Dinner

Tonight I treated my relatives out to a dinner at Ngoc Lan Restaurant on Ly Thuong Kiet Street. There was my Ong 2, Ba 1, Di Oanh, Di Suong, her husband, and our party, minus Co Ha. What I learned is that it's very hard to refuse gifts from my relatives, despite all methods of pleading, begging, and explaining that the limit per check-in luggage is 50 pounds max without a penalty. Di Oanh had my name put on a sign at the front of the restaurant, and she gave me a basket of fresh flowers for the event. Ong 2 gave a long lecture about the importance of families reuniting and keeping in touch. He is definitely my grandfather's brother, no doubt.


One of the interesting dishes we ordered include prawns sauteed in salt and onions, presented on an impressive plate near a glass of dry ice.


After the very big meal and several family members clambering for my attention, I must admit to being glad that the night came to an end.

KFC

In the morning, we saw Co Ha to the airport so she could fly back to America. She only took two weeks off, so she had to go back earlier than us. Unlike the San Francisco airport, only flyers could make it past the front door.

In the afternoon, we went to Maximark, a large supermarket that sells international names, including several known in the U.S. such as Dove, Toblerone, Hershey's, and Gillette. If you walked in carrying any items, you had to leave them to the care of the staff at the locker area before security would let you past the turnstiles. The prices are about expensive as in the U.S., so not a lot of locals shop there. At the entrance, there was a little platform advertising crackers with a koala logo similar to Hello Panda. The advertising staff was giving out free samples, and for some reason, the Chicken Dance song was blaring through the stereo--and that's not a fun one to get stuck in your head. At every station (sunglasses, shoes, handbags, etc.), at least one saleslady stood by, waiting to offer service to any customer showing the slightest bit of interest in the merchandise.

There's great little "restaurant" a few steps away from where we're staying. In the afternoons, they sell combination rice where you can pick which dishes you wanted to eat; in the evenings, they sell fried chicken drumsticks "roti" style with sauce to die for. The few times when we're at home, we like to drop by to buy some rice to-go and eat in our room.


Tung, however, wanted to try the 5-story Kentucky Fried Chicken in Vietnam. We ordered 25 pieces of chicken and 5 pieces of fried fish cakes, which shocked the hell out of the young workers there because apparently no one visiting that KFC usually orders that much. They gave us complimentary Cokes and asked us to sit and wait while they prepared the order. The ironic thing is, of all the Vietnamese food that Tung ate, he didn't have to break unto his prescription stomach meds until KFC night. I'm glad to say that the rest of the party were unaffected.

Clothes

We went to Ben Thanh Market in the morning to get some souvenirs. At lunch, we met up with Co Xuan's family at Ngoc Suong Restaurant. Some famous dishes there include "goi ca" (fish salad wrapped in thin rice paper) and chicken barbecued on split bamboo poles.

In the afternoon, Tung's aunt and uncle brought his little cousins over to our hotel room for a visit. The little girl in pink is the adopted daughter of his aunt, Co Lan, who never married because she devoted her life to help care for Tung's aging grandma.


His aunt also brought over a huge "banh duc" rice-flour cake that we ordered. It was topped with fragrant browned onions and was eaten with fish sauce. The cake was so big that it could have seriously fed a family for several days.


We also got so freshly-made "banh it tran," sticky-rice dumpling cakes with a water-chestnut-and-mushroom filling.


We spent the evening picking up the clothes that we dropped off fabric for during the first week of our stay. The tailors are especially busy around Lunar New Year, which comes early this year at the end of January, since it's become almost a tradition for even poor families to get new outfits to try and welcome a prosperous year. Our clothing, including suits and traditional "ao dai," came to us with marker thread still lined in the seams that less-busy tailors would have removed for us.

This is my first sleeveless "ao dai"!

Suoi Tien

We headed to Suoi Tien, an amusement park with a big artificial mountain carved in the face of Hung Vuong, the king that developed Vietnam as a country back when it was still a monarchy.


Bus #19 at the main station near Ben Thanh Market took us on an hour-long ride to Suoi Tien. It was a popular field trip destination for grade-school students, and we saw several groups while we were there. The Vietnamese are used to riding on motorbikes, bicycles, or just plain walking; a jolting ride on a bus with poor shock absorbers got so many of the kids carsick, which definitely made for an interesting ride.


We were charged an entry fee at the park, and each themed entertainment center also charged an average of $5,000-$10,000 dong per person (30-60 U.S. cents). Food in the theme park was the worst we've eaten yet in Vietnam and of course overpriced. The seasoning was bland, and our soy milk came with what must have been 3 tablespoons of soy milk padded with 3 pounds of ice. By far, it made the chili-dogs at Disneyland seem like fine dining.

Here is Tung and me taking a picture next to our Chinese zodiac, the Monkey.


Here I am at the foot of a row of "lan" of different sizes. "Lans" are a mix of dragon and lion, and a male and female pair would often be seen guarding the gates of many Vietnamese buildings. The lans in the photo are male--you can tell by the pearl and money ingots under their paws. Traditionally, males are the "money makers" in the family, so they guard the family jewels. Female lan are seen with a lan cub underneath their paw, signifying the nurturing female instinct. Together, they are yin and yang, and they balance each other out for a well-rounded family. If there were female lan in the U.S., they'd probably have both the pearl and the cub underneath their paws, haha!


Tung and I step across "lily pads" amidst a pond to take a picture against a waterfall backdrop.


And in the Hall of Monarchs, we get to be King and Queen for 2 minutes.


At one of the show exhibits, I witnessed a bad case of animal abuse. They had several monkeys put on a show of riding a bike, wearing a conical hat, jumping across a barrier, and giving audiences high-fives in exchange for $2,000 dong. The whole time, the trainer was chasing the monkeys with a bamboo stick, threatening to beat them at every wrong turn. The first monkey riding a bike must have gotten beaten a lot; one of his eyes was swollen half-shut, and the pinky on his right hand looked maimed. After two minutes of the show, Tung went to wait outside. The animal abuse soured the rest of our experience in the theme park, even though there were so many monuments and picture-taking opportunities left to see.


I was bracing myself to see animals treated cruelly in a country known for dog-eating and sacrificing the family water buffalo for food after it's gotten too old from long years of service, but seeing trainers so openly beat their charges while using them to make money still churns the stomach. In Sea World in the U.S., there's a certain relationship between the trainer and the marine life that merits love and respect. Even in Saigon, people tether their young puppies briefly to trees to keep them from getting killed by running into the traffic-heavy street, but they quickly un-tether them and take them back into the house after a brief time. My Bac 3 has prized, purebred German shepherds from Australia that he takes good care of, and when we left our family dog behind after immigration, Bac 3 snuck past the Viet Cong who guarded our house in the act of governmental confiscation to feed our trapped dog a meal of rice and pork chops.

When we got home from Suoi Tien, we visited Tung's uncle, Vo Si Ba. He and his relations hire workers to make clothes by the bulk, which they sell to stores at wholesale prices. Here is a worker checking out the stitches on embroidery machines.


Vo Si Ba treated us out to an interesting dinner of "lau nam" (mushroom hot-pot) at Ashima Restaurant. The broth was made from a myriad of ingredients that were supposedly healthy and had "cooling properties" for the body. The restaurant was upper-scale, with beautiful interior lighting and modern decorations, and the wait staff dressed in neat brown-and-yellow uniforms. It was a unique meal, but it tasted quite bland. I did, however, get a good sleep that night.

Can Giuoc

Chu Nhan rented a minivan for us to go and visit my Bac 3 in Can Giuoc in the city of Long An. Bac 3 is my dad's other brother, the first male born in his family, which by tradition makes him "truong nam," the oldest son usually held responsible for caring for his elderly parents, upholding the ancestral altar in his house, and conducting ceremonies by making the first speech during formal events. My youngest uncle, Chu Ut, looks uncannily like him. The whole family was supposed to go, but Tung's maternal grandma had to visit her relatives in Saigon, so only Tung and I made the journey down the rocky, pot-holed road (the same which caused my mom to have a miscarriage before she was pregnant with me) to my uncle's house. We met my uncle at the big post office in Can Giouc, and he took us to a house with a shop on the main floor where the family sold fishnets, lady's shoes, and other general goods.


The second floor was where my Thiem 7 (my 7th uncle's wife) lived with her 1.5-year-old daughter.


Can Giuoc is a village with few visitors. Everyone eyed the minivan taxi that pulled into town, and as my uncle took me to meet some relations, the merchants squatting in front of their stores whispered that "Ba Lai's" niece had come to visit. The fruit markets carried fewer things than in Saigon, and the merchants half-heartedly hawked their goods.


Thiem 7 went to the market to prepare lunch for us and also bought some dragon fruits and "vu sua" for refreshment. I bought her daughter a doll and a cell phone toy ('cause hey, I'm in the wireless telecom business after all).


Bac 3 ordered us a breakfast of "mi trieu chau" (egg noodles with sliced pork). When I was young, I requested that my nanny buy me this breakfast every morning. She would curl the long noodle strands around the pair of chopsticks, blow away the steam, and feed it to me before leading me by the hand to visit my parents' general store.


Bac 3 sat on the second floor guest room, telling stories of my parents' immigration, what became of our family dog, and how he had to take care of the paperwork for the rest of my family to go to America. I haven't seen my uncle in 24 years, but as he told stories and made outrageous jokes, and as we shared laughter over quirky familial habits that we have both become familiar with, I felt a sense of closeness to him. My mother's side of the family welcomed me with open arms and greeted me warmly, but I had never met most of them before this trip. Reuniting with my Bac 3, I felt as though I had finally come home to family.


Thiem 7 prepared a lot of dishes for our lunch: "lau canh chua" (sour soup hot-pot), "banh hoi" (angel-hair rice noodles), boiled crab, barbecued duck and pork, and some other containers that we didn't even get around to opening.


From the top story of the house, we could look to the distance and see Song Can Giuoc--the Can Giuoc River. My dad, in his younger days, actually swam to the other side of the river for no more a reward for his efforts than the fruits that grew there--which he picked and ate before swimming back. A soft breeze blew in from the river to the house so it was all I could do to stay awake as I lazily swung from the green hammock on the second floor.



After I left my uncle's house, I asked our driver to drop by Chua Vinh Long, a two-story Buddhist temple, to pay my respects.


There was a statue of Quang Am (Quan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy and my mother's protectress) to the right of the temple. I lit incense and prayed to her to bless us with a safe stay and a safe journey back.


A little distance from Vinh Long temple was a smaller one, with tiny alleys overgrown with wild grass. Over 24 years ago, Bac 3 took my mom through the alley for my family's attempted immigration by boat. In her haste, she fell and tore the hem of her pants. It was after this walk, squeezed between building walls and stepping on dry grass and weeds that crunched beneath our feet, that we came to a little fishing boat. The fisherman we bribed beforehand with money rowed us to our escape ship further out to sea. Halfway out, we were detained by patrolmen who asked the fisherman what he was doing out so late. He responded, "Just taking the wife out for a late-night row to see the moon" and miraculously was waved on. This was how I started my journey to America all those years ago. This is why I came back to pray, to thank the gods for allowing my family a life in the new land.

Anniversary

Today is New Year's Day. We made it back to Saigon last night, and the entire city celebrated 2009 well past midnight. In the afternoon, we met up with my aunt, Di Oanh, who took us to Saigon Plaza for some shopping. Saigon Plaza has the latest western fashions and brand-name attire, but on New Year's, the immense shopper crowd inched along, pushing and shoving. How merchants conducted business among the throng of browsers was quite commendable. Each shop was the size of an average American bathroom, and merchandise hung stuffed to the brim.


We toured the city for modern dresses but didn't find anything we liked. We also dropped by the Cathedral of Notre Dame, one of the most famous cathedrals in Saigon.






For lunch, Di Oanh took us to Quan An Ngon ("Delicious Restaurant"), which used to be a buffet where you went around and picked your dishes from several cooking stations with chefs preparing their specialty. Your choices were then brought to the table. Now, it was a regular sit-down restaurant where you ordered and paid per dish. The specialty there was the "che" dessert. We ate a type called "suong xa hot lu," made with pomegranate seeds and the most delicious coconut milk ever. I told the story of how, when my mom was pregnant with me, she craved "che" every night and made my dad run down from our multi-story house to buy some from the lady selling it across the street. Di Oanh laughed at how I has craved this dessert while still in my mother's womb.




At night, we went to Ong Dung's and Ba Nguyet's (our landlord and -lady) 25th anniversary dinner. The couple renewed their vows in the little church near where we stayed, and we all gathered at Saigon Star Hotel/Restaurant for a buffet dinner and, um, unless karaoke.

Mui Ne

Hon Rom is part of Mui Ne, a cove where those who make their living on the sea dock in for shelter in times of bad weather. It's a developing tourist community, with several beach-side resorts already catering to foreign tourism. Land was up for sale, with signs advertising this along the highway.




Mui Ne is part of the city Phan Thiet. The air was constantly humid from the sea breeze, and everything steel easily rusted. The main commerce was seafood and seashell souvenirs; those who didn't live on the waters sailed out early before dawn in motorboats or very tiny, round, basket-like boats made for one. They then docked on the shore near the beach-side resorts and offered to cook their catch for paying tourists. One of the puns for Mui Ne is "dodging mosquitoes," but they abounded in the resort area, along with "fire ants" that packed a mean sting. Note the abdomen-to-thorax ratio in the photo below. I have pictures to prove the aftermath of their sting, but I think I'll spare you.



The city Phan Thiet is the home of dragon fruits; we drove past acres of these adorable plants with thick, rope-like leaves hanging down like dreadlocks, the pinkish-red fruits peeking out like shy children from behind their mothers' skirts.




The sea was much saltier in Hon Rom than in Nha Trang, but the waves were much calmer, which made for a nice swim. After only 20 minutes, I tasted the sea at the back of my throat, a persistent bitterness mixed with the heavy saltiness that remained for the rest of the day. We returned our hotel room early and headed off to Saigon. On the way back, we dropped by Tung's grandpa's brother to pay a visit. Tung's grandma pretended to ask for shelter from the rain and waited to see if he recognized his sister-in-law.


Tung took 40 winks while his grandma finished her visitations.


We saw a baby cobra hugging one of the flower pots in front of the house. This is kind of a common thing. I'll spare you the details of what happened to that snake.



We also docked by the Champa ruins ("Thap Cham") to see red-clay ruins built by the Cham people, who sported colorful red head scarves for their traditional attire. The temples were made famous by a handsome poet and songwriter, Hang Mat Tu, whose sweet poetry wooed many beautiful women, but he never took a wife because he developed leprosy. In one of his famous songs, he proposed to sell the moon to anyone willing to buy it. Mong Cam, one of his lovers, died recently at over 90 years old. Up until her death, she would climb the worn roads up to the ruins, sit on the red bricks where once the famous poet sat, and write her own poetry, thinking of him.





Inside the temple, there was a little shrine on the floor with incense offerings. The interior felt cool and looked like a tall chimney, hollow and black all the way to the unseeable top.



The view at the back of the temple, overlooking the city of Phan Thiet and Mui Ne's sea in the distance, was truly spectacular, the stuff that inspires poetry and song.