Greetings From the South East

My name is Vi short for Thuy Vi.

I’m a day behind my posts. The electricity went out yesterday. Ro explained that there isn’t enough for everyone all the time so it’ll just go out randomly. Does socialism work? I’ve seen a lot of things that might show otherwise..

Day 9

This whole language thing is really starting to frustrate me. I want to express myself to them so badly but I can’t. I want to participate more in their conversations instead of guessing what their talking about by their hand gestures. And I really want to stop finding myself in weird and awkward situations.

When we go out I try to stick with the group and not open my mouth but somehow I’m always spotted. When we stand on the street or travel in a taxi I always find these eyes peering at me. What are they thinking? Are they thinking, ‘ew she looks like an American, I bet she’s an American and they’re assholes’ Or are they thinking ‘hmm..i think I’ll have fish today’. I never know. I always take it personally, but I’m trying not to.

Anywho, so we go to the market to go shopping for gifts. As soon as I get there I realize this is no ‘Souvenir, Tourist, ‘yay lets buy a bunch of big fat Buddha’s for aunt sally” type of market. This is a place where outsiders dare not go. There in a HUGE warehouse, small little strips of pavement are provided to walk through crowds of people fighting over the price of baby diapers and jelly sandals. People nudge you, shove you, pretty much run you down if they’re trying to get somewhere. The whole place smells of day old fish and Nuac (fish sauce) (surprise surprise). All the while my cousin, Thuyet literally has a death grip on my arm and is dragging me through the whole mess of things to look at various pony tail holders because earlier in the week I had mention to my dad how I needed to find some hair ties. Its so cute, now every time we go out she finds the one hair accessory stand in the whole area and brings me over to pick something out. I feel bad but I’m really not into rhinestones and huge panda bear clips so I try to say ‘no, but thank you’ in the nicest way I can without actually being able to say ‘no, but thank you’. I finally agreed to some hello kitty hair clips which Julian, I’m giving to you.

So along with purchasing various fake and pirated items for all of my friends and family I was also in the search for a jade bracelet that I noticed a lot of girls wearing around here. So Thuyet, led me to the ‘jewelry’ portion of the market and selected her next victim. A happy looking plump woman with a big smile whose eyes lit up at the site of dong in our pockets. My aunts circled and began their ritual. By the end I could tell they had become friends and we would get ‘good price, good price’. So I’m looking through a sea of jade bracelets not sure which one to pick and she’s lining them up and I’m putting them on but they weren’t fitting right. You see, when I noticed them on the other girls they seemed a bit more fitted to the wrist, so I told my aunt and she spoke to the woman and the woman made the ‘oh!’ expression and then pulled out some other bracelets. She then grabbed my left arm and I then grabbed it back and gave her my right arm but she put it down and grabbed my left arm. This went on for several minutes. I would say ‘no this one’ and she would say probably the same thing and then some and grab my left. Then she started to talk to my aunts and I started to pay attention to them and without really noticing, she had dowsed my arm with lotion (my LEFT one) and all of a sudden I felt the bones in my hand feel like they were melting to mush. The look of pain bolted across my face and my aunts started screaming at the woman to stop and the woman kept saying ’so saudy so saudy’ but she continued to force and my aunts continued to scream and my eyes started to cross and right when I thought I might pass out from pain, the bracelet was nicely secure around my wrist. She’s a smart broad because she knows I wouldn’t for a second try to take it off, so she obviously made the sell. Basically getting fitted for one of these bracelets is like the equivalent to getting a tattoo or piercing and you’re supposed to wear it on the left arm to bring good luck and happiness and probably eventually carpal tunnel. So my hands a little purple but totally worth the memory.

So you can see what not understanding the language can do to a person. Not to mention the words that sound the same but are spelled different and have different meanings. Like ‘Moi’ pronounced ‘Moy’ for instance.. there’s ‘Mui’ which means nose, ‘Moi’ which means lips and ‘muoi’ which means mosquito. ‘Muoi’ is the one I use the most. THEY’RE STILL EATING ME ALIVE.

My cousin Thom, next to Ro, is the English speaker in the family. She always yells ‘HEY YOU! YOU YOU YOU!’ to get my attention. And the other day she asked me, ‘ehm…are you? are you? are you glass?’ and I was like, ‘um…glass…glass, glad?’ ‘ehm..no, glass.’ and then she spelled it on her hand ‘ehm..uhh..gee..ale…aye…dee’ and I said, “oh, Glad??’ and she said ‘ahh, yes yes! glass’, it was cute. This is pretty the extent of my conversation with people.

Later that night we had a huge party at my grandfathers. I mean HUGE. A LOT of people came. It was kind of overwhelming but it was cool because I met a lot of extended family and some of my dad’s friends from when he was in high school. I could tell he was super happy about it. He’s really in his element here.

Later, I saw my cousin Van come into the room all dressed up and I thought, ‘oh maybe we’re going out!’ and then she came over to me and said ‘ok bye bye’ and I was like, ‘wait WHAT?!” Earlier that day I noticed her packing but when I asked her if she was leaving the next day she said yes. So this whole time I’m thinking I have another day with her but here she was leaving to go back to Saigon in an hour. It was the strangest thing. I got overwhelmed with sadness all of a sudden and everything was happening so fast. So guess what? I started crying again. UGH. Why can I not keep it together in front of these people? They must think I’m the weepy American that can’t handle it. But I was so sad to have Van leave. She’s been with me ever since I got here. I love her so much.

Me and Van

Day 10

We went to the beach! It was rainy and overcast but super wonderful. I had THE BEST seafood of my life. Sea snails (which I’ve come to love but these being the best by far), clams more clams and THE MOST AMAZING crab in this sweet curry sauce. Holy shight, sooo good. I was the last person to leave the table, I stuffed my face. They all thought it was funny because I’m always the first to finish. Ba Ba Ba (a kind of beer here) and curried crab, the stuff dreams were made of.

On the way back home I think I counted 6 homes we stopped at. Each one we stopped, unloaded the sardine can and filed in to sit on hard wood benches and take pictures with relatives and friends. It was neat too because my dad would go to the upstairs room at every house and light incense and pray for those who’ve passed. He’s a good man.

Later at night we went to a piano bar. I was getting really irritated with the whole communication thing and I kind of wanted to retreat but my dad insisted I go. There we sat at a bar where I desperately wanted to order a very dry martini on the rocks but instead ordered hot tea. I started to get into one of my moods for the first time because I kept getting mad at my dad for not being more helpful. And my cousin’s boyfriend who learned I used to play piano (operative word, USED TO) kept batting at me to go up and play for everyone. Then the air conditioner above my head kept dripping huge drops of water on my head. I just sat there with my arms crossed and a bit of a huff under my breath. Then I actually thought to myself, ‘ugh, whatever, I can just go home and be fine and eat Homeslice again and take a real shower’. But then my cousin Thuyet got up and sang a song and dedicated it to me. UGH..I’m a jerk. Who am I kidding? They’re wonderful.