Christmas in July

Feliz navidad!

Friday was an uneventful day. Saturday kicked off with bánh mì, Vietnamese sandwiches, at the place that Trang recommended, and I have to say it was the best bánh mì I've ever had. I usually don't like them, and this one was delicious. Elliot and I went on the river tour on Saturday. Getting there was as much of a journey as the tour itself. Usually, whenever I show the taxi driver the tour office's business card, they take me almost there but then try to veer off in another direction and I have to demand that they stop and let me out. Then I walk a short way to where the office is actually located. This time, I went to the tour company's website to make sure I had the right address to show the taxi driver. This time, he veered off almost from the start. I knew we were headed in the right general direction, but instead of taking the highway he took small roads through town, almost exactly the path we would take if we were going back to Trang's parents' house. Since that house and the office are in the same district, I thought maybe he was just taking a different route. However, things started going south or, technically, west. He stopped to ask for directions. He took us into densely overgrown neighborhoods with roads that were half mud. We passed a sign for our tour company, pointing into an even narrower path. At this point, I figured we were probably close enough to our actual destination, and that we should just get out and walk the rest of the way. I figured we'd reached the place where past taxi drivers have tried to take me. We paid and got out and to be honest the taxi driver seemed relieved to get out of the boonies. We started walking. When the highway wasn't around the first bend, I wondered whether I'd jumped the gun on getting out. When the highway wasn't around the second or third or fourth bend, I started to get a little worried. How much farther would it be? We weren't lost in that there was only one way we could go, but I also realized that I had no idea where we were. The only thing for it was to keep walking. In the end it wasn't that far, maybe a 20-minute walk, but it was a long 20 minutes of me asking myself whether I would be responsible for getting Elliot lost in the delta. [Elliot, who was apparently under no stress at the time, says it was his favorite part of the day because he got to see things he wouldn't have otherwise seen -- mostly bridges and backyards.]

The weather was kind of gray for the river tour, but the hidden sun kept the temperature a little lower than usual. We started out at Phoenix Island, which is under renovation in preparation for the lunar new year. The nine dragon columns were undergoing a radical paint job.

Kicking off the trip with some coconut

Freshly painted column in the foreground, compare to
the one in the background

"1000-banana"

We visited the coconut candy factory, but it wasn't terribly exciting for either of us since we aren't big fans of processed coconut. Our next stop was an apiary that serves honey tea and fresh fruit. Elliot got to add dragonfruit to the list of new foods he's tried in Vietnam. We roamed through the orchards and I saw several milk apple trees laden with fruit, a fruit I have yet to try. When we got to the end of the path we reached a road where there was a horse-drawn cart waiting for us. If this was the same horse that has pulled the cart the last two times I made this trip, I can happily report that he is looking a lot less bony nowadays. The last leg of the trip was a sampan ride through a tributary, back to our big boat.

Molding semi-hardened candy into regular strips

My first time seeing a water coconut flower!

We decided to spend Christmas eve on one of the islands, rather than go back to the city. Over lunch we were visited by some colossal butterflies and black wasps with iridescent blue wings. Elliot tried yet another new fruit: a custard apple.

In the late afternoon we took a walk along the edge of the island, up against people's yards. We passed as many clucky chickens as yappy dogs. The Mekong comes in and out with the tide here, and at the time of our walk we were actually well below water level.

Roofing - a roof made from these lasts seven years

We enjoyed a prix fixe dinner with five courses, which started out with alarmingly small portions but added up to a satisfying meal by the end. It started off with corn with some sort of fishy addition, then a grilled shrimp paste on bamboo, then fried wontons, shrimp (and an herbal finger bowl for after), and rice served with a fish dish and grilled beef on a bed of watercress. We thought that would be it, but the meal was concluded with a pot of tea and perfectly ripe mango. With the weather and lack of most traditions, it didn't feel quite like Christmas eve, but it certainly felt special.

Despite the long day, persimmons (another new fruit for Elliot) and persistence kept us awake until midnight. We toasted in Christmas with some red Dalat wine.

This morning we came back to Ben Tre to get our things sorted out for our next island destination: Phú Quôc. We'll be getting there by bus and boat, and I expect more transportational adventures to pepper the journey. Unfortunately, I won't have my computer until I get back, so let me wish you an early happy new year.

Heading back to the mainland

Hello, hello

Thursday morning started with a semi-illicit trip to Trang's parents' house for bánh xèo. It seems that Trang has gotten tired of asking permission to do everything, and several higher-ups were in cahoots with this breach of protocol. Trang's husband came along to take Elliot on his motorcycle so that Elliot would not have to suffer the emasculation of sitting behind a woman. We arrived shortly before nine. By now the events feel routine, though no less enjoyable. We sat with Trang's dad for a while, chatting and drinking tea. He and his wife are the consummate team of hosts; he entertains in the front while she does all the cooking in the back.

Soon food was being brought out, and it was time to feast our senses. At first Elliot struggled with the requisite wrapping and rolling bánh xèo in lettuce and herbs, but everyone chipped in tips in between kind laughter, and he got the hang of it by the end. Trang's mom asked us how long we had been married. When we said we weren't, she emphatically asked us why not. Between courses we were serenaded by a husband-wife rendition of the Vietnamese translation of O Holy Night, which Trang's mom and dad had been rehearsing in preparation for our visit. The daughters joined in on the chorus. Next up were oranges, watermelon, and coconut juice. Elliot received a coffee because I had already told Trang about his dispreference for coconut and his affinity towards coffee. Nevertheless, Elliot was a good sport and tried some coconut juice, and to his surprise found that it was more tolerable -- perhaps even enjoyable -- than he previously thought. 

Singing over remnants of the meal

De rigueur group photo

As always, time to leave came all too soon, but we couldn't leave quite as soon as people wanted to. I went to my purse and discovered that the impish but adorable grandson had stowed some of his toys in there. After giving them back I went to put my shoes on. But I only had one shoe. My first thought went to the little grandson, but it was decided that it was the dogs' fault. It was funny at first, but when it began to look like I'd be leaving with borrowed shoes it got a little less cute. Luckily, Trang's mom found my shoe under some shrubbery right as I was resignedly mounting a motorbike to head back home. Hooray!

Where's my shoe?

In the afternoon we took the bus to the city center to do some eating and exploring. Elliot's appetite made it easy for us to try pretty much everything that needed trying while we were in that part of town. We kicked the eating tour off with bánh ướt at the place Trang took me on my first day in Ben Tre. Next Elliot tried a bánh mì, a traditional Vietnamese sandwich. Later he had a street snack of fried fish balls, fried quail eggs, and fried okra. He also enjoyed nước mía, sugarcane juice, when I gave up on the quest to find him peanut soymilk. In between all of this eating, we made a lap of the city center market, walked to the lake, went to the supermarket (which is more like a mall that contains a supermarket), and walked through several parks. We got the fried snacks outside of an elementary school that had just let out, and the swarms of children were just a few among the day's worth of people who chirped their hellos at Elliot everywhere we went. We sat to eat the snacks by the lake, and a family on a motorbike parked next to us so the father could chat with us in English. He asked me how many children I had and, when I said none, he informed me that next year I'd have one. It's not every day that you get married off and become a future parent by the words of strangers.

First stop: bánh ướt. Note the height of the table.

Fried goodies

Sugar cane juicer

Cutesy picture at the park

At the second park we waited for a while because we were going to meet Trang nearby for dinner. We watched people power walking laps at dusk, saw a little girl practicing tricks on her bike, and saw local couples canoodling in the shadows. Naturally, Elliot got another dose of hellos.

Second park

We passed through the night market on the way to meet Trang for bò lá lốt. When she arrived I discovered that when we go there we also eat nem nướng and bò đun. Bò lá lốt is the grilled leaf-wrapped beef, nem nướng is kind of like grilled meatballs made of pork (but in the north it is grilled spring rolls), and bò đun is grilled beef wrapped around a small piece of fat for added moisture. As I've mentioned before, you eat them by wrapping them in rice paper, accompanied by herbs, fruits (starfruit, cucumber, green banana, pineapple) and vermicelli. By the end of the meal, Elliot was a pro at wrapping his food.

Look at that tidy roll!

Several dried fish salesmen usually roam this area, and when we finished our main course Trang decided that we should try some. I've had it before (actually also on my first day in Ben Tre) and it's never my favorite but it's not bad and it's definitely worth trying. It's kind of like strongly fishy jerky with a spicy tamarind sauce. Though other kinds of fish and squid are sold, I learned last night that the one we have is made of (sting?) ray. We spent over an hour enjoying the meal and each other's company. I think it is good for Trang's English when I am around another native speaker. The mixed company keeps me from slowing down my English too much, and brings to mind idioms and turns of phrase that I wouldn't normally think of when I'm not around a native speaker.

To see a hilariously unexpected e-gift I received from a co-worker today, click here.

One of the boys

Tuesday morning started with a repeat of Wednesday night. Elliot liked the pho so much he wanted to have it again for breakfast, this time with sliced beef instead of meatballs. He concluded that he prefers the beef, but I'm still a bigger fan of meatball pho. Next, we paid a visit to Anh Thu, aka pajama mamma. On the way we bought some rambutan, as much to have something to share with her while we talked as to give Elliot the opportunity to try something new. In addition to our rambutan, she gifted us with two pineapples. It seems she has expanded her sales to pajamas and fruit, I suspect because her new husband (she got married on 11/11/11) is a fruit grower. I tried to ask if that was the case, and I think she confirmed my analysis. Elliot got to observe our halting dialogue, her patience, and my struggles. But also our friendship. On the way back we stopped for bánh bao chiên and bánh tiếu, two of my favorite snacks.

My original plan was for us to go to the city center in the afternoon, but we were invited to have a 'meal' at 330. (I put meal in quotation marks because I'm not quite sure what category a meal at that time fits into.) We got picked up and it was time for Elliot's first ride on a motorbike. He described it as rather hair-raising. I was just entertained to see him completely obscuring the driver in front of him. Trang kept saying he looked like an Indian dancer, though I'm not really sure what she meant by that. I saw four people on one bicycle, which seems like an even greater feat than four on a motorbike.

One of these things is not like the others...
Motorbikes seem perfectly reasonably sized until there's an Elliot sitting on one

When we arrived I discovered that our meal would take place at the fresh beer place. I am certain that Elliot was taken there because he is a man, and consequently needs to experience local drinking culture. To his surprise, the fresh beer (it must be consumed within 24 hours) was pretty tasty. I shocked everyone by saying that I think it is better than Heineken, which is considered the paragon of beers here. As I told Elliot, this meal would certainly fill him up. Courses included: green mango salad, fried rice, rice from the bottom of the pan (a crunchy dish that used to be for the poor and is now a specialty), make-it-yourself spring rolls with fish, and lastly blood clam rice porridge.

At this point Elliot has experienced rice in many of its forms: 'normal', crushed or broken, fried, bún noodles, pho noodles, pan-scrapings, paper, porridge, and perhaps a few others. During the meal there was a sudden rush of water from across the open-air restaurant. At first I thought someone was just hosing things down, but a clang and a crash revealed that a fish tank had failed. One lethargic fish lay unmoving on the pavement.

In the evening Elliot was the main attraction at the teachers' English club.

The meeting was cut short, though, so that we could attend the annual coconut fashion show. Whatever I was expecting, the students' creations were beyond anything I could have imagined. Four departments participated, and while some produced the more expected woven palm frond garments or grassy skirts, some went so far as to make aó dài with coconut husks, cocktail dresses, and menswear. It was quite impressive.

They even made that hat!

A lotus blossom

A lotus pod

My favorite

Elliot, though also impressed, seemed somewhat more entranced by a chalkboard outside covered in physics calculations.

Wednesday was a teaching day. In the afternoon I taught the first class of the new semester: Spotlight on the USA. I kicked things off with an idea I came up with when I was preparing evaluations at the end of last semester: Happy Teacher, Happy Student. I told the students what kind of classroom behavior makes me a happy teacher, and asked them to tell me what I can and should do to make them happy students. I will make a poster of this and put it up for every class. Then, I taught the students about American names and asked them to choose one for themselves. Now I have a class full of Kellys (4), Violets (3), and several Kaylas and Julias.

After that it was time for our guest speaker, Elliot. I encouraged them to ask him questions related to their readings about American holidays, sports, culture, leisure activities, and so on. I played illustrator and, occasionally, interpreter. Inspired by the earlier part of the lesson, my students bestowed Elliot with a Vietnamese name: Nam Tuấn Hải (something like Man Handsome Sea -- it's not really supposed to make sense).

When you kick the football through the goalposts, onto the American flag,
you score three points.

Elliot is taller than all but one of the students standing on the step behind him.

I had mentioned to Trang that Elliot was interested in trying hột vịt lộn, fertilized duck egg, and she came through with a surprise for both of us. It turns out that a woman next to her house prepares them in some unusual ways. We had breaded and deep fried eggs, as well as hard boiled ones in a peanut and tamarind sauce. Who knew there were so many different ways to make hột vịt lộn? Both were delicious, but we all agreed that the fried ones were the best.

Saucy

Fried

Inside the fried egg

English club turnout was pretty low, partly because some students have exams coming up and partly because there wasn't one last week, and people weren't sure whether there would be one this week. For a moment I was tempted to send people home, but then I remembered what a great opportunity this was for the few who had showed up. We sat in a circle, five students, me, Elliot, and the English teacher, so it was a great student-teacher ratio. We just chatted for a while. Topics that came up included how we differentiate between Indians from India and Indians/Native Americans, and what kind of accent a Vietnamese English student should aspire to have. Eventually I steered the conversation towards Christmas and after a while I got up to show some of a powerpoint I had prepared. We wrapped things up by singing a few Christmas carols.

Mr. Hoang, the teacher who attended the club, and Mr. Vu Hung invited us out for some drinks. Mostly, they wanted to shoot the breeze with Elliot, and I was an accessory. It was interesting for me because it is the kind of activity I, as a woman, would never be invited to; it was an insight into male social culture. Naturally, we also needed to eat. Beer snacks were raw peanuts, grilled chicken, cút lộn (fertilized quail egg), and grilled quail. I convinced Elliot to eat the quail head, but I don't think I managed to convince him that it was tasty. They want to hang out again, and plans are underway for a snake lunch on Friday. Here's hoping they follow through with those plans.

Leetle birdie

Over drinks, Mr. Hoang told me that he had learned something from me, and asked whether I knew what it was. I was expecting that he learned something about Christmas or American culture, but what he said was much more moving. He told me that if he had been in my shoes, he wouldn't have held English club for so few students, but he admired that I had. Most people would think that such a low turnout wouldn't make it worthwhile to have a lesson, but I had showed him a new way to look at it.

The big E

 Elliot is tall. At over six feet, he towers over the people of a country that make me feel tall. This world is too small for him. Street food stools are so low his knees are almost up to his shoulders. Market awnings caress the top of his head. His legs couldn't be crammed into the space between his seat and the seat in front of him on the bus from HCMC to Ben Tre. But he is surviving.

With a group of students doing a scavenger hunt
"Take a photo with three foreigners"

Elliot arrived Sunday right around noon. Our quest for food took us to pizza: good for me, perhaps not the best introductory dish for him. We roamed the city for a while, walking through the French area, through downtown, and along the river. The shopping malls have expansive and elaborate Christmas decorations outside, irresistible photo-ops for every Vietnamese person within 50km (especially for families of Santa-clad kiddos). Walking through that felt worse than walking through traffic, and we quickly learned that anything that looked like a good opening was probably the space between photographer and photograph-ee. I did a better job leading Elliot to a proper Vietnamese dinner, and he enjoyed bánh bào and broken rice with pork and chicken. 

 

Waiting at the airport

Today we managed to get in a good number of sights before heading to Ben Tre. I took him to a market a few blocks away and we had a breakfast of bún thịt nướng (grilled pork and vermicelli) and nem nướng (spring rolls). It was tasty, but not enough, so Elliot supplemented this with a glorified rice cracker as we continued to wander. We decided to go through an alley, for the sake of seeing something different, and as it twisted and turned we wondered whether we were just losing ourselves in a neighborhood or whether we would find a way out. Luckily, a woman smoking a cigarette (very unusual here) wordlessly pointed us in the right direction. Perhaps she assumed that the only reason westerners might be in her neck of the woods would be if they were lost. We walked through a few parks before it was time to go.  

Breakfast, part 1

Breakfast, part 2

At the park

The bus ride to Ben Tre flew by for me. Elliot's company meant I couldn't fall asleep like I usually do, but it also meant that I had company. Back on campus I observed Trang's translation class, which I will start teaching this semester, and took Elliot on a quick tour of our tiny campus. 

Backyard river

We had plans to eat pho with Trang for dinner, but then she told us that we had been invited to a teacher's retirement party, but then she told us nevermind, that it would be better if the three of us had pho together. I gave Trang her Christmas present, which Elliot brought for me: "In a Pickle", a book about English idioms that I read in my childhood. As you may have gathered from past blog posts, Trang often asks me about idioms, their meanings, and their origins, so it seemed like the perfect gift. Trang was very happy with it. Elliot loved the pho, proclaiming it his favorite Vietnamese food thus far, and the three of us had a great time. We spent a good deal of time explaining cereal to Trang, who found the whole idea and the variety both perplexing and fascinating.  

This five-legged cricket landed on me right before dinner, perhaps to show
Elliot just how cuddly bugs are with me in Vietnam.