I lost my cool the other day. For the most part, I've accepted the cultural differences here that I don't care for, such as people cutting in line, or ignoring driving lanes and traffic lights, or telling me how fat and old I am. Some (not all) folk are extremely blunt. But I've been extremely Gandhi-like. Until Wednesday morning. Phuong and I were playing tennis when the next group showed up for doubles. They were 20 minutes early, so they sat courtside, and one guy was talking so loud while we were finishing a set that he was a distraction, to say the least. We finished the set anyway and were volleying, but the guy kept flapping his jaw the entire time. His partners talked, but weren't nearly as loud or obnoxious. I looked over a couple of times, but the big-mouth didn't give a crap. So I took action and slammed a tennis ball at him, and it hit the fence next to his head so hard that he flinched. He responded by asking: "What wrong you? What wrong you?" I gave him the icy Vietnamese stare and said in my wretched Vietnamese: "Toi khong tot." I think that means I'm no good, but my Vietnamese is wretched. His friends kind of smirked, so I think they enjoyed my hot-tempered reaction. The big-mouth toned it down because I got his attention. I hate to be an a--hole, but sometimes there's no other option.
Phuong and I have an odd neighbor (and who doesn't?). This guy was singing karaoke into his gigantic sound system at 10:44 p.m. so loud that our walls were shaking.We could barely hear each other talk. You could hear this num-nuts all over the neighborhood. But nobody complained. That's not done here, I'm told, because people don't want trouble. Screw that. For me, this was too much, so we knocked on his door (actually, Phuong had to walk into the house because he and his wife couldn't hear the knocking). We asked politely if he could turn off his music and singing, and he did. Problem solved.
I guess I'm just too big for this country. Our bathroom mirror is so short it reflects my chest and stomach. I have to squat down to see my face in the mirror. Our sink is tiny, and Phuong was upset when I was tossing dishes around due to lack of space.
Food is great here because Phuong is a great cook -- we have octopus, beef, shrimp, awesome chicken, clams, duck, kim chi and everything else. That's why I'm so fat, or so I'm told.
Phuong has applied for a travel visa and we hope to visit the USA in June. We're keeping our fingers crossed.
Classes and students are wonderful. I returned to Long long long long Thanh on Wednesday after some time away, and it was cool to see the kids again. One class was shocked at my massive frame. Good times.
Oh, one funny thing. I saw a woman cut in line to get communion from the priest at last Sunday's mass. Had to laugh at that, although no one really smiles during church services here.
