Pho Binh: Occupation Out Front, Tet Offensive Upstairs

Terkel has his eyes closed in every picture, I swear.
The pho bo was satisfactory, but not mind-expanding
 (...maybe I ask too much from my soup).

A pho restaurant named 'Peace Soup' that held the command of a massive military operation? How much more Vietnamese can you get?! Probably not much. If it were a perfume it would be called Essence d'Viet.

I may be in the minority in this, but I didn't get a whole lot of education concerning America's actions in Vietnam in my public school education. I feel shortchanged, and a bit stupid about it.

Soup's on - It's Learnin' Time!

The entire back half of the 20th century was a blur in history classes (as it was also, now that I think of it, in my Theatre History/Literature class), and although names and events stir a vague recollection in our collective unconscious for me, I'm embarrassed to reveal exactly how much I don't know about the Vietnam conflict... AKA The American War.

Embarrassed because I live here now, and doubly embarrassed because the trauma of this prolonged, ridiculous war game has had long-lasting effects and left obvious scars (albeit, scars fading into the past) on many of America's politicians and demagogues in the years since.

Visitors from all over the world have left notes expressing
peace and well-wishes for the family operators of Pho Binh.

Every time the hawkish white men push to go to war, there are fewer and fewer people to remind us of our mistakes in Vietnam (more recently Iraq, which is sadly now becoming a new problem), which is a pity.

The world needs more friends, and fewer enemies. This is the current attitude of the Vietnamese government (except maybe about China) and certainly of Pho Binh (Peace Soup), and has been since the Tet Offensive was planned above the kitchen of this restaurant beginning in October of 1967.

The family is always ready to offer soup and history lessons - they embrace the significance that their establishment holds - and they have been drawing in curious members of the public for over 44 years since the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

My mission to understand more about this prolonged and divisive conflict continued in the most delicious and interesting way possible... with food and some first-hand history.

Dong Nai Football Opening Day

Last week I got an irresistible proposition: opening day of the Dong Nai Football Club.

It provided several very fun firsts: my first chance to visit a different province for fun and pleasure, my first ever FIFA soccer (no... football!) match, and my first "extended" motorbike trip.

People come and go so fast when you're traveling... when you're planted in one place, it's easy to miss all the people that are spending less time there than you. The possibilities seem endless when you have a set amount of time ahead of you. The trick is to avoid that sense of complacency and make the most of every moment - something that doesn't always come easily to my introverted nature.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I've been here in Ho Chi Minh City now for 4 months, and, while that's not a very long time, it's long enough for me to develop some favorite things and some not so favorite things. Usually, it takes me a couple times before I decide, definitively, NO THANK YOU. And, ranked, here they are.

Have you been to Saigon? What are some of your favorites/not at all favorites? I'm curious if these are typical culture shock things or if I'm just developing personal tastes. Leave me notes in the comments!

Read on for a listicle (ugh, hate that word... but it's applicable):

Observations on Interpersonal Communications

In Vietnam, every single one of
these emotions can be a smile.

[Note: On June 30th of this year I solicited questions and topics from readers. This is one of those topics. If you have a question or topic you're curious about, use the form at right to email me, or leave it in the comments!]

QUESTION: Interpersonal communication. This might be a difficult topic to tackle before you get a good hold on the language, but what factors beyond the words themselves convey meaning? Are there certain linguistic rituals which are expected which aren't synchronous with behavioral expectations? For example, we ask, "How's it going?" with the expectation that people will say, "good," and not honestly tell us how things are going.

ANSWER: Great question, and since you've asked, let's pick it apart. After four months I've racked up enough interaction points to make some subjective observations about Vietnamese non-verbal communication.

Initially, I didn't recognize much of what I was seeing. In Vietnam, your actions can reflect on not only yourself, but your conversational partner and even the people surrounding you (if you're in public). It's a kind of social norm reinforcement, in many ways. Vietnam is a culturally conservative country and this reinforcement keeps it so on many levels.

Our First Dinner Party

LOOK AT THAT CARROT. HOLY CARROTS BATMAN.

It was a dinner party in the loosest sense of the term - but definitely a party where we served food, so I'm not going to be too picky about semantics! Possibly the most fun I've had at my own house since we moved in.

One of the greatest surprises about my new roommates (all but one has left the house, and the last one is leaving on Sunday night) is that there is a cooking enthusiast among them - HOORAY!! Finally, all the dreams I had for utilizing my kitchen will hopefully be coming true!

Stoopin' It in Ho Chi Minh

My alley, 8:20pm. (Stoop: bottom left, all couple
inches of it.) Notice the florescent lights
strung above the alley - the wiring here is just crazy.

I was supposed to go out with my new roomies on Friday night for dinner, but because of a problem with my foot, I couldn't walk with them. Through a series of miscommunications I ended up waiting outside my front door for about an hour when the following interesting event took place.

I was sitting on my stoop (all 3 inches of it) waiting for my ride to come when the family in the house across the street came home. We exchanged Chaus ["hellos"] and Smiles (Vietnamese folk music band name?) and they went in. (Something you should know is that people's front bike areas are often converted to living space when there's no more room for family anywhere else. This house was one such place.)

So I was sitting there, trying to fiddle with my cheapo Nokia phone to look like I wasn't obviously curious and staring right into their living room (although I was), and one of the guys came out to smoke a cigarette. We proceeded to have a 30 minute conversation through his iPhone's translation app (Google Translate, I believe), and it was fascinating. As much pain as I was in, I was more curious about this man my age who had chosen to sit down next to me and try to communicate, difficult and slow as the process was.

The Noiseless City

By Anh Dinh (http://www.flickr.com/photos/neovn/3146123732/)
[CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

My friend Erin used to say that there was really nowhere more noiseless than a city where you don't speak the language. I'm learning what that means now.

Obviously, she didn't mean "noiseless" as in, an absence of noise. Rather, she meant "comprehensible noise"-less. I didn't really understand that until yesterday afternoon.

Let's get one thing pretty clear: if I'm not in my room or a common area of the house, I'm basically constantly surrounded by people, and half of them are trying to sell me something in Vietnamese. As recently as last year, this would have FREAKED ME OUT. I'm a dude that needs his alone time, after all! I had always used that time to do much-needed Thinking. I like Thinking, and I need to be alone to do it. It seemed like a simple equation: being alone/quiet time = Thinking. That equation has become more flexible than I ever thought it could.

Demo Lesson Headaches

Pull the football away one more time, I dare you.

NOTE: This will be one of my rant-y posts. I try to keep them to a minimum, but sometimes I just have to let it all out and complain in English. Skip this one if it's not your cup of tea!

First of all, what is a Demo Lesson?

An ESL Demo Lesson is a lot of things, but none of them efficient, or even very useful, that I could see. This is the basic takeaway I have from my first (hopefully only, ever again) Demo Lesson. It was a series of hoops, like many things in Education, but some of them were ablaze, and some got pulled away at the last minute, like Lucy pulling away Charlie Brown's football. I made it through successfully, but it wasn't without unnecessary frustration pitfalls.

The Wedding: Choose Your Own After-party Adventure

New buildings and Old buildings in
downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

(Note: I've included some pictures from the 5th floor of the hotel - they didn't really fit anywhere else.)

Following the confusion regarding the state of the party (namely, was it still a party? Had it ever really been a party, or had it really been dinner all along?), my new friend Malte and I descended to the elevator, debating what to do next. The absurdity of the situation was such that we had a hard time believing that we were leaving a wedding before 2am!

On one hand, it was 9:30pm, we were dressed up, and we weren't far from the late-night bacchanalia parade that is known as Bui Vien. On the other hand… actually the only other question that came up turned out to be that age old quandary: walk it or taxi?

The Wedding: Food, Conversation, and Bia in the Evening Heat

There were many sauces available, but no one seemed to season their dishes in any way... so we followed suit.

HOTEL MAJESTIC
Saigon - Vietnam
Est. 1925

The hotel's logo, embossed in gold, is on the small, pink giftbox at every seat. A waiter is coming around moving it off to one side, then taking the napkin, unfolding it, and placing it in each person's lap for them. I adjust mine a little bit and wonder what dinner will bring.

I've been prepared for a large dinner all day - even my 5 o'clock ice cream reward was adorably portioned! But even then, I didn't really quite know what to expect. All I knew was the traditional number of courses: Eight.

My new English-speaking, same-hotel-living (all this is still frying my brain at this point) friend, Malte, and I are escorted to what we eventually determine is some kind of 'international' table. We made small talk with the people at our table - there were many English speakers, and (perhaps?) two Japanese speakers. It boded well for our meal.

The Wedding: Culture, Confetti, and an Awesome Surprise

The Bride and Groom's Official Portrait. Aren't they gorgeous together?
Essential Recap: The Groom is my hotel owner's son.

Fresh flowers everywhere!
Stargazer lilies, I think?

5:30pm Friday came and found me finishing off my celebratory ice cream post-Demo Lesson.

I had came directly from the school, clothes, invite, wedding card and all. My hosts had impressed upon me several times that I was to show up about 6:30, even though there were several times (from 5:30-7) indicated on the invitation. I figured that with the extra time I would stroll down (it's about 2 miles), getting me there just in time to use the bathroom to clean up and change and head up to the dinner.

After two blocks I was so tired from the Demo that I gave up, got on a xe om to go the rest of the way. I carried my nice shirt, a fresh headband, fresh undershirt, and class materials in my messenger bag. My purple tie fluttered behind me from my neck as we got going, drying a little after getting sweaty in the afternoon heat.

I consequently arrived at the hotel much earlier than I had planned when I left that morning. The place is FANCY, yo! Just the Lobby is utterly, mind-blowingly beautiful - I had no idea what to expect from the rest of the night...

The Wedding: The Invite and the Traditional Gift

I feel I'll be getting a fair amount of confusion
about my "three" first names.

[Note: I'll be splitting this experience up into a four part series (see the links at the bottom of the page after they've been posted). It was my first truly epic night in town!]

It was odd to me, to say the least. I'd only been staying at my hotel for 20 days when, in the middle of the afternoon, my host knocked on the door. He had brought me two things: my clothes (they do the laundry here) and an invitation to their son's wedding.

At first, I thought I must have misunderstood. I did not. They were actually inviting me to the swankiest place in Saigon in honor of their son, who I'd shaken hands with once and exchanged a few words with a couple days before.

I was honored, to say the least! Bit puzzled, but I was going to roll with it.

Ms. Marple in Vietnam

Ms. Marple gets busy using her brain and her instincts to
sort out the mess around her. I feel she would handle
culture shock well.

I don't know if you know this, but I am a HUGE Agatha Christie fan. I've read every single one of her mysteries many, many times, ever since I discovered them in middle school (thanks, Mom!). I have almost the complete collection, some 80 odd slim volumes (again, thanks, Mom!!). I'll never get rid of them.

Why are they so enduring? What made her writing so vital and interesting to me? Well, they're undeniably clever, and I always like clever. Ms. Marple always succeeds at catching the murderer, even when (especially when) the police and their strategies have failed. She sums her approach up best (and I'm paraphrasing here) when she notes that, no matter where you go, human nature is basically the same.

This is how living in this strange new city is not new to me, even while it's shockingly, outrageously, vibrantly new.