Honking

I touched upon honking recently but think it really deserves its own post.

Let me start with an anecdote: One day when I was in Koryama, Japan, I was riding my bicycle around the city, enjoying a beautiful autumn day. As I passed through some small alleys I came upon a traffic jam. This traffic jam involved two cars going in opposite directions. You see, some alleys in Koryama are really small and only wide enough for one car to pass. The car opposite of me backed up and pulled into someone's driveway allowing the car going in the same direction as me to pass. As the car passed the other one I heard a loud noise -- a honk.

The honk startled me because it was the first one I heard in months. Literally months. No exaggeration. This honk was a friendly honk to say thank you, but it still gave me PTS-esque flashbacks to Vietnam.

People in Vietnam are honk crazy. Everyone honks all the freaking time making the streets a headache-inducing cacophony of honks and beeps. One time I tried to explain to a class that honking was considered "noise pollution" in some places around the world. This was a hard concept for my students to wrap their head around. Vietnamese are always talking about how they are a developing country and want to be more like the West. One thing they can start with is trying to minimize honking. As I once wrote on here, "people drive with their ears as much as their eyes." Well, what happens when someone goes deaf because a bus honks in their ear to let them know that they are being passed? Huh, what then bus driver?!

Pregnant

People my age are starting to get pregnant and begin their families. Okay, that's a lie; they've been popping out babies for a few years now but I'm still in denial. One big difference between pregnant Americans and pregnant Vietnamese is when they decided to tell people they're expecting. In America, people generally wait a few months to announce to family and friends that they've gotten knocked up. People do this to make sure everything is okay with the baby and often say, that it is now "safe" to tell everyone. In Vietnam it is quite different. The moment people get pregnant they start to spread the word. Once or twice someone has told me that they are pregnant and I've asked, "How many months along are you?" The answer has been, "One."

Assholes

One thing I've learned from living abroad is that there are assholes everywhere. There are assholes of every color, every ethnicity and every religion. There are assholes who drive through red lights. There are assholes who cut people in lines. There are assholes who declare wars based on fake WMD evidence. There are assholes who cheat on their wives. There are asshole expats who act like they're imperialists. There are assholes who show up to town hall meetings and write letters to editors and complain about things they have no idea what they're talking about. There are assholes who yell at children. There are even children who we call brats but are really assholes. There are teachers who are assholes and there are cops who are assholes. There are doctors who are assholes and there a religious leaders who are assholes. The point is, there are a ton of assholes in this world. I rarely write negative blog posts but I just can't help myself today as I just had a great first hand experience with assholes from around the world:

At my gym there is a flat screen TV in the weight room. Today I was the ONLY PERSON working out in the weight room and was psyched because "Red Dawn", one of my favorite movies, was on TV. I started to think about a blog post about "Red Dawn" when a Korean guy came into the weight room. The guy started to work out right next to me. In fact, he was so close to me I visibly craned my neck around him a few times to watch the movie between sets. I mean, it could not have been more obvious that I was watching the television...which makes the Korean guy a total asshole for changing the channel AND NOT WATCHING. Yes, he changed the channel to a soccer match (one that had been played days earlier) and didn't even pay attention to it. What I should have done was say, "Dude, I'm watching Red Dawn and Chelsea wins this game 3-1." However, being a non confrontational person (that's my synonym for "wuss") I shook my head and focused back on working out.

After about fifteen minutes the Korean guy left the weight room while almost simultaneously some meathead Eastern European guy entered. I immediately got up, took the remote and turned the channel back to "Red Dawn"...which was now over and rolling credits. I shook my head again and started to think about this "Asshole" blog as I channel surfed. I found another station that peaked my interest and then sat back down on a work-out machine. Not a minute passed before the Eastern European guy approached the TV and changed the channel. The dude saw me change the channel!! Again, I was non confrontation (yes, a wuss) and just shook my head and started to make fun of this guy in my head since he had exponentially more hair on his triceps then on his scalp. This Eastern European guy, who had clearly used a crap load of steroids at some point in his life, then proceeded to NOT WATCH THE TV. I'm sorry for the profanity but that Korean guy and Eastern Europe guy are clearly assholes. Which proves my point -- assholes are everywhere.

Cleaning Lady

The price of our apartment includes a cleaning lady who comes two or three times a week to clean and to do our laundry and ironing. Personally, I prefer doing my own laundry but unfortunately we don't have a washing machine in our apartment. I feel a little spoiled having a cleaning lady but this is something one gets used to pretty fast.

The cleaning lady is really sweet but she's also really hard of hearing. At first I thought she just couldn't understand my terrible Vietnamese but soon came to realize it was a little bit more than that. One day she was wearing headphones and the music could not have been any louder. It sounded like a boom box was strapped to her ears. Then another time she gave me someone else's laundry and I tracked her down in the building and had to yell "XIN LOI!!! (EXCUSE ME!!!)" at nearly the top of my lungs before she turned around. The final hint that she might be slightly deaf though was when my neighbor said to me, "You know the cleaning lady is basically deaf, right?". I looked at him and said, "Yeah, that makes sense."

I don't want to pick on deaf people but having someone with keys to your apartment who can't hear can be a little bit troubling. For example, the Cleaning Lady knocks on the door before she comes in; I think this is a warning rather than asking permission to come in. Today, I was in the shower and heard the knock on the door. I yelled out, "TWO MINUTES!" but sure enough a second later the door opened and I heard footsteps. Luckily, anticipating her lack of hearing me, I closed the bathroom door. Well, apparently she didn't hear me in the shower either because moments later she started to vacuum. I finished showering, wrapped myself in a towel and walked into my bedroom. The Cleaning Lady, presumably embarrassed, quickly scampered out of the apartment. I guess sometimes it would be better to have a blind Cleaning Lady.

700th Post!!!!

(PICTURE: Me contemplating my first post a few years ago.)

If this post confirms anything, it's that I've spent way too much time in front of my computer over the last two years. Yes, this is my 700th post!!

It feels surreal that I've actually written 700 of these things and well, I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back. I'm really proud of myself for sticking with this blog thing over the last two years. Today my computer ran out of memory (don't freak out, this has happened about fifteen times already) and I had to move some pictures and movies on to my external hard drive. While doing so, I looked back at a whole bunch of pictures from the past ten years. Pictures from a trip to New Zealand with my buddy Chris. Pictures from Croatia, Greece and Italy with my friend Tom. Pictures from RV trips that my gang used to take annually in LA. Pictures of old girlfriends, pictures of concerts, pictures of work trips, pictures of weddings, pictures of...well you get the idea. It was great to think about some of my old experiences but then it hit me -- it would be so much greater if I had written stories and kept journals of those trips and events.

As I get older, my memory is only so good. The beauty of the blog is that from time to time I can go back and read old entries and totally recall what I wrote about. Personally it's an awesome feeling knowing that my whole adventure -- and especially my whole love story with Huyen -- is documented online forever. Right before I left America in 2008, my brother, cousins and I videotaped our grandmother. We asked her a whole bunch of questions so we could always look back on the tapes in the future and show them to our grandkids. I just hope that one day my kids and my kid's kids log on to Ahoy Hanoi and can see exactly how their branch of the family tree came about...

(PICTURE: The first picture that Huyen and I took together...that wasn't stolen by the ninjas.)

Yes, I know by writing this post blogspot will crash immediately and delete all 700 posts.

Package From America

(PICTURE: Me holding my package from Ryan in front of the post office.)

Ryan recently sent Huyen and I a package in the mail. Ryan had gone hunting this past summer and shot an elk. He had the meat turned into jerky and promised to send us some in Vietnam. Well, the other day I got a notice that there was a package waiting for me at the post office. I took the slip of paper and headed to the address written on it (actually, first I took a photo of the paper and emailed it to Huyen at work since I had no idea what I was supposed to do).

The Post Office was as ridiculously unorganized as your imagination might lead you to believe. There were a dozen people trying to get the attention of the only lady working. No, there wasn't just one employee but only one who seemed to be working; the rest were just reading newspapers or napping behind the counter. I attempted to wait in a non existent line until another patron grabbed my paper and served as my agent. Sure enough, after just a couple more minutes, a postal worker showed up with Ryan's box. The box had clearly been opened by customs which made me shocked that there was still jerky inside since I thought for sure the customs agents would have eaten it. Well, the jerky smelled amazing which made it really hard to wait all day for Huyen to come home and share. However, my usually weak will power held out and I waited for Huyen. It's a good thing I did too because as I was about to take the first bite she said, "Wait! There's mold on that!" Sure enough, all of the jerky was covered in mold. I can't put into words how bummed out I was since my mouth had been salivating for months since the promise of this present. I emailed Ryan to thank him for the gift and to tell him about the mold. He wrote back: "Bummer... well, now we know shipping meat to Vietnam isn't the best idea."

Also included in the package was a belated birthday gift for Huyen. Here's a video of Huyen getting the surprise present:

The present is a four person Connect Four! Huyen and I will now be going to bars and challenging other couples to games...

Super Immature Post

This is by far the most immature post I've written. However, I can't help myself. A couple of weeks ago we bought a new cooking tool and well, it's pretty phallic. Every time I see it in the kitchen I start to giggle and I finally had to take some pictures:

If this tool was made in America, I would think that the designer made the shape on purpose. You know, like how the animators for The Lion King drew the words "SEX" into the clouds. However, I'm pretty sure Vietnamese penises don't look like this since Vietnamese men aren't circumcised...which makes the shape of this tool just a funny coincidence...and officially makes me really immature.