Virtual-Doug

Gettin’ Around

Bicycles are the way we get around in Hue.    It has been some time since either of us graced a bicycle seat, but we found the old adage about never forgetting how to ride is true.  After a couple of wobbly trips around the dorm courtyard, we’re just fine.  Well – maybe a little shaky in heavy traffic, but fine nonetheless.

If you look on the map (left side of this page is a link to a map of Hue), you will notice Le Loi Street (say lay loy) is the main drag through town, and it parallels the river.  Most of the time we have to bike along Le Loi, except when we cross the bridge.  Think about the main drag in your town – would you ride a bike a couple of miles on a street with heavy traffic?

We do.

But, its nowhere near as bad as it seems.  To begin with, depending on the time of day, about 60% of the traffic is motorbikes and scooters.  Motorbikes are not full-blown motorcycles.  They have small engines and low gearing and are designed to carry a lot of weight at a slow speed.  About 35% of the traffic is other bikes or cyclos.  (Cyclos are three wheeled pedaled vehicles intended to carry passengers.)  By now you have figured out there are very few cars, vans, trucks and buses here.  Very few indeed.   

Traffic moves at a slow pace.  Except for the occasional kid, most of the motorbikes don’t go much faster than the bikes.  There is too much traffic for the big vehicles to go fast.

Though not noticeable when you first come to Viet Nam and see the traffic from the inside of a bus or taxi, there is a certain ebb and flow to the traffic – somewhat similar to watching a flock of birds fly.  At some mystic cue, the birds will all change direction at the same time.  So it is with traffic here.  While it seems chaotic at first glance, it actually has a flow to it.  But, the cue is not mystic.  The secret of success is the horn.

That’s right – the horn.

The horn is used for an entirely different purpose here than in the United States.   Think of it as “driving by ear.”  As you are tooling along the street on your bike, you will hear the nice man on the motorbike approaching fast from your right rear.  Good – you know he’s there, so you don’t swerve in front  in front of him.  Hear that deep-throated loud horn over your left shoulder?  Probably a bus.  Yeah – better let him have the right of way.  Didn’t notice the motorbike coming out from a side street because your view was blocked?  No problem – you can hear his horn.  I have yet to see anyone give a middle finger salute here – horn honking is just the way things work.

Of course, this creates one small problem for bike riders – we have no horns.  Not even a bell.  Cindy solved that dilemma the other day while we were pedaling back from class.  I heard a horn over my left shoulder, but didn’t realize it was her making horn sounds until she pulled up next to me.  The two western tourists who heard her hurt themselves laughing.

Making a left turn against traffic can be a challenge too.  But, the locals solve that problem easily.  They just travel down the wrong side of the road for a short distance until the traffic opens enough for them to move over to the right side of the road.  No problem.

Equally easy to understand is “right of way.”  There are no complicated laws and one doesn’t have to figure out who turns in what direction.  Its much simpler here.  The biggest vehicle has the right of way.  Simple, eh?

I haven’t quite adjusted to the traffic lights here.  There are no large lights strung over the intersection as there are in America.  The lights here are kinda dinky, and mounted low on corner of the intersection on your side of the street.

Our bikes are provided by our employer.  Not only have they been well used by previous teachers, but I doubt they would have won any quality awards when they were brand new.  In the week I have used mine, I’ve had to have the handlebars tightened so the front wheel aligns with the handlebars.  C’s bike had trouble letting air out of a tire until it was patched twice.  But they get us where we need to go, and as long as Thai the Bike Man sets up shop everyday at the gate, we’re rolling.

So – using my back pack as my carry-all,  I get around, man.  I get around.

(Be sure to click on the photos to see a larger version.)

We ride bicycles
surrounded by the beeping
of scooters and cars.

Getting Adjusted

Okay – let’s start another category.  We’ll call this one “This and That.”  It will be the category used for “stuff” – those things that don’t necessarily fit into a nice neat category.

Some comments on the comments.  (I sometimes post my own comments  in the Comments area, but I know some of you may not always read them, so I will comment on some comments in this main section.)  Marty – you don’t have air conditioning?  Yuck!  But then again, you have broadband.  My Internet access is dial-up – and a 28.8 connection is hot!  Doc – some things come around.  There is a picture on the Comanche site showing shirts hanging on tress in an attempt to dry them out.  We didn’t have a dryer back then!

Now, on with the story.

C and I are working folks again.  True enough, we’re not actually teaching our own classes, but we are observing classes.  C visited a first year English speaking class yesterday, while I sat in on a third  year writing class.  Our first visit together was to a writing class, and this morning we visited a first year reading class.  We should know our teaching schedules by this weekend, and actually start teaching Monday.  By the way – the first class of the day begins at 7 AM.  That’s right – 7 AM!  I can remember my inability to make a eight o’clock class when I was in college.

We are beginning to find out way around the local eateries.  I love pho (say "fuh"), the beef noodle soup that may be Viet Nam’s most famous dish.  And – we found a great place for it.  When we need something more familiar, Little Italy has respectable pizzas.  Phuong Nam has good food, its cheap – and a great view of backpacking European tourists walking by. Good food is very cheap in Hue.

But – to make life a little easier, we have gone together with the three other foreign teachers and hired a cook.  That’s right – every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we eat lunch at 11:30, then save the leftovers for dinner.  That will cost us a whole $1.15 for both meals.  Ladies – lest you think we have gone soft, the “kitchen” is a 5 gallon jug of clean water, a two-burner cooking surface, and some assorted pots and pans.  More on the cooking later.

Oh, our aching legs!  They’re not used to bikes.  Our butts aren’t either, but the legs are weary after riding the 15 minutes back from class – only to be faced with walking up four flights of stairs.  I’ll soon post more about riding bikes in Hue.  If you wish to see where we go, there is a link to a map of Hue on the upper left side of this blog.  Yes, we pedal over to the other side of the Perfume River.

Here’s a little example of our rapid introduction to the Vietnamese culture.  In class, the topic of proper address came up.  As you know, female students at a university in America are referred to as women.  Not here.  The students here were asked if they preferred to be addressed as men and women, or boys and girls.  The chorus was resounding.  They are boys and girls.  One doesn’t not achieve the status of an adult until one is married.

Students are encouraged to visit us in our rooms – something that is just not done by the Vietnamese professors.  We hope to develop relationships with them, and this is the best way to do that.  A couple of days ago, one of the other teachers took some first year students to a local hot springs.  The next night, they came over to see the digital pictures on the computer.  The sandals outside the door are another cultural phenomenon – one does not wear your shoes into someone’s home.  You are either barefoot or put on slippers – but no street shoes inside.  Here they are clustered around the computer, giggling like the young girls they are.  (Be sure to click on the photos to see a larger version.)

Life is good in Hue – our hometown!

High Rise Apartment Living in Hue

A couple of  comments before I post today’s main thought.

First, I’m getting emails from some of you with some pretty good ideas.  Notice at the bottom of this post is a link titled “Comments.”  You can leave your own message about that particular posting, and all the world will see your cogent opinions.  I read them all, and will reply if necessary.

Secondly, I will start categorizing these postings.  Look over to the left, and you will notice “Categories.”  This will be the first in the “Living in Viet Nam” category.

Now, on to the story.

We want all you folks who are supporting us to know we are trying to be good stewards.  So, here are the first pictures and information about our digs in Hue.  (Be sure to click on the photos to see a larger version.)

Our apartment consists of one room – that’s right – one room, plus a commode and a shower.  This cavernous abode measures 11 feet by 19 feet.  Of course, we do have a window.  Next door is a common room we share with the two other western teachers.  The common room also has the washing machine we all share.  Note, however, the lack of a drier.  Hence, in doing the laundry that has been building up on our trip, the room looks like a New York tenement with laundry hanging everywhere a space can be found.   

Luxuries abound.  We do have an air conditioner.  Of course we have not needed it yet as it has been raining since we arrived, and the temperature has hovered around 50-60 degrees.  With the misty rain, the humidity is about 99.5%, hence the laundry takes a long time to dry.

Another luxury is the mosquito netting on the bed.  No – there is no problem with malaria in Hue, but there are some mosquitoes.  To avoid being awoken in the middle of the night by a buzzing in the ears, we’re using the netting.

Speaking of the bed, we also have a mattress that is about three inches thick and sits on wooden slats.  Actually, that’s not as bad as it sounds – we slept like rocks the first night we were here.

As with any urbanite couple wishing to show off the fact that we have “arrived”, we live in an apartment with a view.  On the walkway outside our door is a wonderful view of the dorm across the way.  We are on the fourth (and top) floor of a combined classroom and dormitory building.  Our housing package includes a fitness program, therefore we have no elevator and walk upstairs to get home.  That should help take off some pounds, eh?

Our son once lived in a place he called The Cracker Box., but that apartment had two rooms.  We gotcha beat, Keith!

Miscellaneous Ramblings from Hue

This posting will be written over a period of time rather than all at once.

We’re sitting in the beautiful new airport in Ha Noi. The terminal building at the Noi Bai  airport was built only a few years ago, and does not to appear to be used anywhere near capacity.  But, the Vietnamese have built it for growth, and as one drives from the city to the airport, one is overwhelmed with the incredibly fast pace of development in this country. I’ve written about it during previous visits.  There are new buildings going up all over the place – factories, shopping centers, business centers, apartments.  You name it – it’s being built.  The airport mirrors the incredibly fast expansion of this country’s economy.

Language – as I wrote above, this is going to be a challenge.  Vietnamese is so fundamentally different than western languages.  But, I also see it can be learned.  We were accompanied to the airport by one of our organization’s leaders.  We had some difficulties due to a delayed flight and our large amount of excess luggage, but his ability to speak fluent Vietnamese eased the way through the maze.  While I’m sure I could have negotiated our way by myself, it was fascinating to watch how much easier it was when one speaks Vietnamese.  But - - it’s gonna take a long while to learn it.

Okay – switch gears.  I am writing this from Hue.  We are safely ensconced in our room on the fourth floor of a semi-skuzzy dormitory.  It had been nicely cleaned for us before we arrived, and we had help (thank goodness) dragging our heavy luggage up the stairs.  Climbing four floors should whip us into shape, eh?

We were met at the airport by two officials of the university.  One is the head of the department we will be teaching in, and the other is the interim vice-head of the college.  Pretty impressive folks to meet us at the airport, eh?

It was raining lightly when we arrived.  The temperature is quite cool.  Our teaching colleague’s father and his wife are visiting, so we joined them for dinner at (get this) an Indian restaurant.  Kumar – I have no idea what we ate, but it was pretty good.

Even though tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll be up and at ‘em early as we will be attending services at eight o’clock.  This should be quite a language immersion experience – reverence in Vietnamese.

The mosquito netting is hung, sheets are on the bed, the fan is working just fine  – and C is asleep.  We’re home.

For those of you who lived in Viet Nam many years ago, you will appreciate the irony of this phrase – “Welcome home, Doug and Cindy.”

Short Post Before we Leave Ha Noi

This is a just a quick note to say we are leaving Ha Noi on a flight to Hue.  By the time you read this, we’ll be home at last.

Also, we don’t know when we’ll be within “Internet range” again.  We know we have a telephone line into our apartment, but don’t know when we’ll be able to buy an Internet card.  So - - - you’ll hear from us when you hear from us.

To paraphrase a great man:  “Home at last, home at last. Thank Him almighty, we’re home at last.”

I Am Having Difficulties with Food

(posted by The Guest Blogger)

I love to eat - I eat to excess - and actually enjoy being fairly explorative.  But I have been holding back here, waiting to discover what will make me ill.  Excepting the flu-bug in Thailand, nothing has. 

Here in Ha Noi we have eaten lunch in a couple of very marginal places, by Western standards, with chopsticks of questionable history sticking out of a communal cup on the table.  I did not get sick.

We have eaten in the home of new friends with a toddler who has recently discovered the joy of tasting things off the ground who is also getting over something caught from the other toddlers in Thailand.  Dinner was delicious, prepared by the couples' Vietnamese helper. Spring rolls, fish sauce, rice, vegetables, and a dish of tofu coated with Italian red sauce.  I did not get sick.

For lunch we were prepared a special Tet lunch by Vietnamese students.  I was loathed to enjoy the aroma.  Smells in Viet Nam range from seductive aromas to foul filth.  The nose becomes unwilling to trust.

I had not been able to watch our young, new friends prepare the lunch they brought for us.  Many cooks are not familiar with practices I regard as basic cleanliness.  I do not watch them, nor do I imagine them preparing my food. 

There were slices of a meat composite (can anyone say "scrapple"?) arranged on the plate to look like a turtle.  There were slices of pork meat and beef.  I ate the fried of lumps of sticky rice, and tried the pickled onions.  They were good.  We finished eating an hour ago.  I do not feel sick.

I hope that I can soon set aside my clinical Western yardstick, and truly begin to explore the food.  I want to.  I pray to.  I ask him to bless the food to my body and me to his service.  And I ask he help me enjoy this interesting food. 

Soon I might taste the brown gummy stuff wrapped in a tiny box made of a green leaf, tied with raffia.  I am told it was incredibly sweet.  Please, suspend my disbelief.

xoxo -cmy

Hello from Ha Noi

Okay, the day was yesterday, not today.  Yesterday was our first full day in Viet Nam – and yesterday was the first anniversary of our calling to Viet Nam.  As predicted by Bur+, we are here within a year after that fateful Sunday service.

Our training has shifted from learning how to teach English, to learning more about the Vietnamese language and culture.  The morning was touristy, yet necessary, as we toured Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, then walked through the Old Quarter where the streets are named after the type of goods sold there.  We walked Silk Street and Toy Street.  (I don’t think its really called Motorcycle Seat Street, but we did pass a bunch of shops selling them.)  Lunch was excellent!  Bun bo (say buun buh)  is familiar to our south Texas friends who eat at Hop Tung – it is thin rice noodles mixed with small slivers of beef.  The particular bun bo we ate was “southern style”, making it bun bo nam bo.  The small restaurant was packed – and the food delicious.

The afternoon was spent in language training.  Oh my goodness – this is gonna take awhile!  The only thing that makes Vietnamese even remotely familiar is that is uses an alphabet based on the same Roman letters we use, but all similarity ends there.  Like most Asian languages, it is a tonal language, which means the meaning of words is determined by whether you end the word with you voice rising or falling or stays flat.

I have been in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) five times before – not enough to be an expert, and most certainly as a tourist.  Now that I have spent an entire day in Ha Noi,  I have an opinion about the traffic.  My opinion mirrors that of most people who have been in both cities. Ha Noi and HCMC are very different.  Saigon’s street are very congested, very noisy with honking horns, and nobody pays the least bit of attention to traffic lights.  Ha Noi’s driving public is much more polite,  the streets are wider and less crowded, and people actually stop for traffic lights.  Yes, folks still honk their horns, but not with the same ferocity as in Saigon.

The evening was spent with a wonderful young couple and their baby.  They have enjoyed being English teachers here in Ha Noi for the past three years.  The food was great too – spring rolls, veggies, and rice. 

We’ll finish out this week in Ha Noi, then on to Hue on Saturday.  Stayed tuned.

Một, hai, ba, bốn, năm.
Counting is not easy here.
Another thing to learn.

More Miscellaneous Ramblings

Using an Internet café has been tough – not that they are difficult to find – they are all over the place in Chiang Mai.  Nor are they slow – there are many broadband cafés here.  Its just that I have been used to composing thoughts for the blog and email on my own machine at my leisure and not having to walk four blocks to a café.

But, that ends tomorrow.  In the morning, we arise and move again, this time to Ha Noi.  We will arrive in the evening, and stay at the home of the country director for our organization.  Just a few more days of training, then we can get home.  Yes – home is as yet unseen.  It’s a kind of trust thing.

Some rambling thoughts –

• We have been doing some practical work the past three days as we taught English to the staff of local hotels.  It was great fun – I had Front Desk people (who already have a good command of the language, but need context skills), and C taught more basic skills to housekeeping employees.  In my experience, let’s just say that I have much to learn.  Those of you who know me also know I love to teach.  But, I don’t feel like my old self while teaching English.  Yesterday it dawned on me – teaching English requires that I use content to teach content.  Its rather like defining a word by using the word – I have to use English to teach English.  That is very strange.  Secondly, I have taught adults all my life, but because my students don’t have the command of English an adult native speaker brings to the classroom, I have to “dumb down” my language.  In daily life, I tend to become intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity, and I will have to struggle with simplifying my language without insulting my students.

• We had a wonderful meeting with two folks who are just leaving Hue.  They have been working with the medical school there (he is an orthopedic surgeon), but are on the way home.  They have been good friends with our new teaching colleague.  They struck us as wonderful folks – I’m sorry they won’t be remaining in Hue as they would have become very good friends.  He served in Viet Nam “a long time ago” as a Navy doctor, then returned as a civilian, but had to leave in 1975 when Viet Nam was reunified. 

• One of our instructors is from Albuquerque, and we shared some wistful moments talking about our past home in the high desert.  She also earned her doctorate in history at the University of New Mexico, prompting another urging from my loving wife to pursue that degree.  I dunno, but I would have the language requirement nailed after we return from Viet Nam, eh?

Just about the time we have gotten used to buying things with baht and bargaining with the tuk tuk drivers for a ride back to the hotel, we’re moving on again.  Now on to the land of buying things with dong and riding a xe om.  The adventures continue, but in the back of our mind is the knowledge that we have been sent for a very special reason, and supported by wonderful people who are well aware of that reason.  We are thankful each and everyday that he has trusted us with this work and blessed us with friends who care deeply about that work too.

See you in Ha Noi.

Sakrai and Kumjohn
Were my students at the Y.
Learning touched us all.

Out of Internet Range

Folks, it may be a few days before I post again.  We came back into the city of Chiang Mai, but our new hotel has rotary phones and requires an operator to make a call - which means I cannot connect my laptop from my room.

Sooooo - - I am using an Internet cafe to write this.  I will try to write on my laptop, dump to a floppy, and post - but that could be interesting.  It may be next week when we get to Hanoi before I post again.

Ah, the Internet!

Miscellaneous Ramblings

I thought this might be a good time to get caught up on the daily happenings – nothing profound – just life.

• I posted a comment to The Main Point a few days ago.  It is truly a wonderful blog, and masterfully written.  When Michael replied that he was a fan of my blog, I was astounded.  Let’s just say we seem to have formed a mutual fan club.  The saga of Michael and Amy’s walk is one of my “must reads.”

• We have found we are not the first vets to serve with our organization in Viet Nam.  One teacher was stationed in (get this, Dennis) Phu Bai in 1972.

• It is truly nice to get newsy emails from home – the kind of chatter like an exchange between friends over coffee.  You need not send them to both of us – we read them together.

• I just got a haircut from the new barber I got last November.  Needed it too.

• Today was our last day in the mountain retreat outside Chiang Mai.  Tomorrow we “newbies” return to the city for more training, while the experienced teachers return to China, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, and Viet Nam.  And it was a day for Team Viet Nam to show off.  Many of the women wore the traditional Vietnamese women’s dress, the ao dai.  (Say ow yai. – yes Dennis and Jeff, it is pronounced ow dzai up north.)  In this man’s humble opinion, the ao dai is the most feminine, graceful, and beautiful garment ever devised to adorn the female form. 

• Finally, here is a picture of Team Hue.  (Say whey)  Our colleague is dressed in an ao dai, speaks fluent Vietnamese and has been in Hue for the years.  Yes – the jerseys C and I are wearing are the uniform shirts for the Viet Nam National soccer team.

Be sure to click on the photo see see a larger version.