Boy Genius!

(PICTURE: Genius in the flesh. I'm talking about the guy on the right.)

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Su!!!! Su is officially a boy genius -- he passed his university entrance exam and will begin university in the Fall!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, Su was ecstatic yesterday when I called him. It'll be great to have Su in Hanoi in the near future. Su is a great kid and I'm excited to be able to take him around the city and introduce him to lots of new things.

As I've written on the blog in the past, passing the university entrance exam is a pretty tall feat. This hit home yesterday when Su told Huyen and I that 50% of his classmates did not pass their exams. I can't imagine if 50% of the people I graduated with couldn't get accepted to a university.

Congrats again to Su!

A Very Peculiar Grapefruit

The other night Huyen peeled a grapefruit and discovered that inside the grapefruit was a smaller undeveloped grapefruit:

(PICTURE: The baby grapefruit on the right was inside the big grapefruit.)

Does anyone else find this really strange? I'm pretty sure I've never eaten a fruit that had an identical twin growing inside of it.

Asthma

I know that there are some doctors reading my blog so I'm gonna pose this question to you: Is the rate of kids with Asthma higher in Hanoi than in most other places in Vietnam/The World/Developed countries? I ask because I've noticed that at least 50% of my private students have inhalers.

If the rate of Asthma is high here it wouldn't surprise me at all. As most people who have been to Hanoi know, the air is not clean here. I would think having grown up in this environment could not be good for your lungs. In fact, I have felt that my breathing in Vietnam sometimes feels strained compared to when I lived in America or Japan.

But on the other hand, my private students are quite affluent and I wonder if their parents take them to more expensive doctors who prescribe them unnecessary medications. This has been something I've wondered about for a while so I thought I'd throw it up on the blog today.

Wrong Lane, Officer?

(PICTURE: Motorbikes are supposed to drive in the shoulder...where the police car is.)

Take a good look at the picture above. Notice that there are two lanes and a shoulder on the highway. Well, for as long as I can remember, Vietnamese people have told me not to drive in the shoulder because many people get flats or blown tires because of glass and rocks on the shoulder. Basically, it's more dangerous to drive in the shoulder. As an American, this comes as second nature to me. The shoulder on American highways is for emergency use only. Well, after driving for over two years in Vietnam, I learned something new: It is illegal for motorbikes to drive on the road and not in the shoulder. I learned this because Huyen and I were pulled over on our way to our wedding interview. This was really annoying to me for a few reasons:
1. There were no cars on the highway in sight when we were driving in the right lane (although there is a truck in the picture above which passed us as we were paying our fine).
2. The only car in sight at the time was the police car which was PARKED IN THE SHOULDER! I literally saw a few motorbikes driving in the shoulder, pull into the road and then get pulled over for not driving in the shoulder.
3. The road was much better paved than the shoulder. AKA much safer.
4. I saw the cops pull over about 7 people. There literally wasn't a motorbike that passed that didn't get pulled over. However, some of the drivers knew better than me. As soon as they were pulled over they immediately turned on the gas and flew back on to the highway. The cops just shook their head but never gave chase. Man, I wish I had the guts to just fly by the police!

This little brush with the law cost us 100,000 VND or roughly $5. Not too bad for breaking the law but still annoying. I can also promise you this, I will still drive in the right lane and not the shoulder the next time I'm on the highway.

Wedding Update: The Interview

Huyen and I finally had our wedding interview and it didn't disappoint -- it was hilarious.

First off, the city officials told us that we needed a translator for our interview. The city supplied us with an expensive translator who was clearly friends with someone in the office. She also clearly spoke and understood about half the amount of English as Huyen does. Upon meeting the girl, I asked her some basic questions I might asked a prospective student I was placement testing. The girl answered some of my "How" questions with "When" answers. She answered my "Where" questions with "What" answers. It didn't take a long time for me to realize that this girl wasn't going to be giving word-for-word translations of what I was saying.

Huyen, the translator and I were brought up to a conference room in the city office. The three of us took seats at a table across from our two interviewers who had a laptop and our marriage applications. Without any introduction, they told us to answer questions truthfully. The interview then began. To the best of my memory here are the questions I was asked:
1. When did you arrive in Vietnam?
2. When did you meet Miss Huyen?
3. How often did you talk with Miss Huyen after meeting her?
4. How did you talk with her? On the phone?
5. Did Miss Huyen come to your house for dinner or lunch? Have you even gone to her house?
6. When did you first know you loved Miss Huyen?
7. Who expressed their love for each other first?*
8. Where did you express your love?
9. Have you taken any long trips with Miss Huyen? Where?
10. Have you met Miss Huyen's parents?
11. How many times? (I said 20 or 30)
12. You can't remember exactly how many times?
13. How old are her mother and father?
14. What do you know about Miss Huyen? How old is she? Where does she work? etc.
15. What characteristics about Miss Huyen do you like? (I said, "She's honest. She's funny. She's very kind...)
16. Can you tell us more characteristics and be specific? (I rolled my eyes here and began a list...)
17. Have you or Miss Huyen cheated on the other?
18. Is anyone paying you money to marry Miss Huyen? (I said, "I wish.")
19. Nobody is forcing you to marry Miss Huyen?
20. Where do you plan on living after getting married?
21. What is your plan for starting a family? When will you have children? (Here I wish I said, "Did you talk to my mom before this interview?)

The whole experience last for an hour and felt like some odd version of "The Newlywed Game". It occured to me about halfway through the interview that this must be what a meeting with a rabbi/priest is like before a wedding.

The whole point of the interview was to make sure that Huyen and I are in a legitimate relationship and there isn't some ulterior motive for getting married (i.e. some Chinese and Taiwanese men marry girls here to be able to buy property and start businesses). However, the whole process was pretty moronic since Huyen was IN THE ROOM WITH ME! Huyen heard all of the questions and my answers. After they finished questioning me, they questioned her. Clearly she was going to agree with everything she just heard me say (which of course was the truth).

The two interviewers were very serious during the whole process. I managed to get a smile or two out of them during the interview but that was about it. However, their all business attitude didn't translate into their work since I found that they had spelled my name wrong on the official document. I pointed this out to them and they fixed it.

Anyway, now that the interview is done, supposedly we just have 20-30 days until we can pick up our marriage license. Can you say last month of being single!!!!

* I loved this question because it reminded me of high school and college. I remember the immature embarrassment of being the person who said the L word first. Being a stubborn idiot back then, I remember taking a firm stance that I would never say, "I love you" first.

Skin Lightening Cream

I meant to post this blog after my "Waiting In The Shade" entry a few days ago...but I forgot.

This article caught my attention on CNN the other day: Vaseline skin-lightening app stirs debate. Basically, as the title says, Vaseline has an application that shows people how lighter their skin can be if they use their product. It is no secret that in Asia people think light skin is beautiful. In Hanoi recently, I've noticed that more and more beauty shops are offering whitening skin treatments. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of my private student's moms is getting whitening treatment because her face has become lighter and lighter every time I see her.

Shortly after reading the article above, I noticed this huge billboard on a major road in Hanoi:

(PICTURE: An add for Vaseline's skin lightening cream.)

It's not surprising to me at all that Vaseline is advertising their cream in Hanoi. All one needs to do is walk into the supermarket and see how seemingly 75% of face washing creams contain the word "whitening" in them. Personally, I prefer looking tan. However, over the last couple of years I've tried my best to put sun tan lotion on whenever I think it's going to be a sunny day. However, despite that, I still often get remarks from Vietnamese people that I'm "dark." Perhaps I should give whitening cream a shot?! Okay, that's not gonna happen...

Spring Cleaning In Summer

(PICTURE: Cleaning up the clutter.)

My mom always used to love to tell her friends how great of a cleaner I was. As a kid, about twice a year, I would wake up with cleaning inspiration. I used to take apart my room and completely reorganize it from top to bottom. I would always end up with bags of stuff to give away and/or throw away. On top of that, I always used to move everything in my room around that wasn't nailed to the wall...which was everything except my desk.

Well, the other day I had a flashback of cleaning inspiration. Huyen and I were hanging out at home when I said that we should go through all of our stuff and start to declutter. I'm pretty sure this moment was inspired by my excitement to ideally move back to America in about a half a year. I started to think about what I would need to bring back with me and more importantly, what Huyen would need to start her life in America. The pretty obvious fact is that we've got more than our airline allotment to carry back with us unless we ask wedding guests to stuff some of our clothes into their carry-on bags on their way home.

So, Huyen and I took to our shelves and began to throw away and sort things out. In the end, we had a trunk full of stuff to give her brother, a big bag full of recyclable paper and another bag full of my books to trade/give to some fellow expats. As much as I would love to bring books back with me, I'm pretty sure my sister doesn't want to carry a Webster's Dictionary from Vietnam's capital to America's capital.