Oh My Gosh. Today was so fun! We were doing all the touristy things, but they didn’t feel superficial or inauthentic. We wanted to leave something for the dear people you’ll see in the photos, but they didn’t want more of our money and we didn’t have any food or chocolate. We made a great friend in our guide Yen (pronounced I-en), who is hilarious, and I just wish I could take her up on her offer to go home with her for the Tet holiday next Thursday. She told us that people in her village call us “Hello people” (and sure enough, biking around today, we were met with and exchanged “hello” many times). She calls herself “cat lady” because she is 26 years old, she has a cat, and she is not yet married (tsk tsk). She laughingly said that “language is ridiculous.” I couldn’t agree more.

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Today, we biked the lush farms and villages that sit on the small islands that make up Hoi An. I couldn’t believe all the fruits and vegetables grown here (papaya, bitter melon, corn, rice, pumpkin, chilies, and watermelon, to name just a few).

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In addition to leading bike tours, Yen teaches English and tutors her peers who hope to move out of the kitchen and be servers in restaurants. In contrast to the formal manner of Hoing (in Hanoi), Yen, the woman who welcomed us to the hotel, and our tailor were professional at first, but then either laughed at us or with us. It is so fun to be made fun of and not taken so seriously.

Example: When we arrived, I was done. I had sat next to this man-spreading businessman on the flight to Danang and was tired and hungry (we got in about 8). So when we checked in to Altimay Hotel, I wanted to get the spiel (re dining room, breakfast, local attractions, etc.) as quickly as possible. I thought (okay, hoped) the woman at the desk was finished, so I got up and started to move away. She looked so shocked and surprised, but then her face melted and she couldn’t stop laughing, because she realized that I was just being impatient and she found this very funny.

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Correction of Ignorance: Dear reader, please know that being in a country that you know shockingly little about and trying to communicate all day with people who speak 3-4 languages to your insufficient grasp of English can result in some mistranslated information. It’s similar to how texting on the phone can make or break a relationship, based on the receiver’s understanding of tone. Anyway, farmers in Vietnam garner great respect. In fact, so many of the people we’ve met come from farming families. It’s just that, like anywhere else, parents want their children to be better off than they were. Yen told us today that farmers here can expect to make $150 for 3 months of work, teachers $150 for one month, and office workers, $200 a month.

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Hoing (again, our 45-year-old guide in Hanoi) learned English at first from some magazines her teachers had. Then permission was given for them to record the BBC for learning. Hoing did not have a textbook for learning English until 1994. Of course, we invite everyone we meet to come visit us in Seattle, but this is a pipe dream. To get a visa for travel to the US, Hoing would have to, first, deposit $5-10,000 with the government. Then, she would return in three days to show her passport. Even if she commanded this extraordinary sum, the government can refuse her visa for no reason. The only exception is people 55+ whom, I suppose, the government trusts not to leave the country.

I want you to understand where these fascinating people come from. Hoing (Hanoi guide) is highly educated and dresses smartly; you wouldn’t pick her as a foreign-born on any American city street. She has two university degrees, one in Vietnamese literature and one in English. Her grandfather had two wives (in the 1950s and 60s, having more than one wife was still a common practice) and had 8-12 children with each wife. Rank is very important in Vietnamese families, so her father was son #3 of the first wife and outranked son #1 of the second wife. But those to whom more privilege is given also have more responsibility. The oldest son is expected to live with and care for his parents as they age. She and her husband are both tour guides, they see each other 10 evenings a month, and they rent her uncle’s two-room, 24 sq. meter apartment.

Hoing’s recommended Vietnamese novels in translation:

• Paradise of the Blind
• The Other Side of Heaven
• The Sorrow of the War
• Begins the Red Mist
• Time Gone By Le Luu (with several missing accents, also a movie)

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