The Cyclo Diaries
Posted: March 17, 2012 Filed under: koto, Movies, Reflections, Stories, transport, travel | Tags: cyclo, extreme charity, Hanoi, ho chi minh city 1 Comment »
Filmed in 2005, this has been a long time coming but it’s a great watch – at an hour in length it’s worth downloading in advance and sitting down in the evening with a glass of something to take it in.
In short it’s the tale of two Australian tour guides who decide to try and ride a cyclo from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. The two guys in question are Adam and Marty, and they did the trip to raise money for KOTO, where I happened to be working at the time.
At the time the future of KOTO hung in the balance, we desperately needed new premises for the restaurant and there were quite a few times we didn’t think we’d make it. For the cyclo-ing and the financial assistance Adam and Marty were superheroes to the KOTO kids.
For my part I organised the send off. I also kept their trip blog updated from base camp. Then, when they were close to the end I caught up with them in Mui Ne, and dashed ahead of them to Ho Chi Minh City. A reception had been organised at a school and I turned up on their doorstep, with a banner I somehow had managed to get made locally, and we waited for the guys to show up.
A great day. Great film. Great guys. Lovely to finally see it.
Like this:
A Death Anniversary in the Countryside
Posted: December 11, 2011 Filed under: change, family, Food and drink, Reflections, Stories | Tags: change, countryside, family 2 Comments »There’s a balance when it comes to wider family events, particularly the countryside ones.
I know behind the scenes my wife makes my excuses and we keep our appearances to a respectable minimum. It wasn’t that this one was especially important so much as we hadn’t shown our faces for a while. When my wife said it would take half a day I thought we’d be back by lunch. It turned out she’d meant it would be 12 hours door to door.
I recall in KOTO days, visiting the countryside homes of the poorest kids. Food was a struggle but the sheer newness and oddness of the situation made it unmissable. Later as the experience becomes less novel the food becomes proportionately less palatable too. Likewise the drinking, that it’s hard to duck out of, is now a chore rather than just a tale to be mentally filed away for future travel anecdotes.
That said, all things considered, yesterday was fun. No one now is either surprised or offended if I just pick at the food and then fill up on my own smuggled in snacks. The drinking was beer, whisky and rice wine before noon. Having written off the day in advance, being drunk before noon was no hardship. There’s a brief couple of hours of euphoria before the inevitable afternoon fug.
For all my caution when it comes to attending family events I’m proud to be a part of these people. My wife has favourites among them and those she’ll only politely acknowledge. Good people and bad people, family feuds and debts of gratitude from the past.
Their own stories set against this incredible pace of change could be a book on its own and, in that respect, I don’t suppose they’re any different to any other family in Vietnam. I noted that while the oldest members of the family are farmers, the youngest include TV producers, an artist and a cafe owner.
I snored home hungover and slept for three hours. A friend called round late yesterday and said I was still stinking of cheap booze. This morning I felt poisoned and wondered, for the millionth time, what other than rice was in the wine.
But during the day the sheer absurdity of me, sitting cross-legged, eating and drinking deep into the Vietnamese countryside with my Vietnamese family and wife, wasn’t far from my thoughts. A beautifully ridiculous situation that, against all odds, still somehow turns a chore into something genuinely life affirming.
Life these days is very very good. Recently I’ve felt just as much in love with Vietnam as I ever have.
Like this:
Working extra hard to get it wrong
Posted: December 8, 2011 Filed under: Reflections, Stories | Tags: design, printing, vietnam 2 Comments »
It was all fun and games before we noticed the typos
There’s a moment after you receive newly printed documents here when your heart sinks as you notice a typo.
“I could have sworn I checked and double checked that,” you say to yourself.
Then you see another, then another, then another.
“How could I….” you start, before you realise you hadn’t missed these mistakes, someone has re-keyed in all your words and got them wrong.
It happened on several occasions while we were readying signage and menus for the new Cart. I found nearly 20 spelling mistakes on the menu signage.
When I asked a friend, who’d worked locally in the hospitality industry, if it had happened to him he replied: “Every single menu we ever had printed”.
Like us he always sent over the computer files with the instructions just to print it as is. Every time they re-keyed it with added mistakes.
“One time,” he said, “I stood over them and watched them re-key it while all the time they were telling me they don’t do that”.
Cutting corners I can understand. But this seems like making extra work for yourself while also ensuring the end product is of no use whatsoever. Though obviously we’re missing something.
The obvious answer is we are sending it in the wrong format. But with one sign they finally relented and gave us our original computer file blown up as we asked for – and it was perfect.
And if the file was really wrong then why not ask for it in another format? Or at the very least why not cut and paste the words from one file to another?
It’s a common experience and no one appears to have come up with a reason why it happens. And this wasn’t something lost in translation – this was Vietnamese to Vietnamese with my wife making the arrangements
Also in this area, see printers of passport photos that airbrush out distinguishing features.
A passport photo without distinguishing features is really missing the point.
The Chicken Feet
Posted: December 4, 2011 Filed under: family, Food and drink, Stories | Tags: chicken feet, food, wife 3 Comments »My wife’s taste for chicken feet is, more often than not, something she indulges when I’m not around.
She knows not only can’t I stomach the things, I cringe just watching her eat them. With some Vietnamese food I feel the challenge of actually finding protein between skin, gristle and bone is more the point than actually filling your belly or even enjoying the taste.
Occasionally when chicken feet are craved, but I’m in the house, the concession is I get to ring for a pizza. The implied deal is she won’t mention the fact that it’s both expensive and unhealthy. Then we both silently stuff ourselves with our mutually-repulsive food.
One of my wife’s closest friends lives a few alleys down and she too is married to a Brit. Recently, when he was not around, they met, chatted and munched chicken feet without anyone to disapprove.
She came back with a tale of another Anglo Vietnamese union where the pair had moved to the UK. After several months the wife craved chicken feet so much she overcame her shyness and asked her local butcher if he could supply them.
“The butcher said she could have as many chicken feet as she liked,” she tells me, “for free!”
Truly a promised land.
Like this:
Chronicling Happiness
Posted: October 23, 2011 Filed under: change, family, Food and drink, rants, Stories | Tags: family, happiness 3 Comments »Last week was frankly a bit of an arse.
Long hours at work, the new Cart taking all my time at home, bickering with the missus, not to mention an upset stomach that left me four kilos and over a hundred dollars lighter.
Friday meant a decision of whether to stay late, come in over the weekend or take work home. I chose the second option with a Friday night birthday dinner already booked in.
The birthday girl was Trang, my sister in law.
The wife brought jeans and flip flops to work and I changed out of work clothes and set off across the city. My smart trousers were scrunched into a ball under the motorbike seat.
In many ways it was no different to family dinners I’ve attended before or even those at home except this one seemed special. Special beyond it being Trang’s 25th.
I follow very little and my wife has long since tired of translating. Just as I have tired of saying “What? What? What did they say?”
I follow enough to frequently make a good guess at who is being teased or mimicked or who the mock exasperation is aimed at. If my wife is talking and everyone looks at me then I know that I am the stooge.
I secretly love this.
I can mimic her back. No language required. We both feign shocked faces.
Meanwhile I booze with my father in law. That is my main job, to give him an excuse to have a drink when normally he’s kept in check.
The “if they could see me now” thought has been a constant during my travels but the more this becomes normal, the less it occurs. But, alone with my thoughts as Vietnamese continues around me, the lip quivers a second when I realise that this is me, this is my life and, well, after all it’s pretty good.
I never expected life to be like this – but I am not about to swap it for anything.
Because I don’t understand, I people watch a lot. Smiles and laughs are infectious without needing to understand.
The old man is glowing tonight and looking around the table you can see why.
My wife, now dispatched (to me) is opening a new business. She employs birthday girl who also works in the media (as did Dad and older sister still does).
My wife also employs her brother who is finally growing up. Six months earlier he would have disappeared upstairs, after picking at his food, to play computer games. He stays for the duration. He’s put on muscle and his he holds his head up. He’s turning into a man.
Other daughter, there’s four of them, is rumoured to be ready to announce her engagement. Her prospective is there and he’s giving out nice guy vibes. Later, when we settle down in the living room for green tea, he nips out buys a carton of cigarettes for the old man. They’re 555s. Luxury.
I recall doing something similar when I was about to ask if I could marry his daughter. This can only be a matter of time.
I’ll never ask this incredible old couple about their lives but I will continue to glean bits and pieces from what my wife tells me. I do know there’s been a fair share of hunger and heartbreak.
These are good times. Great times even.
For mum and dad this must be little short of bliss.
