• • •
Christmas and New Year's aroused little interest here as people have already started gearing up for February's Tet holiday, the granddaddy of them all in Vietnam. The gearing up includes cleaning and home construction, getting married, and even burying the dead. We experienced all of this over the traditional western holiday period. The ringing on Christmas Day came from the sound of a jackhammer demolishing the house behind us. The cleaning was provided by trash collectors, who hauled away our wrapping paper hours after Joanna opened her presents. There was a very tasteful and low-keyed wedding ceremony on New Year's Day and a very loud and tedious 3-day funeral service, featuring a 3 a.m. startup by the band. The funeral culminated with the body being taken from the house and driven down the street. I was told the body was in the house for a year before the ceremony. I can't disagree with a friend's assessment that it's never dull on our street, although it was fairly quiet when my friend came to visit. The cleanup and construction will continue right up to Tet, which is February 12 this year.
• • •
We've got a new family hobby: fishing. Joanna and I go to her favorite fish store and pick up worms and crickets. Phuong (Santa) got Joanna a pole for Christmas and we all meet at the renovated park where we're good to go .... fishing. No catches yet, but I did see a gigantic catfish in the murky, mucky, yucky, black water, which comes from the Dong Nai River and local toilets, I suppose. I've gotten a few hits; one pretty strong that took the bait off the hook, but Moby Dick got away. The crickets upset Joanna for some reason, and she let them all free the last time we went fishing. She'll let me hook the worms, however. I'm the pole-sitter (actually, I stand the whole time) and keep telling my daughter and wife that the big one is imminent. Phuong walks Elijah around the park in his new Japanese stroller while Joanna plays. Meanwhile, I get plenty of unsolicited advice from passersby -- in decent English and unintelligible Vietnamese. Everyone is shocked I'm not rapidly hauling lunkers out of the muck, and they've told me on three occasions that other guys are catching lots of fish. Obviously, I wouldn't keep any fish I caught out that water. There are pictures of the canals and water somewhere on this blog.
• • •
A new coffee shop has opened at the park near our house, and it's going to have a gigantic fish tank and pool for kids. And the park's renovation is pretty much finished. It looks a lot better with brick paving. Foot traffic has increased in the park, and unfortunately it included a couple of unsavory characters last Saturday, both of whom were very drunk. One tried to take a "friendly poke" at me, which I easily defected with my right hand while holding my walking stick in my left. The fat white monkey with the lame back still has a tiny bit of chi flowing. Another guy was mad that Joanna didn't respond to his drunken "happy new year" and grabbed her by both of her arms. I hip-checked the clown and signaled hands off. At the loud and excessive 3-day funeral service across the street from us, an older man approached Joanna saying some kind of greeting in Vietnamese (I guess). She backed up a little and the guy started to grab her arms; my walking stick intervened and the guy sulked away. Onlookers laughed at all three intrusions on our personal space. We've applied for our visas to the U.S. and their arrival is imminent, we hope, even though things aren't exactly ideal in the U.S. with Covid and bad politics raging. My holiday wish for hope and a new start were dismissed by some, who tried to sow seeds of dissent by invading the Capitol Building, and there are those who continue to foster division and hate. That won't affect our decision to return. We want the best for our children, and that's in the U.S. where we believe people will ultimately make good decisions and do what's right ... for all of us.
Christmas and New Year's aroused little interest here as people have already started gearing up for February's Tet holiday, the granddaddy of them all in Vietnam. The gearing up includes cleaning and home construction, getting married, and even burying the dead. We experienced all of this over the traditional western holiday period. The ringing on Christmas Day came from the sound of a jackhammer demolishing the house behind us. The cleaning was provided by trash collectors, who hauled away our wrapping paper hours after Joanna opened her presents. There was a very tasteful and low-keyed wedding ceremony on New Year's Day and a very loud and tedious 3-day funeral service, featuring a 3 a.m. startup by the band. The funeral culminated with the body being taken from the house and driven down the street. I was told the body was in the house for a year before the ceremony. I can't disagree with a friend's assessment that it's never dull on our street, although it was fairly quiet when my friend came to visit. The cleanup and construction will continue right up to Tet, which is February 12 this year.
• • •
We've got a new family hobby: fishing. Joanna and I go to her favorite fish store and pick up worms and crickets. Phuong (Santa) got Joanna a pole for Christmas and we all meet at the renovated park where we're good to go .... fishing. No catches yet, but I did see a gigantic catfish in the murky, mucky, yucky, black water, which comes from the Dong Nai River and local toilets, I suppose. I've gotten a few hits; one pretty strong that took the bait off the hook, but Moby Dick got away. The crickets upset Joanna for some reason, and she let them all free the last time we went fishing. She'll let me hook the worms, however. I'm the pole-sitter (actually, I stand the whole time) and keep telling my daughter and wife that the big one is imminent. Phuong walks Elijah around the park in his new Japanese stroller while Joanna plays. Meanwhile, I get plenty of unsolicited advice from passersby -- in decent English and unintelligible Vietnamese. Everyone is shocked I'm not rapidly hauling lunkers out of the muck, and they've told me on three occasions that other guys are catching lots of fish. Obviously, I wouldn't keep any fish I caught out that water. There are pictures of the canals and water somewhere on this blog.
• • •
A new coffee shop has opened at the park near our house, and it's going to have a gigantic fish tank and pool for kids. And the park's renovation is pretty much finished. It looks a lot better with brick paving. Foot traffic has increased in the park, and unfortunately it included a couple of unsavory characters last Saturday, both of whom were very drunk. One tried to take a "friendly poke" at me, which I easily defected with my right hand while holding my walking stick in my left. The fat white monkey with the lame back still has a tiny bit of chi flowing. Another guy was mad that Joanna didn't respond to his drunken "happy new year" and grabbed her by both of her arms. I hip-checked the clown and signaled hands off. At the loud and excessive 3-day funeral service across the street from us, an older man approached Joanna saying some kind of greeting in Vietnamese (I guess). She backed up a little and the guy started to grab her arms; my walking stick intervened and the guy sulked away. Onlookers laughed at all three intrusions on our personal space. We've applied for our visas to the U.S. and their arrival is imminent, we hope, even though things aren't exactly ideal in the U.S. with Covid and bad politics raging. My holiday wish for hope and a new start were dismissed by some, who tried to sow seeds of dissent by invading the Capitol Building, and there are those who continue to foster division and hate. That won't affect our decision to return. We want the best for our children, and that's in the U.S. where we believe people will ultimately make good decisions and do what's right ... for all of us.
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