Property Tax

The other day I was talking to Huyen's sister Huong about taxes in America. She had asked me how much a home was and I told her an average home in a nice town might cost between $300,000-$500,000. This didn't blow her mind since property in Hanoi is on par with this. However, when I told her how much tax could cost every year, she nearly fainted. I said that someone might have to pay 1.5% on their house every year which could mean $4,500 on a $300,000 home*. Huong told me that she pays 17,000 VND in property tax every year. Let me do the conversion for you: That's $0.82.

* For the record, I don't own a home so I could really have no idea what I'm talking about.

Earthquake

You might have read recently about the earthquake in Myanmar. It was a pretty big earthquake which only got a little bit of international coverage (being of course because of the horrible Japan earthquake/tsunami, the turmoil in Libya, and the fact that Myanmar ain't exactly press friendly).

The night of that earthquake, Hanoi actually shook too. It was the talk of the town for a few days because a lot of people had to evacuate tall buildings. Huyen and I were having dinner at the time of the quake and didn't feel a thing or just had assumed the rumble was from our stomachs and not from tectonic plates. Lots of people have been telling funny stories about how unprepared Hanoians were for any sort of quake, albeit a small one. Supposedly a bunch of people ran outside in their underwear and took nothing with them. Then after the quake was done, they refused to go back into their homes. I can't blame people for being scared but the thought of dudes in their undies on the busy street makes me laugh.

That said, earthquakes are no laughing matter. I've been told that the new modern buildings here are supposed to withstand a quake up to 8.0. However, I've seen some of these buildings being built and I'm a tad bit skeptical about that.

This year has had way too many earthquakes all around the globe. Lets hope that the Earth chills for a few hundred years starting now!

Street Meat

I consider myself an adventurous eater. However, there's even some things out here I won't try. Specifically there's one busy street here that is always lined with women selling hot dogs on a stick. I don't like hot dogs to begin with but I especially don't like them when they are curbside on a very busy, polluted street. I'd say at any point in time, there's at least one dirty muffler a foot from one of these hot dogs.

One night a few weeks ago I came home and said to Huyen, "I can't believe anybody would ever eat a hot dog from Duong Lang street." Huyen said, "I used to eat those all the time when I was a college student." To this I replied, "Are you serious? That's the dirtiest food I've ever seen." To which Huyen replied, "That makes it more delicious." Is this really who I'm married to?!

Box

Last week, Huyen and I shipped a box to America. The box weighed 14.6kg/32lbs and was filled with some clothes, shoes and three stuff animals. Instead of buying plane tickets for our three stuffed animals we decided to let them enjoy a long trip back at sea. Yes, at sea. We had the option to fly our box or to put it on a boat. As you can imagine, the price to fly a 32lb box is significantly higher than to ship it on a ship (I'm assuming the term "ship it" must have originated because everything used to be on ships). To sum up the Vietnamese postal system, I can tell you two things that we were told after paying our $70.

#1: No, there is no tracking number.

#2: The box will arrive in one month at the earliest...and six months at the latest.

So, Mom, can you please wait for the postal worker starting in May and just hang out until he shows up in November?

Oh, you might be asking yourself why we're sending our stuffed animals. It's because whenever we skype with my niece Lilah, she always asks to see the monkey. The monkey being one of the stuffed animals. At some point we also started to show her a stuffed animal doggie who she also took a liking too. The third animal I bought for Huyen in Laos and how the heck could we leave him behind when his other two friends are cruising to New Jersey?

Speaking Vietnamese

Without a doubt, my biggest regret during my time out here is that I haven't even come close to being able to speak Vietnamese. I've tried to learn but clearly haven't tried hard enough. However, not being able to speak Vietnamese makes for some funny stories. Or I should say, having a limited Vietnamese vocabulary makes for some funny stories.

Case in point: For a couple of weeks I would go to this cafe near my house to write. The owner there is very friendly and would always smile at me whenever I came in. However, I haven't been back to the cafe recently because I've just been too busy. The other night, Huyen and I were walking back from dinner and passed the cafe. The owner was outside and smiled at me and gave me a look as if to say, "Where have you been?". In response, I said "Nhieu day." I sad this because nhieu means "a lot" and day means "teaching." I was trying to say that I've been teaching a lot. However, I inverted the words and pronounced "day" as "dai" with an up tone. This resulted in Huyen cracking up. I asked her what I said and she replied, "A lot of testicles."

Well, at least the owner now thinks I've got more than two balls. I guess that's as good of a reason as any for not drinking more coffee.

There's a new warden in town...

(PICTURE: Google "female warden" and this is the first picture that comes up.)

You might recall how the embassy asked me to be a warden two days after starting the immigration process. My responsibilities were to call all the people in my district during emergency drills and in case there was a real emergency. Well, a few weeks ago I sent the embassy an email saying that I would be leaving Vietnam and unfortunately had to resign my volunteer position. The embassy sent me a nice email thanking me for my service and telling me to destroy the documents I had.

Well, yesterday Huyen calls me during the day and says: "Guess who just called me?" Clearly I had no idea but guessed someone from America. She told me that I was close. The embassy had called her and asked her to be an embassy warden for our district! This was absolutely hilarious to both of us considering Huyen hasn't even stepped foot in America yet. Huyen proudly announced though that she had just gotten her first US job offer! Of course though she had to turn it down since we're both about to go to America.

Just when you think you've seen it all...

(PICTURE: Take away the towing apparatus, add another bike and a shoe string and that's more or less what I saw.)

After three years of driving Vietnam streets, I was certain I had seen it all. However, in just one day I was shocked to see three things I had never seen before. In the morning, I was headed to work when I pulled up next to a motorbike being towed by another motorbike. This might not seem so strange except for the fact that the bike was being towed by what I think was a few shoe strings tied together. Perhaps even odder, the man on the front bike was probably about 80-years-old. The man on the back, who was holding the string, was probably about twenty.

A few hours later, I was driving down a main road when I saw a guy on a bicycle riding with no hands on his bike. Where were his hands? They were on two other bikes, one one each side of him, which he was transporting somewhere. That's right: One guy riding three bikes at the same time.

(PICTURE: The guy I saw had six wheels on the ground.)

Then only about thirty seconds later, I pulled up to a guy who was driving a motorbike while surfing the note or watching a video on his Samsung Galaxy. That tops texting and driving which 90% of everyone else does all the time here.


(PICTURE: This was what the guy was doing except he was driving a motorbike at the same time.)