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.

Food for thought

The food here is a real highlight. A U.S. quarter will get you four good-sized chicken wings -- it could be dinner. Shrimp and fish are absurdly cheap. You get a whole fish, noddles, cucumber, pineapple, iceberg and leaf lettuce, rice paper, and other stuff I can't identify for $4.50. For $3.50, there's an all-you-can eat breakfast buffet across the street at  a nice hotel. Most of it is pretty healthy as well. The white noodles go really well with just about everything. I'm better with chopsticks, but the other night one of my chopsticks flew out of my hand and almost lanced some guy sitting near me. He didn't smile.
It's also nice you're not super-sized with sodas ... they're 10 oz., not 12 or 20. I drink the coffee here only as a treat since I brought a one-cup plastic filter holder from the U.S. (along with three pounds of Dunkin Donuts coffee) so I can have some drip coffee.
Still no luck with the language. Usually, when I try to say a word, the locals either laugh at me very loudly or chastise me with "No, no no." I'm on the verge of giving up. However, in one of my classes while teaching vocabulary, I said the Vietnamese word for keys and the students applauded. That's the kind of reinforcement I'll need to continue learning Vietnamese.
The classes are going well and the students, for the most part, are pretty engaged. Just like in Peru, certain sounds like "th" and "sh" are challenging for them, but they catch on pretty quick -- quicker than I'm catching on to Vietnamese.  I was teaching adjectives Friday night and asked the class to describe me. First word they said was "fat." The second might have been "old" but I had moved on to adverbs at that point. And I swear that's true. In the same class, I asked a girl if I could help her with a word she didn't understand in the reading, and she responded, "Whatever," and refused my help. "Young" people. Go figure.
Some behavior is universal, in my view. The big electronic stores here have the same vibe as the ones in Peru and the U.S. There's three or four employees standing around using their smartphones or "whatever," or they're talking, and you stand there like a moron waiting for service. They look at you, then go back to their phones or their critically important conversations. I'll bet it's the same in Botswana. So, I ended up at a smaller retailer here and got good service and the product I needed, even with the language barrier. Lesson learned.
Some random observations: Folk here seem more fascinated with Europe, especially the UK, than the USA. Given the events of history, that's quite understandable. Lots of Manchester United hoodies and shirts here. Yes, people wear hoodies in this ungodly heat, especially girls on motorbikes. Energy drinks like Red Bull are very popular. Some of the corporate classes I have always bring a couple of Red Bulls and a couple of waters for me. Haven't found a pharmacy yet near me, but it's very high on my list of things to do.

Adjusting, learning, and a little whining

The positives far outweigh the negatives here, but I wouldn't be a thorough blogger if I didn't report some of the ... well ... challenges.
First, the weather. I know weather whining is trite, but imagine the hottest, most humid July afternoon in Ohio or Delaware. Now ratchet that up a notch and you're almost in Bien Hoa. When I got back from the U.S., my internal clock was upside down and the heat was extra brutal, even for Vietnam. I was a mess and my bosses were asking what was wrong with me. Standing there on two hours sleep, pouring sweat (I'm the only person who sweats in this country), I said, "Nothing." It took me a couple of weeks to adjust time-wise, and I'm still a little off. Old age, I guess.
The people are very nice, but their willingness to help can be startling, for lack of a better word.. If you're doing something like putting on a motorbike helmet, and you miss the snap once, they're right there trying to snap it for you. Don't open doors for the ladies here .... they insist (INSIST) on opening them for me. When you're paying for something, and you take a moment to count through the piles of bills you have due to the currency, folks gets itchy and reach into your wallet to grab the correct bills. I realize I'm the guest here and have many cultural lessons to learn, but I put my foot down on this one: Don't grab my wallet. I intentionally leave off the please so they know I'm serious. Of course that leads to many apologies and I feel bad. But, you know, reaching into a stranger's (or even a friend's) wallet ....
In Peru, everyone was in a huge hurry, cutting in line and stuff, and then they were always late. In Vietnam, people are late, then they're in a hurry and they expect the same from you even though you were the one waiting. It's kind of cute.
All whining aside, the people in Vietnam are wonderful, the kindest and most helpful I've encountered in my limited travels.  And they're positive even though it's hot and crowded, two conditions that make Americans irritable at best. The food is great and inexpensive. The beer is mediocre and inexpensive. Taxis are air-conditioned and inexpensive. Like I said, the positives far outweigh the challenges.
I'm used to the traffic and have learned to cross the street fairly safely, although I was hit once in a parking lot and once on the road. On the road, the guy who clipped me went down in heap, but bounced up and thanked me for helping him. The lady who hit me in the parking lot didn't do any damage, and she was as shocked as I was. No harm, no foul.
Teaching is going fine. Students are students no matter where. Some days they're enthusiastic, other days they're sluggish, probably because they're tired from working so much. I like them all and we're getting along quite well. I hope my sweating doesn't creep them out.