em la sinh vien

I feel like my language skills are exactly one country behind where I actually am.

This past summer in Viet Nam, I felt I was trying to speak French everywhere -- and I actually did in a lot of places, including Bangkok.

But here? Instead of Czech, I've been using my very, very, very limited knowledge of Vietnamese to communicate with the local shopkeepers instead of Czech or English (...or French or Chinese). The reason? All the little shop owners down my street are Vietnamese, with stores selling bags, food, water, fruit, alcohol, etc. It's definitely not what I expected, but it's something weirdly comforting and familiar to have around.

The owner of the store down the street definitely recognized me today from the one time I popped in to look at bags and ended up just getting chocoalte (Milka strawberry joghurt). After a few conversational nothings -- including a mix-up where I thought they were asking me if I was a student, but I was actually replying "Yes, I'm an American student" to them telling me that I was very pretty -- I ended up deciding that the 300 crown bag I liked was "dat qua" ("too expensive"). Looking back, that was like $15 or so, so I'm going to go back to the store on Monday and just get it.

Then just now, on our way back from the gym (my first time at the Flora fitness one, and it felt so good to be on an elliptical again!), we popped into a little store to get a bottle of water and a Diet Coke for Amanda, only to find a friendly store owner who asked if I was Chinese, Vietnamese, or American and then tried to make conversation with me in both Vietnamese and Czech.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much I was able to communicate to him, but just I was stepping out, I hear him go, "Em oi!" (which essentially is the phrase you use to get the attention of someone younger than you). I turn around, and he comes over and gives me and Amanda each a free apple.

Vietnamese: 1, Czech: 0.

i can feel my tan fading away

I'M BACK IN THE STATES.

Times I've had to catch myself from saying "oh my god" or "thank you" or "excuse me, miss" in Vietnamese: 4.

First words uttered upon landing in LAX: "I'm cold."

Earlier today, I was also craving a sua chua (translation: yogurt drink) while at Target and had to settle for a Yoplait Light yogurt drink instead. I think it was strawberry flavored or something. It was not the same.

Speaking of food, here's a list of the insane amount of food I ate on my last day in Hanoi: Hello Panda, European chocolates, a baguette with jam for breakfast, a yogurt drink with shot of expresso, bun cha for lunch (translation: pork meat in a bowl of nuc mam sauce served with cold rice noodles and vegetables), hua gua dam (translation: mixed fruits -- lychee, avocado, watermelon, jack fruit, dragon fruit, etc. -- with condensed milk in a cup that you add ice to), a baguette with pate for dinner, and bubble tea.

The Vietnamese roommates surprised me with how sentimental they all were, but I've since decided that the world needs more sappiness. Everyone had little bookies that they had people sign (like yearbooks!), so I quickly grabbed a notebook I used to use for Vietnamese class back in June and had people sign that. Iris, Trung, and Sam all gave me cards; VT told me to never feel alone, gave me a little fat cat for good luck, and came to the airport with us to say good-bye; Hoang held my hand as we walked back from bubble tea, sang "She Will Be Loved" with me around the lake -- changing the lyrics every now and then to, "And you will be loved" -- and blew kisses at me through the bus window as we were heading to the airport; Thu, my roommate, cried when I said good-bye; and so did Ha, Johnny's roommate, who came with us to the airport too and chased after Johnny for one last hug as we headed towards customs. The roommates all talked about working hard to be successful so that they can come to America and reunite with us one day, but it's sad to think about how long that might take in reality. (It's also weird to think that if/when they do come to the States, their children will be... me, the first generation Asian-American. And in many ways, I do feel like spending this past summer in Asia has helped me understand my parents a lots more and how they grew up.)

The flight back home was quite an ordeal. I was majorly confused by the service from Hanoi to Incheon, which was both lax and annoyingly persistant. My check-in bags were 22.5 and 26 kg, but the lady didn't say anything to me, despite the 23 kg weight limit. Asiana air service is cool, right? Wrong. The flight attendants during the actual flight kept waking me up for food (at midnight?!? I don't even remember what I ate; I think it was beef and rice or something like that), wine (both white and red, the lady made sure I knew), coffee, and to tell me to put my seat up (or rather, I got woken up by her putting my seat up suddenly). Basically that mean that by the time we got to Incheon airport in Korea, we were all deliriously, hilariously exhausted. I passed out for about 2 minutes of bliss on the padded seats in a waiting area (seats without arm rests are a traveler's best friend), but then got hustled along by the others in search of an information desk. We had a 13-hour layover in Korea, so we were determined to go into the city, even though Alex pointed out that we'd probably either get raped or robbed in our state of exhaustion/sleepiness/incoherence. We ended up getting tickets for a 5-hour long city tour of Seoul (it's an hour bus ride from the airport to the city) that included seeing the palace, a museum (that even had a section on food in our exhibit on Korean life -- that's Asia for you; we take our food seriously), a tourist shopping street (I got a handmade necklace there for 6000 wong), and lunch (bibimbap for me, which came in a clay pot).

Honestly, I have no clear recollection of the flight from Seoul to LA. I slept for about 10 of the 11 hours, waking up only for food (I had some beef and rice dish again that you wrapped in lettuce and then kim chi with rice) and then for about 30 minutes of "What Happened in Vegas" right before we landed. Overall, I was pretty impressed by the Korean facilities. The Incheon airport is really nice -- incredibly clean and orderly with lots of things to do in the airport -- and the plane itself was pretty comfortable, with little side thingies on your headrest (that let you rest your head on the side so that you wouldn't get those awful neck cramps), good food, and individual TV screens that let you select which movies you wanted to play when.

American airlines seriously need to take some tips from Asian ones because flying domestic on Northwest after flying international on Asiana was 1) a total, unorganized mess (I didn't even get to say good-bye in person to Johnny, Rosie, and Caroline because the whole, confusing ordeal at baggage claim got me separated from them all!) and 2) not at all as comfortable. I was stuck sitting bitchseat in the middle of a 3-person row and I'm pretty sure I tried to put my head on the shoulder of the girl sitting next to me, thinking in my dreamy, sleepy state that she was Yushen. Awkward.

Things I've had to readjust to upon returning to America:
- how wonderfully clean and modern the bathrooms are
- how intense the water pressure in my bathroom is
- how large and thick toilet paper, kleenex, towels, etc. are
- how heavy metal utensils are
- how quiet the traffic is
- how inefficient NOT jaywalking is
- how large supermarkets are
- how refreshingly not invasive salespeople are
- how clean everything everywhere is
- how conversational strangers are
- how quickly everyone speaks English
- how many chocolate products there are
- how many cars there are
- how orderly traffic is
- how large personal space bubbles are
- how big and tall everyone is
- how few Asians there are in my town
- no longer having wet towelettes at every meal
- dry heat
- my cell phone's ring tone

You'll probably notice that the first few things on the above list were all bathroom-related. Let's just say I'm probably still psychologically recovering from our trip into the Central Region. (There were toilets in pure darkness, toilets that were just holes, toilets that were just holes and needed to be manually flush, toilets that were just holes on moving trains, toilets that weren't even holes in the ground but were actually changing rooms, meaning that you'd have to pee on the floor [...I didn't actually use those...], you get the idea.)

In other news, jet lag is a bitch. I woke up at around 6:45 am today, saw the school bus go by my window, wondered why summer school was going so late, and then realized first that it was still only Tuesday in this time zone and second that schools here have already started. Insanity. I spent my first day back home running errands and also picked up both a new, unlined, 240-page Moleskin journal (to replace my old journal that's now completely filled, thanks to this summer) and the Quick & Easy Vietnamese Home Cooking for Everyone cookbook, which -- after flipping through the pictures and the index -- I've decided has all my favorite dishes, except for hua gua dam.

My goal for this summer is officially to successfully make nem (translation: spring rolls). Asia Mart, here I come.

young and wild and free

Holy shit, I'm 20.

it's my last day as a teenager

I love being a summer baby. But it kind of sucks that I rarely ever get a chance to celebrate my birthday with my college friends, since we're always out of school come August 7th.

This summer, therefore, is pretty special. Not only am I turning 20 (CUE FREAK OUT!!!), but it's my first birthday away from home in a really long time. Not going to lie, whenever I imagined what it'd be like to turn 20, I never pictured myself in Viet Nam.

Anyway, last night the VTV 6 director wanted to take us out to karaoke, so all of us and the Vietnamese roommates loaded into three cabs and went over to the Old Quarter for some good old-fashioned bonding over bad singing/screaming. When I walked through the door though, I heard somebody shout, "SURPRISE!" and then realized that the music the people in the room were singing along to wasn't some Vietnamese pop song I'd never heard before but actually this really upbeat "Happy Birthday to you" song that I've heard about three times already at Solace (and once at the Loo, but who's counting). In the middle of the room were three cakes for me and Caroline (her birthday was this past Monday, but she was in Bavi teaching English then, so we hadn't had a chance to celebrate it yet): one with the traditional "Happy birthday, Caroline and Lucie!"; one with a little Vietnamese smiley face wearing a conical rice hat; and this beauty:

Translation: "Very beautiful, how much?"

LOVES IT. It was all so unexpected that I had even left my camera in my room, not wanting to have to carry a purse around all night. I'm a fool. But a fool with cake.

viva brasil

Last Friday I experienced Brazil in Hanoi.

Although tickets sold out within the first two hours and were only available on the black market after that, somehow Dave got 2 tickets to the “friendly” football (soccer) game between the Brazil Olympic team and Viet Nam.

What a great way to kick off August (no pun intended).

The game didn’t start until 8 pm, but by 4:30 Dave and I were already on our way to the Sheraton hotel. He works out at the gym there and therefore had gotten word that the Brazilian team was staying there during their time in Hanoi. We hung around the lobby with maybe 15 other fans and saw the team come out and get onto their bus to go to the stadium.

Outside the conference room, we also ran into a crazy girl fan from Singapore who had actually snuck out of the country by telling her parents she was doing something for school and spent $600 to come to Hanoi and see the team. But she didn’t even have tickets to the game!

The team’s bus had backed up traffic on the street to a level of madness that I’d never seen before, so Dave and I barely had time to grab some pho bo (noodle soup with beef) on the street before it was time to get a cab to the stadium.

When we arrived, the roads were already completely filled by Vietnamese in red and white jerseys. Dave had changed into a Viet Nam jersey as well (he was wearing a Brazil one when we had been at the Sheraton earlier), so I was pretty outnumbered.

We got a lot of stares, probably also because I’m pretty sure most people think I’m Vietnamese here. (Possible explanation: our tour guide from the Central Region trip told me that I apparently look like some famous Vietnamese model/actress/singer.)

A little friendly rivalry.

Our seats were in the front row of the upper level – not too shabby for having paid less than $20 for them. I was the only girl in our row, and the Vietnamese team had an absolutely insane home court advantage, which is ironic since the Vietnamese also normally love Brazil, but I suppose national pride takes priority in this case.

All that was wasted, though, because Brazil ended up winning 2-0!

After the game, Dave and I had to walk for about an hour down the road to find a taxi that would take us back to his house for less than 200,000 dong (the cost was only 100,000 dong to get to the stadium, but since so many people needed cabs, the prices jacked up, of course – that’s Asia for you). By the time we got a cab, I had about six missed calls on my cell phone from people wanting to know how the game was live and where the hell we were.

First things first, though: we had to get Dave’s motorbike. Let me take this moment to talk about how fucking amazing riding a motorbike at night is.

For starters, riding around during the day is definitely still fun, but traffic can tend to get a bit insane, especially during the 5-6 pm time slot (aka the universal rush hour time). Hanoi as a city, though, shuts down rather early. Most people are home by 9 pm, almost all young women have the traditional 10 pm curfew, and all bars save maybe one or two that pay off the police are closed by midnight at the latest. So after 10 pm, you can be pretty much guaranteed that the streets are going to be more or less empty.

Could the conditions be any more perfect for completely gunning it down the highway?

Imagine: you’re on the back of a motorbike hitting maximum speed, the wind is singing around you, through you, tugging at the jersey you're wearing that's about two sizes too big, and whooshing by you is the city, the lake, the sky, the stars.

And you’re flying. There’s no other way to describe it.

Zooming around on a motorbike after hours is probably my favorite memory of the city. I actually feel myself regress to about age five, as I yell for Dave to go faster, faster, faster down the road, as we rip around the traffic circles, my feet almost brushing against the gravel as we turn.

As we leave Dave’s house, he tells me that we’re going to take a different route this time, and all of a sudden I’m overlooking the lake, the city sparkling in the distance. The street, which the locals call Lover’s Lane or Korea Street, is famous as a place where couples rendezvous for late night activities of the scandalous nature, and both the road and the sidewalks are covered with graffiti of the cutest variety from couples leaving their names and/or a message to their significant others.

After that detour (totally worth it), we finally met up with some of our friends at Nutz, a club inside the Sheraton, which was actually just about to close, so we all go up into the lobby area and hang around the conference room where the Brazil team is talking to the press, we hear.

We catch the team as they’re leaving and end up having about an hour long conversation with the Vietnamese team's coach in French, Portuguese, and English. He’s really nice and invited us all to his house in Portugal if we’re ever, you know, in town.

Oh. And:

RONALDINHO SIGNED MY JERSEY.

Just Ronaldinho signing my jersey and touching my waist.

No big deal.

The night ended with a stop at Solace for dancing and me getting shown “how they dance in Brazil” by a guy from Sao Paulo. Apparently, it involves a lot of twirling.

I got back to my room at around 4 am and found my roommate still awake, with a surprise for me on the table:

August is my birthday month.

have no fear, the camera's here

Filming on Wednesday for VTV6's "All Connect" went pretty smoothly, taking only a little over 2 hours. Television is television, so if any of us got really flustered or stuck on a question, all we had to do was pause, recollect ourselves, and start over, thanks to the beauty of editing.

Team G-Unit: me, Dave, and Zeo (from left to right).

Our opposing team, G-Not: Christopher (who actually always dresses like that), Bibi, and Phil.

As for tonight: I'm going to the Brazil v. Viet Nam football game!

that's culturally insensitive

Shopping for gangsta clothing in Viet Nam is quite the trip. Not only is "hip hop" synonymous to "skater" here, but b-girls (the closest thing I've found so far to the image I was going for in my mind) generally either dress 1) exactly like boys, 2) super clubby (which I cannot appear on national television wearing), 3) super cutesy, 4) like Avril Lavigne, or 5) like a warped version of Euro gone 80's. Furthermore, the concept of baggy does not seem to exist for the majority of men.

Needless to say, my 3-hour long search to find something that'd make me look like I could bust a cap in your ass was a total failure.

But I did learn one great lesson: apparently, illegal parking in Viet Nam does exist. Who knew?

Dave and I sure didn't.

We were just coming back from wandering the Old Quarter (after purchasing a fabulous red doo-rag for him), when we realized that his motorbike was no longer where we had parked it. We walked down the street, thinking that maybe somebody had moved it, but soon came back to ask a shopkeeper if he had seen what had happened to the motorbike. The man spoke no English, and, after we had mimed "motorbike" to him, only said, "Police!" a bunch of times. We didn't know if he was trying to tell us to report the missing motorbike to the police or that the police had taken it.

We decided to walk down an adjacent street when we saw it: Dave's motorbike, parked in front of a yellow building. We figured we'd found the police station.

There was one desk inside with two men in green uniforms who, true to our luck, did not know any English except to say, "You sit. You wait." We didn't know what we were waiting for and our efforts to ask "Who?" and "Why?" were futile, so we got some water and then hung around as the two police officers laughed with each other, speaking rapid Vietnamese and grinning at us.

About five minutes later, a big van pulls up and about 5 more policemen came inside. They asked a few questions to the two sitting policemen and, after hearing whatever the answer was, started laughing and talking to themselves. Dave and I decided at this point that they had to be messing with us because they looked too happy not to be. The policemen all started asking us, "Where you from?" and, after hearing we were from America, one of them showed us a tattoo he had on his chest of the Statue of Liberty.

Then, all of a sudden, one of the policemen turned serious, said something in Vietnamese really quickly, reached over to Dave, lifted up his shirt, and then lifted up his pants, which had been sagging (though he was wearing a belt).

"Vietnam. Up! Good," he said, as he gave us the thumbs up sign and indicated that Dave should tighten his belt.

I can only imagine what they would have said to us if Dave had been wearing his doo-rag.

too much silence can be misleading

I'm back in good ol' Hanoi, in the polluted air, constantly honking traffic, and my old room at the guesthouse where the water pressure never really makes it to the top floor, where there is no elevator (or shower curtain, for that matter), where the only two breakfast options are bread or pho, and honestly it feels great.

Not that I didn't have a complete and absolute blast on the tour of Central Viet Nam that we took this past week. Because I absolutely did, even though I've never been so scarred by bathrooms in my life (you are my hero, inventor of Purell) and I don't think I've woken up before 7 am for that many days in a row since... high school. During the week, we trekked through the mountains and rice paddies; got caught in the rain; slept in a communal house in a village for one night (and got woken up at about 5 am by roosters); saw the My Son temples; and rented cyclos in Hue (not just to ride, but also to drive and race around the city in oncoming traffic -- with a quick stop to get sugar cane juice, freshly squeezed, of course). I also got 2 dresses and a complete suit fitted and made for me in Hoi An (known as the tailoring capital of the nation); almost hit a motorbike while riding a bike at night in Hoi An (which really is quite pathetic because traffic there is absolutely tame in comparison to traffic in Hanoi); got my fortune told (twice); took about 500 pictures; and spent what feels like a lifetime's worth of time on a bus, bumping along from Hue to Hoi An to Da Nang to Kon Tum.

(And I don't even want to think about how many grammatical errors, run-on sentences, and comma splices just happened in that above paragraph.)

But of all the family-style dinners we had (and we had them every night), the one that stands out in my mind does so because of a reason more somber than our divide-and-conquer eating style or our ongoing game of anywhere-anytime charades.

To be brief (because I hate writing about things I wish had never happened): we were just finishing up our dinner at Banana Leaves in Hoi An, when Professor Harms stood up to say that he had just received a phone call telling us that one of our program coordinators, Hiliary, had been killed in a car accident in Portland, Oregon.

I remember thinking as he was talking that he must be joking. But then Alex just looked at me and said, "Why would he joke about this?" And it really sunk in.

I'll never forget the looks on everyone's faces, the silence that followed, the untouched fruit that came to the table, Jack Johnson's "No Other Way" playing in the background.

Thanks, Hiliary, for sharing with us your love for Viet Nam, for making Hanoi feel a little more like home, and for always being a smiling face.

my life as a sitcom

I cannot believe this conversation just happened:

Her: i need to chug my coffee before i go to lab

Me: i need to chug a coffee before i go to the club

Her: this is such a bad idea

Me: this is such a bad idea
Her: i love how we think the same

In my defense, we're in different time zones.

sprichst du englisch

I need to stop speaking English loudly in quiet places, assuming that people won't understand what I'm saying.

Yesterday, Phil, Thu, and I went to dinner next door at Kaiser Kaffee, when a group of about five 30 and 40-something year old Vietnamese men came in and sat down at the table across from us, all of them in white button-down dress shirts ("white collar" is apparently taken quite literally here). They ordered a minikeg of imported German beer, hot dogs, and cigarettes for their table. I commented to Phil about how I loved Asian bossmen getting drunk after work.

I noticed a few of them staring over at our table several times -- and you could definitely tell that they were talking about us -- when, just as we had our plates cleared, the waitress came over with three empty beer glasses and told us that the Asian bossmen wanted to invite us to join them. The men immediately came over to fill up our mugs with beer, cheers were said all around, and introductions were made. Turns out, not only were they all fluent in English, but two of them were actually working in London, and all of them were CEOs or some sort of managing director at major finance/investment banking firms. It also turns out that they were celebrating a birthday, which is why more and more Asian bossmen kept coming in the door to join the party. More cheers were said, extra food was ordered for our end of the table (though none of us ate any since we had just finished dinner), business cards and cell phone numbers were exchanged, and the Asian bossmen ended up paying for our meal as well.

Who needs college networking workshops when there are German-themed cafes next door?

we're either brilliant or really stupid

Clubbing on a Tuesday night?
Why not?

After our weekend escapades, Yushen mentioned that he wanted to go out again this week before we left for our tour of the Central Region and that sounded like a fine plan to me. The thing about Hanoi though is that you never really can make definite plans for a certain day or night because circumstances arise that are just beyond your control. I feel like my motto in Vietnam has pretty much become, "Just go with it." That or, "It could be worse."

I mean, being flexible builds character, right?

So our plan for last night was to meet at 7 pm to get dinner at Ngon (the Vietnamese word for "delicious") and then find a bar or club to go to from there.

Well, turns out, the DukeEngage group had already eaten at Ngon twice before (Dave had suggested it and I just hadn't recognize the name when he said it, though I had actually really liked the place when I went before and, you know, didn't have an order miscommunication), and the guys (yes, I was the only girl of all 6 of us DukeEngage girls that went) didn't want to eat there again, so we headed off in the direction of a dirty kitchen joint, only to find it closed. Next stop? Doner kebob (please note, "Doner" not "Donner"), literally a guy with a cart in an alleyway who carves off meat roasting on a spit and puts it in a baguette for you with sauce, chili, onions, and lettuce for only 15,000 dong (which is a little less than $1).

Before we could make our way over to the lake, though, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. And rain. A Vietnamese guy came over selling rain ponchos (talk about targeting your audience, but we didn't get any), and then it rained some more. By the time we got in a cab, several streets were flooded and we had gotten substantially wet.

So we went to the Dragon Fly bar.

Unfortunately for the bar owner and us, the roof had collapsed, causing the hookah room upstairs to be closed that night. But no matter, drinks were going 25,000 dong each (less than $2), and there was a pool table and a foozeball table, where Johnny, Phil, and I dominated for two games, and then got our asses kicked by one of the bartenders who knows too much foozeball strategy for his own good.

The rain finally had slowed down to a light drizzle by around 10 pm, so we walked back to the guesthouse. By that time, only four of us were still down for going out, so Dave and I rode his bike (with rain ponchos on!), while Yushen and Eliza took a cab.

We were almost at Solace when Dave and I realized that his back tire had gone flat. Luckily for us, motorbike culture in Hanoi is huge and there are motorbike taxis on every street corner with drivers who carry around bags of tools to fix motorbikes, pump tires, etc. We got help from a shirtless motorbike taxi man who had been huddled around a fire (which, in retrospect, makes no sense because 1) it's raining and 2) it's still really hot outside even at night). I'm still adjusting to how cheap labor is around here.

When we got to Solace, we found that, apart from some security guys playing pool and two Americans who insisted on showing Eliza and me pictures of them skateboarding, we were the only ones there.

And sadly the DJ was nowhere to be found about 98% of the night. A few Vietnamese trickled in -- including a group of men who were definitely high on something other than life -- along with a handful of foreigners, but we didn't recognize any more than probably 6 of the songs played and the rest were all generic hip hop/R&B songs that had been altered and messed with.

My night was made, though, by a little Vietnamese man who was an extremely exuberant dancer and who had a penchant for getting low.

That, and Eliza's "skeet skeet skeet" dance move.

where my party people at

So I'm basically stalking a DJ in Hanoi.

Let's just say that it's a small, small world, and even smaller when you're hanging out with expats in the city. The night before last, I went with two of the Vietnamese guy roommates to a bar called the Funky Buddha to meet up with some Vietnamese students (who all study abroad in the US or UK) that one of my good Vietnamese friends knows. Introductions and a Long Island iced tea later, and I learn that 1) a girl at the table named Hillary will be moving to my state starting next year to go to the same college that my ex from high school (along with a lot of other kids from my high school) went to (Small World Moment #1) and 2) one of the guys at the table was the very same guy who was wearing a "Blow job is better than no job" T-shirt on my 6:45 am flight from Bangkok to Hanoi (Small World Moment #2). Three Princeton kids and Dave (from Duke) come to the bar later, and we all head out to go to the Loo, a club near West Lake. Dave has an extra helmet, so I get to ride sidesaddle on his motorbike (I was wearing a miniskirt) as we zoom through Hanoi at night (easily the best way to see the city).

This is probably a good place for me to stop and give a quick course in Clubbing in Vietnam 101: the clubs pretty much look just like any Western club on the inside. There's usually a bar, tables around the dancefloor, etc. You don't have to pay cover to get in, but I guess it's kind of understood that you'll get a drink and most people get a table immediately upon arriving. The "good" music is pretty much straight up American hip hop, but some places also play techno, and the Loo played this "Happy Birthday" song randomly that's super poppy that I've heard around Hanoi (other songs played that are probably less often heard in American clubs also included: "Stop and Stare," "We Will Rock You," "The Reason," "She Will Be Loved," and more). The dancing is where Vietnamese club life differs from that in America. Grinding doesn't happen, and generally guys and girls dance near each other, but not together.

Anyway, the Loo has the reputation of being the best club in Hanoi, or so we've heard. It was shut down before by the government when it was named the Toilet (rumor is that this was because of "scandalous dancing"), but it just reopened under the name the Loo, and it was definitely a ton of fun. Although it's a lot smaller than I imagined, the music was great, even though Dave and I were the only ones who knew the Soulja Boy dance (and totally did it at the front of the dance floor when the song came on). 3 more kids from my program came, and we danced and screamed along to the songs until the place closed (oh yeah, another thing about clubs in Hanoi, they all generally close really early, like 12:30 at the latest, except for a few; and apparently there's the risk of the police showing up every once and a while to make sure they're closed on time, etc.). The owner of the Loo ended up treating us all to free tequila shots, which came in giant syringes. Totally gives new meaning to shots. He broke open the Chivas as well, and we ended up hanging out with them for about an hour after the place had officially closed.

Flash forward to last night, and Dave, me, and a couple kids from my program decided to check out the Green Mango bar after hanging out at the night market in the Old Quarter. Turns out, we got to Green Mango just at end of a Sex and the City showing, but we hung around for a little bit anyway. We noticed in front of us a group of girls surrounding this guy who had taken his shirt off and was wearing a black bow tie. Johnny and I made a deal that if the other guy he was with took off his shirt as well that we'd go and take a picture with them too.

He did. We got a picture.

Turns out the Black Bow Tie Guy was called Canadian Steve, a Canadian guy (obviously) who's here doing NGO work and who was actually auctioned off last night (I think he had to make out with whoever bought him).

We headed out, and the others went back to the guesthouse while Dave and I walked over to get his motorbike, and he mentioned Funky Buddha having a party last night as well so we went over to say hi to his friends real quick (Canadian Steve too had mentioned going to the Funky Buddha that night). When we got there though, the place seemed closed, so Dave took me to Solace, which is this really fun bar/club on the river. We got drinks, ran into a couple people from Dave's office, danced for a bit, etc. The place had a ton of young European and American expats, it seemed.

Dave and I were actually on our way out, when we run into his friend Laura outside. Laura lived two years in Bangkok, where I just was last weekend (Small World Moment #3) and next to her is Hillary from the Funky Buddha (Small World Moment #4). They were both also with a girl named Ellen who goes to college in New York and who Dave had met at a fashion show like 2 years ago (Honorary Small World Moment). She's dating the guy who's going to be reopening the Lighthouse bar, which I think got shut down by the government before too. It's kind of crazy how these places just close and then reopen constantly. Anyway, they convince us to go back and dance some more (I figured I'm already out past the 11 pm lock-up time for the guesthouse, so I'll have to wake up the guard guy anyway to get him to open the door for me), and on our way back in, we get stopped by none other than Canadian Steve (Small World Moment #5). We get inside and find Laura, Hillary, and everyone dancing with the owner of the Loo (Small World Moment #6), who (since I didn't describe him earlier) is this little Vietnamese guy with a shaved head and a tat on his lower neck. It was really fun, until all of a sudden the electricity cuts out the place goes totally black.

I figure that's my cue to head back to the guesthouse because I'm already starting to guilt trip about waking up the guard multiple times two nights in a row without advance notice, when I look over at the DJ booth and instantly recognize the (very cute) DJ from the Loo the night before last (Small World Moment #7).

I've decided that he's my lucky charm for a fun night out.

going to san francisco with flowers in my hair

Shopping in southeast Asia is singlehandedly turning me into a flower child.

maybe that's why korean movies are so big here

"The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy."

- Yves Saint Laurent

In a conversation with some of the Vietnamese roommates a few days ago, we asked the boys to pick between dating an intelligent but ugly girl or a beautiful but stupid one. One of the Vietnamese guys responded very frankly, "The intelligent one."

"Why?" we asked.

"Because the intelligent girl can get plastic surgery. The stupid but beautiful girl can't do anything to make herself intelligent."

"But what if the intelligent girl doesn't want plastic surgery?"

"Then she's not actually intelligent."

The other day, my friend Yi linked me an article from the New York Times titled "Sans Makeup, S'il Vous Plaît," which praises the French, natural approach to make-up. It criticizes the overdone look that Americans tend to prefer, covering their faces with foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, lipliner, blush, bronzer, and more. Not one little detail on the all-American face is overlooked and the result is something not so much beautiful as fake and plastic.

Without going into the cliche rant about accepting and embracing your body's flaws and faults, the article does make a good point about different standards of beauty and how make-up trends are reflective of them. The American obsession with self-perfecting starts at an early age, with glittery, sugary lipgloss substitutes becoming popular even before kindergarten (hi, Bonne Bell), Bath & Body Works dominating (and suffocating) the junior high girls' locker rooms, and fake and bake tans becoming the must-have pre-Spring Break accessory (because nobody wants to be the one pale person on the beach in Cancun, obvi).

From living and working in Hanoi, I've noticed that the Asian approach to make-up here is a strange blend of American and French, almost an "all or nothing" type policy. Although my workplace dress code is "business casual" (which is also possibly the vaguest term ever invented), women here don't normally wear make-up in the office. Most women rarely wear make-up in daily life either, which makes sense since 1) make-up is still a luxury good and 2) it's so hot that any make-up worn during the day would probably be sweated or melted off the face by noon. The nighttime club scene is more half-and-half split between the natural and the made up, but the general trend I've noticed seems to be that when make-up is worn, a lot is put on.

In a country obsessed with beauty pageants, the attention Americans heap on make-up products is instead shifted onto skin products in Asia. Case in point: it took me about 20 minutes at Intimex (the local, international superstore) to find the one brand of body lotion that did not contain skin-whitening product. While I spent the daytime hours of Spring Break 2008 laying out on the beach, the Asian female population here hides under umbrellas during the daytime, covers their faces with masks to hide from the sunlight (and all the air pollution), and lathers on the sunblock. The same story is true in China, where essentially tan skin implies that you work outside, which implies that you're doing manual labor, which implies that you're part of the working class.

At any rate, there have been so many studies done that show that more attractive individuals get better jobs, higher pay, and better treatment in society in general, that it's hard to write off beauty trends as just a stupid superficiality, although plastic surgery, as our Vietnamese friend mentioned, might be a bit extreme.

all for one

I mentioned yesterday at work that my wallet got stolen, and since then the editor of the publishing house and the head of the English department that I work in have basically mobilized forces and gone to town with finding a solution. They called the bus station, filled out a report to give to the police station, researched banks to see where I could get money wired, bought me a calling card so that I can call my parents back home, actually took me to a bank to make sure everything would work smoothly, and Joe bought cookies. I wish now that I hadn't wasted all of Sunday not doing anything because 1) I didn't know what I should be doing, 2) I figured it was a hopeless cause, and 3) Erik (the director) didn't really do anything either.

My coworkers are amazing.

bad things always happen to me in waves

My wallet got stolen this morning during the bus ride to Just Massage. Everything is gone, even including my mailbox key, and I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do.

Today has not been my day.

beauty queen of only eighteen

[Photo credit: VN Express]

RECOGNIZE ANYONE IN THE BACKGROUND?

Probably not because it's blurred out. But that's Ha (Johnny's Vietnamese roommate), Phil, Bibi, and me.

Yesterday our group went to the Temple of Literature and, turns out, it was the same day that the Miss Universe contestants and Miss Universe 2007 were visiting the Temple as well. Ha recognized their bus as they pulled up (he's obsessed with the pageant), and him and Christopher start running after the girls, snapping photos. Christopher doesn't even like to walk!

Anyway, the contest this year is being held in Viet Nam in July, and they've been showing the preliminary rounds on TV (I learned on the busride back that apparently Miss Venezuela recently won the ao dai competition). Ha, Bibi, and I got to take a photo with Miss USA!

Or rather, Ha got to take a photo with Miss USA and Bibi and I just jumped into it last minute, so I'm still laughing in the picture.

The girls were all really pretty (though they were also all wearing layers upon layers of make-up), very poised, and insanely tall in their sky-high heels. Basically, I would like to look like them when I grow up, please.

pass the fish oil pills

A line from the book I'm currently editing:

"In 137 BC, Trieu Da fell seriously ill and then died at the age of 110, after a 60-year reign."

...110 YEARS OLD?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

someone needs an english phrase book

Every day when I go to work, the same (or I assume it's the same) middle-aged motorbike taxi driver always says to me:

"Hi! I love you!"

I'm fairly certain that this is the only English he knows.

It's weird being here for about two weeks and still feeling like I'm a fish in a bowl. I'm starting to recognize faces and places on the street, but everything from my mannerisms to my hair to my height screams that I don't belong. The attention ranges from overly tiring when it comes from rows of pestering vendors and motorbike and cyclo drivers endlessly hassling you to buy, buy, buy, to hilarious when it comes from locals wanting pictures or Vietnamese men hitting on your guy friends.

At any rate, I'm excited to meet up tonight with a group of kids here from Princeton. It'll be us plus possibly a Yale girl who attended one of our lectures yesterday evening, and we're all going to a bar together. Though I've learned so much from the Vietnamese roommates, I miss meeting new people that I can instantly communicate with without having to explain every cultural reference I make. I don't think I fully realized how unique the Greek system is until I came here.

and then there was light

I HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM! I don't know how long this is going to last, so here are just a few photos of what I've been up to.

Last week, we went to the zoo, which was actually semi-depressing because the cages for the animals were so small and all the creatures seemed underfed. But among all that, we also found these fantastic contraptions:

Essentially, human-sized hamster wheels. On water.

Yushen, Rosie, and I got in the big one.
Most fun 25,000 dong I've ever spent.

Later that same day, the whole group of us (all the Duke kids plus our Vietnamese roommates and minus Christopher) went to West Lake, where we rented swan-shaped boats.

It was a gorgeous day, but at night it started absolutely pouring.
I got completely drenched and was not dressed appropriately.

As for this past weekend, we (meaning all the Duke kids and our Vietnamese roommates) went on a 3-hour-long bus ride to Ha Long Bay, as I mentioned in my previous post.

Phil and me on the bus, ready to vacay.

Bibi and me on the roof of our boat, aka absolute bliss.

I'm scared my Internet is going to cut out if I try to upload more pictures, so I'm going to play it safe for now and call it an evening.