Hello all,
So I'm safely back from Da Lat and Ho Chi Minh City, it's been a fun week! Will update you on that, but first here are some pictures from the last couple (picture-less) blog weeks.
The war museum in Ben Tre
A Vietnam War memorial...for the Viet Cong. Kind of a weird feeling.
The orchard owner climbs up a tree to pick some fresh fruit for me
In Vung Tau, sitting in on Jess's English Club with Lindsay
The beach at Vung Tau
The monkey pagoda. In Vung Tau there is a hill you hike up to see a view of the whole city. On the way you pass a pagoda that is entirely abandoned, except for a clan of monkeys.
Looks pretty cool, right?
I saw these monkeys stare down a kid until the kid's mom threw the kid's toy to the monkeys. Don't mess with monkeys.
The Consular dinner in Ho Chi Minh City
Model
Repping Fulbright
So, it was an entertaining few weeks. Nothing compared to last week though. On Tuesday I caught an afternoon flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Lat. I was on the same flight as Justin, the Fulbright ETA from Soc Trang, and I haven't seen him since orientation. We spent almost all our time catching up, and it was really fantastic to see him. We got to the hotel, dropped our stuff off and immediately headed out to catch up with everyone.
Now normally the Fulbright ETA get-togethers have been rather epic affairs. Rising Dragon parties, going out till 5 am, shutting down Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City...I like to think we've made a name for ourselves. But for this trip to Da Lat we were all much more subdued. People were struck with various forms of illnesses, and I think the combination of cooler weather in Da Lat and general fatigue made most of us comfortable just chilling and hanging out rather than raging around town.
At the first restaurant after getting to Da Lat, chilling with Quan and Justin
Some things to know about Da Lat. Da Lat is a city in the southern highlands of Vietnam, about a four hour bus ride or 45 minute plane ride north from Ho Chi Minh City. Da Lat was founded in 1890 by the French, and the prevailing architecture in the city is overwhelmingly French colonial, with none of Hanoi's older Imperial Vietnamese buildings.
Da Lat was established as a French resort town because of its cool climate. Da Lat is situated high in the mountains, and its perfect placement among the mountains means that Da Lat is cool year-round. Temperatures fluctuate between 65º and 75º F. Throw in some pretty serious winds, and you have a place that is pretty damn chilly, especially compared to Ben Tre with its average temperature of 90º.
The climate in Da Lat made it a favored summer escape for French colonials, and it also means that the agricultural variety in Da Lat is stunning. The flowers of Da Lat are renowned for their diversity and extraordinary beauty. This is one of the reasons Da Lat is considered the "city of love."
It isn't only flowers, though. Da Lat is also the only place in Vietnam where strawberries, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage and many other fruits and vegetables can be grown. Oh, and pine trees. The first pine trees I have seen since I have left Boston.
Know where else you can see pine trees in Vietnam? Nowhere.
So, we only had a few days to explore the city of love, and most of that would be taken up with out mid-year conference. However, we had all of Wednesday to travel around before our conference took place. After grabbing breakfast we headed off to explore Truc Lam pagoda.
In the most French cafe I have visited in Vietnam
To get to Truc Lam pagoda you first hike up a steep hill, until you reach a cable car station. Before taking the cable car up to the pagoda we stopped to take a few pictures.
Fierce
Then we jumped onto the cable car and were treated with some spectacular views of the panorama below.
After reaching the top we hiked up to the pagoda.
Situated at the top of a mountain, surrounded by pine trees, with its own extensively manicured garden and lake, it is impossible to overstate how serene this pagoda feels. Even with dozens of tourists passing through and the taxi stand and the impossibly garish souvenir stand a few steps below, the monks who live here go through their daily routine as though they were in complete isolation.
Listening to the wind whistling off the mountains as the prayer gong echoes, it is not hard to imagine why one would seek peace here. The smell of pine trees and exotic flowers mingle in your nostrils, carrying your mind off to places that you never dreamed of before, while the steady trickle of running water grounds you to the living earth around you.
The tourists talk too loud and take too many pictures too loudly. But, well, no place is perfect.
After visiting the pagoda we headed over to a highly-rated Western restaurant to fill a much needed craving for burgers, steaks and other culinary delights of the West. There Claire and I both ordered a delicious goulash that is definitely the best in Vietnam, and would rate highly against any back home.
At lunch
After lunch we stopped for a quick nap, then headed out to see a waterfall. This waterfall was particularly entertaining because to reach the waterfall we had to take a rail cart down to the bottom. We had total control of our own speed, and the seatbelts didn't work. Yet another thing I am certain I could never do around my Mẹ.
WHEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Then we got down to the waterfall and it was absolutely gorgeous.
Chilling with my homies, a phoenix and a tiger
After visiting the waterfall we came back to our hotel for an incredibly classy Fulbright dinner. This dinner was very nice too because it was very small. It was only the Fulbright ETAs, researchers, and Fulbright staff. As nice as it is to have prominent alumni around, sometimes those larger events can feel a little crowded. It was really nice to have an event that was just us and our friends, made everything feel very intimate and close.
After dinner it was time for more pictures.
With Trevor at the christmas tree
Amanda, Vanlam, Anna and Claire
The outside of the DuParc Hotel at night
We woke up on Thursday morning and headed over to the Palace Hotel for our mid-year conference. Here was the room where we would be spending most of our time in Da Lat, sharing our experiences, challenges, achievements and stories.
The presentations were fascinating for a number of reasons. First of all, the multitude of different styles on display. Many people did powerpoints, but Trevor did a free talk, Quan used a Prezi presentation and Anna, Justin, Vanlam and Amelia all incorporated movies into their presentation in some ways. On a purely technical level, it was a cool display of a variety of different styles.
As far as content goes, people were facing a huge variety of different problems. Some felt isolated and lonely in their provinces, others were overwhelmed with social invitations. Some felt overworked, others underused. Some complained of hosts that were unhelpful, others had hosts that took care of everything. Everyone had their own slightly different set of positives and negatives, which really highlighted the diversity of our experiences.
Some common threads:
1. Linguistic challenges. Almost everyone mentioned or alluded to the alienation and challenges that occur in a primarily Vietnamese speaking environment. Even those with sparkling Vietnamese in Hanoi -- Trevor, Quan, and Anna-- were not immune. Trevor's northern accent was very difficult for the southerners he works with to understand, and as "Viet Kieu," Anna and Quan are held to a much higher standard of Vietnamese than the rest of us. At the risk of severe understatement, it is very hard to function on a basic level if you cannot speak the local language fluently. And I mean fluently. Not basic level, not proficient, fluent.
2. Students. People's students were at different levels, but some complaints were similar. The biggest ones were talking in class and cheating. In Vietnamese culture, it is not common to listen to a speech attentively. People talk to their neighbors, do work, talk on their cell phones. The authority of the speaker does not matter at all. The head of the school could be making a speech, and everyone in the audience is talking to each other and basically ignoring him.
This often carries over to the classroom, where students will talk to each other instead of listening to their fellow teacher present, and sometimes when the teacher is talking. Coming from the U.S., this struck all of us as incredibly disrespectful.
Cheating is another huge issue in Vietnam. This deserves its own post, but copying other student's work in class is incredibly common, students will constantly ask each other for the answers and copy presentations off each other. The stigma against plagiarism in the U.S. is not really a thing in Vietnam, so all of us have had to deal with cheaters at some point in our time in Vietnam.
3. Frustration with the process. At some point, in some area, all of us experienced the teeth-grinding sensation of asking several people for help, then being told that help would require approval, or that help was on the way when it was not. All of us had run-ins where something that we thought of as a quick-fix required several layers of approval, or where assistance is repeatedly promised but none offered.
Overall though, all of the presentations were much more positive than negative. Everyone is making new friends and discovering new aspects of themselves, and the meeting was a great way for me to observe and hear about everyone's personal growth while also reflecting on my own.
There were a lot of highlights from the conference presentations as well. Number one for me, easily, was Justin's hip-hop dance. I really hope he puts it online at some point. Amelia's movie trailer was also fantastic.
Grabbing snacks between presentations
Tyler's presentation
After the presentations, it was time for another night out on the town, we ended up chilling at this cafe until the wee hours of the night.
Our table
With Lindsay
On Friday we finished up our presentations, then headed to Yersin University in Da Lat for a cultural exchange program with students there.
Fooling around before the conference
These guys are twins, I swear
None of us really knew what to expect, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. We split up into different groups to discuss different topics and prepare a presentation on each topic. Ours was family values, so we presented two skits on an American and Vietnamese family.
There were also several dances, and a few games that we all played with the students. It was a ton of fun!
Doing a dance
Another group presenting
This is how romantic Da Lat is. No city should ever have this many tandem bikes. Actually, no one should ever have a tandem bike. Ever. Vetoed.
We stopped by the church to take pictures
Trevor and Quan
For our last night together in Da Lat we held a Secret Santa/White Elephant gift exchange that was a ton of fun. I came in with an albino Winnie the Pooh and left with a pair of Spongebob Squarepants slippers and a matching coffee mug.
Unwrapping the gifts
Jess plays with a dreidel
Kate lights the menorah. Non-denominational celebrations!
Difficulty with presents
Kate opens Amelia's present, a hand-knitted scarf
At the end of the gift-giving we did an affirmation circle, where everyone went around and said something nice about the people next to them. It was super emotional, with a lot of love going around. There are some pretty cool people in my program and I'm really glad to know them, as fellow Fulbrighters, as teachers, as scholars, as people and as friends.
I didn't cry. I just had something in my eye.
Shut up.
Anyways, after all that, it was time to board a plane on Saturday morning from Da Lat to Ho Chi Minh City. Time to bid farewell to the city of love, at least for now.
Sunset in Da Lat
I got to Ho Chi Minh City and immediately jumped in a taxi to the fields at Manila. I would be going straight from the Fulbright conference to an ultimate frisbee tournament, because sleep is stupid and doing awesome things is awesome.
Anyways, I had to miss the first game, but I showed up in time to drop my stuff off, pay my registration fee, warm up and meet my teammates.
The tournament I was attending was Vietnam Hat 2012, the largest ultimate frisbee tournament in Vietnam. It's nowhere near as big as Manila Spirits, but it still had I would guess 200 players from Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asian countries. As the marquee event of Vietnam ultimate, there was no way I was missing it.
Vietnam Hat is pretty different from Manila Spirits, because Vietnam Hat is a "hat" tournament. What this means is that you register as an individual player, or with a friend, instead of as a team. You rate your skills as a player, and then the tournament organizers make the teams. It's as if the teams are made by drawing random names out of a hat. Hat tournaments tend to be less serious, simply because you don't know how good your teammates are going to be, and they are a great way to meet people.
My team was Team Yellow aka Team Pikachu, and I knew exactly one person on the team. It was Stephen, the Princeton-in-Asia friend of Trevor's who had come to Phu Quoc with me and Mẹ. None of my teammates from Manila Spirits were on my team, although I saw many of them on other teams.
Hat tournaments are always a bit challenging, just because you don't know how well your teammates are going to jell with you. You also don't know if your teammates are going to be fun to play with, or if some of them are going to be jerks.
Luckily, the team I was on was perfect. Kristjan was a fantastic captain, a dominant player and a very calm force at the helm. He was always reminding us to have fun and loosen up, while also noting one or two things we could do to improve our play. All my teammates were really cool and fun to hang out with, and we all played really well together.
Everyone fit into their role very naturally and very early on. Kristjan was the main handler, I was the main cutter, Alex was the big guy in the air, Stephen was a "swiss-army knife" cutter or handler and a stud defender, Lincoln and S.K. were two all-around playmakers, Thinh was a reliable third handler, Yoel, Shawn and Phong provided solid cutting, Ng Jing and Jac were athletic and experienced girls who could tear apart weak defenders, Nhi, Mal, Diane, William and Justin brought energy and non-stop running, and Khuong was a big thrower who had mastered the "ohgodohgodohgod why did he throw that...wait that worked!?!?" school of risk-taking.
We played a suffocating zone defense, and playing zone requires an incredible amount of trust and communication, so i think that shows our immediate chemistry.
We rolled through the first day, the only close game being a universe point win over Brown where I skied my man on the last point.
Team Pikachu was 4-0 after day 1.
Much love to Vu Tattoo, who let me crash at his (spectacular) pad. It was a true treat to be a guest at maison d'Vu, and although I spent most of my time in his apartment chugging water, stretching, cramping, and trying not to cry in pain, it was still a very nice stay.
Going into day 2, all the talk was about the unstoppable force of Team Red, who had (allegedly) stacked their team with Filipino imports. Undistracted, Pikachu continued its march of destruction, cruising through the quarters and semis to face the titans of Team Red.
Now, at this point, dear reader, you might be noticing an uncharacteristic lack of photos from this part of the blog post. That is due to the fact that at this point, I was tired, emotionally wrecked, and all over the place from going from the conference to the tournament. It was a struggle for me to even keep track of my tournament gear, and I worried that if I pulled out my camera, I would end up just forgetting it at the fields.
Thankfully, however, due to the miracles of FACEBOOK there are photos up of Team Pikachu playing Team Red in the finals. All photo credit goes to people who I don't actually know, so thanks strangers.
(No but seriously, these photos are awesome. I take no credit whatsoever)
Cap'n Kristjan with the disc
A nice bid by Nelson, but I still caught the disc
Breaking the mark pretty badly
Stephen goes up huge
Alex goes up huger
The final was one of the most exciting games I have ever played. First of all, this was the first final I have ever played in. For any tournament final, most of the teams who have been eliminated stick around to watch the game. They de-cleat, stretch a bit, grab a beer and relax while they cheer/jeer/heckle the finals as they play. I have always been a part of the de-cleated heckling crowd, and this was the first time I was playing while others cheered/heckled me.
Secondly, due to some perhaps unfair perceptions that Red had stacked their team, the crowd was completely, and hilariously, on our side. They cheered our big plays, and were sullenly silent when a Red player did something spectacular. At one point a player on Red called a debatable foul call on me, and the entire sideline started booing and heckling him. Objectively, this was a bit unfair, but as a player for team Pikachu it was awesome.
Team Pikachu started the game off with a dream start. Our zone defense confused Red, and they turned it over quickly. Ng Jing pulled down a pass in the endzone over a bidding defender, and suddenly we were up 1-0.
The next point I baited a throw, then sprang forward and got the D. I put my head down and sprinted for the endzone, and Stephen ran to the disc, then hucked it to me for the quick break and the score. I heard the crowd cheer my D, then the tension building as I ran down the huck, followed by an explosive scream when I caught the score. The crowd was going insane, I spiked the disc and screamed as my teammates swarmed me, and Pikachu was up 2-0 on the mighty Red team.
You spend your entire life thinking about textbook Hollywood sports moments, and when it happens to you it is exactly as cool as you think it is going to be.
Red, however, came to play. They had some incredibly fast guys, and patient throwers who weren't troubled by our previously crushing zone defense. They scored the next 3 points to make it 3-2, then we traded points until they broke us to take half 8-6.
The second-half was tight as well, and we pushed Red to the breaking point. We fought for every point, made every possession they had difficult, and pressured every pass. Red, however, didn't break. They had just that extra bit of quality, and they took just a few less risks than we did. In the end Red triumphed, 13-11.
Although we weren't able to pull out the win, it was still a very successful tournament for Team Pikachu. We all made a lot of new friends, we played incredible ultimate and we had a lot of fun doing it. I think we kept pretty good sportsmanship in our games, and we were able to play very intensely while still having fun.
Some members of Team Pikachu received individual awards. Kristjan was deservedly named Male MVP of the tournament, and I was declared one of the "7 mythical animals, (Best 7 players)" of the tournament.
It was a hell of a lot of fun playing with Team Pikachu, and I hope I get the chance to see these guys around again!
Team Pikachu
Aight, that's all I got for you guys today. Christmas updates to come soon, stay tuned!
Peace,
Jefferson
