Jefferson in Vietnam: Just another crazy weekend...

Hey all!

So this past weekend was a ton of fun, got to meet up with almost all my southern ETA homies (Trevor and Justin, why couldn't you come!) and spent the past week teaching and continuing to explore Ben Tre City. Also, this post marks one month that I have been in Ben Tre, and two months in Vietnam. Oh my. Time flies when you're in Vietnam...

The weekend started as soon as Vietnamese class stopped at 11. I leaped onto a bus and headed off into Ho Chi Minh City to meet up with my fellow Fulbrighters. Anna, Quan, Kate, Tyler, Jess, Claire and Lindsay had all taken the weekend off, nominally so we could attend a dinner at the Deputy Consulate General's house.

However, we were also looking forward to spending a lot of time with each other, as I hadn't seen Quan, Anna, Tyler or Claire in a month! So, we had a lot of catching up to do, and Quan had gone ahead and gotten a full eight bed room for us at a hostel so we all had plenty of space to chill and catch up.

Our hostel room

Friday evening we went to the house of Deputy Consul General Robert Ogburn for a dinner welcoming the Fulbright grantees to Vietnam. Mr. Ogburn's house was a very nice condo in a very nice suite of apartments, and the atmosphere was incredibly welcoming. It really felt like a normal dinner party at a friend's house as opposed to an official event, which made for a very casual and relaxed night. Mr. Ogburn and his wife greeted us all very warmly, and we were all soon chatting it up with guests at the party.

Besides us Fulbright ETAs, there were also several Fulbright grantees who would be doing research in Vietnam for the coming year. The Fulbright scholars were all older than us, with the youngest of them a Ph.D. student in her late twenties. Additionally, all of them were married, so they were at quite a different stage of life than us. However they were very friendly and I may end up seeing the ones who do research in Can Tho in the south.

I also met a variety of Fulbright alumni and other State Department people, a whole host of very interesting and influential guests. I felt in rather distinguished company, which is always a good thing to feel.

However, this night illustrated the necessity of getting my own business cards. While I was quite good at getting people's business cards, there were several occasions that other people asked me for my business card, and I had to explain that I didn't actually have one. You see, in college, the only students that have business cards are invariably incredibly annoying. However, now that I am a working professional (Oh God), I am expected to have a business card. Gaah. Real life...

It was a fantastic night at a wonderful residence, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, so thank you to Mr. Ogburn for his gracious hospitality!

All the Fulbrighters with our host front and center with his dog

After the dinner we changed into less nice clothes and went out into the Ho Chi Minh City nightlife. We hadn't gone out as a crew since Hanoi, so some of us were looking to make up for lost time. We started out at a bia hoi place, then bounced around several bars.

As the night progressed, some of the ETAs began to make excuses such as "It's late," "I'm tired," and "For God's sake guys it's 2 am! Can we please go to bed?" However, Claire, Anna and I would not be dissuaded, and the three of us hopped from bia hoi to bars and back while the city around us slowly went to bed.

Our night finally ended at 5 am with Anna trying to fight an Australian man who was trying to fight me while said Australian man was simultaneously hitting on Claire. It was a slightly strange night, but a fun one.

On Saturday, people spent the morning and afternoon running various arounds. For me, that meant seeing my family in Ho Chi Minh City. I had phoned my second cousin Mai Khanh earlier, and she planned to take me for lunch at her mother's house.

It should come as no surprise to those of you reading this blog that lunch was delicious, and that there was far too much food there for anyone to realistically consume. My family was incredibly welcoming, and they spent the entire time fussing with me and asking me if everything was okay in Ben Tre. They also kept pressuring my littler cousins aged 8 or 9 years to practice their English with me. One of my cousins actually tried to speak some English with me, which was absolutely adorable to see.

With the family

Mountains of delicious food

With my little cousin who was surprisingly willing to speak English

This dinner did not have as much linguistic difficulty as past dinners with my family for two reasons. First, Mai Khanh and her brother speak basically fluent English. So, I always had a translator to fall back on if necessary.

Secondly, and I am very proud of this, I can understand and speak Vietnamese a lot better now. I would by no means have been able to carry on a conversation by myself, but I can understand a fair amount and I can articulate basic concepts. Once I showed that I could understand some Vietnamese, my relatives started to talk a lot more, not just to me but also to each other.

Previously, my non-English speaking relatives had remained silent, or only talking in broken English so that I would not feel left out of the conversation. When they realized I could understand some Vietnamese, the conversation started to flow much more naturally. I by no means understood everything that was said, but I could get the general idea most of the time. Furthermore, I had Mai Khanh to fall back on, so if someone asked me a question I didn't understand I could always ask her to translate. So the lunch conversation flowed pretty well, I think.

For me, the highlight of lunch was at the very end, when Mai Khanh brought out Bánh Trung Thu, or mooncakes. These are only made around Tết Trung Thu, or the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are very dense cakes that either have a savory filling of mixed chinese sausage, sesame seeds, peanuts and winter melon, or a sweet filling made of mung bean paste. In either case, most mooncakes have a single salted egg in the middle. These are absolutely delicious, and all of you back home should run down to Chinatown right now and pick up a couple of these.

Banh Trung Thu, or Mooncakes. These things are the best.

After lunch, we relaxed and took a few photos before I headed back to the hostel.

More pictures with the family

In the afternoon, we spent some time walking around Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City has a very different feel from Hanoi, because Ho Chi Minh City is much more colonial. Saigon wasn't even really a city until the French colonial presence, so the core of the city is colonial French architecture in a way that the older Hanoi really isn't.

Ben Thanh Market on the left, with the modern skyline

The Notre Dame Cathedral of Saigon

The old post office

Inside the post office

Saturday night, I was convinced by Anna to do a Zombie Chase through Ho Chi Minh City. A Zombie Chase is a race where everyone starts out as either a survivor or a zombie. Survivors have to make it to several checkpoints across the city, while zombies try to chase down the survivors. If you are a survivor and you are tagged by a zombie, you become a zombie. So, the first few checkpoints are relatively easy, but by the time you reach the later stages and everyone else is a zombie, it gets really difficult. I had never done one before, but I had heard about them and some of my friends had done them before so I was definitely interested.

It was so much fun. It was a lot of sprinting away from zombies, and a fair amount of strategy/sneaking around as well. I definitely thought of myself as a character from The Walking Dead the entire time as well. There were seven checkpoints, and I got caught heading for the seventh. So, I lasted for a while but I was eventually hunted down, it was a ton of fun!

That night we headed to a very fancy club in Ho Chi Minh City, and we had a fantastic night there.

At the club

The next day we went into Vung Tau, Jess's province. Vung Tau is a beach town about an hour and a half away from Ho Chi Minh City by ferry, and every weekend both locals and foreigners flock to Vung Tau for its gorgeous beaches.

Disembarking at Vung Tau

Of course, the one day we visit Vung Tau it is cold and rainy. Typical.

However, it wasn't a total loss. The other attraction in Vung Tau is a giant statue of Jesus, so we took a trip over there to check it out. Along the way we met up with Wali, Anna's friend, and two of Jess's students. While Jess's students didn't speak much English, and Jess doesn't speak much Vietnamese, the affection the students had for Jess was obvious and adorable.

With one of Jess's students, I think her name was Thao

Driving in Vung Tau was much more relaxing than the typical day in Ho Chi Minh City or even Ben Tre. There are designated lanes for motorcycles and cars, and these lanes are even obeyed. There are relatively few vehicles on the street, and I think the effect of driving along the beach must have a salutary effect on one's mood, because the drivers in Vung Tau seemed much more sane than in Ben Tre.

We arrived at the statue of Jesus, and began a moderate 30 minute climb up steep staircases to reach the statue's base. It was incredibly humid, and so despite the relative ease of the hike I found myself drenched in sweat and drinking copious amounts of water. After finally reaching the top, this is what we saw.

The Christ of Vung Tau is 105 feet tall, and if you count the platform the whole monument is 118 feet tall. In real life, the statue looks even bigger, a colossus that you gaze up at in pure amazement.

You can climb inside the Christ of Vung Tau, and upon reaching the top you are treated to spectacular views of Vung Tau.

It was an excellent trip, and I was very glad that Jess's students took us up the mountain to see the Christ of Vung Tau.

All of us

With the Vung Tau Jesus

After seeing the Vung Tau Christ, we swung by the beach for a brief swim in wonderfully warm water, then rushed over to the boat to make our ferry. Anna and I missed our boat, but thankfully there was another final boat and I was able to make it to Ben Tre with a minimum of headaches. So, overall a very fun and entertaining weekend!

As far as this week goes, teaching this week has actually been going fairly. I've started exploring Ben Tre more and spending more time with my students. Because most of my students are female and I'm about their age I had resisted spending too much time with them because I did not want to give anyone the wrong impression.

However, this week I decided that I was being ridiculous and so in the last three days I have had coffee with one of my students, and then got lunch and coffee with another group of students. It's a lot of fun hanging out with them, they tend to alternate between teasing each other about me, being amazed at my Vietnamese skills and being disappointed at the low level of my Vietnamese. It's a lot of teasing and giggling, which is a nice change of pace from hanging out with my fellow teachers, who tend to be a bit more mature than me.

With my students at lunch

A quick note about teaching. English Club is becoming my pride and joy, and the students who come to the club inevitably brighten my day. They are so enthusiastic and down for basically anything that I can pull out relatively complicated exercises and they will tackle them, perhaps not with perfect skills but always with a high level of energy and enthusiasm. There are relatively few students who come out to English Club (12-16 students) but I'm hoping that once class scheduling gets resolved, more students can come.

This week, our topic was "my ideal boyfriend/girlfriend" and so the skits they had to present involved going on a date. I gave each of them a date idea, and each of them a serious problem that had to happen at some point in the date. For instance, one of the dates was "go to a concert," and one of the problems was "someone spills a drink on your date." All of the skits were hysterical, but one in particular, when an ex-boyfriend showed up, had me rolling on the floor with laughter.