A trip down memory lane

I'm in Saigon now and for my first day here, my Mom wanted to go to the center of the city and explore the area. What was supposed to be a nice walk around the touristy area to do a little shopping turned into a trip down memory lane for my Mom, who used the occasion to point out places where she and my Dad used to go to for their dates.

I heard about the ice cream at 'Kem Bach Dang' from my friend, Amy, who told me that it was delicious. Apparently, it is a famous ice cream parlor and so popular that it has two stores located side by side. It also was where my Dad would take my Mom on their dates. Considering that my Mom was a spoiled city girl, it is only understandable that my Dad, a poor country bumpkin, would take her to such a fancy place.


I had high expectations for this place, but it was alright. I got a cocoa ice cream and it honestly tasted like any other ice cream I could get in America. It was good, but nothing special.
It cost 45,000 dong, which is a little over $2 USD. Very cheap for US standards, but for the average Vietnamese, it is very pricey and the reason why there were only foreigners in this place.

Rex hotel, where U.S army soldiers used to stay. There's a cinema inside and my Mom and Dad would go there for movie dates.
This was the coolest site my Mom pointed out--the main postal office, where my Mom would go to send my Dad letters. I was told that back then, my Mom loved writing poetry and that she was very good at it. I imagine my Mom, skipping class to hop on her Honda motorcycle, to zoom to the center of the city to send my Dad a love letter she took hours to write.
It was sweet to see my Mom pointing out these places. She is usually too embarrassed to talk about their courtship, so seeing her open up about the places they went was really cool. They just had their 35th wedding anniversary (they were married exactly one month after the Fall of Saigon, in 1975) so obviously dates at these places worked out as planned.

That's all for now. Here's a pic of my swollen mosquito bite on the sole of my foot. Have a good Memorial Day!

Some things never change

I went to visit my Dad's family in Tay Ninh, which sits close to the border of Vietnam and Cambodia. I had heard that Tay Ninh changed a lot from the countryside it once was to a more developed city with lots of foreign money flowing in. When I visited 11 years ago, Tay Ninh was straight up country. For example, my Dad's village shared one telephone and toilet. Yeah, it was that type of country.

The Tay Ninh that I came back to today was no longer a place with open fields and undisturbed jungle, but a clean and developed city (the cleanest I've seen in Vietnam). Now everyone has their own cell phone, even my rice farming uncles. My Dad's village is no longer isolated in the country jungle as it once was, but surrounding it are new homes blasting karaoke music. Despite the fact that Tay Ninh, the city, was unrecognizable from my childhood memories, there were some essential elements that remain unchanged.

For one, there's the country toilet. Still in use after all these years. This is a true country toilet, made out of scrap wood and metal over a pond. I remember using this when I was little, nervously walking over the wood plank to climb inside, in fear that I would fall into a pond of feces. Back then, the pond was much bigger and there were actually fish living in it that would jump up to eat your poo..while you were pooping. I remember one time, my uncles actually caught one of the fishes from this pond and ATE IT. So disgusting. It was all a fun novelty then. Now, you couldn't even pay me to sit inside one of these.



Country toilet paper--old newspapers and scraps of paper.
These freaking huge fire ants. I remember one time, I stepped into a hill of fire ants and they all swarmed my feet and bit me. This time, I made sure to watch my step.
The home where my Dad grew up in. The right portion is exactly as it was when my Dad lived there.
My Grandma. 80 years old and as strong as ever. I'm told I look exactly like her, especially when my Mom is pissed off at me.
You know how every family has a drunk uncle? Well, EVERY SINGLE ONE of my blood uncles are drunks. I say that fondly because they are all very kind and good to me, especially the last one on the left, who is my uncle from my Mom's side. He is an interesting character, worthy of a blog post of his own.
My Dad comes from quiet folk. I tried asking my uncles about my Dad--what they remembered about him, how he was as a kid, if they had any good memories of him-- but all I got was "He was our oldest brother...He was nice." That's it. Uhh...okay. It was understandable that they didn't know anything about my Dad because my Dad is much older than his siblings and he left home when he was 18 to join the war. He hasn't seen his family since 1975 (a very, very important year in this country and also within my family). He doesn't even recognize which brothers are which anymore. Fortunately, they all look SO MUCH ALIKE that it wouldn't be difficult for him at pick out his family members. Walking around my Dad's village, I felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Everyone in the village had features resembling my Dad. So freaky.

Uncle, Chu 7. He used to bring us to the rice fields to play.
Tammy says he looks exactly like our Dad, especially when he walks.
My super short uncle, who is only a little taller than me. He also has a high pitched voice, which made it difficult for me to listen to him with a straight face.
My smiling Uncle. I call him that because he's always smiling. Always. He actually has a sad back story. After I heard about it, it made look at the constant smile on his face a little differently. It's pretty depressing and I hope he can finally move on and get his life together, but I know that that's wishful thinking.

My Dad around 18 0r 19 years old.
My Dad's high school, still in use for over 100 years. When my Dad attended, it was a boys only school and very difficult to get into. My Dad is the only one in his family to have ever finished school. He is well known and respected for his intelligence, despite growing up with literally nothing. It is one of the many qualities I admire most about him.


Even though Tay Ninh is more developed, it still is very country (much more than My Tho, where my Mom's family lives). These are some of the country scenes I loved then and even more now.


Unfortunately, everything can't stay the same.

This is my Grandpa. He has been bedridden for three years. A few days before our visit, he had to have a catheter put inside him because he can no longer go to the bathroom on his own. It is understood by all that he has a very short time to live. I knew of his condition, but I wasn't prepared to actually see him. I have always been uncomfortable around the issue of death, so I knew that seeing him would be difficult but I didn't realize that I would react the way I did. Because when I saw him, I saw my Dad and seeing this man that looks so much like my Dad in such a vulnerable state, a frail body of skin and bones and so close to death--it killed me. I was only able to come close to him two times an each time I ran away to hide and cry. It was an emotional reunion and one that I will always, always remember.

Learning how to ride a motorbike

Taught by my awesome uncle in the backroads of the countryside. SO much fun. It was hard getting the hang of it at first. My uncle told me to ride it like a bike and to be steady with the gas (which, if you've ever driven in a car with me, is a difficult task). My poor uncle was running along with me, making sure that I wouldn't fall or drive his motorbike into the rice fields. After a few tries and close stumbles, I think I finally got it. My uncle told me that after a few more lessons, I should be ready to ride by myself!

Battle scars

I have been in Vietnam for one week and I sure do have the battle scars to prove it. Mosquito bites, burnt legs, weathered feet--I have it all.

Sunburnt legs. There's a reason why people are all covered up here, despite the 90+ heat. Less than 20 minutes out on a ride on the motorbike wearing shorts and your skin becomes burnt and itchy.



My first really bad mosquito bite. In the past few days, I've seen it evolve from a ginormous bump on my right wrist, to a reddish purple rash, to a series of wartlike bumps. I have to resist the urge to pop these raised bumps. So disgusting.


More mosquito bites on my legs. They've turned a wierd purply-red color, like a really really bad bruise.

Sometimes, I get one and I don't even notice it until it becomes an annoying, itchy bump like this little bugger on my right pinky.

The cream I have been using. I got it in France three years ago when I had the nastiest spider bite on my arm. It was one of those bites that had yellow stuff inside. So, so gross. I have no idea if this cream is working. Placebo effect, I guess. Plus, it expired about a year ago.

I have many more, but mostly in places I don't feel comfortable posting online--enough said. For sure I will return after this three month trip dark, battered, and worn out. At least I will have had fun in the process!

The Slower Life

I’m prolonging my stay in the countryside. Even though life here isn’t as exciting as in Saigon, I’ve become comfortable in My Tho. Every day, I wake up around 4 am to the sound of roosters crowing. You can hear all the roosters in the area crowing at that time and while at first I found it a charming a reminder that I am far away from home, it has become a nuisance in a way that familiarity can get under your skin. At 5am, the provincial radio blares “news” (ahem, ahem) from large speakers so loud that falling back to sleep is not an option. By that time, everyone is awake and you can hear farmers and motorbikes all getting ready for the day’s work. I usually go on my morning run with my cousin at this time, on dirt paths that take me along the rice fields and where I can see the haze of the morning sun reflect off of the water from the rice fields. After, I have a big breakfast—hot soymilk (freshly made, of course) and a bowl of noodles, finished off with coconut juice drunk straight from a coconut. I spend the rest of my day exploring the area, either going into the city center of My Tho or taking walks around the back roads of the country. Once it gets too hot (from 1 to 4pm), I come back to lounge around to read, write, and eat fresh fruit (mostly eat). Around 5ish, the provincial radio blares once again and I go on another run against a backdrop of orangey redness of the setting sun. My day usually ends around 8, when I retreat to bed like an old person.

It’s certainly a stark contrast from my life in Berkeley. There, I didn’t have the time to lounge all day or even read for pleasure, something I love to do but haven’t done in so long that I can’t even remember the last non-school related book I’ve read. I usually slept really late—the last two weeks of school at 5 am—and depending on the amount of work I had, I wouldn’t even sleep at all. Of course, I don’t miss that at all. I remember those stressful nights, so resentful at all the work and myself for having no time to appreciate the last days of my college life. But now that I’m in Vietnam, I have all the time I want and more. There are moments in the day when I do feel a bit restless, but for the most part, I’ve come to embrace this ‘slower’ life. It’s been a good lesson for me. I have the tendency to walk too fast, eat too fast, to do everything fast. Maybe that’s why I’m such a mess sometimes because I always do everything as if I’m in a rush when there really is no need to rush at all. I find myself noticing things more, taking in the details of my surroundings than I did before. Having time to write, to read, to talk to my family—it was all really needed to feel content but was too busy to recognize. Now that I have it, I don’t want to let it go, in fear that I will lose this sense of calm I have developed during my stay here. Hopefully, I am able to maintain this state of mind once I leave for Saigon in a few days.

Facebook banned

They shut down Facebook over here. So sad! How am I going to keep up on gossip and emo status updates?! :P I'm not sure when it will be back up, so keep in touch with me on here or email me--> vina.nguyn@gmail.com.

My Tho by motorcycle

Riding on my aunt's motorbike, through the main road of My Tho. This would only be safe to do in the countryside, where you don't have to worry about someone zooming by to snatch your camera.

Scenes from the countryside

Taken in the countryside of My Tho, where I'm staying for my first week here. This is my family's central base, on the same land that belonged to my great-grandparents. It is a gorgeous area, surrounded by rice paddies and lush jungle life. I can easily walk into our backyard and get fresh guava, coconut, jackfruit, and lychee, all of which would be pretty pricey in the States. I've been spending my day exploring the area with my cousin Chanh, taking pictures, and just enjoying the stillness of country life. These are just some of the scenery/moments I've fallen in love with.

It's Schooltime!

My aunt is a 9th grade teacher at a school in My Tho, a city in a rural province south of Saigon. She took me along for their last day of school, where I was able to witness her interact with her students and sit in on parent-teacher conferences. It was really interesting to see how Vietnamese schools operate and the stark contrasts from the American public school system.

First of all, we arrived there at 6:30 am (!!).The students were already there and my aunt had them all line up, where she then read individual student’s end of the year score out loud, in front of everyone else. The kids didn’t seem bothered by this at all, which for me would be horrifying no matter what grade I received. Then, my aunt ordered them to pick weeds from the schoolyard. And they all did it! It was so bizarre seeing them all crouched over, picking grass, whereas at American public schools, teachers have a hard time just getting students to open their textbooks.

After this child labor, my aunt met up with their parents. Unlike most American teachers, she gave these parents the straight talk about their kids…in front of other parents. “Your son isn’t capable and he will not make it. Put him in vocational school.” “No matter how much your daughter tries now, she won’t get into that school. It is best if she goes to a second tier school.” It was all very blunt and kind of hard for me to listen to. The parents, however, were very receptive to this kind of talk because in Vietnam, the teacher is highly respected and always right. I’m sure all my aunt’s points were true, but as an American student from a generation that was constantly told we were all special and capable of anything we wanted to be (no matter if that was true or not), I was taken aback by all of this.

The unfortunate thing I learned is that because this is a rural province, a portion of these students are poor and their parents illiterate. These students face challenges that put them at a greater disadvantage to succeeding than their peers, in an already disadvantaged region. Not being able to pay school fees, extra tutoring, or even having enough to eat can really deter these students from succeeding. Fortunately, despite my aunt’s bluntness, she cares for her students in and out of school and really tries her best to see her students succeed and to look after their well-being.

In all (and despite the last point), I had a fun time at the school. I got to see all the kids were dressed up in their uniforms, teasing each other, just enjoying their last day before they were off to different schools for the next school year.

An Attack On All Senses

Right out of the airport, you’re immediately hit with a wave of heat so powerful it overwhelms all of your senses. You first notice the smell that is so distinct to Vietnam. Heated trash is the best way to describe it. Sometimes, when I’m walking down Telegraph in Berkeley, I catch that smell and it immediately brings me back to Vietnam. So when that freshly baked trash smell hit my nostrils, I just knew I was back in the motherland. Then, you feel your face become hot. Your cheeks redden and at the bridge of your nose, along your hairline, and the nape of your back, you feel perspiration form.

Your car then comes to pick you up and you catch the first glimpse of the city. It is chaotic and the heat only makes it seem even more so. You notice the brightly-colored buildings, the street after street of store fronts full of people trying to relax as much as they can to relieve themselves from the midday heat. And then, the motorbikes. Ah, the motorbikes. The motorbike is the lifeblood of Vietnam as much as rice is to our diet. You can’t talk about Vietnam without discussing the chaos of motorbikes zooming every which way and the barrage of noise—motors roaring, honking, and the kickup of dust and smog it creates that forms a constant haze over Saigon.

All of this becomes too overwhelming, despite your excitement of having just landed in the country. The heat, the smell, the cacophony of noise, the chaotic traffic and not to mention the long flight you had to endure—makes you feel tired, kind of numb from fatigue to even process everything. But once you finally have a chance to sit down to take a breather over a homemade bowl of hot and sour seafood soup, freshly cooked in a hotpot with family you haven’t seen for long time, it all sinks in.

To Vietnam I Go!

As many of you know, I’m leaving for Vietnam…for three months. It’s the day after my graduation and what better way to ride this post-graduation high than to jet off across the world to a distant land for which I am named after. The thought of it is exhilarating. For three months, I have the option to do absolutely nothing other than sit on a hammock, surrounded by lush jungle and drink coconut straight from a tree my uncles climbed and chopped down themselves. No PAPERS, no deadlines…just free time. SIGH.

But of course, I get restless easily and while sitting around doing nothing sounds awesome, I have plans that will hopefully keep me occupied until I return in mid-August and see (and party with!) all of you guys again. So, I made a list of activities I would like to do while there. Here are the highlights (from a very long mental list):

-Learn to ride a motorbike. This is priority numero uno. I have this romanticized image in my mind of me motor-biking through the Vietnamese countryside (where the traffic isn’t crazy and deadly like in Saigon), zooming by rice paddies, and taking in staggered gulps of that sweet country air. Very romanticized but I want to at least learn and I will, dangit!

-Find the best bowl of pho. I know, nothing beats your mom’s bowl of pho, but surely, in a country that thrives on pho, there has to be someplace that can rival mom’s bowl of goodness. I specifically want to visit the famed “Lunch lady” in Saigon, who makes different varieties of noodles on specific days of the week. Her street-served noodle dishes are supposed to be the best, known to lure flocks of locals and tourists alike. Anthony Bourdain featured her on his Vietnam show. And if you don’t know, as a travel show junkie I have an undying love for Bourdain’s quirky and sometimes crude insights, so what he says about food, is pretty close to right.

-Learn about Vietnamese folk music. NOT CAI LUONG, which is a descendent of Chinese Opera but a really annoying version of it. I want to learn more about Vietnamese folk music, from the sounds of the traditional instruments to the ‘60s folk singers I used to hear my Dad listening to.

-Immerse myself in the day-to-day Vietnamese life. A benefit of having family I could stay with is that I could really see what it is like to be a local. I could go to the open markets with my aunts every morning to buy fresh produce, wake up to see the country farmers herding ducks in the countryside, or attend school with my aunt and learn what it is like to be a schoolteacher in Vietnam. These are the experiences I am looking forward to, more so than visiting the touristy sites.

-Retrace my Dad’s life in Vietnam. I don’t know anything about my Dad’s life in Vietnam, other than the few stories my Mom shares with me. I know of their courtship, some terrifying stories of the war, and their eventual escape. Other than that, my Dad’s life in Vietnam is shrouded in mystery. There are many reasons why—the main being that he was a soldier and a war prisoner, who basically had to erase his past to survive. I know that he hasn’t seen his immediate family in over 30 years. I also know nothing about his childhood, so I want to make it a mission of mine to find out about his life, revisit his old stomping grounds, learn about the hardships he had to go through, and to basically understand the past so that I can understand my Dad better. He doesn’t talk much and the vestiges of war have left him with no nostalgia for the past. But for my sake, I would like to better understand my Dad and I’m sure by retracing his past, I will come back with not only a better understanding, but more appreciation for who he is.

-To simply, enjoy my time here. To learn more about my culture, be open to new experiences, and just…take this valuable time I have here and make one GRAND ADVENTURE out of it.

Let's get out of this country

As I'm getting closer to the end, I'm getting more and more antsy to just get out of here. Not that I have anything to get away from. I love this city and my life here. I will certainly miss it a lot when I leave. I don't necessarily want to leave my loved ones either. It's more of a particular mood to just get away, to see if there is something else to discover or a second chance to start anew somewhere else. This song by Camera Obscura basically captures how I'm feeling. I've been playing it on repeat and the catchy beat (while masking the sort of miserable mood of being stuck in a rut) has been especially fitting on these beautiful spring days, giving me a little extra bounce in my step, and triggering the wanderlust inside of me. Enjoy!

"We'll pick berries and recline/Let's hit the road, dear friend of mine"

Stop and smell the roses

These past few weeks have been hectic. This end of the year rush to get everything finished--papers, my thesis (can't wait until I no longer have to mention that word), moving out of my apartment--has left me drained. I have been working on three to four hours of sleep and any attempts to try and nap midday are always interrupted by my own anxiety and mini freakouts over the next task that is due.

In trying to get this mountainous amount of work finished, I've been a shut-in lately. I'm either in my apartment, locked to my laptop, sifting through messy piles of paper or I'm in the library, holed up in a cubicle listening to others like me, typing what is left of our social lives away. What makes it all the more painful is the beautiful weather and listening to the energy outside of my window of people laughing and taking advantage of this fantastic weather in this fantastic city. When I walk back from the library to my apartment, I catch those sweet spring moments--in the way everyone's face lights up under the warm sun, the sunbathers on Memorial Glade, the blooming flowers outside VLSB--and I get a little envious and resentful that I have to return to my cave and continue working.

But this weekend, with all the anxiety of getting my thesis finished finally reaching its breaking point, my friends suggested a break was necessary. They suggested we go somewhere to get away from books and just enjoy the weather, to stop and smell the roses...literally. So, we went to the Berkeley Rose Garden, a short walk from the northside of campus up Euclid. We, however, took the long route and drove through the Berkeley hills, up Grizzly Peak, where we were able to clearly see the Golden Gate and San Francisco. With the top of the car down, we drove past fields of dandelions and quirky little houses. It was gorgeous. The scenery, the wind rushing through the car, the sun casting its warmth on my face--it felt freeing from sitting on my bum all day writing about TANF.

When we got to the Rose Garden, we were all feeling giddy from our drive and ready to navigate through rows of roses. It's a sweet place to go for a little peace and to surround oneself around roses of all breeds. The perfume from the roses, too, were just wonderful. But rather than describe the garden myself (and because I'm tired from another all-nighter), I've included a slide show of pictures.



It was a nice mini-trip and it was exactly what I needed to remind myself to sometimes lift my head up from all my work to stop and smell the roses.

Berkeley Rose Garden
1200 Euclid Ave
Berkeley, CA 94709
(it's open for free to the public)