Vietnamese Idioms

There are many Vietnamese idioms that have the same meaning as common English idioms. One such idiom is, "That's like the cat calling the dog's butt hairy." This is the equivalent to, "The pot calling the kettle black." For those who don't know either of these idioms, they basically refer to when someone calls someone out for something that they themselves are guilty of.

Welllllllll, I finally got to use "That's like the cat calling the dog's butt hairy" on Huyen. You see, a few times this year, Huyen has lectured me on keeping my foot on the brake of my motorbike. She said that the guy at the shop says I must be resting my foot on the brake which has caused the brake pad to wear down at a faster rate than usual. I must admit that I do often keep my foot gently on the brake because 1) there's really no place else to put my foot 2) I don't mind replacing the brake pad a little sooner if it means I can brake a little sooner in crazy traffic.

The other day though when Huyen and I hauled stuff back to her parents' house, I noticed something on the highway. What can you see in this picture of Huyen driving down the highway:



You should have noticed that her brake light is on with nothing but an open road in front of her. Clearly someone has their foot on the brake! Indeed that's like the cat calling the dog's butt hairy.

We-Haul

Last weekend Huyen and I hauled a whole bunch of stuff back to her house. We took about 30 pounds of candy (for the wedding), 10 pounds of watermelon seeds (also for the wedding), a giant picture of the two of us (yes, for the wedding), our wedding photo album (wait, I haven't even blogged about our wedding photos yet! How did I miss that one?!), a baby mobile (the thing that hangs above a crib, not a phone) for our new nephew and the clock my parents bought for Huyen's new house. There was so much stuff that we couldn't fit it all on one bike so we had to caravan to Huyen's parents' house. Check out my bike which became the Vietnamese version of U-haul:

My Favorite Snack

My consecutive blogging streak came to an end yesterday as I was bed bound all day with the stomach flu. However, thanks for the incredible nursing skills of Huyen, I'm back on my feet today and ready to keep blogging.

(PICTURE: Passion fruit and goat milk yogurt.)

I thought I would share with everyone my favorite snack that I like to think I personally created. It's quite a simple snack but I haven't seen it served anywhere except in my kitchen. The ingredients:

1. A few passion fruit
2. Fresh goat milk yogurt

Directions: Cut open the passion fruit and scoop out the seeds and juice. Then add fresh goat milk yogurt. Mix together and then eat.

Yes, it's incredibly simple but it's absolutely delicious. If you don't have goat milk yogurt at your convenience (I've got a place that sell is about 75 feet from my house) then regular cow's milk yogurt works just fine.

That's A Vietnamese Wedding Custom?!!!!!

A minute ago, I was typing a blog when Huyen started laughing. I looked over to my right and saw her reading from this book:



After giggling for a minute, Huyen told me to listen and then read a passage from the book. Here's the passage:



If that isn't a reason to get cold feet then I don't know what is!!!!!

Bad Idea Jeans

I'm clearly getting to parenting age because a lot of bad parenting has been especially bothering me recently. The other day Huyen and I were at the gym when some lady came in with her two children who were roughly three and maybe 16 months tops. The lady got on the treadmill and let her children meander around the gym like it was their personal playground. I mean, could there be a worse idea than letting an infant walk around a gym? I was on an elliptical machine, staring at the kid wondering how many different ways he might lose a limb or worse. There were free weights around, moving parts on treadmills and bikes, etc. As soon as I saw the unescorted kids, I turned to Huyen and said, "Are you serious?" Well, it wasn't more than two minutes later when the infant found the giant blue abdominal/pilates ball and started to push it around. He winded up pushing it across the floor into the water tank stand. Sure enough the giant bottle of water fell over (thankfully not landing on the kids head) as well as the plastic cups on the stand.

The mother promptly got off the treadmill and sort of scolded her infant. Of course this is when I began to wonder, "Who is gonna scold you you freaking idiot!" The mother then took her two kids and sat them down on the treadmill next to the one she was using. She then got back on the treadmill and continued to work out. When I left the gym the kids hadn't yet had another accident. However, with the treadmill spinning about six inches away from them, it was probably only a matter of time before something bad was going to happen.

Here's just a fact of life: LITTLE CHILDREN AND GYMS DO NOT MIX!

Wisdom Teeth

(PICTURE: The first picture that came up when I googled wisdom teeth.)

When one lives someplace a long time, one starts to notice trends. Something I've noticed a lot over the last couple of years is that many of my students in their 20s have a lot of tooth pain. Recently my wife, who is also in her 20s, has had a considerable amount of pain emanating from the back of her mouth. Growing up in a country where people almost always preemptively remove their wisdom teeth, this is not something that I'm personally familiar with.

In Vietnam it is seems that nobody has their wisdom teeth removed. Instead people go to the dentist and have some kind of cream/ointment/paste on the wisdom teeth area to temporarily take away the pain. Supposedly that usually helps for a few weeks. I asked one of my students recently how long she has had pain and she said "on and off for a few years." I've been told that eventually the pain just stops. Who the heck knows if that is true or not. There's something to this though that is a great metaphor between a developed country and developing country. Or perhaps it is just a testament to Vietnamese culture as a whole. People here deal with annoyances for years and years until they finally disappear. Okay, maybe I'm reading into this too much.

How much crack is in a Rold Gold pretzel?

(PICTURE: Pretzels are heaven.)

I love pretzels. I'm not scared to admit it. I'd choose pretzels over any other snack food in a second. There's just something about the crunchiness mixed with sea salt that makes my body turn to jelly. Luckily for my waistline, there's not good pretzels in Hanoi...or so I thought.

The other day we went to Huyen's co-workers house and Huyen made a comment, "The last time I was here Anne had pretzels." Well, sure enough Anne went out to the store a little while later and brought me back a bag of Rold Gold pretzels. I don't know what got triggered in my brain but I tore into the bag so unbelievably fast that I was ashamed of myself. As soon as I had my first taste I couldn't put the bag down. After vacuuming down countless pretzels, Huyen took the bag away from me because she was scared it would ruin my appetite (we had gone to her friend's house to eat lunch). As soon as the bag was out of my reach, I shamelessly begged for, "one more handful." My god they were tasty.

After eating a huge lunch and feeling completely full, Huyen took out the pretzels again. Despite not being able to eat a bite more moments earlier, I once again ripped into the bag. I'm not proud to admit this but, I ate all the pretzels by myself.

Finding Rold Gold Pretzels is not what the dietitian ordered with just under six weeks to go before our wedding!