Vietnam 5-5 Emma

So.  When Things Happen in the UK, it can sometimes cause annoyance, or temporary discomfort or loss of time.  When Things Happen in Vietnam/Singapore and you are a slightly disorganised British citizen, it can be heinously annoying and have repercussions that vibrate outwards like the sound waves from the bang of a huge Mongol war gong that echoes over the mountains of your life to strike fear into the envisioned future you hiding over the horizon.

Boris knows the feeling:



For example:

Some Fridays, I take a flight to Singapore to see Frenchie.  In itself, the fact that I take a flight to spend time with my almost-other-half is complicated enough.  The happy routine that I have grown accustomed to involves me riding to the airport on Little Moto, parking, strolling to the check-in desk five minutes before it closes, strolling through immigration and asking the passport man/woman to help me save valuable pages in my quickly filling passport, having a beer and a sandwich in the restaurant and waiting for Tiger Airways to call my name and inform me that I need to report to the boarding gate, pronto.

All was going according to plan this Friday until, arriving at Changi airport, which is essentially like stepping off a budget airline into a paradise of orchids, Starbucks, eateries, shops, free internet points, boiled sweets and places to charge your phone in tiny phone lockers, I decided to broaden my Asian literary awareness by getting over excited in a book shop.  If you know me, you will know that this is not an uncommon occurrence.  However, much to my dismay and embarrassment, when I searched through my compactly organised hand luggage, my wallet was not there.

We shall cut forwards to my return to Vietnam, with a brief interlude of pictures of chickens I cooked this weekend for Sunday lunch:

Hideous.

Like something from a nightmare.

Yep, we don't know how good we've got it back home with our Tesco-butchered headless and footless chickens.  It had all the guts in it as well.

So, after saving some children from a Chinese international school from being taken to the "special room" by immigration staff back in Saigon (another story for another day), I changed the Singaporean rations Frenchie had entrusted me with to Dong (hehehe, dong) and set off home.

Step 1: cancel all cards.  What would be easier: contacting a bank on the telephone that was a million miles away and 7 hours behind and explaining that you live in a different country to their records, cannot remember any of your security details, and need the card sent to a branch, and not your old address?  Or cancelling and renewing a card in your current country of residence?  You guess.  It is a trick question.

Step 2: figure out problems caused by loss of drivers licence.  According to my friends at the DVLA, the fact that I have taken four practical and two theory tests, and passed three out of the six, hold a British passport, am a British citizen and am capable of driving a motorised vehicle is entirely invalid because I live outside of the UK now.  Their automated machine told me to get a new license in my current country of residence as they would not be renewing mine.  What?!  Can you feel the repercussions shattering windows in nearby temples with their reverberating?  This means that Frenchie will be doing all the driving on our 5 week holiday to Australia.  It means that unless I figure out a way around the system, I will be car-less in the three days before my wedding at Christmas.  It will mean that I have no way of driving a car anywhere, in any country, until I am once again a permanent resident in the UK.

Step 3: pick up new Vietnamese bank card.  This first involved looking up where the heck my bank was actually located, as I'd never visited before.  Google Maps showed me a location I felt confident finding.  I drove to it.  I drove around it.  I drove on the pavement.  I asked a man.  I drove around some more.  I retraced my steps.  I looked at road names.  I checked the address.  There was no bank.  The next day, Risk-or-Death snorted and said, 'Why were you around there?  The bank is near the zoo', and I felt like I was in a strange, twilight zone KS3 French lesson, or a mid-nineties Eddie Izzard sketch: 'La banque est pres du zoo'.

Step 4: combine trip into town with attempt to get wedding invitations printed.  My goodness: I wasn't even aware that so many things could go wrong in simply trying to get a picture printed onto a piece of paper.  The paper wasn't thick enough.  The paper wasn't the right colour.  I had to get a certain number printed.  The paper was a weird texture.  My USB stick stopped working.  There were an endless number of complications!  Eventually, after about eight different printing shops (they have a whole street of them) and the death of my USB stick, I gave up, disheartened and blaming it entirely on Frenchie, who - bless him - had not received the pdf I had sent - which was obviously the most heinous of crimes, and returned to my bike.

When you start a motor bike, it makes this sound:

BrrrrUMM-brum-brum-brum-brumbrum.  BrrrrrUMM BRUMMM BrrrrrrrRUUUUMMM brumbrumbrumbrumbrum.

And lots of little lights flash in front of you, around ribcage level in a happy, dancey, colourful sort of way.

I put my key in the ignition, turned, and heard this:









I was in the middle of an unfamiliar district, at about 7pm at night, little cash, hadn't eaten lunch or dinner, was very thirsty and my. bike. would. not. start.

I did almost cry like a big girl, but a man came and helped me kick start Little Moto, my relationship with whom is now irretrievably damaged, and I rode home in the dark, with no lights, horn or indicator, with no idea what gear I was in.  This is not as big a deal as it is in the UK, but still!  Half way home, Little Moto tried to make amends by flashing gear lights erratically and straining to turn on his headlight, and I'll admit, I was excited for a second, but then I slept on it, and woke with the realisation that Little Moto is a hunk of metal, and I shouldn't be so attached to an object and should exchange him right away.

So, in the space of 5 days, Vietnam 5-0 Emma.

Happily, though, Wednesday was a Good Day and I figured out where my bank was, got a new card, swapped Little Moto for Wibbly Wobbler, got my invitations printed and tricked the DVLA into renewing my license.

Vietnam 5-5 Emma.  It's a tie.  For now.

Clarification

Just to make it clear to everyone reading: despite recent smushy, ridiculous, Austen and Pinterest-type posts, this is still who I am on the inside:

Down with domestic oppression!  Up with female empowerment!

Bingleys, Bennetts, Darcys and Demblans

I think, Courtney Davis, maybe yes?

Thu Thiem Time Lapse

Just in case you wanted to press the fast forward on your visualisation of where I live, here is a cool time lapse of my district:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3RUejsS-U

I ride through the tunnel every time I go into town, and the big, loopy highway is the view from my roof.  Cool!

Calling for Back Up

For your reading pleasure, a delightful play entitled 'Calling for Back Up', based upon real life events:

I am definitely Lucy Liu in this version of events... Lucy Liu in distress.

(A voice over.  Undetermined location.  MUMMY'S voice is slightly crackly, as if long distance.)

Emma: Mummy, what do you think of these bridesmaids' dresses?
Mummy: (Pause) umm... darling, I don't think that's the most flattering photo...
Emma: (with rising hysteria) there's something wrong with them, isn't there?
Mummy: well... darling... I think... what is the material like?
Emma: MUMMY SAVE ME!  I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING WEDDING RELATED!
Mummy: (confidently) don't worry, darling.  I'm booking flights.  It's all going to be okay... I'm bringing... Your Sister*.

*a.k.a. Organiser of All Things and Colour Coder of Planning Resources and Materials.

(Cue Led Zeppelin 'Black Dog' opening riff.  Mother and Sister are seen appearing over the arch of a hillock in the distance, slinging unsatisfactory wedding bouquets over their shoulders and zipping in tape measures in slow motion.  Behind them, a confetti bomb explodes, and their hair blows in the winds of the blast.  Simultaneously, both shake their heads, a la the L'Oreal advert and begin their slow motion descent upon my life in order to Fix Things and Establish Order and Fluff Dresses and to ask questions like, 'Are the doors in the venue big enough to adhere to the legalities of a full scale evacuation in case of fire?' (Sister) and 'Don't you want to show just a little bit of decolletage, darling?  It would be such a shame to waste them.' (Mother - believe it or not).)

Stormy Weather

In Vietnam, it rains.  Especially in the rainy season.  It rains at any time of day, whenever it feels like it.  Mostly it rains when you're just about to get on your bike or have to go somewhere outside, urgently.  Sometimes it rains during lessons and all my students ignore it because they have seen rain before...

Unless it is the first big storm of the season, during a lunch break, whereupon they all do this:

And on my lunch duty, I watch them running around doing this:

And I am not allowed to do this:

Instead, I have to tell them off and remind them that when they get into lessons, they'll freeze to death under the air conditioning.

And then the children look more like this:

And I realise that when they look at me, they see this:

Instead of this:

Which, frankly, is a real shame because essentially, here, Kate Middleton has just stolen my life in order to get a decent photograph with some cutely-intelligent looking artistic kid.

I do this.

This is me.

On a daily basis.

Except my hair isn't as nice.

And I don't really lower myself to sitting on plastic chairs with the masses.

And I don't let my kids do crap like artistic expression.  Pshoar!  More silent reading, please!

... oh, wait, we're back to this:

Too.  Sad.

An American in Saigon

 

Oh blessed morn, beautiful day that bringeth my Courtney to me!  If you follow my blog, you may know that my devoutest of all Followers/Commenters is my dearest darling CQD, who, from her little book nest in Massachusetts hath committed her wit, smile and general day-to-day musings to undeserving me, forever on the other side of the world.  What I have done to merit her affection, I know not, but very glad am I for it!

Right.  Enough Yoda-come-Gerard-Manley-Hopkins talk.  Courtney came to visit, and it was simply pleasantness personified.  A self-proclaimed atheist of the Li Hi culture, CQD outlined that her expectations of her visit were unpretentious and easy to accommodate:

1. See my face.
2. Smell my skin.
3. Sunbathe by a pool.
4. Read all the e-books currently available on loan from the Salem Public Library.
5. Be in Vietnam.
6. Have a very different experience to her father, who popped over "on tour" some thirty to forty years ago.  Apparently Vietnam was quite a different place back then: there was no air con.  Awful.

Thanks to a conveniently placed weekend in the middle of her flying visit, we also got to do all these things in Hoi An, as well as in Saigon.  Hoi An, if you remember from an earlier blog post, is full of lanterns and temples and bicycles and is everyone's image of what Vietnam is/ought to be/once was.

And obviously, as Courtney is one bridesmaid of four, we spent a large chunk of our time talking about the...

And how I am soon to be one part of a...

 



And about colour schemes, and bouquets and shoes, and rehearsal dinners and music to enter and exit by and invitations and generally viewing life through these:

Before I continue and defame us both, could I please make the very clear statement that both Courtney and I are Professional and Intelligent Feminists.  Please, let me introduce you to some of our shared role models:




Dorothy Parker - look her up.

 Dorothy Parker (New Yorker): abused, bitter, literate, mean about other peoples' literary works, enjoyed champagne, disliked dancing with men who stepped on her toes.












Emily.

Emily Bronte (Old Yorker): singleton, obsessed with the gothic, creator of disturbingly attractive mean male protagonists, wrote her novels in the same room she died in.






















Edith (Parisian): French, poor, orphaned, rejected, alcoholic songstress.  Inspiration for many; probably her own downfall.













Yes: literate or musical, bitter, expressive alcoholics. 

So it's important to note that our inane conversations about bows, bridesmaids, colour schemes, lace, tartan and garters this week was entirely our choice and right as empowered twenty first century women, and not the idiotic twitterings of twenty-somethings who have not yet grown out of secondary school procrastinating chat and note-passing during assembly.
A perfect response to the Feminist Discourse we had over cocktails on the roof of the Caravelle was to go and get Courtney fitted for her bridesmaid dress.

And to selfie (v. to take pictures of oneself in a vain and inane way) whilst making ridiculous faces:

 

 

"You come to my house on the day of my daughter's wedding?"

And to walk behind each other on the beach, whilst holding our Cath Kidston's as if they are Birkin Bags (this is a 'thing' that both Frenchie and Courtney have introduced me to.  Apparently the 'Birkin' is some famous Hermes bag made in homage to some famous woman called Jane Birkin who dated/was married to Serge Gainsborough.  Pah!  Capitalism.)

 

...Yeah... I put that photo in there deliberately to make you jealous.  I admit it.

And to have tea and become a tourist attraction for a group of Thai (they looked suspiciously Japanese/Korean) tourists because, let's be honest, we looked pretty idyllic in this tea house:

Now that's how empowered, bra-burning, beer-drinking feminists roll!  Uh huh.  Don't you even try to oppress us and compartmentalise us as those women who fantasise about romantic walks on the beach, darling tea cups and egotistical vanity.  No suh!

The highlight of the trip was the purchase of some teapot earrings that have completed my Afternoon Tea For Miniature People In The Form Of Earrings set.  Doesn't everyone have one of these?

Courtney has gone now, and it's horrible and sad and I don't want to talk about it.  I'm watching 80 Hours of 80s on the V channel to make up for it.  So far 99 Red Balloons, Madonna and Prince are doing nothing to console me.  Sad smiley.