Hello from Vietnam again

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Hi All,

How's things? Hope you are all fine and/or dandy.

Yes I'm in Vietnam again, but I'm here for the next 4 months. Just to set some expectations, I'll say from the outset that as much as I'd like to be contributing something every week from Vietnam that will be guaranteed to be witty and amusing, chances are it will not pan out that way. The reality is travelling for business and travelling for pleasure are two different propositions and sometimes your days are not that different to what they would have been in Australia:

'So what did you get up to man?'
'Oh I watched tv.'
'No way! Really? So did I!'
'Yeah, it was cool wasn't it?'
'Yeah man, the thing I like about tv is, you know, you just sit there and do nothing but watch tv.'
'Yeah that's why I like it too.'
'Yeah totally.'
'Yeah....'
'So what do you wanna do now?'
'I dunno, wanna watch tv?'
'Great idea man.'
*Lazy hi-five*

But anyway, what I will try and do (because it is as much for me as it is for you, probably more so 😊 ), is to provide a little vignette each week to try and capture a moment that kind of stuck in my mind (which you would hopefully find interesting). So here goes:

I wanna be like common people,
I wanna do whatever common people do....
Pulp - Common People



The past week at work I've essentially been hanging out with the local staff and they've all been really helpful and accommodating to make me feel welcome. Although I think they're mildly bemused when I ask them to take me to their local hawker store to eat on the street or something. I get the impression it's one of those things that can be avoided if you can, not in a bad way, but more it's just not that interesting and there's better food to try probably. I love the local street food here, but I get the feeling the equivalent would be like if Vietnamese people came over to Australia wanting to eat sandwiches.

Local: So, what kind of food do you like to eat? Do you eat Australian/Western food?
Vietnamese expat: Oh I LOVE Australian food. My favourite is sandwiches. Take me out for sandwiches. Where is the best place to get a sandwich around here?

Local: Uh, there are a few places I suppose.
Foreigner: I also love those deep fried chiko rolls and those dimsims made by westerners.
Local: Oh right, sure I know a great place for that (omg what a freak. Why would you travel all the way here just to eat that cr*p??).

I may have to move up in the world and eat at fancier places with them, but we'll see how we go....

So it's been a week in Vietnam and I feel like I've kind of settled in already, that is, as much as one can without understanding what the locals say.

To help fit in more I started taking vietnamese lessons so I understand more about what's going on. I had my first lesson on the weekend and it's tricky. I still find it hard to pick the minor variations between the tones. Learning the alphabet for the first time is hard. It's like, uh, learning the alphabet for the first time, only this time without big bird and elmo by your side:

Me (looking at an e): 'eeeeyyyyrrrr?'

Chuong (in Vietnamese): Good (I don't actually know what the word 'good' is in vietnamese, really he could be bored and feeling abstract and saying 'trees' or something to placate me)

Me (looking at an e with a ^): 'eeeeyyyyrrrrrrrrrr?'

Chuong: mm, trees.

Me: (e with a ~): 'eeeeeeeyyyyyyyrrrrr?'

Chuong: No, this one 'eeeyyyyyyrrrrr'.

Me: yeah, uh huh, I can totally hear where I went wrong with that one.

But I'll persist 😊

Ok, That's enough for one week, otherwise I'll run out of things to tell you and will have to resort to commentary about cable tv or something. Oh TV, I could never get angry with you....

Til next time,
Ben

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