Chúc Giáng Sinh Vui Vẻ!

That means Merry Christmas in Vietnam although at this point it is two days after Christmas. Around the middle of December it got pretty cold here in Vietnam. I had to break out my winter coat. However, weather here in Hanoi is fickle. At the time I jokingly told Bryn that in a week we'd be in short sleeves again. I was wrong. It only took one day for it to again be warm.

By Christmas Eve it was even warmer.  That night I met up with Trinh, a Vietnamese girl that I met at an art gallery a while back.  We had been meeting every so often to teach each other our respective languages. I picked her up from the art gallery around 8:00pm and we went to have Pho, which is a very popular type of noodle soup (it's actually a little strange for me at this point to believe that four months ago I had never even heard of Pho). Trinh is Catholic and wanted to check out the nativity scene at the nearby cathedral. So we went there and then walked around Hoan Kiem Lake (all of this is located near Hanoi's Old Quarter).

There were tons of people out. Christmas is celebrated in Hanoi but not many people really celebrates it. Mostly young people just like wearing Santa hats and getting their picture taken next to fake Christmas trees. I'm not the biggest Christmas person, but it was a little sad that the only Christmas festivities (despite the nativity scene I suppose) were extremely commercial in nature. I also really miss egg nog.   

However, despite this, I had a good time on Christmas Eve. Earlier that week MCC threw a Christmas party. I invited my host brother and some of his friends to come along:

Also, earlier on Christmas Eve I made salsa (it's like the only food I know how to make) which actually turned out well. I couldn't find corn chips but I did end up finding tortillas and so I made my own corn chips. I think my family liked it. Either that or they humored me.

On Christmas day a friend of mine invited me to her birthday party. I went with her and her friends to sing karaoke. Unless someone slipped something into my egg nog in a past Christmas that I don't remember, that is probably the first time I've sung Vietnamese pop songs on Christmas. It also got cold again on Christmas day. I think because of the great temperature change, I caught a cold. Despite this, yesterday I visited my colleague Anh's house for the first time and hung out with her husband and two young sons.  I also Skyped with my family earlier that day.

All in all it was a good week. It doesn't feel at all like Christmas/New Years but I'm glad I could see family and friends.

Updates!

It has been awhile since I've updated my blog. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to write about. A lot has happened since my last blog entry but I've been too busy (and too lazy) to share the stories online. A while ago, I visited Tam Dao, which is located a couple hours from Hanoi. I went with an MCC colleague and a outdoor group he is apart of. These pictures are courtesy of him:

We climbed one of the three mountains. It was extremely steep in certain parts. These three good looking guys were the first ones up.

I also celebrated my 23rd birthday on December 9th. The night before my parents made hot pot and the next night I went out with my host brother, his friends, and Bryn. We ended the night singing karaoke.

Bryn and I also went out quite a bit with Shane, an Australian colleague from The Gioi, and his friends that he made here in Vietnam. Although quite a bit older than Bryn and I, Shane was a great Westerner to hang with. He really showed a deep appreciation for the Vietnamese culture and had some great insights. Through him, I met some pretty cool Vietnamese people. Unfortunately, he left for Australia this week.

A couple days ago, I went with colleagues from The Gioi to check out pagodas in Bac Ninh province. It was a fun excursion although our bus driver had to pull over and ask for directions at least ten times. I kind of wish I had took pictures of each person we pulled over to ask because they all seemed to be doing a different tasks. Some were washing motorbikes, some were running stalls, some were smoking out of huge pipes. Fun times. 

Well there you go. It's the Christmas season but it doesn't really feel like it over here. Most Christmas decorations are in stores and coffee shops. On Tuesday we will have a Christmas party at MCC. Bryn is going to Cambodia on Christmas but I will be here in Vietnam. I've been invited to spend Christmas with some people I've met here in Vietnam, but we will see if anything materializes. To everyone reading this: Chúc Giáng Sinh Vui Vẻ!

MCC in Yen Lap Commune

This week has been super busy: birthdays, trips, teaching English, meeting new people, not mention a lot more work at The Gioi. I'm also having to write stories about MCC Vietnam's other projects.  Instead of rehashing my outing with MCC last week I decided to kill two birds with one stone and just post the story that I had to write anyway:

Yen Lap commune is located in Vinh Tuong district, Vinh Phuc province. It is the poorest commune in Vinh Tuong district. The commune includes one preschool, one primary school, and one secondary school. Its preschool is split into three locations and only one of these locations has a lunch program. At this location there are 119 students with 104 participating in the lunch program. Even though the building only has two classrooms, the students are split up into four classes. As 10:30 rolls around, the children eagerly wait for the dishes to be served. They pass around a damp wash cloth to clean their hands. Each day there is a different dish with today’s menu being rice with eggs and pork. Towards the end of their meal they will get soup to pour into their bowls.

There are 104 children registered in Yen Lap commune’s preschool lunch program. However, only 80 to 90 students regularly eat at school. 5 year old Nguyen Le Hoai Nam is one of these students. His mother, Le Thi Nu, is too busy taking care of her shop and raising birds to make lunch on time for her son. She also has a hard time making him take a nap at home. However, she says that at school he willingly joins the other children in the after-lunch nap. Le Thi Nu wants to send her youngest daughter to the preschool next year and enroll her in the lunch program. However, the school only has a limited amount of space and therefore they are not able to admit every child. Le Thi Nu will have to wait to see whether or not her request will be granted.

Because there are not enough classrooms, the preschool has classes spread out in three different locations. Even though Le Thi Nu lives near Phu Yen, one of the preschool’s three locations, she sends her son to the location near the primary school instead. Out of all three locations, it is the only location large enough to support a lunch program.

Each meal costs 5,500 Vietnam dong. Parents also pay 30,000 dong per month to compensate for teachers’ time and effort. She only makes 100,000 dong a day. Her family of five brings in just 3 million dong per month altogether. MCC Vietnam provides 1,000 dong for each meal. MCC also gives support for cooking facilities and items such as rice cookers. At the beginning of each school year, the staff talks with the parents about the lunch program and the assistance of MCC.

Lunch at school is important for many reasons. One problem the preschool faces is that students that go home for lunch don’t come back in the afternoon. Also, the rate of malnutrition is 13.2% for all preschool children and 13.7% for all the children of the commune. The rate of malnutrition for those in the lunch program is 14.4% due to the fact that many of the children in the program do not get fed enough at home.

The school started their lunch program in the 2006-2007 school year and MCC has supported since this school year (at the beginning of September 2010). In its first year, only 35 students were enrolled in the program. Now there are 104. Every quarter, the preschool conducts a health check. Out of the 95 children that were checked early this school year, 85 have gained weight. However, the school still needs to provide lunch for more children. Yen Lap commune has the lowest rate of students having lunch at school in the district. The required rate is 70% but the preschool has a rate of only 31.5%. There are 382 children from ages 3-5 and 288 from ages 3 and under. Out of those 670 students, only 330 go to preschool. Although many of the children that go to school cry for their parents at first, most all the students eventually enjoy coming to school. 4-year-old Khong Thi Thy Phuong says that the school is fun and that the food here is better than at home. One young mother says that during the weekend her son counts the days until he can go back to school.

Mai Chau

This last weekend, I went with a group from church to the countryside village of Mai Chau.  The trip was a time to hang out and relax. While most of the group took a bus, about nine of us went on motorbikes.  The motorbike ride there took about three hours and was probably my favorite part of the trip.  The road we were on eventually made its way up into the mountains. For me, driving on winding roads in car is about as fun going to the dentist. When riding the motorbike up the mountains, however, I cherished every twist and turn. It was awesome. I wish I would have been able to stop and appreciate the view but we were in a time crunch so no pictures from the ride up.  However, I did take some pictures once we got to Mai Chau.

Bryn and I hiked up a mountain and Bryn almost ran into this spider.  You can't tell by the picture but it was about as big as my hand.

The Year of the Cat

So as you can see, I've changed my blog's title to "Life During the Year of the Cat" mainly because I was tired of seeing the bland title "Nathan's Year in Vietnam".  I'll probably change the title again once I think of something better.  Why I've emphasized that this is year is the Year of the Cat is because I was born in the Year of the Cat. But wait! That's not true Nathan! You were born in the Year of the Rabbit!  Well, yes, I was born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit and in the Vietnamese Year of the Cat.  I'm a Chinese rabbit and a Vietnamese cat. Since I'm in Vietnam, we're going with cat years. Anyway, if anyone can think of any better titles, send them this way.
  

More Family Outings Part 2

The next day I woke up to the sound of people scuttling about.  It was still dark outside so I promptly went back to sleep.  I woke up a while later, finding myself as the last person to do so.  I figured that it was probably around 8:00, but nope, I checked the clock on my cell phone: 6:30.  After eating breakfast, I grabbed my backpack and hopped onto a motorbike with my host dad.  We drove into Vinh which took about an hour.  On the way there it began raining pretty hard so my host dad pulled over at one point and bought us rain coats.  Before arriving in Vinh, we stopped in Hoang Tru Village, where Ho Chi Minh was born, and Kim Lien Village, where Ho Chi Minh grew up. 

My host dad and I took some pictures.  The results reminded me of how un-photogenic I am.

Ok. I guess those two aren't that bad.  However, my host dad paid a guy there with a fancy camera to take a picture of us and in the developed photo my eyes were closed.  Luckily we got two more where at least my eyes were opened. 

I found that the people in this area were much more surprised to see for foreigners and were more eager to talk to me than people in Hanoi.  I talked with a shop owner lady for awhile who, like a lot of people I've met, expressed her surprised that I didn't have a Vietnamese girlfriend. I asked about her family and she said that she had two children.  Her oldest daughter was five. She told me that if her daughter was 15 she would hook us up, but right now she was a little too young. She regretfully said that I probably wouldn't wait ten years. I think she caught my awkward face because she laughed and reassured me that she was only kidding.  I talked a little bit longer with her and some of the other people in the shop and then my father and I headed into Vinh city where we had lunch with his niece's family.  Later, some more relatives showed up.

My host mom showed up with them and after lunch we took a taxi to a temple, where multiple ceremonies were happening.  I talked with a girl my age there as well as some school children who enthusiastically came up to me to say hello.  I also enjoyed watching the ceremonies. I was a little confused about why there was a man dressed as a woman and dancing around but the girl I was with told me that he was being everyone.  Soon he changed clothes and became a minority group member.  Then a little boy.

Later, the man left with us and a group of people on a bus headed to Hanoi.  He changed into a suit jacket and chain-smoked cigarettes and acted very guy-like.  But I could never get the image of him dressed as a woman out of my mind.  The bus ride lasted eight hours.  Most host parents and I arrived at our house at 1am.  We were all very exhausted.  However, I was really glad I got to partake in this experience.  I loved being in Nghe An.  The air was clean, the scenery was beautiful, the people were very friendly, and there were no tourists.  I hope to go back soon.

More Family Outings Part 1

Man, it has been an exhausting week.  This week I took a couple days off from work to go with my host father to his hometown in Nghe An province. We boarded a sleeper bus at 11:00pm on Monday and got off around 6:00am in Vinh city in Nghe An province.  Besides the fact that my bed was perhaps a foot too short for me, the bus ride wasn't too bad.  We took a taxi to my father's hometown in the countryside.  This area beat Hoa Binh as being the most rural part of Vietnam I had been to so far.

We arrived at my host dad's father's house around 7:00am and I began meeting my host dad's extended family.  My host dad is one of eight children, so his extended family was very large. They had all gathered here because my host dad's grandmother's grave was being moved from Ha Noi to the countryside.  Apparently the previous grave site of the grandmother was going to have a road built over it so they decided to rebury her near her hometown.  I've also heard that it is a tradition to bury the dead nearby the place they died and then around four years later dig their body up and rebury their bones in smaller coffin in their home village.  My host mother, who had stayed in Hoa Binh, arrived later in the morning.

The casket arrived around 11:00am. They gathered around the casket and burned incense.  Two women began crying loudly.  While this was happening, primary school students who were riding by on bicycles stopped on the side of the road.  There was soon a crowd of at least twenty of them.  I got the feeling that they were stopping to look at me instead of the ceremony.  My host father motioned me to go back to the house.  I happily complied and, on arriving, took a much needed nap. I woke up in time for lunch which was amazingly good and then took another nap.  When I awoke, I found that it was time to move the casket to where it was to be buried.  A procession moved up the nearby hill with about eight or nine people carrying the casket.

We reached the top and another ceremony was conducted.  At first I felt a little awkward about taking pictures and asked a couple times if it was ok.  However, both my host dad and his cousins were very incessant on me taking pictures and kept pressuring to take more.  So I took a lot of pictures and some videos:

I'm not sure how long we were up there, but the whole ordeal seemed to last quite a while.  When we got back to the house, my host father took me on a motorbike ride.

All of a sudden we stopped.  A car came up carrying some family members and we all walked out into a field to another ancestor's grave/altar.  This was apparently the grave of the father of the ancestor they worshiped in Hoa Binh. I stood off to the side with the girlfriend of one of the cousins and a family friend and watched the priest, my host father, host mother, and a couple other relatives go through the rituals.

That night we had a huge feast. Several tables were spread out around the home. Different cousins, uncles, and neighbors made the rounds to around each table toasting each other with rice wine (which is more the equivalent of vodka than wine).  Man, a lot of rice wine was drunk those two days.  People had begun toasting at 7:00 that morning and it didn't stop until 7:00 the next morning.  Actually, scratch that, it kept going until lunch the next day and probably kept going until dinner but by then my host parents and I had left.  All in all, it was a fun night with lots of laughs.

All in the Family

This last Friday, a colleague at, work who came to Vietnam through his college, invited Bryn and I to go with his class to visit the Perfume Pagoda or "Chùa Hương" in Vietnamese. The Perfume Pagoda is actually a vast complex of different Buddhist temples and shrines built in and around the Huong Tich Mountains. It's pretty famous and near Hanoi so expected that I would go eventually. However, our colleague informed Bryn and me that the bus would leave around 8:00am.  That meant Bryn and I would have to leave our house around 7:30.  I was looking forward to sleeping in this weekend but Bryn and I agreed to go.

However, after dinner my host mother asked me if I would like to come with her to visit Hoa Binh Province where she and my host father were going to visit an ancestor's grave. We would leave at 6:30am.

I decided that I would have plenty of chances to visit Perfume Pagoda but I didn't know when I would get another chance to go with a Vietnamese family to visit a ancestor's grave, so I canceled my previous plans and said "yes" to my host mother's offer.

The ancestor's grave and altar is located in a small town in Hoa Binh province.  It took us a little over three hours to get there. It was the most rural place I had been to in Vietnam so far.  The landscape included open fields and large jagged rocks.  I made the trip with both host parents, three relatives, and a lady that I realized later was a priestess.  We drove out into the middle of a field where the altar was.

Ancestor worship is significant part of Vietnamese culture.  Most every house, shop, restaurant, school, gym, etc. has an altar set aside to honor the ancestors. Ancestors are thought to influence the lives of the living.  So in temples, homes, and grave sites, people pray to the ancestors to ask for help and positive influences. At the grave of this particular ancestor, my host family offered a plate with chicken and rice, beverages (including Coca Cola), flowers, cigarettes, and burned incense.  We all sat down in front of the altar while the priestess lady read out a list of names and places in a sort of chant.  The worship process lasted for perhaps and hour or more.  Towards the end, my host mother started acting strange.  She all of a sudden slapped her legs and then began speaking to the rest of the people with her eyes closed.  I soon realized that the ancestor was apparently speaking through her.  The most surprising thing about this was how nonchalant everyone else seemed to be.  My host dad seemed to talk her casually, asking what she/he wanted.  Apparently he wanted water poured around the altar.  My host dad complied.

We also burned paper objects to send to the ancestor.  The paper objects included horses, dragons, and paper money.  After finishing the worship, we gave the food and drink to the nearby farmers that worked the land.

That was on Saturday.

 I don't have time right now to talk about what happened on Tuesday but I'll give a teaser:

Some more pictures

 I have to ride my bike/motorbike over a bridge everyday to go to work.  There is an island that the bridge goes over and last weekend I decided to finally explore the island.  I took this picture there.

 This picture is from my room's balcony looking into my neighbor's balcony.

 The Red River.  I cross this river almost every day.

 Another picture of the Red River. To the left you can see the island I mentioned earlier.

 In this picture you can see the famous Hanoi mural.  This is apparently the longest porcelain mural in the world and I believe that fact.  This mural seems to go on forever.  I hear that it still isn't finished.

Houseboats by the Red River.