Butt-head contributes to pollution

Vietnam is going through quite a few changes, kind of like an industrial age of sorts. There's more industry, more building, more cars, and, unfortunately, more pollution. Still, it's not as bad as Shanghai from what I hear from other English teachers. The motorbike rules here, and motorbikes don't pollute as much as cars (I think) and while it's crowded in much of Vietnam, it's nothing like China, thank god. I always include a global warming and conservation lesson in all of my classes, so at least students are aware of the issues. And the students always point to my shirt pocket and say smoking cigarettes contributes to the problem. Guilty as charged.
Living in the tropics presents unique difficulties. There are some insects here that I don't recall seeing in the United States, and one of them decided to leave its mark on the White Monkey. The result is the White Monkey has deep purple spots on his right foot, which I've had for more than a week. I'll spare you the photo. The three spots, each about the size of a quarter, cause no pain but they're disconcerting and gnarly looking. About as attractive as my missing teeth. Phuong assures me they'll go away soon, explaining that the wormy-looking thing that bit me actually shot some kind of dye-like fluid into me. But that's the least of my worries. I've become the world's oldest man with an acne problem, thanks to the heat, humidity and filthy air here. The town is growing, and at many of the construction sites the excess materials are burned, releasing god-knows-what into the air. But god knows there's a place on my face for those toxins, where they blossom into full, red-blooded pimples, which Phuong and I call "tomatoes." You can also get them on your legs and arms. My face gets the brunt of the action. Finally, small cuts and scratches take a long time to heal here. Part of that could be my age, but I think the weather and god-knows-what are factors as well.
After Phuong and I play singles tennis, a couple of older men play us in doubles. We don't go all out against our older opponents, instead trying to improve our already amazing games. As a result, we lose. So the 84-year-old guys tells us Monday that he'll get a different partner so we'll have a better chance to win. He felt sorry for us and thought we were getting frustrated. I decided to give a little more effort against the old guy and his new partner Thursday, and guess what? We lost. Ah, but those old guys didn't have a chance against my serve. Ha!! Hey wait, I'm an old guy, too.
I was so happy with my new front teeth that Phuong and I decided to fix up her front teeth. The picture on the right says it all. Beautiful smile, beautiful teeth, beautiful woman. I feel blessed. Her bottom teeth are next. I guess in the day, not too long ago when Phuong was a teenager, the solution to issues like tooth decay was to yank that sucker out, even if it was a permanent tooth. Progress can be a beautiful thing.
I'm getting more excited about my trip to the U.S. to see family, friends, bankers, doctors and a priest and a lawyer. Quite the mix, and good times, I'm sure. I miss Yellow Springs, especially Glen Helen Nature Preserve. I know I'll do some hiking.

Cold showers, Elvis, Halloween

When I take a shower in the Nha Nghi hotel, which is quite often, I'm reminded of my days in Peru. The water is heated by solar energy, like Peru, the supply is limited, like Peru, and when the days are cloudy or rainy ... well, cold showers can be quite invigorating. Like Peru. Morning showers are the coldest, so I'm always wide awake for my Saturday and Sunday morning classes. I use the washcloth-and-fast-rinse method, so it's not so horrible. And when we do have hot or warm water, Phuong makes sure to take a nice, long shower. Rainy season has finally slowed down, so the warmer water has been more plentiful. Phuong and I plan to have a solar water heater in our house. Go green.
Being an egomaniac, I always follow the number of hits my blog gets and where the hits are coming from. Last week I had views from six continents -- only the third or fourth 'time that's happened. Africa rarely reads me -- and the people there don't know what they're missing. But last week I had a couple of hits from Nigeria, and I'm going to guess that someone from that country sent me a weird voodoo message, saying I could improve my wealth and love life with the help of a little voodoo. My love life is fine these days, but I'll need more than a little voodoo to help my financial situation. Whatever. I have nearly 16,000 hits overall, so that's kind of cool. I told you I was an egomaniac.
My new teeth are in place, and they feel pretty good. They're going to take a little getting used to, but overall I'm very pleased with the job the dentist did, and how my mug looks. It would have been more than 10 times more expensive to get the same dental work done in the USA, so now I really have a reason to smile and show off my new pearly whites. Thank you Dentist Thu. And, the dentist was a very nice person and gave the White Monkey a bunch of bananas to eat after fixing my bridge.
I've had students making Halloween masks in class the past week or so. Halloween is celebrated here, but it's not a big deal like in the USA, where a lot of people use it as an excuse to consume massive amounts of alcohol. Really scary. But most of the students here, especially the older ones, really enjoy the project. Some boys, about 11 to 14 years old, are a little too cool to participate. I totally understand, because I was little too cool for a lot of things when I was younger. The students actually pick up some English when they make the masks: words like mask (duh), scissors, glue, paste, ghost, and goof off.
I lost to Phuong 6-0 last week in our bitter tennis rivalry, but courageously came back this week to win three straight sets and take back the title. My hip, injured in a fall a few weeks ago, is completely healed, so I'm moving like a gazelle again, or at least like a graceful wildebeest. Phuong and I played doubles together, and we got beat 6-2 by two guys with a combined age of 154. Really. One guy is 84 and the other guy is around 70. We had fun and we're playing them again tomorrow.
I'm super excited about returning to the USA in a few weeks. I'll be crazy busy with eye work, a visit to an immigration lawyer, a visit to a Catholic church. The lawyer and church visits are in preparation for getting Phuong a visa so we can get married in the USA. If the church rejects us, we'll go to Las Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator. At least that's my plan.Thank you very much.

The tongue was wonderful

Our small room in the hotel/motel is a big challenge. I have lots of books and Phuong has lots of computer gear, so we're knocking things over all the time, tripping over everything  and somehow losing track of our stuff. And, of course, everything is built for a smaller person. The sink, closet and fridge are low to the ground, so my back and mending hip are put to the test. I'm also tested by the four flights of stairs I walk a few times a day. The knob on our door started sticking, so I poured pure virgin olive oil all over it, and presto, good as new. That's one of my great accomplishments in Vietnam. We're making do and our relationship survives, despite the Nha Nghi.
We do have crazy neighbors -- an old Italian guy and his younger Vietnamese girlfriend. They scream and yell at each other every day and throw trash out the fourth-floor window. We got fed up one day -- I yelled at them to take their stupid fights outside and Phuong left a note by the door telling them to stop throwing trash out the window. 
I got an X-ray of my messed-up teeth for the dentist. That was interesting -- the X-ray room has paint chipping off the walls and a metal bed. Other than an X-ray machine, that was it. The X-ray guy had me hold the X-ray plate in place with my thumb, and he put me in a semi-sit-up position for my photo op. I guess the photo was OK. The price was certainly right -- $1.50 USD.
I gave the X-ray to the dentist on Friday, and she yanked out my crumbling bridge (top, front, four teeth) on Sunday. The process was surprisingly painless, but she didn't give me a temporary replacement so I'm ready for Halloween early. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll post a picture of my "before" front teeth. When the new bridge arrives in a couple of days, I'll post that photo as well. I can't teach for a few days because I don't have my million-dollar smile and my speech isn't quite the same -- I whistle on the "s" words.
Last week, when I had front teeth, Phuong cooked pig heart and pig tongue for our dinner. Both were delicious and Phuong did an excellent job preparing them. I would recommend both, but some people might be turned off by the texture of the tongue, although I had no problem with it.
I had good mojo with my classes last week, and even won a bet with a student about kilos and pounds. I mentioned that a kilo is 2.2 pounds, and a student nicknamed John was sure I was wrong and agreed to a bet, which, of course, I won. After all, I'm the teacher. The student is a great guy and the class is super awesome, so we had a good laugh over it and I tried to moon walk to celebrate.
A couple weeks ago a few students at a company annoyed me a little, asking me if I had been drinking beer before class because I was red. A little miffed, I told them I had just ridden 30 minutes on the back of a bike to class in 95-degree heat, that I grew up in a country that has cold weather, that I'm a big man, and that I'm not Vietnamese and acclimated to the conditions here. They laughed, and I don't know why.
Phuong beat me for the tennis championship last Friday, 6-3, and she followed that up by trouncing me 6-0. Man, I was pissed. But give me time, and I'll come up with the perfect excuse for my loss.

Crumbling teeth, hip pointer, wet rides; no worries

Phuong and I were eating chicken wings for lunch the other day when I bit on something that felt like glass. I spit out the white, porcelain-like material and thought it was bone. Make that ...hoped it was bone. Wrong. It was my front tooth. The material was enamel, or something like that. I have a bridge of four fake, front, top teeth. For 38 years or so the bridge gave me a Tom Cruise smile, or so I thought. Now I look like a minor league hockey player. My front teeth are falling apart, so I'm rolling the dice and having a Vietnamese dentist replace my bridge. The good news is that Phuong knows the dentist, and the dentist is a woman. I like Vietnamese women because they're direct and practical. The dentist is going to "fix me up"  later in October, so I hope to return to the United States in November looking like Tom Cruise again -- or no worse than Mr. Ed. Looks don't mean much at this stage of my life, but I want to be able to chew until Phuong puts me in the Dong Nai River.
September and October have been extremely rainy this year. It always rains as I'm leaving for work or traveling between assignments on a bike. Last week, storm Number 3 (the storms get numbers here) slammed into me while I was on the back of a bike going from my first class at a sneaker company to my second class at our home office. The rain and wind was so severe my driver stopped the bike. We waited a few minutes and the rain got more intense, flooding the streets because the drains are filled with litter. So we got back on the bike and sloshed our way to my second of three classes that night. The ride usually takes 20 to 30 minutes. That night it took 55 minutes because we had to detour to avoid flooding. I arrived soaking wet to class, 20 minutes late. My students looked at me like I was some guy with giant front teeth. They had no pity for the White Monkey even though my shoes squished when I walked. It was still raining when class finished, and I had to ride my bike to another site for my third class. Not a good night, but I got through. I woke up sick the next day, but Phuong made me soak my feet in warm salt water for half an hour. Son of a gun, I got better immediately and instantly resumed my cigarette smoking with no ill effects, other than the usual ill effects from cigarette smoking.
I took a nasty fall in tennis a week ago. Phuong hit the ball toward my man zone and I tried some fancy footwork to hit a winner at the net. I promptly fell on my right hip ... hard. Bone met hardcourt and hardcourt won that point. A lesser man, for example Hercules, would have stopped playing. I continued and won the title that day on one leg. The hip is slowly improving. My friend Ron diagnosed my injury -- from thousands of miles away during a skype chat -- as a hip pointer. I ice it after we play every day and all seems to be going fairly well other than an odd popping sound in my hip when I bend over. I've stopped bending over. Today, I charged the net on one point and Phuong hit the ball extremely hard and it went between my legs, missing the man zone by mere inches. We're still laughing and it's nine hours later. The match ended in a 6-6 tie, by the way.
Classes are very good, the students are very good, and Phuong is the greatest human being in the known universe. I can't wait to marry her. There's some work left to do for this to happen, but I'll save that for another blog. So this gap-toothed, hobbling White Monkey is quite content.

City sights ... and horrible news

Phuong and I moved out of the house we were renting last week. We moved into a very small room in a hotel/motel behind the house. And we don't hate each other ... yet. We're on the fourth floor -- they call it third floor here. No matter what you call it, there are four flights of stars. It's 62 steps up, and, unbelievable, 62 steps down. I'm still tired from the move, but fortunately, we didn't take a whole lot of stuff so it could have been worse. The other day I was rushing to work and when I got downstairs realized I forgot something and trudged back upstairs to get it. The joys of living on the 3rd/4th floor.
One joy, really, about living the high life is the view from our balcony. I sit on the balcony every morning with my coffee and take in the sights of the city: the vegetable man riding his bike pulling a cart piled with veggies; the Cambodian bread girl riding her bike so fast that buying bread from her takes quick reactions and impeccable timing; the construction workers next door taking a leak on the side of a small house across the street. At night, the lights of the city are very pretty and the singing from the coffee shop across the way is pretty awful.  Phuong and I mimic the singers and get quite the laugh out of it. Overall, the hotel is kind of cool. The owners seem to like us and let us use their kitchen. They're very friendly and accommodating. Most of the other customers here rent their rooms for a few hours because they're with, uh hum, ladies of the night. But that action is on the lower floors, so to speak, so we don't care, mind, or interact with them. That's the cleaning lady's problem, not ours.
Phuong and I celebrated our one-year engagement anniversary on Thursday, Sept. 24. The best year of my life. I got Phuong earrings and a small, gold cross. And two cans with eight new tennis balls, which we'll break open like champagne for our championship match on Friday. We're tied 2-2 this week thanks to a very controversial call by Phuong on match point today. Hawkeye wasn't working.
The foreign teachers come and go where I teach, so my hours have picked up a little lately. No big deal, though. Phuong and I see quite a bit of each other in our room and on the court.
We found out some horrible news on Thursday. Phuong's cousin was found dead on the street near Metro, where we shop sometimes. His hands were bound behind his back. We're still learning what happened, but it's not a good situation. We'll attend a service tomorrow.
I'm really looking forward to my trip back to the U.S. in November.  Cool weather and cool people -- family and friends. I'll be busy with my eye doctor as well as trying to find a way to get Phuong to the U.S. one day.

Good-bye house, we're moving to a motel

 A long and complicated story about the house we are renting will come to an abrupt end in a few days when we move into the Nha Nghi, a motel pretty much right behind our house. It's one street over from our old house and Phuong's family's house, so really, there is someplace like home. I admit I'll miss the lousy electric, leaky roof, dangerous stairs, hyperactive gas stove, the geckos, and the noisy birds that live on the third floor of the old house. But as long as Phuong and I are together, life is grand. I've rented two houses here, and let's just say the end game in both instances wasn't particularly pleasant, so moving on isn't very difficult. We're on the fourth floor of the motel (that's what they call it here), which means we still have the joy of going up and down dangerous stairs several times a day.
After tennis, Phuong and I usually go to a coffee shop called Lido's on the Dong Nai River. An alley leads to Lido's, and that's where everyone parks their bikes. When we park my bike, we can look in the side window of a small household plumbing store. It was there that we met "the nice lady," who works in the plumbing store. We chatted with her through the window and became friends. She gave us a book written by her friend, an American who fought in the Vietnam War. Much of the book focuses on events in Dong Nai Province, where we live. Sadly, "the nice lady" quit and has been replaced by "the not as nice lady." The replacement lady isn't mean or anything, but she seems bored with the job -- she cuts her toenails while she's sitting behind the very small counter, but at least the clippings appear to be aimed toward a trashcan. The other day, she was on her cell phone crying while talking to whoever (crying females aren't that uncommon here, from what I've seen).  I miss "the nice lady."
Also, the staff at Lido's changes almost daily. The guy -- a kid, really -- who gave me a cool key chain, is gone. A nice little girl (about 16), who jokingly thought I was going to throw her into the Dong Nai River one day, is gone. I tried to speak Vietnamese to her at Phuong's urging and the little girl thought I said I was going to toss her into the river. We had a good laugh. Every time she saw me she would say, "No river. No swim." The world of coffee shops here is pretty fast-moving and interesting. My former favorite coffee shop, Vang's, now employs girls with short shorts and short skirts. It wasn't like that before, when the wonderful Nguyen girls in bluejeans worked there. The other day, this young security guard at Vang's wouldn't let me park my bike in the 50 open spaces in front of the shop. He wanted me to squeeze my bike into a crowded alley. Good-bye, Vang's.
On a sad note, Phuong's grandmother died today. Phuong found out right after tennis. We'll pay our respects tomorrow (Friday) and Phuong's grandmother, who was 97, will be buried Sunday. Grandmom had eight children, Phuong's wonderful mom among them, of course. God bless.

A new market and mall; an unhappy anniversary

A super-duper market and mall, Vincom, opened in Bien Hoa last week.  It's located at the corner of the busiest, most lawless intersection in this jam-packed city of 1 million people, and Vincom seems to have attracted a lot of automobile traffic to the area along with even more motorbikes. The mall itself is pretty nice inside and since the merchandise is geared to the clientele here, you can buy lots of little shirts and pants and shoes. They don't carry White Monkey size in Bien Hoa. For the bigger Monkey, you have to go to the bigger city, Ho Chi Minh. The super-duper market isn't so super, but it's OK. It has air-conditioning, unlike Metro. The Vincom market has good, cheap bread, and other items like Tabasco, at a steep price. There's the same old lousy beer selection, which means watery, bland, Asian lagers and a German beer, Erdinger wheat, which is somewhat average in the White Monkey's opinion. The hot food area in the super-duper market is pretty twisted. You order food, like a couple of chicken legs, you get a sticker and wait in line to pay, and then go back to the food servers, who search for your food by trying to match up the stickers. OK, I played along and eventually got two pretty decent pieces of chicken.  There were only two checkout lanes opened and the place was rockin', so the line-cutters had a field day. We waited a little, but amazingly, a third checkout counter opened and we got through fairly quickly. You park your motorbike in the basement underneath the five-storey mall, and there clearly isn't enough parking space. We were able to wedge our bike into a space, and with a little maneuvering, were able to make our escape. All things considered, not a bad experience overall. If you're a single guy, it's not a bad place to hang out. Lots of pretty girls are there in short shorts and skirts, which is something of a uniform for the women here. But I'm not a single guy, so I probably won't be returning any time soon.
September 1 was the two-year anniversary of my mysterious motorcycle accident -- my own personal head-bangers' ball. To commemorate the event, I had an incredible spell of dizziness and feeling of nausea on anniversary day. Weird. I had been pretty much symptom free until anniversary day, but it was a strong enough event to throw me off my game -- Phuong beat me 6-4 in tennis that day. Every great athlete has an excuse, however, and I'm already thinking about why I'll lose my next match. Our tennis is pretty hotly contested these days because Phuong has improved dramatically, and she's a natural athlete anyway.  Also, the White Monkey is turning into the Grey Monkey. As my friend, the fantastic photographer Fred Comegys, once said: "The Golden Years my ass."
Phuong's family has considerable talent. Her dad is a smart businessman, her brother is the handiest of handymen, and her mom is a tailor and superb cook.  Mom has made some cool underwear for me since I can't buy undies here because of my fat arse. Phuong's brother has done some wonderful electric work in our house, and now we can turn on lights without getting electrocuted. Phuong can do all of the above, in addition to being a thorn in my side at tennis. Plus, she knows her way around the pharmacies here, so the White Monkey is well-stocked with vitamins and such.
Almost all my classes are great, so work is a plus. I'm looking forward to visiting the U.S. in November/December and can't wait to see family and friends. I really wish Phuong could have joined me, but that'll make coming back so much better. She's sitting next to me and I already miss her.