Gone Fishing

(PICTURE: Me and my bamboo fishing pole. It was defective.)

For the second time in Vietnam, I went fishing. Unlike the first time when nobody caught anything, this time everyone caught something....except for me! The only logical explanation for me not catching anything is that the fish were clearly prejudice against Americans or more likely were anti-Semitic. Seriously, there's no other explanation because we were fishing at a FISH FARM!!! I was told that there about a ton of fish in this pond:


(PICTURE: The fish farm.)

To make matters worse, Huyen caught TWO fish. Yeah, I'm not gonna hear the end of this:


(PICTURE: Huyen's first fish.)


(PICTURE: Huyen's second fish. Braggart.)

As I wrote yesterday, the women were supposed to be home making cake. Huyen got invited along to serve as my translator and ended up catching the two biggest fish on the afternoon. Heck, now I understand why the men usually leave the women at home.

Banh Troi Nuoc

(PICTURE: This is the powder used to make Banh Troi Nuoc.)



(PICTURE: Huyen's aunts and mother starting to make the cake.)

The other weekend we went to visit Huyen's family because her uncle -- the same one that Huyen and her mom missed in HCMC -- was in town. I've had some feasts with Huyen's family before but this one was absolutely gigantic. I think it was the first time that Huyen and I were so full from lunch that we skipped dinner.

After eating, Huyen's uncles invited me to go fishing (tomorrow's blog) while the women were in charge of making Banh Troi Nuoc cake (the previous sentence sort of summarizes sexual equality in Vietnam). Huyen's uncles told me that Banh Troi Nuoc cake is symbolic of women in Vietnam because to make it is really tough and requires a lot of work but at the end the inside is still very sweet...or something like that.

Huyen sent me this poem about the cake written by the famous Vietnamese poet Ho Xuan Huong:

Bánh trôi nước (Hồ Xuân Hương) -
Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn
Bảy nổi ba chìm vói nước non.
Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn
Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son.

IN ENGLISH:

- Sweet dumpling -
My dough is white and my lot is round;
Seven times floated, three times sunk.
I swim in the waters and float on the mountains.
Hard or soft it depends on the kneader.
Regradless I determine to preserve my crimson viscus.

Adjusting to New York...

(PICTURE: This came up when I googled "tiny New York apartment." We dream of a place this nice!)

Huyen and I had to leave our apartment at the beginning of March. Our contract had run out and the landlord had found a new tenant who was willing to pay more money than us. As much as I hate our old landlord, it was our fault since we had planned to leave March 1st before Huyen's boss asked her to stay on one more month.

Being an optimist, I see three huge benefits to this move:
1. We save $150 this month on rent which will allow us to travel about an extra 3-5 days on the backpacking budget we're putting together.

2. It helped us to pack up our stuff sooner and start figuring out what we need to bring back to America, give to Huyen's family or trash.

3. It's a good step to adjusting to living in New York City since our place this month is TINY. When Ryan was here, we lived in basically a New York brownstone. It had five floors with more or less five bedrooms and four bathrooms for just two of us. Huyen and I significantly downsized this past year when we moved in together. It was a a small apartment but perfect for just two of us. Now though, we're in a tiny little box that can barely hold the little things we've still got with us. the whole apartment is eighteen square meters which according to the converter on my cell phone is 193 square feet. I'm pretty sure we'll end up with a similar sized apartment in New York City. However, I'm sure the place in New York won't cost $210 a month (utilities included).

G7 Reunion!

(PICTURE: G7...minus one.)

G7 is the name Huyen's group of friends from university call themselves. I think it stands for Girls Seven...or something like that. Like most group of friends, the girls don't get to see each other that often because they're spread out all over the world. Hang (far left in the picture) has been studying in England the last couple of years and Tu (second from the left) has been studying in Australia. Both of those girls are leaving Vietnam again to get their PhD's.

Besides the future doctors, My (who isn't in the picture) now lives a couple of hours away with her in-laws and baby. Now that Huyen is moving to America, that means four out of seven girls live decently far from Hanoi. All that is to say that it's a special occasion when G7 gets to hang out.

Twice recently the gang got together for some feasts. First we went to Hang's house where her family had prepared a gigantic meal with literally the largest fish I've ever eaten. I'm not sure what the fish was, but it seemed like it could be a baby tuna! A couple of nights later we went to Tu's house where we once again gorged ourselves on a home cooked meal.

At Tu's we watched an amazing video of G7 doing a dance performance at university. I need to get my hands on this video as it was absolutely priceless. Seeing all of the girl dancing was very very very very funny. Even funnier were the pictures of the girls putting on make-up for the show. They clearly had no idea what they were doing and looked like deranged clowns.

Seeing all of the girls together definitely sparked a little jealousy inside of me; it's been a long time since I've gotten to hang out with all my friends at one time. I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm counting down the days till Huyen gets to be a witness to my group rehashing our old memories.

Viet Hoang's Birthday!

(PICTURE: Birthday boy with his friend, father and cousin.)

Every once in a while something happens where I'm like, "Holy cow, I've been here a long time." One of those somethings happened again the other day -- Viet Hoang turned five. Him being five isn't that big of a deal -- it's the fact that I've celebrated his third, fourth and five birthdays at his house. This birthday really felt like deja vu to me since it was at the same place as the past two with nearly the exact same party guests.

I have a video on my blog from three years ago in which I was driving around Viet Hoang on my motorbike. The kid is now three years older than when he was falling asleep on my back in the mean streets of Hanoi. Time sure flies...

Cooking Oil Made From Sewage And Trash

(PICTURE: A Vietnamese officer investigating dirty cooking oil -- maybe those canisters is the first sign that the oil ain't so clean.)

I get sent links all the time to crazy news stories. However, Jessica recently sent me the most disgusting news story I've read in a long time. Basically, authorities have cracked down on some illegal production of cooking oil in China and Vietnam. What are they using? Well, shit and trash. So sometimes when I'm eating on the street and I say, "Oh, that tastes like shit," it really might have been shit that I was tasting.

Here's the article: Cooking Oil Made From Sewage And Trash

Looking Into The Future: The U.S. Citizenship Test

A few years from now, Huyen might decide that she wants to be a U.S. Citizen. If this ends up being the case, she'll have to take The U.S. Citizenship Test. My friend Mary Politi sent me a great article from Slate about the test and why so many of the answers on it are wrong. If you have a couple of minutes, this is an entertaining article and a great example of how ridiculous the U.S. immigration process is.