"May your wisdom be as wide as the ocean."

- my prayer painting... thing...

Today was our last day in Vietnam.  We taxied to the University and met with our professors there before setting out to visit a couple of pagodas.  The first was sort of like the Doi Sutep of the Hanoi area, with the temple complex being the largest and highest in the area.  No elephants expiring on the site though.  Bummer.  Ian, Patricia and I got harassed for not purchasing snacks at one of the auxilliary temples.  Vietnamese Buddhism could use a Jesus-in-the-temple figure; just about everyone we've visited has had a bunch of vendor stalls near, if not inside, it.

The second pagoda we visited was much smaller, but we spent our entire visit with the abbott, who was fantastic.  They made us a vegetarian meal for lunch.  Most were very surprised because it was the best meal we had in Vietnam.  No joke. After lunch we had question and answer time with the Abbott.  This was so amazing, despite the copious amounts of translating (interpreting) that had to occur.  We had been to monk chats and such in Thailand, and spoke with many Thai people (who have a better handle on their Buddhism than Vietnamese, since VN Buddhism really combines a bunch of other practices for most people), but this was the first time we were able to ask our questions to a learned monk, who had dedicated his life to learning about and practicing Buddhism.  In Vietnam they practice a form of Mahayana Buddhism, versus the Theravada Buddhism practiced in Thailand.  While Mahayana swears off meat entirely (and not really in VN...), where they are allowed to eat meat given certain requirements are met in Theravada Buddhism, in all other manners, Mahayana seems to be less strict than Theravada Buddhism.  For example, in Thailand, monks could not take or give something directly from or to a woman.  This is not the case in Vietnam or apparently Mahayana Buddhism in general. In the same vein, while in Thailand novice monks can participate in monk chats and just talk with people about Buddhism, fully ordained monks cannot - it's seen as fun or frivolous. So this was the first time we had been able to talk with a monk who was fully versed in Buddhist belief and teaching.  I'm not certain about others, but I definitely got clearer answers to some of my questions about Buddhism today. 

After Q & A, the Abbott made us prayer scroll things.  These are a Chinese influence, I believe, but basically they are a sort of prayer or blessing written for each individual in traditional Vietnamese characters.  Each has a main character or message in the center in large characters, and a secondary message or explanation on the right in smaller characters.  On the left, the monk who writes it signs his name.  Then a buddha image gets stamped at the very top. My prayer reads:

"May your wisdom be as wide as the sea.

May you teach your students with unending enthusiasm."

Each of the Vietnamese people translated the characters a little differently, so I feel the exact translation is a little loose or cloudy, but this pieces together my favorite translations. I can't wait to get it back home and framed and hung somewhere. :)

I also keep finding the most adorable puppies in Vietnam that I want to bring home to North Carolina with me.  But that's still a ways off in the future, and I would have a hard time sneaking one through customs. 

Leaving bright and early (5 a.m.) tomorrow for Cambodia!

Three weeks of reflections

- compiled from postcards, emails, facebook messages, and journal entries, with some new text added.

3/13

"Right now I'm 'teaching' English at a university in Hanoi, Vietnam.  I am so impressed with the students here - so curious and fun!" Many of them also speak English extremely well for first year students.  They ask us questions about culture and life in the U.S. that no one in a first-year language class at home would be able to ask visitors from another country.  I know I would have a hard time asking those sorts of questions to a Spaniard in Spanish.  

The first two days we visited English classes (3/11 and 3/12), I taught with Ajaan Bob, mostly because I had very little to no voice to work with.  Talking with others from our group this was probably lucky for me, because then even if the Vietnamese students were shy and not asking questions, Bob usually was able to come up with some topic of discussion to keep the class moving and busy for the whole 2 hours. There was one folktale about a woman named Gio that was particularly helpful in this regard.  Over the course of a few days I was able to piece together some basics of the story: Gio decides to leave her true love and marry a "bad man" in order to save her family from some kind of financial trouble. Once with the bad man, many other bad things happen to Gio.  Later when her husband dies and Gio returns home to her family, she allows her true love to remain married to her sister, and also forbids someone from killing all of her enemies, deciding it is better instead to let them live, even if it risks them being evil to her again.  Basically, Gio represents the ideal woman of feudal Vietnamese society. 

Using these plot points as a basis, Bob would ask the students at what age they wanted to get married, if they would be like Gio and marry the bad man to save their family, if they would let their BF marry their sister, if they would allow their enemies to live.  It was interesting to see what answers they gave.  Many of the students wanted to marry younger than I think most U.S. students would answer.  Almost all of them said 26 or younger and 28 was definitely too old to be unmarried. 

3/14 - 3/15: Weekend in Ha Long Bay on a Junk Boat

The bay was gorgeous.  The rock formations were so majestic.  We tried to go swimming at one point, but the water was so cold!  We didn't last very long - only 20-30 minutes probably.  I also went searching for seashells, and almost missed the boat afterwards. 

All 12 of us watched the sunset together on the top deck of our boat.  It got very cold before the sun even set.  I had not brought anything at all warm enough.  One of the boat crew members came around to give the ladies manicures for five dollars.  I'm still chipping the peppermint pink polish off a little more each day. 

That evening, Emily and I had a long and interesting conversation about life, school, religion, being abroad - the life, universe and everything, essentially. It was really nice and a lot better than getting trashed, which had been the original plan.  I spent a lot of time trying to explain my understanding of free will and humanity's relationship with God... And I realized just how much Star Trek had influenced my life.  Initially this gave me pause, but then I got over it.  I was not at first successful in conveying my beliefs, but the next day I wrote them out.  Emily seemed to think it made more sense then, even if she still didn't agree.  If there is interest, I'll post them here. 

3/18

"Been in Vietnam for just over a week now. Living with 2 people in relationships... Listening to a lot of one-sided skype conversations these days.  'Teaching' English at VNU's College of Foreign Languages has been stellar, though, and now that I'm more used to the crazy intense traffic, Hanoi is a lot more fun.  I've never seen so many people in one place before." 

"I have never seen a city so full of people, traffic and activity before.  I'm really enjoying the field trips we take for class and chatting with the English students here." 

3/20: On the train from Hanoi to Sapa

"Vietnam is still a mixed bag.  I'm having a blast and learning a lot, but I'm about the only one, so I also listen to a lot of bitching, which is difficult. We've also had some drama - A-- and B-- got into a huge fight about something and are no longer rooming together.  C-- is secretly fighting with D-- who is being a bitch to E--.  F-- got very mad at G-- about a week ago, and put us all on eggshells for a bit.  They seem to be getting along better now though, which is helpful.  F-- is no fun when angry and grudgy. And my Momma Bear is kicking in so I'm getting very ready to kick some ass over all of the hurt feelings.  Oy. 

Today two people also skipped everything on our schedule.  While everyone was so pissed, it may have also been good-ish; I feel like some pressure has been let out.  There is a lot of laugher occurring on the train right now, and it would take a bit more for Momma Bear to lash out this evening, compared to yesterday."

3/22: On the train from Sapa to Hanoi

"Due to HBO, Cinemax and AXN I have watched more TV while in Vietnam than I ever think I have before.  It's weird. I've started to miss it every time it's unavailable.  Gonna have to kick that habit."

3/24

"...Universal frustration towards H-- is the one thing holding us together at this point. Looking forward to reuniting with I-- in Cambodia on Friday."  Went to see the Temple of Literature, which was the first University in Vietnam on Monday (3/23).  It was a gorgeous place to visit, but not many things were translated into English; I would have gotten more out of the experience if I read Vietnamese I think.  I did learn that there are 4 holy animals - Tortoise, Phoenix, Dragon, Unicorn - in Vietnam.  Interesting that only one is real.  

"Vietnam has been a bit of a whirlwind, since we're only here for three weeks.  It's busy, and like another world," separate from the one I normally live in. It's a world where people are not critical of authority, personal space is only mildly observed, motorbikes rule the world, and Tradition is prized over, or at least equally with, Progress.

"I'm excited to head for Cambodia later this week; time to escape Vietnamese humidity," even if all I trade it for is Cambodian heat.  

"I realize that it was a bitchy and self-serving thing to do... but I have no regrets."

- fellow asia-termer

Today two of our number decided they were too cool for school, and ditched as soon as our taxi arrived at VNU.  At least one of their cooperating teachers (and possibly both) then ran around A2 looking for them all morning and we, the remainder, got to feel like shit all afternoon as our culture teachers asked repeatedly where they were and if they were okay and all we could do was look around awkwardly and tell them, essentially, that we can't respect our hosts and classmates and students enough to honor our commitments.  

I am thoroughly disappointed. 

But also pleasantly surprised by others who were just as upset by the sitch' as I was, which (let's be honest) doesn't happen very often, because I apparently have an odd sense of politeness.  

Group drama aside, today was a good day.  Andy and I worked with a third year honor's interpreting class for our morning.  I knew this must be true to some extent before, but this class showed just how much like a GIANT game of telephone translation and interpretation can be. There are simply too many nuances that get added or left behind from one language to another for it to work perfectly. 

The basic premise of this class was someone would tell a story in Vietnamese, then someone would translate it for us, then Andy and I would tell it to another student who had been outside when the story was first told (so our English was their first hearing) and finally that student would retranslate the story back into Vietnamese.  So, yeah, giant game of telephone. Most of the time it came out okay, there was one story in particular that Andy and I had a lot of trouble remembering some details - particularly numbers - because it was very long and we were not always told everything in a logical order.  When the student retelling our English story in Vietnamese finished, the original story teller was like "... Uh... No..." The teacher, who had just been listening, then explained where the mistakes had happened and what they could do better next time.  It was a very interesting experience to be there. 

They also make a distinction between "translating" (which is taught as a separate class) and "interpreting" (the class we attended).  Translating is where you have a document and you translate word by word, or sentence by sentence, where as interpreting is when you are taking in spoken information in one language, processing it and saying the same information (or story) again in a different language. I think we choose not to make this distinction as often, because we like to imagine that an interpreter is just a translation conduit, but in reality, this is not the case. How can they be?  It's the same as a 100% unbiased reporter; just not gonna happen. And I had never thought about or realized this until today when I saw the two used side by side. 

This afternoon we gave reports on our three field trips during our culture class.  The way the class was organized was very different than I had hoped/planned for, but really it was probably as much as I should have expected.  Hopefully that will make more sense when I post my report, but in short, I'm having a bit more culture shock (culture confusion?) in Vietnam than I did in Thailand.  It's not anything that disrupts my day, or makes it overly difficult to live here; it's more cultural differences that make me dislike studying here. While I'm sure some of this is me reading more into situations than I should, trying to observe and take in a foreign culture, I feel that some of my observations are valid.  I also realize I'm being vague, but I'm still working on my paper where I'm exploring this idea. I'll post it soon though, (because I have to turn it in soon) and hopefully I will be better able to express this at that time. 

This evening we are leaving for Sapa, the French-built and founded resort town. Excited. Must go pack!

For your sanity, today has been removed from the calendar

Catherine, Patricia and I voted today off the calendar. In the words of Patricia:

"The list of indictments are as follows:
1. It made Catherine get harrased at the airport for having diabetes.
2. It made Heather's plane rides less than enjoyable.
3. It gave us all travel edge [including my panic attack on the bus into Hanoi]
4. It promised us cake, and then pulled us out of our rooms for said cake and said cake had no serving utensils, and thus will be postponed until tomorrow, hopefully.
5. It teased us with the last 4 minutes of a great English language movie on TV
6. It convinced all technology to work against us.
7. It allowed Vera to almost not get through Vietnamese security (because the immigration official didn't believe the woman in her passport photo matched the woman standing in front of him)
8. It, in general, royally sucketh the ass."

That was a pretty hefty list

The one positive - it's 10-20 degrees cooler here than in Chiang Mai, so you no longer drip just from walking outside.

Hanoi feels so foreign right now. This might be an exaggeration, but it feels more foreign than Bangkok or Chiang Mai. Some of this I'm sure comes from the fact that I understand the fact that I'm not going to learn this language, and that my professors do not know Vietnamese either. Which is a little freaky. To me at least. No one else seems miffed about it. Also, I cannot deal with all the horn honking. I swear they (the Vietnamese) are carrying on conversations with their car horns. It's insane. It's the opposite of the states, where using the horn is taboo - something assholes do, or you might, maybe do to an asshole that almost kills you. Here though, everyone honks at everyone. I'm not really sure why. And there are no visible lane markers - I mean they're there, but they're so faded that you can't really see them ever and no one follows them anyway. It just sounds so angry and looks so chaotic to me. I'm really not looking forward to driving to the University tomorrow during what (in the west) is rush hour. Cringe.

I am very excited to see Hua and Trang again. They were the first Asia Termer's guides around Hanoi and the next year came to study abroad at Coe. Both women are so sweet and it's really nice to see a familiar face.

The other thought for today. As we were gathering in the Chiang Mai airport and chatting amongst ourselves this morning, we started discussing TSA and Homeland Security types, which prompted Bob to tell me this story:

Once there was a woman from an Arab country, living in the US. Her husband was very abusive, but she couldn't find a way to safely leave him. Then Sept. 11th happened. So the wife calls DHS and tells them that he's a terrorist. Abusive husband gets arrested and deported. Wife lives happily (?) ever after.

As Patricia said, as I stood there and looked confused, "You just blew her mind - she doesn't know whether it's funny or inappropriate, a good story or a bad one. You can almost see the wheels turning." *giggles*

Me: "Yeah...."