So Young Creepy Dude specifically asked me to not ask the children the question "who is your favourite teacher?" in the criss cross game. Game, Set, Match I believe. All my other teachers dont have an issue with this, and in fact just laugh it off. Therefore, he is lame.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Friday, January 28, 2005
Normal Transmission Resumes
So, perhaps you might all be a little bit bored reading these "fish out of water" stories regarding my experiences in Japan, but here goes anyhow.
Dave Chappelle once said that something along the lines that Racism is not usually a good thing "but when it works out in your favour, its fucking sweet". I experienced the full force of this insight in my own quite contextually different way. I am cycling home after a day at work, (after a 10 inch snow fall) and I see in the distance a kid making up a snow ball. Now japanese kids are just like any other kids, they make snowballs, biff them at cars and cyclists and act like little shits, as you would expect. Now, this kid was making a huge snowball, and as I cycled closer and closer i was becoming what i thought to be reasonably worried. I came closer and closer, the kid even got the point where he had drawn his arm back, ready to launch. And then, he saw that I was a foreigner. Oh, the look on his face was precious, as I cycled past looking at him not taking his eyes of me and as he slowly inched down to put the snowball on the ground. In NZ, i would have gotten it big time. Little fuckers. If only you could have seen the look on this kid's face. One of my all time favourites. So sweet.
Secondly, somewhat incomprehensibly a group of four students in one of the my 3rd year classes started calling me "Joseph" (or in katakana english "josefu") when i got back from Vietnam. Quite weird. They know my name, and have done so for some time. I even asked my teachers if it was some sort of cultural reference I didnt know about, and they also are quite unsure why. The best we could come up with was that perhaps because I started wearing a full suit to work (because it is so freaking cold, ie my kitchen in particular is so cold I dont dare handle things in my freezer without gloves) then there is a good possibility that they might think that I am a mormon (who are always wearing black suits and white shirts with a tie). Still not sure why Joseph, perhaps all mormons in Fukushima are called Joseph or something. Still, if I started calling every one of my students Kohei, I'm pretty sure that would be meet with some curious looks. But mine is not to wonder why.........
Oh and about hairdressers. In Japan, they are costly but good. They give you a nice back and neck massage, and at the end of the two hours of pampering, they tell you that YOU have done a good job. Japan's customer service is mostly definitely superb. Anyhow, was speaking to Quite Tasty English Teacher Who Can ACTUALLY Speak English (the only teacher out of the 20 something I have that I would call fluent) as opposed to Super Creepy Young English Teacher Dude Who Can't Speak or Teach English, and she says to me"we have the same hairdresser". So I am like "what? I have only been to the hairdressers once in Japan and that was three months ago!" and she said "it was Dicca Garcia right?" and that being correct i responded in kind. She goes on to tell me that she was in there last night, and with her hairdresser they had a conversation about "koori-sensei" and the like. The strange thing is that not only was it once, three months ago, and they remembered my school and name, but it wasn't even the same hairdresser who had cut my hair that she had had the conversation with! Remember, Fukushima is a city the size of CHCH, so this is all very weird.
So creepy teacher at school................
he is 24
and he is fucking strange. Not only does he get me to do all the lesson planning (15 minutes before class mind you) but he is one of these people who is so completely awkward that it is almost violating. his english is poor. i can barely communicate but even when i come up with explanations that even a monkey could understand, still doesnt get it (Even though the kids do in about three seconds)
so is basically just a pain, but there is more..............
he follows me around, especially to the toilet and now some of the teachers have noticed it by looks not words yet, and that pisses me off even more.
and then, this is when he almost got the punch:
i was in class, basically running the class on my own, in total, he may as well not have been there, and then in the middle of one of my speeches, i was translating what he couldnt (who can't translate "fresh fruit juice"!)
So i had a cold and i couldnt speak properly (even though i planned and ran his whole class while he stood around looking unforgivably awkward) and then i under-prounounced the "da" in kudamono, and despite doing nothing the whole time, despite the fact his english is poor despite having studied it at university, he had me up about it in front of the class.
oooooh!!! I was just a little angry given some other extenuating factors like:
no.1 he is useless
no.2 this isnt a japanese class
it's an english class
no.3 you just dont do that, it is the ultimate in disrespect to do it in the middle of class. I would never dream of stopping the class to do so to one of my teachers. If I did I would have insulted them and their ancestors. But I am gaijin so of course I cannot understand the meaning of respect.....
i mean, if i corrected the pronounciation of my teachers, which i could justifiably do so based on their competence, then we wouldnt have a class as I would be stopping them every 1 minute and the students would lose confidence in them thereafter.
And its not a japanese class! its an english class. SPEAK ENGLISH YOU FOOLS then bitchslap me for my crappy japanese!
So i said under my breath "Thats what i said" but i think the class picked up i was a little agitated and since they actually had a fun class for once i just ignored him!
but i got my own back later on in a few ways!
so revenge situation no.1
so i was talking about vietnam and i said "traffic in vietnam was unbelievable" which i knew they would understand because some character on tv says "unbelievable" all the time.
and not only did he fall over himself trying to say it back to the class (ie "now that the native english speaker has done their "english thing" lets hear how we speak english in japanese....") but he basically gave himself an analectomy doing so.
Seriously you should have heard it, it sounded like "unbrebrebrabrul" but with a scooby doo accent. For a teacher of english it was unforgiveably terrible.
My crime- underpronouncing a syllable with a head cold when I have only started speaking a language.....his.....in a nutshell- being a complete fucking ass.
Revenge situation no.2.
after a game of criss cross i got the final student to say I was their favourite teacher which sent the whole class into raptures and I got much applause. yes, i had a good class, I ran the thing confidently and made it fun for them despite my teacher's best efforts to make me look foolish.
Revenge situation no.3
so for some strange reason he gets me to write every student's name on the board in romanji after a game, telling me not to check the answers, and he stands there, too close, not caring the slightest what is going in the rest of the class, almost like he just wants to see if i can hear japanese when i have blocked ears from illness, when the class is extraordinarily loud and the kids voices are nervous and quiet. Of course i made some mistakes, god knows i would have in english in the condition i was in and with the class the way it was, and all he did, while he still had a class to run with watch and chuckle with mirth and glee the few times i made such mistakes.
so then on the final person who came up to me, he said his name was makoto.
Makoto is not a really difficult kanji but it is a kanji a fair amount of japanese people would have to think for a few seconds (it means sincerity and trust) but i know it really well. So when told by the student his name i just banged it up the kanji on the board without hesitating and then dropped the chalk and walked away. It actually didnt look too bad either given my writing of english on the board in chalk is shocking. So the students were surprised, and he came over and asks me "do you know that kanji" after having quite clearly written it on the board with my own actual hand. Its going to kill them when the find out I eat chopsticks with both left and right hands!
(Japanese people are almost uniformly right handed, it is often drummed out of them from a young age, although the attitude is slowly changing. You might find 2 out of 30 students in each class eat left handed, although being a left hander in baseball is quite accepted!)
So I am actually a little weirded out by this situation. How can a man be so awkward, weird and an ass, but still want to be far too close to me and always asking if I am okay and what he can do for me (other than being a decent teacher it seems). Hint buddy, even if I wanted to be your friend/whatever the hell else, being a incompetent freakshow is not going to help!
Anyway, enough. If such things continue in this way it will become the most and perhaps the sole genuinely negative event in Japan for me. I guess that isnt a bad run, and at least i am not at one school, so after two weeks i move on to a different school, far, far away.
Elementary School tomorrow. 500 under 11s, and me. Pain. But after that, boozing with middle aged japanese people. Soothing the pain. Sort of......
Dave Chappelle once said that something along the lines that Racism is not usually a good thing "but when it works out in your favour, its fucking sweet". I experienced the full force of this insight in my own quite contextually different way. I am cycling home after a day at work, (after a 10 inch snow fall) and I see in the distance a kid making up a snow ball. Now japanese kids are just like any other kids, they make snowballs, biff them at cars and cyclists and act like little shits, as you would expect. Now, this kid was making a huge snowball, and as I cycled closer and closer i was becoming what i thought to be reasonably worried. I came closer and closer, the kid even got the point where he had drawn his arm back, ready to launch. And then, he saw that I was a foreigner. Oh, the look on his face was precious, as I cycled past looking at him not taking his eyes of me and as he slowly inched down to put the snowball on the ground. In NZ, i would have gotten it big time. Little fuckers. If only you could have seen the look on this kid's face. One of my all time favourites. So sweet.
Secondly, somewhat incomprehensibly a group of four students in one of the my 3rd year classes started calling me "Joseph" (or in katakana english "josefu") when i got back from Vietnam. Quite weird. They know my name, and have done so for some time. I even asked my teachers if it was some sort of cultural reference I didnt know about, and they also are quite unsure why. The best we could come up with was that perhaps because I started wearing a full suit to work (because it is so freaking cold, ie my kitchen in particular is so cold I dont dare handle things in my freezer without gloves) then there is a good possibility that they might think that I am a mormon (who are always wearing black suits and white shirts with a tie). Still not sure why Joseph, perhaps all mormons in Fukushima are called Joseph or something. Still, if I started calling every one of my students Kohei, I'm pretty sure that would be meet with some curious looks. But mine is not to wonder why.........
Oh and about hairdressers. In Japan, they are costly but good. They give you a nice back and neck massage, and at the end of the two hours of pampering, they tell you that YOU have done a good job. Japan's customer service is mostly definitely superb. Anyhow, was speaking to Quite Tasty English Teacher Who Can ACTUALLY Speak English (the only teacher out of the 20 something I have that I would call fluent) as opposed to Super Creepy Young English Teacher Dude Who Can't Speak or Teach English, and she says to me"we have the same hairdresser". So I am like "what? I have only been to the hairdressers once in Japan and that was three months ago!" and she said "it was Dicca Garcia right?" and that being correct i responded in kind. She goes on to tell me that she was in there last night, and with her hairdresser they had a conversation about "koori-sensei" and the like. The strange thing is that not only was it once, three months ago, and they remembered my school and name, but it wasn't even the same hairdresser who had cut my hair that she had had the conversation with! Remember, Fukushima is a city the size of CHCH, so this is all very weird.
So creepy teacher at school................
he is 24
and he is fucking strange. Not only does he get me to do all the lesson planning (15 minutes before class mind you) but he is one of these people who is so completely awkward that it is almost violating. his english is poor. i can barely communicate but even when i come up with explanations that even a monkey could understand, still doesnt get it (Even though the kids do in about three seconds)
so is basically just a pain, but there is more..............
he follows me around, especially to the toilet and now some of the teachers have noticed it by looks not words yet, and that pisses me off even more.
and then, this is when he almost got the punch:
i was in class, basically running the class on my own, in total, he may as well not have been there, and then in the middle of one of my speeches, i was translating what he couldnt (who can't translate "fresh fruit juice"!)
So i had a cold and i couldnt speak properly (even though i planned and ran his whole class while he stood around looking unforgivably awkward) and then i under-prounounced the "da" in kudamono, and despite doing nothing the whole time, despite the fact his english is poor despite having studied it at university, he had me up about it in front of the class.
oooooh!!! I was just a little angry given some other extenuating factors like:
no.1 he is useless
no.2 this isnt a japanese class
it's an english class
no.3 you just dont do that, it is the ultimate in disrespect to do it in the middle of class. I would never dream of stopping the class to do so to one of my teachers. If I did I would have insulted them and their ancestors. But I am gaijin so of course I cannot understand the meaning of respect.....
i mean, if i corrected the pronounciation of my teachers, which i could justifiably do so based on their competence, then we wouldnt have a class as I would be stopping them every 1 minute and the students would lose confidence in them thereafter.
And its not a japanese class! its an english class. SPEAK ENGLISH YOU FOOLS then bitchslap me for my crappy japanese!
So i said under my breath "Thats what i said" but i think the class picked up i was a little agitated and since they actually had a fun class for once i just ignored him!
but i got my own back later on in a few ways!
so revenge situation no.1
so i was talking about vietnam and i said "traffic in vietnam was unbelievable" which i knew they would understand because some character on tv says "unbelievable" all the time.
and not only did he fall over himself trying to say it back to the class (ie "now that the native english speaker has done their "english thing" lets hear how we speak english in japanese....") but he basically gave himself an analectomy doing so.
Seriously you should have heard it, it sounded like "unbrebrebrabrul" but with a scooby doo accent. For a teacher of english it was unforgiveably terrible.
My crime- underpronouncing a syllable with a head cold when I have only started speaking a language.....his.....in a nutshell- being a complete fucking ass.
Revenge situation no.2.
after a game of criss cross i got the final student to say I was their favourite teacher which sent the whole class into raptures and I got much applause. yes, i had a good class, I ran the thing confidently and made it fun for them despite my teacher's best efforts to make me look foolish.
Revenge situation no.3
so for some strange reason he gets me to write every student's name on the board in romanji after a game, telling me not to check the answers, and he stands there, too close, not caring the slightest what is going in the rest of the class, almost like he just wants to see if i can hear japanese when i have blocked ears from illness, when the class is extraordinarily loud and the kids voices are nervous and quiet. Of course i made some mistakes, god knows i would have in english in the condition i was in and with the class the way it was, and all he did, while he still had a class to run with watch and chuckle with mirth and glee the few times i made such mistakes.
so then on the final person who came up to me, he said his name was makoto.
Makoto is not a really difficult kanji but it is a kanji a fair amount of japanese people would have to think for a few seconds (it means sincerity and trust) but i know it really well. So when told by the student his name i just banged it up the kanji on the board without hesitating and then dropped the chalk and walked away. It actually didnt look too bad either given my writing of english on the board in chalk is shocking. So the students were surprised, and he came over and asks me "do you know that kanji" after having quite clearly written it on the board with my own actual hand. Its going to kill them when the find out I eat chopsticks with both left and right hands!
(Japanese people are almost uniformly right handed, it is often drummed out of them from a young age, although the attitude is slowly changing. You might find 2 out of 30 students in each class eat left handed, although being a left hander in baseball is quite accepted!)
So I am actually a little weirded out by this situation. How can a man be so awkward, weird and an ass, but still want to be far too close to me and always asking if I am okay and what he can do for me (other than being a decent teacher it seems). Hint buddy, even if I wanted to be your friend/whatever the hell else, being a incompetent freakshow is not going to help!
Anyway, enough. If such things continue in this way it will become the most and perhaps the sole genuinely negative event in Japan for me. I guess that isnt a bad run, and at least i am not at one school, so after two weeks i move on to a different school, far, far away.
Elementary School tomorrow. 500 under 11s, and me. Pain. But after that, boozing with middle aged japanese people. Soothing the pain. Sort of......
Sunday, January 09, 2005
And more
Okay, so it appears that Japan is too advanced to stock slightly out of date Ipod's and are now determined to wait for the Ipod Photo to come in or something. So I do not have an Ipod and the alternatives they had were not overly impressive or as stylish so I bought one online, which involves waiting. Anyhow, back to Vietnam
First things first, overall I really enjoyed Vietnam. However, I did learn about myself that I am not really a tourist and more some one who would like to meander through a place in my own time, drinking beer, eating food and doing SFA. So I guess I would quite enjoy backpacking. However I did not enjoy being rushed around from place to place on organised tours, having people take photos of every square inch of the country and having to travel every second day. I definitely enjoyed a fair amount of the sights but trying to see four or five in a day was just too much. And because one member of our group demanded that we take our lead from the Lonely Planet at almost all times then we never really went anywhere that didnt have large amounts of Westerners. This in particular is a problem because I live in Japan and have come to dislike being around large groups of white people I dont know, its best not to ask. Other than that Vietnam was quite interesting and not too much of a challenge, although having a native speaker with us was most useful also.
I was however glad to come back to Japan with clean toilets, non-negotiable prices (bargaining was cool at first as a "cultural experience" but after a while it got tiring and besides, these people are poor enough already) and fantastic customer service. Also, people don't habitually lie or misinform you at any possible opportunity. Yes, the Japanese are vague sometimes, but they won't outright tell you something is so, if it really really isn't.
One of my personal favourite experiences in Vietnam though has to do with Vietnamese currency. Vietnamese currency is quite unfortunately named "Dong". Now even I cant resist the temptation to engage in punnery when something is that unfortunately named! And so the four of us (well really three, Phan just looked at is in shocked disapproval most of the way through Vietnam) made hay while the sun shined. However, on one occasion a combination of this linguistic oddity and poor english grammar lead to a situation where I was asked if I could give one of the nice young hotel ladies a smaller dong. Well, I am sooooorrrry! Ungrateful really. So anyway, I could go on for ever about how much mileage we got out of this and other such situations, but Im sure you are all perfectly dubious and capable people and can think of some of the possibilities yourselves.
Now Vietnamese people are some of the nicest people in the world...if they are not trying to sell you something. Fair enough, they are poor. But they pretend to be even nicer when there is something at stake, but in an extraordinarily fake way, like I have never seen before. Westerners in general I think, dont really like too much BS. A little is expected but too much is just painful. And the fact that you would be lied to as much as possible or treated as stupid (one lady tried to charge me $15 for a snickers bar assuming I wasnt intelligent enough to do the Dong-Dollar calculation when she gave me change) does not help the situation either. Add to that the harrassment (always extraordinarily nice and fake until the purchase is complete then they storm off without even a second look). Whatever. At first it was tolerable given that Vietnam is not terribly affluent and people got to make a living, but it got to the point where I refused to buy from people who pushed too hard and often would go somewhere else to buy from people who barely acknowledged me. This might seem somewhat ignorant given that you would normally assume aggressiveness could be equated with desperation, but Phan seemed to believe that the opposite was true as it often is in the West also, with the richest people playing hardball the most.
At the end of the day I was on holiday and I wanted to be able to breathe a bit and I unfortunately by the end of the trip became terribly unsympathetic to the street sellers in Vietnam. Also taxi drivers who we were tipping quite generously (relatively speaking) at the start but by the end due to a combination of incompetence and straight out intransigence really started to bother us. Basically in Vietnam, everyone knows someone who does something. And such nepotism is common everywhere, however in Vietnam it is quite special. Taxi drivers in particular take kickbacks from hotels, restaurants etc and often the worst value for money ones too. On many occasions we were told that certain hotels that we wanted to be taken straight to, were dirty, rat infested and run by people who sacrificed small children daily, only to find out their "recommended" hotels were run by brothers or cousins or whatever and were quite terrible themselves. Often the ones we wanted to be taken to initially were actually quite decent so after a while this sort of thing became quite annoying and actually quite distressing, especially since they refused to take us to the hotels we wanted to go to without looking at the other ones, which might be tolerable if it wasnt for the fact we were all quite tired from the large amounts of travelling we were doing in a short space of time. And this is even with having a native speaker with us!
One bad example was a taxi driver in Hanoi who dropped off our luggage while we were inside looking at a hotel that was not too flash at all, so when we came down it was all in the lobby (we had just bought a whole extra bag each worth of clothes in Hoi An, the tailoring town, so we had quite a bit). Sneaky. At that point we could have just given in due to the amount of effort required to get a taxi driver and load the bags and go around to other hotels, but after three weeks of annoyances of a lesser degree we were determined to not let these particular people get the better of us (especially since the hotel owner basically told us we couldnt go anywhere else!). Also, I guess the four of us had never really done much travelling before so I guess this sort of thing is particularly distressing.
But as I said Vietnamese people are for the most part quite nice. Those not involved in business would always try to have a conversation with you, and their english was much better than most Japanese people, and much more natural. One of our guides actually spoke a fair amount of kiwi slang and knew some Maori words for some types of seafood which was impressive given that most NZers wouldnt have known some of the Maori words he knew.
Interestingly, being a foreigner in Vietnam drew much the same amount of attention as it would being a foreigner in Japan. However it was different. In Japan, if you catch people gawking at you, normally they would turn their heads away quickly and awkwardly or the stranger ones will just keep staring at you intensely without emotion. In Vietnam, we would get stared at, but if we caught people doing so, normally they would let out a big cheesy grin and greet us. You can guess which one is more comforting. Actually we had to resist the temptation to mock the Japanese in Vietnam, as they always gather in large groups, and since they were as much foreigners as us, it would have been pure gold to walk up to them and go "gaijin da! (its a foreigner!)" or "nihonjin bakari! (wow there is nothing but japanese people there!). Unfortunately, we are much politer people than that. One particularly revealing incident though was when we were in a hotel filling out some forms and I casually spoke to Dave instructing him to do his best ("Ganbatte Kudasai" is heard all the time in Japan so its not a real big deal to say it) but a Japanese person walking through the lobby overheard me and almost fell over. I guess they think its strange enough when gaijin can speak Japanese in Japan (even painfully simple things) but a foreigner speaking Japanese in Vietnam.....?!? So anyway, she walked out of the lobby almost with a face of disgust (which is actually the Japanese face of surprise but somehow it looks a lot like disapproval which is quite discomforting until you realise that its not what it seems) and kept on looking back at us. Poor lady.
Oh and just to lower the tone a bit (more) Vietnamese women are the most beautiful I have seen. Japanese women tend to be as attractive overall as Western women but Vietnamese women are this great combination of Western (ish) eyes with Asian skin tone with a nice mix of Western and North-East Asian body types. (ie they have a figure which Japanese women don't) . Furthermore they seem to walk with much more confidence than most Chinese and Japanese women I have meet, who seem quite awkward. Oh and many of them will wear Vietnamese traditional dress which is this long slender silky dress, often white, which not only makes them look nice, but they will wear these things while riding very dirty dubious looking motorbikes...and still wear them well and maintain some class. Impressive. Whats more, is that even Vietnamese rural trailer trash will be better looking than your average Japanese or Western woman. Right, terrible, but brutally true.
Anyway I dont normally go on likes this, but it was quite a surprise, and besides, its a mootpoint as far as I am concerned because I am never even going to touch Vietnamese as a language. I mean, it has at least seven tones, so any given two "words" could have 49 possibilities of meaning (in theory). And Vietnamese speakers always sound like they are having the most bitterly serious conversation of their lives, even if they are in fact giving each other compliments. I knew about this before, having hung out with Phan and her family a bit, but to have a whole country of seemingly angry people chatting away was something else.
Other good things about Vietnam are cheapness. I live in Japan which you could safely put in the "not cheap" category. So going to Vietnam was quite a revelation as you could eat at one of the best restaurants in whatever city you are in, and still only pay $4 US for a two course meal, a Heinekin beer and freshly squeezed tropical fruit juice. And clothes and everything else is cheap. Also, ridiculous large denominations of currency was quite funny. One US$ is equal to 15 000 Vietnamese Dong. So even changing $US 100 would instantly make you a millionaire.
The opportunity to go Elephant trekking was appreciated also, and we went on some Island cruises which was fun also. Our kiwi-slang Maori speaking guide in Nha Trang actually took us on the best cruise, involving absurd amounts of freshly caught seafood, the drinking of wine in the South China sea, having a friend of his playing the electric guitar on the boat while we swam and sunbathed, and basically abusing us the whole time (quite appreciated given that most other people involved with tourists in some way were usually obsequious to the point of annoyance, but without actually being useful at the same time). So anyway our good friend Tung showed us a good time and did what he had to do, and was gratifyingly insane. All for $US 6 each. We ended up tipping him more than the damn thing cost because it was so cheap. Apparently he told us that this was the first day that he and his friends had run their own tour. Previously he had been working for someone for 11 years but then they got done for selling drugs to foreigners and then the other person he worked for wasnt good enough so he decided to do his own thing. Fair enough, I am sure he will do well for himself!
On the other hand, as for the worst moment on our trip, I would probably have to say that New Years was it. Quite a shame since we were in a foreign country and you would think this in itself would be enough. However, it would turn out to be one of the least fulfilling New Years I can remember. Especially after last years little romp in the countryside enjoyed with all you fair folk. Anyhow basically we were told to go to this mountaineous place called Sa Pa, which is also where the minority people live. The Vietnamese make a big deal over their minorities, like it is somehow special that they havent eradicated them from the face of the earth or something, but as it is, many foreigners go there and take pictures of them, which i actually find a little odd. They are good at tailoring and the Sa Pa area is quite nice, but otherwise I personally wasnt exactly super excited to see "minority people". Actually they gawked at me more than I did at them.
Anyway, New Years, we make our way on an overnight 10 hour train trip to Sa Pa anticipating a big party in the mountains, as we were informed by a couple of Vietnamese people (we never learn!) who said Hanoi would suck (I somehow doubted that even at the time!) and that Sa Pa would have lots of stuff going on for New Years. It didn't. So the four of us are stuck in our cold as balls hotel room, with the only heating device resembling a broken wing of TIE fighter which emitted heat to a distance of about 3cms each side, drinking bad bad gin, while watching the only New Years eve coverage available...on Indonesian television, which started their midnight countdown not from even a generous 10, but from five! Bah, we were sitting there and then "5,4,3,2,1" and then some Indonesian phrase and then over. Engaged in some muffled and delayed cheers and then promptly retreated to our somewhat warmer beds and slept. Actually it was lucky that is was that bad, because well if it was less bad, then it would have been really disappointing!
So to finish off quickly, went back to Hanoi for one night, stayed in a really nice and pricey hotel for our last night, and then on to enjoy the flying pleasure that is Singapore airlines, and back to snowy cold as fucking nightmares Japan, and tomorrow, back to school.
To be sure, Vietnam was fun, and my first real travelling experience as opposed to Japan which i guess is a living experience. Definitely worth the effort although I wish we could have taken it slower. As you would expect.
Right, nasty dumb stupid thesis. Hmmphhff
First things first, overall I really enjoyed Vietnam. However, I did learn about myself that I am not really a tourist and more some one who would like to meander through a place in my own time, drinking beer, eating food and doing SFA. So I guess I would quite enjoy backpacking. However I did not enjoy being rushed around from place to place on organised tours, having people take photos of every square inch of the country and having to travel every second day. I definitely enjoyed a fair amount of the sights but trying to see four or five in a day was just too much. And because one member of our group demanded that we take our lead from the Lonely Planet at almost all times then we never really went anywhere that didnt have large amounts of Westerners. This in particular is a problem because I live in Japan and have come to dislike being around large groups of white people I dont know, its best not to ask. Other than that Vietnam was quite interesting and not too much of a challenge, although having a native speaker with us was most useful also.
I was however glad to come back to Japan with clean toilets, non-negotiable prices (bargaining was cool at first as a "cultural experience" but after a while it got tiring and besides, these people are poor enough already) and fantastic customer service. Also, people don't habitually lie or misinform you at any possible opportunity. Yes, the Japanese are vague sometimes, but they won't outright tell you something is so, if it really really isn't.
One of my personal favourite experiences in Vietnam though has to do with Vietnamese currency. Vietnamese currency is quite unfortunately named "Dong". Now even I cant resist the temptation to engage in punnery when something is that unfortunately named! And so the four of us (well really three, Phan just looked at is in shocked disapproval most of the way through Vietnam) made hay while the sun shined. However, on one occasion a combination of this linguistic oddity and poor english grammar lead to a situation where I was asked if I could give one of the nice young hotel ladies a smaller dong. Well, I am sooooorrrry! Ungrateful really. So anyway, I could go on for ever about how much mileage we got out of this and other such situations, but Im sure you are all perfectly dubious and capable people and can think of some of the possibilities yourselves.
Now Vietnamese people are some of the nicest people in the world...if they are not trying to sell you something. Fair enough, they are poor. But they pretend to be even nicer when there is something at stake, but in an extraordinarily fake way, like I have never seen before. Westerners in general I think, dont really like too much BS. A little is expected but too much is just painful. And the fact that you would be lied to as much as possible or treated as stupid (one lady tried to charge me $15 for a snickers bar assuming I wasnt intelligent enough to do the Dong-Dollar calculation when she gave me change) does not help the situation either. Add to that the harrassment (always extraordinarily nice and fake until the purchase is complete then they storm off without even a second look). Whatever. At first it was tolerable given that Vietnam is not terribly affluent and people got to make a living, but it got to the point where I refused to buy from people who pushed too hard and often would go somewhere else to buy from people who barely acknowledged me. This might seem somewhat ignorant given that you would normally assume aggressiveness could be equated with desperation, but Phan seemed to believe that the opposite was true as it often is in the West also, with the richest people playing hardball the most.
At the end of the day I was on holiday and I wanted to be able to breathe a bit and I unfortunately by the end of the trip became terribly unsympathetic to the street sellers in Vietnam. Also taxi drivers who we were tipping quite generously (relatively speaking) at the start but by the end due to a combination of incompetence and straight out intransigence really started to bother us. Basically in Vietnam, everyone knows someone who does something. And such nepotism is common everywhere, however in Vietnam it is quite special. Taxi drivers in particular take kickbacks from hotels, restaurants etc and often the worst value for money ones too. On many occasions we were told that certain hotels that we wanted to be taken straight to, were dirty, rat infested and run by people who sacrificed small children daily, only to find out their "recommended" hotels were run by brothers or cousins or whatever and were quite terrible themselves. Often the ones we wanted to be taken to initially were actually quite decent so after a while this sort of thing became quite annoying and actually quite distressing, especially since they refused to take us to the hotels we wanted to go to without looking at the other ones, which might be tolerable if it wasnt for the fact we were all quite tired from the large amounts of travelling we were doing in a short space of time. And this is even with having a native speaker with us!
One bad example was a taxi driver in Hanoi who dropped off our luggage while we were inside looking at a hotel that was not too flash at all, so when we came down it was all in the lobby (we had just bought a whole extra bag each worth of clothes in Hoi An, the tailoring town, so we had quite a bit). Sneaky. At that point we could have just given in due to the amount of effort required to get a taxi driver and load the bags and go around to other hotels, but after three weeks of annoyances of a lesser degree we were determined to not let these particular people get the better of us (especially since the hotel owner basically told us we couldnt go anywhere else!). Also, I guess the four of us had never really done much travelling before so I guess this sort of thing is particularly distressing.
But as I said Vietnamese people are for the most part quite nice. Those not involved in business would always try to have a conversation with you, and their english was much better than most Japanese people, and much more natural. One of our guides actually spoke a fair amount of kiwi slang and knew some Maori words for some types of seafood which was impressive given that most NZers wouldnt have known some of the Maori words he knew.
Interestingly, being a foreigner in Vietnam drew much the same amount of attention as it would being a foreigner in Japan. However it was different. In Japan, if you catch people gawking at you, normally they would turn their heads away quickly and awkwardly or the stranger ones will just keep staring at you intensely without emotion. In Vietnam, we would get stared at, but if we caught people doing so, normally they would let out a big cheesy grin and greet us. You can guess which one is more comforting. Actually we had to resist the temptation to mock the Japanese in Vietnam, as they always gather in large groups, and since they were as much foreigners as us, it would have been pure gold to walk up to them and go "gaijin da! (its a foreigner!)" or "nihonjin bakari! (wow there is nothing but japanese people there!). Unfortunately, we are much politer people than that. One particularly revealing incident though was when we were in a hotel filling out some forms and I casually spoke to Dave instructing him to do his best ("Ganbatte Kudasai" is heard all the time in Japan so its not a real big deal to say it) but a Japanese person walking through the lobby overheard me and almost fell over. I guess they think its strange enough when gaijin can speak Japanese in Japan (even painfully simple things) but a foreigner speaking Japanese in Vietnam.....?!? So anyway, she walked out of the lobby almost with a face of disgust (which is actually the Japanese face of surprise but somehow it looks a lot like disapproval which is quite discomforting until you realise that its not what it seems) and kept on looking back at us. Poor lady.
Oh and just to lower the tone a bit (more) Vietnamese women are the most beautiful I have seen. Japanese women tend to be as attractive overall as Western women but Vietnamese women are this great combination of Western (ish) eyes with Asian skin tone with a nice mix of Western and North-East Asian body types. (ie they have a figure which Japanese women don't) . Furthermore they seem to walk with much more confidence than most Chinese and Japanese women I have meet, who seem quite awkward. Oh and many of them will wear Vietnamese traditional dress which is this long slender silky dress, often white, which not only makes them look nice, but they will wear these things while riding very dirty dubious looking motorbikes...and still wear them well and maintain some class. Impressive. Whats more, is that even Vietnamese rural trailer trash will be better looking than your average Japanese or Western woman. Right, terrible, but brutally true.
Anyway I dont normally go on likes this, but it was quite a surprise, and besides, its a mootpoint as far as I am concerned because I am never even going to touch Vietnamese as a language. I mean, it has at least seven tones, so any given two "words" could have 49 possibilities of meaning (in theory). And Vietnamese speakers always sound like they are having the most bitterly serious conversation of their lives, even if they are in fact giving each other compliments. I knew about this before, having hung out with Phan and her family a bit, but to have a whole country of seemingly angry people chatting away was something else.
Other good things about Vietnam are cheapness. I live in Japan which you could safely put in the "not cheap" category. So going to Vietnam was quite a revelation as you could eat at one of the best restaurants in whatever city you are in, and still only pay $4 US for a two course meal, a Heinekin beer and freshly squeezed tropical fruit juice. And clothes and everything else is cheap. Also, ridiculous large denominations of currency was quite funny. One US$ is equal to 15 000 Vietnamese Dong. So even changing $US 100 would instantly make you a millionaire.
The opportunity to go Elephant trekking was appreciated also, and we went on some Island cruises which was fun also. Our kiwi-slang Maori speaking guide in Nha Trang actually took us on the best cruise, involving absurd amounts of freshly caught seafood, the drinking of wine in the South China sea, having a friend of his playing the electric guitar on the boat while we swam and sunbathed, and basically abusing us the whole time (quite appreciated given that most other people involved with tourists in some way were usually obsequious to the point of annoyance, but without actually being useful at the same time). So anyway our good friend Tung showed us a good time and did what he had to do, and was gratifyingly insane. All for $US 6 each. We ended up tipping him more than the damn thing cost because it was so cheap. Apparently he told us that this was the first day that he and his friends had run their own tour. Previously he had been working for someone for 11 years but then they got done for selling drugs to foreigners and then the other person he worked for wasnt good enough so he decided to do his own thing. Fair enough, I am sure he will do well for himself!
On the other hand, as for the worst moment on our trip, I would probably have to say that New Years was it. Quite a shame since we were in a foreign country and you would think this in itself would be enough. However, it would turn out to be one of the least fulfilling New Years I can remember. Especially after last years little romp in the countryside enjoyed with all you fair folk. Anyhow basically we were told to go to this mountaineous place called Sa Pa, which is also where the minority people live. The Vietnamese make a big deal over their minorities, like it is somehow special that they havent eradicated them from the face of the earth or something, but as it is, many foreigners go there and take pictures of them, which i actually find a little odd. They are good at tailoring and the Sa Pa area is quite nice, but otherwise I personally wasnt exactly super excited to see "minority people". Actually they gawked at me more than I did at them.
Anyway, New Years, we make our way on an overnight 10 hour train trip to Sa Pa anticipating a big party in the mountains, as we were informed by a couple of Vietnamese people (we never learn!) who said Hanoi would suck (I somehow doubted that even at the time!) and that Sa Pa would have lots of stuff going on for New Years. It didn't. So the four of us are stuck in our cold as balls hotel room, with the only heating device resembling a broken wing of TIE fighter which emitted heat to a distance of about 3cms each side, drinking bad bad gin, while watching the only New Years eve coverage available...on Indonesian television, which started their midnight countdown not from even a generous 10, but from five! Bah, we were sitting there and then "5,4,3,2,1" and then some Indonesian phrase and then over. Engaged in some muffled and delayed cheers and then promptly retreated to our somewhat warmer beds and slept. Actually it was lucky that is was that bad, because well if it was less bad, then it would have been really disappointing!
So to finish off quickly, went back to Hanoi for one night, stayed in a really nice and pricey hotel for our last night, and then on to enjoy the flying pleasure that is Singapore airlines, and back to snowy cold as fucking nightmares Japan, and tomorrow, back to school.
To be sure, Vietnam was fun, and my first real travelling experience as opposed to Japan which i guess is a living experience. Definitely worth the effort although I wish we could have taken it slower. As you would expect.
Right, nasty dumb stupid thesis. Hmmphhff
Back from Nam
So Vietnam is an interesting place. As mentioned in a previous entry the traffic in Saigon was something to behold but actually, because you could never really travel any faster than 20 kms an hour not all that dangerous in the end. On the highway however, it is quite a different proposition. Basically a few things to remember when travelling in Vietnam
1. If you honk your horn in any situation that could potentially be dangerous, this means you are automatically relieved of the necessity to be concerned with your own driving and that you may indeed speed up instead of braking. It also temporarily releases you from the obligation to observe the laws of physics and allows you to squeeze past a jeep while in a jeep on a road clearly big enough for only only jeep. I should aslo add that many of these roads are actually not so much roads as small protrusions from a side of a mountain. Mountains just in case you are not familiar with them, are high, and bad to fall off while in a vehicle.
2. A second rule of sorts could be something like "the crazier your driver the safer you are". One particular jeep ride endeared us to a driver who was just a tad mad. First of all, in the middle of the drive,while at the wheel, this guy starts smacking himself in the head. Multiple times. For no reason. Secondly, whenever he felt like taking a cigarette break, our dear driver did so. Even if it was in the middle of a bridge. Thirdly throughout the trip our driver would also from time to time break out into barely controllable maniacal laughter while muttering something to our guide who was sitting in the back of the jeep. Interestingly, Phan (who many of you have meet) who met Sartre, Dave and I in Vietnam, speaks Vietnamese. Briefly translated, it appears that our driver throughout the whole trip was laughly maniacally at how awfully, terribly terribly bad his own driving was. Shit. He also laughed his ass off, quite unnecessarily when our guide/his friend smacked his head on the roof of the jeep due to his shockingly bad driving. However, he got us home alive, and for that I am thankful. We actually stopped at one point to speak to a driver who had run off the road (thankfully not over a cliff face) who seemed decidedly less insane. So this is the thinly rational basis on which i base the "the crazier the driver the safer you are" maxim on. Because I didnt die, and with how seriously i had to consider such an option at times during the trip, then I think I am perfectly entitled to make outrageous assertions.
3. The painted white line down the middle of a road in Vietnam is not actually a lane divider but some sort of unimaginative propaganda painting commissioned by the Vietnamese government to symbolise national unity. While in the Vietnam we drove on the left hand side of the road more often than the right. Given that I am a New Zealander and live in Japan, both nations which "legally" drive on the left hand side of the road, this might in some way have been quite comforting. That would be nothwithstanding the fact that in Vietnam you drive on the right hand side of the road. Actually some Vietnamese guy told us that Vietnamese only observe the road rules when they know an important official is in the area and some big police motorcade is making its way through. We actually got a little glimpse of this fantastic situation when everyone went from being complete traffic pyschos to perfect ladies and gentlemen in the middle of Saigon
while the fourteenth cousin of the rose pruner for the son of the Deputy Minister for Unspeakable Digestive Consequences of Travelling in Vietnam, was duly escorted by such a motorcade. Vietnam is corrupt, by the way.
4. Lastly, jogging your bull on the number one highway of your country is not as unusual as you might think. Some people go out jogging with their dogs, others, with cattle. And no this guy was not merely walking his bull from one place to another due to the relative poverty of his situation wherein he couldnt afford transporation. No, not at all. He had the thing actually tied to a leash and was out jogging holding this leash while the bull run in front, on the major highway. Oh if only you could see it, it would bring tears to your eyes!
Ok, so my feet are damn cold, and I want to go buy an Ipod. So I think I will. So I will discuss more about this curious country called Vietnam more at a later date.
1. If you honk your horn in any situation that could potentially be dangerous, this means you are automatically relieved of the necessity to be concerned with your own driving and that you may indeed speed up instead of braking. It also temporarily releases you from the obligation to observe the laws of physics and allows you to squeeze past a jeep while in a jeep on a road clearly big enough for only only jeep. I should aslo add that many of these roads are actually not so much roads as small protrusions from a side of a mountain. Mountains just in case you are not familiar with them, are high, and bad to fall off while in a vehicle.
2. A second rule of sorts could be something like "the crazier your driver the safer you are". One particular jeep ride endeared us to a driver who was just a tad mad. First of all, in the middle of the drive,while at the wheel, this guy starts smacking himself in the head. Multiple times. For no reason. Secondly, whenever he felt like taking a cigarette break, our dear driver did so. Even if it was in the middle of a bridge. Thirdly throughout the trip our driver would also from time to time break out into barely controllable maniacal laughter while muttering something to our guide who was sitting in the back of the jeep. Interestingly, Phan (who many of you have meet) who met Sartre, Dave and I in Vietnam, speaks Vietnamese. Briefly translated, it appears that our driver throughout the whole trip was laughly maniacally at how awfully, terribly terribly bad his own driving was. Shit. He also laughed his ass off, quite unnecessarily when our guide/his friend smacked his head on the roof of the jeep due to his shockingly bad driving. However, he got us home alive, and for that I am thankful. We actually stopped at one point to speak to a driver who had run off the road (thankfully not over a cliff face) who seemed decidedly less insane. So this is the thinly rational basis on which i base the "the crazier the driver the safer you are" maxim on. Because I didnt die, and with how seriously i had to consider such an option at times during the trip, then I think I am perfectly entitled to make outrageous assertions.
3. The painted white line down the middle of a road in Vietnam is not actually a lane divider but some sort of unimaginative propaganda painting commissioned by the Vietnamese government to symbolise national unity. While in the Vietnam we drove on the left hand side of the road more often than the right. Given that I am a New Zealander and live in Japan, both nations which "legally" drive on the left hand side of the road, this might in some way have been quite comforting. That would be nothwithstanding the fact that in Vietnam you drive on the right hand side of the road. Actually some Vietnamese guy told us that Vietnamese only observe the road rules when they know an important official is in the area and some big police motorcade is making its way through. We actually got a little glimpse of this fantastic situation when everyone went from being complete traffic pyschos to perfect ladies and gentlemen in the middle of Saigon
while the fourteenth cousin of the rose pruner for the son of the Deputy Minister for Unspeakable Digestive Consequences of Travelling in Vietnam, was duly escorted by such a motorcade. Vietnam is corrupt, by the way.
4. Lastly, jogging your bull on the number one highway of your country is not as unusual as you might think. Some people go out jogging with their dogs, others, with cattle. And no this guy was not merely walking his bull from one place to another due to the relative poverty of his situation wherein he couldnt afford transporation. No, not at all. He had the thing actually tied to a leash and was out jogging holding this leash while the bull run in front, on the major highway. Oh if only you could see it, it would bring tears to your eyes!
Ok, so my feet are damn cold, and I want to go buy an Ipod. So I think I will. So I will discuss more about this curious country called Vietnam more at a later date.
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