Welcome to Nam
I wanted to let you know that the title of this website is currently a lie, as I am in no way "in Malaysia" right now. In fact, Malaysia was two countries ago. Lemme give you a quick run down of what's happened since we left our little academic cocoon.
Thursday night: took 11 hour bus to Singapore. Little known fact: bus drivers fall asleep and crash if the temperature ever gets warmer than freezing. It was cold. Since I didn't think I'd need a sweater during my travels, I was forced to use the only other clothing I had in abundance for warmth. I had pants wrapped around my neck and was wearing another pair as arm and chest warmers. The downside of my poor packing came when we crossed the Malaysian border, where my first official act in the new country was to commit the fashion faux pas of wearing socks with Tevas. But it was either that or lose my pinky toes to frost bite. May the fashion gods forgive me.
In Singapore, 6 things happened of note:
1. Posters for "Liar Liar" and other great late 90s movies were prominently advertised, though not outside a movie store.
2. I went to the bathroom. On the door it said "Singapore's OK" which seemed both modest and fairly accurate.
3. While in the bathroom, there was a guy who used the urinal and then spat in it. It looked like he was really hateful to his pee. I'm not sure what he was expecting to happen, but it was fair to say he was disgraced by the liquid. He might've been expecting gold and diamonds.
4. We had more roti Chennai, though it was called roti prata, and was less oily more crispy. Still delicious.
5. The packs of cigarettes have pictures of mouth cancer on them.
6. In the airport they sold magazines in bags that said "not suitable for the young" and advertised shots mixed with Red Bull at a smoothie stand. We were not in Malaysia anymore.
We then flew to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam to meet up with my sister Fay and her important one, Peter. Vietnam has been fantastic so far, thus the lack of time to blog. There's an incredible amount of cheap, tasty food, both local and international, and I can't eat enough. If I didn't hate wasting food so much I would order 3 meals, and chew and spit out two of them. Among the great discoveries:
1. Sapodilla: makes one delicious shake.
2. French bread. More of a rediscovery, but still. I have the French colonial influence to thank for that one.
3. Che, the Vietnamese dessert soup which comes in more varietals than you can shake a tapioca ball at. Coconut milk, bananas, and various beans make frequent appearances in some of the recipes. I've heard good things about the floating cake soup, but they never have cakes.
4. I got a sandwich at a cafe which shows bootleg movies on a big screen with comfy chairs. The movie was Jumper (my third attempt to see it, and unfortunately, the first successful one) which was terrible, but the play a lot of other things, including, coincidentally enough, a 7:45 am showing of "Good Morning, Vietnam."
5. There was a "Peter breakfast" which Peter ordered in an attempt to find out what he tasted like. Lamentably, they brought him the Mexican breakfast instead, so we're still in the dark on that one.
Lastly, if there's one thing that Vietnam likes it's bare legs and plenty of 'em. But if there are three things that Vietnam likes, it's legs, propaganda, and irony.
We went to the Reunification Palace, where the anti-communist South Vietnamese government was stationed, and the video shown there was... well, you just can't get that kind of war-glorifying, patriotic propaganda outside of Fox news. I'll post some pictures when I get back to Malaysia, but in a few words, it was very clean and harmless, and filled with ghosts. We went down to the control room in the basement and saw the radios and typewriters used to communicate during the war, and it was strange to see it so useless and obsolete, when 33 years ago there was so much conflict. The most important thing to remember, I suppose, ios that the victors always get to write the history books.
Even stranger than the palace were the Cu Chi tunnels. Once again, the video was bizarre, not only because it talked about my supposed country as the ruthless wild devils, but because of how glorious the account of the guerilla resistance story was. It does make sense, of course. The military strength of the United States is overcome by David's sling, in this case, tunneling villagers who then made spike based traps and carried out ambush attacks. Picture this scene if you will, and tell me this country doesn't love irony:
Our guide: So this is the rolling trap. Whenever the enemy stepped into it, his own weight would drag him down and the spikes would come up to his head. (Pause) Oh, and please, when you're finished looking, step aside so everyone can see, thank you.
There were about six different metal spike-based traps, all painful to picture and incredible to see. And brilliant in a way. And certainly no worse than Agent Orange. Because that's what you do in war. You build a better mouse trap.
But the strangest moment came towards then end of the tour at the firing range. We had the option of buying bullets at store ($1.2 each) and firing them at cardboard targets, 100 meters away. Since I had never done this before and would probably never do it again, I bought the minimum 10 rounds and continued on to the range. The employee then proceeded to make fun of my gun choice, saying that the carbine was a child's gun. "What?" I offered, helpfully. "It's a woman's gun," he said next. "After this, do the AK-47."
After this exchange, a few questions and explanations crossed my mind:
1. What kind of child has an M1 Carbine?
2. How embarrassing must it have been for a soldier to get shot by one of these, right? "Great, I'm bleeding to death, and it's not even a man's gun. I'll never live this down."
3. Maybe it's a woman's gun because it doesn't actually kill the things it hits. Maybe it cooks and cleans instead. And menstruates. Sadly, all my 10 she-bullets missed their target in a highly feminine fashion, so I wasn't able to test that hypothesis.
So there you have it, young Americans go to communist Vietnam to learn how to shoot a rifle. I'm sure it's just what my parents had in mind when they protested the war back in the 70s.
Mmm... irony. I bet that's what Ezra breakfast would taste like.
Thursday night: took 11 hour bus to Singapore. Little known fact: bus drivers fall asleep and crash if the temperature ever gets warmer than freezing. It was cold. Since I didn't think I'd need a sweater during my travels, I was forced to use the only other clothing I had in abundance for warmth. I had pants wrapped around my neck and was wearing another pair as arm and chest warmers. The downside of my poor packing came when we crossed the Malaysian border, where my first official act in the new country was to commit the fashion faux pas of wearing socks with Tevas. But it was either that or lose my pinky toes to frost bite. May the fashion gods forgive me.
In Singapore, 6 things happened of note:
1. Posters for "Liar Liar" and other great late 90s movies were prominently advertised, though not outside a movie store.
2. I went to the bathroom. On the door it said "Singapore's OK" which seemed both modest and fairly accurate.
3. While in the bathroom, there was a guy who used the urinal and then spat in it. It looked like he was really hateful to his pee. I'm not sure what he was expecting to happen, but it was fair to say he was disgraced by the liquid. He might've been expecting gold and diamonds.
4. We had more roti Chennai, though it was called roti prata, and was less oily more crispy. Still delicious.
5. The packs of cigarettes have pictures of mouth cancer on them.
6. In the airport they sold magazines in bags that said "not suitable for the young" and advertised shots mixed with Red Bull at a smoothie stand. We were not in Malaysia anymore.
We then flew to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam to meet up with my sister Fay and her important one, Peter. Vietnam has been fantastic so far, thus the lack of time to blog. There's an incredible amount of cheap, tasty food, both local and international, and I can't eat enough. If I didn't hate wasting food so much I would order 3 meals, and chew and spit out two of them. Among the great discoveries:
1. Sapodilla: makes one delicious shake.
2. French bread. More of a rediscovery, but still. I have the French colonial influence to thank for that one.
3. Che, the Vietnamese dessert soup which comes in more varietals than you can shake a tapioca ball at. Coconut milk, bananas, and various beans make frequent appearances in some of the recipes. I've heard good things about the floating cake soup, but they never have cakes.
4. I got a sandwich at a cafe which shows bootleg movies on a big screen with comfy chairs. The movie was Jumper (my third attempt to see it, and unfortunately, the first successful one) which was terrible, but the play a lot of other things, including, coincidentally enough, a 7:45 am showing of "Good Morning, Vietnam."
5. There was a "Peter breakfast" which Peter ordered in an attempt to find out what he tasted like. Lamentably, they brought him the Mexican breakfast instead, so we're still in the dark on that one.
Lastly, if there's one thing that Vietnam likes it's bare legs and plenty of 'em. But if there are three things that Vietnam likes, it's legs, propaganda, and irony.
We went to the Reunification Palace, where the anti-communist South Vietnamese government was stationed, and the video shown there was... well, you just can't get that kind of war-glorifying, patriotic propaganda outside of Fox news. I'll post some pictures when I get back to Malaysia, but in a few words, it was very clean and harmless, and filled with ghosts. We went down to the control room in the basement and saw the radios and typewriters used to communicate during the war, and it was strange to see it so useless and obsolete, when 33 years ago there was so much conflict. The most important thing to remember, I suppose, ios that the victors always get to write the history books.
Even stranger than the palace were the Cu Chi tunnels. Once again, the video was bizarre, not only because it talked about my supposed country as the ruthless wild devils, but because of how glorious the account of the guerilla resistance story was. It does make sense, of course. The military strength of the United States is overcome by David's sling, in this case, tunneling villagers who then made spike based traps and carried out ambush attacks. Picture this scene if you will, and tell me this country doesn't love irony:
Our guide: So this is the rolling trap. Whenever the enemy stepped into it, his own weight would drag him down and the spikes would come up to his head. (Pause) Oh, and please, when you're finished looking, step aside so everyone can see, thank you.
There were about six different metal spike-based traps, all painful to picture and incredible to see. And brilliant in a way. And certainly no worse than Agent Orange. Because that's what you do in war. You build a better mouse trap.
But the strangest moment came towards then end of the tour at the firing range. We had the option of buying bullets at store ($1.2 each) and firing them at cardboard targets, 100 meters away. Since I had never done this before and would probably never do it again, I bought the minimum 10 rounds and continued on to the range. The employee then proceeded to make fun of my gun choice, saying that the carbine was a child's gun. "What?" I offered, helpfully. "It's a woman's gun," he said next. "After this, do the AK-47."
After this exchange, a few questions and explanations crossed my mind:
1. What kind of child has an M1 Carbine?
2. How embarrassing must it have been for a soldier to get shot by one of these, right? "Great, I'm bleeding to death, and it's not even a man's gun. I'll never live this down."
3. Maybe it's a woman's gun because it doesn't actually kill the things it hits. Maybe it cooks and cleans instead. And menstruates. Sadly, all my 10 she-bullets missed their target in a highly feminine fashion, so I wasn't able to test that hypothesis.
So there you have it, young Americans go to communist Vietnam to learn how to shoot a rifle. I'm sure it's just what my parents had in mind when they protested the war back in the 70s.
Mmm... irony. I bet that's what Ezra breakfast would taste like.
Comments
Wow great blog about your first few days in Vietnam. Really feels like I'm right there with you.
Love,
Fay
Annie agreed, and thrust her fist in the air.
Love,
Annie