Holiday in Manila

I'm almost at the end of a week's holiday in Manila. I've spent Christmas at the home of  a friend, and her family has been very gracious to me. I've seen Intramuros, which is the old Spanish walled city within the city, I've been to Manila Bay, Casa Manila, which is an old home turned into a museum, several imposing malls, a family party, and too many restaurants to count.

My host family is Chinese- Filipino, so the food I've eaten had been amazing. I don't think I've tried anything I didn't like. Filipino food is not spicy. They tend to use a lot of vinegar and sugar for flavour.

This photo was taken on a landing at Casa Manila. The house shows the way the Spanish affluent set used to live. Intramuros was built as the seat of the Spanish government in Manila, and the walls were built to keep the local Filipinos out.

One thing that has struck me is the abject poverty, and how it is side by side with affluence, and very visible. The family I am visiting is fairly well off, and they live beside a bridge. Under the bridge live several other families, including my host family's driver and his family.

Another thing that has surprised me is the sound of fireworks going off day and night. Just this morning I read in the paper of several people being injured by fireworks on Christmas Eve, and authorities expect more during New Year Eve. Apparently there is an area that is the centre for manufacturing fireworks, many of them in backyards. Safety cannot be guaranteed, and there are even some types that have been outlawed that are still being sold. It was one of these that blew off a young man's leg over Christmas.

Today will be a fun day, as we are going to buy some classroom supplies that we cannot get in VN. I will be flying back home tomorrow night.

shopping

Shopping in Vietnam is very different from shopping in Canada. The best thing is the prices- they are one half to one third what I would expect to pay there. After that everything gets complicated though. Some things are poor quality although they have brand name tags on them. I think this may be the knock off centre of the known world! I bought my son in law a shirt for about $10 that said it was Versace. It might have been, but it was a size large that should very soon fit his 11 year old daughter. Everything is "as is" and nothing ca nbe returned to the store if you are not satisfied. for this reason it is necessary to check out electrical eqiupment before you buy.
     There's a funny thing- electronics cost much more here than they do in North America. Seems strange, since they are manufactured here. The same laptop that I bought in Calgary for $500 would go for about $900 here. The same is true of camera and other electronics, and again, you may be getting the real thing but you're just as likely to be getting a knock off.
      Sometimes it's hard to buy something because I just can't figure out where to look. The stores are all grouped according to what they sell. If you want to buy home furnishings, you must go to a certain area where the home furnishing stores are located. To buy sporting goods, there's another area. I would love to buy some sewing supplies, but I haven't yet found the proper area. I know where to go in a market to get thread, buttons, and other necessities, so that will do me for the time being.
         Supermarkets are just that. They sell everything from soup to nuts and bolts. Everything, that is, except what you're looking for. the supermarket closest to me is a large one that opened about a year ago. I have never been able to find white sugar there, and the only cheese they seem to know is cheddar, emmenthal, and gouda. There are a couple of "foreign" grocery stores in the city where I can often get things that I can't find in the local stores.
         Shopping, like everything else, has proven to be an adventure. And I do love adventures.

The language

The Vietnamese language has evolved from several different languages, as have many modern languages. The country has a long history of occupation by other countries, most notably Japan, China, and France, and this shows up in the language. Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, and sometimes I think it has more diacritical marks than words! The alphabet is the same one we use in the West, but there are 17 consonants and 12 vowel sounds. Think that it doesn't sound too bad? Well those 17 consonants have 28 sounds! We're not finished yet: there are also almost 40 dipthongs, or blends of more than one vowels sounded together, as in the English word oil. Finally  there are the six different tonemes, which we don't have in English. They are shown by diacritical marks, and tell the speaker if the syllable should have a high, low, mid-,broken, rising or falling sound. Inflection is very important, and the diacritical marks tell when the word should be spoken with a raising or lowering of the voice. In English, the two words "She's here" can be spoken in different ways to indicate different emotions, as:
     She's here.
     She's here.
     She's here?
     She's here!
In Veitnamese, the emotion comes from the context and body language more than from the voice inflection, because changing the way a word is spoken changes the meaning of the word. Nam with one intonation means the number five, but with another intonation can mean the word man.

Because I have studied French, I can sometimes hear the French influence in the words, and on some occasions it helps me figure out what people are saying to me. Pho mat (needs diacritical marks, which I don't have) is pronounced "fo my", similar to the French "fromage". Some people in thier sixties or older had to study French in school during the time Vietnam was occupied by the French, and here and there one can find someone who still speaks it. One experience where the language almost didn't work for me was soon after I discovered a yarn shop. Anyone who knows me knows that I can't stay away from yarn! I tried to tell the woman what I wanted, but she had no English and I had no Vietnamese. Her shop is in a large market and I left her stall and was browsing at another one when she came running to me. In French, she asked if I spoke French and I told her I did. She led me back to her stall, we conducted our business in French, and now I go there often and am able to makes myself understood perfectly well.

I haven't learned very much of the language, because the Vietnamese make it easy for me to be lazy about it. English is spoken all around me. I am amazed at how many people speak English! Sometimes I'm on a motorbike, stopped at a light, and the people on the bike beside me notice I'm a foreigner and yell "Hello!" just to practice their English skills. Even in restaurants with no English speaking wait staff, there will usually be a menu somewhere written in enough English that one would not need to go away hungry. On occasion I have had difficulty telling a taxi driver where I want to go, but then I just ask for a pen and paper to write the address down and we're both happy.


One of the guards here at the complex where I live also speaks some French. A few days ago he asked if I live in Canada. I told him I did, and he went on to ask what province I was from. Now I know that if I need something and he is working, he's my 'go to' guy.

Everywhere I've lived I've found that if I make an effort to speak the local language, the residents are more than happy to help, simply because I'm trying. My attempt may bring a smile to their faces, but at least I've tried.

Oh the Pain of it!

Oh The Pain Of It

There were a few things that I experienced when I came here that were somewhat unpleasant. I'm going to mention all of them in one entry, but please don't think that life here is a series of hardships. It's anything but.

The humidity and heat, as I mentioned before, were quite different from what I had been experiencing in Southern Alberta in late October. The temperatures were hovering in the high 20's and low 30's. I don't know what the relative humidity was, but it took no time at all to be soaking wet with sweat. Even taking a shower was useless, because before I was dressed I found myself sweating profusely again. I soon learned to turn the air conditioner on to a very low temperature before my shower, partly just to dry myself.

And the mosquitoes! You can hardly see the little devils, but they sure take a chunk out of a person. My legs were a mess for weeks from bites. They seem to attack in droves and each one takes a big bite, and then of course they itch like crazy. It didn't help that I was taking the dog for walks in the early morning and evening, when they were most active.

In the area where I first lived, rats were very common. I saw many of them when I was walking the dog; so many in fact, that soon I didn't jump anymore when they scurried across the street in front of me. Since moving to this area I haven't seen very many at all.

Sadly, there is garbage piled along the streets everywhere here in the rural areas. It's so distressing, because this is such a beautiful country otherwise. The smell in this heat is truly awful; in fact, stench would be a better word. Some of it is household garbage, some is fast food containers, and sometimes in some areas one can even smell dead animals.People walk along the street and just drop their garbage without a second thought. I don't know why this is allowed to happen because many areas have garbage pick up, and Vietnam calls itself a prosperous country with zero unemployment. Surely someone could be picking up the garbage off the streets!

I can't mention garbage without mentioning cigarettes. Asia is far behind North America on smoking legislation. Many Asians are smokers, and they are permitted to light up almost anywhere. Smoking in restaurants is common, and there is no designated smoking section.

I arrived near the end of rainy season, and at about the same time every day we would get a violent downpour. One day I had gone for a swim after work, and it started raining while I was in the pool. I was about ready to get out anyway, so I got dressed and though I'd just wait out the rain as it was coming down hard and fast. Finally I decided to go home, rain or not. Good thing, otherwise I'd have been there well into the night!

Driving and being a pedestrian here is taking your life into your own hands. I drive a small motorbike, as do most people in the country. Most roads have a designated lane for motorbikes, but if a vehicle wants to make a right turn, it will pull over into the motorbike lane, often without signalling. Some drivers will go along for several kilometres in the motorbike lane, and suddenly pull into the correct lane again, often just about the time a motorbike driver decides to go around them to the left. I have seen a large number of motorbikes wrapped around the front of buses and trucks. Many people drive without using headlights even at night! And look out on the sidewalks, because you are just as likely to see people driving motorbikes there too, and often even on the wrong side. Then they have the nerve to beep at you to get out of their way! The noise of horns is constant. There are no stop signs, so I think I've figured out the main rule of the road: the one with the loudest horn has the right of way.

The biggest headache I've run into is bureaucracy and red tape. There are rules, rules, rules, many of which are ridiculous. For example, I live in a complex with 24 hour guards, which is common here. I have a permit to park my motorbike in the parking lot. Makes sense so far, right? Now here's the crazy part: when I take the bike out, no matter where I'm going, I have to leave my permit with the guard and pick it up when I return. Another paper I need to have is a resident permit.( To date I only have a temporary one, but that's a whole other can of worms. ) To receive this permit, my landlord must submit a form and my passport to the local police. It took nearly two weeks for me to get my passport back, not sure why. In the meantime the management company for my building had not paid their graft to the police. The police were at our door more than once to ask for our permits, which of course we didn't have. Fortunately we were always in bed when they arrived and didn't hear them at the door, otherwise they could have taken us to the local jail and detained us until our landlord, who was out of the country at the time, came to the jail and vouched for us.

These were all isolated things that proved to be annoying at the time, but taken in the balance were not big deals at all. Even with all of this I'm glad to be here.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, Goodbye!

For years I suffered from depression but didn't realize it. My body always seemed to believe that when it was light it's time to get up and when it's dark it's time to go to sleep. Now sometimes this could be a problem when I lived in the Arctic, especially in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. In the winter there, in the dead of winter, it was dusky around noon and that was as light as it got.

When I can kidd that issue goodbye! Binh Du'o'ng is about 11 degrees north of the equator, so our days and nights are of almost equal lenght most of the time. It's light from about 6 to 6, winter and summer. In the "winter " the days get a bit shorter for a while, but not much.

Ha ha did I say winter? The mean temperature is 27 degrees Celsius. THERE IS NO WINTER!!!! We have two seasons, wet and dry. The wet season is wrapping up. It runs from about december to may, and the rest of the year is wet. During wet season it rains for a time almost every afternoon and evening. the rains are usually very hard and can last from an hour or so to all night. The rest of the year we do get rain now and then, but nothing like in wet season. Because the land here is flat and everything is at sealevel, floods are common. Add to that poor infrastructure, and many more vehicles on the roads than they were ever designed for, and things can get pretty hairy for someone on a motorbike in a rainstorm. Makes the rush hour traffic on the Deerfoot Trail in calgary almost fun!

However, the thing I miss most about the change of seasons is how I use them to mark time without even ralizing it. As I'm writing this I'm thinking that fall has come to CAnada with the colourful leaves, frost in the mornings, that bite in the air. Here either it's raining or it isn't. Because There is no marked change in the seasons, time slipd by without me realizing it and all of a suddem, boom! Six months have passed.

Things grow all year round. When I look out my patio door just now, there is a lushness to the greenery that I wouldn't have anywhere in Canada at this time of year. The lawn is green, the trees and shrubs are green, and there are banks lof some kind of lilies everywhere. The flowering is pretty much done for now, but they are green.

I am in the process of starting a little garden in my little yard. I have already started som herbs from seed, and they are in pots outdoors. Next I need to clean up a spot in back and plant some veggies there. I haven't seen any seeds for sale, so off I go now to the kitchen to eat some melon so I can plant the seeds.

Strange Habits in the Bedroom, and Other Places

Strange Habits in the Bedroom, and Other Places

There are some customs that I have encountered in Vietnam that are certainly foreign to me, and two are in the bedroom. First, the bedrooms do not have closets built in. One must purchase a wardrobe in which to store clothing. There are rods for hanging clothes, and usually shelves and one or more drawers as well. Of course they can be packed up and taken along if one should decide to move to a new residence. Bedrooms may or may not also have a dresser, but it is not the large piece of furniture I am accustomed to. The one in my bedroom has four tiny drawers, a shelf, and a fairly good sized mirror.

Another strange thing I have encountered in the bedrooms is the lack of flat top bed sheets. They simply are not used here. Now in my mind a top sheet is something used to help keep the blankets clean, so they do not need to be laundered as often as the sheets are. When you buy a sheet set here, you will get a fitted sheet, a pair of pillow slips, and usually one or two bolster covers. I have taken to making my own flat sheets rather than constantly washing blankets. Truthfully, I very seldom use a blanket anyway because the nights are so warm.

In several countries in Asia, and particularly in Vietnam, children are taught to pass items to others using two hands. It doesn't matter if the item is as small as a credit card or as big as a puppy, a two-handed pass is more respectful. And the receiver is also encouraged to receive the item with both hands, for the same reason.

At the dining table, if you are not given chopsticks, you will have a fork and tablespoon with which to eat your meal. You will not usually be offered a knife. One picks the food up with the spoon and puts it onto the fork to transfer it to the mouth. Sometimes spoons are used with chopsticks, particularly if the food is soup or noodles with broth. Then the food is picked up with the chopsticks and transferred to the spoon. If a piece of food is too large to eat in one bite, it is acceptable to bite off a piece and let the rest fall back into the dish.

I have had a hard time getting used to watching people eat with their hands. Of course it is something we in the West only do in casual situations, but here it is much more acceptable. If you are eating a piece of chicken for example, nobody (except me) would look twice at you if you were to pick it up and eat it. I guess that there's not much alternative if one doesn't have a knife.

The students in my class are quite young, and I often eat the same lunch at school as they do. We are given a fork and a tablespoon, and sometimes it is a chore for the children, particularly those who are even younger than my students, to eat with a big spoon. The fork is only used to stab the fruit they are given for dessert. They stab it and hold it on the fork like a lollipop to eat it. Sometimes they question me when they see me use a fork to eat my meal, and when I pick up the fruit and eat it out of my hand.

Soup is eaten in a way we westerners would find odd. The rice and soup are served to students in two separate compartments of their trays, and they spoon one or two spoonfuls of soup at a time into their rice and eat the two together. I'm considered an odd bird for eating soup first. Of course nobody is right or wrong, it is just the way different cultures have developed things that work for them.

It has been my experience that the Vietnamese are not "touchy- feely" people, and most would be uncomfortable receiving a friendly hug. However it is not uncommon to see women walking hand in hand, or with arms around one another. Likewise, men sometimes walk with an arm comfortably over another man's shoulder, but you seldom see couple walking hand in hand. Other displays of affection between couples, such as kissing, are strictly not seen in public.

Many times I have been greeted by the parents of my students and others with whom I do not have a close relationship with a bow. Again, this is a mark of respect. I am older than these parents, and they show deference to elders. Sometimes people my age or older will do the same thing, simply because Asians are a respectful people.

I know there are other customs that still evade me, and I am bound to make faux pas from time to time, but I am confident that I will be corrected in the most gentle of ways. I am working at learning to pass and receive with both hands, and am trying hard to learn to pick up my food when appropriate.

Food, beautiful Food!

Food, Beautiful Food!

Oh, the fruit! Living in Canada, I never knew what fresh tropical fruit tasted like because I never ate any! I was never a big fan of pineapple because it always tasted like the can, or if bought fresh, it was never completely ripe and made my mouth sore. But here, I can't get enough of it! It is so sweet and juicy. There are many fruits that I'd never even heard of before that I have found to be so tasty: mangosteen, jack fruit, and my new favourite, durian. And then there those that I'd eaten in Canada but they never tasted like they do here: mangoes, melons, bananas, and papaya. There are several different varieties of bananas, and my favourites are the tiny ones billed as "baby bananas" in Canadian grocery stores. They are actually not baby bananas at all, but varieties that don't grow to be as large as the bananas we are familiar with.

Vietnamese use a large variety of herbs in their cooking. Basil and coriander are popular, as are several herbs that are not native to North America. There are several different types of mint, including one called fish mint that I don't like very much, due to its strong fishy taste.

A walk in the early morning or around dinner time will result in a horde of tantalizing smells, as street vendors are set up on every street corner in some areas to sell street food. There are markets where you can buy food to take home and cook, or you can buy from a vendor and either eat at the impromptu cafe that is often set up, or you can walk, or even sit on the curb and eat. I couldn't even begin to list the number of foods and drinks that are available.When I first arrived I was quite taken with banh mi, which can be loosely compared to a sub sandwich. It is made on a roll that is about 8 inches long, and is filled with a few different types of cold cuts, herbs, and usually some cucumber and a few slices of chilies. There are also other sandwiches that I have found to be very satisfying street food, but my absolute favourite dish is bunh xeo. It looks like a crepe, but instead of being made with egg it is made of mainly rice flour with some turmeric for colour. A bit of shrimp, meat (usually pork), and some bean sprouts are placed in the pan and partially cooked, then the flour mixture is poured over and allowed to cook. To eat, pieces of the pancake are broken off and wrapped in rice paper, lettuce, and herbs, and everything is rolled up and dipped in nuoc mam, or fish sauce. Sooo good!
Vietnamese cuisine is not based on meat, rather the meat is used as flavour and accompaniment. Like most Asians, the Vietnamese eat rice every day, sometimes with every meal. I eat much more rice than I used to, but am still nowhere near the amount eaten by my colleagues.

In the cities you can find restaurants offering every type of cuisine. In the rural area where I live, about 25 kilometres north of Ho Chi Minh City, I have sampled Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean food. I found the Korean food to be a bit too fermented and spicy for my liking, with the exception of one dish that consists of rice, meat, and veggies all cooked in a clay pot, and topped with a raw egg that you mix in and allow to cook in the hot foods. I have enjoyed all the other foods I have tried. In the city I also ate at a Thai restaurant for the first time. Again, much Asian food is somewhat heavy on the heat for my liking, but I have found dishes in every type of cuisine that I thoroughly enjoy. And I am learning to eat more chilies than I used to!

Being a big fan of soups, I have not been disappointed here. Most of the soups are made with clear broth to which meat, veggies, and noodles are added. The broth is so flavourful! One of the staples of Vietnamese cuisine is pho, which is a soup that is often eaten for breakfast. One can have either pho bo, made from beef, or pho ga, made from chicken. You are served in a bowl only slightly smaller than a bathtub the broth, meat, noodles, and some veggies, along with a side dish of sliced chilies, herbs, sliced onions, bean paste, bean sprouts, and lime sections which you can add to taste. I've never been able to finish a serving.

Most desserts are based on fruits, and why not, when they are in such abundance. One restaurant  which we frequent often features fruit sliced into a bowl of milk and crushed ice, or sliced fruit on a plate accompanied by some salt mixed with crushed chilies.  You won't find the pies, cakes, and heavy desserts that are so common at home.

During Tet, the Lunar New Year festival, and at other festival times, sticky rice treats are served. I'm not a fan of sticky rice, as I find it to be bland and glutinous. However the Vietnamese seem to love it.

All in all, anyone who comes here has no excuse to ever be hungry. There is something for everyone, and if you just plain don't like any Asian food, there is always pizza, burgers, and steak available in the city.

Well Here I am in 'Nam

Five months ago I came to Viet Nam to teach in an international school. This is so far from anything I have ever done that my friend Rick kept encouraging me to keep a diary about my adventures. Well after all this time Rick, (and others) here it is- my diary. Because I didn't start it when I arrived, I can't tell you things day by day, but I'll do my best to hit the high points.

Getting here was not as easy as it should have been. I left Calgary on a Wednesday, expecting to arrive on Friday. I got as far as Vancouver and was turned back because I didn't have one paper required for my dog, Dandy, permitting him to land in Taipei. Without the paper he would have been shot when we landed. Back to Calgary we went on the first flight the next morning, and applied for the paper, which came very quickly. Saturday evening we were off again and this time made it all the way through. The flight took a total of about 24 hours, with stops in Vancouver and Taipei before landing in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The stopovers weren't too long and it wasn't bad, but it was exhausting. When I picked Dandy up at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City he was so thirsty that he licked the condensation off my bottle of water.

I noticed the heat and humidity both in Taipei and HCMC. I left Canada near the end of October, when there was frost in the mornings, and it was summer here. I was met at the airport and taken off to the Corporate Office, then to my new school and lunch. Honestly, I was too tired to eat lunch and when I was taken to the villa where I was going to live, I went to bed for several hours.I shared the villa with three other teachers for a couple of months, until I moved into an apartment with one other teacher. It boasted an outdoor swimming pool and a small gym, and I quickly made frequent use of the pool.

I am one of six "International" teachers on staff. the rest of the teachers are Vietnamese. My class had three girls and five boys who were all around five years old. Two were from VN, one from India, two from mainland China and three from Taiwan. They are learning English by immersion, and this is a third language for most of them!

Just before Christmas I moved from the staff villa to our apartment. It is about half a kilometre from the school, a nice walk. I have learned to ride a motorbike, which is the most common method of transportation here. I have learned some "survival" words and phrases in Vietnamese. I can hire a taxi and usually get where I want to go, and I can go to a restaurant and get something good to eat. Often on the weekends I go into HCMC for either business or pleasure, and I can get around to the places I need to go. All in all, I am enjoying life here very much