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.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
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.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, November 22, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, November 19, 2010
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:
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:
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Some more pictures
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Old Friends and New Perspectives
About a month ago, Chris Horst, a friend from my college, sent me a message on Facebook commenting on the fact that I was in Hanoi and that he would be visiting Hanoi in about a month. I hadn't seen or heard from Chris since the summer of 2009. He graduated a year before I did. I didn't really know Chris until I went with him and a group of around 20 other Goshen College students to China for a semester. The next semester I would sometime come by his apartment to hang out and listen to vinyl records. When he left to teach English in South Korea and expected to probably never see him again. We didn't keep in any kind of contact until about a month ago.
It was a pretty cool/random occurrence that I got to meet up with Chris on Monday. He called me from the backpacker's hostel where he was staying and I drove by on my motorbike and picked him up. My host family invited him for dinner and then later to go out for coffee. I had a lot of fun playing "host". Also, being with someone new to the country made me realize how much I had grown accustomed to Hanoi. I realized how much better I am in driving in traffic, knowing my way around the city, and understanding Vietnamese than when I first came. Being with Chris also allowed me to step back and state my thoughts of Vietnam and... compare it to China! I've been trying not to compare Vietnam to China but Chris stated what I have been feeling constantly since I've got here: "It's like China but not..." Since Chris had gone to China together we could talk about the differences between China and Vietnam, China and South Korea, and Vietnam and South Korea. I told Chris that South Korean television and pop music was very popular in Vietnam and he was not surprised. When my younger host brother talked learned that Chris had lived in South Korea, he asked him about many South Korean pop stars. Chris was very polite and I really think that he had a good time. It's not every day that you go backpacking in a foreign country and end up eating in local's home.
All in all it was a great time. I've found out that I really like hosting people even if I'm hosting someone in my own hosts' home.
It was a pretty cool/random occurrence that I got to meet up with Chris on Monday. He called me from the backpacker's hostel where he was staying and I drove by on my motorbike and picked him up. My host family invited him for dinner and then later to go out for coffee. I had a lot of fun playing "host". Also, being with someone new to the country made me realize how much I had grown accustomed to Hanoi. I realized how much better I am in driving in traffic, knowing my way around the city, and understanding Vietnamese than when I first came. Being with Chris also allowed me to step back and state my thoughts of Vietnam and... compare it to China! I've been trying not to compare Vietnam to China but Chris stated what I have been feeling constantly since I've got here: "It's like China but not..." Since Chris had gone to China together we could talk about the differences between China and Vietnam, China and South Korea, and Vietnam and South Korea. I told Chris that South Korean television and pop music was very popular in Vietnam and he was not surprised. When my younger host brother talked learned that Chris had lived in South Korea, he asked him about many South Korean pop stars. Chris was very polite and I really think that he had a good time. It's not every day that you go backpacking in a foreign country and end up eating in local's home.
All in all it was a great time. I've found out that I really like hosting people even if I'm hosting someone in my own hosts' home.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thit Cho
So I've finally done it. In my Vietnamese class, our teacher, Bryn, and I always joke about " an thit cho". We talk about it so much that our Vietnamese teacher once remarked that after we leave the class the only thing that we will remember is "an thit cho". Whenever I've talked to other Vietnamese people about "an thit cho" they always laugh. Some of them like it a lot while others (such as my Vietnamese teacher) will not try it out of principle.
This last week my host father informed me that we would "an thit cho" on Sunday. So I patiently waited for this experience. A couple days before we went to go "an thit cho", I saw a woman driving a motorbike carrying "thit cho". I'm not going to lie, it made me second guess whether I actually wanted to go through with the experience.
But I did and I can now say that I have eaten dog. It actually tastes quite a bit like deer meat but a lot softer. We had it fried, steamed, boiled, and in a stew. Although it was pretty good, eating that much of it was, well... a little much. I think I'm pretty good on "thit cho" for now. However, one of my brother's friends says now I have to try "thit meo" (cat meat) also known as "tiểu hổ" or "little tiger".
This last week my host father informed me that we would "an thit cho" on Sunday. So I patiently waited for this experience. A couple days before we went to go "an thit cho", I saw a woman driving a motorbike carrying "thit cho". I'm not going to lie, it made me second guess whether I actually wanted to go through with the experience.
But I did and I can now say that I have eaten dog. It actually tastes quite a bit like deer meat but a lot softer. We had it fried, steamed, boiled, and in a stew. Although it was pretty good, eating that much of it was, well... a little much. I think I'm pretty good on "thit cho" for now. However, one of my brother's friends says now I have to try "thit meo" (cat meat) also known as "tiểu hổ" or "little tiger".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)