Hàng Ngày

Yesterday was yet another Vietnamese holiday, the commemoration of the Hung Kings, to my understanding, and I took the opportunity to go traveling. I realize that I haven’t had many chances to travel just within the Mekong Delta, and so one of my goals in the remainder of my time here is to do just that. It also happened that Kristi, a colleague from Long My, Hau Giang Province, was also free and wanted to play. Perfect: we set a date yesterday in Ha Tien, the most southwestern point of Vietnam, bordered by the Gulf of Thailand on one side and Cambodia on the other.

As with any trip in Vietnam, the adventure must always begin and end with the bus ride: mine began at 7:00 AM on Thursday, when I left my room and started walking to the bus station (about 2 cay so away, which is very far by VNese standards, and it was already blazing hot) . Fortunately, I heard a gentle voice call my name while walking down the shortcut alley to the bus station: lo and behold, a student at her bording house studying, offered to drive me to the bus station on her bicycle. Of course, I said yes, so here’s this tiny Vietnamese woman carrying this (comparatively) giant western woman with a giant backpack down the main street of Long Xuyen. I got to the bus station and was immediately informed that the bus I wanted, the direct bus, had left already. Damn. So, I instead got on a bus to Rach Soi, which I waited on for about 30 minutes in the same blazing sun while people got on, off, sold things, stared at me, etc. Finally, we were on our way somewhere by 8 AM. But the somewhere wasn’t really where I wanted to be, and when I got there I realized there were no buses to Ha Tien there either…I had to take a 10 cay so motorbike ride to yet another bus station in Rach Gia. For this fare I got hosed because I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, or what any other options were…Rach Gia is a town similar to Long Xuyen: traffic, small buildings, kind of busy, but nothing much to look at, just a place where people live. I had to hang out at their bus station for another hour before finally leaving for Ha Tien on a smaller bus. I thought this would be better…I was wrong. I sat in the back row, and my head almost hit the ceiling from the bumpy road about every 20 seconds. It was awful, hot, and crowded, but when we rounded a bend after two hours and were facing open ocean with mountainous islands dotting the horizon, it was all worth it.

Ha Tien is a small fishing community on the border with Cambodia. Their specialty food seems to be dried stuff: dried shrimp, especially, which I saw them preparing by shoveling it around on the pavement off the side of the highway. Although the town is small, much smaller than LX, it seemed rather bustling, perhaps because it’s a touristy place, and perhaps because it was a holiday. I liked the feel immediately. I sat and enjoyed a long coffee while I waited for Kristi to arrive, at which point we found a small, clean hotel next to the canal and went around wandering the city.

For some reason, I felt infinitely more confident when wandering the city with Kristi than by myself: usually I’m nervous about walking down little side streets where I know everyone will stare at me and laugh and shout at me. But with Kristi, it felt ok, because there were two of us to share the attention, and we could have our own little secret conversations about what we saw that people around us couldn’t understand…the tables were turned! We ended up wandering the town for almost three hours, going down little back alleys, saying hello to everyone and anyone, seeing various Mac family tombs (never really learned about the history of this seemingly famous Ha Tien family) and temples, and enjoying the weather, which was fairly cool and breezy. We turned in early and prepared for this morning when we went to…

The beach. The beach at Ha Tien is not the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen, and it’s built up in that kitchy, touristy way that Vietnamese tourist sites are: little booths for picture taking, little “ethnic minority” style houses, gift shops, colorful umbrellas, and children’s rollercoaster rides everywhere. Fortunately, we arrived quite early and it wasn’t very crowded. We walked to the farther end of the beach and had it almost compltely to ourselves. The water was very calm, shallow, and warm. Kind of like a giant bathtub, and Kristi and I swam for about 1.5 hours nonstop, just treading water, talking, watching the fishing boats go by. The funniest part of the beach came after when we went to shower, which ended up being more than we expected to pay for a 30 second rinse off, and then when I went back to use the bathroom later, I had a funny incident: no one was watching the bathroom, so I just used it and then went to find someone to pay the appropriate 1,000 VND (Kristi had told me the price already). I thought this was a nice honest gesture. I found a guy sitting at a counter inside, and said, “i’m paying for the bathroom” and gave him a 2,000 VND note. He said “OK, duoc roi, 2 ngan,” and proceeded with whatever he was doing (nothing). I was a bit in shock, but said, “1 ngan thoi” (only 1,000) and he looked at me and said, “OK, duoc roi, 1 ngan.” !?!?! Bo tay luon! As my students say. I was being honest, and he was taking advantage? But not too stealthily, it was just so silly.

When it became noontime-hot and more people began showing up around us, we left and headed back to town. I had a very interesting conversation with the motorbike driver on the way back that’s worth mentioning: he was talking about a friend of his who’d gone to the US to live, and only came back to VN to marry a wife, and had changed a lot, and then went back to the US. The motorbike driver was clearly upset. I asked how he felt about westerners marrying Vietnamese women: he said people in Vietnam think it’s great, a great opportunity. Then he started talking about Vietnamese men marrying western women, and why it happens so infrequently. His theory (and he was very set on this, it seemed) was that Vietnamese men are poor, so they have nothing to offer western women, and they don’t have the opportunities to meet them. Oh, I didn’t even know how to start. I just let him believe that this is the reason few western women marry Vietnamese men…but thought to myself, “man, if this is really the opinion that people have about the situation, wow, I don’t even know where to begin breaking down those stereotypes.”

After lunch, we went to the bus station where I was to return to LX, so I can teach tomorrow (crazy, right?) I got on a bus to Chau Doc, a similarly indirect route…the bus “left” at 2 pm. But we just left the bus station, and then sat outside of it for about 15 minutes while bus driver, bus door opener, and bus money collecting lady had drinks. And of course, when everyone else sees people drinking for more than two minutes, they start to pile out of the bus in a slow trickle, so when the driver finishes, then someone else has started drinking, when they are finished someone else is drinking…you get the point. We left there about 2:20. About 5 cay so outside of Ha Tien, we stopped, the door opener got out, did something on the back of the bus, and got back on. We turned around (?!) and went to a gas station where they proceeded to jack up the bus, lower a giant tire from the roof using a simple rope (no pully system here) and sheer man power, and replace the back right tire. They used a giant riveter (name of tool probably not accurate) to remove the rivets on the hubcap which was really fun to watch. Then, the two wiry guys replacing the tire looped the same rope around the broken tire and hauled it up to the top of the bus: again, no pullies. We were on our way again. I was disappointed to find that the deafening rattle of the windows, seats, and other more crucial parts of the bus had not been due to the flat tire. They continued all the way to Chau Doc. We stopped again about 20 minutes later for the driver, etc. to eat a meal (at 3 pm? And what were they doing that whole time at the bus station before we left? Just sitting around, it seemed to me…) We also stopped to pick up a few giant stacks of rice that we loaded onto the aisles of the bus.

A few highlights of the bus ride.

1. There was a guy sitting next to me with these leather sandals that said “Temberland” on them. I thought that was hilarious. Maybe I’ve been here too long and I find strange things hilarious.

2. I made friends with two other guys on the bus (it was mostly guys, and mostly young guys, on the bus). They were going to Chau Doc, a bit older than me, and we just got to talking. They asked if I wanted to visit some places in Chau Doc “sure, when,” I said foolishly. When we get off the bus, of course. Finally, after talking for a while, I decided they seemed fairly harmless and I could go to one pagoda with them, let them show me around, and then return to the bus station. I was all set to go to this pagoda in Chau Doc, when one of the guys all of a sudden ran to the door and jumped off the bus, and before I could do anything the bus was moving again. This is the way people get on and off in Vietnam: they jump while the vehicle is in mid-motion. I found out why today also: it’s the cops! The police don’t actually allow the buses to stop between stations, so they have to do it quickly and slyly, especially because today is a holiday and the cops are out in droves. So, I watched Quang stare at me in surprise as we continued, and thought about going back, but then the bus to LX was right there ready to go when I got to the Chau Doc bus station, and it was already quite late, so I told Minh I would go to the temple with them another time. He knew it wasn’t likely to happen at all, and so did I. And then we parted ways. I learned a phrase from him that I kind of like “tiep sau gap lai,” which basically means “see you in my next lifetime.” A good one to start practicing, perhaps?

The vacation was short but much needed and so therapeutic for me. The combination of beach, cute town, cooler weather, and a great traveling companion with whom I could share a lot of what’s been going on for the past months, especially the parts about being a single woman that I can’t share with the guys here, was really what I needed. And now I feel refreshed and ready to…teach tomorrow? I wouldn’t go that far. It’s a Saturday, after all.

No, that’s not Vietnamese for “it’s so hot in this classroom you could roast a chicken.” It’s Khmer, or Cambodian, for “Happy New Year!” Today was the first visible celebrations of the beginning of the Cambodian new year at AGU. Students of the Khmer ethnicity (about 5%? 10% of the student body?) gathered on the badminton courts to sing, dance, and play traditional games. I went with the students of 6D2 and learned how to do a little traditional dancing from one of the Khmer students in my class (you have to move your hands in this way that is absolutely mind-boggling. I’ll never get it down). A little non-traditional dancing also came into the picture. I taught them the ‘running man’ and a few other disco-type favorites. Think: 8th grade dance. It was a lot of fun.

I came late to the Khmer celebration because there was another more important party this evening: my final party with 6D2. Today was their last class, and I’d promised to use the money we collected as fines for using Vietnamese in class to have a “small party.” It was only 11,500 VND, which is about 65 cents, so it would have been quite a small party indeed if I hadn’t kicked in a few extra dollars…It was a combination Easter-going-away party. We had Kourabiethes (traditional Greek cookies) and had an Easter egg hunt outside in the dark. Easter egg hunting in the dark is much more exciting than in the light. (Oh, do you all remember Easter last year, the egg hunt on Columbia’s main campus? This time the eggs were filled with candy and not something else…) We played a few other games, and spent a lot of time taking pictures: I now know what it feels like to be a model and I hate it.

But on a more serious note, it’s really hard for me to accept that I am finished teaching these students already. The time has flown by in some ways, and in others, I can tell that we have been working together for a good amount of time: their confidence is blossoming, their pronunciation is improving, and in general I feel like their communicative skills are much better than when we met in August. It’s really fun for me to see how much they’ve improved, and they know it too: they are so proud of themselves when I tell them about their improvements, their faces just glow. I told them all I want to keep in touch with them, knowing full well that the reality of keeping in touch is, well…I will be lucky to keep contact with a handful of them. I wish it wasn’t so, but from past experiences it seems like only a few people really end up making an effort (myself included) to keep in touch. For many of these wonderful students, this is goodbye forever. I almost cried in class yesterday when I told them I was leaving. I’m not regretting my decision to leave: I think there are many things about being here that make me ready to move on, and I have to trust that instinct. But the students have been my constant source of excitement, amusement, insight, and support. They, my first class, have given me so much “ky niem” that I will never forget.