Filed under: Culture and Customs
French fries and Fish heads. YES.
It’s still raining. It’s day 3 of rain. All day. All night. RAIN. I am sufficiently waterlogged.
Day 5 cont., Tuesday
A note on social customs, practices and cuisine in Vietnam.
They keep doing this thing with their hands. When I think they’re telling me to go away, they’re actually telling me to come over. They drink beer and wine with ice, which me being a huge beer and wine fan, it hurts me to follow, but I do my best to do what they do. The food is of course great but the more family meals we’ve had at home the weirder the food gets. e.g. the notorious fish heads, chicken feet, pickled ham and oh yes, pig’s blood cake (which Ashley, its everywhere). Oh and they eat about 8 times a day here. I swear we’ll prepare the meal, eat it, pick our teeth with toothpicks for a while, clean and then start all over again. Its funny b/c everyone here calls me fat and even my dad keeps making comments but then they keep shoving food into my bowl. The other day my aunt bought me a coat and had me try it on but it wouldn’t fit over my tummy. She pulled the coat tighter and slapped my stomach and said, ‘NO!’.
*sigh* Its a tough life for a chubby girl in Asia..
I felt like I’ve been doing pretty well with myself keeping an open mind and trying everything at least once, but its definitely started to wear on me a bit. Some things, in my opinion, were meant to stay on the animal and out of my mouth. Sometimes we’ll have soup and I swear its all the scraps that we didn’t eat at the meal before that’s been thrown into a pot with some rice and chicken stock..who knows? This leads us to what I hadn’t prepared for prior to the trip. The breakdown. Now I love traveling and going to new places and I’ve always viewed myself as one who can adjust to pretty much any surrounding, but lets face it..6 weeks in Mexico, 2 weeks in Peru and a couple days spent down in Laredo with my dad and his 10 house mates just doesn’t hold a candle to my current situation.
so I’ll set it up for you…
I had just finally finished my first entry to all of you fine people amidst my little cousin, Ri, screaming and beating me and Van giggling on the phone with ’shirtless man’ and my dad asking me ‘you bored or what?” (which I wasn’t because I can entertain myself pretty much anywhere) and then it was time to eat, again. So I head downstairs to the kitchen where we sit on little red plastic stools surrounding a small round table with various plates presented. There’s always a type of soup, bowl of vegetables and of course a meat. This time the meat was pork, but also including a thick layer of muscle, fat, skin? I’m not really sure, but it was thick and for whatever reason really freaking me out at the time. And then my one aunt that always insists on me sitting next to her by beating the red stool to her side began pulling various pieces of the meat and shoving in to my bowl. Its so hard because I so desperately want to fit in and not be the picky American asshole, but I’m finding that more difficult as I go. Anywho, so she’s shoving the meat and then a big piece of fish and then my cousin starts putting things into my bowl that I don’t recognize and all the while I’m shoving it into my face and trying to eat it really fast and not think about it, but that’s also the universal sign for “oh! she must want more, and given her size, I’m sure she’ll want a lot more!” so they continue to shove and then my little cousin starts banging my shoulder to watch him do the Vietnamese chicken dance and everyone’s looking at me and laughing and I’m trying to swallow down this huge piece of meat that I know was, only moments before hitting the table, purchased at the little market down the alley way that had been sitting out among flies for the past day. It was like everything in that moment started to build up in my face. They got louder and the food felt stranger on my tongue and I could feel my eyes welling up, but I fought it. I looked at my dad and started to hate him for not helping me out more. I started to hate him for bringing me here in the first place and then I started to hate my mom for leaving me to find him and have to endure this by myself. I started to feel so hurt and angry and lost all at the same time. And those of you who know me well, know that I’m not one for the public displays of emotion, ESPECIALLY around all these people that love me so much and would never want to make me cry, but holy shit. I guess I kind of lost it. I kept my head down as long as I could until my cousin noticed and then I got up and went up stairs. I think most of them thought I ate something spicy but when I was in the bathroom sobbing like a baby, I hadn’t noticed that my little cousin, Ri, had popped his head into the bathroom. I looked up and he ducked away, but I know he saw enough to understand this was no pepper induced sorrow.
They all figured out by the end that they were sad tears. I mean EVERYONE found out. They all one by one came up to me and said something in Vietnamese and then made the tear sign down their faces and said ‘No!’. I felt so bad because I didn’t want them to think it was their fault. It just hit me out of no where.
In the end the night got better and my cousins Ro and Van took me out for a walk in which they tried to buy me a purse, but I thankfully declined. Then we went for a drink with my aunt. Ro translated for them, saying that if I didn’t want to eat something or I was full, that I should say something and that when you’re with family you’re supposed to be happy never sad. He said, ‘we love you so much’.
The night ended well. Ro asked me to help him with his English homework and Ri gave me a hug. I also discovered that LOST is a favorite in Vietnam. Ro loves it. Its become our thing now to watch it every night together. 
Day 6, Wednesday
The night before b/c of my little upset I decided to take some Nyquil to insure I got a good night’s rest. Not having the flu, it put me into a type of drunken stupor all throughout the night and then into the morning. The whole day I walked around like a zombie. I guess they could tell that I was somewhat cabin fevered too, so some of my cousins and aunts and uncles took me out to their version of Wal-Mart. It was just like the super markets you see in movies about Japan and china with the escalator ramps that take you up and down with your carts, it was fun.
Again, I never know what’s going to happen next so I just go with the flow. The second I woke up from my 4 hour nap after lunch, they escorted me out of the house and down the alley way to the street and ushered me into a taxi where we ended up at I guess what you’d call the ‘burbs’ of DaNang about 10 minutes away. It was my cousin and his family’s house. Nice digs. Lots of marble and a pretty little rock garden with plastic ducks. This meal, where we all gathered in the upstairs nursery/karaoke room, turned out to be my favorite meal so far. It was probably the most people that had been gathered together since I’ve been here. Aunts, uncles, their families and me and my dad. Of course the fish heads and thick pork skin was back so I stuck with the safe option of the sea snails. Not bad with a little salt and lime.
There we sat and laughed and drank hibiscus wine, which some people enjoyed over ice, but some (including me) took shots of. There we were, the Van Dang family, enjoying a warm meal and good fellowship and yes, karaoke. It was in fact the loudest karaoke experience of my life. All the songs sounded the same and every family member sang off key to perfection. Then of course they point to me and hand over the mica. ‘I REALLY DON’T WANT TO’ I tell my dad. ‘No, Try, they have English, see ‘lady in red!” Me not being the biggest Roy Orbison fan, opted for ‘we wish you a merry Christmas’. Oh man, it was great and everyone clapped along! In the end it wasn’t so bad.
Day 7, Thursday
Today has been an eventful day. I’ve eaten Pho twice after asking my dad why we hadn’t eaten yet, now I think they think that’s all I want, hence having it for breakfast and lunch. God I love them more and more. They are the sweetest people, they’re trying so hard. I guess my dad told them I wanted to see some temples too because as soon as the rain let up they took me to about half of them in DaNang. The last one being the biggest of them all. It was amazing. It was perched high on this mountain over looking the sea with mountains in the background. Big thumbs up. That’s what I do when something is cool or tastes good. Big thumbs up. Now they put a thumbs up or a thumbs down when asking me how I feel about something. We figured out a system, its working.
Its getting much better. Oh and my dad told me to say ‘Hello’, so ‘Hello!’
Until next time!
