flowers are a big deal here...

Mmmmm...

Friday and Saturday -- vietnamese lessons, great teacher, bike shopping, bad teacher, music school, so so pizza, greek salad?, and a great time at the pool.

I'll elaborate a bit, and if Sivan will let me upload a few pics from her camera, I might save a couple thousand words.

Thursday and Friday we started private Vietnamese language lessons. I bought a little whiteboard, and my colleague, Lan, who teaches Vietnamese in my school, but is really an English instructor at a nearby university, gave us our first two lessons. She is a fantastic teacher, even though I haven't successfully retained much. (The girls have -- I'm a bit slow). Day 1 -- vowels. Vietnamese has 12 of them. They look like the 5 in English, but 7 of them have little squiggles or are "wearing hats," and several make sounds that I have only uttered when suffering from bouts of constipation. Then we went over the 30 or so dipthongs and tripthongs and the sounds they make. Seems complicated, but actually it is much easier (except for the constipation sounds) than English. Think about it. How many sounds can the letter o make? It even makes a short i sound in women. English is impossible. But all languages are confusing to those who are beginning to learn them. We moved on to the 29 consonants, which are also confusing. "d" sounds like z, and sometimes "g" makes the z sound too. Anyway, we will practice before we start on the hard stuff -- there are 6 distinct tones in Vietnamese. If you say "ma" wrong, you might call someone's mother a horse. Think introductions to a student's parents: "Oh, this must be your horse."

After the lesson, we took a bus to where Lan told us there was a music school which offered guitar lessons. We asked and looked and asked and looked and were directed this way and that and in the end did not find it (until much later). Nearby we walked to a bicycle factory, where they sell bikes wholesale (about $80 for a new bike -- simple, one speed, basket, bike rack -- so the girls can commute to school). We'll probably head back to make our purchases this coming week. While walking to the bike shop, we passed a cinema, and after looking over the bikes went to watch a movie -- assigned seating for a huge theater that was maybe 5% full. The choice was Smurfs or Bad Teacher -- Bad teacher won and I sat through this horrible movie, but I have to admit that it did make me laugh, and the air conditioning was great.

We were still in the area where Lan said there was a music school, so I decided to call her. She lived a couple blocks away and met us and took us to the school -- 1 hour private lesson -- 170,000 dong ($8.50). Classical guitar, which Amali has reluctantly agreed to.

We passed one of the Pepperoni's restaurants -- a chain out of Hong Kong. The pizza was ok -- weird cheeses, but good veggies on top, but the greek salad that sivan ordered was not so great. It was also pricey, so we decided to avoid that place in the future.

The high point of our weekend was a visit to a public pool. Lan told us of pool a bit north of our street, and this afternoon, we set out to find it. It took a while, but we got there and went in. We arrived at 2:50 and luckily discovered that it opened at 3. Interesting thing -- you know how pools have signs that read "shower before entering." To exit the locker room into the pool area, you have to walk through a carwash like curtain of water. We were among the first there, and it seemed quiet and boring at first, but half an hour later, Sivan and Amali were thronged by girls eager to meet them. Perfect. They exchanged facebook ids and we look forward to seeing them again at the pool. It will be great if the girls make Vietnamese friends. Heading out for dinner. I saw a street stand with some kind of shawarma-like meat turning on a spit. Wish us luck.

There we were,
last night, about 7 pm, eating roasted duck and Pho from a streetside
restaurant up the alley next to our apartment (initially thought it was chicken
since there was a bucket of plucked dead whole chickens next to the grill –
best duck I’ve ever tasted though – a whole duck for 5 dollars!). The girls
ordered cokes and the restaurant owner brought us glasses with ice. I tried to
ask if the ice was purified water by pointing to the ice cubes and pointing to
the blue 5 gallon water dispenser. The owner nodded yes, so the girls filled
their glasses. The guys from the next table told me that it wasn't pure water,
so the girls had to order new cokes, drink them warm, and we enjoyed a great
meal. When it was time to go, the guys at the table next to us offered me a
drink so I asked the the girls if they wanted to head back to watch Glee.They
did and I sat down with 7 guys ranging in age from mid 20s to late 30s (I
think). They worked for same import/export company and were eating and drinking
together after their company soccer team won their game. Several spoke english
well and we had a relaxed, sometimes funny, conversation. Trung (choong), the
youngest, with the best command of english, sat next to me and we talked about
Hanoi, about their business, about wives and girlfriends... I asked about how
working for a privately owned company compares with working for a government
owned firm and they all got kind of quiet... All the while, Trung and Yen and
Viet kept filling my little half-shot glass with shots of Vietamese wine (i.e.
vodka – and very smooth).We toast with a loud “zo” and down each shot. After several
shots, their dinner was delivered – they were having the same delicious duck,
and bowls of Pho (pronounced Phuh’uh), with brown rectangular very airy pieces
of meat floating in it.They offered me a piece with a bowl of noodles (mind you
I was full and getting a bit warm from the “wine.”)I asked what is was but they
just told me to taste it (reminds me of how I get sivan and amali to eat new
things...like that camel stew in egypt last summer).I tasted it. Not good. Sort
of the flavor I associate with canned dog food, but with a texture that made me
think it was cow lung – sort of spongy/but with a kidneyish stringiness – is
your mouth watering yet? Then Trung explained that it was coagulated cubes of
duck blood (from the rest of our dinner).When they offered me a second piece, I
politely took it, and smiled weakly as I popped it into my mouth and commented
on how interesting the texture was.I think I impressed them.Apparently other
foreigners gag. I told them that in China, I had some soup with what I thought
was pink tofu, but turned out to be cubes of clotted pig blood.Food is
food.Just have to work at acquiring certain tastes. I doubt I will attempt to
work at this one, though.

Now for the
interesting part.Trung asked if l like Karaoke. Ok I don't, really, but I know
how integral karaoke is as entertainment in Asian culture. This was an
opportunity to get to know these guys, and I'd now downed about ten mini-shots,
so, what the hell, I said sure. It was about 8:15.Glee had just started, so the
girls wouldn’t worry. From our apartment window we can see half a dozen karaoke
clubs, which is where we headed.The guys hopped on their motorbikes (DWI – but
for only two blocks), I behind Yen on a very nice ride, and we drove the two
blocks (thank goodness) to the street with the clubs.The clubs have wide open
entrances to a 20’ x 20’ room.The only people in the room were the red-jacketed
staff members (lots of them).Strange. And no music.Stranger still.At the back
of the first floor was an elevator.Two of the red-clad staff herded us into the
lift and up we went to the fourth floor of five.I was expecting the door to
open to a crowd of people listening to someone singing cheezy vietnamese
romance ballads, but there was only silence, and more red-jacketed workers.They
opened a thick padded door into a small (15 x 10) soundproof room.There was a
big sectional sofa around 3 of the walls and a big screen opposite.The coffee
table in the middle was filled with snacks, sodas, and there were 2 mics on the
table.A binder on the sofa had the two lists of songs – vietnamese and
english.We would write the number and name of the songs on little pieces of
paper and the red-jackets would come in periodically with more snacks,
Heinekens, and would collect our song requests.

Vietnamese
Karaoke etiquette makes every song into an alternating duet between two of the
participants.They had me pick out some songs.They picked theirs.I went for 70s
hits – Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, John Lennon, Simon and Garfunkle and a few
cheesy 80s songs.Their taste in English songs was mostly early 60s stuff that
my friend Karen likes to sing, but I only know the chorus melodies for.But we
managed.They made me sing some Tammy Wynette country waltz that was vaguely
familiar – I did pretty well even though I was winging the melody.Troung had an
amazing voice – high clear, expressive. Some of the other guys were talented,
too.My strongest numbers were a very deep bluesy rendition of House of the
Rising Sun – they didn’t know that one but liked it, and then Yen and I
performed duets to Sounds of Silence and Imagine. At 9:30 one of their
girlfriends arrived.She and her boyfriend sang some much more danceable
vietnamese pop tunes – She had a great voice and could really dance...But at
9:50 I said my goodbyes, collected a bunch of business cards and walked home.

Tonight, I think
I will take the girls and we’ll have a fun time singing beatles and abba
songs.It only costs $5 per hour (although I have no idea what the drinks cost –
they wouldn’t let me pay). An interesting evening, indeed, even with the duck
blood soup.

Sivan and Amali get styled

August 2

Took a cab to the Big C -- Hanoi's equivalent of Walmart, only bigger, busier, and regrettably, not much less expensive. We've had to buy all our bedding, kitchen ware, etc. So these first few days have been pretty tough on our budget. But now the larder is stocked. We have four bowl, four plates, a little coffee press, a pot, a pan, a mop, a broom...

What surprised me at the Big C -- which was a two story building with a huge-box department store upstairs and a high-end boutique mall downstairs -- were the throngs of shoppers clogging the aisles. Consumerism, for those who can afford it here, seems as entrenched as it does back home (but without the recycling, or public trash bins, or other attempts that America makes to close the materials cycle). Interesting. I'm sure I have a lot more to learn about this.

My photos above are of two things that I observed yesterday (monday 8/1). The first was rush hour gridlock viewed from my balcony. The second was Amali and Sivan's first time venturing out on their own -- to get haircuts.

Rush hour gridlock -- when the streets are full, motorbikes take to the sidewalks. I