Is Typhooning a Word?

Every so often a typhoon hits off the coast of Southeast Asia.  In this case it's Typhoon Ketsana, which hit the Philippines first and was described there as a "once in a lifetime" storm.  So far we are experiencing rain and extreme winds.  The typhoon managed to knock out the power in the middle of class today and uproot a 70ft tree on campus.  It has been blowing down tree limbs all day, I personally saw one nearly hit a student today.  I don't feel as if I am in any real danger though, and all the Vietnamese seem to accept this as a fact of life.  There is something that is of constant annoyance.  They don't seem to believe in door knobs and latches here, and the front door to the building flies open and slams shut constantly.  Their door locks consist of two metal loops and a pad lock.  I live in a four-story building with a front door that doesn't shut.  Something we have to look forward to is that we have only a month left before the dry season, nothing is flooding in Dalat, and I don't live on the coast, so I guess I shouldn't complain about the rain, for now.
       

Do We Have Liter a Cola?

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father and World Class Drinker

There is a place not too far from where I live that serves a liter of home-brewed beer for roughly 56 cents a liter. For those not familiar with what a liter of beer looks like, I would describe it as a large mug fit for a German, perfectly poured so as to exhibit a nice head. I must say that in this case I am enjoying the metric system, and in fact that they have totally bypassed the European pint as my favorite receptacle for draughts. Way to go Vietnam, you may not have mastered the whole sewer system thing, but you have this off of your list.
         Let me set the scene. There is a Vietnamese family sitting behind us, with two children who won't stop staring and smiling at Bria and I. Then there's the table of drunk Vietnamese guys to our right seemingly arguing about something, talking and arguing sound similar in Vietnamese, and then we have the waitresses who speak no English and most of the time don't even give us a menu because they think the only thing we order is the liter of beer. The toilets are filthy and in the woman's bathroom, so I'm told you have to straddle a washer-machine to use the toilet. It's alright though, because we still love this place.

Why Don't You Call Me When You Have No Class?

I've taught Vietnamese students for about two weeks now. I have only had two classes each week, both sophomores and both "Speaking 3." My initial observations are that everyone speaks very softly, my classes are filled with girls, I can't say any of their names, and that everyone, boy or girl, giggles whenever I say anything about myself.


Some Favorite Rodney Dangerfield Quotes:

I tell you, my wife and I, we don't think alike. I mean, she donates money to the homeless, and I donate money to the topless.

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet.

I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.

I could tell that my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

A girl phoned me the other day and said ... Come on over, there's nobody home. I went over. Nobody was home.

Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? Oh, it looks good on you though.

Can I get Four Whole Fried Chickens? And a Coke?

On any average Vietnam weeknight you will find most of the college students out walking the streets in packs, seemingly going nowhere. Everyone else you will find huddled around a television somewhere, watching cable no less. I have cable television, and I find myself tonight watching The Blues Brothers, a classic. My favorite part may be when Ray Charles nearly shoots the little kid for stealing. For the record there is a Blues bar here in Dalat, the V-Cafe. They serve American food and get American musicians to play there.  The house band is the Curtis King Band, and coincidently Curtis is now the owner.  They're fun and the music swings, so what more could I ask for.   The Blues scene may not be nearly as good as the scene was in Krakow, and it's not the Turning Point, but it's my little corner for the Blues.

Turning Japanese?

For the first two weeks the only people living in my building were myself, Bria, and two older Korean men.  Now there are students on the upper floors, a Taiwanese teacher, and a Japanese teacher, Keiko.  Since we are all roughly the same age, we have been hanging out and working through our language differences.  The other night Keiko treated us to dinner at what I believe is the only Japanese restaurant in Dalat.  Yes, it was weird going out for Asian food other than Vietnamese, but the restaurant is excellent.  It's called Restaurant Ichi and its owner Tomohiro Suzuki is actually from Japan by way of Brooklyn.  He speaks good English and seemed so genuinely thrilled to have Americans and Japanese customers that he gave us a 20% discount on our bill.  The food was actually a lot better than the western food which we've been eating once a week.  The only drawback is that they have no Sushi or Sashimi, but as Bria asked me "would you really want to eat raw fish in Vietnam?"  I suppose not.

Keiko and the Taiwanese girl, whom I'll call Lee because I am unsure of how to actually say her name have been more than tolerant of our American customs.  I think they're somewhat curious and probably find us a little weird.  The first night Keiko was hanging out with Bria and I, we watched Step Brothers, probably not the movie we should have introduced ourselves with. 

Central Market (Night) The Meat on a Stick Edition

"Meat on a stick," these are words to live by, enjoy, and indulge in. Bria thinks I might be a little crazy and will most likely get sick at some point, but she has never tried the meat on a stick and does not know the simple joys of its heavenly design.

Now the night market is similar to the day market except there is no produce, or live animals to buy.  It's mostly clothes, and little stands selling fruit and processed foods for cooking, stands selling crawlers, doughnuts, and French pastries.  For me there are the little women selling the grilled wares of various meats skewered upon wooden sticks, mystery meat, chicken feet, the organs of a chicken or duck, and probably some animal that I might not normally eat.

Funny Thing About the Rain

“THROUGH the shine, through the rain/ We have shared the day’s load;/ To the old march again/ We have tramped the long road;/ We have laughed, we have cried,” -Edwin Arlington Robinson, Twilight Song.

It's rainy season here in Dalat and the funny thing about the rain is that it rains every day. Every morning I wake up to the heavenly view of clear blue skies and gentle white clouds, but every afternoon the clouds turn dark and fill the sky with rain. There is a certain peace in this knowledge. The sun will rise tomorrow. It will be beautiful in the morning. It will take its afternoon siesta. It'll revisit the day. It will fall for the night, and the night will be clear. It's a rhythm kind of thing, I suppose.

Snakes on a Plane, but no Samuel L. Jackson's

There's a dead snake in the courtyard of where I live. For those that might not be aware of this, snakes are easily my worst phobia. It's nothing special. It's shriveled and only about a foot and a half long. I hope in a country filled with Asian cobras, that it's just a common grass snake. This did however make me Google search Snakes/Vietnam and what I found is that people are actually trying to sneak snakes into the country, via airplane and lots of them. Most are destined for the kitchen, apparently there is just never enough snake to go around the dinner table.

Central Market (Day) The Fish Frog Edition

The central market here in Dalat is a mixture of early 19th century grocery/hardware store and far east bazaar. It smells. I'd like to lie and tell you different, tell how I've immersed myself in the culture, but it still smells to me. What is kind of cool is that you can buy every sort of fresh local food imaginable there. Besides the produce which is everywhere, there are large metal basins in which fish splash about as alive as ever. Disturbing to me, but still interesting in its own way, are the bins with the eels in them. They slither and slime each other in these basins reminding me of disgusting and terrifying spaghetti. Bria is working on some way of getting them to dump a bucket of these on top of me. Awesome. I don't like her. So if you want fresh fish, eel, crab, frog, or even rat (yes, enormous ones), come on down to the central market because they'll be there tomorrow. I may not.