Vietnam Day 6 (6/13/09)

(I'm back on the bus and just wanted to point out the amusing Vietnamese music videos I'm watching. One is actually in English with Vietnamese singers dressed up as blond and black (yes I do believe they're in blackface) American kids in 80's getup. For some strange reason, in the other videos all of the male singers are wearing crosses as bling (which makes me wonder whether most of them are actually Christian or if it's a popular fashion statement). Oh yeah, and another less glamorous part of travel; there's a bathroom on this bus that doesn't close properly...I'll spare you any further details.)

I felt sooo much better this morning. Everything looks better in the daylight (at least when you're not sick and fatiqued). We went for breakfast with some of the staff at a very nice three-star resort down on the beach. Part of me still wanted to eat pho (part of me always does), but I figured this would be one of my only chances to get Western food and given my culture shock incident the night before, I thought a bit of the familiar might be nice. So I ordered bread with butter and jam and eggs sunny-side up, along with my usual cafe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee). Now, being American, I was expecting toast, but when the food came out the bread ended up being a miniature baguette, which I found vastly amusing. The food was good enough, though certainly not as exciting as Vietnamese food, but frankly I was just happy to have such small portions for once (particularly after last nights feast). The breakfast conversation went much as it did last night, spoken almost entirely in Vietnamese, but I handled it much better this morning. It wasn't nearly as frustrating because I knew what to expect and already had a system for coping with it. Plus, Mr. Vinh and I had some very interesting conversations about different types of government and American vs. Vietnamese education systems. After breakfast, we got down to business and finalized the survey we plan to take in order to guage foreign interest in the ecotourism program and find ways to improve it.

Then Van Anh and I had about ten minutes to change before going to the traditional Buddhist wedding we'd been so generously invited to. I was out of my mind with excitement, but the problem was that we hadn't been told in advance that we'd be attending a formal event, so we had to wear the cloths we'd brought for hiking. I ended up going to a wedding wearing a jungle pants and hiking boots. I felt somewhat awkward, but then I suppose the reason people were staring was probably not my clothes. We ended up arriving too late for the ceremony itself, which was devastating, but we still got to attend the reception. I think the main differences between American and Vietnamese receptions are that a proper gift is "lucky money" (an accepted minimum of 100,000 dong dropped into a fancy basket on your way in) and I didn't see any dancing. Yet, this party still managed to be just as ruckus as any American wedding. As it was explained to me, parties like this are a chance for friends to chill out and drink together. I got a beer like nearly everyone else, but then Van Anh declined in favor of Pepsi, which made me realize that perhaps she knew something I didn't. Sure enough, almost as soon as I sat down, some eager wedding guests came over to toast with us. Toasting is very common here, as one person says "mot, hai, ba" and everyone else joins in with a loud "YO." Now it's considered polite to drink 50% or 100% (which most of the men are very good at) and if you make it to 100% you shake your glass to clink the ice. I quickly realized that I'd have to take some creative measures to stay sober. That's how I discovered the secret to surviving a Vietnamese wedding - put lots of icein your drink (and often) to water it down. By the end of the party I was essentially drinking beer-colored water.

The wedding couple made the rounds, toasting with each table but will small glasses of red wine (which I imagine is even more conducive to staing sober than my system). The bride and groom were absolutely gorgeous, the bride in a floor length pale yellow gown (apparently the dress can be any number of colors although it's traditional to wear white or red). I said a traditional good luck blessing and told the bride "dep qua," attempting in my poor accent to tell her how beautiful she looked. The groom actually spoke English quite well, something of a surprise given the amount of English I've heard in these parts.

A very kind older gentlman a our table asked me some questions (through Mr. Vinh) and I was expected to ask something in return so I had him explain to me how the wedding ceremony woks. Apparently, a matchmaker gives a blessing as the groom's family brings the bride's family a box of gifts (brought to her house) consisting of food, jewels, and the wedding dress. Then there's a reception with the groom's friends and the next day (still part of the wedding), th process is reversed. It's all fascinating. Then another older gentleman, who I've affectionately dubbed "the drunk matchmaker" joined our table. He told me (again through Mr. Vinh) that I was "comprehensively beautiful" and that Mr. Diep (our guide) was a lucky man to be sitting next to me. Mr. Diep is 33 and still single, which to this man naturally meant that he needed help finding a wife. Initially, I was the main target of these intentions, as he kept gesturing that Mr. Diep and I should be together, while I was gesturing just as avidly to wave him off the idea. I was certainly embarassed by some of this attention (and I suspected Mr. Diep was too), so I tried even harder to explain that Mr. Diep and I were just friends. I lucked out and got off the hook when the bride's older sister (just as striking as her sister) joined us. After she arrived, the drunken matchmaker made the same hand gestures (perhaps even more frequently if that's possible), this time pointing to Mr. Diep and this woman, all the while trying to coax a thumbs-up out of me (which I declined to give for the sake of Mr. Diep and the woman). The two appeared to be making polite conversation (perhaps to humor the other men), but seemed uncomfortable whenever someone laughed or made a joke about them. Later, when we had moved inside to continue the party with more relatives of the bride and groom (all men except for me, Van Anh, and the bride's sister, and all rather tipsy), the men continued to "affectionately" harass the poor girl. A few times, I saw a look on her face that made me quite sad - she was clearly annoyed with the implications of the drunk matchmaker and her relatives, but she appeared accustomed to it and accepted it as part of her position as an unmarried woman. Thankfully, Van Anh soon maneuvered us out of there.

We joined the rest of the staff at karaoke, which was hilarious. All of the tunes are turned into techno and there's a meter at the end of the song that scores how well you sang. There was a large English selection but, while I knew a lot of the artists, the songs listed were not ones that had been hits in the United States. However, I tried to sing "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by The Police, only to find that most of the lyrics weren't correct. It was as if someone who didn't speak a whole lot of Enlgish had just listened to the song and transcribed what he heard. That's when I remembered seeing Bob Marley's "Funky Reggae Party" listed in the book as "Punky Reggae Party" and realized this was probably a common problem. However, one man I didn't know kept chosing English songs at random (none of which I knew) and handing me the microphone, which only served to amplify my snickers since I knew a lot of these lyrics had to be wrong. He did at one point sing one of them with me in which he helped me with the chorus that went something like, "boys, boys, boys, are you ready for my love?" He sang with such fervor that I ended up laughing my way through most of that song too. I also got roped into singing "Bingo Was His Name-O" when they tried to pick an American folk song that I might actually know. Massive entertainment.

That night we had a farewell dinner of fish, squid, soup made from a bitter melon, and fish cake (which sounds a little gross in concept but is actually phenomenally good). As our last venture together, we went to a parking lot full of tables, people, motorbikes, and vendors. Here I had my first sweetsoup, a dessert drink with some kind of berries, ice, and an edible gum, all of which was pretty tasty. At the end of the night, we took a lot of pictures with the staff, which eventually evolved into all of the girls crossing the busy street to the park for our own personal photo shoot. We took all kinds of silly pictures toegether, then hugged and said our goodbyes. At some point during all of this, I realized that I just managed to make friends without speaking the same language. I've got to be the luckiest little Dukie in the world.