Asian Realisation #2 - I am Cool

As if some sort of force out there is correcting an imbalance, I am now officially cool.

9-year old Jonathan would never believe that 24-year old Jonathan would be walking around the streets with complete strangers waving and saying Hello! Yeah. If kids said Hello to 9-year old Jonathan, it was probably to distract him while another kid would run over to trip him. They would then steal his package of Jolly Ranchers and run off.

No, not even 13-year old Jonathan would believe that people would want to be his friend, let alone talk to him. If someone would have told me 12 years ago, that 15-year olds would see me in the street and yell YO! How are you!, and give me a thumbs up I would have told them they had one too many blue-razz Slurpees.

There is justice in the world.
Welcome to Vietnam.

Gratuitous Video Scene #6: Can Tho Street Spying

On my recent business trip to Vietnam's south, I had to unexpectedly return back to Hanoi early. Because of bad planning logistics, I spent an entire day in the city of Can Tho. At the centre of the Mekong Delta, Can Tho is not a particularly interesting city.

I sat for many hours on a bench at the riverside, staring at people walking by and judging whether not a foreigner napping on a bench would be too strange a sight. It seemed already strange enough that I was sitting there watching what looked like ordinary children shovelling a pile of sand casually left on the sidewalk into used linen bags. In 30+ degree afternoon weather, what else is someone in Vietnam supposed to do? Everyone else of the benches were napping!

That, and the lady who makes mia da, an iced drink made out of crushed sugarcane. I watched her for hours in between reading Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, methodically shoving fresh sugarcane into her mill. After this video was taken, she moved to my side of the street and I quickly signalled to her that I wanted one. It cost me about 30 cents.

Another Vietnamese Moment: Napping

I'm sitting at a restaurant with co-workers and representatives of the local government. After one woman, a manager in the the Vietnamese army, explains how romantic her husband was in asking her to marry him (these stories are much too common), I somehow mention how tired I am. I say this in Vietnamese, which of course elicits laughter from everyone at the table. It was Saturday, about 35 degrees in the Mekong Delta, and I woken up at 5am that morning.

After lunch and the many questions regarding the reasons I was not yet married, she invited all of us to her home.

I suppose she had seen that I was, in fact, quite tired because upon entering her house she pointed to a hammock set up in the middle of her kitchen. I had about an hour to kill before the next workshop and she insisted that I sleep there until then.

So there I was, rocking slightly back and forth in my dark pin-striped slacks and button-up shirt tucked in, curled up in the fetal position in a complete strangers kitchen in the Mekong Delta.

Her mother would come into the kitchen every now and then and tidy up or perform some other domestic chore. She was not paying much attention to the napping white boy.

Asian Realisation #1 - I am Handsome

Dislaimer: This is an old photo, and I am slightly more handsome than portrayed in this candid shot

It didn't take me too long in this country to realise that people find me handsome. The first day in the office sitting around a table full of Vietnamese women (95% of the staff were female) all blushing telling me they didn't realise I would be so handsome kind of tipped me off. Many times when I visit a store, storekeepers tell me how handsome I am or call me dep trai - handsome in Vietnamese. It makes me feel awkward and sometimes I pretend that I don't know what I am supposed to say.

Even more embarrassing is when these shop owners go and grab their daughters from upstairs in an attempt to kindle some sort of multi-cultural romance too strong to be stopped by the limits of language. The other night, in Can Tho, I stopped by a smoothie street stall to grab a custard apple and avocado smoothie (my favourite). A girl in her mid-twenties served me kind of giggling. She immediately called over her mother and they began chatting to each other and trying to decide on words to say to me. The girl told me I was some hand. And they were grilling me trying to find out if I was married.

She ran inside her house and came out with a younger girl - the other girl's sister. She looked rather messy, as if she had been plucked from her bed. Her hair was tied up and she had pink pyjamas on. Her mother pushed her towards my direction and was telling me to talk to her. I just smiled and awkwardy stirred my drink.

Her mother then pointed to her daughter and leaned into me saying I love you me, and giggled. Her daughter just stood there unamused - this was obviously not the first time.

I wouldn't say that I am ugly - but I am definitely not worth the credit I am given here. I don't know what it is they see - the large nose, the big ears, maybe way my eyes widen out in the centre...

I am also popular with the men... I won't go into too much detail in this blog, but I have been in situations where straight men cannot stop mentioning how handsome I am (something that, now that I think of it, is somewhat of a fantasy for many gay men...). I must mention that it is much more acceptable her for both men and women to complement someone in this way.

But let's just say... I don't want to get used to this attention... or else I'm in for a depressing reality when I get back to Canada!

Gratuitous Video Scene #5: Bali by Motorbike

Long story, but I ended up spending about half the time of my Bali trip travelling by myself rather than with the friend I was visiting.

I rented a motorbike but had a little accident when driving of some construction debris at high speed, and decided to return it early. My bruised and scraped up body did not want to risk another brush with gravel (but I have to say it made me look tough).

In Ubud, I found a motorbike driver name Wayan who agreed to take me around Bali to visit Mount Batur, a volcano in the central part of the Indonesian Island and some other sights. For 10$ (and a beer at the end of the trip), he took me around for almost a whole day on his motorbike.

Bali is one of the more beautiful places I have ever visited, mostly because everyday details are so intricate. It seemed like in every wall there was some sort of decorate carving of gods or monsters. Even the round-abouts had amazing animistic monster statues towering over the road.

I hope you can get a good idea through this video.

Eco-Crusaders, or I Watched Too Much Captain Planet as a Kid

I am on a boat in Nui Chua National Park. The blue-aqua waves are agressively smacking the boat back and forth. The boat is filled with environmentalists and those involved in the conservation of the reef that lies just beneath the boat.

A bright blue and red wooden boat is stationed around the side of a steep cliff, bobbing in the violent and thrashing water.

The passengers of my boat, all Vietnamese, start talking about the boat. I can only assume this from the very little Vietnamese i can understand. On the other boat, a diver pops his head out from the water and climbs onto his boat, and a young boy helps him in. The young boy starts yelling something to the people on our boat, and the park ranger on our boy has a heated exchange with him.

The driver of our boat takes a sharp turn and we quickly collide with the diving boat. The young kid scrambles to control the boat as the diver jumps back into the water to escape. My heart starts to race as we crash yet again into the diving boat. I turn to a colleague from the organisation with worry on my face

“What the hell is going on”, I ask.
She smiles nervously, “i’ll tell you later.”

The boat is rocking rather intensely and a girl from the biology institute leans over board and vomits in the white foamy sea.

With the dramatic cliffs as a backdrop, i think about how beatiful and amazing it is we are actively protecting this reef. It’s like James Bond for environmentalists i think to myself as we hit into the diving boat for the fourth or fifth time.

Down with these scoundrels, Save the Reef, I think to myself.

Finally it seems to me that the evil divers give up, realising that one more impact with our boat would make his wooden one crumble.

He throws over his loot: A glistening basket of what must be endangered shellfish,

We won! We showed these enviro-destroyers that the force is with us!

I turn to my colleague, eager to find out what is next

“What do we do with them now?” Wondering how we could keep them alive while holding them as evidence while we cuff the divers and bring them to the park authorities.

My colleague responds “What do you mean? We’ll cook them.”

Confusion washes over my face

She says calmly, “We just bought our dinner, what do you think we were doing?”

In Memory

While away from Hanoi, I got sad news about my friend Son.

On June 1st, he was caught in a wave off of the central coast of Vietnam.

My first real friend in Vietnam, Son showed me what the country was about. Even though it was a friendship of only 5 months, we had become quite close.

Son was a great friend and a great journalist.

He will be missed.

A Vietnamese Moment

Scene: I am in the posh Kim Do Hotel in central Saigon. I am sitting in the restaurant with my colleague Thuy. Classical music plays in the background and I can hear the soft trickle of the intricate waterfall at the back of the open-air restaurant.

Thuy sits with a grilled tomato on her plate. A slice of gently melted mozzarella cheese clings onto the softened tomato.

Thuy: What is this?

She pries the cheese off of the tomato and flips it around on her plate

Me: I think it's cheese.
Thuy: Cheese?
Me: Yes, you know, phó mát (the word for cheese in Vietnamese)

She pricks it with her fork

Thuy: It looks like tofu
Me: No, it's definitely cheese, Thuy. It's a grilled tomato.

She pops it into her mouth, and starts to chew. With a blank expression on her face, I can see the cheese poke out of her mouth as she chews it.

Thuy: Well, it kind of tastes like tofu.

Welcome to Saigon

I've arrived safely in Saigon. I'd been back from Malaysia and Indonesia nearly two weeks, and I'm already on another 2 week trip. This time it's a business trip to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) and the Mekong Delta.

The organisation I started my new job with is organising an awareness campaign in the south, and they've sent me along to help coordinate it.

Saigon is a crazy busy city, not unlike Hanoi. Though there are similarities, there is definitely something different about this city. The traffic is slightly worse and it is much bigger than Hanoi, but there seems to be a lack of street life in comparison. I spent about 25 minutes walking around the centre trying to find a cafe where I could just sit and enjoy a ca phe sua da (iced coffee with milk). I settled for the lifeless Highlands chain where I spent a good 50 minutes chatting to Jeannette and using up all the credit I had just charged to my mobile.

In between meetings I have quite a bit of time to spend exploring the city. I was able to eat at two really good and cheap vegetarian restaurants. Even though the organisation gives me quite a sizable per diem while I'm here, I just can't bring myself to spending a lot. I did get the extra fancy coffee (and most expensive) at the Trung Nguyen cafe, but that still only set me back 45,000 dong (2.50 USD). Also I sent all my newly tailored clothes as well as some old ones to the hotel laundry service, even having them iron them. There's nothing like having crispy-dried clothes when you've been hanging your clothes up to dry for the last 5 months. Plus the shrinkage was definitely needed on some of my pants and shirts. Splurge as I try, I'm just not a natural big spender.

I'll try and post some more of my experience here in Vietnam's largest city, the old capital of South Vietnam.

Gratuitous Video Scene #4: Hanoi at Sunset

This is the route between the tailor and my place.
This road separates West Lake from Truc Bach Lake, and connects to the Tay Ho neighbourhood.
You can hear my friend Zed oozing on about how she wants to watch the sunset with her boyfriend.

Romance is a farce
(yes, maybe that is the stage I'm in now)

Food Tourist

I just got back from a trip to Bali and Malaysia. A trip whose main feature was food. Food food food. I saw a program at my aunt's house about a year ago on Penang Island in Malaysia and the place has since been in the back of my head. When I was presented with an opportunity to stop in Malaysia on my way back from Bali (due to awful scheduling by AirAsia's Kuala Lumpur-Hanoi route), I just had to take it. Even though the island was five hours by bus from KL, it was well worth it. I jumped from food stall to food stall and pounced on every opportunity to savour the unique cuisine of Penang: Baba Nonya.

This mixture of Indian, Malay and Chinese has resulted in the perfect balance of spice. I had a plate of Pasembor Rojak which was a mixture of different food items, strangely enough, chopped up and thrown together with shredded cucumber and doused in a sweet and spicy peanut sauce. My vegetarian version had tofu, potato, rice dumpling, some sort of croquet-like object, and a lentil-based cracker laden with peanuts. Together with a glass of freshly made carrot juice, it cost me about $1.50 USD.

The thought of going back to Penang is making me drool. It will definitely be on my travel itinerary again. Other than that, it is back to reality, as I start my new job on Monday.

Food in Vietnam

Food is my life. Anybody who knows me well knows that I love to cook and eat things. Cooking is half the fun. And sometimes it's all the fun, especially when a recipe doesn't work out.

It's hard sometimes to stroll the streets here in Hanoi and find something that I can eat. But when I find something, I can't be happier. It's not uncommon for me to be walking completely full from a meal, and to pass by some food vendor selling some sort of delicious snack food and totally cave in. At the moment I'm in love with chè, a gloppy concoction of sweet beans sprinkled with candied fruit or lotus seeds.

Though I haven't yet mastered the art of making chè, I've been quickly trying to learn how to make Vietnamese food. I took a cooking class in Hoi An (in Central Vietnam) and Bangkok. That's one souvenir I want to bring back home with me: the art of making Southeast Asian food. I learned how to make peanut sauce, green and red chili paste, pad Thai, Penang curry, green papaya salad, Isaan, dau phu sot ca chua (tofu sauteed with tomatoes), dau phu xa ot (tofu with lemongrass and chili), banh xeo (Vietnamese savoury pancakes) among others.

Whenever I go back to Montreal, my friends should brace themselves for delicious Southeast Asian feasts.

Start fasting now.