I left all the boys walked me to the road and waved and blew me kisses goodbye. “Hen gap lai!” they called-- see you again.

Things I learned (among other things):

Sharing a hotel room with 9 people can be rough, but not as bad as I imagined

Just because the fish is skewered on a stick does not mean that you should eat the entire thing (head, spine, bones etc). However, if you do eat the entire thing, it won't (necessarily) make you sick. Nor will it phase you if you have an iron stomach. (Personal experience)

Sunscreen is always a must, no matter where you are on the globe.