American lips have passed over them before. Forks, that is. We eat often at The Mandarin Café, a back-packer kinda place run by Mr. Cu. Most of the flatware in Việt Nam is tin. It bends easily. But, many of the forks at the Mandarin are good solid forks. Seems as thought Mr. Cu found them a market awhile back – they are from an old American Army mess hall. The knives and spoons were long sold out, but the seller had lots of forks. Why? Because the Vietnamese don’t use forks – they use chop sticks.
Did you know the sun arises at 5:15 AM here – and sets at 6:15 PM. There’s no Daylight Savings Time here. The rising and setting times don’t vary much either – we’re too close to the equator.
You know how many Americans say “Umm”, or “Ahhhh” when they’re stumped for what to say? Well, um, our students – um – say “Yes” when searching for the right word, as in “I want to, yes, talk to you about my paper, Teacher. Yes?”
We’re at final exam crunch time around here, and you can’t walk along the hallways in our dormitory, or walk up the stairwell, without nearly stumbling over a student fervently studying. Often, you can tell they are memorizing something. Like students everywhere else in the world, finals time is tough.
A lot of homes in Hué are not on the main street, but rather on alleyways leading off the main street. The alleyways are called a kiệt, and they are too small for a car, but just right for a motorbike. The address will include the name of the main street, the number of the kiệt, plus the number of the house on that kiệt. Pretty kewl system.
The tourist season in Hué is at low ebb. Most of the tourists here are from Europe, and now that vacation spots in Europe are warm, people stay closer to home. Besides, its too hot in Việt Nam now.
My favorite place to eat is Phớ Saigon. It’s a nice easy bike ride from where we live, is clean, and the service is friendly. There is one girl who knows I have never eaten anything else from the menu than phớ tái, which is served with thin slices of raw beef that cook in the hot broth. They serve it Sài Gòn style, which means lots of shrubbery is served with it. Add the leaves and bean sprouts to taste, and you have en excellent meal for 12,000 Vietnamese dong – about 76 cents.
Finally – do you know why few Vietnamese wear a helmet while riding a motorbike? The reason is cultural. The academic types would say we Americans live in a “crisis culture”, whereas the Vietnamese live in a “non-crisis culture.” Americans are constantly planning for the future. We buy insurance in case this happens, and we install security equipment in case that happens, and we break our work days down into fifteen minute increments so we can be sure we don’t miss anything. The Vietnamese have a different outlook – they will handle a crisis when it happens. I know one student who got a pretty good scrape on her face when she was in a motorbike accident. Does she wear a helmet now? No.
Life goes on in beautiful downtown Hué, Việt Nam.
