Huyen's Great Grandmother

(PICTURE: Huyen's Great Grandmother, Grandmother, Huyen and me back in August.)

Last Tueday, about ten minutes before Huyen was supposed to come home, she called me and said, "I have some bad news. My great grandmother passed away." My stomach dropped as I felt of the loss that Huyen and her family had just encountered.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to blog about the funeral and death in Vietnam. Yes, it's a downer of a topic right upon returning to Hanoi, but it is the single most Vietnamese experience I've had in my time out here.

When Huyen returned home we immediately got on her motorbike and drove an hour out to her grandparents' village. As we drove through the darkness I asked Huyen to teach me the appropriate thing to say in Vietnamese to a grieving person. She told me the sentence -- which roughly translates to, "Let me share your sadness" -- and I practiced over and over again during the hour long drive. When we pulled up to her Aunt's house (where her great grandmother had been living) there was already a crowd of people going into the house. Before I could even take my helmet off, Huyen's Grandmother approached me, wailing out "Oh God" in Vietnamese as tears streamed down her face. I tried to say the line that Huyen had taught me but it didn't come out right. Frankly it didn't matter though because she was inconsolable at that moment. Huyen's grandfather came out of the house, shook my hand, and escorted his wife back into the house.

A group of men called me into the house and sat me down to drink tea. As they poured me a glass I couldn't help but notice that only a few feet away were all the women standing and crying with her Great Grandmother's body which was laid out on the bed, draped by a mosquito net. Huyen's aunt (not the one the great grandmother lived with but another who lives around the corner who Huyen always tells me takes care of everyone) was laying with the body, wailing louder than anyone I have ever heard wail. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I can really say that I've ever seen anyone wail.

Huyen's great grandmother was 100 years old as of January 1st. No matter how old someone is, it's always too soon when somebody you love passes away.

(PICTURE: Huyen and her great grandmother last November.)

Happy Birthday, Huyen!!!!

Come on, everyone, sing along with me:

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Huyen. Happy Birthday to you!

In the last year Huyen cut off her hair, traveled abroad for the first time, changed jobs three times and moved in with me. It's been a pretty darn good year!

It's Good To Be Back

NOTE: I have been back in Hanoi for a week already but decided to let my Japan blogs play out as I settled back into life here in Vietnam.


(PICTURE: Huyen and me in our new apartment.)

After more than three months away, I can finally say, "It's good to be back."

Despite all its faults -- traffic, pollution, dirty streets -- I love Hanoi. Obviously Huyen being here is the cherry on top of why I love this city. I'm gonna take this first blog to tell an anecdote about how great my girlfriend is:

A few months ago, Huyen and I decided to live together when I returned to Hanoi. Her roommate was moving back to her hometown and it just made sense for us to live together rather than both of us finding a new apartment. As I'm sure you can imagine, a Vietnamese girl living with her boyfriend is extremely unheard of here. But, well, Huyen is without a doubt the most liberal thinking Vietnamese girl I've met so it made sense that she was willing to give living together a shot. On top of that, if we're going to take things to the next level I think it only makes sense to move in together. Its better to find out now about intolerable cultural differences than down the road when say there is a little Nguyen/August running around.

Over the last month or so, via the internet and friends, Huyen started to scout out apartments for us. As much as I wanted to live in my amazing house from last year, I didn't want us to live with strangers. My experience with the people I lived with before and after Ryan taught me that it is better to live in a smaller place than in a bigger place with disgusting slobs.

Huyen checked out a whole bunch of places and we finally settled on an apartment in a quiet neighborhood about five minutes from my old house (I'll blog about the apartment in the coming weeks). Before I left Japan, Huyen and I talked about our plans for the next week. First things first, we were gonna spend the day after I arrived moving all of our stuff into our new place. Huyen took a few days off of work so we could spend time together and get our house in order. Well, after picking me up at the airport, we headed straight to the new apartment. When we got to the apartment and the door swung open I immediately saw that all of my stuff was not only there but it was unpacked and organized. It only took me a second to connect the dots -- Huyen had single handedly moved everything into the apartment. Mind you, we live on the third floor of a walk-up and between the two of us we have A LOT of stuff.

I was in slight shock that Huyen had done this and can't adequately describe the look of pride and happiness she had on her face. I'm sure it was only matched by my feeling of pride for her and happiness that I didn't have to spend my first day back in Hanoi lugging boxes. By this act alone, I can safely say Huyen is gonna be the greatest roommate I've ever had.

It's good to be back...

Sayonara Japan

This is it. This is my last post about Japan before Ahoy Hanoi goes back to its roots.

It was a great three months in the land of the rising sun. I've already written about my time in Koryama so this post is strictly about my ten days of traveling. I went from Koryama to Kyoto. Kyoto to Nara. Nara to Osaka. Osaka to Kobe to Hiroshima. Hiroshima to Myajima and then to Tokyo. Despite going to six cities in ten days, I know I only saw a fraction of the country. However, the fraction I saw was pretty darn cool. Here's a quick photo montage of some of the highlights from my trip:



I'm gonna miss you Japan...

Hokkaido Highway Blues

A few months ago my good friend Dan Gotlieb read Will Ferguson's "Hokkaido Highway Blues" while traveling around Japan. After reading the book, Dan ordered it for me online and had it delivered to my Koryama apartment. When the book arrived I was in the midst of reading "The Satanic Versus" and decided to hold off on "Hokkaido Highway Blues" until I was traveling around Japan myself. It was a wise decision.

I read "Hokkaido Highway Blues" as I left Koryama and traveled around the main Japanese island. As I turned each page of the book I felt like the kid in "The Neverending Story." I can't tell you how many times I would be somewhere and would simultaneously be reading about the author in the same place. Even more than our similar geography, Ferguson often seemed to be noticing and commenting on elements of Japanese culture that I was experiencing.

I don't often make many "must read" claims but this is a "must read" book if you've spent any amount of time in Japan. I think to fully appreciate the book you need to have lived in Japan. I'm not claiming to know everything since I was only there for three months but there are some things that you can't see/taste/hear/feel without really digging down into the society. Again, I was there just three months. Ferguson was there for years.

All of that said, let me put a disclaimer on the book: As much as I enjoyed it, I personally think the author comes off as a Grade A prick. There were many moments when I cringed and thought to myself, "I hate expats like him." I'm hoping that Ferguson took some artistic liberties with his retelling of conversations because there were definitely a handful that struck me as him being a total a-hole. To his credit though, usually it is hard to enjoy a book if you don't like the protagonist. I didn't really like Ferguson but I still liked the book.

25 Kilograms

(PICTURE: My bags at Narita airport.)

When I left for Japan I had one big bag that weighed 25 kilograms. Between shopping, receiving presents, buying things for my apartment and purchasing gifts for Huyen, I was ready to leave Japan with two bags each weighing 25 kilograms.

25 kilograms is the number that stuck out in my head whenever I would get anything in Japan. I kept thinking to myself, I have 25 extra kilograms to accumulate before going back to Vietnam.

So here's a really funny story: Being an August, I arrived at Narita Airport three hours early for my flight to Hanoi. You can go back and read my first ever blog entry about how us Augusts like to be on time. Well, I showed up at the Vietnam Airlines ticket counter with my two huge bags that I figured were both around 25 kilograms. I put the first bag on the scale and it weighed 28 kilograms. I put the next bag on the scale and it weighed 23 kilograms. I looked at the ticket agent and said, "Can I just take a couple kilograms out of one bag and put it into the other?" The woman gave me a strange look and nodded. She then took out a pen and paper and started to do some math. After she finished tabulating whatever she was tabulating she looked at me and said, "You can only bring 25 kilograms." "25 per bag, right," I asked. "No, 25 total." I looked at the woman as if she was crazy having realized I had an extra 26 kilograms of stuff to bring. The woman then showed me her math work and pointed at a number. The number was 98,560. She then said to me, "If you want to bring the extra weight it will cost you this much yen." I'm not sure if I started to laugh right then or just blurted out, "Yeah right!" 98,560 Yen is $1,059.47.

I quickly grabbed my bags off the belt, snatched back my passport and told the woman I would check-in later. I quickly made my way to the end of the airport terminal where the Japanese delivery companies were. I figured it had to be at least 10 X's cheaper to send stuff then to put it on the plane. Unfortunately the Japanese equivalent of UPS told me they don't deliver internationally. My back-up plan was to send it from the post office. Unfortunately the post office wasn't open yet. My back-up, back-up plan was to dump approximately 20 kilograms of stuff in a garbage can.

I found a somewhat empty section of the extremely busy airport and proceeded to unpack all of my stuff. First, I threw away everything I didn't absolutely need. This included some books I had read, some toiletries, hangers, a clothesline and nearly all of my kitchen goods from Japan minus my rice cooker and expensive pot. The rest of my kitchen -- plates, bowls, silverwear, etc. -- were left on top of a garbage can for a lucky passerby. Next I decided to use two day backpacks as carry-ons. I loaded everything heavy into these bags to the point that I thought the zippers would break. In fact, my one bag wouldn't close at all so I ended up tying the zippers together with a shoelace. I then took out my winter coat and STUFFED all the pockets with underwear and socks. I then filled the sleeves of the jacket with sweaters and sweatshirts. Finally, I put on a few layers of clothing and headed back to the check-in counter. I sneakily kept all of my carry-on stuff hidden below the counter while I put my two bags on the scale. The first bag weighed 11 kilograms. The second bag weighed 16 kilograms. I started to think about wearing four pairs of underwear when the ticket agent said, "We will let you bring this extra weight." I smiled from ear to ear and thanked her profusely. I'm pretty sure if I carried anything else I would have passed out from exhaustion.

But that was only half the fun. Next I had to go through passport control and security checks looking like a homeless man. I'm not trying to make fun of homeless people but it is the best way to describe my look at the time. I had two bags filled to the brim with pots, a yoga mat, and other stuff coming out of every pocket. Not to mention my coat which was stuffed with clothing.

When I went through security, I actually passed the metal detector before my bags went through the machine. I watched as the security agent looked at my bag for about thirty seconds. Clearly he must have been confused why a rice cooker stuffed with underwear inside of it was going through the machine. Somehow no red flags were raised though -- despite this being the day after the failed terrorist attack on the Detroit flight -- and I got my bags through without a problem.

Moral of the story: It is good to show up to flights very early in case you need to repack your luggage.

Drunk In Japan

(PICTURE: My favorite sign in the Japanese subway.)

Out of all the Asian countries I've been to, Japan had the least amount of puzzling signs in public. Usually when you wander around Asia you see really odd English that you can sort of figure out the meaning of. However in Japan, a country that really values perfection, the signs usually make sense.

One sign that I saw a few times in the Japanese subway was this:


This sign totally makes sense. The message is very clear. However, that doesn't stop it from being really funny to me. I love the Japanese honesty in this. To paraphrase the meaning: It is okay to be a drunk idiot but just do it at home.