Waxman = No Help

(PICTURE: Huyen's rejection letter.)

Last week I talked with a staffer at Congressman Waxman's office regarding Huyen's visa. The staffer sent me a form to fill out and told me to email him Huyen's documents. He also told me to call or email if I had any questions. I immediately emailed him a question and he didn't write back. I then filled out all the information and sent him the forms/documents...and he didn't write back. I then called the office and left a message. That was two days ago. No word back. So much for my congressman helping me out.

My anger has subsided a little over the last week but to be honest, I'm still pissed. It seems that nearly every day someone asks me about Huyen's visa and then tells me their own frustrating visa story. On my desk is Huyen's rejection letter which is a reminder of how impersonal the application process is. Having been brushed aside by my congressman after emailing me a standard form to fill out, I now feel like I've been given my own rejection letter. The government seems pretty good at saying, "Hey, we listened to you for a second and gave you a piece of paper. What more do you want?"

Fruit

(PICTURE: One of my local fruit vendors. Picture courtesy of Veronica.)

How many of these fruits can you name?

In Vietnam you have a few options when it comes to buying fruits and vegetables.

OPTION 1: The first option is to buy your produce at the supermarket. This is a good option if you don't mind paying twice the price for fruit that never seems totally fresh.

OPTION 2: The second option is to buy your fruit from a fruit stand. The stands always have a wide variety of fruits but the price is a tad higher than option 3.

OPTION 3: Option three is to buy fruit from the ladies (or occasional guy) who sells fruit from the baskets on the back of their bikes. The fruit here is always fresh and cheap. However, you have to deal with ladies who are often as sour as the grapefruits they're selling. There are plenty of nice fruit vendors but on occasion you get one who tries to rip you off. There's this one lady around the corner who always tries to give me more pineapple than I want so she can charge me more. The other day I told her I wanted 15,000 worth of pineapple. She agreed and then threw another pineapple into the bag and told me to give her 20,000. I said no. She said yes. I said no. She said yes. I said no and then walked away and got on my motorbike. She chased after me and grabbed me and then re-agreed to our original price. I then handed her a 20,000 bill because I didn't have change. She then tried to give me just 2,000 change. I said no and grabbed back my 20,000 bill. After proceeding to play tug-o-war for fifteen seconds she finally lamented. To me, it's not the 5,000 dong but the principal that is annoying. I always willingly let the vendors rip me off a little but when they try to take advantage of me (and laugh to their neighboring friends that they are charging me more) I get ticked. I'm now buying pineapple from the lady across the street from my old pineapple lady...she at least says she's charging me 20,000 dong from the start.

Superman

(PICTURE: Viet Hoang with Superman)

Last week was Huyen's nephew's birthday. Huyen had to work so I drove out to her sister's house by myself. I asked Huyen what gift to get and she told me that her nephew, "likes Superman."

In Hanoi there is a street which just sells toys. I went to the street and started scouting out Superman dolls. All the toys were clear knock-offs from China. After going to four stores I found a giant Superman figure that came with a light saber. Why a light saber? I don't know.

Upon arriving at Huyen's sister's house I gave her nephew his present. He looked at the Superman figure as if he had never seen Superman in his life. I said to her sister that, "Huyen told me Viet Hoang like Superman." Huyen's sister said, "Yes he loves Superman." She then pointed at a bunch of figures on a desk. Not one of the figures was Superman. They were all robots or other action figures. Apparently this was a lost in translation moment. Viet Hoang doesn't like Superman. He likes super men.
(PICTURE: Viet Hoang with a real life Super Man, Huyen's dad.)

Viet Hoang left Superman in the box for a couple of hours and proceeded to only play with the light saber...which turned out to be the most annoying present ever. It made this really loud noise when you hit the trigger. Viet Hoan spent the next three hours hitting people with the light saber while simultaneously giving us all a headache with the annoying noise.

Happy 90th Birthday, Nanny!!!

First let me tell you that on my grandma's birthday I called her two times. I'm only telling you that to take away from the clearly terrible grandson I am for not blogging about her birthday...15 days ago!

If you met my grandmother you would never know she just turned 90 years old. When I showed Huyen pictures of my grandma she said, "No! She's not 90!"

Besides the fact that my grandma has tons of energy, she is frankly the coolest grandma I know. My grandma is hip. She always knows the latest fashions and trends. My grandma is also fun. She's got a 1,001 great stories and is always a pleasure to spend time with.

Although she misses me, she has completely encouraged what I've been doing the last year. I love my grandma and wish I could have helped celebrate her birthday.

I'll give you belated birthday hugs in a couple months, Nanny! Love you!

Safe Travels, Ryan!

Nearly a year ago, on April 30th, Ryan left Hanoi to go teach in Ho Chi Minh City. I wrote this blog about it:

http://ahoyhanoi.blogspot.com/2008/04/love-aint-easy.html

In case you're too lazy to click on that link, I wrote: "...it's been a great month and a half hanging out with Ryan. The highest compliment I can bestow on a person is to say that, 'he's a good guy.' Well, Ryan is a really good guy."

A couple of days after Ryan flew to Ho Chi Minh City, he had a change of heart. He decided he'd rather spend his year in Hanoi and promptly flew back. I couldn't be happier that Ryan changed his mind. He's not only made a great roommate over the last 11 months, but he's been an amazing friend. Without a doubt, my time in Vietnam wouldn't have been nearly as great without Ryan. What I said last April rings truer today than ever before: Ryan is a really good guy.

Safe travels, Ryan. We're gonna miss you here.

SWAT TEAM

(PICTURE: CSCD Police. This picture is a rarity -- they never come out during the day.)

There's a strange occurrence that happens every night in Hanoi around 11PM. As the city begin to quiet, the storefronts close, and the night time garbage crews sweep the streets, a special branch of police start to appear in the shadows. Who they are, I'm not exactly sure. They have CSCD written on their uniforms. I don't know what that stands for so I've just started to call them the Vietnamese SWAT TEAM.

About nine months ago, while riding home late at night, I passed two motorbikes. On each motorbike were two guys wearing all black -- including I think bullet proof vests -- and holding machine guns. I'm no gun expert by any means but they sort of look like this:

This definitely isn't the exact gun but you get the point. There's dudes dressed in black carrying big guns in the shadows at night.

After that first time seeing the SWAT TEAM, it was a couple months before I saw them again. As Ryan can attest, I'm not exactly a frequent bar goer so I'm not on the streets that often late at night. However, from time to time I've seen these guys and my curiosity is always peaked.

About two weeks ago, during the day, I was riding my bike and saw an army truck drive buy with a dozen of these guys sitting in the back. I was shocked that these guys could actually come out in the daylight.

Last week I got an email from a "long time listener, first time caller" named Jacob Gold. Jacob told me he was once pulled over by these police at night. That's an experience I'm hoping I never have in Hanoi.

Mannequins

(PICTURE: A mannequin shop in Hanoi. Photo courtesy of Veronica.)

I had an interesting -- but definitely not unusual -- experience last month when I was on my bike trip. As Long, Nicky and I pulled into a small town in the middle of nowhere, I spotted a foreigner up ahead on the sidewalk. I thought to myself, "I can't believe there are other non Vietnamese people in this town." Well, there weren't. The foreigner up ahead was a mannequin.

One thing you will notice in Vietnam is that 99% of the mannequins are white people. The other 1% aren't Asian either, they're black. I've found this to be an odd phenomenon the whole time I've been in Vietnam. A girl friend of mine commented the other day that the strangest things about the mannequins is that Vietnamese people don't have the same shaped bodies. She said that if you look closely at the mannequins you'll notice that the pants are never buttoned or zipped. Apparently Asian hips, and the pants they try to squeeze on the mannequins, are a lot smaller.

While we were on the subject of mannequins someone else brought up a strange mannequin sighting that had just happened to them. They were driving their motorbike when in the corner of their eye they saw a naked torso driving next to them. They turned their head and saw some dude driving with the top half of a mannequin sitting in front of him on his motorbike. The legs were tied to the back.

Now back to my initial story. I personally think the strangest thing about the mannequins here is that they are often on the sidewalk. When you drive by, or even walk up to them, it makes them feel a lot more real when they are out and about in society and not just in storefront windows.