Bumper Cars

Twice this week I've gently bumped motorbikes in front of me at red lights. I've also been bumped about three or four times over the last couple of days. To me, this is just another big difference between Vietnamese traffic and American traffic. If someone gets bumped in America, you can be sure they will get out of the car, inspect the possible damage and perhaps exchange insurance information. On top of that, you can bet that many Americans will suffer a slight bit of anger if there car gets bumped. And, furthermore, most likely the person doing the bumping will feel some kind of regret or embarrassment. In Vietnam, not so much. The first time I bumped someone this week, they didn't even turn around. The second time I bumped someone, they turned around, saw that I was a foreigner, and smiled. As far as all the people who bumped me, well, they just sort of acted like I was a pothole.

With the roads becoming increasingly narrower here because of all the cars, I find that more people are bumping into each other while stopping at traffic lights. Sometimes all the bumping and jostling for position feels like a giant game of bumper cars...

Happy Birthday To Me!!!!

(PICTURE: In case you are wondering, I'm now 31.)

Happy Birthday To Me! Happy Birthday To Me! Happy Birthday Dear Me...Happy Birthday To Me!

To celebrate my 31st birthday, Huyen and I are taking a three day motorbike trip to Mai Chau and Ba Khan Islands. I think this will be the first time in my life that I don't have phone (most likely) or internet access on my birthday. So, this is a little head's up that:
A) I might not call or email you back on my birthday.
B) You should still email me so that I can feel good about my old self when I come back from this trip.

On a side note, I find it almost inconceivable that a year has passed since my bowling fundraiser for Habitat For Humanity. I swear it feels like less than six months ago...such is life. Enjoy my birthday, everyone!

Stop Picking Your Nose!

Yes, I pick my nose. I occasionally do it in bed or on a couch when I'm too lazy to get up. I even do it sometimes when typing my blogs on Ahoy Hanoi. It's the truth. Now that I've said that, you might think the rest of this blog entry is hypocritical but I'm gonna write it none-the-less.

Listen up people of Vietnam: STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE. I used to think it was sort of funny how people pick their noses all the time in Vietnam. However, I think I just snapped when it comes to nose picking. A few days ago I was on my motorbike at a red light and looked around me and saw countless people picking their noses. It was like a moment of clarity right out of the Matrix. There was one security guard, sitting on the sidewalk, who seemed to have two knuckles up his right nostril. I found myself wincing at the thought of his booger covered fingers. Since that moment I've been extra sensitive to nose picking. I even have this little game in my head where I look around me and count how many people are presently engaged with a finger up their nose. Lets just say there is always at least a couple people.

Well, tonight, I finally had it. I was teaching a private student who was digging in his right nostril as if he was expecting to find an ipad in there. What he did find was a giant piece of snot which trickled down to his lip. I instinctively shouted, "DUDE! Are you kidding me? Stop picking your nose and get a tissue." After he got a tissue I demanded that he go and wash his hands. After coming back from the bathroom we got back to doing some book exercises. It took less than a minute -- and this is no lie -- before I looked over and he had ONE FINGER IN EACH NOSTRIL. I once again said, "Come on! That's disgusting." He laughed and then touched my textbook. I don't often get angry but at this moment I was kind of furious. I said, "You can't be touching my stuff right after your fingers are exploring your nostrils." My student didn't really seem to get my annoyance. I tried to explain to him that it was not only gross but also really unsanitary. I told him that's how germs spread (at this point he took out a dictionary to look up the word germs). After, I said to him, "You know when I was young we used to make fun of people who picked their noses." The student said to me, "What did you say to them?" I said, "We used to call them names." "Like what," he said. I said, "Like nose picker." And then he said, "Is that bad?", which pretty much sums up the point of this blog entry. Yes, picking your nose and touching people/people's stuff is bad. It's disgusting. It's gross. It's unhygienic. It's filthy. It's uhhhhhh.

Now, I know lots of Vietnamese people read my blog. Sometimes I write things on here and people comment, "That isn't true. It's just one person" blah blah blah blah. No, it is true that people in Vietnam pick their noses in public exponentially more than Americans or any other country (except maybe China) that I've visited. Somebody once tried to justify nose picking to me by saying the air is very dusty. Well, my nose is triple the size of any Vietnamese person's which means I'd have triple the dust. Yet you don't see me picking my nose anywhere except in the confines of my home!!!!

Random Kids In Huyen's Village

Whenever I go to Huyen's childhood home, I inevitably bump into a few very confused children. The kids all look at me like I just beamed down from some far away planet. This past weekend, while Huyen was picking fruit from a tree (see yesterday's video), I noticed a whole bunch of eyes peering through holes in the gate of Huyen's house; a group of children had gathered and were staring at me like a specimen under a microscope. I quickly walked towards the children to say hi, but they scattered down different corridors and alleys before I could get to them. I can only imagine that they thought I was planning on snatching them up and putting them on my spaceship which they must have thought was hidden in a rice field.

There were a couple of kids left in the alley along with some adults so I decided to shoot a tiny bit of video. In this video you can see Huyen's old neighborhood as well as some cute little kids:

My Tree Climber

(PICTURE: Can you find Huyen in the tree?)

This past weekend Huyen and I went back to her village to see her parents. Going to Ha Nam these days means one thing -- free fruit! Huyen and I went back to her old house to pick more Hong Xiem...or I should say, Huyen picked Hong Xiem. Honestly, I never thought I would date a girl who is a better climber than me but....:



As I said on the video, I think it is a fair statement to say that none of my friends' girlfriends/wives back in the states could/would do that!

Can I Take Your Bike For A Spin?

(PICTURE: Yes, my bike helmet is on this guy's head...backwards.)

Every now and then I stop in at this pho shop near my gym. The food there isn't particularly good but the service is excellent. By "service" I mean the waiters/cook/every-hand-on-deck basically runs outside shouting, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hello! Hello! How are you! Hey! Hey!" every time I pull my bicycle up to the shop.

The last time I went, everyone started to laugh about how tall my bicycle is. One of the waiters asked if he could take it for a spin and I gave him the thumb's up. He quickly put on my helmet in what could only be attempt to mock me. However, he put it on backwards which now allows me to mock him. Ha! You put my helmet on backwards!

Before I knew it, all of the waiters were taking my bike out for a ride around the block. Perhaps coincidentally my bike chain broke within a day or so of these guys joy riding on my sweet ride.

Google Analytics

It's been awhile since I've had an entry with viewer statistics. So...

- Ahoy Hanoi has had 93,586 page views.
- Nearly 14,000 different people have spent time on Ahoy Hanoi.
- My blog has been read in 122 different countries.
- Every nation in Asia has read Ahoy Hanoi except North Korea (Do they have the internet there?), Kyrgzystan (apparently they've got more important things to do recently), Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. I know what you're thinking and no, I have no idea why the Stan-nations hate Vietnam so much. And as far as Georgia goes, next time they battle with Russia lets just say I might not pull for the underdog.
- Every nation in Europe has read Ahoy Hanoi except Belarus, Iceland and Svalbard and Jan Mayen (I believe these last two are territories and not countries but they're still showing up as no shows on my google analytics world map). I'm personally offended by Belarus because for some unknown reason Belarus was my #2 nation that I rooted for during the Winter Olympics. Unless someone there starts logging in pronto they're gonna lose my support in 2014.
- After being the last state to read Ahoy Hanoi, South Dakota has now sky-rocketed in its readership. A whopping TWO people have now been to my blog from South Dakota. This ties them with one other state. Can you guess which one?.....
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The answer is North Dakota.
- New York is still Ahoy Hanoi's greatest fan. However, California is just 550 visits behind.
- Shockingly, Livingston, New Jersey has only logged into my blog 1.388 times. I've had over 700 blogs which means my mom is reading each entry less than two times. Seriously, Mom, what's up with that?!!!!
- Finally -- and I always love ending with this -- people have found my blog using 1,878 different word combinations in google. The last google entry to find my blog was "where can find sex massage in hanoi". Yup, that's for real.

Thanks for all the support from around the world!