Tour Of My New House

My Mother asked for it and I'm delivering. Here's a tour of my new house. For contrast go back in my blog and watch the tour of Huyen's house. This place is ridiculous...

Me and Huyen

The day I was robbed four months ago I had two thoughts running through my head:

Thought One: Maybe I should leave Vietnam. I had been here for nearly a month and a half and had seen most of the country. It would have been just as easy for me to pack up my bags and move on to another country and begin to teach somewhere else. I started to look into teaching in Japan and even emailed someone about my options there.

Thoughts Two: I had just met this really great girl and didn't want to leave until after having gone on a couple dates with her.

Four months later -- and one eviction -- I couldn't be happier. Happy Anniversary, Huyen!

The Lion City

I am currently in Singapore playing in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. I wrote a couple entries before I left to automatically post so that my die-hard junkie(s) wouldn't freak out. If I get a chance during frisbee madness I'll post some new stuff...but I can't make any promises. You know how crazy these frisbee tournaments get.

A little chuckle to get you through the next minute: I was packing for Singapore and put on my favorite green army-ish button down. Huyen looked at me and said, "You look like Forrest Gump. Do you know him?" I said, "Forrest Gump?" She said, "Yes, he's very famous. There is a movie about him." I said, "You know he's not real right?" And she said, "He's not real? He fought against Vietnam in the army."

Man, I love Vietnam!

Dog Shit

Apparently I am not the only person to hate my old landlords. Last week, when I pulled up to my house the "crazy man" across the street approached me and started ranting to me in Vietnamese. I have mentioned the crazy man before but for those of you who missed those references let me just explain that there is a guy who often stands across the street, shirtless with a crazy look in his eyes, always staring at me. He totally creeps me out and Huyen too. Moving away from him has been one of the positives on my mental plus/minus list of moving.

Anyway, he approached me and started making gestures at the house. The gesture had three parts: a) point at the house b) hold his nose like something smells c) shake his head back and forth. I took this to mean, "those people who live there stink." I told him I agreed and gave a thumbs down at the house. This was my first sign that the neighbors didn't like Binh and Minh.

Here's the better sign: Every morning since living in the house I was awoken by Minh running a faucet in our alley. He would always be filling up a bucket around 6AM. Well, I finally realized why he was doing that the other day. I woke up super early and exited the house before Minh had filled up his bucket. Well, in front of the house on the front walk were two HUGE piles of dog shit. Pictured here:


Well I quickly put two and two together: The neighbors all have their dogs shit on Binh and Minh's front steps. I also had a flashback to a few months earlier when I came home from work and there was a ton of dog shit on the front steps. I happen to see Binh and said, "There's always dog poop on the front steps." She didn't understand me since she can barely speak English. I pointed at my shoes, which had some fresh poop on the bottom and she quickly understood. In broken English she said, "Yes! They go toilet here. I stay home from work once to catch them but could not." Anyway, knowing that the neighbors all hate B&M made me really happy. I guess dog shit attracts dog shit.

Vietnamese Science

(PICTURE: Dr. Huyen giving a lecture on science)

There should be a television show hosted by Bill Cosby called, "The Vietnamese Say The Darndest Things." A day doesn't go by that a Vietnamese person doesn't make a claim that is, well, not exactly based on science and facts.

One of the many benefits of dating a local is I'm privy to some serious information -- that's seriously hilarious information. About a month ago Huyen said something absurd to me: "Oh, do not eat so many bean sprouts." At the time I was putting bean sprouts into my bun cha. I naturally asked why I shouldn't eat bean sprouts and Huyen informed me that, "Bean sprouts are bad for men."
"They're just bad for men," I asked.
"Yes, they are bad for your [points at my mid section]."
"Is that based on science?" She just told me it was.
I then said, "You know America has been to space? I'll take my American science over your Vietnamese folk lore." This is when Huyen told me that a Vietnamese man had been to space too (he traveled with the Russians). I countered with, "Well, we've been on the moon!"

Anyway, since that day whenever Huyen makes a strange remark and I give her a look she immediately says, "It's science."

Some scientific things I learned recently:

Dr. Huyen: "You have white hairs because of your blood. It's science."

Dr. Huyen: "Eating salt is the best way for women to have boys. It's science."

Dr. Huyen: "Married couples must have a lot of sex to get rid of bad genes. It's science."

Dr. Huyen: "Drinking this (a strange white powder she brought over made from some fruit) will get rid of your pimples. It's science."

Dr. Huyen: "If your breath smells like garlic breath against a wall and it will smell better. Girls must do this 5 times, boys 7 times."

The truth is I was never good at science. But come on!

Plagiarism

A few times since I've started teaching I've had to give a talk about plagiarism. Apparently it's not frowned upon here to copy and paste someone else's work and pretend it's your own. A couple clear signs to me that someone has plagiarized are:

1. The use of words that I have to look up to understand.

• 

2. An error free paragraph on "what I did last summer?" by a student who up until this very moment hasn't comprehended the difference between "went" and "go."

3. The actual website address accidentally copied into the text.

In my teenager class this week I had a new plagiarism detection siren go off -- two girls handed in the same exact essay about the Jonas Brothers (apparently they are some teen rock band). It wasn't that one girl copied the other girls paper, they both copied wikipedia. They literally had 95% of the same article from the website.

Today, before I handed back the papers, I gave my class a lecture about plagiarism which went basically like this: "If you study abroad and your parents pay tuition -- let's say $40,000 -- and you plagiarize, you will be thrown out of school and your parents will lose their money." This got all of the students attention. As you can imagine $40,000 is a lot of money here.

At the end of class I handed back everyone's essays. I handed the two plagiarizing girls their essays last and said, "Look I know you copied this but what I'm most upset about is that you lied to me when I asked you if you copied this on Thursday (NOTE: When they handed me the paper I immediately knew they hadn't written it and asked them straight up, "Did you write this?" They both said yes.)." One of the girls looked at me and said, "I didn't copy this. My brother did it." So the question is, which is worse: having your sibling do your homework for you OR turning in material you plagiarized yourself?

Happy Birthday, Dad! (In Vietnam)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I've got the greatest Dad in the world. I was going to get you a great birthday present this year, Dad, but then Zev went ahead and had Lilah a week before your birthday. How the hell do I compete with that? You don't...so I just made a video for you. I love you!

Ben

P.S. I know you're going to surprise me and show up at my Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Singapore this weekend, right?

P.S.S. My Dad's birthday is the 28th. This is posting during Vietnamese time...so yes, I'm the first to wish my Dad a happy birthday.