Last real morning waking up at the hotel which is weird. I think I might actually miss the breakfast now, my eggs this morning were the best they've ever been. And, Andrew has even taught her how to make omelets which I find to be pretty impressive. She doesnt understand the idea of putting something in them so its just a scrambled egg in the shape of an omelet but its still good. We then boarded the bus as usual and went to UEF for our last day of classes and our exam!
Some highlights from our history class:
multiples of 9 are used when a number is bigger than 10
a lot of art is made with phallic symbols (fertility worshiping)
the cities are planned really poorly because of lack of experience
men have 7 souls (or via) while women have 9 - related to number of holes in the body
towards the end though, we ran out of time and were left to read a lot of the information on our own. its hard though without his help because he knew so much information on everything.
Then it was time for our final class where we learned the months and days of the week - they actually arent that hard if you can remember the numbers so that was a relief. We had a short break and then the exam. Phoung sat next to me because she wanted to see how much I knew and be there to help me. Turns out, I only needed her for a few of the Vietnamese to English translations. And i ended up getting a 10 on quiz along with everyone else. yayyy! For the oral section she gave me a few words I could add onto the pre-written conversation so that Ashley and I looked better. Overall our conversation went really well. Originally the teacher wanted us to memorize conversations but we convinced her to let us read from her written sheets.
We then had our final lunch at the canteen, the one thing that I definitely won't miss and filled out surveys for plus 3 and UEF. And then we were done for the day until our farewell dinner. So, Ashley, Elizabeth and I decided to go back to the market to buy some final gifts for people and for ourselves. We made a pact there that we wouldn't tell anyone how much we spent because lets just say, we weren't on top bartering game. The market was really hot, lunch hadnt been that satisfying and I had dong to spend - so I spent it. I bought a really pretty mug that has HCM city outlined on it, more DVD's (movies were only 50 cents!) and a stuffed animal elephant. Why? I don't know. I'd been passing them for days in the market and all of the different animals are a really pretty color so I bought one. The downside - they were a fixed price. Oh well. Its because the place i bought it from actually has 10 stalls in Ben Thanh and they're all fixed price; they also dont come up and ask, "what you want?" they let you come to them so they're different. I really like my elephant though. The tag even says, "made in Vietnam" not China so thats a plus. Best purchase of the day though was by Elizabeth who bought herself a little wooden tea set. She hadn't bought herself a souvenir yet so I convinced her it was worth it. Ashley bought 10 movies just because. We all were just going crazy with the dong at this point and eventually had to meet back up with Sarah and Julie to go back to the hotel. We also ran into Phoung and David who were shopping together. She had a really cute cat fan this time, instead of the frog. She said she has tons of different animals at her house. I'm so jealous. Anyway, David had arranged for us to have ice cream with some of the students at 4 so we had to go back to the hotel. Once there though, Julie and I were too tired to leave the room and missed out on the frozen yogurt. I was a little disappointed because everyone said how good it was but it probably would have been a lot for my stomach to handle. On the bright side though, I made a lot of headway on packing. I've decided to out all of the really heavy stuff (the DVD's and the mahjong set) in the little rolling carry on.
After getting overheated from packing because the air conditioning in our room isnt the same since we only have 1 key, I decided to shower and get ready for our farewell dinner. For some reason, i thought it would be a good idea to straighten my hair. We then loaded onto the bus at 6 for reallllyyyy long drive to dinner at "tourist village". I was starving. And the drive was never ending. (At this point i was really regretting not getting the frozen yogurt since lunch hadn't been good). Yet, eventually, we made it on and got onto a golf cart which drove us through this really cool, grassy area with lakes and swings and bridges until we got to our little hut that we were eating dinner under. Behind a sheet, a huge party was taking place. As we waited for dinner everyone walked around for a little until it started to rain. The place is huge though and really pretty. Apparently there are 2 more of them. In the bathroom, Ashley had a lizard in her stall. I then screamed when the toilet paper brushed my leg, thinking it was another lizard.
For dinner we had really good calamari and then some weird beef that you were supposed to wrap in the white papery material that tasted like a cotton ball. I just stuck with eating the beef - without the weird piece of fat that was rolled inside of it. Then came the seafood Pho. Just like the first night, a pot of boiling water was set in front of us on a flame and shrimp and vegetables were added in. I know understand that you then put the noodles in your bowl and the soup overtop of it to cook the noodles. It was soooo good. but also sooooo spicy. My lips were tingling by the time I was done but i just wanted to be full and it was good, so i kept adding more noodles to my bowl. We all loved the shrimp so Ms. Too ordered more for our soup which was really nice of her. No golf cart came to get us at the end of the meal but we had a nice stroll back to the van and Julie got to ride on the huge swing that she noticed on the ride out. We then boarded the bus for the last time which i found to be kind of sad actually.
Once back at the hotel, people packed and the boys left to go meet the UEF students at the karaoke club they'd been waiting at for an hour for us. Somehow they paid their bill first. We weren't so lucky. Julie and I had a lot of extra charges on ours for beer that we hadn't drank so she and Tin fought with them for about 45 minutes as Sarah, Elizabeth, Ashley, Andrew, David and I sat and waited. By the time she agreed to pay it was 11 but we felt that we had to make it the karaoke place. Tin told us it was an 8 minute walk and not worth a taxi. Just as we were walking outside, Phoung, who has a ten o'clock curfew walked in the door with gifts and cards for all of us! She gave me a pink bear fan! I love it. (I just wish i'd had it sooner to use haha). It was such a nice gift though because she knew how much I loved hers. The other girls got hair accessories and David, a long letter. Her note to me said how i was quiet but also sweet and very good at speaking Vietnamese when i wanted to. I loved the whole thing. Then, as she drove away and we walked outside, saying goodbye to Tin, the power went out. In all 2 weeks we've been here, we've heard so much mention of these blackouts but have never seen one until tonight. It was really weird./perfect timing.
We then set off walking with sarah's ipod for directions. The streets were dark and pretty creepy but we finally made it to the right street. Turns out we turned the wrong way though so we retraced our steps, looking for the right address. As Julie and I walked ahead of the group we all of a sudden heard screams behind us and turned around to see a motorbike speeding off and Andrew running after it for a few steps. It was long gone though. We ran over to find that Elizabeth's bag had been stolen off of her shoulder. Just like we'd been warned - one guy was driving, the other took her bag. It was really scary. Thinking about it now, we never should have gone walking at 11 15 at night in Vietnam but we'd all grown so comfortable with our surroundings and nothing had gone wrong up to this point. Luckily for Elizabeth the only things of value in her purse were 100 dong, 3 us dollars, her license, two credit cards and her camera. Sarah, Eizabeth, Andrew and Ashley went back to the hotel so that Elizabeth could call her parents and have them cancel her credit cards. And as for her camera, it was about to die and all but like 15 of her pictures had already been uploaded onto Justin's external hard drive. I just don't understand how people can do that though. I know people steal every day but it still seems so wrong. And with 4 hours left in the country too! It really just sucks because after such a fun 2 weeks, it left us all with a different image of Vietnam.
Anyway, Julie and I took David with us to the club just so the others would know where we were and what had happened. We didnt want the UEF kids to think we'd just ditched them. It was a short but scary walk after that. The guys were all shocked and angry they hadn't been there. We took a few group pictures and then got a taxi back to the hotel where the power was back on! They also had some gifts for us that they'd given the boys. I finished up with most of my packing and went to see Elizabeth and after that, we all just hung out in my room and passed around the hard drive so that everyone could upload pictures. The plan was to pull an all nighter but around 2 15 I lied down and everyone left to go to their own rooms.
I couldn't fall asleep though - i was too stressed over carrying 4 bags + a purse so I ended up laying there for like 20 minutes until Elizabeth came in and talked. I then continued packing and at 3, decided to shower so i could be clean for the long day of travel. Then, it was 3 40 and i woke up Julie to say bye, said bye to Andrew and began taking my luggage downstairs and loading it onto the bus along with Ashley, Elizabeth, Justin, Matt and Mike.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Thursday - week 2
Woke up today, not feeling any better than yesterday and got dressed for the soccer game in my nike shorts and UP-UEF shirt that we're all wearing. Let me tell you, the material looks a lot cooler than it feels - no air passes through that stuff. Its really hot in there. Overall I felt really sporty though, so even if I got out of playing because of my stomach, I still looked the part. We got into the van after breakfast and surprisingly, wound up at the school. We walked up to the 7th floor where we were greeted by tons of the students with name tags and little pillow things that say UP-UEF, or Viet Nam, or cheer up on them (i ended up getting a few!). They're really cute. We then got split up into teams - I was with Justin and Matt, Phoung, my friend from the first day and a bunch of other students I didnt really know but who were all friendly. Phoung asked if she could sit next to me. Tony and Minh (or rockstar) were leading all of the activities and Tony sang a song! he was good too! None of us had any idea that he sang so it was impressive.
Our first activity was to discuss questions that we were given by Tony and Minh with Vietnamese kids in our group. My group had to talk about the exchange program and living conditions. After a while, two members from each team (one from UP, one from UEF) were chosen to go up and represent our team. Also, our team name was 95 because 75 was taken by group 1. Our slogan was mot hai ba yo! Matt and Lee went up for our group and told the room what the two of them had talked about. After that was all done with, two more people were selected to go play a game: the UP student was blindfolded and given yogurt to spoon feed into the UEF student's mouth. Whoever finished first, won. Julie and Sarah tied. We weren't doing too well. Then, Tony turned on a really moving video of how we need to make changes in the world now and how the time on the Millennium projects is running out. That then turned into a video on free hugs which was cut short when we were told to all hug one another. So, everyone walked around hugging which was both funny and cute. Ms. Too was crying which was really sad. Eventually, the hugging wound down and we all got into a big circle and sang another uplifting song. I guess this whole thing was put together by the English club. I never really thought about other countries having an English club, its cool.
Then onto the soccer match. I sat on the sidelines and cheered with Phoung because I was sweating just sitting there, I can't even imagine what playing would have been like. I did not want to exhaust myself or become dehydrated again though so I sat out. Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun running around though, and we didnt even lost by that match. At one point, all of the girls played against the UEF girls. Three friendly games later, we took sweaty pictures and then went back to the hotel to change and rest. I talked online with some people because it was only midnight at home, until it was time to go down to the lobby for lunch. Nothing very exciting there but we were all too tired to go out exploring. I just had a few of the fried shrimp, white rice and bananas. It was then time to meet for the War Remnants Museum.
We learned a little about the museum for going:
1. After the war, it was originally called the American War Crimes Museum because of all the bitter feelings. Eventually, it became known as just the War Crimes Museum even though people still knew who it was directed at. Then, pretty recently, it was renamed again The War Remnants Museum now that tensions have eased. Yet, the first thing you see when you get there are all of our tanks and planes and helicopters that they took down and now have on display. It just doesn't seem right for our military objects to be in their possession after everything. Overall, the museum was pretty depressing, especially the first floor where all of the things American soldiers did during the war are presented without any contextual evidence. Professor Berman told us to take everything in the museum with a grain of salt because the whole thing is very propaganda oriented but just the way they portrayed American soldiers was awful. The worst was reading about the children who were killed as well as all of the people affected by Agent Orange. We were there for quite a long time and I ended up walking with Matt and Elizabeth through all 7 exhibits. One particularly interesting one was the one on the photographers of the war and their stories and photos. By the time we were done half of the group had already left without saying anything to us so we decided to go on to the Ben Thanh market alone. It was Andrew, Ashley, Elizabeth, Matt and I. We all stayed together in the market and had a pretty successful trip. I got a Tiger beer t-shirt for myself (now i can match the guys) and I love Pho t-shirts for Zac and Tyler. My tiger shirt was 37 dong but they didnt have I love Pho t-shirts so we had to go somewhere else. We went to this stall where the woman spoke really good english and i spoke the vietnamese I knew, to her. She loved us! She even offered to teach me vietnamese for free at her house and also told Elizabeth and Ashley to go steal a gun and rob a bank so we could pay more for her shirts. This is because the other woman wanted me to buy 2 shirts for 18 dollars when i'd just bought 1 for less than two. When i told her this, she said, "same same but different - mine are better". I immediately thought of Lee from China and his shirt. Its so funny that people actually say that here! Anyway, i told her I didn't have any american dollars so she then wanted 350 dong. Somehow, i got her down to 80 for the two. She was not happy. But to me, the shirts seemed "same same". No different. I also bought dvd's - Sex and the City and Lost! Andrew bought his mom a really pretty lady buddha. Soon, we had to be back at the hotel to meet everyone else for a dinner that Julie planned with another Tony so we left the market to try and be back by 5. And we would have, if it hadn't been rush hour and our driver hadnt taken the longest route possible. When we got to the hotel at 5 10, no one was there. And there was no note. Neither Matt nor I had keys to our room so we hung out in Ashley and Elizabeth's for a little before deciding that we may as well go to dinner on our own since none of us had a way of calling Kyle's phone. Andrew had gone to a really good place the night before by himself because he didn't want American food at the Black Cat so followed him to the restaurant that was "close". FYI: Andrew's definition of close - not the same as my own, or anyone else's for that matter. We were all exhausted and starving by the time we made it to the restaurant.
I wish I remembered the name of the restaurant, all I know is that it had the word "ngoc" in it which means delicious - which it was. I ordered 3 skewers: beef, chicken and shrimp. Matt got the same with rice. Andrew just got chicken. I can see why. It was absolutely amazing. I don't usually like chicken that much but this was amazing. The beef was delicious too, just a little spicy for me and I loved the shrimp. Nothing was even that expensive. Even Ashley loved her food and ordered more. The only downside to the night - my stomach. It was really nice being in a smaller group though, we all talked and got to know each other a lot better. We ate quickly though and got a taxi so we could be back at the hotel by 7 when Tin was supposed to get there to take us out to an American discotheque. But they still weren't back. A little annoyed at this point about being locked out of our rooms, Matt and I went to the front desk to ask if we could be let back in. The only problem is that once we were in our rooms, we had no power and so, could not turn on any lights. I was about to take a shower in the dark when Julie walked in from her dinner. Suposedly she tried to call us but never got through. While i feel bad about missing the dinner with the ICP students, their meal sounded a lot more foreign than ours. Some of the boys ate eggs that had almost complete chickens in them - like there was even some bone. The cool thing though - the food was served on a conveyor belt.It would have been nice to have dinner with all of them but I found my day with the 5 of us very relaxing and chill.
Eventually we got ready to go out with Tin and decided on club Gossip instead of the American Discotheque. Tony came too! There was a cover charge for boys and girls and Andrew and Kyle had to rent shoes for the night because they were wearing flip flops! Also, we had to check our cameras at the door. Once inside, we were the only people dancing originally and security was everywhere. There were definitely ladies in white on the dance floor by the end of the night though. By 12 we were all back at the hotel and hanging out in Andrew's room eating ritz because we were all so hungry and had no other food.
Our first activity was to discuss questions that we were given by Tony and Minh with Vietnamese kids in our group. My group had to talk about the exchange program and living conditions. After a while, two members from each team (one from UP, one from UEF) were chosen to go up and represent our team. Also, our team name was 95 because 75 was taken by group 1. Our slogan was mot hai ba yo! Matt and Lee went up for our group and told the room what the two of them had talked about. After that was all done with, two more people were selected to go play a game: the UP student was blindfolded and given yogurt to spoon feed into the UEF student's mouth. Whoever finished first, won. Julie and Sarah tied. We weren't doing too well. Then, Tony turned on a really moving video of how we need to make changes in the world now and how the time on the Millennium projects is running out. That then turned into a video on free hugs which was cut short when we were told to all hug one another. So, everyone walked around hugging which was both funny and cute. Ms. Too was crying which was really sad. Eventually, the hugging wound down and we all got into a big circle and sang another uplifting song. I guess this whole thing was put together by the English club. I never really thought about other countries having an English club, its cool.
Then onto the soccer match. I sat on the sidelines and cheered with Phoung because I was sweating just sitting there, I can't even imagine what playing would have been like. I did not want to exhaust myself or become dehydrated again though so I sat out. Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun running around though, and we didnt even lost by that match. At one point, all of the girls played against the UEF girls. Three friendly games later, we took sweaty pictures and then went back to the hotel to change and rest. I talked online with some people because it was only midnight at home, until it was time to go down to the lobby for lunch. Nothing very exciting there but we were all too tired to go out exploring. I just had a few of the fried shrimp, white rice and bananas. It was then time to meet for the War Remnants Museum.
We learned a little about the museum for going:
1. After the war, it was originally called the American War Crimes Museum because of all the bitter feelings. Eventually, it became known as just the War Crimes Museum even though people still knew who it was directed at. Then, pretty recently, it was renamed again The War Remnants Museum now that tensions have eased. Yet, the first thing you see when you get there are all of our tanks and planes and helicopters that they took down and now have on display. It just doesn't seem right for our military objects to be in their possession after everything. Overall, the museum was pretty depressing, especially the first floor where all of the things American soldiers did during the war are presented without any contextual evidence. Professor Berman told us to take everything in the museum with a grain of salt because the whole thing is very propaganda oriented but just the way they portrayed American soldiers was awful. The worst was reading about the children who were killed as well as all of the people affected by Agent Orange. We were there for quite a long time and I ended up walking with Matt and Elizabeth through all 7 exhibits. One particularly interesting one was the one on the photographers of the war and their stories and photos. By the time we were done half of the group had already left without saying anything to us so we decided to go on to the Ben Thanh market alone. It was Andrew, Ashley, Elizabeth, Matt and I. We all stayed together in the market and had a pretty successful trip. I got a Tiger beer t-shirt for myself (now i can match the guys) and I love Pho t-shirts for Zac and Tyler. My tiger shirt was 37 dong but they didnt have I love Pho t-shirts so we had to go somewhere else. We went to this stall where the woman spoke really good english and i spoke the vietnamese I knew, to her. She loved us! She even offered to teach me vietnamese for free at her house and also told Elizabeth and Ashley to go steal a gun and rob a bank so we could pay more for her shirts. This is because the other woman wanted me to buy 2 shirts for 18 dollars when i'd just bought 1 for less than two. When i told her this, she said, "same same but different - mine are better". I immediately thought of Lee from China and his shirt. Its so funny that people actually say that here! Anyway, i told her I didn't have any american dollars so she then wanted 350 dong. Somehow, i got her down to 80 for the two. She was not happy. But to me, the shirts seemed "same same". No different. I also bought dvd's - Sex and the City and Lost! Andrew bought his mom a really pretty lady buddha. Soon, we had to be back at the hotel to meet everyone else for a dinner that Julie planned with another Tony so we left the market to try and be back by 5. And we would have, if it hadn't been rush hour and our driver hadnt taken the longest route possible. When we got to the hotel at 5 10, no one was there. And there was no note. Neither Matt nor I had keys to our room so we hung out in Ashley and Elizabeth's for a little before deciding that we may as well go to dinner on our own since none of us had a way of calling Kyle's phone. Andrew had gone to a really good place the night before by himself because he didn't want American food at the Black Cat so followed him to the restaurant that was "close". FYI: Andrew's definition of close - not the same as my own, or anyone else's for that matter. We were all exhausted and starving by the time we made it to the restaurant.
I wish I remembered the name of the restaurant, all I know is that it had the word "ngoc" in it which means delicious - which it was. I ordered 3 skewers: beef, chicken and shrimp. Matt got the same with rice. Andrew just got chicken. I can see why. It was absolutely amazing. I don't usually like chicken that much but this was amazing. The beef was delicious too, just a little spicy for me and I loved the shrimp. Nothing was even that expensive. Even Ashley loved her food and ordered more. The only downside to the night - my stomach. It was really nice being in a smaller group though, we all talked and got to know each other a lot better. We ate quickly though and got a taxi so we could be back at the hotel by 7 when Tin was supposed to get there to take us out to an American discotheque. But they still weren't back. A little annoyed at this point about being locked out of our rooms, Matt and I went to the front desk to ask if we could be let back in. The only problem is that once we were in our rooms, we had no power and so, could not turn on any lights. I was about to take a shower in the dark when Julie walked in from her dinner. Suposedly she tried to call us but never got through. While i feel bad about missing the dinner with the ICP students, their meal sounded a lot more foreign than ours. Some of the boys ate eggs that had almost complete chickens in them - like there was even some bone. The cool thing though - the food was served on a conveyor belt.It would have been nice to have dinner with all of them but I found my day with the 5 of us very relaxing and chill.
Eventually we got ready to go out with Tin and decided on club Gossip instead of the American Discotheque. Tony came too! There was a cover charge for boys and girls and Andrew and Kyle had to rent shoes for the night because they were wearing flip flops! Also, we had to check our cameras at the door. Once inside, we were the only people dancing originally and security was everywhere. There were definitely ladies in white on the dance floor by the end of the night though. By 12 we were all back at the hotel and hanging out in Andrew's room eating ritz because we were all so hungry and had no other food.
Wednesday - week 2
Woke up this morning and started off the day like all the others - two eggs and toast and a banana. I'm going to miss the bananas, they're so much more fresh here. I miss getting to eat other fruit though, and any vegetable for that matter, but I don't want to risk eating fiber because my stomach only seems to be getting worse, not better. Anyway, we got in the van and drove to UEF where we had a history class followed by a language class. I'm actually beginning to look forward to the language classes - until she announced that we'll be having an exam on Friday on everything we've learned! I'm definitely not ready for that. Ms. Too bought us brand new books though that teach Vietnamese for beginners which was so sweet of her. Our history class was interesting today, we learned about the westernization of Vietnam and the war which was cool because its a different perspective than we are taught in America. Some other interesting facts about Vietnam:
1. HCM was planned for 1 million but there are now 8 million official residents + the 2 million guests and workers who stay here...this is why houses just keep being built upwards and there is so much congestion on the streets. The city was not planned well
2. Vietnam is the 2nd catholic country in Asia (over 5 million catholics)
3. the grandmother is still more important than Jesus - this relates to why they worship a female Buddha here
4. Everyone is optimistic about the future - have the mindset that tomorrow will be better than today. The country is continuing to develop
5. Yin and Yang again
mother = earth, father = sky
even numbers = yin (bad!!) ; odd numbers = yang (good!!)
even numbers go to dead people - never give someone 2 flowers
also, one of the reasons that people don't really want to get ahead in the work force is because of yin yang philosophy - with a higher position comes more serious dangers and more risks
At the end, no one really had questions as usual. I feel bad because he always looks disappointed but he covers so much material, I don't know what information could possibly be left to ask about. He has tons of slides and then adds on tons of information that isnt in the slides.
Anyway, after that class we had our language class - I was given the mic more than usual. Phoung was really surprised to see that I knew how to say everything the teacher asked because I normally don't speak in class (only because the mic doesn't reach me though!)We then had lunch at the canteen - they have definitely learned what we like and don't eat by now. They stuck with the fried potatoes, white rice, salad and a few other meet dishes. Nothing too crazy though.
We got back to the hotel for a short trip to change into business casual and then walked over to the UEF administrative office. We passed a really cool looking restaurant with swings instead of chairs. The presentation was actually really interesting but between the heat, sickness and just lack of sleep, I had a really difficult time keeping my eyes open which i felt really bad about. The only negative thing i have to say on the presentation is that by this point, most of the presentations we have seen have summarized Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh, so we've learned so much of it before - the size, the customs, what Vietnamese are like in the work force, etc. So, a lot of the presentations are getting redundant. Mark Oakley, a lawyer from Duane Morris, went through the presentation pretty quickly and discussed what it was like being a lawyer in a different country and the issues that may arise, especially when you're in a Communist country like Vietnam.
After that, I got a taxi back to the hotel and went to sleep. I was woken up for dinner, and even though all I wanted to do was continue sleeping, I got up - I couldn't miss the second dinner at Black Cat. We took taxis over climbed up a skinny staircase to the second floor. There were so many options! I wanted a salad so badly but knew it was a bad idea so I got a chicken quesidalla which was a little dry, but i still really enjoyed it. The guys' burgers were huge. I see why they wanted to go back. Everything that everyone got looked really good despite my stomach hurting. Tony came to dinner and the guys ordered him a burger to try; he really liked it as far as i could tell!
Once back at the hotel we got ready to go out to The Rex. All of us wanted to see it since we've driven by it a few times and the rooftop bar seemed really cool. We took a taxi over and the hotel was amazing (5 stars). There was a live singer on the roof who sang Sweet Caroline - what are the chances? We all joined in with the Pitt lyrics. The girls all went around and took some pictures and by the time we got back to the table, most of the boys (except Andrew and Mike) were leaving so I decided to go with them. I was exhausted. Back at the hotel, it was only 10 30 so I knew I should blog but I couldn't keep my head up or my eyes open so I went right to sleep. After all, I wanted to be rested for the big soccer match tomorrow!
1. HCM was planned for 1 million but there are now 8 million official residents + the 2 million guests and workers who stay here...this is why houses just keep being built upwards and there is so much congestion on the streets. The city was not planned well
2. Vietnam is the 2nd catholic country in Asia (over 5 million catholics)
3. the grandmother is still more important than Jesus - this relates to why they worship a female Buddha here
4. Everyone is optimistic about the future - have the mindset that tomorrow will be better than today. The country is continuing to develop
5. Yin and Yang again
mother = earth, father = sky
even numbers = yin (bad!!) ; odd numbers = yang (good!!)
even numbers go to dead people - never give someone 2 flowers
also, one of the reasons that people don't really want to get ahead in the work force is because of yin yang philosophy - with a higher position comes more serious dangers and more risks
At the end, no one really had questions as usual. I feel bad because he always looks disappointed but he covers so much material, I don't know what information could possibly be left to ask about. He has tons of slides and then adds on tons of information that isnt in the slides.
Anyway, after that class we had our language class - I was given the mic more than usual. Phoung was really surprised to see that I knew how to say everything the teacher asked because I normally don't speak in class (only because the mic doesn't reach me though!)We then had lunch at the canteen - they have definitely learned what we like and don't eat by now. They stuck with the fried potatoes, white rice, salad and a few other meet dishes. Nothing too crazy though.
We got back to the hotel for a short trip to change into business casual and then walked over to the UEF administrative office. We passed a really cool looking restaurant with swings instead of chairs. The presentation was actually really interesting but between the heat, sickness and just lack of sleep, I had a really difficult time keeping my eyes open which i felt really bad about. The only negative thing i have to say on the presentation is that by this point, most of the presentations we have seen have summarized Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh, so we've learned so much of it before - the size, the customs, what Vietnamese are like in the work force, etc. So, a lot of the presentations are getting redundant. Mark Oakley, a lawyer from Duane Morris, went through the presentation pretty quickly and discussed what it was like being a lawyer in a different country and the issues that may arise, especially when you're in a Communist country like Vietnam.
After that, I got a taxi back to the hotel and went to sleep. I was woken up for dinner, and even though all I wanted to do was continue sleeping, I got up - I couldn't miss the second dinner at Black Cat. We took taxis over climbed up a skinny staircase to the second floor. There were so many options! I wanted a salad so badly but knew it was a bad idea so I got a chicken quesidalla which was a little dry, but i still really enjoyed it. The guys' burgers were huge. I see why they wanted to go back. Everything that everyone got looked really good despite my stomach hurting. Tony came to dinner and the guys ordered him a burger to try; he really liked it as far as i could tell!
Once back at the hotel we got ready to go out to The Rex. All of us wanted to see it since we've driven by it a few times and the rooftop bar seemed really cool. We took a taxi over and the hotel was amazing (5 stars). There was a live singer on the roof who sang Sweet Caroline - what are the chances? We all joined in with the Pitt lyrics. The girls all went around and took some pictures and by the time we got back to the table, most of the boys (except Andrew and Mike) were leaving so I decided to go with them. I was exhausted. Back at the hotel, it was only 10 30 so I knew I should blog but I couldn't keep my head up or my eyes open so I went right to sleep. After all, I wanted to be rested for the big soccer match tomorrow!
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