Vietnam Day 8 (6/15/09)

Since our internships allow, Molly, Kendra and I are starting to make breakfast together a fairly regular thing. This morning we decided to go to my favorite side street to get fruit. We finally decided on pineapple but we couldn't understand what the saleswoman said originally so we decided to suggest a price using what Vietnamese we knew. We suggested 2,000 dong for one but she came back with the offer of 5,000 for two. Since we only wanted one, we stood there for what felt like a pretty long time debating how to proceed. All the while, the vendor was casually leaning on her cart chatting with another saleswoman. For simplicity's sake, we settled on two. The next task was to find a knife to cut it and we thought we could borrow one from our cafe near the guesthouse. We first stopped at the bookstore on the way and found an English-Vietnamese dictionary and looked up the word for knife. When we got to the cafe, they understood us perfectly and brought us the knife, but then we weren't sure what to do with it. We didn't know where to cut because the tables were glass so I ended up crouching on the ground with the pineapple on a bag and cut into it (a rather embarrassing display yes, but we had to do something). Now, I learned to cut pineapple into sections and then cut along the peel to create a little boat of fruit, but within moments of my first slice, one of the waitresses swept the pineapple away from me to a nearby table and proceeded to cut it "properly." I still hold that my method would have worked, though her version was certainly more artistic and beautiful. The waitress was very kind to us, so we tried to tip her but she hastily backed away from our outstretched money. We thought about hiding the tip for her to find later, but decided to simplify matters by just buying something more expensive tomorrow.

Later, Van Anh and I worked on our survey and brochure to give to tourists, and everything's coming along beautifully. In the afternoon, Van Anh's roommate from school came to visit. Trang is a friendly girl and we get along great. WE talked about her internship and her own experiences with CET and American roommates she had when she was working with the program. Then Van Anh, Trang, and Khang took me to a snail and clam place a little distance away in an area close to their university. I keep finding more and more that different parts of Saigon are very different in both appearance and population. This area is a little less ritzy than around our guesthouse and people are packed in. It's still a wonderful spot, with third and fourth floor apartment buildings utilizing understated but beautiful architecture, residents' clothes hanging on lines stretched along patios. In this neighborhood, there's an enormous market selling fruits, vegetables, live bluecrabs and prawns in fish tanks, river fish flopping around (only half alive) in a small, shallow dish of water. The restaurant is a low-key place known almost only to locals, a very bare-bones structure (exactly the kind I like). The tiny restaurant had three brick walls enclosing a cutting and cooking station with no roof. The food was then brought to the back under a tin roof where we sat at tiny tables on the customary miniature plastic kiddie-stools. (Interestingly, a painting of Mary and the baby Jesus watched over our meal...I still find it surprising to find so many Christians in a country dominated by Buddhists, though the Christians certainly do thier best to make themselves known. Every Buddhist home and business has a small beautiful shrine (just a little bigger than a shoe box) with incense and offerings of food and flowers. In contrast, one apartment I saw had a large-than-life painted statue of Jesus, his outstretched arms extending beyond the space of the patio, blessing the city. And now back to snails.)

The first dish of quail egg and clams came out, beautifully arranged on the steaming chrome dish it had no doubt been cooked in, but before we dug in, Van Anh asked me if I wanted to try duck embryo. That's the type of egg (popular in Vietnam) with a partially-developed baby duck inside. This is one speciality that I'd always said I probably wouldn't try while I was here. But now that I am here, I've developed (and rightly so) a no-rejection policy - I will try everything once. When your egg comes out, you place it upright in a tiny porcelain bowl that just barely holds the egg steady while you whack the top of the egg with a tiny spoon (weakling that I am, I needed a little help getting it started). Once you've pealed away an opening, you're supposed to drink the water out as if the egg were a shot glass. The water is something of a putrid brown color and it tasted about how it looked. I would say it didn't taste so much of egg as some unknown rotten concoction. To be fair to this favored dish, the rest of the egg didn't taste half-bad once I dipped it in the salt, pepper, and chili mixture. Admittedly, I let out a little squeal when I pulled the very identifiable baby duck out by what was clearly its little foot. But hey, at least it didn't crunch with bones and beak like I expected. So, final verdict on the duck embryo: I have no objection to the meat inside as long as I have a good sauce alongside, but I can't see myself jumping at the chance to drink that liquid again. All during my first duck embryo experience, our table was filled with laughter (as much coming from me as anyone else). It was a great comfort to have friends with me during such a culturally-jarring experience. Frankly, I was just grateful they weren't insulted that I didn't care for the egg.

The snails, on the other hand, I cared for a great deal. We had three different types of snail (only one of which I can identify as a moon snail), including one that none of us had ever tried. The snails were glorious. This is not boring escargo cooked only in butter, but exotic Vietnamese snails cooked in spices, herbs, and oils I've never known. I would never wish to demean the mangificence of the snail, but I'm certain a large part of why the experience was so special for me was the company. Sharing a meal can be the best way to bond with people and that certainly proved true in this case. Van Anh and I have been getting closer every day, but going out with her and her friends to a favorite spot of theirs made me feel like part of her life. They even gave me a Vietnamese nickname! It's Oc tieu, which means something along the lines of "little snail," which I think is hilarious and love because it will always remind me of this great day when I felt at home in Vietnam.

On the way back to the guesthouse, I rode on Trang's motorbike. We stopped for a moment and I hopped off but my leg touched the hot exhaust pipe. It wasn't a bad burn but it still hurt so Trang went inside the shop next to us and the woman inside gave me a spoonful of oil made from python fat to rub on the spot. It's a local remedy that works something like aloe and is quite effective (I just have to hope and pray they got it via humane methods). So, word to the wise - watch your limbs when getting off unfamiliar motorbikes. After a dinner of goat curry very different from any I've had in the United States, the whole group went to see a water-puppet show. Water puppets are a form of entertainment developed in Northern Vietnam that could still be performed during the rainy season. Now there are theaters all over Vietnam becuase it's so popular with tourists. The stage is a pool and the puppeteers stand behind a bamboo screen waist-deep in water. The water-proof wooden puppets representing average farmers and fishermen, historical figures, and sacred animal symbols of Vietnam emerge from behind the screen in different scenes. The story is told and sung by musicians sitting to the side of the water. The puppets are intensly colorful and move so fast that at times the front row of the audience gets splashed. The whole show is beautiful and still funny even without knowing the language. I think my favorite scene was when two phoenix did a beautiful dance together, which you soon discover was actually a mating ritual when a puppet egg pops up. The egg is replaced by a small baby phoenix and all three dance before disappearing behind the screen. (By the way, I forgot to mention that my roommate is a rockstar...she got the playhouse to open up on an off-night by telling them she had a bunch of American friends who were leaving the next day and wanted to see the show. We thought about bringing luggage to keep up the act, but decided it would be overdoing it a little.) That night back at the guest house, we all gathered in one room and had a fruit party. Loan and Khoi played the guitar and sang both Vietnamese and Western songs (Hieu singing harmony all the while). They all sounded so beautiful. I think we may have kept the neighbors up, but we had a great time.