This past weekend was my first weekend in Vietnam. My sponsor at the embassy invited me to join the family on an afternoon trip to the Bat Trang pottery village. Now, any of you who know me at know, must know it’s killing me not to write Bat Trang properly. But I’ve been lazily avoiding any real upgrades to the website and blog because that would require effort. Right now, I’m keeping efforts to a minimum …
Need two giant vases? No problem.
I digress. The Bat Trang village was great and the usual all wrapped into one great big tourist attraction. What was great? Seeing the motorcycle driver getting ready to deliver two huge vases to someone. There were also some very interesting pieces of pottery. I’ve got patters I like posted on the flickr site, but you can get a good idea of what’s there by going to Pearl River Market (in NYC) or a Chinese shop in any other country. Marjie said she read somewhere that the village has been flooded with cheap, mass-produced crap from China. Someone else I met said that the Delicious pottery place, yes Delicious is apparently the name, has unique pieces and small sets made by a real Vietnamese potter. So, next time I go to Bat Trang, I’ll have to check Delicious out.
All that is wrong with tourist traps...
What’s horrible? Let me show you. It is all the squirrel and dog statuary that is available for purchase. I mean maybe we could use a squirrel on our balcony, but maybe Marjie and I just found a good wedding present for Billy and Clare. Be on the lookout youngins.
So, it’s easy to poke fun at these pieces obviously aimed at Western tourists. The real joke is that after you buy the thing, you have to transport it or pay extra to have it shipped.
I didn’t buy anything. I figure Marjie will want to come visit and I know our tastes tend to run at opposite ends of the spectrum. My man-cave/room already has too many items from previous travels to be immediately inundated with new purchases from my first few jet-lagged days in Vietnam. Besides, if we missed the Delicious shop, then we definitely need to go back to look for art, which would absolutely be worth buying!
After visiting the pottery village, we stopped at the artist village, just down the street on the way back to Hanoi. There was more of the same sort of pottery in a more scenic setting (photos on Flickr). Because it was more tourist friendly – cafe on the lake – it was also more expensive to buy the pottery. Though I didn’t take a photo of it, one of the recurring pieces was an attractive Vietnamese woman on all four, looking back a little with a Mona Lisa like smile while her pants were falling down to expose the top of her butt. I can understand who buys a pottery squirrel, but who buys a slightly suggestive porcelain woman? It was very odd.
Like it?
The best part of the artist village was the flower I found. There was a neat path of concrete circles in a pond of water plant. It wasn’t really a pond, more like a 4 or 6 inch pool, but the effect was neat. This flower poked up through the green plants. Though my photos might not do the flower justice, the flower definitely made it worth the trip.
Would I recommend visiting the village. Yes. If you want to get some pottery and dishware made in Asia (most likely Vietnam, but potentially China, too) then definitely come visit. If you want some sort of unique cultural experience, well, perhaps this isn’t the place, unless seeing what a tourist-focused town looks like is a unique cultural experience in your book.
To end it all, I quickly edited a 30-second clip of the car ride back to Hanoi. There’s nothing really special (other than the music (Cette Planette, Club Sushi Remix by JP Juice that I heard when I was in LA), but I thought you might like to see a little of what suburban sprawl looks like in Vietnam.
So, this post is about two difficult things. First, there’s learning Vietnamese. As if learning the tonal language for a tone-deaf person like myself weren’t hard enough, the continuation of my study is a series of one-on-one sessions with a few different teachers for 5 hours each day. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to focus on a foreign language for 5 hours a day, but it’s really hard. There’s no one to lean on. No Adam, Tree, or Claire to listen to while I think of what to say or lean on while they figure out what the teacher said so I can just copy their response. Nope, in the one-on-one it’s you and the teacher. Of course it’s a lot more learning time, but there is no room to hide. If you don’t prepare and you don’t study, they’ll know it.
I did enjoy my day, though. Cô Quyên is very nice. I have two other teachers that I should meet the rest of this week. No funny stories from language training, just a full brain.
The other thing that’s harder than you think is finding a place to eat. For a tortured, tone-deaf soul like myself who spent quite some time backpacking around places like Vietnam, you would think that finding food places should be easy. I used to eat every meal out. But something seems different this time around. I think it’s more of a thought about hygiene and what’s in the food. Where have the clams come from? That disgusting lake with lots of pollution? That doesn’t sound terribly tasty. Then there’s the question of where they get the water they use to wash their pots and pans, or even cook the food in. As the questions about how clean the stuff is mount, I realize it’s been a long, long time since I was a cautiously adventurous backpacker. I console myself with the observation that this is only day 5 of a roughly 760 day adventure; perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. But, the once-more-adventurous backpacker in me thinks I should be eating at all the local places instead of going to nicer restaurants.
A little Pho gà on the street
So, last night, I finally sat down at the street side pho place (can’t write it properly with WordPress). It’s about two blocks from my apartment. I picked it because there were a lot of people there. Delicious. As seen by this photo. The meat was all white, no grizzle, and the broth was quite tasty. I was happy and satisfied to have been on the street. I think they overcharged me a bit for the pho, but I’m not really going to haggle over a dollar if it tastes good, is better quality than other places and I don’t get sick.
Today, I continued the eating on the seat of my pants trend and let myself be talked into a bun cha place. I was walking from the language class back to the office and I was starving. There were a bunch of teenagers encouraging passers by to come into the restaurant to eat. I had already been thinking about bun cha, so I let myself be stopped. Then I let myself be led to a seat. As soon as I sat down and immediately a bowl of dipping sauce, grilled meat, rice noodles, and other vegetables all appeared. Delicious.
Of course, bun cha is grilled pork, which I knew in the back of my mind before my teacher confirmed it after lunch …. So … Oops. Doesn’t make it any less delicious, just not what I had hoped the meat would be. The ground pork is grilled to a blackened crispy exterior, then lovingly slopped into the bowl of sweet vinegar sauve that you drip (or dump) your noodles into. Now that was really delicious. No photos of my bun cha, but it’s so close to the office, I suspect I’ll be back there.
So, to find street food is a harder than you think when you don’t know anything about quality, you don’t really know what you want, and there are so many options to choose from. Wait until you come visit and you can see for yourself!
I’m in Hanoi. I arrived on the 13th around 10pm. By 2am, I was sound asleep, only to be awakened at 4am when the dehumidifier beeped to tell me it was full. Somehow, that set the wakeup time for my body for the next couple days. But I digress, first things first.
Well, training in the US is over. I passed the Vietnamese language test on April 1st with a 2+/2 and now it’s onto the month of in country Vietnamese training. It’s a great opportunity. I don’t have to worry about consular duties and can simply focus on improving my speaking, comprehension, and reading skills. It’s amazing how fast all of that fades … since the 1st of April (check the date of the post, April 17) I feel like I’ve already lost lots and lots and lots of Vietnamese speaking capability. The half life of the Vietnamese in my brain seems to be more like that of gallium 67 (3.3 days) than that of cobalt 60 (~5.3yrs).
The week of April 3rd was a whirlwind of activity, though. Lots of meetings with folks at the State Department, squaring away the pack out of all our stuff, getting final vaccinations, saying bye to friends, and getting to our friend’s wedding in NJ. It was busy, but not overwhelming. The only thing I will comment on is the pack out.
Did I really bring this stuff?
For any other new Foreign Service people or people moving overseas for the first time with an option to ship things ahead with unaccompanied air baggage, here is my advice. Plan what you want to send. Don’t just start dumping things in the big box the day the movers arrive. I have random stuff with me now – stuff I brought with me on the plane. Stuff like little elastic black pieces of material with Velcro ends. What? Don’t ask me, we found them, so I put them in my bag rather than throw them away. How about Hungarian money from Marjie’s trip to Hungary to be at Julz & Peter’s wedding? Or what about a pedometer with a burned up battery? Methyl cellulose for glue in book binding? The only reason I have that is because the movers didn’t pack it up. Obviously, then, I needed this with me immediately upon arrival.
Happy to Have!
On the flip side, the things I’m most happy I brought are: 1) my small Japanese style knife, and 2) my espresso maker (with coffee from Stumptown). Things I wish I had … are slacks. Lots of slacks. I have one pair of jeans, one suit, one pair of khaki pants that I wore to my wedding, and a pair of suit pants that no longer fit. Hmmm, not a whole lot of casual options. Ah well.
The other aspect of packing the UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) on the day the movers arrive is that you might not remember what’s in there. I know I have a printer coming as well as (roughly) 100 clothes hangers and my slacks – I hope. Other than that, I kinda don’t remember what I put in there, so when it arrives in the next few days, it will be like Christmas in April.
Anyway, the apartment is great. I’m working on a walking tour of the interior that doesn’t compromise security and advertise to the entire world what I have inside (aka nothing). I’ve also posted photos on flickr of the views, which most of you have seen (below if you haven’t).
So far, the biggest thing to report is I’m slowly overcoming jet lag. The 4am to 8pm sleep schedule is slowly being shifted. As of yesterday, I was up until about 8.40 and didn’t awake until about 6.30am. I kinda like the morning schedule, but I know it won’t last long.
