Sorry, But I'm a One Man Woman

Last night I read a bit of the book I borrowed from Jackie, "Under the Banner of Heaven," which is about Mormons and fundamentalists, and then went to bed at 11:30. I woke up this morning at 8:00 and went down the road to get my egg sandwich and sit and talk with my iced coffee ladies. This morning they decided that I needed a boyfriend. I told them in Vietnamese that I already have on in America, but then they calmly explained that I need one in each country. That made me sort of angry because I know that is very abnormal in this country for women to do that. Then they started talking about this Vietnamese guy who is 21 years old and speaks English and French as well as his native Vietnamese. I told them I really didn't want to meet him and they told me he'll just go out to the bars with me and teach me more Vietnamese. I think I'm maybe a bit too nice. I got up to go to school and they told me to be back at their store tonight at 5:30 pm. I left in a hurry because I was pretty weirded out by their odd ideas and plans.

I went to Vietnamese class and we are moving pretty fast. I am trying hard to keep up and that's exciting because it is finally challenging me. After two hours of class, I walked to Vincom Towers shopping center with Jackie and Jill. We picked up lunch to go from the same place I did yesterday and ate it on the fifth floor of the mall. They even give you soup in a bag! Some things in this country never cease to entertain me and the soup in a bag is certainly one of them. We then wandered over to the dessert place and I had a really small piece of chocolate cake or mousse or something. It tasted really good so I don't care what it was. The grocery store on the fourth floor was our last stop and then we took the 31 bus right back to our dorm.

I got back to the room, repacked my backpack, and went to the next building over for our weekly guest lecturer. Today's lecturer was an interesting woman named Lady Borton. She is a Quaker and a pacifist, which I found to be really exciting. She also introduced a bunch of interesting ideas concerning the famous photograph of a young Vietnamese girl, Kim Phuc, running down the street as the napalm burned her. Lady Borton commented that she has never liked the photograph because she feels it would not have been printed if the running child had been a naked girl. She also remarked that the picture has changed her life and Kim Phuc will forever be associated with that image of her own 12 year-old horribly burned body. The comments made me feel sort of uncomfortable, since I had never considered those ideas before. I also couldn't decide how I felt about the sexist nature of the photograph and its publicity, which is always unsettling to me. The rest of her talk concerned her writing and its mistakes in order to prove to us that we should constantly check our sources and edit our written work. The talk went from 1:30-3:30 and I stayed after to talk with her in a smaller group. I spoke with her about religion and pacifism and she said she can hook me up with one of her friends who will take me to the Cao Dai temple here in Hanoi. I'm really excited about that and I will surely take her up on her generous offer.

I returned to my room, fetched my laptop, and ventured down to the second floor to search for wireless internet service. My computer seems to not get much internet anywhere in our building, so I played games and was frustrated. I then talked to DiDi about my odd iced coffee ladies and she was appalled. She said that should never happen in Vietnam and I should not go and meet this boy they are trying to set me up with. I was thinking about going to meet him with a big group of my friends, but DiDi told me I shouldn't go at all. I trust her so I let the 5:30 meeting come and go without leaving my dorm building. I can hardly handle one boy! :) I might need to switch my iced coffee place, though, which makes me a bit sad because making friendships takes time no matter which country you’re in.

A bunch of us then went out to dinner and I had fried rice again. Jill and I have been at our usual internet cafe ever since about 6:45 pm. A small boy of about seven years always comes into the cafe and asks me for money. Last week, I had a short conversation with him and gave him a few thousand dong, enough for a dinner. He skipped away and when I left the cafe about 20 minutes later, he said hello to me and I saw he was eating a sandwich. That made me really happy to know that he was eating with the money I had given him. He has a sore on his face and his parents don't work at all, or so it seems. I have been giving him a bit of money every once in a while and when he sees me on the street he says hi or throws an arm around my waist, since that's as high as he can reach.

It's time to go back to the dorm in order to shower and go out! However, it's comment time for all of you! :)