Giving thanks

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving/Black Friday to you all. Yet again, it's been a long time since I've posted, and here are the highlights:

Teachers' Day
Thanksgiving / A Trip To Hanoi

Teachers' Day is a wonderful idea. It's a day when students thank their teachers for all they do. They give flowers and gifts, and some universities (not mine) get the day off. My students came over once in the morning and once in the evening. Both were awkward opportunities to sit down and listen to students sing songs by Westlife. (They LOVE Westlife and Abba here.) To end the pain of sitting there with university professors saying, "Would anybody like to sing for Ms. Jenette? Ms. Jenette, would you like to sing or recite a poem?" I suggested the students and I get che buoi (the only food I'll miss when I leave here). Then they decided we ought to get rice cakes and chili sauce, which sounds better than you think it is.

Then they decided they wanted to get beers with me. Which sounded like a great idea. And the most fun I've had with my students yet. The bar is literally 50 steps from my apartment's front door.

My room was filled with flowers from the day. A caveat about Vietnamese flowers: Unlike the flowers back in the States, these are pretty, but have not been bioengineered for their scent. So they smell a little funky. They also look a little funky, as they've been wrapped in 25 ft of tissue paper and sparkly ribbon. Truly a different aesthetic.


And now, Thanksgiving. It took 4,000-mile trip across the world to appreciate the things I have. But what really drove it home was the hypocrisy of American Thanksgiving. And I'm not talking the whole slaughter-of-the-Indians thing (though that's also a valid point of discussion). Rather, I'm talking about my dinner at Bobby Chinn's, an upscale restaurant in Hanoi. (So upscale, in fact, that I actually got to pee on rose petals... that's class.)

But being surrounded by the near-poverty of this country, which has actually made me very thankful for the things America has to offer, I would propose that from now on, Thanksgiving ought to be a day when you fast. Going without seems a much better path to realizing all we've been blessed with than gluttony followed by a day of consumerism.

The highlight of this week, however, was the surprise phone call I got back in Xuan Hoa from the U.S. A special someone who for the time shall remain anonymous was checking to see that I got the flowers he sent me, thinking I'd be sad and alone for the holiday and that flowers might cheer me up.

And here they are:

If you can't say anything nice...

So, it's been a long time since I've posted. Here's why:

I've been told that if you can't say anything nice, you oughtn't say anything at all. Since my last post, I've had some disagreements with my university administration, got robbed, and lost about ten pounds. One at a time:

I'm no longer teaching classes 14 hours a week, which is good, because I'm considerably less stressed out and generally in a better mood about things. Now I only teach the fourth years once a week. However, the director of my department was so angry that I refuse to teach anymore (which was a violation of my contract to begin with) that nobody's bothered to find any more projects for me. I've submitted some ideas, but no word back yet.


I was robbed while riding my bike last week. Two guys on a motorbike drove up and pulled my purse out of the basket of my bike. They got away with, among other things, my wallet (including money and a credit card), my keys, my USB drive, and two cells phones (my Vietnamese cell phone, which I had just replaced after the last broke a couple days before, and my iPhone). Yes, my iPhone. Yes, I am devastated. No, I don't have your phone number anymore. (I'll be doing a collection when I get back to the States.)

There's no famine here, and yet, I appear to be wasting away. Every time I eat a full meal, I get nauseous (and I'll spare you the details from there). Because of this, and just a general lack of appetite (though I do eat as often as possible anyway), I've lost nearly 30 lbs. since arriving here. Now, I can only complain so much about such a feat, since I haven't been this small since high school, and it's likely I never will be again. However, it's a little disconcerting. I've been to a clinic once about it, and they couldn't find anything wrong, so who knows?

Finally, things that have made me more cheerful here:

1. A Barack Obama Presidency. I went to Hanoi to watch the election coverage and celebrate at the Embassy and at the Hilton.

2. Dai Lai Lake, about 5 km from Xuan Hoa. I go there nearly every day, and this is my view:

What Noah was talking about

I spent the weekend in Hanoi. This was probably not a good idea, as this article illustrates:

Canadian wife and husband caught in Vietnam floods

An excerpt: aomi Sanderson of Toronto says it has been raining heavily in the capital Hanoi for 48 hours, and there's "knee deep water throughout the city." Vietnam's weather forecast centre says 350-millimetres of rain fell Friday, making it the country's heaviest downpour in 24 years.

350 mm = 13 inches. In two days.

But really, you haven't lived unless you've ridden on the back a of a xe om for 5 km through 2 feet of water. It was a little like your own personal Wisconsin Dells duck boat.

(Tripped out) Dreams From My Father

Shortly after my assignment here, my dad once asked me if all of Vietnam is Communist.

From this, we can infer two things:

1. My father did not know that, unlike Korea, Vietnam is all one country again.
2. My father was too stoned in 1975 to realize that we lost the war.

It reminds me very much of one other tripped-out ex-hippie.

Basil: “The Cold War’s over, Austin.”
Austin Powers: “Well, finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh, comrades, eh?”
Basil: “Austin, we won.”

Melamine

So, by now you've all heard the news about the poisoning of young infants in China. The story goes something like this: Producers of dairy products were attempting to increase sales by increasing the apparent amount of protein in their products. Protein is tested by determining the amount of nitrogen in foods. One way to increase the amount of nitrogen in a food is to add a chemical, called melamine, which is used in the production of plastics, glue and other inedible things.

Long story short, thousands of infants were gulping down formula with a toxic chemical in it. So too were children and adults drinking milk that was purposely infused with the stuff. The Chinese government has had to pay up to families whose children have gone into the hospital, suffered renal failure and even died from drinking it.

Meanwhile, the rest of Southeast Asia has pulled all Chinese-sourced dairy products from its shelves. That includes here in Vietnam. What people hadn't been counting on (except for me, I don't trust any of the food here), is Vietnamese dairy producers doing the same thing. The Viet Nam News, however, was all over it when a company down in Ho Chi Minh City was found guilty of the same practices. For some reason, the story appears not to have made it to the online edition, but rest assured, no milk for me.

Lucky for me, I can't stand the taste of milk here. I don't like it much back home, either, but that's a tangent for another day. The most I've had is a bit of ice cream here and there, so I doubt there's any harm done. It's a good thing they don't have cheese in this country, or I'd have been dead halfway through October.

Long time, no post.

So it's been nearly a month. It's not that I haven't posted because I haven't done anything interesting. I haven't posted because I've been so ridiculously busy.

Well, that's kinda true. Today I needed to plan my classes for the week, edit the script for the English Club emcees (don't ask), and prepare a presentation for my upcoming workshop (this Wednesday!) on Internet research. Instead I watched two seasons of 30 Rock. Time with Tina Fey is time well spent.

So, in the past month, I haven't spent a single weekend at home in Xuan Hoa. This weekend, I went to Hanoi to hang with Becca, David and Andrew. Did a little shopping (not much, and I didn't do the Christmas shopping I intended), tried to eat (long story), spent a drunken night traipsing around the bars of Hanoi by myself looking for some place I could dance and finding only Frenchmen, spent another night with David trying to find a bar that doesn't exist, bought DVDs, and went to a clinic about my stomach.

Last weekend, I went to Hanoi for one night to vote at the embassy. Then I went with my neighbor to her home town, where I proceeded to get drunk at dinner chugging bias with her father-in-law only to find out there was no toilet. Reason #347 why it's a good idea to be drunk in Vietnam: peeing on your foot.

The weekend before that: An awesome time on Cat Ba Island with Becca, David, Andrew, Kevin and another Fulbrighter named Christina. I have pictures and stories for another time.

And one month ago, a trip to the Hung King temple and a sleepover with four of my students.

Sooo... I guess I have some catching up to do, which I will attempt over the course of the next week or so, complete with pictures and such.

My first tropical storm!

So, I read today in the Viet Nam News that today we would see the effects of Tropical Storm Hagupit,with wind speeds over 100 km an hour, with heavy rains causing flooding.

Today was the first day I've actually predicted the proper day to bring my umbrella to class. It was drizzling a bit when I got done.

This evening, as students left my apartment, it was raining quite a bit, maybe a little hard. But quite the letdown when you're expecting a "tropical storm." As I've been attempting to stay as healthy as possible here, I went on my nightly stroll through town, which was delightfully empty due to rain, and even headed out of town, like I usually do. I have to say, if this is a tropical storm, it's quite pleasant.

It also made me happy I'd made the investment in those galoshes in Chicago in May.

Bonus: If it keeps raining like this, my students may be called up to help flood victims and farmers in the worst-hit areas... no class! (Of course, I'll still have to be in the classroom at 7:30 to find out.)