Karaoke: The Most Awkward Moment Ever

(PICTURE: Two of my favorite students getting their karaoke on)

Karaoke was amazing this morning. Basically how it works here (and in many places in the states) is you book a private room in a karaoke club and have waiters cater drinks and food to you. The room was about thirty feet deep with a giant horseshoe couch facing a television. Two microphones are attached to the TV with long wires that are passed to whoever is up to sing. 

As soon as we entered our room a few of our students broke out into Vietnamese pop songs. When they finished singing the karaoke program gave them a rating on the screen. We were told that if you got a 1oo you got a free prize. Well, the cool thing about being a teacher here is you can do no wrong. Despite winning the Mt. Pleasant Elementary School vocal music award in 5th Grade and singing in Carnegie Hall in 7th grade, I have one of the worst voices ever. Frankly I'm pretty sure I'm tone deaf--which on a side note makes learning Vietnamese that much harder. Well, to these kids I was Frank Sinatra. I picked up a mic and joined one of the students singing a Vietnamese song and the kids went crazy. Next Ryan and I sang Joan Jett's "I Love Rock And Roll" and had all the kids up and clapping. It was by far the closest I'll ever come to being a rock star. Even stranger than having people actually like hearing me sing was when the karaoke program gave us a score of 100. It was like winning both showcase showdowns. 

Well, everything was going great until the most awkward moment ever. Ryan and I had scouted the karaoke song book and pointed out a bunch of good songs to each other. Being from NJ I naturally pointed out that they had Springsteen. Specifically they had "Born in the USA." Not telling me, Ryan programmed the song in and in a few minutes it was our turn to sing. Immediately I knew this was going to be a very very bad song choice. For those of you who are confused why, it's probably because you never studied the lyrics to this classic song. Let me save you the google search and write down the first two stanzas:

"BORN DOWN IN A DEAD MAN'S TOWN

THE FIRST KICK I TOOK WAS WHEN I HIT THE GROUND

YOU END UP LIKE A DOG THAT'S BEEN BEAT TOO MUCH

TIL YOU SPEND HALF YOUR LIFE JUST COVERING UP

BORN IN THE USA (X 4)

(HERE IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS)

I GOT IN A LITTLE HOMETOWN JAM

AND SO THEY PUT A RIFLE IN MY HANDS

SENT ME OFF TO VIETNAM

TO GO AND KILL THE YELLOW MAN."

Yes, the lyric is "TO GO AND KILL THE YELLOW MAN." Not exactly the line you want to be singing to a roomful of Vietnamese kids. 

Prior to that stanza all the kids were singing along with us and belting out the chorus. Then the words came on to the screen and Ryan and I looked at each other and completely froze. We just stopped singing as the words flashed across the screen. Luckily I don't really think anyone-- except one fellow American in the room--understood what was being sung. Regardless it made for one of the most, if not the most,  awkard moments ever....in the history of time. 

A Little Slice Of America

A couple of really quick anecdotes: 

1. Last night Ryan and I were mesmerizing the girls with tricks that fathers do to their children when they are 1-4 years old. The girls had never seen the tricks and were completely stunned. The first one that got them all excited was the classic dislodged thumb. I showed Au my two hands and removed my right thumb. She screamed out, "how'd you do that!"

My next trick was even better. I put my thumb between my index finger and middle finger and told Au that I took her nose. Au immediately grabbed her face looking for her nose. Yes, it's a "had to be there" moment but was hilarious. 

2. We just taught the girls about American cooking--we made them guacamole. They had never tasted, let alone heard of the dish. We decided to make it for them after I spotted some avocados at lunch yesterday. I asked the girls what they used them for and they said, "shakes." Yup, they drink avocado shakes here. I immediately ordered one and shared it with Ryan (that's what couples do) -- it was actually quite good. 

3. Last night was my final teaching night here in HCMC. After class the class pet came up to me and gave me a sealed envelope with a note inside (yes, the note will be posted but it's at the hotel at the moment). I felt really good that I had my first student with a crush on me...that is until Ryan told me he got the same note from the girl. 

I just took my Vietnamese language final and got a 99%. How, I don't know. I can speak about twenty words and understand about three...I'm really gonna make it out here...

My Class

Do I look like a giant in this picture? Well, I'm actually much taller than it appears. The boys in the back were all standing on their toes and attempting to push/pull me down at the same time.

Just to update everyone on the proposed picnic: turns out that the picnic was to leave at 7AM for an amusement park an hour or so away. Hien told me it was a bad idea since we'd have to get on the highway which isn't ideal for young motorbikers. With a little negotiation Hien managed to talk the class into going to karaoke instead. When they asked which I'd rather do I said, "Karaoke. This way we don't have to leave at 7AM." Linh, translating for the students then replyed, "Okay, you can karaoke at 10AM then." Apparently karaoke is a daytime, non drinking activity in HCMC. God help this place.

Connect Four III

(PICTURE: Someone please buy that giant Connect Four board for me!!!)

Yesterday I received this email: "hi how are you lop lop ben? i am sorry i not send you email trea she given your email but i lost and i just get from her today,did you like there?take care lop lop ben from lana." 

Two things you should know:

1. "Lop Lop" means "crazy in the head" in khmer. 

2. This email is from the bartender I beat on the first Connect Four night in Cambodia. 

So, I wrote her back this:

"Who are you calling lop lop? You're the craziest girl in all of Cambodia. I'm forever going to have nightmares about your arms flailing in the air and trying to strangle me every time I beat you in Connect Four.

I really like Vietnam so far. The food here is better than Cambodia. However, nobody plays Connect Four here! I want to get better so I can play you 1:1 next time..."

Then I got this email reply last night:

"only you lop lop no body our ok do not need to ask me who i call lop lop.if you siad vietnam better than cambodia i think you do not like come cambodia again. why there no have connect four?do not need to play more you are good already."

Mom & Dad, I'd like to introduce you to your future daughter-in-law. 

My New Best Friend In Vietnam

The one highlight from Sunday was that I made a new best friend--the girl in the picture. She is the daughter of the row boat captain (what is the term for a person who pushes you in a row boat?) and probably the cutest little kid I have ever seen. She and I played a Vietnamese version of paddy cake for about thirty minutes. I tried to teach her thumb wrestling but she wasn't going for it. Instead she was a big fan of shadow puppets. She was totally mesmerized by my thumb-locked bird.

I just want to give a quick happy birthday shout-out to my favorite people born on April 7th--Seth and Shaps! It's been too long since we celebrated a birthday in Madrid. Speaking of birthdays, I just found out that when you are born in Vietnam you are considered 1 year old. So, in Vietnam I'm 29, not 28. That means I'm about to have my thirtieth birthday in seventeen days. What the hell! Hannah thinks I'm in the midst of a quarter-life crisis. Well if she is right, this is going to spiral me down to a new level of freaking out. I have about a ten page rant about this that I'll save for a blog closer to my birthday when it has proper time to marinate in my brain.

The Mekong

(PICTURE: Sunrise on the Mekong)

This past weekend I went down to the Mekong Delta for some R&R. Joining me was the usual crew of Ryan and Hien; or as Hien likes to say with a giant smile, "The three wheels." You see, we had a huge lost in translation moment over the last couple weeks. Ryan and I jokingly told Hien that she was our third wheel. Hien thought this was a huge compliment and was boasting to her friends, "I'm the third wheel!" Luckily for Hien this weekend we had a fourth wheel. My friend Kevin Rodin from LA gave his buddy Ashton my email since he was in HCMC this week for work. After a couple quick emails I invited Ashton to join our mini adventure down the river.

Hien booked the trip and we set out early Saturday morning. The trip could be broken into two parts: The Good And The Bad.

The good: Saturday was a great day. We got down to the Mekong around eleven and jumped aboard the first of many boats. We set sail for a little village where they made fresh cocount products. Free samples were passed out all around which satisfied me on two levels: 1) I like food. 2) I'm cheap. After being given a tour we jumped back on the boat and headed for a long journey to a little island for lunch. After a delicious meal which consisted of some huge weird looking river fish, we divided into small group and were rowed down narrow channels back towards our awaiting boat. We took another cruise, hopped back on the bus and were dropped off in a little town to wait for a large boat which we'd be sleeping on that night. Long story short we eventually got onto a nice river boat and spent the evening sitting on a roof, sipping on bad Vietnamese wine and listening to different tourists sing with varying guitar/vocal skills. It was a great day.

The bad: Sunday I was awoken at around 5AM by Hien. I went to the roof only to discover that sunset was at least an hour away. Finally it came and I snapped away a whole bunch of pictures. After that we grabbed breakfast and got off the boat. At this point it was around 8AM and the highlights of the day were over. For the next thirteen hours we were taken to a few bad tourist spots (one pagoda that felt like a Disneyland reject, a "fish farm" that was merely a whole in the floor where a thousand fish struggled to fight each other for food while stuck in a net, and finally a Cham village which seemed to only consist of a dozen pre-teens begging us to buy waffles). After that we got back on our main boat and set sail....for 7 FREAKING HOURS!!! Yes, 7 hours. Way too long. When the boat finally docked we got onto our shuttle bus to go back to HCMC. That was a nice simple ride...just FOUR FREAKING HOURS!!! And if that wasn't bad enough, I had a broken chair the whole way back. The chair spring/shocks weren't working so every bump the shuttle hit sent my chair flying forward and backwards. And believe me, there were a lot of bumps in the road. Ryan said it best when we got back to HCMC, "I'd rather fly from the USA to Asia again then do what we did today." It was that painful.

Anyway, it's good to be back in HCMC. I just finished my class for the night and my kids officially love me. They each took pictures with me after class and pleaded with me to go to a picnic with them on Saturday. The picnic sounds fun but they want to go at 7AM! Who picnics at 7AM!

Porno Peddler To Parenthood

(PICTURE: My Niece!....Bier, stop staring at her chest!)

It's official, Zev and Kathy are having a GIRL!!!! I had a feeling they were going to have a girl and I couldn't be happier because this means I can hang on to my Jets ticket for a few more years. I know Dad is dying to give his first grandson one of our four cherished season tickets and since I'm the "son who abandoned" him it would most likely be my ticket in the enveloped at the kid's Bar Mitzvah.

I also have to say it is fitting Zev is going to have a daughter since he was the person who introduced me to Playboy. Oh sweet sweet karma. Zev told me on the phone last night that he's already filing papers to own a shotgun.

I plead with Zev again last night that he should have the kid in 'Nam. Dual citizenship would be awesome and could really help the baby get a college scholarship one day. Furthermore, you can't buy property here unless you're a citizen. Real estate is doubling every year all over Vietnam so we could buy up property through my little niece. It's a genius, flawless plan.

Gotta finish my lesson plan... Congrats to Zev and Kathy!