Ten more pics of Life in Vietnam....

....sorry 'bout this - been quite busy. Being one of a small number of English teachers in Hai Phong (and being one of a tiny number [like, meebee three] of English teachers from The U.S.A.), AND helping a friend negotiate the minefield that comes with attempting to obtain an F-1 study visa for a major university in The States.....well.....ain't hadda whole lotta time to myself recently.....

But tell me that the TIMING of this doesn't reek of conspiracy?

Yeah....rape and molestation....I'm sooo sure....I'm just thinking that an "accident" woulda looked a bit TOO odd, so they went this route with Assange.

I guess the thing that reeeaaallly pisses me off is that I thought that The Swedes were ABOVE tolerating bullying and intimidation from external sources........guess not......

[NOTE - Apparently, Sweden DID pull the warrant today (22 August 2010)......but WHOEVER is behind that bullshit (and I gotta pretty good idea) did succeed in tarnishing Assange's name.....but kudos to Sweden for realising what a farce this entire thing was]

Anyway, ten pics -

Now, if there's one thing that I learned, when you live in a household with a Vietnamese wife and her mother comes over three times a day to prepare her meals (because my wife was preggers at the time), you should never be surprised at what you find in your freezer. Although, I don't think the gecko was frozen for use later as a side dish or anything....but T.I.V. - so ya never know.....

Errrmm......still can't figger out HOW the hell it got in there....maybe it was trying to sell my mother-in-law car insurance in an annoying British accent, and just wouldn't shut the hell up, so she froze it right when it got to the part of saving 15% (or more).......

My buddy Michael The Nigerian had a birthday party for his daughter Teresa (pictured above on her first birthday). Scary when you get kids and you suddenly find yourself going to these sorts of things! But it was a lot of fun.....and had good beer and delicious Filipino food ('cause his girlfriend is from The Philippines), soooo........

Got bored with life in Hai Phong and heard that a hurricane was gonna hit the region. Well, shit gets reeeaaaalllly dull in Hai Phong, so I studied meteorological charts and predicted that the eye would pass over the Vietnamese coast near a town called Thai Binh....about 80 miles South of Hai Phong. So, hopped on my skooter and I went to that point......and saw a buncha structures on stilts....it was kinda weird....kinda like I was in a movie. Walked up to one, and discovered that it was a cafe....so I sat down and had beers with a few locals. Looked out over the water, and saw an eerie aquascape.....these weird little fishing huts that people go up in at low tide and hang out in all day and fish at high tide. Looked suspiciously like Imperial Walking Tanks to me, though......

....then, an SUV with a TV crew drives up to the cafe and tries to interview me. I couldn't take pics of them because I was using the Phone/Camera to put my wife on speakerfone to translate for this camera team.

Apparently, somebody told them that there was this crazy American that rode on his skooter 80 miles all the way from Hai Phong to be in the center of the hurricane! Riding 80 miles on a skooter is news enuff around these here parts, but when they found out WHY I went to their coastal village ("Đông Châu" is the name of the place)...well, shit - I could just see their Channel 7 Eyewitness News: "Topping tonight's Eyewitness News at 6 - Deranged Tay rides skooter into Hurricane at Đông Châu! For more on this story, let's go to Long Duc Dong live at the beach!! Donger - whaddya got for us.....?"

Shortly thereafter, a man in an olive green uniform pulled up and I got the idea that he wasn't stopping in for beers.....but that he was military and he was advising people ta git the hell outta there....

....went inland about ten miles and grabbed a hotel room in a tiny hamlet. By the time it hit the coast where I was, it had weakened into a tropical storm but was still pretty fierce. The power went out, but the hotel had a generator and kept the juice on in the lobby. I hung out with a few Chinese guys who worked at a nearby factory as contractors and got drunk with 'em....was fun!

And, on the ride home the next day - rode through another small hamlet and saw two goats just randomly milling about on the sidewalk......em-hum....see that all the time in Portland, right?

Was hanging out at home on boring afternoon, when I began to smell this nasty, acrid smokey smell. Then, the power got cut! So, walked outside to see some people milling about out in the street and there is a house on the main street (Nguyen Duc Canh Street....not in my little "gated community") with smoke coming from it. "Shit!!" I thought to myself, and began to panic because there might be people inside!! But I laid back (not much I could do anyways) because, thank God, I heard sirens coming in the distance!

And then, I wasn't sure if there was a fire engine pulling up ready to do battle with the blazes....or if it was one of those weird old historical parades that they have in small towns in the U.S.A.!!?!!?! I mean, fuck - talk about a museum piece.....felt bad for those guys....and it didn't look like they had 1970's standard safety equipment on either!

Thankfully, nobody was harmed during this fire.....and the house was demolished and is being rebuilt as I type this!!

Picture of Tam, doing lesson prep wearing my shirt.....no reason - just thought that I'd throw this pic in there......

And, finally, a pic of my daughter, way back when during much happier times in her life (like, yesterday morning), smiling at a bee/butterfly (my wife and I disagree on whether this is a bee or a butterfly....Tam says it's a bee....I say it's a butterfly....neither the twine shall meet) that was provided by our close friends, Judy and The Doctor.

Sadly, a tragic accident occurred later that day where the string that suspended Mr. (Ms.?) Bee/Butterfly was not tied tightly enough and slipped and it went crashing directly into Emily's face. I discovered this when I heard about five panes of plate glass shatter throughout the neighbourhood from an ear-piercing scream!

Latest updates that we have on the crisis report to us that Emily is now undergoing therapy and is advised to avoid bees AND butterflies until well into her adult life....or possibly beyond.....


.....the bee/butterfly is currently being detained by authorities for questioning in the incident.........

More soon......

-E-

OK.....time for some pics of Emily.....

The red spot on her forehead was from when I got angry and smacked her around a bit 'cause she wouldn't stop crying......

...naw, actually, when we took her home from the hospital, I see this weird red spot on her forehead and I'm like "What the fuck's THAT?"

Tam explained to me that it's some sort of weird Vietnamese custom for THEM at the hospital to smack the baby around first before handing it off to the parents………

No, seriously....it is a weird Vietnamese custom for them to "mark" the baby when she FIRST leaves the hospital and then again when she leaves her house for the FIRST TIME so that her physical body can always be located by her spirit soul....or something like that.....gotta ask my wife EXACTLY what that signifies again (for the fifth time).....

MY daughter only wears THEE LATEST in fashion......

I love the clothes my mother-in-law will pick up for Emily here in Hai Phong! Like this shirt....

....I mean, I've always found that rowing with the duck is very interesting....especially when the duck is pink and is towing my inflatable raft......then I know it's time to put away the 'shrooms......

My daughter's got a great right hook......

Yep....never thought I'd actually construct a crib in my life....ever! Wow......just wow.....

We'll return to "10 weird fotograffs of life in Vietnam" in about a week or so.....

-E-

Heresa couple things that I saw recently that caught my eye.....

Sooooo.....that makes the average price of a glass....what....two bucks now to pay off the inspectors??

Now, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? I mean, back in the deep, (very) dark, misty past when I worked for The Government in a municipality in Oregon, I was sooooo totally Mr. Code!! The code is the code and it can do no wrong and it is not gray, but rather black and white......

.....but I could never threaten a 7-year-old girl with a $500 fine for operating a lemonade stand without a county temporary use permit! I mean, come on.....



Pirates who ain't from Pittsburgh -

Now, this is a weird one.....but I now totally see all sides of this issue. Yeah, it is rather bullshit when somebody steals intellectual property for their own profit. And I'm NOT really big on mass quanities of this stuff coming into the US from overseas and undercutting retailers!

But, on the other hand, how much does it hurt THE UNITED STATES??

I mean, let's take Converse, for example. Soooo, the Chuckie T's that we've all grown up with and love dearly, haven't been made in the United States since Converse closed down the factory in North Carolina in 2000 and shifted the production of these sneakers to China! So, while hundreds of people in The States are now outta work thanks to Converse's decision, some guy in China who was making a dollar an hour making Chuck Taylors for Converse (NOW owned by our friends at Nike) goes and takes out loans, gets a plant, pays his workers two bucks an hour, makes the Chucky T's at his plant, and sells 'em on the streets of Shanghi for a mark-up of, say, 30% above production cost (let's guess fifteen bucks) and the average Chinese can afford that!

Meanwhile, we got Phil Knight, who imports the Chucky T's back here (from the legitimate factory in China) and sells 'em at 4X markup ($60 or so) and puts a SIMILAR price tag for these same shoes for sale in the shops in China (even though the average Chinese wage/salary is about one-fifth of that in the United States).

I mean, if I come back to The States and bring back two pair of Chuckie T's that I bought on the streets of Hanoi for $15 each, does that mean that it is going to have an adverse effect on Phil Knight 's ability to pay his next speeding ticket because I didn't pay King Phil his $90 tribute?

And WHAT has a greater negative effect on the now-out-of-work former Converse employees? Pirate coipes being sold overseas or the fact that their Corporation decided to send their jobs off overseas for a fatter bottom line?

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Jes' some thoughts.......

Return to Ten Pics Posted next week!

More soon.....

-E-