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Published: July 25th 2005
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i'm in vietnam at our cousin's house...le vin dung. mom's sister, mai's son. mai passed away 10 yrs ago. mai's husband is in LA. her other 2 boys are in LA. + 2 girls also in LA. youngest son in new zealand. dung is the only one remaining in vietnam. he is 45. his wife cuc is 47 (she's beautiful and reminds me of mom when she was that age). they have 2 kids nguyen (17 boy) + uyen (16 girl- she's so tall she can be a model for sure, just needs a talent agent nearby to discover her). cuc has her sister here, and her brother's daughter (18 girl) staying for tet (vietnamese new years). ofcourse i'm brutalizing all the names. come one...nguyen + uyen...that one's killing me! so fun to practice though and see them smiling back at me when i totally mispronounce it.
i arrived today at 2p (3 hours plane delays) and there was dung (pronounced ohng(?) holding a sign, "thuy merrigan." phew. (oh, "twee" is the phonetic spelling of thuy, my vietnamese name. thanh thuy merrigan.) i must admit i was relieved to see that sign among the hundreds of vietnamese waiting outside. i had already started to execute my backup plan: exchange dollars for vietnamese dong to make a phone call and hope that cousin dung speaks english to come find me there. no worries. he was there and we got in a very new SUV and he and his son, nguyen spoke some pretty good english as they drove me to their beautiful home only 20 mins away.
their home: everything is granite here. i thought it was marble but they said in the south granite quarries. in the north, marble quarries. he's got 29 or 39 different colors that he proudly displays in some form or another throughout his home. he bought his business in 1993 after learning the business from his brother in law. dung owns a granite company employing 80 people. their house is very nice. 4BR with high ceilings, large rooms, ceiling fans, 2 floors, a terrace in the front + roof garden in the back (the back is huge enough for 6 yoga mats, so you know i'll be out there practicing in the hot open early morning air tomorrow). granite everywhere: floors, countertops, tables, bathroom. it's very cool to walk on (if you're not wearing slippers), very inviting + complementing to the heat of saigon. everything is open air. love it. fans on. iron gate outside. the shower is like those in india. no separate shower stall....all one room - the toilet + shower. everything gets soaked. i can only giggle at that concept. i have a feeling that their house it not depictive of the "normal" standards. i'm thinking i'm spoiled here for sure. well i can tell that mom was spoiled here when she is now staying at uncle vinh's and she said when i get there that we are moving into a hotel. her neice's hotel (uncle vinh's daughter)....she said "too many mosquito's." so i think she was spoiled here in saigon for sure.
so i'm sleepless in saigon. 11.53pm. we are exactly 12 hours ahead of EST. so my body is thinking 10.48am. i had a 30 min meditation on the plane from taipei taiwan to saigon. how could i not get a meditation in while sitting on a plane for a total of 23 hours. no excuses. when i moved away from meditation the vietnamese lady from mobile, alabama sitting next to me asked in her broken english "what are you doing with your eyes closed all that time?" i replied, trying to quiet the mind and return back to peace, to God. she shrugged her shoulders and seemed to easily accept that answer with no surprise. nice!
airplane yoga today. try balancing in vrksasana (tree) and uttitha hasta padangustasana (balancing hand to foot) near the emergency exit where everyone else is waiting in line for the bathroom. i joined the lady that was doing some kind of tai ch'i calesthenics combination. ofcourse you get the stares from the other passengers who might join in by rolling their ankles or maybe are enjoying the forward bend even though your are facing away from the wall. best time to practice pratyahara. going inward and withdrawing from your outer senses. or just turn your back on them. so, all i could think about is sting's foreword in david + sharon's jivamukti book, when he was balancing in sirsasana (headstand) on his private jet. i was tempted for sure.) ofcourse i thought to myself...do not do anything stupid like losing your balance and opening up the emergency door miles in the air! easy on the balancing. use the wall for downdog + twists + forearm stand (i mean forearms on the wall and bending over at the waist). i did do some restorative yoga on my cousin's bed...he happened to have a "bolster pillow" that i used before falling into a much neede 4 hour nap. i then awoke to a vietnamese style ramen noodle soup dinner with pressed pork sausage + (another traditional dish) a slice of sticky rice roll with bean + pork wrapped in banana leaf (prepared by boiling for 10 hours) with sides of pickeled baby cucumber + onions. (oh, did you know that pho soup is their traditional breakfast? i ate that in chinatown for lunch and dinner...but now i'm switching to breakfast....looking forward to that tomorrow ;-)
tomorrow i plan on taking a day trip to the cu chi tunnels (sp?) nearby via motorbike transportation. although it's tet (vietnamese new year where everyone turns a year older as they consider this the time...not their actual birthday) and all the stores are closed and EVERYONE is off of work for one week. although my cousin dung is going into his factory from 12-6 to check in tomorrow. i said, "but you're on holiday." to which he replied with shrugged shoulders and a proud smile, "but i'm the boss." i'll meet up with them all again for dinner. i might stay one more day and take a boat trip through the mekong delta. i definitely want to do a drive by our old house in saigon (sold by mom to aunt chi and then sold to a chinese couple). i wonder if the chain link that i fell off of as a child, why people let me use it as a swing without scolding me, to then result in a huge huge bump on the back of my skull and probably being the first childhood memory (they ARE usually traumatic right?). and maybe i can go to a small house that we still own somewhere here. but dad says it's.near a cemetery and the bathroom is shared with 3-4 other families. so much for the vacation house in vietnam fantasy.
i plan on meeting up with mom in a few days in nha trang after i visit da lat (an easy $40 1 hr flight over from saigon) and then to nha trang. white sandy beaches. we have pictures at home of my siblings + i topless toddlers on the beach with cliffs + palm trees in the background. i'll be sitting still for a while for sure. no surf though; up further in danang. i've talked to mom 2ce already. she seems like she's having fun but maybe a little tired. maybe she's not used to the jet lag + traveling around as a tourist so much. different world then sitting in her beauty parlor all day gabbing with the senior citizens + discussing if angelina jolie really broke up brad + jen. but maybe she's not tired at all, what i may be catching her peaceful pleasure after eating a huge bowl of pho!
with divine intervention i hope to not be on the computer so much during these travels (for those of you who know my crackberry habit combined with my aggravated vata....you now what i mean). a few stops at internet cafes along the trail from saigon (ho chi minh city) to hanoi (in the north). thanks for sharing my trip with me.
peace + love,
thuy
back to my roots: twee is the phonetic pronunciation of "thuy"
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anonymous
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Thanh Thuy
It looks like it would be "thank you Twee" or "thank Twee!" which I do, for much -- but how do you pronounce the first part, phonetically? Love, Mary PS I was born Lee Yi Jun in Taiwan and we changed it in 1967 to Mary Anne Lee when we moved to Canada and I was about to turn 8. You are one young baby! xo mary - Mary Aranas