Huyen's Thesis Defense: AKA Vietnamese Idol

(PICTURE: Huyen and I outside of her classroom. And no, I didn't buy her any of those flowers or the pillow. I'm a jerk. Read below.)

On Sunday Huyen defended her thesis at the Foreign Trade University. Her thesis was something about International Business and Human Resources. To be honest, I really couldn't understand a word of it, and no, not because it was in Vietnamese. I'm just clueless when it comes to business...or basically anything that is a cousin of math. Frankly, I'm 29 years old and still don't understand my father's job. Seriously, what exactly is a bond?

Anyway, I went to Huyen's university at 7:45AM to see her present her thesis. I had wanted to buy Huyen a copy of Dr. Seuss's, "Oh, The Places You'll Go" but couldn't find it. To be honest, i didn't look that hard since no Vietnamese person I asked had ever heard of Dr. Seuss. So instead I just wrote Huyen a card which kind of summed up the message Dr. Seuss put into the book. I thought I was being nice...until I showed up and EVERYONE at the school had HUGE bouquets of flowers for the graduates. Well, that is everyone except me. Yup, you can say it, I'm a bad boyfriend. I felt terrible until I handed Huyen the card I wrote. Her face immediately lit up like it was Christmas morning.

When I got to the classroom I was immediately surprised at how small it was. I mean it was tiny. I had pictured a large lecture hall but the room was no bigger than the classrooms I teach in every night. This meant I had a great seat--row two, baby! I gotta tell you, it was like sitting ringside at a prize fight.

Basically this is how it worked:

STEP 1: 7 girls were given a time slot between 8AM and 11AM.

STEP 2: The 7 girls were told at 8AM what order they would be presenting. Huyen was number five.

STEP 3: One at a time a girl would present her thesis for between five and ten minutes.

STEP 4: When she finished a three-teacher-panel would take turns RIPPING apart the thesis. Obviously I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying but facial expressions go a long way. I turned to Huyen after the first girl went and said, "That teacher in the middle is really mean." She looked at me with wide eyes and nodded really fast.

STEP 5: The students would take notes while being ripped apart and then respond to the teacher panel's criticism.

STEP 6: The teacher-panel would rip apart the response and dismiss the students.

STEP 7: The students would run/walk away from the stage to a round of applause from the audience...

This process may sound slightly familiar to you. Yeah, it's basically the formula American Idol uses. A performer goes, a panel rips them apart, the performer defends themselves, the panel rips them apart again. The teachers also reminded me of American Idol: one was nice most of the time, one was ridiculously mean most of the time, and the third was sort of drunk.




Huyen did a great job. The whole time she was going I was on pins and needles. I think I was more nervous than she was. When the male teacher started to rip her apart I had to take a bunch of deep breaths because I really wanted to get up and pound his stupid-clown-shoe-wearing-baggy-pants-ugly face into the blackboard. I wanted to yell out, "Those who can't do, teach, A-hole." But then I remembered that I have the utmost respect for teachers...and, well, I'm a teacher too. It also occurred to me that I if I beat up the teacher it would probably hurt Huyen's score.

After the last student presented her thesis, the teachers read out-loud everyone's scores. Huyen got a 8.73 out of 10. This wasn't the highest score and it wasn't the lowest score either. Huyen was momentarily upset about her grade. Personally I thought she did a phenomenal job and I told her that a number can't measure how amazing she is.

Oh by the way, I didn't realize until this week that Huyen's been going to TWO universities at the same time. She graduates from the Foreign Language University in December. Yeah, that's right, two schools...at the same time. My girlfriend is totally smarter than I am.

The "ao dai" ("flowing tunic")...

(PINK?)

For Huyen's thesis presentation she had to wear an "ao dai", the traditional dress of Vietnamese women. Your average Vietnamese girl doesn't actually own one of these fancy dresses so they have to rent them for big events. Yeah, kind of like tuxedos. Huyen asked me go with her to choose out a dress for her presentation.

The Ao Dai shop was a two story store stacked from floor to ceiling with silk gowns. The gowns come in every imaginable color with all unique designs on the front and back. Girls don't have to worry here about showing up to a party wearing the same dress as one of their friends since all the dresses -- at least at this shop -- were different.




On a side note, one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld (or as my Dad thinks it's called -- Steinfeld) is when George takes naps under his desk at work. All of us get tired at work on occasion and want to take a nap but most of us aren't brave enough to throw a pillow on the floor and snooze off for twenty minutes. Well, in Vietnam they're a little more blatant about it. Sure, working in retail isn't the most exciting thing but check out this video I took at the dress store. These girls are either really tired or perhaps there was a carbon monxide leak in the store:

Squeal Like A Pig

The expression "squeal like a pig" has always made me think of the book Deliverance by James Dickey. Well, that's officially changed as of the other morning.

At around 8AM in Tam Dao I heard the most awful noise I've ever heard in my life. The noise sounded like a combination of Freddy Krueger's nails going across a chalk board mixed with that ear-piercing screech that sometimes results from a microphone being too close to it's transmitter (actually I don't really know why mics screech but that sounds like it makes sense).

I instinctively winced and said out loud, "What is that?" Huyen looked at me and said, "I think they're killing a pig." I got up and looked out the window and indeed they were killing a pig. THANK GOODNESS we were four flights up (FUN FACT: The Vietnamese fourth floor is the fifth floor in America) which I imagine helped conceal some of the gruesomeness of the scene. Basically two people were holding down a pig as a third slit its throat and drained the blood into a basin. The pig was clearly alive and suffering terribly. Two thoughts ran through my mind:

1. Why can't they just kill it fast and then drain the blood?

2. I answered my own question based on a recent re-reading of the Thomas Hardy book Jude The Obscure. There is a scene in the book where Jude has to kill a pig. He desperately wants to kill it quickly but his wife makes him do it slowly because it makes the meat more delicious and tender. In the end, Jude kills the pig fast because he can't stand hearing/seeing the pig in pain.

Did I mention this was all happening at my HOTEL....fifteen feet from the front door! Imagine being woken up at the Ritz to them killing your breakfast in the lobby.

Well, I shot a video of this scene but you really can't see anything -- thankfully. That said, I'm still not gonna post it.

For those of you who are wondering, I ate pork this afternoon for lunch. And well, it was delicious.

The Waterfall

As I mentioned yesterday, we all washed off under the waterfall in Tam Dao. When I say "all" of us I'm including Huyen. For Huyen to get in the water was a huge act of bravery. Like the majority of Vietnamese people Huyen can't swim. In fact, Huyen has never been in a pool. Not even in the shallow end. She doesn't even own a bathing suit. Swimming just isn't something she does.

That said, Huyen was more than excited to jump into the SHALLOW waterfall pool with us in Tam Dao. Out of the 30+ Vietnamese people hanging out by the waterfall she was the ONLY one to get into the water. Most people there looked at her as if she was just as crazy as her foreign friends.

Here's a video of Huyen and Loren under the freezing waterfall:



This Sunday Huyen will be presenting her thesis to the faculty at the Hanoi Foreign Trade University. As a graduation present I will be buying her swim lessons at a local hotel ($100 for 30 sessions in a pool with an instructor).

Road Trip

(Loren with her friend Alex...preparing to ride the best taxis in town -- mine and Huyen's motorbikes.)

Last Thanksgiving at my 10 Year High School Reunion (Jesus, I'm old as hell!) I reconnected with Loren Abbate. I told Loren about my plans to move to 'Nam and she said that she was attempting to get a grant to go to China to teach art. Loren and I made big plans to get together in Asia and well, nine months later they've come to fruition.

Loren just finished her month long stint in China and took a trip down to 'Nam with her new friend Alex. After having shown about a dozen people around Hanoi so far I decided that it would be more fun to take a road trip with Loren (although Huyen and I did give her and Alex a motorbike tour of Hanoi). I had heard about a beautiful little town called Tam Dao that the French used to vacation in during the summer because of it's cool climate and fresh air. I threw the idea by Loren and BAM we were on our way.

Alex being the brave man that he is (he's a ridiculous rock climber...see below) rented a motorbike to drive himself. This meant Huyen got to ride the back of #6 (my bike) and Loren got to ride Alex's bike. Some of the highlights from the first day included:

1. Taking a wrong turn which turned out to be a) faster b) more scenic c) have the friendliest restaurant owner in all of 'Nam. We stopped in at this little spot and I swear the owner shook my hand no less than six times and drew us two different maps to get to Tam Dao.

2. The best mango shake I've ever had. There is so much good fruit in Vietnam but this shake was heads and tails above any fruit drink my lips have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

3. Watching Huyen negotiate a 600,000 Dong room rate down to 300,000...only to find out that the reduced rate didn't include stain free or hair free sheets.

4. Buying a bunch of fresh fruit at the market. When I say "bunch" I actually mean "ten bunches." We just wanted a few bananas but were told you had to buy the whole banana stalk. We literally bought 50+ bananas for ninety five cents. We ate about twenty.

5. Washing off our road trip dirt under a big waterfall:

7. Watching Alex climb the rocks to the right of the waterfall without a rope. The rocks were completely vertical. He climbed them like spider man. It was scary to watch. I mean, it was really scare. About thirty Vietnamese people stared in awe as he darted up wall. Finally one man came over and asked me to ask Alex to climb back down because they were scared the rocks would dislodge and kill people below. Frankly, I was happy to have an excuse to tell him to come down because I've been to a Vietnamese hospital and well, I'm pretty sure they're not any better out in the country.

The Second Conditional PART II

While reviewing the second conditional today I asked my students, "If animals could talk, would you still eat them?" Immediately a girl named Bach yelled out, "Of course." I said, "Really? Who else would still eat animals if they could talk?" 16 out of 18 hands went up in the air.

Monkeys....

I've had giant spiders, genius rats, hundreds of cockroaches, countless slug/worm things in my apartment over the last few months but at least I haven't had what my neighbor had in his apartment this morning.

At around 8AM today I went up to my roof to do a load of laundry. While up there I heard some rustling noises about fifty feet away and then saw a monkey jump out of a window. Tucked under his arm and grasped in the monkey's hand was some fruit. The monkey quickly climbed a pipe and scampered across a few rooftops.

From what I could deduce the apartment across the way had left their window open and the monkey saw/smelled a quick free lunch. The odd thing is this: THIS IS THE FIRST WILD MONKEY I'VE SEEN IN VIETNAM. In Cambodia the monkeys were everywhere. In Vietnam you see them quite often but they are always tied to a rope or in a cage--you know, the way God intended. This monkey was either someone's lost pet or had escaped from the zoo.

I quickly ran down two flights of steps to get my camera in hopes of capturing the monkey robbery but alas I missed out: