Hanoi Bites Back: Mosquitoes 50, O. Zero

The other day I locked myself out of the house. Not too big a problem since Peter and I are usually just a phone call away from each other. Not so this day; he was committed to his schedule for the next few hours. I had no choice but to wait. Well, I suppose I could have gone to a neighborhood restaurant to wait but I was loaded down with groceries and dry cleaning and the thought of trudging back out of our alley with this load did not seem like a good option at the time.

Oh, I was so wrong.

It was probably about 90 degrees and humidity around 85%. There was an occasional squall and I could tell a few mosquitoes were about. I was hot, very sweaty and a bit embarrassed as various neighbors kept walking past me with quizzical looks. Although communication is non-existent, one woman, who lives a few doors down from us, motioned to me to come into her house to wait ( at least I think that's what she was gesturing). A sweet offer for sure, however, she lives in an windowless one room with three young children. I decided to stay outside and hope for an occasional breeze.

By the time Peter was able to get home, I was so not a happy camper. I was even unhappier once I realized that many mosquitoes had enjoyed my legs for dinner.

Both legs look like this front and back.

The first evening was sheer torture; the bites were inflamed and a bit infected making my legs feel as if they were on fire. The only thing I had on hand was Tiger Balm ( that didn't work), then I remembered my Mom using toothpaste on us as kids ( that didn't work either). I finally got up at 2:30 in the morning, sat on the edge of the tub and let cool water run over my legs; that helped for a few seconds. I finally succumbed and scratched the hell out of my legs making them bleed and just feel more itchy.

The next day when Peter heard my sad tale of the previous night, he made me a martini and shared his hydro-cortisone creme with me. Much better now.

O.

My Teacher, My Granddad.

One of the sweet things about our students is that they tend to translate Vietnamese locutions literally into English. So when they send me emails, they often use the salutation, "Dear my teacher." Very endearing. A few weeks ago, there was a new student in one of my corporate classes and she were asking me some questions about myself. One of the other students undertook to inform her about me: "My teacher likes bun cha. My teacher has lived here for nine months." And so forth. She listed all the things I had told them about myself months earlier. I was stunned that she remembered all that, and touched.

One of the first schools I worked for here is the Apple Learning Centre, run by a young woman named Nguyen Ngu. Ngu is very hard-working and dedicated. I was the first foreign teacher they hired and was invited to their opening ceremony. I have since taught several corporate classes for her as the school has expanded into more lucrative contracts. Most recently I helped her land a contract with the state railway construction agency to help their design engineers learn technical English. We have established a good relationship, and she loves to call me granddad. She just sent me an email that she signed off, "See you, my Granddad."

It made me happy.

P.

Hanoi Style. Cool is Cool.

When it's hot here, here's what's cool.

All the men, young and old, walk around with their T-shirts
hiked up to their nipples. It's a look that O. has forbidden me
to emulate. And one I hope never catches on stateside.

P.

Random Snaps. "$#*! Hanoi Does.

Moving day. Click to check out his "intel inside" T-shirt.

Everything gets recycled here.

And everything is always under construction.

Rebar is transported by a guy on a motorbike using one foot
to push another guy steering one of these carts.

Trash pick-up at the mouth of our alley.

Full up.

Using an old balance scale.

Washing trotters and guts for market.

Our local butcher shop. Trotters and bellies and ears, oh, my.

You know the eggs are fresh when the hen's sitting right there.

We have Pottery Barn, they have Pottery Baskets.

When the days get hot, you can see the whole family sipping tea
and fanning themselves on the sidewalk outside their shop.

Two things you very rarely see:

People with tattoos.

And panhandlers.

Another way to beat the heat--the on-line game parlor.
They are everywhere, and always packed with teenage boys.

A pure WTF.

Dozens of stores all over Hanoi have identical stacks
of these goofy, colorful reindeer. They have been there
since we came. No sign that any have ever sold.
I'm sure they're connected to Pleasant Goat in some
twisted way. I only know that their innocent, imbecilic
faces will haunt my dreams for years to come.

P.

Stick Out Your Can, Here Comes the Charcoal Man.

Almost no one here has a kitchen as we know them. One reason is that almost no one has air conditioning, so cooking inside is not possible for most of the year. Too bloody hot. So everyone cooks on the street or in the alley in front of their house. We have a newfangled propane stove in our kitchen, but most people cook outside on a rudimentary charcoal stove (another reason why the air is so bad here).

Here's the basic set-up.
(1) Can for charcoal canisters. (2) Said charcoal canisters.
Just that simple.

All the restaurants use them to boil water or simmer the broth for pho.

Shopkeepers usually have one out front for tea.

This is the outdoor kitchen for a house three doors
down from us. The woman cooks for her whole family
on this. She's usually cooking all day long.

And naturally, the residue gets tossed wherever.

Of course, someone has to supply the charcoal,
so the charcoal men push their heavily-laden bikes
up and down the alleys all day long,
singing their enticing charcoal songs.

P.

Pineapple of My Eye.

Well, the weather was pretty good for a while. Sure, there were hot and humid days, but mostly it's been warm and soft, but not drippy. Until last week. Temperatures in the early hundreds and humid to the point that two steps out of the front door and your clothes are wringing wet. Summer's here, and believe me, no one's dancing in the streets.

The fritter vendor on the corner now sells fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice instead. And the chilled pineapple has become our god.

Oh, we tried the tiny pineapples they sell here a few times over the nine months we've lived here, but they are sour. You have to sprinkle them with sugar to eat them. So we mostly didn't.

But hot weather does have a few (very few) benefits. Suddenly the pineapples are incredibly sweet and tasty. Best pineapples ever, I swear. We can't get enough of them.

And the mobile pineapple vendors are always there to supply our addiction.

They prepare them for you on the spot. With a very
sharp knife, they skin the fruit, then with a few deft flicks
of the wrist make spiral cuts to remove the eyes.
In 30 seconds or less you have a delicious
chunk of fruit ready to eat.
We are so going to miss this when we go home.

P.

Coke Yeah!

Pride goeth before a fall. So I got into a cab today and said "Noke Ha," sure that I knew what I was saying, and the cabbie turned around and gave me that blank look that means my pronunciation still sucks. "Noke Ha?" I repeated slightly more tentatively. "Noke Haaaa!" he yelled chidingly. "Noke Haaaa!" (pronounced like Coke Yeah, the "a" is drawn out and the tone descends). It also helps if you open your mouth as wide as possible when you say it. Sigh. A work in progress.

P.

In the Morning, No Bombs.

I'm very proud of myself. I've apparently learned to pronounce the name of one of the main streets near us correctly. Saying "Ngoc Ha" is tricky. First we said "Nyahck Ha,' but after a while, we learned that "Knock Ha" was closer, so we've been saying that and it seemed to work. A few days ago, however, a cab driver took pity on me and explained that it's "Noke (like Coke) Ha."

So today I said "Noke Ha," and the cabbie turn to me and said, "Noke Ha. Very good Vietnamese. Very good." Then he asked where I was from, and when I told him he said, "Oh, America," then "Over there," pointing toward the dike road along the Red River, "over there many bombs. Many many bombs." I agreed. Many bombs. "Only in the evening," he assured me, "and over night. In the morning no bombs."

"Only at night?" I asked. "Yes. The avions come at night. In the morning safe." I asked him if he had been here during the bombing, and he said he had. I asked how old he was at that time, but I couldn't express the question in a way he could understand.

After a moment, he continued. "Then, American number 10 (as in very bad). Now Bill Clinton we like. Barack Obama we like. Bill Clinton good person. Bill Clinton bitte schoen. Bill Clinton merci."

And having reached the limits of our mutual language skills, we rode in silence until we got to Noke Ha. We said our goodbyes then and shook hands with a smile.

P.

Blowing This Pop Stand.

Yesterday, we made reservations for our return. We will be back in LA on July 10. It's been a little hairy getting to this point. Apparently, Vietnam is making it much harder to get visa extensions. Ours expired on May 7, and the school we work for had quite a difficult time getting us an extension to June 7. There was a lot of additional paperwork, including an 11 pm motorbike trip by our incredibly helpful landlady to the local police station to get a suddenly-required certificate. So we're taking a chance that we can actually get another extension until July 7, when we're due to leave Hanoi.

Everyone says we can get another month, and we know that if worse comes to worst, the usual fallback is to fly to Laos for the day, get a tourist visa there, then fly back. Everyone does this, but it's an expensive option that we hope to avoid.

We also got a scare when we called Continental to change our reservation. The agent told me (quite snippily) that there was no availability in July. After going round and round with her, I finally hung up in disgust, I called their international desk and got a far more helpful person. She worked for about half an hour and finally found us a flight back: Hanoi-Bangkok-Sydney-LA. No thanks.

But better than not going home at all, right? But just as I was about to capitulate, we were disconnected. I called back, got another helpful soul who found us a better flight: Hanoi-Seoul-Vancouver-LA. Still kind of ugly, so we decided to take it in stages. We have a friend in Seoul who went through the EFL training with us, so we will visit with him for two days, then fly on to Vancouver, spend a day there, then fly to LAX.

So that's it. In two months we'll be home. And the adventure will continue.

P.

Gimme a Pigfoot.

One of the most delicious, over-the-top, artery-clogging meals I ever had was at a little bistro in Champagne that was a favorite of the vineyard workers. It involved a pigfoot stuffed with foie gras, wrapped in thick slices of house-smoked bacon, then roasted to a perfect crispy goodness. It was comfort food of the highest order: incredibly tasty, but ridiculously rich. I could only eat about half of it, but the other patrons who had ordered it, including several svelte young women, were able to down the whole thing, then go on to the cheese course and dessert.

O., on the other hand, likes her pigfoot pickled. It's a fragrant, gelatinous memory of her childhood. Comfort food of the nostalgic sort.

Here's what isn't comfort food: Vietnamese pig's feet. The trotters are available at all the alleyway pork stands (of which there are dozens). They are charred on the outside and smell like burned hair. We've seen them for months, but only recently saw how they're prepared. Very simple: they are wrapped in newspaper, then set afire. This burns off the bristles and impregnates the meat with the toxic chemicals from the ink. The trotter is then ready for the soup pot. Not a high yum factor as far as I'm concerned. This is not a recipe we will be bringing home with us.

P.

Snow White and the Seven Schoolchildren.

Competition for students among schools is intense here, especially at the primary level. There are dozens of such schools in our local area. One of the ways they compete is to paint colorful cartoon murals on the walls of the school to attract the children and their mothers. Of course, copyright laws are not an issue, so Disney characters are very popular.

This mural is one of the better done ones, from a school in our maze of alleys.

The school itself.

A little further down the alley, its archrival proudly sports its own designs.

If I were choosing a school for my children, I'd go with
the pig and elephant boys.
How about you?

P.

I've Got a Frog in My...Bathroom?

Today, as she was preparing to water a plant in our bathroom, O. was startled by a frog leaping in terror out of the flower pot. O. also leaped in terror and let out a yelp that caused me to leap. I was finally able to corner the slippery little devil and carry him out to our fishpond, where he swam about for a few seconds, then leaped into a nearby tree, where he sat looking at us in froggy reproof.

P.

May Day! May Day!

May Day is, of course, the main commie holiday. It's a big one here, especially since it's the day after Liberation/Reunification Day.

There are Party posters everywhere.

Many people take advantage of the four-day weekend to go back
to their home village, so even in the tourist areas many shops are closed
and the streets are practically deserted.

Those who stay in town get some much needed relaxation.
(These people can sleep anywhere.)

Or they head to the ice cream parlor. (Kem means ice cream,
a corruption of the French creme.) Of course, you throw your trash
on the sidewalk. After all, someone's there to sweep it up,
and they need the job. (To each according to his needs.)

P.

The Rockets' Red Glare.

We went out with our friends Justin and Jyoti to a great little Moroccan restaurant last night, and just as we were finishing our dessert, there was a series of loud explosions. We all jumped up and looked out and saw the beginning of a huge fireworks show.

Earlier, we had noticed that there were more of the paddleboat swans out on the lake than we'd ever seen at one time. Must have been waiting for the show. The fireworks went on for almost half an hour. Then the streets filled with families on motorbikes. The traffic was intense, people were squeezing through even the tiniest opening, driving on the sidewalk, getting through any way they could.

We fled on foot back to J&J's place, which was within (long) walking distance. An hour later, when we left for home, the traffic had thinned, and we were able to make our way to Doi Can without any congestion.

And that was the end of the celebration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the end of the American War.

It was odd to be here today. Our students were a little hesitant to tell us what the holiday was about at first, but it led to some good discussions. They said (perhaps thinking to soothe our feelings) that it wasn't an important holiday to them, though it was a big deal for their parents' generation.

My generation, too.

P.