Coming Home For Christmas

I'm back in Rhode Island for the Christmas holidays. It's been three days and my body is working overtime to adjust to the time difference and cold weather. I've been up since 2am and I dare not go out because the temperature is around freezing. (I'm used to 73 degrees at night and sleeping with the fan on.) But, my son is home with me, and I'm enjoying his company, and my dad is close by and I'm enjoying keeping him company.

Before I left Vietnam I had the pleasure of Mike Ryan's company for 5 days. We drank coffee, talked about the wonders of Viet Nam, took a day trip down down the coast to Long Beach for some swimming and surfing, and then a quick trip to the mountain town of Da Lat where most of our vegetables come from. Everything was pleasant except for the bus ride through the mountains. I was sure we would fall off the road and be killed. It was great to share the Vietnam experience with my childhood friend. (We've know each other since 1962 and little league and birthday parties and Cajun dancing.)

In other news, my girlfriend's company closed down when the husband and wife owners left town with billions of Vietnamese dong ( I'm guessing about $5 million) that they scammed investors from in a Berni Madoff type ponzi scheme. Right now they have the police and the Vietnamese mafia after them. Both the mafia and the police came to the office to take whatever they could. One employee, who was owed money, took off with all the office furniture. (I was offered the directors chair for $50, but didn't take it because it's not my style.)

My girlfriend, being the entrepreneurial type and having a degree in accounting, and having started two other businesses, walked off with the customer files and Rolodex. The next day she and colleagues rented office space and opened their own consulting services company. This is a good thing for me because the services they provide includes obtaining legal documents for foreigners, such as residency and work permits, visas, licences, and motor bike registration. The first week she registered my bike for me at cost. Nice, I now have my own foreigners plates.  She also made more money her first week in business than her monthly salary working for the lawyers.

Here I am paying To Anh the money to register my motor bike in my name. A new law made it possible for foreigners to own bikes. Til then we had to put the bike in the name of a Vietnamese friend.

There is an added benefit here. Because I know a lot of foreigners and a lot about foreigners, she wants me to work with her in marketing the business. I'll get a commission. I like this a lot because I've been itching to get involved in some kind of business venture here and this is ideal. I'll help design and translate marketing literature and their website. It'll give me an excuse to talk to expats and put to use my business experience and education. (My own business, by the way, is surviving the great depression but not making any money these days.)

I don't plan on letting this interfere with my volunteer teaching or learning Vietnamese. I'll just have one more thing to keep me from being boring. (The Vietnamese always say boring when they mean bored.) Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep warm in chilly little Rhode Island with my family.

To The Country

For the first time since I've been coming to Viet Nam I finally spent some time in the countryside. My girlfriend asked me to come with her to visit her parents...so. I was apprehensive. I mean, I'd be staying with them in their house.

"Do they have sit down toilets?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Toilet paper?"
"Yes!"

"Hot water?"
"Hot water??"
"No."
"Okay, fine. I'll go."

We took the train north along the coast for 120 kilometers and got off at Tuy Hoà. From there her brother took us by car to their home 38 kilometers inland. Big house. Lots of room. I would be sleeping in Tố Anh's bedroom. She would be sleeping with her parents on the living room floor. The other three bedrooms were empty. (They like sleeping in the living room because there is more air there.)

The next morning I went for my exercise walk alone. I now know what it is like to be a one man parade. I swear, everyone in town stopped to watch me go by. Strangers smiled, waved, and wanted to know where I was from. It was a very interesting experience. Even a cow pulling a plow had to stop and watch me pass by.




The only bad thing about my trip were the mosquitoes at night eating me alive in bed.  Other than that I loved my stay there and the people who were so kind to us.

My fall stay in Nha Trang is winding down and I'll be coming home soon for Christmas. Looking forward to seeing my family and the holidays in Rhode Island. Some snow would be nice. One of my best and oldest friends, Mike Ryan, is here for a few days. Awesome having him visit. He's going to be building a house with the Habitat For Humanity down in the Delta. He taught one of my classes with me at Crazy Kim's. We are going up to Da Lat on Friday together.

I love my life. I get to teach here for a few months and then recharge back home in America, and do it all over again a month later. And then return to spend summer in Rhode Island. Nice.

Back To Nha Trang, Fall 2011

I returned to Viet Nam on Septmeber 8. Spent a night in Ho Chi Minh City and flew to Nha Trang the next day. I had an apartment ready waiting for me when I arrived. It was the same apartment building I was in last year, but the 5th floor (ocean view, mountain view, and quiet). Well worth the $50 more a month I will be paying.

The first three weeks was hot as hell here. But on October 1st the rainy season started right on time and things cooled off a bit, but that came with a price, rain every afternoon. I took a week to recover from the time change and began teaching at Crazy Kim mornings and evenings. The language school that I taught at last year fired me a couple of weeks before I came home. They said students were leaving the school because of me. Over the summer I got an email saying they made a mistake, would I please come back and teach. I stupidly said okay. Two weeks after I arrived they called me in to discuss my "employment status." Struck me as an odd thing to do. Turns out they wanted to fire me again, before I even started teaching. They said that now I was such a good teacher that I was stealing their students by teaching at Crazy Kim. I swear, some people should not be in business. I hope next time they would just send me an email terminating my services.

This year all the classrooms have flat screen TV's and I hook up my iPad to it and can show videos and all kinds of lecture materials, which makes the teaching much more effective and fun. I am teaching again at Nha Trang University and  have 4 classes. All of them pronunciation. I really feel like a professor now. The students are so eager and cute.

I've been studying Vietnamese now for more than 3 years. This year I am passionate about learning it faster. So, I'm taking two classes a day. Between teaching 2 classes and taking 2 I'm quite busy and very happy about that. I also squeeze in time to practice my violin and guitar and run 5 miles in the morning. That leaves me with absolutely no time to get into trouble.

Even my love life has improved. Last year I was pretty attracted to one of my students but we did not express any interest in each other until after she got a job and stopped coming to classes. (The free ones at Crazy Kim.) Anyway, we exchanged email addresses and spent the summer Skyping each other most days. We've been dating since I returned. I'll just say the relationship is very comfortable, and she is quite remarkable. Maybe I've finally met one of those Vietnamese women that I've heard so much about but never seen.  We are still in the infatuation stage so I won't make any predictions. A few things about her: has a good job working in a lawyer's office translating documents into English, nearly as tall as me, extremely pretty, sweet as can be, very ambitious but not greedy or materialistic. And she has a smile and laugh that can stop amaze me every time.

So, life is good here in Vietnam. I'm feeling useful, helping eager students to learn English. And I'm getting to learn a lot of things myself. Of all the things I can think of, there is nothing like learning and helping others to learn that is more rewarding and satisfying.

About Brad and Death in Viet Nam

Such a thin line between life and death. And how easy to cross that line. And all of us cross that line sooner or later. Brad crossed the line sooner than I wanted and later than he wanted. He always said he wanted to kill himself but was afraid of actually doing it. Last month Brad apparently got the courage.

The first time I saw Brad he was entering a restaurant carrying a big set of teeth. My dinner companion, another teacher, guessed he used them to teach pronunciation. He was right. And in Brad's words, everyone was doing it wrong, and Brad was the only teacher in all of Asia doing it right. I liked Brad the moment I met him. He had a way of insulting you and making you love him all the more.

"I'm the most depressed person you will ever meet. I hate being alive. The only time I was truly happy was when I discovered that I could double my dosage of Prozac. That lasted for two years." He had been, and still was, self-medicating additionally with alcohol and pot nearly all of his life. But you would never, ever, know that he was depressed. Brad was more fun to be with, even while continually telling you that you were depraved, deprived, and deranged, than anyone I've ever met.

I didn't take him seriously. About suicide or his nasty insults. He was just too funny. But the pain that he lived with wasn't. I don't know if we can blame life for this or Brad's insistence on everything having to be his way. We were all wrong. Brad was all right. He would only teach his way, which led him to getting fired from just about every job. In the end he ran out of money and they were throwing him out of his apartment. I believe he did this on purpose so that he would have to end his life, having nowhere else to go. (Had I been there and given the opportunity I'd have done something about that, but I wasn't and didn't know.)

We all are Brad to one degree or another. We all will die. We all will be thrown out, if not our houses, out of our bodies. We all want to be right. We all criticize other people. We all self-medicate one way or another, to lesser or greater degrees. And we all, at some point, want to escape the lives we have created by doing these things.

I don't know why Brad's death affected me the way it did. It was more than losing a friend. It was more than not being able to prevent it. I think it was the feeling that I am Brad in some ways, in the sense that I connected to him more than I do with other people. I could see myself in Brad and I could see the tragedy, the sadness, the sense that if only I paid more attention to the stupid things I do, life could be more meaningful.

Years ago I nearly crossed that line myself and I didn't because I didn't want to leave my children without a father. I truly believe that saved my life. Brad didn't have children or loved ones to keep him here. And I think that was why he could leave. Is it fate, or destiny, or our own choices, that decide which of us have links to life and which of us don't? Because in the end, it is those links, those people whom we love, who keep us here, and make life worth living.  Maybe we shouldn't take them for granted and maybe we should make them stronger because we never know when we may want to cross that thin line.

One Month Back in Viet Nam

I've been back in Nha Trang for one month now and things are greatly improved over my time here last fall. The biggest change is my address. I am no longer living on the other side of town where I had to travel through traffic noise three times a day. I'm also much happier back close to the schools, restaurants, and markets that I go to regularly. There are more people that I know and it just feels more comfortable.  And now the beach is just a block away.

I'm happiest most about the teaching. I'm enjoying it more and hopefully doing a better job. I began teaching at Nha Trang University which is awfully exciting. This is a dream I've had since I was 20, to be a college professor. It has taken a while, and who would have thought I'd have to go half way around the world to do it. The students in the above photo gave me a tour around NTU on my first day of teaching. They are my students at Crazy Kim's school as well as being students at NTU.

My first day at NTU they had a film crew there. Half of the class time was taken up doing things for the sake of the filming. Then I was interviewed and asked what I thought of NTU students. Thankfully I knew plenty from teaching them at Kim's. 

Another great thing this time is the discovery of several vegan restaurants. The food here has been incredibly delicious. I leave full and totally satisfied. Hien told her parents that I was a vegetarian and she made one of the best home cooked meals I've ever had, with no animal products at all. I didn't know they could do that. I'm asking for recipes and instructions.

I even had 4 shots of Hien's dad's home brewed wiskey. I shouldn't have because it gave me a headache. Either way, the food here in Nha Trang has been wonderful. This is the easiest it's ever been for me to eat a plant based diet.

I miss my home and family and friends a lot. It's hard to describe the feeling. I am a stranger in a strange land and at the same time the Vietnamese are so kind and easy to be with. Especially my students. It's like I'm not comfortably at home, and I can't stay here forever, but I feel so useful and appreciated. I guess half the year here and half the year in Rhode Island is a good balance.

Lastly, as many of you know my mom passed away while I was in America over the holidays. At first it wasn't too difficult missing her because we had just been with her, but it seems that as time goes by I miss her more. The farther away it gets from her hugs and kisses the more I miss them. Thankfully, I can still feel her presence and hear her voice clearly in my ear. I hear her familiar "Hi Hon," the way she always answered the phone when I called her. When I let the sounds of the day go and quiet my mind I can always hear her "Hi Hon." And then I see her smiling...   love ya mom, miss ya.