1) Eating a breakfast of either sticky rice with dried garlic and dried shredded pork or fresh French bread with a fried egg and sliced cucumbers slipped in the center, both of which Me Lien buys from venders on our street in the morning
2) Squeezing by motor bikes and cars at a stop light on my trusty blue bicycle, which constantly surprises me with its amazing balancing and maneuvering abilities
3) Checking my email in the morning and anticipating messages from home, where it is then bed time, so everyone has just sent their evening emails
4) Having moments of clarity where I (think I) understand clearly what my Vietnamese co-worker wants to communicate and I can fit it into professional sounding English
5) Talking in Vietnamese at lunch time and realizing that I can say more than last week
6) NAP TIME! Always a highlight. Depending on the day, sometimes the highlight.
7) Upon waking, savoring a cup of strong Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk or of green tea with the leaves floating free in the water
8) Laughing with Hannah, Ana and Co Giang (our Vietnamese teacher) in language class as we struggle to talk in Vietnamese about our lives and the sense of achievement when we’re understood and then again the hilarity of the verbal simplicity we’re forced into for lack of bigger, better words
9) Arriving home from work/school, getting a glass of water, some fruit or a cookie or some home-made yoghurt from the fridge and sitting down at the table with Me Lien to ask about her day and try to tell her about mine
10) Going upstairs to change clothes and then laying on my bed in front of the fan, closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths to decompress from the day and particularly the bike ride home in heavy traffic
11) Sitting at the kitchen table pealing and chopping cucumbers (my latest cooking specialty, though I do also still enjoy the tofu frying) while Me Lien moves about the kitchen performing various other culinary acrobatics
12) Saying “Chao Phuong!” when she (my sister) arrives home from university class around 6pm and always being surprised by her varying daily moods – sometimes singing a song about “Rosie Rosie Rosie!” and doing a little dance of greeting, sometimes lamenting her long and tiring day and bickering with her mother. In any case, I’m always happy to see her!
13) Following dinner, calling up the stairs, “Phuong oi! Rua bat!” (Dear Phuong! Wash dishes!) to the great amusement of my parents. (Phuong usually finishes eating quickly and goes to prepare to go out with her boyfriend for the evening.) And until she comes down to help, pretending to be deathly fatigued as I attempt to wash the dishes without her help. Also very funny to Me Lien and Ba Minh.
14) In the evening, sometimes family members will come over to sit around the kitchen table and talk and laugh and eat fruit. If I’m home, I usually join them for a bit, which always ends of being an entertaining experience for all involved, as I attempt to answer questions about Vietnamese food I think is “ngon lam” (very delicious), my “ban trai My” (American boyfriend), what dress I will wear to the upcoming wedding (it’s looking like it will be the “vay den” – black dress) and everything in between.
15) Doing yoga every night before bed and looking at the moon from our open flat roof
16) Laying down in the quiet, air-conditioned (shh, don’t tell the suffering service worker police!) bedroom I share with Phuong and closing my eyes on the day
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Fam*
Almost one month ago, I moved in with my Vietnamese host-family. Soon after, I started asking myself, how on earth did I get so lucky?? I think I can probably thank MCC’s extensive selection process for that, but I still just end up feeling ridiculously fortunate about getting to live with this ridiculously fabulous family!
My family includes my mom, Lien who I call Me (mother in Vietnamese), my dad, Minh who I call Ba (father), my 22-year-old sister, Phuong, and my 14-year-old brother, Son. Additionally, almost all of Me and Ba’s siblings and their families live on the same street we do, so there is always extended family in and out of the house. All together, it’s a really close family, and I feel so privileged to be invited into that in a small way.
The family owns a small electronic appliance store, which takes up most of the first floor of the house. The set up is something like this: you walk in to the shop from the street, then if you continue back into the house, you enter the kitchen. So we’ll be sitting around the kitchen table eating a meal and someone will give a call from the shop, so Ba or Me will get up and go help them. Between the shop and the kitchen is a spiral stair case that core-samples its all the way up to the fifth floor.
So for quick virtual walking tour of the house: if you start the trek upstairs, you will first reach the second floor, which includes computer room (with internet), bathroom and living room… continuing to the third floor, you will find Phuong's and my room, my parents’ and Son’s room and another bathroom… then on the fourth floor is the family alter room and a storage room, plus a washing machine on the landing… and finally (all out of breath by now) the fifth floor is mostly open flat roof (with a tin roof over that), dived by an indoor landing – clothes lines for laundry on one side and a big open space on the other, which happens to be perfect for yoga. So there’s the house. Certainly different than what I’m used to but quite comfortable overall… not that me being comfortable is always the most important thing in this experience… but I’m not complaining too much.
To illustrate the feel of family life, I will try to narrate a typical evening around the house. I arrive home around 5pm, hot and frazzled after a 30 minute bike ride from work in rush hour traffic. Ba waves and says, “Chao, Rosie!” as he comes out to lock up my bike and waves me inside. Me comes to meet me as I walk into the house, asks me if I’m hot and tired, which I confirm, and maybe says some other things I do not fully understand but try to respond to in a reasonable way. Below is be in my full biking gear. And yes, I am also considering robbing a bank if MCC does not increase my PDA pretty soon!
I go upstairs to change clothes and say hi to Son as I pass by the computer room where he is probably playing World of War Craft. I then return downstairs to help Me and usually Phoung cook dinner. The process always involves preparing several dishes, made up of vegetables and meat sometimes mixed together and sometimes not. Plus rice, or course. In any case, almost always delicious. In the kitchen, I specialize in pointing at food and saying its name repeatedly, as well as chopping vegetables and frying tofu. Following one incident in which there was some lively music playing on the TV and I did a little dance while standing over the tofu, there is now always some “dau phu (doe foo) danzing!” involved when tofu is on the menu.
We usually sit down to eat around 6:30. Phuong graciously translates some parts of the conversation so that her parents and I can communicate in slightly more complex ways than what my Vietnamese skills usually permit. At other times, I just enjoy my food silently and revel in the occasional word or phrase I catch as it flies by. I really feel like an infant a lot of the time – not comprehending much but (hopefully) absorbing all the time. And sometimes, I appreciate not being expected to participate in conversation and tune out all together. The meal is always followed by fresh fruit, which is almost always pealed and eaten in interesting ways that incline its consumers to remain seated and eat slowly and savor the delicate flavor and the good company of other fruit-eaters around the table. Below is me stylishly sporting the peal of a "qua buoi" (pomelo in English - similar to a grapefruit) much to Me Lien's amusment.
Phuong and/or I wash the dishes… which also happens to include dancing on my part, this time “Rua bat (zu-ah bot) danzing!” (dish-washing dancing). The young people then tend to filter off, Phuong to go out with her boyfriend, Son to study or play on the computer or go school (I have not been able to figure the public school schedule yet… it seems to be happening all the time!), me to read or do homework or email. Sometimes around 9:00, Me, Son and I, plus Co (aunt) Tuyet and cousins Hai (16) and Be (13) will go for an evening walk, which is always enjoyable. See them below. I conclude most days with yoga on the roof, which I feel really thankful for. Me will sometimes come up to join in for a bit and to make sure I’m not falling off the balcony.
So there you have it, yet another long and rambling blog post! I hope this answers many of the questions that I have (understandably) been receiving. Thanks you to everyone who has been emailing and (even better!) writing me letters. I really appreciate it. Xin chao (good bye and hello) for now!
*Thank you to my dear friend Rachel Yoder for her creative abbreviating effect on my vocabulary, e.g., the “fam,” of course, stands for the nuclear family unit. I think of you every time I say it.
My family includes my mom, Lien who I call Me (mother in Vietnamese), my dad, Minh who I call Ba (father), my 22-year-old sister, Phuong, and my 14-year-old brother, Son. Additionally, almost all of Me and Ba’s siblings and their families live on the same street we do, so there is always extended family in and out of the house. All together, it’s a really close family, and I feel so privileged to be invited into that in a small way.
The family owns a small electronic appliance store, which takes up most of the first floor of the house. The set up is something like this: you walk in to the shop from the street, then if you continue back into the house, you enter the kitchen. So we’ll be sitting around the kitchen table eating a meal and someone will give a call from the shop, so Ba or Me will get up and go help them. Between the shop and the kitchen is a spiral stair case that core-samples its all the way up to the fifth floor.
So for quick virtual walking tour of the house: if you start the trek upstairs, you will first reach the second floor, which includes computer room (with internet), bathroom and living room… continuing to the third floor, you will find Phuong's and my room, my parents’ and Son’s room and another bathroom… then on the fourth floor is the family alter room and a storage room, plus a washing machine on the landing… and finally (all out of breath by now) the fifth floor is mostly open flat roof (with a tin roof over that), dived by an indoor landing – clothes lines for laundry on one side and a big open space on the other, which happens to be perfect for yoga. So there’s the house. Certainly different than what I’m used to but quite comfortable overall… not that me being comfortable is always the most important thing in this experience… but I’m not complaining too much.
To illustrate the feel of family life, I will try to narrate a typical evening around the house. I arrive home around 5pm, hot and frazzled after a 30 minute bike ride from work in rush hour traffic. Ba waves and says, “Chao, Rosie!” as he comes out to lock up my bike and waves me inside. Me comes to meet me as I walk into the house, asks me if I’m hot and tired, which I confirm, and maybe says some other things I do not fully understand but try to respond to in a reasonable way. Below is be in my full biking gear. And yes, I am also considering robbing a bank if MCC does not increase my PDA pretty soon!
I go upstairs to change clothes and say hi to Son as I pass by the computer room where he is probably playing World of War Craft. I then return downstairs to help Me and usually Phoung cook dinner. The process always involves preparing several dishes, made up of vegetables and meat sometimes mixed together and sometimes not. Plus rice, or course. In any case, almost always delicious. In the kitchen, I specialize in pointing at food and saying its name repeatedly, as well as chopping vegetables and frying tofu. Following one incident in which there was some lively music playing on the TV and I did a little dance while standing over the tofu, there is now always some “dau phu (doe foo) danzing!” involved when tofu is on the menu.
We usually sit down to eat around 6:30. Phuong graciously translates some parts of the conversation so that her parents and I can communicate in slightly more complex ways than what my Vietnamese skills usually permit. At other times, I just enjoy my food silently and revel in the occasional word or phrase I catch as it flies by. I really feel like an infant a lot of the time – not comprehending much but (hopefully) absorbing all the time. And sometimes, I appreciate not being expected to participate in conversation and tune out all together. The meal is always followed by fresh fruit, which is almost always pealed and eaten in interesting ways that incline its consumers to remain seated and eat slowly and savor the delicate flavor and the good company of other fruit-eaters around the table. Below is me stylishly sporting the peal of a "qua buoi" (pomelo in English - similar to a grapefruit) much to Me Lien's amusment.
Phuong and/or I wash the dishes… which also happens to include dancing on my part, this time “Rua bat (zu-ah bot) danzing!” (dish-washing dancing). The young people then tend to filter off, Phuong to go out with her boyfriend, Son to study or play on the computer or go school (I have not been able to figure the public school schedule yet… it seems to be happening all the time!), me to read or do homework or email. Sometimes around 9:00, Me, Son and I, plus Co (aunt) Tuyet and cousins Hai (16) and Be (13) will go for an evening walk, which is always enjoyable. See them below. I conclude most days with yoga on the roof, which I feel really thankful for. Me will sometimes come up to join in for a bit and to make sure I’m not falling off the balcony.
So there you have it, yet another long and rambling blog post! I hope this answers many of the questions that I have (understandably) been receiving. Thanks you to everyone who has been emailing and (even better!) writing me letters. I really appreciate it. Xin chao (good bye and hello) for now!
*Thank you to my dear friend Rachel Yoder for her creative abbreviating effect on my vocabulary, e.g., the “fam,” of course, stands for the nuclear family unit. I think of you every time I say it.
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