Mid Autumn Festival

So I've been here for about one month.  In many ways, it doesn't feel like I've been here that long.  Whenever I meet another foreigner, they always ask if I've checked out a certain bar or park or cinema.  I always I reply that I haven't. I guess my situation is different than many other foreigners. Living with a host family means less time for exploration.  But at the same time, I believe that it causes me to have more contact with the culture.

Slowly but surely, I've been getting better at Vietnamese.  My host brother helps me study most every night.  However, at times it is frustrating how little I know.  Yesterday, a friend of my brother's invited me to go to a small gathering at his house for Mid Autumn Festival.  There were four girls and one other guy.  We sat on outside on the balcony, lit candles, played with sparklers, and ate moon cake, yogurt, fruit, chips, and fruit jelly type snacks that looked like otter pops.
 While my brother's friend was away getting something, I tried talking to one of the girls in English but her replies were very short.  At first I thought she was just being curt with me and I sat in silence while the other girls around me talked with each other.  But as I began concentrating on what they were saying I picked out the work "English".  I began to realise that they just didn't know English very well.  They were discussing what to say in English.  In Vietnamese, I asked one of the girls where she lived.  She seemed to light up when I spoke in the familiar language.  She replied that she lived near there.  She gave me a yogurt and asked how it was.  I replied "ngon" (tasty).  The other girls giggled at this reply.  But then I blanked.  I couldn't remember the other Vietnamese questions that I had learned.  The conversation that had sparked up died and I sat in silence again.  When my brother's friend returned, I spoke with him in English and had some funny conversations.  It was a fun time, but I felt somewhat detached from the group and I know that they biggest reason for this was the language barrier. 

Two days ago, I went with my father and my youngest brother to a festival, in celebration of the Mid-Autumn holiday, put on at the place where my father works.  Like most everyone on the other side of the Red River, my father works for the Vietnamese airlines.  Driving by the office buildings, I glimpsed many of these festivals being held for each airline department.  For example, there was a festival thrown by the cabin crew and a festival thrown by the mechanics.  My father works for corporate.  The festivals are geared towards children.  There were booths where kids could play games or eat moon cake.  There was also a stage where kid dance groups and singer were performing.  My father introduced me to one of his colleagues.  I began speaking to him slowly and carefully but he replied in perfect relaxed English.  It turns out that he had lived in San Francisco and Toronto for eight years.  I told him I was from Washington State and was relieved that I did not have to explain to him the difference between Washington State and Washington D.C. (which I've had to do a lot).  He introduced his two children.  He had a daughter who was 11 and a son who was 8.  While the son was shy, the daughter was very talkative.  She spoke English fluently and only knew a little Vietnamese.  As she and I talked, the son began to talk more as well.  I think they both very glad to talk to a native English speaker.  We talked about the random things that kids talk about such as the time she accidental punched her brother in the nose, the time their friend ran into a tree, their favourite TV shows and bands, and what they dressed up as for Halloween.  They were actually pretty smart kids.  They told me that their dad follows the stock exchange and they seemed to know a lot about different U.S. cities.  Even though they were about half my age, it was rewarding to just talk in English about what ever I wanted.  The problem when speaking with most English speakers that I meet here is that it always comes down to the same conversation.  What are you doing here?  Where are you from?  How do you like it so far?  With kids, you can jump right into a funny story that happened to you three years ago.

Anyway, in a nutshell: language is important, those kids were cool, and Mid Autumn Festival was interesting.  I have to head out now.  On the next episode I'll discuss my observations on the globalisation of soap operas. 

Chao tạm biệt.