Names, Food and Bikes

The other day, we got to sit in and help in a year one classroom. It was fun listening to them learn English. While all of these students have Vietnamese names, a lot of them use their English names that they've chosen or their parents have chosen. Some of the most... interesting of these names includes, Flower, Poppy, Flow, Rainbow, Candy, Pacman and, my favourite; Spiderman. Yes, Spiderman, you read that right. It's very interesting what their concept of a western name is. In year 11 English, we played a game where you had to list western boys names starting with certain letters. We had a variety of answers like, Freddy, Bobby, Marcus and Scotty. Not what you'd call typical but certainly on the creative end of the Spectrum.

Something quite interesting about the school is that it's about 30% girls and 70% boys. This is generally been out down to the fact that makes get preferences ver females here, so only the sons get sent to private school. Vietnam is a little behind the rest of the world when it comes to feminism. Some year 12 girls were telling me how mothers want to find out the baby's gender asap, and often get the pregnancy terminated if its a girl. She was also saying how she wants to go to university, but her mother would like her to get married and stay at home. An interesting contrast to back home.

We got in a little trouble yesterday for the first time. We got taken out in the morning to go visit the ho chi Minh maselium and museum (even though his body wasn't there so we couldn't see that, and when we got back we went for lunch then we were just in time for nap time. Now we all had a little snooze, and not having anywhere to go after, we talked and chilling on the bunks then one by one we all fell asleep. Now the buses home have a very strict leaving time, of 4 on the dot, so when I woke up, looked at the clock and saw 4:03, I kinda yelled to wake u the other girls, and ran down the 6 big flights of stairs to the ground floor, only to see the teacher looking just a little bit cranky as well as our host sisters and the very unhappy bus drivers. Everyone was already on the buses, and they were watching us. The worst bit was having to explain to Hue that we were late because we were napping. Not a great ending to a good day.

But anyway, the students are given lunch, and pay for it in their school fees, so they just group and get what they want, kinda like how Id imagine an American cafeteria would work. We'd heard about this famous food from the girls who did the Vietnam exchange last year as well the students. All of this being negative and about how terrible the food is. On Tuesday we decided to try this food, and it wasn't too bad at all! However yesterday's and today's... weren't worth venturing, so on Wednesday we had an interesting experience trying to order food in an all Vietnamese restaurant. I know basic words like 'pork', 'chicken', 'beef' and 'fish', so that kind of helped but when we decided we wanted pork, we simply did eenie meenie to pick one at random. I didn't think it was too bad, but the girls decided on going to the western style fast food joint around the corner. Yesterday however some of the young English teachers took us across the road for a bun cha (like, 'boon char') and it was really delicious, we kinda got to creat our own little noodle soups with pork pieces and spring rolls. Very delish. 

 

The canteen also Supplies breakfast if you pay for it, and the last few days I've been getting brekkie from school. I've had eggs and phô, but this morning was....an 'interesting' experience and I'd be lying if I said I didn't throw up a little. It was like, white rice in good form, surrounding some form of curried meat and vegetables, all wrapped in a giant leaf. I'll attach a few pics of me trying it... They're very attractive, so yeah, be ready for that.

I also had another' interesting' food experience at home the other night when my parents had some family friends visiting. My mum made this little sticky rice cakes, which, in vietnam, is apparently the equivalent of pavlova in Australia. Anyway, I had a little bite (with like, 10 people watching) and liked the outside so said 'mmmmmm!' and took a big bite of the centre. See, I didn't know this cake thing had a filling, so as soon as I tasted it, my gag reflexes kicked in, and I didn't hesitate it spitting my huge mouthful right back into my bowl... with everyone still watching me. Luckily it takes a lot to offend the Vietnamese, so they thought this was absolutely hysterical and all of them burst out laughing. Even the baby started giggling, and he didn't even know what was happening. I've already told y'all about my distaste for veggies and while I am trying everything while here, one thing I cannot stand are beans. Turns out the centre of this cake was made of puréed beans, and the beans here are even worse than the ones back home, so yes, not a great ending to that dinner but I figure a smile and a laugh and it'll all be forgotten soon enough. And if not, at least i don't speak their language, so I can't understand their mocking.

Also, a bit random, but I just thought I'd share 2 things I saw yesterday on the bus ride home from school that kinda freaked me out. I saw a man driving a  motorbike, with a dead, skinned pig at his feet. Now I'm not talking a cute little pig like babe.. nah, like a full grown sow sized one. It was on its back, and it was so big that it's hooves we're nearly dragging on the road on both sides. I like to think that we get our pork from the OTHER butcher haha. I also saw (another motorbike story) this bike, with a huge bottle of propane attached on the back....attached by one thin piece of rope. As a result it was, perhaps the most precarious thing I've ever seen, and I was thankful when it turned a corner (causing the bottle to swing wildly) and moved away from our bus. These are just 2 of the more interesting things I've seen, but being in Vietnam is like a contest of who can carry the largest and most abstract objects on the back of motor, or push bikes.

I'm also attaching some pics of nap time, ange and i working in the primary school and the poster we had to make (before anyone mentions that i have my top button undone, you should just try and understand how incredibly  hot it is over here, but regardless, I'd appreciate if that could NOT be shown to mrs Crowshaw or anyone) and some other things that don't really have a category.

 

(ignore top button)

Our creation

my, ugh, 'breakfast'

NAPTIME. gotta love the spooning here

enjoying naptime

Having a snooze

 

 

 

My First Break Down

I haven't had a cry or been really upset so far during my stay here. But that changed this morning. While I didn't cry, I got a little emotional and the idea of having it looming apon my return today horrifies me.

The ants are back. And they found my chocolate. MY CHOCOLATE. That chocolate was my comfort food, a sort of staple diet in case I don't like dinner one night. Well Hue and I opened it last night and had one or two rows. Silly me left it on my desk last night, and I woke up this morning to find them crawling over their victory. I didn't even have time to destroy them as Hue woke up late, thus i got woken up late.

Tonight I'm going have to reintroduce chemical warfare. I found some hairspray in the bathroom, and those ants better watch out. When I get home I'll have to really evaluate the damage and see if I can salvage any of it. But there were a lot of ants. I'll keep you all updated.

Home

Well mum, here's the post that you've no doubt been waiting for; what it's like at home.

While living with Hue is the complete opposite to living in Sydney, I'm loving it. The hardest part though, in fact the hardest part of the whole exchange is the lack of western reminders around me. Other than hue, I haven't got anything English or anything familiar, and while that's one of the most exciting parts its also the most difficult. That's when I put in my headphones and listen to the English words to Taylor Swift or the Aussie accents of Angus and Julia Stone. That's my escape when I'm struggling, which isn't that often though. I'm busy a lot of the time, either playing angry birds or lego with my brother or watching, transfixed as hues mum prepared dinner. Their kitchen is so different to mine. They have no oven or microwave, just a sink, fridge and stove. A lot of their cooking is done off a little fire on the floor, and they don't really have a pantry. It's on the top floor and all the windows are always open, so it's practically like being outside. Their cooking involves a lot of deep frying and everything has its own little dipping sauce, it's very cute. Despite me begging hue and her mum to let me help, I get kicked out of the kitchen once the meal is over, and I'm not allowed to help clean up. I think the house keeper comes and does it though. I think it's strange they have a housekeeper when they have such a little house, but I'll tell you what, I wouldn't mind one. She comes in during the day and straightens m pillow and lines up any bobby pins I've left out, as well and putting my shoes parallel and generally making my room all around tidier. Not that I'm being untidy, mum...

My host brother, god bless him, doesn't really understand privacy, and always come into my room and demands on using my iPad for angry bird purposes. It's cute though, and I don't mind it. As I said before, we've also played Lego a few times which is pretty adorbes. I was so lucky to be given such a great family. They've embraced me as their own and I'm loving that they've done so so effortlessly. Hues mum is so nice to me and it's amazing how much one can express without the use of words. She reminds me of my mum, and nicely fills the whole I've got temporarily. Even if that means telling me I've got food on my face, or not letting me go to bed unless I dry my hair because she didn't want me to get sick. All of this is accompanied by lots of hugs means that I'm feeling very well looked after, so don't worry about that aspect, mum :)

I noticed this during my homestay in Japan, and the Vietnamese do the same
thing about having late nights. I'm always the first to go to bed, and staying up to midnight, even for younger kids is so acceptable. Apparently this cultural things is still very prominent, thus removing nap time is so difficult because these students sleep through class to regularly.

I'm having so much fun living with my family though and Hue is being an awesome sister, we stay up and gossip and do each others hair and she painted my nails for me. Kinda like real sisters (the kind that get along really well). I wish I'd gotten them all nicer gifts if I'd known how amazing they'd all be to me haha.

Ant Genocide

What an exciting title. I bet you think you're all set up to hear something really entertaining and humourous? Well, we'll see..

Anyway, I kinda have a bit of an ant problem in my room. I found a big trail of tiny ants the other day, and have found them every night since and ive had to draw upon on creativity skills for their deaths. The first night, there werent too many, so I a grabbed my shoe and wacked them all to their tiny tiny graves. However when they were back the next night, I figured that physical abuse and torment wasn't enough (why do I get the feeling that some people reading this are reaching for the phone to call PETA..) so I grabbed the only chemical I could put my hands on, which was my mozzie repellant. Turns out that drowning them in Off will cause their deaths. With that done and dusted, i grabbed some toilet paper from my personal stash and cleaned up that mess, thinking I'd won that battle.

But I was wrong.

Last night, I found them, again, in a bigger army than ever before. Now this meant war. I actually noticed this while I was blow drying my hair. Now, I'm not heartless, I felt a little bit bad about their no doubt painful deaths the previous night, so I decided to simply blow them away with the hot dryer. I don't know if that more humane or less, but either way, there was at least no cleaning up to do, because even though I know I blew them all away, I'll be damned if I could find any of their tiny remains. But their deaths weren't satisfying enough. I got on my hands and knees and followed them to find their source, or secret lair. I crawled and went under desks and eventually found the source. Remember in one of my last posts I put up a picture of the flowers Hue gave me at the airport? Well, turns out that ants kinda like flowers. Being late at night, (and not having access to a bin) I decided to just move the flowers to the other side f the room tonight. I fixed up any remaining ants with my Off and finally, the battle was won.

I apologize for this post having a lack of relevance to... anything, but I thought you might like to hear about it. So there, you've now heard about it. You may go forth and spread the word. I'm out. Peace.

School

School here is so so different to school at home. Unlike my school, it's all in one building. There are 6 levels, all identical, and all containing different classrooms. This school is much smaller than mine, they only have 600 students, from kindy to year 12. Because this is the Vietnam Australia school, they teach English and most of the students can speak it pretty well (but lots of them are still afraid to approach us). Everyone's really nice though and they try to keep the staring to a minimum. They have no recess, but 10 minute breaks between classes. They have an hour for lunch, where they get given lunch in the cafeteria, then, wait for it.... NAPTIME! Yes, naptime! They have big rooms upstairs full of bunk beds with doonas and pillows and everyone goes up and has a quick sleep before finishing their lessons. It's incredible and I personally think that Australia should adopt the idea too. We had out first day on monday and partook in a Halloween party with the primary school where they went trick or treating in the classrooms and everyone was hyped up on sugar. It was a raucous. The noise at this place is unbelievable. There's no carpet in the entire school and Vietnamese people are very loud people, so it echoes like crazy! There's also no grass, only concrete and a synthetic football field. Us girls are spending our time in classes in the primary school helping out the kids, or in the senior school talking with the students and teaching them about our culture and helping them with their English. It's so much fun. Our other time is spent roaming the nearby streets for good places to get lunch or wifi or snacks.

VAS (Vietnam Australia school) is like, surrounded by guarded gates (everything here is guarded though), and students aren't allowed to leave the grounds, but being exchange girls we are given special privileges. We get to go to the many cafes (most of which have free wifi) and grocery stores where we pick up our essentials items. For me, these include toilet paper, Oreos and little Hello Panda snacks. So good, and comes to a grand total of about $3.50. We went to a cafe for lunch the other day and got a beautiful, good sized lunch for 50,000 vnd, or about $4. Everything is cheap here and I'm certainly making the most of it.

Our walks around the school neighbourhood are... interesting. It's much quieter than in the city and while there not as many people or cars or bikes, there's still a significant amount of people who gather along the footpaths, selling their various items or foods, who... well, 'notice' us as we walk past. Unlike Aussie culture where checking out is subtle and you might give a slight head nod and wink if you're game, the art of subtlety isn't one that translates well into English, and frankly isn't apart of Vietnamese culture. If you want something, you say "I want this". If you hint, or suggest, it doesn't happen and they'd think you were weird. This same principle is applied with the gentleman who see us as a rarity and call out from their little huddles or off the back of motorcycles. They ask us where we're from, offer us a lift or tell us what they think of us, often accompanied with a sleazy wink. I mean, I don't blame them. We are 3 exceptionally attractive young women, and I'm used to it at home *heavy sarcasm* but boys, blonde hair isn't that exciting! Haha

One thing I'm really struggling with is the weather. In Australia, the heat burns you from outside in, you can feel the sun burn your skin. It's hot here too, but a different type of heat. While it might only be 25 or 26 degrees, the humidity heats you up in a way that moving too fast causes you to start panting and sweating. You sweat so much here, no wonder the girls here are all go skinny. All you have to do is walk up stairs and they break into a sweat haha. I also miss the sun so much. As I've previously said, it's very polluted here, so there's so much smog. Im yet to see any part of a blue sky, or god forbid, the sun. I miss it. You don't realize how nice the sun on your face feels till its gone. I really felt this heat when Gab, Ange and I joined in on a soccer match. We played for about half an hour before quitting because we were about to faint. That humidity is a real killer.

However I'm realizing that it's these differences that make this exchange so amazing. It's not about finding the similarities, but finding the differences and not just accepting them, but embracing them. Even if it means risking my life on a motorcycle, or getting laughed at when I use my poor Vietnamese. It's worth it.

Speaking of my poor Vietnamese, my vocabulary has improved ten fold! As in, i can now say 10 more words... I can say hello, goodnight, thank you, sorry, here (learnt that while playing soccer), oh my god, you're crazy and say about 3 of the numbers from one to ten. All I need to get by, really.

I'm attaching a photo of the school and this morning we saw the sun for the first time, so I'm putting up a photo of that too.

First Weekend

Saturday

I'm lying in bed now, on my first night in Hanoi. I'm writing a whole series of entries, and I'll upload them all together when I get the chance. I don't have wifi at my house, so I won't be able to post this till Monday at the earliest.

Vietnam, to me, isn't just a different country, it's a different planet. Within 5 minutes of being in the car, in which time, I saw rice fields, cows being trailed behind bikes and motorbikes with limitless objects on the back, the realization of what I was doing had hit me. The whole trip there, the girls and I had been saying how it hadn't hit us yet, how we didn't quite feel like we were actually doing something.

But within these first 5 minutes, it hit me, that the next 4 weeks are going be simultaneously the hardest, and most enriching ones of my life. Everything is different. Firstly, the roads. There are 2 modes of transport here. Taxis, or motorbikes. There are so many bikes, like, I've seen, in 4 hours, hundreds and hundreds of bikes. They swerve and brake and cut in front, and being in a non-seatbelted taxi coming home from the airport, im not going to lie, made me pray for my life to the big guy upstairs. So far, Hue (host sister) has taken me to the shopping center, the arcade, the bookshop, the lake and a restaurant. But my equally favorite and fearfilled part has been the taxi rides. Looking out the windows and seeing people, and movement and buzzing and life! More life and culture than I've ever seen. The streets flash, and boom from their haze of pollution. I had to come home and wipe a thin layer of dirt off my face from all the pollution, and though I'm making it out to sound disgusting, it gives the place a sense of magic, everything with a slight blur. Walking around, letting the individual smells of petrol, street stalls, shops and restaurants fill you from the inside gives me a sense of contentment. Hues house is above a shop that her father owns. There are 5 floors, each with one or two rooms off the staircase. Unlike anything I've ever seen. The people working in the shop greeted me like they'd been expecting me and carried my bag for me. They smile and tell me they love my curls. Everywhere I've gone, it's been a matter of "hey look, a white girl". Now I'm not complaining, it's just such a huge change, and 'spot the westerner' will no doubt become a common game amount us girls.

The bed I'm on is hard, and I can't hear all the cars going past, and hundreds of horns being blown. It's a whole other world, and I think I'm going to love it.... eventually.

Also, I'm so proud of myself. Wait wait, let me fill those of you that aren't my fronds and family in - I hate vegetables. Like, nearly all vegetables. I'm realizing that to stick to this idea, would make living in Vietnam a difficult concept. So last night we went out to dinner and i ate everything my host dad put on my plate. I asked Hue what some of it was, but I thought I was better off not asking for some of it. I think I may have eaten snail though. I've made a conscious decision however to eat everything I'm given ( except like drugs and stuff). Yay me! But mum, dad, don't get me wrong. This change is temporary and I shall go back to picking out my veggies once I'm home.

Sunday

Well showering has never been so intimidating. Theres no glass containing the shower, its just one tiled room, with a sink and mirror, hand held shower and toilet. The toilet is freaking me out. There's no toilet paper, but I tiny little hand held spray thing, that I think you're meant to use to 'clean up'. I'm too nervous to ask about that, and I'm too afraid that they'll tell me that's what it's there for.

Today we went all over the place, catching taxi after taxi. It's not surprise they catch taxis everywhere. Being in a taxi for 15minutes might cost you about 130000 dong, or about $7 aus. But we went to the big church in town, built when the French controlled the city, and various beautiful temples, as well as visiting a pizza place for lunch. I've started my souvenir purchases for everyone back home and right now we're watching Vietnamese Disney channel. One concept I'm struggling with is that tv is mainly in English. If most of my tv was in French or German, I don't know if I can cope. I think it's odd that they dont understand Vietnamese, but they watch it on tv. They listen to our music, even though many of them wouldn't understand the lyrics. They would feel the way I feel when I listen to their music (which funnily enough, to me, all seems to resemble nyan cat a bit)

We also went to the supermarket and Hues mother was asking me (through body language and Hue) what I wanted and what I liked. I told her (well I told Hue to tell her) that I'm here to live like them, and I will eat whatever they want to eat. She kept smiling at me and hugging me. I like Hues parents. We also spent all day with Hues cousin, who is 11. She speaks English very well so we were having a bit of a chinwag all day. She translated a few pick up lines that guys had said to me. I need a sign that states that me being white is not a valid excuse to hit on me. Mind you, I mean, I'm not complaining, exactly. It's flattering. Annoying, but flattering. Also, my 9 year old brother gave me a reason to chortle today when he told us all that he thought I was cute and he likes me very much, and (my favourite bit) 'he has a secret weapon that he will use to get me to like him'. hue was laughing while she was translating that little gem of information for me.

Also, Hue, her brother, cousin and family friends all think I'm a walking laughing stock because of my hiccoughs. (for any strangers reading this, I have chronic hiccoughs. Yes, I am serious.) First, Hues cousin was saying it was cute and funny, but that slowly turned into a sympathetic, look and " that is terrible" whenever I did it.

However tonight we got to go to the night markets. It's very different to Australian culture. The markets are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and open at 8pm. We left at 8 and didn't get home til 10:30. Very different to home where mums yelling at me to go to bed at 9:30. Anyway the markets were filled with so much noise and lights and because it's Halloween tomorrow, people are all dressed up in witches hats and masks. I bought quite a few things and some jewelry (nothing you'd like, mum :p) and a backpack to take to school as well as some cheap Adidas shorts (YES DOM, I BOUGHT THEM!) we got home and im about to go to bed for a 6 am start tomorrow.

PS, there is no toilet paper, only that hose, so that might take some getting used to... or maybe I'll just buy my own toilet paper :p

Also, I'm attaching some photos of the flowers I got on my arrival and a view from my house

Singapore

Well im writing from Singapore airport. We made it here, even though we thought we wouldn't for a while. Turns out the whole ' you need a visa to visit other countries' thing kinda slipped our mind, so today at Sydney airport, you would've seen 3 anxious girls, their families and one worried teacher hurriedly booking and paying for 3 visas. Doing all this made us run quite late, and after an announcement that we thought was for us, we ran for the entry of the terminal to the 4th last gate. A good length jog. I hate to be all dramatic, but I nearly died. Anyway, turns out the announcement was for our flight, but not for us, and in fact we had 10 minutes to wait.... Hurray. A pretty long flight, with no sleep, and a significant amount of turbulence, but we made it, checked into our room and all is well.
Upon our arrival at Singapore, we had to go print our visas off, as well as get passport photos taken, and it was all a huge inconvenience. But some could argue that its our fault for not having visas. To those people I would say
"your mum" . Because I'm mature.
So even though we booked a hotel room for the airport here, we dumped our stuff and went for a wander, and are still contemplating whether we should actually try and get any sleep. Sleep is for the weak. I'm very excited to see my host sister, Hue again. However, I can't say how much sleep I'll have had when I meet her family, but hopefully they aren't too afraid of what I look like (it's rather shocking. I look like a victim of domestic violence in my passport photos because of the bags under my eyes. But don't worry... I'm not. I don't get physically abused at home. Only emotionally. KIDDING MUM, HOME IS A SAFE ENVIRONMENT)
So I've gone 19 hours without sleep and to fit in with vietnam time, I'd need to stay up for another 18. Can't see that happening, but I'll do my darnedest. Just grabbed some food (last western food for a while) and in a few hours, I'll be on the plane to Hanoi. If my main state of mind wasn't fatigue, it would definitely be excitement.

Here We Go

Well, ladies and gentlemen. If you've found this blog, it's no doubt because you're a friend who I'm making read this, or a parent or a stranger who found this by accident. Well, just in case we have any strangers joining us, I'll give you a bit of background info. Basically, in a few days, I'll be embarking upon a one month exchange for my school, with two friends of mine, Gaby and Angela. We all have host families and in particular, host sisters who we'll be staying with. Our host sisters came out a few months ago to stay with us and our families for a month, so now it's the other way round :)

Anyway, I'm in the midst of packing, and making a damned good messy job of it, and I'll no doubt forget things *sigh* oh well.

preparing to go away for a month is really weird. also having to realize that I'm not gonna see my best friends or parents for over 4 weeks Strange feeling indeed. special shout out to my close friend Hannah, who leaves for  a 2 month exchange the day before I get back. Three months without her abuse and sarcasm. I don't actually know if I'll survive. On that melancholy, and slightly melodramatic note, I will leave to continue my packing and memorising lines for my audition for the school musical in 2 days. Eeep.

My lovely neat room haha

:)