Not, I repeat NOT, an April Fool's joke

When I finished my TEFL course in October I took some time to do a little traveling. The timing was perfect to hike the Annapurna Circuit but I also wanted to use the time to do some serious thinking. I was getting ready to live in a foreign country for the first time. I wanted to make sure I picked the right one.

I have said all along that I would prefer to work in Cambodia. However, Cambodia is smaller and poorer than Vietnam. Cambodia is about half the size of Vietnam with about one-sixth of the population. (Cambodia is about the size of Washington state. Vietnam would fit neatly inside California.)

There aren't as many opportunities in Cambodia, and the jobs don't pay as well. My decision to live in Vietnam was made for mostly practical reasons. Don't get me wrong, I love Vietnam. I wouldn't choose to live there if I didn't like it. I have spent by far more time here than in any other country except the US.

The decision to live here was pretty easy when I discovered the ratio of teacher pay to cost of living is as good as anywhere in the world. You can live comfortably and even save money as a teacher there. If you land a job at a swanky international school you can live like a king here. In most countries, including Cambodia, you're lucky to scrape by on a teacher's pay.

I did, however, try to find a job in Phnom Penh. I applied at the big schools. Didn't even get a nibble. I did get a very nice rejection email from the woman who runs the best school in the city. She and I have exchanged emails a few times. She offered some good advice.

Last week she offered me a job! I thought that even if I was offered a job in Cambodia I would turn it down because I simply couldn't justify taking a pay cut of up to 50 percent. Imagine my surprise when she offered me more than I am making in Vietnam! I took a day to mull it over but I honestly couldn't think of one reason not to take it. Soon I will take the bus from Vietnam to Cambodia again, but this time it will be for good. I am going to work in Phnom Penh.

I was pretty sad when I had to start working again. In fairness to myself, anyone would be bummed out after living in a fantasy travel dream world for two years. I am genuinely excited about this, though.

It won't be hard to leave Vietnam. I was actually getting ready to start job hunting again because my job just wasn't working out very well. I talked to other teachers enough to know that I wasn't just experiencing the stress or growing pains of a rookie teacher. I was dealing with systematic dysfunction ingrained in the culture of my particular school.

I liken it to my days working in restaurants to pay my way through school. There are so many restaurants that if you don't like your current situation there's no reason to stay when you can easily find work somewhere else. The same goes for schools in Saigon. There are so many that there's no reason to stay at a place which encourages and rewards laziness and apathy in both teachers and students.

So the timing was perfect. Just when I had decided to start pounding the pavement and looking for a new job I was offered a job at the best school in the country where I most want to live.

I'm still working out the details for my departure. It looks as though I'll teach my last class on Monday, April 12, go in Tuesday morning to get paid, then hop on the bus to Phnom Penh.

I still have quite a few posts about Vietnam to publish. I have a couple about Tet, which ended more than a month ago. My bad...

The Holy Grail

One of the joys of traveling in Vietnam is seeing the ingenious ways people here put their motorbikes to good use. Motos are the primary mode of transportation for Vietnamese. If they have to move or haul something they have to make do. Moto-watching never gets old.

Most motos here are what the folks back home would call a scooter. You see motorcycles, but it's usually expats riding them. My guess is that it's a Freudian sort of overcompensation for insecure men. Men ride big motorcycles here for the reason guys back home drive giant SUVs.

Yesterday I was on the back of a moto taxi when I passed a guy hauling plywood on a motorbike. Traffic was swerving around him crazily because it took a moment for other riders to calculate that yes, he's on a motorbike, but because of the plywood he was taking up as much space as a minivan.

How does one secure plywood while riding a motorbike alone? He sat on it. One end was under his butt with the bulk of the wood hanging off the back of the bike and flopping wildly up and down with every bump in the road. I didn't see any chain, rope, bungee cord or scotch tape holding it in place.

I also thought I saw a guy riding with what appeared to be a twin mattress standing on the seat behind him. I was wrong. It was the entire bed. The bed frame was made of metal tubing. His friend was sitting inside the bed frame and holding the mattress and frame together.

Just so we're clear, I saw both of these sights in about 10 minutes.

On another trip was a guy on a broken-down moto being pushed by a guy on another moto. The guy on the working one drove with his left foot on the back of the broken moto. His buddy sat on the broken one and steered.

I think the craziest moto sight I've seen was the woman breastfeeding. She was steering with one hand and holding her baby to her boob with the other. Even people here don't believe I saw this but this isn't something I would (or could) make up. Horrifying stuff.

A few times I've gone out with my camera hoping to get some good moto sightings on camera. Of course, when I take my camera I never see anything worth a photo. If I was more clever I'd make an analogy to the watched pot never boiling. You get the idea. By the time I realize I'm seeing something worth photographing it's too late.

When families go on outings they don't pile in the SUV or minivan, they get on the moto. Seeing families of four on a single moto is so common here I hesitate to mention it. I've seen four teenagers on a motorbike. Heck, I've seen four teenagers on a single bicycle.

I had seen five people on a moto several times. Usually it's dad driving with a child standing or sitting between his legs, mom sitting behind him with a child in her lap and a child on the back of the moto hanging onto mom.

Yesterday I saw the Holy Grail of Vietnamese moto sightings. People go to Scotland hoping to see the Loch Ness Monster. People go to Nepal hoping to see a Yeti. People go to Saigon hoping to see six people on a motorbike. It's essentially the same arrangement as the family of five, except mom sits with a kid on each knee. To western eyes this might seem a dangerous arrangement but it's actually worse than it seems.

Not long ago Vietnam passed a law requiring motorbike riders to wear helmets. Adult riders, that is. Helmets are mandatory for adults but not for children! I get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I see someone on a motorbike plow through a busy intersection with a helmetless child on board. I always give them a wide berth. I want to avoid any incident in which a child ends up splattered on the pavement. It would be no consolation knowing that it was the idiot parent's fault.

You can't really understand how crazy and chaotic the traffic here is until you experience it. I've been working on a blog post but I must humbly admit my powers of description are not up to the task.

I was amazed to learn, then, that last year there were only 1,123 traffic accidents in Saigon! I should say there were that many reported accidents. I see accidents every day. Moto drivers will bump into each other, or a moto will bump into a taxi.

If the drivers here were all American the whole country would quickly descend into a road rage bloodbath. People would be arguing and fighting and shooting each other. Intersections would be clogged with police responding to accidents. City workers would be hauling away dead bodies and body parts in dump trucks and using squeegees to clean the blood off the streets. Insurance agents, however, would be in heaven.

My personal theory is that it's the Buddhist influence, but whatever the reason, people don't get upset here. There's definitely an aggressiveness in the traffic. You take what you can get. But there's rarely any hostility.

The vast majority of collisions aren't reported because usually two vehicles will bump into each other, the drivers will quickly look over their vehicles, see that no damage was done, shrug at each other and drive away.

I was surprised by how few accidents were reported. I was floored to learn that last year there were only 649 traffic deaths in Saigon, a city with almost 10 million people and six million motorbikes. The reason for the shockingly low death total is probably that most people are moving relatively slowly on lightweight vehicles. Even if they do collide they don't do much damage.

As for those unfortunate fatalities, one of my fellow teachers here put a cynical spin on it: "They had it coming." As in any other country the most dangerous drivers here are young men. Most riders move at a reasonable pace and switch lanes with some degree of control. It's the knucklehead boys who drive too fast, zip back and forth and squeeze their motos through narrow spaces.

What century is this?

My school in Vietnam set up a bank account for me. I went there to apply for an ATM card and to wire money to my bank account in the US. I knew one convenience from home I'd miss online banking. I didn't realize I would be banking with technology slightly more recent than the invention of the wheel.

I thought it would be easy. My bank actually does have a website in English. I found out the information I would need for an electronic transfer. There's a big bank branch just around the corner from where I live. By big I mean a ten-storey building. Surely they could provide any banking service I might require.

The woman at the information desk spoke enough English to tell me which floor to go to for an electronic transfer. A woman on that floor who spoke English directed me to yet another woman at the end of the counter. This woman cheerfully explained that, no, they don't do wire transfers at that branch and that I would have to go to the main branch a few blocks away.

You can see where this is going...

One trick I've learned while traveling is that if you want to find someone who speaks English look lost. Wander around like you have no idea where to go. People who speak English generally welcome the opportunity to practice and will flag you down. I didn't have to worry about looking lost. I actually was. A woman took pity on me and offered to help.

I thought the language barrier was getting in the way. I had to have her explain the process to me three times because I either had no idea what she was talking about or I was the butt of a huge practical joke.

The bank doesn't do wire transfers from their bank accounts to accounts in US banks.

How does a bank survive in the year 2010 if it doesn't provide this service?

I thought that was strange. Then it got crazy. I was told I would have to withdraw the money in local currency, change it to dollars, then wire it. That didn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me but sure, just tell me which counter.

The bank does not sell US dollars.

Allow me to repeat that.

My bank, one of the biggest in Vietnam, does not sell US dollars.

Ok, I understand that the Vietnamese currency has been unstable. I understand that currency markets in general have been fluctuating. I don't mean to sound like a pushy American. But this is the US dollar, the currency of international business.

I asked where the closest place was to do currency exchange. I was told to go to a jewelry store at the local market.

I swear I am not making this up. A woman at one of the biggest banks in Vietnam told me if I wanted US dollars I would have to buy them on the black market!

Jewelry stores will exchange money but the rates are terrible. There's a currency exchange office half a block from where I live with good rates. I had to withdraw money from my bank, leave the building, exchange currency and physically carry US dollars back into the bank. What's next, restaurants where you have to bring your own ingredients?

When I went to do the transfer it was as if it had never been done before. They seemed to genuinely not understand the concept of an electronic transfer. I had all the necessary routing information. It should have taken five minutes. Not thirty-five.

They hadn't heard of my bank. My bank is M & T, which bought "my" bank, Provident, some time ago. I have no idea where M & T is based but I know it's pretty doggoned big. They didn't want to do the transfer because they said my bank is "too small". They suggested I use Bank of America, because that's a big bank that they've heard of. And hey, we all know how easy it is to instantly open a bank account when you're literally on the other side of the world with an 11-hour time difference.

I didn't want them to "lose face" (which really is a big deal) so I kept my best fake smile frozen in place and told them, "Gee, I'm so sorry, but I'm pretty sure that the size of the bank doesn't matter as long as you have the correct routing information, which, as luck would have it, I happen to have right here!"

Then they asked for the home address of my bank. Smile still frozen in place I said, "Gee, so sorry, I really don't know, but since we're sending the money electronically and not to a physical address you probably don't need the mailing address, just the routing information which, hey, I still happen to have right here."

I noticed that they all had terminals running Windows. I suggested if they wanted to know the address they could look it up online. Suddenly it wasn't so important.

It took the entire morning but eventually the money was sent. Ah, the glamorous life of an expat...

Irony, Cambodia style

I was in a "hostess bar" in Phnom Penh. These are bars that cater to tourists and ex-pats. The concept is simple since the clientele isn't concerned about atmosphere or decor: Beer, whiskey and dozens of young girls to flirt with customers. If there's a girl you fancy you can pay the "bar fine" and leave with her, if she is so inclined.

These places can be fun every once in a while, if you're in the right mood. Even then the conversation gets old pretty quickly.

Where you from? You have girlfren? Why you no have girlfren? You so handsome! Etc. Etc.

Every bar has its share of ladyboys. I'm working on a blog post on this quintessential SE Asia phenomenon, but for now all you need to know is that a ladyboy can be anything from a man who dresses like a woman to a man who has undergone a full sex change. Sometimes they're easy to spot. Sometimes they're not...

This particular bar had a larger than usual contingent of ladyboys. They all have the same favorite song. When it came on they would all stop whatever they were doing and belt it out.

The song: Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy".

A roomful of men who want to be women singing a song by a woman wondering what it would be like to be a man...

Ben Thanh

This photo was taken by Chợ Bến Thành, the famous Ben Thanh Market. It's a five-minute walk from my hotel. It's also smack bang between the two main tourist areas, so it's lousy with tourists, as Holden Caulfield might say. It's also an actual market for actual Vietnamese, so it is a busy market indeed.

If you walk in through the front you have to wind your way through narrow passages lined with stalls selling clothes and souvenirs. It's such a competitive environment that merchants will literally grab you by the arm or shirt and try to pull you into their stall. Fun stuff.

The smart thing to do is go through the back entrance. Here is where the food stalls are. It's not quite as crowded and aggressive.

One of the joys of Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia is street food. When you see a woman pushing a metal cart down the street what you're looking at is a restaurant on wheels. She'll go to her usual spot and unpack the cart. Little metal tables and tiny plastic stools are arranged on the sidewalk. By tiny I mean the seat itself is the size of a napkin and maybe eight inches high.

The kitchen is unpacked. Most vendors sell one thing: fried rice, noodle soup, etc. It normally takes me forever to decide what to order in a restaurant so I actually like the lack of choices. You get fried noodles with beef ... or you go somewhere else.

Tourists and locals have concerns about the sanitary conditions, and understandably so. Glasses and dishes are washed in plastic tubs right there on the sidewalk. I've never gotten sick (knock on wood) but I know I'm taking my chances.

People who work at surrounding businesses will order from these sidewalk vendors or from nearby restaurants. The women will whip up a batch and deliver it. When finished diners will sometimes return the dishes. Usually they don't. They'll stack the dishes on the sidewalk or, as seen in this photo, in the gutter. Eventually someone will come around and pick them up.

Also in this photo are a tourists buying nước dừa, fresh coconut water. It's yet another example of how the locals put their motorbikes to clever use, in this case by running a drink stand from the back seat.

Wow, do I ever love fresh coconut water. Here you can see where someone has gone to the trouble of whittling it down so that it's easy to handle. They even cut the bottoms flat so they can be stacked, and to make them easier to drink. The price for one of these on the street is usually 5,000 dong, or about 25 cents. Consider all the labor involved in getting these things to market. They have to be collected, transported, sold to vendors and carved. Somehow they can do all that, sell them for a quarter and still make money!

They're not always whittled down to manageable size. Often you'll get the whole coconut. It's like drinking from a bowling ball. But tastier.

Depending on the size of the coconut there might be as much as a quart of water inside. It tastes like coconut, of course, but the flavor is fairly mild. It's coconut water, not coconut milk. It's not like drinking a Mounds bar. There is nothing more refreshing on a hot day. And in this part of the world every day is a hot day!

It's also a great hangover remedy. Not that I've ever needed it for that. People tell me these things. You know how it is.

If you order a coconut at a restaurant they'll usually serve it with a long spoon, too. You use it to scrape the meat off the inside. It's not the hard, chunky coconut meat we're accustomed to back in the US. It has a jelly-like consistency. You drink the water with your meal then eat the meat for dessert! However, if you order coconut in a restaurant it will usually set you back at least 20,000 dong which is -- gasp! -- more than a dollar.

Not a bad problem to have

Last year I had to go to the US embassy in Bangkok to have pages added to my passport. For years my poor lonely passport sat on a dark cabinet shelf, wondering if it would expire with its pristine pages unmarked by stamps or visas. Then, in less than a year, it was full!

Getting pages added is free and takes less than an hour. A new passport costs $75 and takes two weeks. I'm no financial expert but it seems pretty clear which is the better deal. Basically what they do is stitch in a new passport, sans cover.

Today I had to go to the US consulate in Saigon to have pages added again! This time I can blame it on Cambodia, since most of the new pages, ten of them, in fact, have Cambodia visas on them. (I also have three Vietnam visas, and will be applying for a fourth next month). It's still pretty cool to think that in two years I have essentially filled two passports.

I was informed, however, that I can not have anymore pages added to my passport. Maybe there's a limit on the number of pages. Or maybe they just don't want me carrying around a passport that's as thick as "War and Peace". The next time I run out of pages I'll have to buy a new passport. It expires in a year anyway.

The Big Questions

When you travel alone you have far too much time to think. One thought I keep returning to is how sad it is that there is so much beauty in this world, and yet so few people get to see even a tiny fraction of it. Everyone should get to see Machu Picchu. Everyone should get to enjoy tapas and wine in San Sebastian. Everyone should get to dip their toes in Lake Baikal.

Inevitably thoughts stray to the timeless questions that have tormented thinkers since the dawn of time. Why do billions of people live in desperate poverty with no hope of escape? Why do governments inevitably turn corrupt? Why is it human nature to fear and hate those who are different?

There is one question that keeps me up late at night though, makes me question whether there is any logic or justice in the fabric of the universe.

Do I really want to live in a world where Sandra Bullock wins an Oscar?

All in all I thought the Academy Awards winners were deserving. Avatar should have won more, of course. My personal theory, based as all my theories are on no evidence whatsoever, is that Avatar was snubbed because Hollywood hates James Cameron. He's legendarily difficult to work with.

I was shocked when I read that Titanic came out 12 years ago. The guy made the most successful movie of all time then took a dozen years off to pursue other interests and count his money. When he decided to return he made the new most successful movie of all time and, oh, by the way, invented a whole new way of making movies. I can see where the mere mortals in Hollywood might be a wee bit jealous.

Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson might have been able to make Avatar. Everyone else in the movie industry watched it and, just like the rest of us, thought How the hell did he do that?

The Hurt Locker is a fine film. I was a bit disappointed by its lack of a plot, something I generally consider important in a film. It was a long overdue recognition for director Kathryn Bigelow and a well-deserved coming-out party for Jeremy Renner. (As I watched I kept flashing to Russell Crowe in Gladiator.)

One storyline regarding the movie I didn't see explored is the possibility that Hollywood finally wanted to give credit to a film about the war in the Middle East. Dozens of films have been made about Bush's Folly but most have been financial and critical flops. The Hurt Locker gave the industry an opportunity to give credit to the brave souls serving overseas without having to take a political stand. The movie avoids politics altogether. It's about dedicated soldiers doing their job as best they can and, except for Renner's character, trying to get back home alive. No one can argue with that.

Another angle I thought didn't get the play it deserved is that Cameron and Bigelow were formerly married! Could it be that voters twisted the knife a little by not only snubbing Cameron but giving the award to his ex-wife? To his credit Cameron seemed genuinely happy for her. (Of the many things Cameron is famous for, wearing a fake smile is not one of them.)

In years to come people will watch The Hurt Locker and enjoy it, but 50 years from now people will remember Avatar as a seminal moment in cinema. The movie it most reminds me of is Star Wars, not just because it's a sci-fi blockbuster, but because it will forever change the way movies are made.

Star Wars did not win Best Picture at the Oscars. Annie Hall did. I love Annie Hall. It's one of my all-time favorite movies. But it's safe to say Star Wars has aged better. The Hurt Locker will be to Avatar what Annie Hall is to Star Wars.

(Annie Hall contains one of my all-time favorite movie lines, when Alvy explains to Annie that his grandmother never gave him gifts because "she was too busy being raped by Cossacks". It's hilarious in the movie. Really.)

It's also worth noting that Citizen Kane, indisputably the greatest movie ever made and still fresh and fun to watch despite being almost 70 years old, did not win Best Picture either. Raise your hand if you knew that Citizen Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley.

As for the other awards, you can't argue with Jeff Bridges. By all accounts his performance (which I have not seen) was great, and he was long overdue. He's had a long career of consistently top-notch performances. This wasn't a popularity prize, like Al Pacino winning for The Scent of a Woman, or Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich, or Denzel Washington for Training Day, three laugh-out-loud bad performances.

The Supporting Actor and Actress awards were complete no-brainers. I thought Inglourious Basterds would have been completely unwatchable without Christoph Waltz. If nothing else he deserved the award for acting in four languages! The guy was so cheerful and so dedicated that I found myself almost liking him, despite the fact that, oh yeah, he's a Nazi called the Jew Hunter.

Mo'nique's performance in the climactic scene in Precious was one of the most mesmerizing pieces of acting I've ever seen. For the bulk of the movie she's almost cartoonish, an hateful, crazy monster. But when she reveals her sad, sordid history she suddenly becomes almost sympathetic. Incredible.

Then there's Sandra Bullock. For crying out loud. This was clearly a case of the industry rewarding one of its cash cows. She couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag, but she makes Hollywood a ton of money. For some reason people like her and line up to see her crap fests.

This wouldn't be such a disgrace except for Precious. I think one way to judge a performance is to ask whether someone else could have done the role as well or better. For Christoph Waltz and Mo'nique the answer is an emphatic no. The same for Gabby Sidibe. She had to go into dark emotional places most of us fortunately will never know. And she did it in her first role.

Setting aside the physical aspects of her character, is it possible to imagine Sandra Bullock pulling off that part? It's funny to even consider. It was a once-in-a-lifetime performance that ended up losing to a role straight out of a bad TV movie of the week. How sad.

Crime pays

I've been breaking the law. Repeatedly. Shh... I hope you don't think any less of me when you learn that I've been buying bootleg DVDs. Not only are there stores that sell illegally copied DVDs and CDs, there are entire blocks of stores.

The efficiency of the illegal movie industry is impressive. In Central America, South America and SE Asia I've seen films for sale on the street the week they are released in US theaters.

I've been cramming for the Oscars. I think it's sad that they doubled the number of Best Picture nominees and basically dumbed-down the choices in order to increase ratings for the show. On the one hand, it makes room for "Up!" and "District 9", brilliant films which would have never made the cut when there were only five nominees. On the other hand, it allows paint-by-numbers Hollywood fluff like "The Blind Side" and Quentin Tarantino's latest love letter to himself ("Inglourious Basterds") to squeeze in as well. (Was it just me or did Brad Pitt act like he was auditioning for "Sling Blade 2"?)

When you buy bootlegs you take your chances with the quality. I bought a bootleg of "The Hurt Locker" that is pristine. The first time I bought "District 9", however, I got a version shot in a theater on a camcorder by someone with shaky hands. The videographer was presumably Russian, since that's the language the subtitles are in. I had no idea what the aliens were saying.

I was not pleased. After all, I had paid the equivalent of about 60 cents for it. What to do when you've been ripped off? Buy another copy and take your chances again. The second copy was much better.

"Dexter" is my favorite show. I think it's one of the best shows ever made. You can buy seasons 1-3 of "Dexter" for $24 on iTunes, $36 in HD. List prices for the DVD boxed sets are about $40 per season. Amazon doesn't even have a release date for season four yet.

I bought season four at a shop here in Saigon. The quality is excellent. Someone copied it from Showtime and burned it to disk. I know this because the Showtime promos and ads were recorded, too. The packaging is impressive. The cost is even more so: 70,000 dong, or about $3.75. For the entire season.

My first visitor

While I was traveling around the world several friends from home threatened to join me along the way. No one did, of course. I did have a friend from home contact me out of the clear blue and join me in Thailand, which turned out to be the worst 10-day stretch of the trip.

I had my first visitor from home here in Saigon just before Tet. Kellda wasn't here to visit me. She's Vietnamese and was here to visit family. It was just a happy coincidence that we happened to be in the same city at the same time.

She and her husband Duane joined me for dinner. Duane has visited the country several times with her, so it was fun sharing three very different perceptions of the country.


Kellda and I worked together, so I also got some good gossip from my former workplace. I hopped on a bus to Cambodia the next morning. They headed to the Mekong Delta to visit her family. Now we're all back out our respective workplaces. It was fun while it lasted.