You Haven't Aged A Day, Brett!

(PICTURE: Official SU Alumni)

This picture was taken eight years ago when I graduated Syracuse University. Yes, eight years ago. I like to think that all of us in this picture still look the same as we did that day. I mean, sure there are some obvious difference. For one, I don’t wear backwards baseball hats anymore (I lost mine in Hong Kong).

One guy in the picture who hasn’t changed at all is my buddy Brett (third from the right wearing the whitening cream and red lipstick). Brett is still as handsome as ever, still sporting a tad gut and still making ludicrous faces in pictures. Here’s Brett recently:

Sadly I missed Brett and Alex’s 30th birthday party last Friday night (yeah, on my birthday) but I was emailed a great picture of Brett as a kid. This picture was on the cake that Brett and Alex had made for them:

Brett is the one wearing red Daisy Dukes and laying on the raft in a totally awkward position. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Brett in college and in his NYC apartment laying on his bed/couch/etc. in the same position. Some people just never change.

One thing that I love about Brett (besides that he lets me crash at his apartment whenever I'm in NYC -- honestly who says only children are selfish?) is that he -- like this blog entry -- loves living in the past. Up until this day, whenever I go home, Brett always asks me about two girls from my hometown that he went on a teen tour with back in '96. I'm pretty sure Brett talked to those two girls more on his teen tour bus than I ever did in high school yet he always wants me to say hi to them whenever I go home. One time, over Thanksgiving, I went up to one of the girls and said, "Hey, I'm buddy's with Brett Goldstein at Syracuse. He said to say hi." The girl looked at me with a quizzical look and said, "Is Brett still wearing those red shorts?"

Province Mottos

(PICTURE: Vietnam's 58 Provinces)

In America each of the fifty states has its own motto. Here's the mottos for the three states I have lived in:

New Jersey – Liberty and Prosperity

New York - Excelsior (Meaning "Ever Upward")

California - Eureka (Meaning "I have found it")

Each state also has a nickname:

New Jersey - The Garden State

New York - The Empire State

California - The Golden State

In Vietnam they sort of have the same thing with all of their provinces. There are 58 provinces here and each one is “famous” for something. Huyen was telling me recently about a few famous provincial reputations. For example:

Hai Phong: Hai Phong is known to have the prettiest women in Vietnam...who are also the meanest women in Vietnam.

Ha Tinh: Ha Tinh province is known to be the poorest and cheapest province in Vietnam. Apparently their reputation is that they are so poor they carve fish out of wood, dip the wooden fish into sauce and suck off the sauce.

Ha Nam: Ha Nam is Huyen's province. Huyen told me her province is famous for their “Farting Bridge.” Back in the old days (maybe 20 years ago) nobody had toilets near their house so everyone would go to a bridge and drop a deuce off the side. Anyone who walked by the bridge (hopefully not under) would hear fart noises. She said there is another famous saying about her province: “There was a boy who was carrying twelve sweet potatoes. After he walked by the bridge he had thirteen.”

Scream If It's Your Birthday!!!!

Those tonsils belong to my buddy Alex, and yeah, it's his birthday.

The story of how Alex and I met is quite romantic. Alex was best friends with my buddy Mike in summer camp for years. When I got accepted to Syracuse back in '96, Mike told me I should become friends with Alex who also was going to Syracuse. For some reason or another Alex and I didn't get each other's contact information (this is pre-facebook so it was only moderately easy to get in contact with friends of friends).

Well, it was move in day at SU and my parents and I were in Schine Auditorium signing me up for cable television. I of course had to have cable since I was a communications major. After filling out the form, the cable guy read back my details. As soon as he read my name, some punk next to me said: "You're Ben August? You know Mike Aidekman, right?" That punk, wearing the baggiest jeans I've ever seen, was Alex. Since then we've been best friends. It's been twelve years. Holy crap, it's been twelve years!!!!

Happy birthday, Alex.

Door To Door Vets

(PICTURE: Actors playing my cousin Stacey and her husband Scott in a hypothetical made-for-tv-movie about them)

The other day, when I was at Huyen's sister's house, the doorbell rang. Huyen's brother-in-law answered the door and standing there was a woman with a needle. Huyen's brother-in-law promptly walked over to the family dog and dragged him out to the woman. The woman stuck the needle into the dog's butt and gave him a shot.

Apparently how it works here is that every few months, vets go door to door and give pets government mandatory shots. When I saw this I thought two things: a) "That's a pretty good idea." b) "I bet my cousin Stacey and her husband Scott, both NJ Vets, wouldn't think it was such a good idea."

REMINDER: Send me checks for Habitat For Humanity Vietnam. You can send it to my parent's house: Ben August, [REDACTED] OR you can send me money through paypal. Thanks! We're gonna build a house!

I Am 30.

I'm not sure what scares me most:

1. Today I'm thirty years old.

2. In two weeks I'll be thirty years old AND unemployed.

3. In two weeks and a few days I'll be thirty years old, unemployed AND living at home.

Last night in Vietnam I celebrated my birthday the same way I celebrated my 10th or 11th birthday -- with a bowling party/Habitat for Humanity Fundraiser. (NOTE: I'm writing this entry before the party so I have no pictures to post yet). A quick funny story: I sent out an email to everyone I play frisbee with about my party. The subject was: "Ben's Ba Buoi Bowling Birthday Bash." Well, I had a little typo in the subject. It should have read: Ben's Ba Muoi Bowling Birthday Bash. Ba Moui means 30. Ba Boui means "3 Penises." Yeah, I got a few emails from people about the typo.

My mom always tells me that out of her three kids, I was the most restless inside her womb. My mom said I kicked all the time and as the story goes, I was moving around so much that I nearly strangled myself on the umbilical chord. I guess things haven't changed that much in thirty years since I'm still really restless. My sister thinks that I moved to Vietnam because I had a quarter life crisis freak out. The truth is though, I just don't like to feel stuck somewhere for too long.

To celebrate being thirty, I asked my mom to email me some pictures of me as a baby and as a little kid. It's cool to see pictures of myself, but it is even cooler to see pictures of my parents who weren't that much older than I am now. My mom, with the help of my sister, actually scanned these pictures. My mom using a scanner is up there with the biggest surprises in the first thirty years of my life. Here's some pictures of fat little me:









For those of you who didn't read yesterday's blog, go check it out now. For my birthday present I want everyone to send me a check which I'll donate to Habitat for Humanity in Vietnam. Thanks in advance.

Oh, and Mom and Dad, thanks for everything these last thirty years.

My Birthday Present

Today is my birthday in Vietnam. But since I wasn't born in Vietnam, I'm not writing my birthday blog until tomorrow. However, this blog is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT. Over the last couple of months I have started to think of a way to do something good with the blog. Well, I've come up with an idea: I want everyone to send me a check for my birthday. That's right, send me a check. $1, $2, $5, $10, whatever you want. I'm going to take all the money and donate it to Habitat For Humanity in Vietnam. The way I see it is this:

a) For those of you who would have bought me a drink/dinner/etc. for my birthday if I was in the USA, put that money (or a fraction of it) towards helping to build a house for someone in Vietnam.

b) For those of you who I don't know that read Ahoy Hanoi, consider this your subscription fee. Throw a couple bucks in the mail and consider yourself paid up for a year worth of reading.

A few months ago I volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for a day and since then have thought that if everyone who reads the blog sent me a check for a few bucks, we could easily build a house (or two). A house costs a little over $2,000 to build and together we can make it happen. I really want to be able to give back a little to this country and to be able to say, "My blog built a house."

I know times are tough in the states right now so I understand if you can't contribute. However, I would really appreciate anything you can give. Like everything else here, a few bucks goes a LONG WAY.

Please send checks to:
[REDACTED]

I'm not sure how quickly these things work, but when I come back in August, I'll ideally I'll be able to help build the house. And well, anyone else who wants to come help is more than welcome to join!

NOTE: I wanted to set up a donation page through Habitat Vietnam but the people over here tell me they don't have that capability on their website yet.

The Farm

Last weekend Huyen and I visited her Grandfather. On our way to his house we picked up the other member of our carpool -- Huyen's nephew Viet Hoang. For some reason Viet Hoang likes my driving style and asked to ride with me and Huyen. By asked, I mean he just climbed on to my bike. Despite having lived in Vietnam for over a year, driving around a three year old still makes me really nervous. Huyen insisted though that it is safer for him to drive with two of us than just with his mother. I succumbed to Vietnam logic and let Viet Hoang ride with me. Basically how it works is that he is sandwiched between Huyen and I as I drive. I must be a good driver because after just a few minutes Viet Hoang was passed out and slept the whole ride.

Eventually we got to the ceramic village where I bought some souvenirs for my family. When we were leaving Viet Hoang climbed on to the front of my bike. I told Huyen that it definitely wasn't safe for Viet Hoang to ride there but she said -- and this is my favorite quote of the month and maybe year -- "It is okay. Viet Hoang wants to ride there." I said, "He's three. We're supposed to make those decisions!" Huyen and her sister laughed and then climbed on to our bikes. And yeah, I let him ride in front:

(PICTURE: Viet Hoang riding shotgun)


(PICTURE: This is the type of ride I'm comfortable giving little kids.)


After our visit to Huyen's grandfather's house, Huyen's sister invited me to her farm. Yes, her farm. Apparently Huyen's brother-in-law, much to the chagrin of Huyen's sister, bought a duck and pig farm a few miles from their house. I'm not exactly sure what he was doing before this but he put all his eggs so to speak into this farm basket. Personally, I love farms so this was really exciting for me to visit. Here's some pictures:

(PICTURE: Huyen'brother-in-law's duck and pig farm)



(PICTURE: Me and the pigs)



(PICTURE: Huyen in front of the neighbor's rice farm)



Ironically after leaving the farm, we stopped at a local market and bought some BBQ-ed duck. Apparently the 5,000 ducks on Huyen's brother's farm weren't ready to eat.