If I only had a brain

Do you need a brain to write a blog? Right here is proof you don't. I had a thunderous motorcycle crash a couple of weeks ago, and fractured my skull in three places. Internal bleeding. Unconscious for some time. The whole package. A guy named Al pulled me off the street. Since then, several other people have claimed responsibility for my rescue, but Al is the real deal. I was out for a couple of days and went from Bien Hoa, to Ho Chi Minh, and finally to Bangkok, where they woke me up every couple of hours to make sure I went No. 1 and No. 2. There was no operation, most likely because they couldn't find a brain to be damaged. I was dizzy and had a headache and body ache for a few days, but I quickly returned to Bien Hoa and resumed teaching a mere 10 days or so after the crash. You do need a brain to teach, unfortunately, so that's been a little bit of struggle for me, but I'm happy to be back in the classroom. The students are awesome.
I want to first and foremost thank my ex-wife Lynda, who flew to Bangkok with my son Alec to be at my bedside and listen to my jibberish.  I whined about no cigarettes and coffee, and didn't get any, but Lynda and Alec stayed with me. The ex- in ex-wife Lynda stands for excellent. And Alec is the man, even if he made off with my camera. I recovered so quickly and so well because of their visit. I know it.
I want to thank VMG for rushing to my side as well. They've been great through the whole process and were more than happy to put me back to work. Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. And Mr. Tu slept alongside me to make sure I remained among the living. Here's to you, Mr. Tu, and your fantastic snoring. Sometimes it takes something disastrous, like a bike wreck and head injury, to make you realize how wonderful people can truly be. And how much you truly love your family.
And let me say another thing. Hospitals aren't good places. They do good things, but they're, well, not good places. They're full of sick and hurt people, for one thing, they wake you up a lot, for another, and the food really is wretched. I don't think I really ate for a week or so, which means I look like a normal person now. Co-worker Joy is trying to fatten me up with lasagna and duck and chicken and ham and cheese and other goodies. I think it's working.
Fatigue seems to be the only side-effect so far, but I'm always tired anyway. No brain, no problems (except in the classroom). Obviously, it hasn't affected the blog any.
Thanks to all of my other friends as well for their support. I'll pay you guys the money I owe you as soon as I get it. Later.

Happy days

My son Jack came to visit, and it was the best nine days I've had in Vietnam. We didn't do a whole lot -- ate seafood, drank a few beers, ate some more seafood, ate some beef, drank a few more beers. We checked out some of the local Bien Hoa markets and sang a little karaoke.We talked a lot. Like I said, it was a great visit. While visiting, Jack got accepted into NYU law school. It was kind of a last-minute thing because he was set to attend Georgetown. I was there when it all went down with New York University and I was pretty excited. Not as excited as Jack, of course, but when you're an old fart, you want the good things to happen to your children and you don't care so much about yourself. Given my lifestyle, I guess I've never really cared about myself.
I'm street legal now. I have a motorbike license and three accidents to my credit. The accidents were pretty minor, and they serve as a great reminder that there are plenty of morons on the road, including a big, dopey white guy. But only one of the mishaps was really my fault, and everyone just continued on their way anyway.
Jack and I found an interesting coffee shop where the service is extra special. The coffee isn't bad, either, so we did some time there. But we only sampled the coffee.
The line cutting drives me crazy. People do it in the stores, on their bikes, in wheelchairs. It doesn't matter how long you've been waiting. No one cares. The locals are worse with each other than they are with me -- almost. I was sitting on my bike today and a guy behind me rode over my foot while I waited for a parking space to clear. Then he took the parking space. It was all I could do not to clock him, but I realized this is just business as usual here. People just bang into you when you're walking in a market or store. Just like Peru. Now that I think about it, the line cutting was awful in Peru as well. I guess I really miss the line etiquette in the U.S.
The rain has been pretty relentless lately. Yesterday, there was a two-hour downpour followed by three hours of steady rain. It's raining now. The Vietnamese get really worked up about the rain. They scurry and ride their bikes like crazy so they don't get wet. It rains nearly every day, so you'd think they'd be used to it. Not so.
My skin problems continue, but like cutting in line, I think it's just a fact of life here for me because of the heat and my penchant for sweating. Bummer.
Classes are going very well, and I'm getting to know the students. The younger students, ages 6 to 12, are fantastic. And their English is better than most of the adults. We have a good time in class as well. The older students are wonderful too, so there are no complaints about the job part of life here.
Life is good, even with the line cutting.
I'm picking up a tiny bit of Vietnamese, and I just ignore the locals when they laugh at my pronunciation. Ha ha ha. Ban dep.

Code of the road

Riding a motorbike in Vietnam is quite the experience. Like going to the dentist. Or a proctologist. But after a few weeks of navigating the rocky and crowded roads of Bien Hoa, I realize there is a method to the madness. Here are some of the rules of the road:
-- Right or wrong, cars have right of way. And believe me, they take it. Be prepared.
-- You are responsible for what's in front of you. Riders stop for no apparent reason. They swerve unexpectedly to the left or right. They text while riding. If any of this happens in front of you, it's your responsibility. Be prepared.
-- The far right lane is a free-for-all. Bikes come from both directions. Bikes enter from side streets and they don't yield, care or look for oncoming traffic. Bikes come toward you in this lane as well. They're probably trying to cross the street, or they've just crossed the street from the other side. Be prepared.
-- Bikes will pass you on the left and right. Some chuckleheads will fly past you at high rates of speed and come within inches of you. I look quickly into my side mirrors quite a bit, but I don't linger because anything can happen in front of you. Be prepared.
-- If you stop at a light and leave seven inches between your bike and the bike in front of you, I guarantee some other biker will push his tire between you and the bike ahead of you so he or she can can move ahead of you. There's no real etiquette. Of course, it's the same thing at the market. There's no shame here in cutting in line. Be prepared.
-- Crossing the road takes raw courage. You edge into the oncoming traffic and hope the bikes swerve around you. You do this bit by bit until you've reached the other side. Be really, really prepared.
-- Driving a little faster than the rest of traffic is actually safer than taking your time and going with the flow. The idea is to create space.

I had a bad reaction to something I ate, and I've broken out in welts. Luckily, they're not on my face. I've  just about gotten rid of my face fungus. I'll adapt, eventually, but the process is excruciating.
My son Jack is coming in less than a week, and I'm really excited about that. I'll be able to talk English with someone. I've learned a teeny weeny bit of Vietnamese, but it's a slow process. Kind of like getting rid of my skin ailments.
I've lost power in my apartment a couple of times. Forget the lights; the real issue is no fans or air conditioning. The roaches sensed the power outage and invaded en masse. I swept seven dead roaches off the floor after a sleepless night of sweating, and then taught three classes.
Rain has been very heavy lately, but I don't mind. It's cooler, and I'm usually already wet from sweating.
Food is still amazing, students are still great and other than a few complaints, I don't really have any complaints. Huh? 

A non-verbal knucklehead learns

In the past week or so, I realized I was misreading some of the non-verbal cues from the fine folk of Bien Hoa. The easy one: The peace sign means hello; westerners wave their hand to say hi. Next, when the Vietnamese shake their hand quickly back and forth (with no arm movement), that means "no" or "we don't have what you want." I thought it meant "maybe" or "don't know." This misunderstanding caused me more than a little grief and confusion. Finally, when the middle-aged males gave me the stare, I thought it was alpha-male, machismo, smack-down time. Wrong again. When I got the stare a couple times this past week, I politely bowed my head and smiled, and they responded in kind. I wish I figured this out earlier. They just wanted to see how the visitor treats others. Got it.
I've developed a hideous rash on my face from a motorbike helmet chinstrap. I've got medicine, but the heat and my sweating keeps the rash thriving. It features blisters and swelling welts. Lovely. Welcome to the tropics. I'm growing a beard to cover it.
Also got a stomach thing. It's not as bad as the ones I got in Peru, but it's got my attention. Oddly, with a frightful face and grinding gut, I had a wonderful week of classes.  Students were great (and probably intimidated by my Frankenface) and the lessons went really well. Go figure.
My apartment is a little like Animal Planet, which I watch every night on the apartment's wonderful flat-screen TV. I've seen  a couple generations of geckos come and go. I watch them mature from little babies to full-fledged lizards. They play in my trash, run all over the walls, and hide behind the pictures on the walls and under the throw rugs. They keep the roaches and mosquitoes at bay. Nature is so beautiful.
Finally, I broke my vow and bought a motorbike Thursday. I got tired of walking everywhere and arriving a sweaty mess, and I needed some freedom of movement. My two favorite coffee/smoothie spots near my house are gone. One closed and moved. The other one burned down. Now I've got mobility to find a new coffee spot where I can sit and watch the motorbikes go by. The traffic is wild and comes at you from every direction, and you trade paint with the bikes alongside you. But if you take it slow and are really careful .... you'll probably still get smashed. Screw it.

Did you see that?

I'm still not used to being stared at everywhere I go. I don't mean simply an extended casual glance. I'm talking fixated starting, with nary a blink. Kids, adults, the elderly, plants and animals. I'm being watched. People watch me eat to see if I can handle chopsticks. They watch me drink coffee. They try to peek in my grocery bags to see what kind of food I'm buying at the Coop Mart. I remember the first time I saw Dave Chappelle in Yellow Springs. OK, I stared a little. But Chappelle is an honest-to-god celebrity who has tremendous talent. All I have is white skin and a 6-foot frame. I'm told by the few locals I know that people in Bien Hoa don't see many folk that look like me. They should count their blessings.
Most of the reaction I get from the onlookers is positive. There will be a smile or nod. A couple of times, however, the interaction has been uncomfortable. A guy came and sat next to me while I was having dinner and demanded I buy him a beer because "You're a rich American. You pay. You got money." I ignored him and he yelled, "Look at me. Look at me." I gave him a cigarette and he finally went away. Nothing good would come from a confrontation, although it was getting close to that point.  Another time, two creepy guys sat  on either side of me telling me how much they really liked me. "But we don't know each other," I said. Unfortunately, these encounters happened at what has become my former favorite restaurant. I found another place to eat, but even there four guys insisted I chug beers with them. Bottoms up. Man, I just wanted dinner. I didn't feel like performing, so I got my check and left. Overall, the people are wonderful here, but sometimes a little attention can go a very long way. Guess I've got to adjust somehow.
Classes are going well. I'm teaching kids and teenagers, and they're fun. They're rambunctious, but  when they start to bug me, I just remember what a chucklehead I was at their age. I teach at a factory sort-of place, Taekwon, and the class is awesome.So are the classes with the vocational teachers. Good people. When I have challenging classes, I just try to come up with better material for them. It keeps me on task. I don't hit a home run every time, but I have more time to lesson plan now because I'm limiting my public appearances.
I saw a couple of rough motorbike accidents last week. In one, a little girl was bounced off the bike and ended up sitting in the street. She got up and walked to the sidewalk, where she stood kind of shellshocked. The two drivers regrouped and picked up the broken parts of their bikes. No one spoke and traffic swerved around them. In the other accident, a motorbike hit a bicyclist. No one spoke and traffic swerved around them.
I've seen about six accidents since I've been here, and I'm surprised I haven't seen more -- people text-message while riding their bikes in absolutely crazy rush-hour traffic. Gutsy stuff. My plans to get a motorbike are still on hold, and will probably stay that way as long as I'm here.

Rain and roommates

The rainy season has started here, and I, for one, like it. The rain means it cools off for about an hour or two a day. Even better, there's a cool breeze right before the storm hits. The locals feel the breeze, then scurry to cover everything up and weigh all their stuff down. It gets windy, and there's lots of thunder and lightning. Good stuff. The storms often come mid-afternoon, but they can hit any time, really. Oddly, I haven't been caught in the rain yet. Since I just wrote that, I'm really going to get soaked next time out. After the rain, it can be either nasty hot and humid, or quite nice. Thumbs-up to the rainy season.
I think I'm actually adapting to the heat a little. My shirts are only three-quarters soaked with sweat rather than completely drenched when I teach. I've got my persistent heat rash under control with copious amounts of Lamisil. I'm sure I'll suffer in the cold when I return to the U.S.
Everyone still says hi to me on the streets, and children come up and look at me like I've got three eyes on my second head. But once they get used to my odd appearance, they're friendly and engaging. It's all quite enjoyable. And so are the classes and students. I might even have a favorite class (ha ha). They're UNBELIEVABLE, as one of the students says. Actually, all the classes are excellent ... none better than the other.
I've discovered another universal truth in addition to the petulance of big box electronic store employees: unacceptable movie theater behavior. I went to see Star Trek 2 last night (it's in English with Vietnamese subtitles) and you're assigned a seat. Mine was J7. Behind me was a family of 5 who were discussing who knows what, maybe their summer holiday plans, as the movie got under way. In front of me was a couple; the girl was looking at photos on her smart-ass phone. Five young girls came in about 10 minutes into the movie and marched up and down the aisles and went in and out of the theater throughout the film. Their assigned seats were next to me. All other seats in the theater were empty, so I did what any sane human being would have done and moved. Then the usher came in and gestured that I had to return to my assigned seat. I used sign language to plead my case, gesturing that there was chaos all around me in an otherwise empty theater. He got it and I enjoyed the movie, which was very good by the way.
Every few days I sweep up the dead roaches from my apartment floors. And they're not even paying rent. Ah, life in the tropics.

No mo' hotel

I will miss the Khanh Dang Hotel, where I lived for a couple of months. The receptionists were nice, they did my laundry (for a fee), cleaned my room most days, and the room air conditioner felt like it was nuclear powered. But I decided to move and to have more room, a kitchen and stuff like that. The new apartment is a little further from work, but not enough to matter. I sweat as soon as I step outside anyway. Only one room has AC in the apartment, but the fans actually do an OK (not great, but OK) job of keeping the place slightly cooler than a steam room. I live right on the railroad tracks, but the passing trains don't bother me. I've always liked the sound of trains.
School is good and the bosses are fine. Classes have been real good lately. Students like fun and games, and Taylor Swift. Grammar, not so much. But they get it, and I'm impressed with what they absorb, even when they don't seem to pay attention. Bright folk.
I'm blocked from Facebook at my new place for whatever reason.
My boss and another teacher took me to a local park, Buu Long/Dragonland. Other than being an extra hot day, it was real nice. The pictures are on facebook (back when I could access facebook). Blogspot is balky when it comes to posting pictures and it took forever to figure out how to make them a little bigger. Sometimes they shrink when I add other pictures. Not exactly user friendly, but functional. It won't let me rearrange pictures now, so apartment pictures are out of order. Sorry.
I've had a number of people mention how "fat" I am. They say that's why I sweat so much. The people here are quite direct. They all think I'm much younger than I am, which is nice, but when I tell them I'm 58, they now think I'm "old" and "fat".
Not much progress on the language. I just get laughter when I try to speak Vietnamese.
The food rocks. Had some really good pho (a soup pronounced fa, but I'm sure I'm wrong again) and great shrimp. So it's not my fault. All the good food is making me "fat".
Forgot to mention that most of the beer is served warm, and you get a big block of ice in your glass. When the ice melts, the "workers" replace your ice with a new block. However, the old ice goes back in the new ice bucket, meaning you're probably sucking down some other guy's spit. That might explain the lung ailment I had last week. Lots of people hack -- and smoke -- here. Motorbike air, cigarettes and shared ice.