Before

this, languages that surrounded me existed only in the form of English, intercepted with snippets of Vietnamese and Chinese. In the mornings, a mixture of static and fast talking clatter would fill up my house as my mom’s radio echoed through the hallways. I’d wake up annoyed, but slightly relieved to know that my mom is living.

Staggering into the sunrise, the rest of my day would be lived in the English language, unless I was near family. That’s when the welcomed snippets would interject, and I would hear my mother tongue. Their blurry memories of Vietnam remained alive through their recollections and black and white photos. By the time I had reached the age of ten, I magically acquired the ability to listen to gossip in Vietnamese, but nothing more. This was all I knew of Vietnam.

Here, gossip clings to the air and surrounds me. Bickering, yelling, bargaining, chatting, talking. Moving beyond radio background, the sounds permeate themselves through the thick sweaty air, into my eardrums. Now that I am here volunteering, Vietnam has become much more than distant words, but is now a reality. My hallways become the dusty uneven cemented roads my mom once walked on selling soy milk, my day is lived in Vietnamese, the sun beats like there is no tomorrow, and the rain arrives with little notice.

I particularly liken the fact that I can observe locals under the shield of my Vietnamese exterior. Yet, my attempts to hide are thwarted by the fact that I speak too “cứng” meaning stiff, having never spoken the language before I arrived in Vietnam. The transition from listening to it to actually speaking the language has not been easy, but it’s been a process that seems more of a treasure hunt than a task. It’s as if all these words are contained in my mind, but can only be found if I search high and low and think about it really hard. Then maybe, just maybe I’ll find the right words to say.

My time here feels like I’m trying to complete some kind of circle, seeing that my family left on circumstances unlike my return. The locals here hold a resilience and practicality that I see manifest in my family but in even more folds. The nuances of the Vietnamese capture me almost everyday. The pungent smell of dying live fish, slabs of meat, wet dirt and motorbike exhaust mixed in with “uncalled for” mannerisms like public nose picking, anti-diaper babies, normalized pushing, and odd hours of loud karaoke have just left me ironically enamored. Maybe it’s because this was once the way of life for my family, and would have been mine had it not been for a series of events that were out of their control. But now I’m here, and this clamorous experience is mine, with my tongue confused as ever, black and white photos becoming colored, and Vietnamese gossip still lingering around me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.








my article in volunteer in asia's "nho vietnam" newsletter. the rest of the articles are great!

as

of late ive been focusing my attention to languages. now when i look at my friends who are vietnamese, without a turn of events, we all could of been these same kids, riding motos, chattin' with eachother, not being able to speak english.

and this absolutely blows my mind. now when i think about my friends in the states. like what the fuck. languages are CRAZY. in the opportunities that it gives, with the population you are able to speak to, its just CRAZY.

and apologies for this nonsense post of mine that is very out of my character. i have yet to find the correct words to convey my thoughts about this.

as

of late my time has been preoccupied and getting to know people places and eateries. one thing that i absolutely love about long xuyen is the fact that almost every single eatery is a "mom & pop" shop. (i've seen mostly mom shops)

motorbikes crowding in front of food carts is Vietnam's drive thru's. they shout what they want from a few feet away. the lady in charge hears them and in a matter of minutes there is food in a bag and the motorbike goes off to where-ever they will have the meals. sometimes there are soooo many motorbikes shouting and waiting outside of the place you can just see the cart lady frantically but gracefully pouring boiling soup and rubber banding bags of noodles and veggies with crazy precision.

the food cart ladies also get to know you, and if you come often enough they will remember what you like and want. i've been quiet obsessed with the banh uoc sisters, really sweet twins who find it funny that we go up to the cart to order what we want and to pay, rather than yell across the street from the tables. here i can get bad ass drip coffee which sets me into a jittery mode for the entire day.

then there's the nuoc mia lady who gets all cheery to get my nuoc mia all the time and tells me to sit in the table across to be away from the sun. when she was gone for 5 days, i was sad. and when she came back she instantly told me where she was, as if guilty that she was away. all i could muster was "khong co nuoc mia!" (There wasn't any nuoc mia!) and made a sad face.
their livelihood is their food, and their food is their livelihood.

then there's the pomelo lady that won't gip me. who has the best and sweetest pomelos, and when they are smaller she will charge less and even yell at me to comeback when i realized that there is change.

the other day i saw a boy running through the market helping his mom/aunt carry a gigantic bucket of veggies. he had no shoes on. at first i was disgusted. because if you knew this floor, the dirt brown watery floor mixed with meat blood and fish scales, then you may share the same sentiments. but then he ran past me to get his shoes, splashing puddles, and clumsily stepping into his shoes, before running into the abyss of food stalls. i found his comfortability with the environment enduring. the familiarity of the dirt, dust, smell was something that i suddenly yearned to have. the type of familiarity that allows us to press snooze when the alarm clock rings in the morning, the same familiarity that occurs when you cuddle and you know exactly where to put your head on his/her shoulder, the instinctively that allows us to say bless you when someone sneezes, the one that let's you use an elevator without reading directions. knowing people knowing faces knowing prices knowing scents knowing it without even thinking.

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love and "ew" ing (that means "like/crush" in vietnamese) is somewhat public. exhibited by the make out park and lover's lane in long xuyen. i find it so cute, and can't help but be jealous that i don't have a motorbike lover (creepy texts don't count) to take me to this park or lane and hold me really tight as if i can't breath like most couples in these places. the men/boys hold onto their girls like they are about to run away. while the woman/girl sits still. they sit and talk and just enjoy each other.

the other day sitting in the sewing room of my ngo, we had an interesting discussion about cheating, marriage, and divorce.

"In America, are there people who grow old and are single?"

Yes there is and there are some who want a family.

Then somehow the topic got to divorce,

"Do people divorce because their husbands go off with someone else?"

Yes, sometimes, sometimes they just don't get along anymore and don't like each other so they get a divorce.

"Really? Here they don't do that much, if they don't like each other they just have to deal with it. Even if the women get abused they will stay with their husbands too. Not many people get divorces, they rely on their husbands sometimes"

That happens in America too.

oh the similarities.
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kickin'

it back to the 00's & 90's
this is one thing that i really really really miss. the ability to command airwaves with a click of a button and a jostle of a peg. also the phonecalls from generous callers, the crazy dizzying affect of coming in a 0235 am not having any sleep and playing a show until 0600 am handing it over to the next dj and then sleeping until 1200 into the afternoon, to do it all over again a week later.

sometimes i would be on a good roll, linking song and song, and set and set, creatively and coincidently intertwining songs that have similar beats that grew into others. it was like sewing a button, it seemed easy, but it required some sort of ability to be detailed. and yes, most of the time i had no idea what i was doing. it was all chance.

i had 30 minutes to choose about 3 hours of music. going in walls lined and crowded with years of tunes that have been forgotten, scratched, and abused, i piled through them, grabbed them, tossed them around, and added more years to the tunes. read the reviews on the cd's sometimes went on the whim of an interesting cd cover, or found something that was next to another band that i found. jazz folk indie electronica hip hop international psychedelic rock from cambodia minimal old school scratched barely audible songs and whatever else i can lay my hands on and get confused about and play on a whim.

playing records at the wrong speed, playing the wrong song, playing two songs at once, forgetting to press play, stumbling my words on air, forgetting what i was reading, talking to listeners about music, talking to other dj's, checkin' out how they run things, not being cool and collected as jesseluscious (the dj that trained me), tremblin' cos i was hungry, but heart beatin' cos the music fed me.



mistakes were beautiful.

i recently found out that my uncle/family friend works for the tele-communications office in long xuyen, which controls the tv and RADIO. in my first few days here i instantly knew where the radio station was. the gigantic red and white eiffel tower is where the stations are held. i somehow got on the air in thailand. maybe i can do it here.





for now im exploring other sounds, but the cacophony im discovering is out of my command.



settling at around midnight as my dreams drift off into reality, karaoke vibrations slowly disappearing, crying cats subsided, it begins again around 549am, the surrounding buildings begin to stir.




the melodic prayer music that reverberates against my ear drums as my mind attempts to piece together the noises
hammers pound
dishes break and clash
women being to yell
the prayers
the dishes
the hammers
the women
yelling, pounding, clashing, chanting, screeching
and how they blend into one another just right
by chance


"what the heck is happening?"
its a city waking up much to early for my tastes






i still remember my last and final caller, after i played my last song on air "that was such a wonderful way to end your show, best of luck"

what a rare irony it is to end things, in such a wonderful way.


and now i've woken up.






enjoy kids, click away for your listening pleasure:

you only live once == the strokes
lover's spit == broken social scene
parkdale == metric
my favorite game == the cardigans

holiday

for the first time.
my first real vietnamese holiday. lunar moon cake day. or is it moon day. or trung tu. whatever.


i was still excited. despite the fact that this was a holiday for "kids." i don't believe in restrictions.

the water was paved with soggy burnt paper, as hoards of families and kids gathered around any pool of water around long xuyen. they tossed their floating contraptions, each holding a wish. a nice family gave me a floating contraption so that i could make a wish. it consisted of a plate, a candle, and a plastic inverted cup.

i made a gigantic long wish, as i always do, closed my eyes, and released my floating thingy into the water. it began to swim towards the shore collecting itself among other neglected or misguided floating devices and a little part of me was getting sad. but luckily, a nice local student we were with, went down, and began swooshing it away from the pathetic soggy neglected pile.

many people released "love floating devices" to wish that their love would last forever. usually this took place in a form of a heart with alot of candles and glitter, one couple even had a propeller on theirs. how amusing. it would travel up and down the long xuyen "lake" to get itself to propel again. and i just watched. others watched. maybe we were jealous of their "forever love" maybe we were just amused by their attempt to encapsulate their love in such a large plastic styrofoam device. or maybe we just wanted to witness something cool on a holiday that is supposedly only for kids.

kid-less, we wandered around, ate food (bo bia and durian shakes), fixed a bike (at least my postmate did), and witnessed a holiday that is non-existent in other parts of the world. a local even said he had lived in long xuyen for seven years and never even gone out to see this. non-existent in the adult world i suppose.

bouncing back and forth from being a kid to an adult, i get confused. easily done with my teeny year old looks. (asians age well, what can i say. ) responsibility escapes me when it can, and returns when i least expect it. sometimes when i am here, the reason escapes me, as if it was never there. worries cloud my thoughts. motorbike rides give me this happiness that i cannot explain. moving fast. i dont have to think, i dont even really have to see. but i do. i like knowing that those driving by me, don't realize that i am vietnamese chinese american, a daughter of parents who left this country over 20 years ago under circumstances unlike my return. im just another local, with an oversized helmet, blurrily riding to wherever i need to get to.



we ended the night with goodbyes at a dizzy fruit shake shop, full from sugar and dazed by the lights, the laughter, and all the wishes that were made that night.

continuously

searching for patterns is an avid hobby of mine
that i do

without thinking.
and vietnam has quiet a few habits that i find amusing. usually i find lists a mundane way of "listing" things. but i find it appropriate in this case, and also because im lazy.


01. the use of the middle finger: for pointing, for counting, for directing at something, all except cussing and flipping someone off.

02. picking your nose: they just do it, at any time, anywhere, in front of anyone. im starting to touch my nose more, this may not be good.

03. defining the idea of space: people will shove you, push you, and bump into you normally even if there is more than 2 feet of space near you. they will unknowingly try to get to their pathway, even if its to get past you to see what a group is doing, by bumping into you and shoving you out of the way. no apologies, that's the way it goes.

04. singing: oh dear lordy how the vietnamese people love to sing. in between workshops, in the beginning of workshops, as part of workshops, song and sing are incorporated instantaneously as peanut butter goes with jelly. im still trying to get over the cringe that kinda takes over my body when someone tries really hard to sing-- they all do. (not that they are bad, but ever since i was little i had this sense of cringing that comes over me when people sing in front of me or in public. can't explain it) karaoke is custom, there isnt a saturday where someone is blasting and singing for long hours at a time. troi oi! met khong?

05. the different areas of politeness: although there is an absurd amount of pushing/shoving for my liking i do take a liking to the type of politeness that vietnamese people exhibit especially in their language, and how it shifts depending on who you are talking to. im still trying to get used to this politeness, since i'm just used to calling myself "I," but here i can be a Chi, Co, Ban, Em, Con, and with those 5 identitied i mix them up alot. little kids laugh at me if i call myself something "younger" than them.

I kept calling myself Em (which is a title you use to identify yourself as someone younger) to little kids. they laugh. especially if i "ya" at someone who is younger, which is a formal way of responding to an older person with respect. i'm supposed to say "mmm" to a younger person!


06. the notion of embarrassment: its there, its out in the open, and there is no need to be nice about it. when i wore a helmet while riding a bike, people literally yelled out at me "omg that girl is wearing a helmet" and proceeded to laugh this very hard laugh. this also happened when my bike fell over, more outward laughing and pointing that was very loud. and then i noticed that after losing anything, there needs to be a punishment of embarrassment, but this i enjoyed, since everyone who lost had to do it and it was custom. it was a normalized thing that had to happen, and no one can really say no to it. people just did it. vietnamese people really have nothing to lose when embarrassing themselves this way. yes i disliked it, but im still getting used to this dislike, wondering how people can normalize such a thing.

those are my top six for now. more to add to this "list" later.

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this past three days i went to a training for the Mekong Women's Community Development and Women's Union. They were learning how to do effective workshops and methods of education. it was headed by two wonderful ladies who were very very good at facilitating. something that i was very suprised to see existed in vietnam! oh yes there is hope. there were big pieces of white papers, markers, group discussions, group criticism (constructive), group breakouts, and ICEBREAKERS! and HOW THESE WOMEN CAN PLAY ICEBREAKERS. with way more energy than some college students i've seen. makes me miss the organizing workshop times of college.

quiet inspired i asked them questions on how they got into this type of work, and both went to school for social work. and ended up doing this a few years down the line. one got her masters in the Philippines (wow-hardly ever to i hear about vietnamese people studying abroad in countries other than australia and america)

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i once held this passion that i knew was true, it dwindled ever since, and since then its hard for me to find it again. things become too simple or not clear enough. always thinking about other things, i could never really focus on the now. trying hard more than ever to do so.

lately inspirations have come from people who are able to articulate their self to others. whether this be through photos, writings, and just plain talkin'



currently reading: Sula by Toni Morrison