Someone is trying to kill me...

...and his name is the bicycle repair guy.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is trying to kill you? Yeah, probably not. I hadn't either until the other day. Here's the story:

I got a flat tire on my bike and needed it changed. I walked around the neighborhood until I found a very talkative bike repair guy who had set up shop on a street corner. I showed him my tire and he got right on replacing it. He talked to me while repairing my bike and was quickly clued into the fact that I can't speak Vietnamese. However, I continued to listen until I recognized a question: Where are you from?

I told the man in Vietnamese that I was from America and then he continued to chirp away. All was good until he told me my bike was fixed. I paid the guy, jumped on my bike and headed into traffic...when I quickly realized that I HAD NO BRAKES!!!!!*

I managed to come to a stop and immediately went back to the repairman. I showed him the brakes weren't working and he quickly began to "fix" them. Once they were "done" he gave me a thumbs up and pointed the bike back towards the road. Once again I got on the bike and pedaled into traffic...until I realized I STILL HAD NO BRAKES!!!!

Again, I managed to get back to the dude in one piece and showed him the brakes weren't working. He again got to work and again "fixed" the brakes. Again, they still weren't working. Finally, I had an ephiphany -- this guy is trying to kill me!

I took the bike to the bike shop to get fixed...and am now watching my back carefully.

* This was written for dramatic affect. In reality I had my front brake but no back brake. The bike still could barely slow down and if you know about brakes (as my friend Sam) you shouldn't just use a front brake because you can flip over.

Cardio

Last night I saw a bizarre site in Hanoi -- a jogger.

There are people who jog in parks but very few people who run on the streets. It doesn't take a genius to know that running on streets in Vietnam will most likely end up doing a lot worse things for your health than the benefits you could gain from jogging.

One thing that I've noticed for two years now is that Vietnamese people, in general, have horrible cardiovascular. The guys I play frisbee with are all in great shape (six packs, bulging biceps, etc.) but they can't run for more than a few minutes without being winded.

I've been reading a lot about Michelle Obama's child obesity campaign. People in Vietnam are far from obese but I think Vietnam needs to have a similar campaign to get people moving in order to improve their cardio. It's not hard to see why people don't have good stamina here. Nobody walks anywhere. People often ride their motorbikes for one minute rather than walk for ten.

I think there are a lot of cultural things that go into this:
1. The sidewalks are for eating and parking bikes, not for walking.
2. Vietnamese people often like to stay out of the sun to keep their skin from darkening.
3. There is a lack of open space in the cities. Even the soccer fields are about a quarter of the size of the fields we play on in America which means a lot less running.
4. The pollution is horrible. You don't want to be sucking wind while simultaneously breathing in exhaust fumes.

Recently I was watching the Sydney marathon on the television at the gym and thought, "A marathon in Hanoi would be amazing." I think someone should really push for this because Hanoi could be a great city for a marathon. Plus, it could get average people thinking about running and improving their cardio.

Vietnamese Old People

One of the things that I was most impressed with in Japan is how fit Japanese senior citizens are. The senior citizens there climb mountains, ride bikes around town and appear to be twenty years healthier than their actual age.

In Vietnam, well, not so much. One thing I've noticed in Vietnam is that Vietnamese people do not age well after about fifty-five. This is not to say that older Vietnamese people aren't strong, this is just to say that they look older than their age. I'm sure it is a combination of medicine and lifestyle but seemingly when people pass sixty they age exponentially faster than other senior citizens around the world.

This is interesting to me because younger Vietnamese people look much younger than people their same age in America. When I look at Vietnamese college students I think that they look like American high school students. When I look at Vietnamese high school students I think that they look like American middle school students. If one could draw a graph it would be fascinating to see at what age Westerners and Vietnamese look the same age and at what point Vietnamese start to age faster. That's my deep thought for today...

Meet The Family

During Tet I got to meet lots of new Nguyens. Here's a picture of some of Huyen's extended family:


I mentioned this once on the blog but it's always funny going to big family events with Huyen. Often she is as clueless as I am as to who some people are. She once said to me, "Don't ask me who everyone is because I don't know." I think this is a feeling everyone in the world can relate to. I know that I've been to family events in the past where I recognized people but had no clue how we were related. Can you imagine ten years from now when my kids are looking at pictures of me in Vietnam and say to me, "Dad, who is that your taking pictures with?":


I'll have to look at my kids and say, "Oh, that's your grandma's older brother and his wife....I think"

Hacked

The other day I got an email I hoped I would never get:

BENJAMIN A,

It's important that we speak with you.
Please call us at 1-800-427-9428.

With your assistance, we would like to verify some potentially suspicious activity that we have detected on your MASTERCARD PLATINUM account ending in XXXX. We want to ensure that all charges have been authorized by you. In order to avoid any inconvenience it is very important that we speak with you. Please call us at 1-800-427-9428 as soon as possible.

Yup, my credit card was hacked. There were a half dozen random charges on my card that had clearly not been made by me. Besides the random charges I'm sure the activity was suspicious since I've only used my card about a half dozen times in the last two years, let alone two day.

I'd like to send a big Ahoy Hanoi thank you to Capital One for canceling my card. I'd like to send a big Ahoy Hanoi F-U to whoever hacked my card. Not cool!

The irony in this is that last week I had two visitors in town (a friend of a friend and my friend's brother). My friend's brother asked me if anyone takes credit cards in Hanoi. While explaining that a few places will take credit cards, I took mine out to look at the expiration date. I was happy to see that the date was a year away. This was comforting to me because my driver's license and ATM card are about to expire. Well, now that Capital One canceled my card I'm sort of plastic free for a few weeks. If I was in America this would be a big deal. However, in a cash country this doesn't make me stress at all.

My Turn To Cook

Before Tet I told Huyen's parents that I was going to cook them a meal during Tet. It occured to me one day that her parents have never eaten anything in their lives except Vietnamese food. That's such a bizarre concept for me since I've had days in Los Angles where I ate Dim Sum for breakfast, Mexican for lunch and sushi for dinner.

I debated for a while what I should cook them and decided that pasta would be a good transition dish for them. Pasta is noodle based (which they like), has cooked tomatoes (which they often eat) and could be flavored with other vegetables or chicken. The day before Tet I went to the supermarket and bought a big box of Barilla pasta and a large container of Italian tomato sauce.

When we arrived at Huyen's house we unpacked the ingredients and put them on the second floor of the house, right near the stairwell. Wellllllllll, the meal before I was supposed to cook my pasta Huyen's mother "accidentally" dropped the sauce down the stairs:



Meal canceled. Sheesh, I can take a hint.

Officially The Biggest Spider Ever

I have seen more than my fair share of big spiders in Southeast Asia. However, this spider officially takes the cake. I was walking down the stairwell in my apartment building when this thing caught my eye. It was huge! The section of the wall that this spider was on is about a foot long; the spider was taking up half of it. On top of that, it's legs were very very very thick. I would say that they were about the width of my pinkies...and if you've ever seen my hands, I've got fat fingers.

I started to irrationally fear for my life and quickly grabbed the nearest Vietnamese person I could find -- a man working downstairs in my building. I showed him the spider and he barely flinched. He methodically grabbed a stick and a broom and went after the thing. This is when I took out my video camera and started to film from about twenty feet away (this is why the spider doesn't look monstrous in the video). Standing behind me was the Vietnamese man's son who happened to be at the building that day. Well, the man climbed up on a stool and went after the spider. By "went after" I mean he pushed it off the wall and on to the floor where it quickly stampeded towards me and the little boy. As you can tell from the video, I was petrified. The boy and I ran down the stairs so fast it was as if a tiger was chasing us. Check out this video: