Hàng Ngày

Yesterday I was invited to go on a field trip with 5D3 (my third year students) to visit one of the students’ homes in Châu Phú district, about 50 kilometers from Long Xuyên City. We met at the post office at 7 am, and by 7:45 (Vietnam time…) our caravan of motorbikes was speeding out of the city limits (Don’t worry mom, for trips outside of the city, people actually wear helmets, which the call “cơm điện,” or rice cookers. I was riding with a very responsible student.) Along the way we passed by rice paddies, soybean patches, groves of jackfruit and coconut trees, and lots of water. At some points the road is lined on both sides with vast expanses of water that are peppered with small green patches of trees, swamp plants, and small houses on stilts. I wonder what this all looks like when it’s not the flood season. I bet I wouldn’t even recognize it.

We finally arrived at a ferry crossing and all nine of the motorbikes at 19 people got onto this rickety old boat that seemed like it would collapse under the weight of all of us. Thankfully we made it across to the island where Nhi lives. Her house hangs off into the wide river, as many homes in the delta do during the flooding season, and there seemed to be some sort of waterway behind her house where water taxis passed honking their horns in search of fares to take to the market across the river. The food preparations began right away and I was put to work peeling and cutting fruit. After about a 2 hour process, the food was ready, and all 20 or so of us sat down on the floor in Nhi’s living room, squeezed tightly around a large expanse of newspaper with the food in the middle of the circle. There were so many of us that some of the guys had to sit outside the front door of the house on the porch. The food was great, mostly cooked by one of the guys in the class, Quốc Thanh. We had Mắm, which is a kind of seafood stew with eggplant and squid and lots of fresh vegetables, mango salad, and fried fish. The boys drank rice wine, and I took my obligatory half-shot with Thái, the class monitor (an older student who already has a few years’ experience as an elementary school teacher, and definitely the most fluent in the class).

The drinking of rice wine is a really cool custom here. In a group of people, there is only one shot glass, and whoever wants to drink will fill the shot glass with rice wine (our variety was in a reused liter fanta bottle), and offer a toast to one of his friends. Then he will drink half of the shot, and hand it to his friend, and his friend will drink the second half of the glass. It’s a really communal experience, and I felt honored in a way to drink this half-shot with the best student in my class, and someone who I have a lot of respect for.

After we finished eating, I went outside with a few of the women in my class and tried my hand at fishing off the side of the road into the shallow water next to Nhi’s house. Maybe because it was about 3 pm, and maybe because we weren’t trying very hard, we didn’t catch any fish. Not even a minnow. But I really enjoyed the time talking with my students, in a combination of English and Vietnamese. Because there are 29 of them in the class, I don’t get much class time with each of them, and this was a great opportunity to get to know some of them better. We talked about our families, farming, fishing, and other important and unimportant topics. When we went back inside I had a really good conversation with one of the weaker students in my class about her lack of confidence in speaking. I’m learning a lot about why students are not confident to speak, and therefore are poor speakers despite years of English classes (Scott, I would love to have this conversation with you in person if I come to visit China later this year.) It’s one of the biggest barriers to students here learning English effectively, and although I talk about it with the other teachers a lot, I still haven’t even begun to understand why.

Before leaving, we had yet another course to eat: snails, caught fresh earlier that day. Big snails, small snails, all different varieties. Thankfully, my experience eating snails with Vinh, the hotel receptionist in Hanoi, and other VIA friends, I was already a pro at twirling the little buggers out of their shells. My students were quite surprised After the boys sobbered up from their rice wine celebration (a method of stress relief and relaxation after a long week, they told me) it was already 4:30 and we had to head back to Long Xuyên. The ride back was even more breathtaking than the ride there, as the sun was setting to my right and the high-flying stratus clouds looked like an oil deposit on the street after a fresh rain: spreading a shimmering pink slowly across the sky, engulfing the puffy cumulus clouds in its wake. But as we passed by herds of water buffalo, groups of kids playing shuttlecock by the side of the road, small boats floating on the flood waters, and countless houses with families lounging lazily in the setting sun, I couldn’t help thinking what is going to happen to all of this when Vietnam becomes fully accepted into the WTO and completes its trade agreement with the US. A lot of things are going to change, and probably change very quickly. Some of the changes will of course be great for people, and will probably decrease the number of people who are struggling in Vietnam overall. I just wonder how the way of life will change, with new pressures and worries brought on by the mammoth of globalization and integration into the world economy.

Yesterday I made the 1.5 hour trip to Cần Thơ city, the largest city in the Mekong Delta. I was kindly invited by Jenna and Phil to accompany them and their 19 Ford Foundation fellows on the excursion the famous Floating Market, Mỹ Khánh Park, the Cần Thơ Museum, and especially the even more famous Coopmart supermarket.

Floating Merchants display their wares on bamboo poles

Our rented bus left at 6:30 am, and being one of the last ones into the bus (and the youngest besides Jenna and Phil’s two children), I was relegated to the seat with no leg room that was basically a chair screwed onto the console between the passenger’s and driver’s seats. With this rather uncomfortable position, however, I had one of the best views in the house and got to watch the rice paddies and flooded canals stretch out in front of us as we left the Long Xuyen city limits. Road trips in Vietnam must at some point include a singing extravanganza, particularly songs about the area to which one is traveling. Ms. Linh, one of the fellows who is from CầnThơ, Lợi, the program assistant, and a few of the other An Giang fellows led us in some songs about An Giang and Cần Thơ, and then the Thai fellows gave us their reditions of a few Thai songs. One thing I have noticed here is that most people know a lot of songs by heart. Folk songs, mostly, or traditional songs, but there is really no comparison in the US. We have very few songs that you could sing and know that everyone around you would join in at least for the chorus. The only one I can really think of is the national anthem…

Pat, Nam, and Linh take a rest at Mỹ Khánh park

Our first stop when we arrived in Cần Thơ was the floating market for which the city is famous. Unfortunately, because we arrived at the late hour of 8:30 am, the market was basically through for the day, with only a few stray boats here and there displaying their wares from bamboo poles for the tourists to buy at inflated prices. After buying some fruit at such prices, we were on our way again to Mỹ Khánh park. They seem to have a lot of these “tourist village” parks around this area. This one boasted crocodiles and fruit orchards as its specialty (although we did not see any live crocodiles). We also got to look at a traditional house with some cool artifacts such as a traditional rice-wine making “machine.” Playing on swings and various other paraphernalia was another highlight. We ate lunch at the park, lots of fresh fish, then returned to our tourist boat where we took the 30 minute ride back to the city.

Ladda and Noi play with the rice crushing lever

Our next stop in the afternoon was the Cần Thơ museum,where Ms. Linh works. The museum contained artifacts and pictures from ancient to modern eras, including coins, pottery, agricultural tools, instruments, and traditional costumes. My favorite part, as always, is the military strategy information, of which there is generally a lot, including large scaled maps with light-up infantry positions and battle markers. Thrilling.

The last stop for the day was the Coopmart (friends who did SIT study abroad with me in Saigon, yes, it is the same coopmart. Jordan, I know you’re jealous). The Coopmart in Cần Thơ is a giant three-story supermarket, with everything we can not get in Long Xuyên. They even have a western-style pizza stand on the first level, and soft-serve ice-cream. The Coopmart was packed with people on a Sunday afternoon, most just browsing for amusement as opposed to buying anything. I picked up some bacon and american cheese for the guys at the guesthouse and then proceeded to wander the aisles aimlessly for the remainder of the hour we spent there. I don’t like shopping any more in Vietnam than I do at home, even though I’ve been “deprived” of the experience for the past three months in Long Xuyên. The fellows came out with all sorts of bargains and smiling faces, so that was nice to see at least.

The day ended at about 7 pm when we returned to Long Xuyên after a particularly long and painful bus ride (the road from Cần Thơ to Long Xuyên is particularly crappy, with water-buffalo-sized potholes in places and flooding from backed-up sewers). It was good to return home, and I realized that I really did feel like I was returning “home” after a long day away from the city I’ve become accustomed to. Even though Cần Thơ is bigger, more modern, and has a Coopmart, I have grown quite fond of my little city and my little university neighborhood here.

Today I invited my second year students over for “American style” brunch. This consisted of pancakes (a lot of pancakes for twenty students) and scrambled eggs with vegetables. I was so happy that many of my students showed up, including some of the guys. I’m pretty sure each of the students tried their hand at pancake flipping, Vy being one of the best and Vinh definitely taking the prize for worst pancake cooker of the group. It was a lot of fun, especially to see them enjoying something that is such a comfort-situation for me: cooking pancakes on the weekends for friends. When we finished eating (some of them rolled the scrambled eggs up inside the pancakes and topped with honey, I must say, which was not exactly what I had in mind…) we played a few games and sang some Vietnamese songs before they left. You know the game where you “make up a story” and one person leaves the room and when they come back they have to guess the “story” you made up? But in reality, you don’t make a story, you just answer their yes/no questions according to the following rule: if it ends in a vowel or ‘y’ you say “yes” and if it ends in a consonant you say “no.” This resulted in Vinh creating a really funny story about a giant tree living in the guesthouse that was used for special events throughout the year. The students also introduced me to another fun game in which you whisper a funny noun to your right hand neighbor (e.g “elephant”) and then go around asking each other questions such as “What did you eat for dinner last night?” and you have to answer with the word that was whispered to you. We found out from this funny game that Phuc likes to sleep with pancakes and Duyen is going to marry an axe someday. The students cracked up at this one. Sense of humor is a bit different here, but I’m getting used to it, and it was great to see my students having a good time (and enjoying the food!)

Sunday I went for my first visit to the countryside. And surprisingly, it was not with one of my students, although many of them have mentioned that they would like to invite me to their homes at some point. At 9 am Sunday morning I got a phone call from Oanh, the bakery owner I have become friends with. She asked if I was free, and I said that I was indeed free, although I had to be back in the afternoon to watch my students play football and volleyball. She told me to come over right away because the young people who work for her were going to “đi chơi.” The verb “chơi” can be translated many ways, and I have yet to really get a grasp of it after two years of studying. It can mean play. It can me go out. It can mean hang out. It can mean go around without a purpose. In any case, I went over to Oanh’s bakery and met with two of the girls who were helping make Banh Trung Thu last week, Diem and Suoi. They went to take the bus to some unclear location, and I waited in confusion until Lam, one of the guys who regularly works at the bakery, came on a motorbike and I was told to go with him. OK, no problem.

We took a motorbike ride out of the city further than I’d ever been before and finally stopped on the side of the road where he parked the bike and we waited under a rickety wooden shelter for the bus. While we waited for the bus I asked Lam about his family and where his parents lived and he laughed and answered something that was unintelligible to me. At this point we were met by Lang, Ca, and Hai, three of the other guys who work regularly at the bakery. The motorbike ride was only the beginning of the adventure. Our next leg was by bus, and we joined the four girls: Diem, Suoi, Ha, and Dung. When we got down from the bus, we hung out by the side of the road for a few minutes and then got on yet another motorbike: this time xe om (motorbike taxi) with me and Suoi on one bike behind the driver. We took a narrow side road (paved, thank goodness) at practically the speed of light to another house by the side of the narrow track. At this point we were in the middle of rice fields, and the bright green rice stalks stretched toward the horizon until it met with the distant tree line.

The last leg of the trip was by boat: At the side of the road Lam went to get a tuyen, a long narrow, shallow boat, from someone’s house, and came to meet the girls at the bank. We all got in and squatted in the bottom of the boat (no seats: horribly uncomfortable for those of us whose muscles aren’t accustomed to the Vietnamese squat). Lam used a bamboo pole to push us along the canal through the rice fields and under monkey bridges for about 10 minutes until we slowed and pulled up beside a small hut sticking out of the middle of the rice paddies. When we got off the boat and climbed the steps to the house, I knew why Lam had laughed when I asked about his parents: the woman who greeted us at the door was almost identical to him in her facial features, and I realized that he had invited all of us back to his home for a party.

The meal of the day was banh xeo, a kind of pancake that is made yellow by turmeric powder, fried quickly in a wok, and then filled with a delicious mixture of stir fried vegetables and meat (this time it was guava, bean sprouts, morning glory flowers, chicken, and probably a lot of other things I couldn’t identify). The meal took several hours to prepare from scratch. When I saw from scratch, I mean from scratch. I watched as Lam got two chickens from somewhere behind the house, and Ca held their bodies still while he quickly slit their necks with a sharp knife and let the blood drain into a bowl. The two young men and Dung then cleaned the chickens in the canal, squatting in the boat once again for the entire 40 minutes or so of the process. Meanwhile, I and some of the other kids relaxed, ate fruit, and exchanged riddles while the cooking took place.

By about 2 pm, the food was almost finished, and another tuyen came rolling by on the narrow canal and stopped at the house. All of the kids got up and I did the same, and then understood why: this was Lam’s father, and we all greeted him and he invited me to drink tea with him. Speaking has been difficult here, as people don’t really understand me in the countryside, and I’m not able to express myself as well as I can understand at this point. So Lam’s father asked me questions throughout the meal, and I was not able to answer sufficiently. It was fairly frustrating, and his questions were continuous and difficult to answer at times. (What do you say when someone asks you “Do you think my family is poor?”) He told me that I should learn to make banh xeo, so after eating some of the meal (delicious and fresh!) I moved to the kitchen and squatted next to his wife while she made the thin crepe-like cakes. After she finished with each, I was directed to fill them with the meat and vegetable mixture and roll them up into neat square-shaped pockets. No problem, this is something I am able to do fairly well, and they were impressed with my ability to do so. It’s funny when you do something well here that people don’t expect you to be able to do.

After the amazing meal we had to return to Long Xuyen, and at about 3:30 pm we boarded the tuyen again–this time all of us! The boys had walked before, which meant 5 people in the boat plus Lam who was rowing. This time we had 9 people total, with Lam and Ca taking each of the ends of the boat. The top edge of the boat was about 3 inches from the water, and sometimes when we swayed back and forth we came what seemed like millimeters away from capsizing. Squatting the whole time. And what do you do on a 15 minute boat ride when your legs are aching from squatting and you are practically sinking in the water? You sing, of course! First Vietnamese, then I had to sing in English, then more Vietnamese, and then we were finally back to the shore and I was xe-oming back to Long Xuyen (I had promised my students I’d come watch their soccer games, remember) by myself while the others took the bus. Being back at school this morning all I could think about was yesterday’s trip. I did not really have enough time to process the conversations, the sights, the smells, but hopefully I will have a chance to visit again sometime.

Today the other foreign teachers and I went to Trạm Kiếm Lâm Trà Sư, Trà Sư forest nature preserve, with some students from the Department of Agriculture. The day started early: our van left the department at 6 am sharp, and proceeded to Châu Đốc town past rice paddies and flooded fields. Châu Đốc is in a region west of Long Xuyen, very close to the border with Cambodia, and there are mountains that seem to pop up out of nowhere. The scenery is different than anywhere else I’ve seen in Vietnam, and the last road before the nature preserve was basically a glorified levy with flood waters on both sides, and a few homes hanging out into the water that looked like they were one strong storm away from falling in.

The nature preserve is about 840 hectares of land, and contains 30 species of vegetation and 70 species of birds. Getting there by car was a bit interesting: we crossed a few bridges on this levy-type road that seemed not structurally sound (dad, I’m sure you would have disapproved). After an introduction by the director of the preserve (in vietnamese translated by the students, which was interesting). We got into three long flat boats called “tuyền” and went out motoring through rows of flooded eucalyptus trees. We saw a huge colony of bats, some of them as big as a kilogram. When we arrived at our lunch destination we had to cross a “monkey bridge” to get to the resting point. A monkey bridge, for those who don’t know, consists of one narrow tree trunk supported by several other tree trunks that crosses a narrow canal and had yet two more narrow tree trunks for railings. In muddy sandals, it is quite treacherous. I can only imagine the guys’ fears after lunch, and a few drinks! (Of course, maybe the alcohol made them less scared…)

After lunch we continued on to another part of the preserve where there were over 30 species of birds in all kinds of colors, shapes, and sizes. Bird flu apparently had not been a problem for this nature preserve yet, for all of you who were worried. It had rained and the canals were covered in a thin green moss-like plant that was absolutely beautiful–a brilliant green that is unlike anything I’ve seen in the US. When we left the preserve, we continued on to Tịnh Biên market, which is on the border with Cambodia and therefore sports many varieties of imported goods at low prices (probably not all legal importing.) The road we were on today is apparently notorious for trafficking all kinds of goods including black-market items like cigarettes and Thai clothing, drugs, and people. We didn’t get close enough to the border for me to actually look across into Cambodia, but we were darn close. Maybe the next trip I will get close enough to throw a rock into Cambodia, or at least take a picture.

Trung Thu, the mid-autumn festival, is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar year. AKA yesterday. The festival celebrates the harvest, and is typically a holiday for children. In “the old days” when parents used to go out into the fields for long periods of time in order to bring in the harvest quickly before the rainy season, children were often left at home for long periods of time. The mid-autumn festival marks the end of the harvest, and the time when parents would return home to their children and shower them with presents and sweet foods. Two traditions of Trung Thu that have been all over Long Xuyen for several weeks are the Long Den (lanterns) to give to children as presents, and the Banh Trung Thu (mooncakes–see previous posting on Banh Trung Thu for more information!)

Yesterday’s festivities for me began with a cooking extravaganza here at the International Guesthouse. The Ford Foundation fellows from Vietnam and Thailand came over and cooked a smorgesboard (pardon the spelling mistakes) of Thai and Vietnamese dishes. The cooking began at four pm. I was quite surprised when I walked into the kitchen to see a boiling pot of miscellaneous pig parts (read: intestines, liver, skin, and other unidentifiables) that would later be chopped finely and mixed with rice flour and vegetables. “Lab” in Thailand is a specialty of the Northeast, where most of my students are from. I helped Khoa, one of the Vietnamese students from the central region, prepare a makeshift grill outside the back door from a flower pot and some bricks. The grill was to make “cá nướng”, grilled fish. I was surprised about twenty minutes later when I saw the cá that were to be grilled laying on the grass beside Khoa–still moving! Mr. Ut laughed at my surprise and proceeded to use some green branches cut from a nearby tree to skewer the squirming fish. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes after we sat down to this amazing feast, I had to leave for my date that evening with my second year students.

About 10 of them met me ag the gate of the university where we walked to a nearby canal that is usually quiet in the evenings (an ideal spot for lovers on motorbikes!) Last night, however, it was PACKED with people, mostly students, sitting around in circles singing, eating mooncakes, drinking, playing games, and lighting little home-made paper lanterns. I lit lanterns with my students and floated them out into the canal where they joined hundreds of other tiny candle lights. It was a beautiful sight, and I was so happy to be able to enjoy this fun holiday with my students. They asked if there was a comparable holiday celebration in the US, and I couldn’t really think of one. Maybe a little bit like halloween? But the lanterns floating into the water is something that we definitely don’t have in the US.Vy, one of my students, is a budding photographer and basically hijacked my camera for the evening leaving me with a number of really great shots. I will post pictures when I have more time.