Please do keep checking back. The initial set-up weeks are on the boring side, but we expect some adventures to report on soon. Ilene is off on one now, and we've got a trip to the Mekong Delta this Sunday.
We've been establishing work routines and getting to know our neighborhood better. I'm getting used to the noise (or going deaf) and can usually sleep through the morning rush. This week, we had a couple days of uncharacteristic gloomy rainy days when the laundry wouldn't dry. That's over now -- the afternoon heat is killer.
The whole city seems to be holding its breath for or preparing for Tet. The park outside our building is the site of one of the many "flower festivals" in the week of Tet, and a little bit of progress is made each day stringing lights and building the decorations.
Ilene taught her first class on Monday and felt it was a good start. She's in Vung Tau now, a resort town on the coast a few hours southwest of here. It's a conference of all the Fulbright scholars currently in Vietnam. She returns tomorrow, and I'll try to get her to write a little about that. She's super busy. (In addition to everything else, she conducted an interview earlier this week via webcam with the committee at SCSU that will hopefully recommend her for promotion to full professor.)
A big chunk of our time is taken up with just holding together body, soul and home, like pioneers. Laundry and dishes and shopping and every other kind of housework needs to be done in small batches without letting anything build up. We only have 2 of any utensil. (Well, four chopsticks.) Slowly we acquire the the necessities and comforts there wasn't room for in the luggage allowance. Everything takes a little longer to accomplish because we don't know the routines here, then a little longer because we don't have the language skills to ask, then a little longer because everything takes a little longer here. The hunt for bottled water alone is something I have to concentrate on daily. Also chocolate.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A particular example of friendliness
It's pretty common for us to end up in conversation with strangers over a certain age -- war veterans or older. Usually it's when one of us is eating alone in a little shop where a tourist wouldn't typically be and end up seated next to one of these men alone. If I make eye contact and nod hello, they say hello in English and ask where I'm from. Ilene reports that the same thing happens to her.
These guys end up being enthusiastic conversationalists, interested to hear our perspective and to practice English that has been rusty for thirty-five years. Occasionally they are Viet Kieu -- that is, Vietnamese who have moved abroad -- and who came home for retirement or on a work assignment for the American or Canadian companies they now work for. Typically they worked with Americans in some way during the war, which usually means they had a hard time of it in the decade after. If they aren't themselves refugees who have returned, they almost always have children or other family living in the U.S. ("You know Louisiana? You know Maryland? Cali?") They often have complementary things to say about Americans. (The stereotypes here are often that we are "sincere" and that certain other nationalities I won't name are "not sincere" or "shallow.")
They're always curious why we're here. They're impressed that we're teachers. They're amazed with Ilene's Vietnamese. They're surprised to find us eating at a street stall and wonder if we always eat Vietnamese food. They run through the list of American celebrities that they like and don't like. (I'm sorry to say that the votes against Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Oprah and Tiger are so consistent that it looks like racial prejudice. Everyone likes Obama, though.)
They always try to pay my bill. That happened on the day we moved into the apartment when I went downstairs to find lunch. Yesterday, something like this was unfolding, and as soon as we got into conversation with the guy, I started waving for our bill so I could pay it before we had a chance to become friends and he offered to pay for us.
Ilene and I were together this time, and the guy was much older than usual -- maybe late 70's. He greeted us at first, somewhat hopefully, in French. His French is much better than his English, he explained, and whenever he had trouble thinking of or pronouncing a word in English, he tried it in French to see if we could understand him that way. He grew up in French colonial schools and spoke with a certain amount of regret for the educational system that has been lost. He's a retired educator himself and doesn't think much of kids these days or the schooling that they're getting.
He lives in the neighborhood, and before we left we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get together soon.
These guys end up being enthusiastic conversationalists, interested to hear our perspective and to practice English that has been rusty for thirty-five years. Occasionally they are Viet Kieu -- that is, Vietnamese who have moved abroad -- and who came home for retirement or on a work assignment for the American or Canadian companies they now work for. Typically they worked with Americans in some way during the war, which usually means they had a hard time of it in the decade after. If they aren't themselves refugees who have returned, they almost always have children or other family living in the U.S. ("You know Louisiana? You know Maryland? Cali?") They often have complementary things to say about Americans. (The stereotypes here are often that we are "sincere" and that certain other nationalities I won't name are "not sincere" or "shallow.")
They're always curious why we're here. They're impressed that we're teachers. They're amazed with Ilene's Vietnamese. They're surprised to find us eating at a street stall and wonder if we always eat Vietnamese food. They run through the list of American celebrities that they like and don't like. (I'm sorry to say that the votes against Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Oprah and Tiger are so consistent that it looks like racial prejudice. Everyone likes Obama, though.)
They always try to pay my bill. That happened on the day we moved into the apartment when I went downstairs to find lunch. Yesterday, something like this was unfolding, and as soon as we got into conversation with the guy, I started waving for our bill so I could pay it before we had a chance to become friends and he offered to pay for us.
Ilene and I were together this time, and the guy was much older than usual -- maybe late 70's. He greeted us at first, somewhat hopefully, in French. His French is much better than his English, he explained, and whenever he had trouble thinking of or pronouncing a word in English, he tried it in French to see if we could understand him that way. He grew up in French colonial schools and spoke with a certain amount of regret for the educational system that has been lost. He's a retired educator himself and doesn't think much of kids these days or the schooling that they're getting.
He lives in the neighborhood, and before we left we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to get together soon.
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