Hi again!
It has been about a week since I last posted, and as I sit down to write this post, I am daunted by the prospect of trying to do justice to all that I have seen, experienced, and felt during the past 7 or 8 days without writing an entry that might take you as just as long to read. In essence, I'm beginning to realize once again why the idea of journaling and blogging is such a scary one to me. I've set aside some time right now, though, so I'll try to do my best---
Last Saturday morning, we got up extremely early and traveled together, along with Chi Diu and Dr. Thao (the project assistant (and our resource for just about anything we need) and director of the Fulbright Program in Vietnam, respectively) to Hai Phong Private University in the city of Hai Phong, roughly 2 hours northeast of Hanoi. For the next couple of hours, we were participants in a forum for students beginning their final year in university that were looking to the future and curious about our experiences as recent graduates. We weren't sure what to expect coming in and were surprised by the great numbers of students there (and by the video cameras present!) The room was just large enough for us (and the ever-present golden bust of Ho Chi Minh at the front of the room) and it was exciting to see the level of enthusiasm shown by all of the students present. The university system in Vietnam is really interesting, as all schools, public or private, are required to follow specific curriculum guidelines established by MOET (the Ministry of Education and Training) rather than the educators employed by each individual university. For a few reasons, I won't say anything more about this, except that I am really interested to see this top-down style of educational policy on the ground level when I begin working at Hong Duc in about a week and a half.
After our time at Hai Phong, we continued on to Halong Bay and boarded a wooden "junk boat" that took us on an hour-long cruise en route to Cat Ba Island. The cruise itself was marvelous. Halong Bay is a World Heritage Site and I was amazed by the rock formations that we saw as we sailed through the water. I sat in silence at the front of the boat for awhile, enjoying the warm breeze, peaceful waters, and relative quiet. When we arrived at Cat Ba Island, we checked into our hotel and immediately changed and walked to the beach, located on the Gulf of Tonkin. The beaches were crowded with Vietnamese tourists, but the waves were fantastic and the water was warm and we enjoyed a nice hour or so splashing around in the water. It was really strange playing in the waters of a gulf whose name is so bitterly and unfortunately ingrained American history and as we bobbed up and down in the waves we talked about the strangeness we all felt and the the fact that at times throughout this first month, particularly at times such as those, we have all been hit by the sense that this experience is enormously surreal, unnerving, and yet also beautiful and enlightening.After a nice Vietnamese dinner that night, we went to bed early, listening to the sounds of late-night karaoke (an extremely popular nighttime activity here) as we lay in bed... thankfully the power went out (a pretty normal occurrence here) after an hour or so, because the music was loud and the singing, as is true at most karaoke events, was not terribly ear-pleasing.
The next morning, we got up and went to Cat Ba National Park, where our guide told us that he would be leading us in a "light trek" for the morning. We should have known from our experience at the Perfume Pagoda that the concept of a "light trek" is slightly different in Vietnam that in the U.S., but we instead set out thinking that we would be hiking around a bit in a park-setting before heading back the hotel for lunch and the trip home. As it turned out, the "light trek" was another climb up a mountain, only this time without the "luxury" of stone steps or even solid footing. The ground was completely muddy from the rains the day before and after a bit, we found ourselves grasping for roots and vines to help pull up up the trail. The hike also involved a great deal of bouldering and climbing up rusted ladders, which became extremely slippery when it started raining about halfway up. It was a wonderfully fun hike, but I couldn't help but think that one us would not escape without a broken appendage and that I was breaking a lot of "yes, of course I'll be safe" promises that I made to friends and family before I left. Miraculously, we all made it to the top relatively unscathed, and looked out in awe at one of the most beautiful mountain landscape that I have ever seen. The rain stopped falling just as we reached the top, and after a brief bit of fog rolled through, the skies cleared and it was absolutely gorgeous. After resting a bit and taking some pictures, we all held our breath, and began the climb down, which turned out to be a bit more scary than the trek up. Once again, though, we made it back okay (actually, only our guide had a really bad fall, and he was also unhurt) and stumbled into our bus, exhausted but so happy to have taken the hike. On the bus ride back to the hotel, we determined that the mountain would thereafter be known as "Mud Mountain." We also learned that the mountains and caves in that area were the locations of hospitals and hideaways for many of the North Vietnamese leaders during the American War and we responded that even after spending just a few hours there, it was no wonder to us that they chose such a spot.
After getting cleaned up (well, even after I showered and thought I was clean, I toweled off and the towel turned brown with residual mud) we had lunch and then caught a hydrofoil boat back to Halong Bay. We were all pretty excited about riding in a hydrofoil, but the ride actually turned out to be a little unpleasant, especially compared to the junkboat ride the day before. It was extremely crowded and hot on the boat, and I was in the back row, out of reach of the small air conditioner. The waters were pretty choppy, and so almost as soon as the ride started, people started getting seasick around me. It broke my heart to see and hear lots of babies and small children getting sick, and I started to feel ill in the closed, hot, and crowded cabin area. Realizing that I was headed down an unpleasant path, I told myself to pull it together, pulled out my ipod and put on a fun mix at a loud volume, and closed my eyes... before I knew it, I felt much better and by the end of the ride, I was enjoying looking out the window at the beautiful scenery. I was extremely happy, however, when the ride was over and we got off the hydrofoil and onto the bus that took us back to Hanoi.
After such a wonderful, but tiring, weekend, it was hard to go back to work and training at the Embassy on Monday, but the week soon began to fly by. Vietnamese is still hard, although I was able to use mine to direct a taxi driver two days ago (he was totally surprised) and to find seats at a local Bia Hoi (a street restaurant that serves delicious cheap food and beer (they cost roughly 33cents per glass) for 6 people... huge successes in my mind, although the prospect of moving to a city where English speakers are few and far between in a week is totally daunting. The highlight of my week, however, took place on Wednesday when we were responsible for co-teaching (in groups of 5) a 2 hour speaking and listening English class to Vietnamese students aged 16-54 at the Embassy. We were all a little nervous during our preparations (in part because we learned that we would be teaching the class at 4:00pm the day before) but my group soon came up with a good plan that worked out very well the next day. Though there were obvious areas in which we could have improved our lesson, it was a general success and I was so excited throughout the entire 2 hours (which felt like only 15 minutes.) At the end of the time, the students were presenting their group work to the class and I stood watching a 54 year old woman, who had been required to learn Russian when she was in school, excitedly explaining her menu (the theme of the lesson was food and we had the class create and present restaurant menus using the vocabulary we learned) using every single vocabulary word that we covered, and I couldn't stop smiling and wishing that I was already in the classroom at my university. During our debriefing, Helen, our instructor, told us that not all students that we had would be so excited to learn, and I am certainly being realistic about my expectations regarding my teaching experience for the next 9 months, but I am also so excited to be in a classroom and hopefully bringing a level of energy to the subject that my students can transform into excitement about learning. I am also eager to continue learning about teaching pedagogy, the Vietnamese education culture, and perhaps even the grammatical subtleties of my own native language during my time here. I know it will be a great challenge full of hard days and occasional "busts," but I am approaching those "learning moments" with and open mind and a healthy dose of humor... I'll certainly tell you all about them as they occur!
By the end of the week, we were all completely exhausted and scrapped any traveling plans we were thinking about making in favor of a relaxing weekend in Hanoi. Yesterday, my friend Sofia and I went to the Temple of Literature, a Confucian temple and the site of the first Vietnamese University, founded in 1076. It was an absolutely gorgeous setting and after visiting the temple, we went for a walk in the garden area which was also beautiful. It was also so nice to walk around in an area where we didn't have to worry about being hit by motorbike. After that, we went to a cafe and I read about 100 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo and enjoyed some time to decompress from our whirlwind month. Last evening, we all went to a restaurant called KOTO, which stands for "Know One, Teach One" and is a non-profit restaurant that supports street and impoverished children in Hanoi, training them in the service industry and cooking and helping them find educational opportunities in Vietnam and abroad. The dinner was absolutely delicious and the atmosphere was wonderful. After dinner, we all went to a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show which was also incredible. The puppets are controlled by men and women that stand behind a darkened screen, out of sight of the audience, waist deep in water and control the puppets using bamboo poles and strings. It was absolutely incredible to watch these wooden puppets move on the surface of the water stage and to listen to the voices of women singing along to their movements.
This morning, we slept in again and then a group of us took a taxi over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to see the embalmed body of the country's hero. Our experience there was incredible. We waited in a long line with thousands of people for about 45 minutes before and had to turn in our cameras, cover our arms and legs, and take off any sunglasses before being shuffled into the huge building. The inside of the building was surprisingly devoid of any major propaganda, and the room in which Ho's body lay was impressive in its lack of formal decoration. Four guards dressed in white stood at the corners of the glass case that held the body, which was dressed in a rather plain fashion. We were pushed through the room quickly by other guards and the wave of people coming in behind us, so we only got a quick view of the body, before moving back out to the sunlight again, but it was an absolutely fascinating experience. Strangely enough, I thought about the scene in E.L. Konigsburg's book From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler when Claudia and Jamie, the runaway brother and sister, first go to see the angel statue in the Met. Konigsburg's language describing the strictly choreographed movement of the crowd around the angel was a spot-on description of our movements today, and I laughed to myself at the fact that such an experience would bring to mind a scene from a book that I read, and loved, quite a long time ago. Beyond comparing the experience to a novel scene, I also thought about the fact that such a tribute is perhaps the last thing that Ho Chi Minh would have wanted. In reality, he desired for his remains to be cremated, split into 3 parts that would be spread in the north, central, and southern parts of the country, to symbolize a united Vietnam. He also ordered that no major landmark to his memory be made... clearly, his wishes were not followed, and his portraits and quotations made by him adorn Hanoi and are apparently present at every school and university. The fact that the wishes of the most important man in modern Vietnamese history and culture were so blatantly ignored is rather ironic, but also not terribly surprising considering the Vietnamese cultural tradition of glorifying particularly adored political and military leaders. Ultimately, our trip to the mausoleum was well worth the sweltering heat and long wait, not only for the chance to see Ho Chi Minh, but also because of the culture that we experienced in the waiting and watching while there.
Tomorrow begins our final week of orientation in Hanoi before we leave for our respective host universities. We're all excited to be finished with the 8 hour days that take place in a windowless room in the U.S. Embassy but sad to be leaving one another-- our group is fantastic, and I am so happy to have made such good friends over here so quickly. I am also excited to see what the next nine months in Thanh Hoa has in store for me. Besides being the site of ancient ruins, which is very cool, Thanh Hoa does not really make it into guidebooks for tourists visiting the country and is often described to me as being a poor industrial city that was completely destroyed during the American War and then quickly and unimpressively rebuilt in the aftermath. Roughly 200,000 people live there, but it is supposedly a small city in terms of square-mileage which means that it will still appear quite crowded while I am there. There are not any touristy "hot-spots" or fancy restaurants (besides one 3 star hotel) in the city, and sometimes food selection is quite limited due to its location. I also had to get a Japanese Encephalitis shot as a precautionary measure, and I will need to take care in putting on plenty of mosquito repellent to avoid contracting dengue fever in the areas outside the city center. All of these things are certainly nerve wracking to a certain degree, but I also feel lucky to be getting a true immersion experience ... and who knows? maybe everything that I have heard is completely off-base! I'll find out in a little over a week, and will be writing to let you know all about it as I get settled in.I miss seeing all of you and hope that all is well. If you'd like to see any of what I've talked about so far (because I promise you, my words aren't doing this place justice) please come visit me and I'll take you on a tour! Know that I am having a wonderful time and feeling so lucky to have gotten such an opportunity. I'm sorry for the length of this post-- I thought this might happen-- but finding time to blog has been difficult, so it looks as though these marathon once-weekly updates may become my MO. Until next time, stay well, and let me know how you are-- I'd love to hear updates!!! I've posted stable links to my pictures on here, so if you get the chance, take a look.
Lots of Love,Hayley
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Links to Pictures
Links to some pictures that I have taken so far---
1. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033213&id=44701566&l=828e97d0b0
2. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033428&id=44701566&l=509d93a9a1
3. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033546&id=44701566&l=f426d1b2ba
hope you enjoy!
1. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033213&id=44701566&l=828e97d0b0
2. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033428&id=44701566&l=509d93a9a1
3. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033546&id=44701566&l=f426d1b2ba
hope you enjoy!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Perfume Pagoda
Hello friends, I hope that this post finds you well! It has, and will continue to be, a very busy week, but I wanted to take the time to write a little bit about a trip that eight of us took last Sunday to the Perfume Pagoda and Cave, a famous pilgrimage site in northern Vietnam. Located in the Ha Tay Province, the Perfume Pagoda is named after the spring blossoms that make the air smell sweet (a nice change from the streets of Hanoi!) We hired a van to drive us the 60km distance which took us about an hour and a half and through Hanoi traffic and rough (and water buffalo and cow cluttered) country roads and villages along green rice fields. After being dropped off, we (with the help of our tour guide, Chung, or “River,”) hired small iron row boats to take us to the Pagoda site. We traveled, four to a boat, along the smooth and beautifully quiet waters for an hour, seeing only a few other fishermen in boats and appreciating the quiet atmosphere- a great contrast to the ever-present noises in Hanoi. Sunday was a particularly hot and humid day and we were quite sweaty by the time that we arrived at the base of the mountain that held the Pagoda and prepared to hike. Thinking that it would be a relatively simple jaunt, we decided to forgo the very inexpensive cable car ride up to the top of the mountain and began our ascent. As it turns out, we were not at all prepared for the trek that awaited us.
Our “light hike” turned out to be a steep march up a very long series of ancient stone stairs that took roughly 45 minutes to climb. I don’t know if I have ever sweated so much in my life and at a couple of points on the way up we all had to stop for a couple of minutes to catch our breath. There were stalls at various places along the stairs that sold water and hot beer but we couldn’t purchase the water because there are only a couple of companies that can be trusted to adequately purify their water (none of which were present in the vendors’ booths) and we didn’t get the hot beer…for obvious reasons! Even before we stopped stair-stepping at the top, we could smell the incense burning in the Perfume Cave (or Huong Tich Cave) and when we reached the end of our “hike” found ourselves at what is known as the “Dragon’s Mouth,” or entrance to the grotto. Inside the grotto was an ornate and spectacular shrine, predominately gold and red in colors and shining in the heavy, incense-filled air. After standing in awe for a time we walked out of the cave and promptly took the cable cars back down the mountain, so as to avoid walking back down all the stairs we had recently ascended. The trip down was absolutely beautiful and offered great views of the mountains and surrounding areas. When we reached the bottom, we ate a large lunch, looked around at some more temples in the area, and then returned to the boats. Our boat ride back was extremely enjoyable as we let our exhaustion and dehydration turn to silliness and sang songs for the entire 45 minute ride, covering everything from Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Leavin’ on a Jet Plane, and Disney Songs, to the Backsteet Boys… One of my fellow Fulbrighters, Mark, and I also discovered a shared love of the song “Come Sail Away” by Styx and belted out a classic duet… our guide couldn’t decide whether we were fun to be around, or just crazy. Many of our musical “treats” ended up on camera, unbeknownst to the rest of us until we were a good 10 songs in, and are now posted on facebook if you are interested in listening to the off-tune musical stylings of the Fulbright Foundation’s best and brightest…After a long, sweaty, but wonderful day, we were happy to return to Hanoi and begin our second week of orientation.
It is hard to believe that now, almost a week later, we are halfway through our time in Hanoi and two weeks away from arriving at our host institutions. We are still struggling through Vietnamese lessons, although my pronunciation is improving and I can successfully tell you my name, where I am from, and my age, and can make basic comparisons and speak in the present progressive (with about 5 verbs), so there has been improvement! The trickiest part of the language is definitely dealing with the various tones that can make a word like “I”/”Me” turn into “lie down” or “guilty” very quickly with lazy pronunciation! Our instructor, Thuy (pronounced Tuwee, with an upward, crescendo-ing inflection) is extremely patient with us while also giving us a hard time and making sure to laugh with and at us when we make particularly horrible mistakes. Yesterday, for instance, I managed to somewhat inadvertently say “This horse is from China,” and Thuy almost fell down laughing.
Today we traveled to a temple dedicated to “Mother” or ancestor worship here in Hanoi for a class on Vietnamese Culture. Most people in Vietnam practice ancestor worship in addition to another religion (predominately Buddhism or, to a smaller degree, Christianity) and today’s service was organized by a family in order to try to improve their luck or financial situation. When families organize ceremonies, they are responsible for purchasing copious amounts of desserts, beer, fruits, cigarettes, and other goods as offerings to the gods during the ceremony, which can last for hours. Men are chosen to act as vessels of the gods of each individual temple, and often represent multiple gods throughout the ceremony, changing their clothes and makeup as is necessary. We received permission to come to this ceremony today and entered just as the temple god was making an offering at the altar, which involved swinging a large flame around in the small and crowded space. We were standing precariously close to the flames as they swung past us, and each of us held our breath until the last embers were stamped out by boys assisting the older men. There was also beautiful music playing and the room smelled deeply of incense and was ornately decorated. We unfortunately could not stay until the end of the ceremony, when all of the food and drink there would be given out to all those present from the family in order to increase their luck.
As I write about this experience and think about the many that I have had and do not have time to write about, I feel so lucky to be here and wish deeply that all of you could experience this fascinating place with me because my descriptions of it are not doing it justice. I did take plenty of pictures of our trip to the Perfume Pagoda, which I have posted on facebook, and that you should be able to see if you click on the following link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033213&id=44701566&l=828e97d0b0 perhaps even if you don’t have facebook (I don’t know all of the logistics!)
Tomorrow morning we are leaving at 6:00am for a weekend excursion to Hai Phong Private University where we will meet with university students in a forum and then to Halong Bay, a world heritage site that is certain to provide me with many more picture perfect images and stories to share with you all. Until then, stay well and know how much I miss and love you!
Our “light hike” turned out to be a steep march up a very long series of ancient stone stairs that took roughly 45 minutes to climb. I don’t know if I have ever sweated so much in my life and at a couple of points on the way up we all had to stop for a couple of minutes to catch our breath. There were stalls at various places along the stairs that sold water and hot beer but we couldn’t purchase the water because there are only a couple of companies that can be trusted to adequately purify their water (none of which were present in the vendors’ booths) and we didn’t get the hot beer…for obvious reasons! Even before we stopped stair-stepping at the top, we could smell the incense burning in the Perfume Cave (or Huong Tich Cave) and when we reached the end of our “hike” found ourselves at what is known as the “Dragon’s Mouth,” or entrance to the grotto. Inside the grotto was an ornate and spectacular shrine, predominately gold and red in colors and shining in the heavy, incense-filled air. After standing in awe for a time we walked out of the cave and promptly took the cable cars back down the mountain, so as to avoid walking back down all the stairs we had recently ascended. The trip down was absolutely beautiful and offered great views of the mountains and surrounding areas. When we reached the bottom, we ate a large lunch, looked around at some more temples in the area, and then returned to the boats. Our boat ride back was extremely enjoyable as we let our exhaustion and dehydration turn to silliness and sang songs for the entire 45 minute ride, covering everything from Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Leavin’ on a Jet Plane, and Disney Songs, to the Backsteet Boys… One of my fellow Fulbrighters, Mark, and I also discovered a shared love of the song “Come Sail Away” by Styx and belted out a classic duet… our guide couldn’t decide whether we were fun to be around, or just crazy. Many of our musical “treats” ended up on camera, unbeknownst to the rest of us until we were a good 10 songs in, and are now posted on facebook if you are interested in listening to the off-tune musical stylings of the Fulbright Foundation’s best and brightest…After a long, sweaty, but wonderful day, we were happy to return to Hanoi and begin our second week of orientation.
It is hard to believe that now, almost a week later, we are halfway through our time in Hanoi and two weeks away from arriving at our host institutions. We are still struggling through Vietnamese lessons, although my pronunciation is improving and I can successfully tell you my name, where I am from, and my age, and can make basic comparisons and speak in the present progressive (with about 5 verbs), so there has been improvement! The trickiest part of the language is definitely dealing with the various tones that can make a word like “I”/”Me” turn into “lie down” or “guilty” very quickly with lazy pronunciation! Our instructor, Thuy (pronounced Tuwee, with an upward, crescendo-ing inflection) is extremely patient with us while also giving us a hard time and making sure to laugh with and at us when we make particularly horrible mistakes. Yesterday, for instance, I managed to somewhat inadvertently say “This horse is from China,” and Thuy almost fell down laughing.
Today we traveled to a temple dedicated to “Mother” or ancestor worship here in Hanoi for a class on Vietnamese Culture. Most people in Vietnam practice ancestor worship in addition to another religion (predominately Buddhism or, to a smaller degree, Christianity) and today’s service was organized by a family in order to try to improve their luck or financial situation. When families organize ceremonies, they are responsible for purchasing copious amounts of desserts, beer, fruits, cigarettes, and other goods as offerings to the gods during the ceremony, which can last for hours. Men are chosen to act as vessels of the gods of each individual temple, and often represent multiple gods throughout the ceremony, changing their clothes and makeup as is necessary. We received permission to come to this ceremony today and entered just as the temple god was making an offering at the altar, which involved swinging a large flame around in the small and crowded space. We were standing precariously close to the flames as they swung past us, and each of us held our breath until the last embers were stamped out by boys assisting the older men. There was also beautiful music playing and the room smelled deeply of incense and was ornately decorated. We unfortunately could not stay until the end of the ceremony, when all of the food and drink there would be given out to all those present from the family in order to increase their luck.
As I write about this experience and think about the many that I have had and do not have time to write about, I feel so lucky to be here and wish deeply that all of you could experience this fascinating place with me because my descriptions of it are not doing it justice. I did take plenty of pictures of our trip to the Perfume Pagoda, which I have posted on facebook, and that you should be able to see if you click on the following link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033213&id=44701566&l=828e97d0b0 perhaps even if you don’t have facebook (I don’t know all of the logistics!)
Tomorrow morning we are leaving at 6:00am for a weekend excursion to Hai Phong Private University where we will meet with university students in a forum and then to Halong Bay, a world heritage site that is certain to provide me with many more picture perfect images and stories to share with you all. Until then, stay well and know how much I miss and love you!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Hoan Kiem Lake
In my last post, I did my best to paint a picture of Hanoi—the manic traffic (and the cargo that accompanies it), the stifling heat, the street restaurants and shops, and the crowds of people… all wonderful, exciting, and at times (and particularly relating to the traffic) scary. Today, however, I’d like to write a bit about an area of Hanoi that is particularly enchanting to me: Hoan Kiem Lake. Located in the middle of the city and surrounded by the sights, sounds, and goings-on of the Hanoi I described before, the still waters of Hoan Kiem Lake juxtapose nicely with the continuously-bustling streets that surround it. Every morning, hundreds of people walk to the lake to exercise. At 5:00am the streets of Hanoi are relatively empty, but the one mile path around the lake is packed with men and women walking, running, and stretching. The older women also set up stereos at various points around the lake and gather by the dozens to practice Tai Chi. A few mornings this week, a group of 4-5 of us have woken up early and walked over to the lake to watch the exercisers and jog a few laps around the lake ourselves. The hours of 5-6am are really the only time that it is possible to exercise here without collapsing, and the pollution levels are not so bad, adding to the logic behind the early morning regimen enjoyed by many Vietnamese at Hoan Kiem and other lakes and parks throughout the city. Despite the cooler temperatures and cleaner air, I have still found it extremely hard to run here during the 2 or 3 times I have tried. The humidity is stifling and the air pollution hurts my lungs after about a mile of jogging, and while it was easy to jog 6-7 miles at a pretty good pace at home, I am currently satisfied with jogging a slow 3 miles here before needing to stop. Ultimately, though, I choose to take, and enjoy my trips to the lake in the mornings because of the relatively quiet atmosphere that exists, people I get to see, and the culture I get to soak in from an early hour. I’ll bring my camera one of the mornings and sit around the lake taking pictures to show you all.
Until next time, stay well.
Until next time, stay well.
Friday, August 7, 2009
First Impressions
The idea of "blogging," or rather, being a "blogger" has always sent shivers down my spine. Growing up, I went through numerous journals and diaries... and by that I mean, I dutifully completed roughly one entry in each of new diary before allowing it to collect dust in various dark corners in my room and closet along with the rest of the one-entry journals I had let “go by the wayside.” It is with this uninspiring and pitiful background in recording the events of my life that I begin this series of reflections on my coming months in Vietnam. I very much hope that my great desire to stay in touch with all of you reading will outweigh my current bad habit of letting such things fall by the wayside, and I am certainly excited to tell my story to you, and perhaps even me.
I arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam on Sunday morning, after a brief bout with food poisoning in the Denver airport, a 10 hour flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, followed by a 7 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, and a night spent sleeping in a chair in the Bangkok airport. Though I was completely exhausted, I immediately perked up during the 30 minute drive from the airport to the hotel as the streets of Hanoi were unlike anything I had ever seen before. In Hanoi, traffic lines, lights, and even directionality are mere suggestions and the traffic here is generally considered to be some of the worst in the world. Driving takes more than a steady grip on the wheel, but requires drivers to regularly use their bright lights to tell other drivers to speed up and their horns to announce their presence as they speed into the oncoming traffic or try to push the swarms of scooter drivers, motorcyclists, or bicyclists out of their way. (During our security briefing at the U.S. Embassy, we learned how to survive as pedestrians: walk out into the traffic at a steady pace, keeping eye contact with the drivers while also looking in both directions (drivers often come in more than one direction even on one side of the street), and don't slow down or speed up as drivers are adept at swerving around you at the last minute so long as your path and speed are predictable. I say a little prayer of thanksgiving each time I make it across even the narrowest of streets.) I was also amazed at the power and telephone lines along the sides of the street. Unlike the relatively ordered set of lines in the States, here in Hanoi power lines resemble tangled spider webs. Finally, the cargo in the baskets behind the moto-bikes was an impressive sight: drivers carried not only other passengers (including babies propped up on the steering column) but also bundles of beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables, meats, pipes, and in one particularly interesting basket, 7 baby pigs. Needless to say, I was totally entertained.
The hotel where we are staying during this month of orientation is absolutely lovely and the staff has been so welcoming. The owner, Ginger, is actually a former Fulbrighter who met her husband over here.
Each morning around 7:45 we catch taxis to our orientation and training at the U.S. Embassy. Typically we spend 3 1/2 to 4 hours each morning doing language training while the afternoons are devoted to ELT (English Language Teaching) training. I am extremely impressed by how organized everything is in terms of our training, and while I leave the Embassy around 5pm each day completely exhausted, I feel as though I have learned so much already.
Vietnamese is an extremely difficult language, involving a lot more of one's mouth and throat than are active in speaking English. The language is tonal in nature, which means that the inflection in your voice as you say a word or sound is critical and can completely change the meaning of a word. Needless to say, we are all struggling, but I am now able to say simple phrases and I am beginning to understand a bit about basic sentence construction. Ultimately, the Fulbright program hopes that we can come away from our training with a "survival level" knowledge of Vietnamese since our jobs will be to help train students and faculty in English rather than to learn a new language ourselves. It has been fun to say "hello," "thank you," "goodbye," and "how are you?" in Vietnamese to the hotel and Embassy staff and I am excited to learn more throughout the rest of the month. We have a test on what we have learned so far on Monday, however, which has us all a little nervous.
While I am certainly enjoying living in Hanoi and getting to know my 9 wonderful, funny, and supportive fellow Fulbrighters, it will be nice to move into a more long-term living situation where I can cook for myself and move our of my suitcase. So far we have had to be careful (and thus boring) with our food choices because it is unsafe to each any fruits or raw vegetables off the streets. We'll be able to eat fruits once we are in our own small flats and we can soak them in a diluted chlorine bleach solution. All of our vegetables will have to be washed, soaked, and cooked in water that has been pre-boiled to ensure that it is safe to drink and use. Therefore our diets this week have largely consisted of noodles, rice, and chicken, although a few of us tried a series of lightly cooked vegetables the other night (and our stomachs are still upset with us.) Tonight, however, we all walked around the corner to a street restaurant and sat in small plastic chairs reminiscent of picnics and tea parties of my youth and ordered a series of fried vegetables, some cooked beef, and steamed and fried rice which was all absolutely delicious. I can't wait to get creative as I settle in and my stomach acclimates itself to the environment.
I am off to bed now, but I hope to write more soon. We are all going to buy cell phones tomorrow and will perhaps take a day trip to a beautiful perfume pagoda on Sunday. I hope that all is well with you and that you will shoot me a line or two of email to let me know how things are.
Until next time, stay well.
I arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam on Sunday morning, after a brief bout with food poisoning in the Denver airport, a 10 hour flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, followed by a 7 hour flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, and a night spent sleeping in a chair in the Bangkok airport. Though I was completely exhausted, I immediately perked up during the 30 minute drive from the airport to the hotel as the streets of Hanoi were unlike anything I had ever seen before. In Hanoi, traffic lines, lights, and even directionality are mere suggestions and the traffic here is generally considered to be some of the worst in the world. Driving takes more than a steady grip on the wheel, but requires drivers to regularly use their bright lights to tell other drivers to speed up and their horns to announce their presence as they speed into the oncoming traffic or try to push the swarms of scooter drivers, motorcyclists, or bicyclists out of their way. (During our security briefing at the U.S. Embassy, we learned how to survive as pedestrians: walk out into the traffic at a steady pace, keeping eye contact with the drivers while also looking in both directions (drivers often come in more than one direction even on one side of the street), and don't slow down or speed up as drivers are adept at swerving around you at the last minute so long as your path and speed are predictable. I say a little prayer of thanksgiving each time I make it across even the narrowest of streets.) I was also amazed at the power and telephone lines along the sides of the street. Unlike the relatively ordered set of lines in the States, here in Hanoi power lines resemble tangled spider webs. Finally, the cargo in the baskets behind the moto-bikes was an impressive sight: drivers carried not only other passengers (including babies propped up on the steering column) but also bundles of beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables, meats, pipes, and in one particularly interesting basket, 7 baby pigs. Needless to say, I was totally entertained.
The hotel where we are staying during this month of orientation is absolutely lovely and the staff has been so welcoming. The owner, Ginger, is actually a former Fulbrighter who met her husband over here.
Each morning around 7:45 we catch taxis to our orientation and training at the U.S. Embassy. Typically we spend 3 1/2 to 4 hours each morning doing language training while the afternoons are devoted to ELT (English Language Teaching) training. I am extremely impressed by how organized everything is in terms of our training, and while I leave the Embassy around 5pm each day completely exhausted, I feel as though I have learned so much already.
Vietnamese is an extremely difficult language, involving a lot more of one's mouth and throat than are active in speaking English. The language is tonal in nature, which means that the inflection in your voice as you say a word or sound is critical and can completely change the meaning of a word. Needless to say, we are all struggling, but I am now able to say simple phrases and I am beginning to understand a bit about basic sentence construction. Ultimately, the Fulbright program hopes that we can come away from our training with a "survival level" knowledge of Vietnamese since our jobs will be to help train students and faculty in English rather than to learn a new language ourselves. It has been fun to say "hello," "thank you," "goodbye," and "how are you?" in Vietnamese to the hotel and Embassy staff and I am excited to learn more throughout the rest of the month. We have a test on what we have learned so far on Monday, however, which has us all a little nervous.
While I am certainly enjoying living in Hanoi and getting to know my 9 wonderful, funny, and supportive fellow Fulbrighters, it will be nice to move into a more long-term living situation where I can cook for myself and move our of my suitcase. So far we have had to be careful (and thus boring) with our food choices because it is unsafe to each any fruits or raw vegetables off the streets. We'll be able to eat fruits once we are in our own small flats and we can soak them in a diluted chlorine bleach solution. All of our vegetables will have to be washed, soaked, and cooked in water that has been pre-boiled to ensure that it is safe to drink and use. Therefore our diets this week have largely consisted of noodles, rice, and chicken, although a few of us tried a series of lightly cooked vegetables the other night (and our stomachs are still upset with us.) Tonight, however, we all walked around the corner to a street restaurant and sat in small plastic chairs reminiscent of picnics and tea parties of my youth and ordered a series of fried vegetables, some cooked beef, and steamed and fried rice which was all absolutely delicious. I can't wait to get creative as I settle in and my stomach acclimates itself to the environment.
I am off to bed now, but I hope to write more soon. We are all going to buy cell phones tomorrow and will perhaps take a day trip to a beautiful perfume pagoda on Sunday. I hope that all is well with you and that you will shoot me a line or two of email to let me know how things are.
Until next time, stay well.
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