Week 2: Classes and reunions and lots of other stuff

Holy shit. This week was crazy eventful. I certainly won't remember everything that happened but here goes nothing!

On Sunday, Trang and I went to Pho Co to meet up with DENNIS. Crazy! Dennis is currently on a 5-week program in Hue in central Viet Nam and he was visiting Ha Noi for the weekend with his peeps. After a hectic hour of trying to locate each other on the deadly small maze-streets of Pho Co, we finally found each other and had some food. Trang and Dennis were on the AAS Hawai'i program last year, so it was such a scary coincidence. We reminisced the good ole days before heading to Cho Dong Xuan (Dongxuan Market) to do some shopping. Actually I was the only one who ended up buying anything: 4 pairs of shorts for VND 200000, about USD 11-12, which is pretty good (we tried haggling and this was the best we could do. Some pairs cost as much as VND 70000-80000, and some salespeople just shooed us away when we merely offered a slightly lower price). Dennis had to leave by 3 PM, so Trang and I met up with the rest of our group at Dong Xuan (where I sampled some weird dried fruits before settling on a box of dried kiwis, the only thing I found sweet enough).

Sampling dried fruits. Can you spot the kiwi?

On Monday, we officially began classes. NOOOOOOOOOOO. Actually it wasn't too bad since it was just tieng Viet (Vietnamese). Apparently the professors were so impressed with my tieng Viet "skills" (skills? I have tieng Viet skills?) during placement test that they considered putting me in advanced. Thank the language gods that didn't happen as I was placed in intermediate instead; otherwise I would've surely flunked the first class. Irregardless, the first class was still quite difficult. Our professor, Co Ha, handed out a set of vocabulary for us to know and practice with, mostly greeting/expression words/idioms like tinh hinh (situation), trom via (an "empty" word without meaning to address a good child in order to fool the gods so they won't come to kidnap the child), trung qua dam (to hit the jackpot), and my favorite, chan nhu con gian ("bored as a cockroach"). Then as in-class exercises we had to make conversations with each other with these new words. It was goddamn hard since I was the only one in class who doesn't speak tieng Viet, so I couldn't construct sentences fast enough or understand the other students. Co Ha also spoke hella fast; I could not understand anything she said. Basically when she asked me questions or made a comment, I could only go "huh?" and look to Trang (who sat next to me) for help or utter "khong hieu" ("don't understand"). So fucking embarrassing! Despite all that, the class was still fun, especially since Co Ha is utterly obsessed with relationships/boyfriends/girlfriends (just like every other person in Viet Nam, it's such a big deal here to be in relationships, and monogamous ones at that) so she kept asking everyone about our relationships and whether we miss our nguoi yeu (love person) and for those of us who don't have a nguoi yeu, why we don't have one.

Wednesday was much better. Since someone in class suggested to Co Ha that we should learn the alphabet first before going into all these hardcore vocabulary, Co Ha decided to use the entire classtime to teach us the Vietnamese alphabet. That was good for me since I already knew it! Yay! So for the entire class, the room resonated with hilarious sounds and tones and glottal noises as students twisted their throats and lips and tongues and teeth to make the large variety of labial, dental, alveolar, fricative, glottal, and nasal sounds of the Vietnamese language. Then there were the tones. Non-smooth tones like the dipping dau hoi (the question mark ?) and the tumbling/glottal dau nga (the tilde mark ~) were the most entertaining to say. We all had fun with it, even Co Ha, who couldn't stop laughing at Mindy trying to say the dau hoi. After the tones, we went into vowel combinations, which are extremely wide in variety and heavily used in the language. I was glad I was already taught all these back in the states, or else I would've been as confused as all the other students.

On Thursday we started Gerard's globalization in Southeast Asia class, the one with the group of local HANU students. The class was three freakin hours long. Shit. The only time I've ever had a 3-hour massive torture was back in second year when I had that god-forsaken public health internship training shithole sanity-destroying class. While Gerard's class was undoubtedly a million times more interesting than that blasted spirit-draining public health shit, the length of the class still took its toll. Within an hour I was already tired, even though I woke up at 12 since the class was at 1:30. My seatmates were also tired, so that was no inspiration for me to stay alert. While I didn't fall asleep, my mind certainly was wandering off into space and I was daydreaming about nothing in particular. I hope next week would be different though, since it is a very interesting class and very personally relevant.

On Friday, we all went to the computer lab to learn how to type in tieng Viet. The computers use a certain typing program that I don't have, but it was pretty convenient and I will go look for the program online after I finish this post. Anyways, the professors basically wanted us to type some passages and go on facebook to post them (in what classes will we ever hear the professors say "now log onto facebook" again?). Then we had a lesson on SMS in tieng Viet, which was absolutely ludicrous. The rules make no sense and we decided that we would probably never use that crazy system ever. So in other words it was a waste of time. Either way, the class was awesome since we just sat there and used facebook and watched in amusement and awkwardness as Co Ha tried to flirt very overtly with Gerard.

On Friday afternoon, we went to Lang Huu Nghi (Friendship Village). This is a place where second-generation survivors of Agent Orange (the ones who were born with birth defects by parents immediately exposed to the toxin) stay at to learn basic survival and livelihood skills such as sewing and using the computer. These warriors live with a wide variety of different-ableness: some are mentally impaired, some are speech or hearing impaired, some growth impaired, etc. Some actually also reminded me of one of my uncles, my Hsiao Chiu-chiu, mother's youngest brother, who was born mentally differently-abled. We visited some classes in small groups to interact with them, and some of us including me also went to other buildings such as the living headquarters and the clinic to see the conditions of the place. I wished I knew tieng Viet so I could have spoken to some of them. Going to such a place was a new experience, seeing with my own eyes the effects of war and institutional neglect (those mystified and glorified images of extreme and traumatic deformities that we usually see in the media, we did not see here, since, as Gerard explained, there had been changes in policy recently in this village that only those who are still able to learn/perform tasks are allowed to stay). This trip very much reinforced my views on war and the destruction it brings as well as the raw humanity and the drive to survive and flourish that exists in all people. I did not take any pictures of this place, as I wish to respect the sanctity of this space (however institutional and flawed it is), uphold the dignity of these warriors, and view them as fellow agents of change rather than objects on display (this I find to be a universal problem existing in all "preservation" institutions such as museums, displaying objects of a "different" and "exotic" and (often) minority people/culture, stagnant in space and time, ever unchanging in the face of "development," and readily consumable for privileged observers, as well as other spaces such as gay clubs to which heterosexuals flock for personal entertainment and use that as justification for being "gay-friendly" and "understanding" of the struggles of the queer community).

Friday night was night market time. We went to Ha Noi's major night market by Ho Hoan Kiem and spent a grueling 3 hours there (for me and Chanh, the guys). The place barely had anything for the men, so for the entire time the 2 of us just stood there with the girls with our feet and legs sore from standing and doing nothing. There were some stores that sold men's clothing, but men's fashion here is so strange for us that we had no desire to purchase anything. The ladies had fun though, so good for them. Also, the night market didn't have any FOOD. What the fuck! That made me hella miss Taiwanese night markets, where besides just clothing and souvenirs, there are abundant delicacies and street games to play. This night market, while humongous (we didn't even walk the entire length of it when the clock hit 11 PM), can't even compare to Taiwanese night markets!

Entrance to the night market. Not very eye-catching

Yeah...pretty much all clothes and souvenirs. No food

On Saturday, I went to Pho Co to meet up with Tam. Actually, I've only met Tam once before, way back in February when we went to the premiere of Tadashi Nakamura's documentary on Chris Iijima. But we connected like old friends! We ate at this super bougie Thai restaurant by Ho Hoan Kiem where portions were hella small and prices hella jacked up. Tam is here in Ha Noi for a month for training on a program called Fulbright, where she will be teaching English in Da Nang university for 10 months (she's already leaving next weekend to go to Da Nang. So soon!). Then I visited the hotel she was staying at, which was also quite bougie. Then I took her to a bia hoi place on Ly Thuong Kiet street to meet up with most of the EAPers and a few of the local HANU students. Tam totally fit right in. After a few hours of beer and fried frogs, we went to Dragonfly, THE bar that foreigners go to. It certainly was better than the one we went to last week in terms of space and atmosphere (the space was actually only slightly larger, but sufficient, and it was hella more crackin than last week's place). Our group, like the last time, was the first to operate the dancefloor (the DJ played hip-hop! Such a relief from last week's trance), but what was different this time was that the rest of the people began dancing too shortly after. Still, the men couldn't dance to save themselves, especially the middle-aged and older men, who were quite disturbing to watch. There was this old white guy, white hair and all, who was grinding this other white woman. Traumatizing! If he were grinding a Vietnamese girl that would've been much worse. Thank the dancefloor gods he didn't target the Vietnamese. Either way, we all had fun and by the end my shirt was completely wet from sweat and I reeked of cigarettes.

Tam! How great to cross paths

Group photo of the girls (and me) at bia hoi

At Dragonfly. We were all hot messes

The next day, we all crawled miserably out of bed at 10 to go to Bao Tang Dan Toc Hoc Viet Nam (the Vietnam Ethnology Museum), basically a museum featuring the material culture of all 54 ethnic minorities in Viet Nam (Tam also met us there). See above for my feelings about the museum space. Despite that, the museum was interesting as we got to see material representations of the lives of ethnic minorities in this country. I saw an exhibition on Highway 9, a road that links central Viet Nam with Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar and is touted to be one of the most significant economic driving forces of these 4 countries. It was enlightening to read about this corridor of development and the consequences it has brought on the local populations, particularly the environmental degradations that have already taken place and will continue on as development carries further. There was also a giant-ass garden where traditional houses of the different ethnic minorities could be seen. We were allowed to go inside these structures, but had to take off shoes, so I didn't get to go into any since I was too lazy to take off my shoes each time. There were also hella newlyweds taking their photos since the garden was such a pretty place. Unfortunately we were only there for about 2 hours, which was NOT enough time to look at all the exhibits. But I will be back in the future at least 2 more times for class, so I'll just save the rest for next time. I also bought some stuff from the museum gift shop, where all proceeds go back to the ethnic minorities.

Entrance to the museum

Trang and I in front of some thing

A traditional long house of an ethnic group in the garden

Newlyweds taking their damn photos. Oh the heteroness

Then Chi and Linh (HANU folks) took the group to Pho Co (god I've been there so many times already) to have some weirdass food and hoa qua dam (Vietnamese fruit shaved ice, my FAVORITE dessert so far). Afterward some of us decided to go back home, and Tam took the rest to her hotel to chill before we went to see a traditional music performance at the Trung Tam Van Hoa Thang Long (Thang Long Culture Center). We said goodbye to Tam at 4 and headed for the location, where we were given a brief history lesson about Ca Tru, traditional Vietnamese chamber music, and then saw a very interesting set of performances featuring dancers, singers, drummers, and the phach (a percussion instrument) and dan day (a 3-stringed lute instrument). We all got to take pictures with the performers after the show, which was pretty awesome.

Week 2: over and out. Fuck, time seems to flyyyyyy here. Only 15 weeks left in Ha Noi! I better start cherishing more moments here instead of just running around the city all the time...