The VME has signs in English, Vietnamese, and French, which is good because the visitors were mostly tourists and students whose languages were English, Vietnamese, and German, but while in Germany I only met one German who didn’t speak English anyway ( Read more... )

Last night I bought my groceries in the evening instead of the morning and the lady I buy my vegetables from pestered me into buying both her remaining heads of broccoli instead of just the one I wanted. They were both good quality and I want to keep her reasonably happy, she sold me six meals worth of vegetables for $3 and change after all, so I ( Read more... )

This afternoon I left my apartment about 2:30 and walked over to Ho Tay Lake. It’s a lovely park for walking if you can get past the short part where people try to sell you trinkets. Lots of trees, some large lake boats turned into expensive restaurants, swan paddle boats to rent, and an almost island with some traditional looking buildings ( Read more... )

This morning I met a friend at the Temple of Literature, a series of walled in gardens, shrines, and once classrooms heavily influenced by Confucianism but with more space for the greenery and ponds. It has 81 large tablets with the name of graduates from when the Temple was also Vietnam’s first university, a variety of ways to honor top graduates ( Read more... )

So I left my apartment at ten in the morning to have an 11 am lunch with a woman I like. I catch the bus, show up a little early, send her a couple of texts while I walk around the mall where she manages a store. I gave up waiting for her response about 11:30 and went to the bus stop to go home, grousing about how five years in the West turned a ( Read more... )

I was going to stay home all day today, but apparently I did such a good job at work yesterday my boss wants me to work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. So this morning I decided to explore the city park across the street from my hotel ( Read more... )

I couldn’t sleep last night because I’d slept too long that afternoon so read, wrote, and lay in bed drifting. Around 6 I got up and did some boxing routines, both Tai Chi and western style, then had breakfast. I tried walking to the morning English Corner on the other side of the river, but as it turns out Google maps leaves out a lot of the ( Read more... )

Vietnam Week One ( Read more... )

I read this memoir by Andrew Pham and was pretty impressed. It is mostly about living in Vietnam under the French, Japanese, and American occupations, with the Communist takeover an ironic epilogue. He grew up during the French rule; his life was nomadic, trying to keep ahead of various oppressors. Despite the efforts of those three countries, the ( Read more... )