Wedding Update: My Fat Fingers

(PICTURE: Huyen rejected my first choice for wedding bands. I thought it would be a good homage to Ahoy Hanoi.)

This past weekend Huyen and I began to do some of the more "fun" planning and preparing for weddings. Well, that's unless you consider driving twelves hours to drop off paperwork and be asked somewhat intrusive questions fun.

Huyen and I both want to get very simple, matching wedding bands. Personally, I hate jewelery. Minus my college pocket watch and the occasional trendy necklace in my youth, I've never worn jewelery. Frankly, I don't like the way it feels or looks on me. Thankfully, Huyen doesn't really wear jewelery either so we're on the same page on this. The two of us started our wedding band search by going to one of the biggest jewelery stores in Hanoi. We immediately spotted bands that we liked and asked to try them on. Well, it didn't go so well. The band couldn't even fit on my sausage-like pinky finger. The store clerk told us that if we wanted the ring in my size it would take 7-8 months to have imported from France. Yeah, no thanks. She also told us that we were going to have a very hard time finding any rings my size in Hanoi. So, the challenge is on!

Huyen and I will be going to some other jewelery shops soon to see if a) they have my size OR b) can make me a ring. Worst case scenario, my internet guru mom has found a good site for us to order rings from and have shipped to New Jersey. I'm just a littler nervous though about not trying on a ring until a few days before the big day. The point is, even the simple parts of wedding planning don't end up being so simple!

Wedding Update: Scouting Hotels

While in Ha Nam last week, Huyen and I scouted some hotels for the wedding. As I've been doing some planning for the wedding, I realized it makes more sense for people to stay close to her home the night before the wedding since we'll be going there for the "rehearsal dinner" the night before. Instead of driving more than an hour in unpredictable traffic to and from Hanoi, we can all save time by staying a few minutes away in Phu Ly.

I've come up with something I call "The Brett Test." I think to myself, will my friend Brett be willing to sleep/eat in this hotel/restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised by the hotel that Huyen and I found and I'm pretty sure it'll pass the Brett test. Brett?

It's got a nice-ish lobby:


Clean beds and bathroom:



And a nice view:



That said, I would suggest bringing your own pillow case. You can buy a new one with the savings since this hotel costs about $15 a night for the suites.

Boy Genius!

(PICTURE: Genius in the flesh. I'm talking about the guy on the right.)

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Su!!!! Su is officially a boy genius -- he passed his university entrance exam and will begin university in the Fall!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, Su was ecstatic yesterday when I called him. It'll be great to have Su in Hanoi in the near future. Su is a great kid and I'm excited to be able to take him around the city and introduce him to lots of new things.

As I've written on the blog in the past, passing the university entrance exam is a pretty tall feat. This hit home yesterday when Su told Huyen and I that 50% of his classmates did not pass their exams. I can't imagine if 50% of the people I graduated with couldn't get accepted to a university.

Congrats again to Su!

A Very Peculiar Grapefruit

The other night Huyen peeled a grapefruit and discovered that inside the grapefruit was a smaller undeveloped grapefruit:

(PICTURE: The baby grapefruit on the right was inside the big grapefruit.)

Does anyone else find this really strange? I'm pretty sure I've never eaten a fruit that had an identical twin growing inside of it.

Asthma

I know that there are some doctors reading my blog so I'm gonna pose this question to you: Is the rate of kids with Asthma higher in Hanoi than in most other places in Vietnam/The World/Developed countries? I ask because I've noticed that at least 50% of my private students have inhalers.

If the rate of Asthma is high here it wouldn't surprise me at all. As most people who have been to Hanoi know, the air is not clean here. I would think having grown up in this environment could not be good for your lungs. In fact, I have felt that my breathing in Vietnam sometimes feels strained compared to when I lived in America or Japan.

But on the other hand, my private students are quite affluent and I wonder if their parents take them to more expensive doctors who prescribe them unnecessary medications. This has been something I've wondered about for a while so I thought I'd throw it up on the blog today.

Wrong Lane, Officer?

(PICTURE: Motorbikes are supposed to drive in the shoulder...where the police car is.)

Take a good look at the picture above. Notice that there are two lanes and a shoulder on the highway. Well, for as long as I can remember, Vietnamese people have told me not to drive in the shoulder because many people get flats or blown tires because of glass and rocks on the shoulder. Basically, it's more dangerous to drive in the shoulder. As an American, this comes as second nature to me. The shoulder on American highways is for emergency use only. Well, after driving for over two years in Vietnam, I learned something new: It is illegal for motorbikes to drive on the road and not in the shoulder. I learned this because Huyen and I were pulled over on our way to our wedding interview. This was really annoying to me for a few reasons:
1. There were no cars on the highway in sight when we were driving in the right lane (although there is a truck in the picture above which passed us as we were paying our fine).
2. The only car in sight at the time was the police car which was PARKED IN THE SHOULDER! I literally saw a few motorbikes driving in the shoulder, pull into the road and then get pulled over for not driving in the shoulder.
3. The road was much better paved than the shoulder. AKA much safer.
4. I saw the cops pull over about 7 people. There literally wasn't a motorbike that passed that didn't get pulled over. However, some of the drivers knew better than me. As soon as they were pulled over they immediately turned on the gas and flew back on to the highway. The cops just shook their head but never gave chase. Man, I wish I had the guts to just fly by the police!

This little brush with the law cost us 100,000 VND or roughly $5. Not too bad for breaking the law but still annoying. I can also promise you this, I will still drive in the right lane and not the shoulder the next time I'm on the highway.

Wedding Update: The Interview

Huyen and I finally had our wedding interview and it didn't disappoint -- it was hilarious.

First off, the city officials told us that we needed a translator for our interview. The city supplied us with an expensive translator who was clearly friends with someone in the office. She also clearly spoke and understood about half the amount of English as Huyen does. Upon meeting the girl, I asked her some basic questions I might asked a prospective student I was placement testing. The girl answered some of my "How" questions with "When" answers. She answered my "Where" questions with "What" answers. It didn't take a long time for me to realize that this girl wasn't going to be giving word-for-word translations of what I was saying.

Huyen, the translator and I were brought up to a conference room in the city office. The three of us took seats at a table across from our two interviewers who had a laptop and our marriage applications. Without any introduction, they told us to answer questions truthfully. The interview then began. To the best of my memory here are the questions I was asked:
1. When did you arrive in Vietnam?
2. When did you meet Miss Huyen?
3. How often did you talk with Miss Huyen after meeting her?
4. How did you talk with her? On the phone?
5. Did Miss Huyen come to your house for dinner or lunch? Have you even gone to her house?
6. When did you first know you loved Miss Huyen?
7. Who expressed their love for each other first?*
8. Where did you express your love?
9. Have you taken any long trips with Miss Huyen? Where?
10. Have you met Miss Huyen's parents?
11. How many times? (I said 20 or 30)
12. You can't remember exactly how many times?
13. How old are her mother and father?
14. What do you know about Miss Huyen? How old is she? Where does she work? etc.
15. What characteristics about Miss Huyen do you like? (I said, "She's honest. She's funny. She's very kind...)
16. Can you tell us more characteristics and be specific? (I rolled my eyes here and began a list...)
17. Have you or Miss Huyen cheated on the other?
18. Is anyone paying you money to marry Miss Huyen? (I said, "I wish.")
19. Nobody is forcing you to marry Miss Huyen?
20. Where do you plan on living after getting married?
21. What is your plan for starting a family? When will you have children? (Here I wish I said, "Did you talk to my mom before this interview?)

The whole experience last for an hour and felt like some odd version of "The Newlywed Game". It occured to me about halfway through the interview that this must be what a meeting with a rabbi/priest is like before a wedding.

The whole point of the interview was to make sure that Huyen and I are in a legitimate relationship and there isn't some ulterior motive for getting married (i.e. some Chinese and Taiwanese men marry girls here to be able to buy property and start businesses). However, the whole process was pretty moronic since Huyen was IN THE ROOM WITH ME! Huyen heard all of the questions and my answers. After they finished questioning me, they questioned her. Clearly she was going to agree with everything she just heard me say (which of course was the truth).

The two interviewers were very serious during the whole process. I managed to get a smile or two out of them during the interview but that was about it. However, their all business attitude didn't translate into their work since I found that they had spelled my name wrong on the official document. I pointed this out to them and they fixed it.

Anyway, now that the interview is done, supposedly we just have 20-30 days until we can pick up our marriage license. Can you say last month of being single!!!!

* I loved this question because it reminded me of high school and college. I remember the immature embarrassment of being the person who said the L word first. Being a stubborn idiot back then, I remember taking a firm stance that I would never say, "I love you" first.