Oct. 30, 2004
Dear Family (and Frogpond Editor, Bob)
I can't believe October is over. The weather here
changes so little. This is supposed to be the rainy
season but so far there has been very little rain.
The South China Sea, which is a block from my doorstep, has gotten rough, even with all the islands in Nha Trang Bay to break the surf; and, the tourists aren't able to dive as much as they want but we get cooler evenings. The sea is still warm. I suspect it stays warm all year long!
It has been a good and interesting month except for our experiences with the U.S. Consuls office in our effort to get a visa for Yum. I had gotten my friend, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois (of "no smoking on airplanes fame") to write a letter of support; however, this time we got a copy of the Consular Officer's rationale for turning her down and it was simply ridiculous in so far as they ignored all the documentation we supplied to assure her intention to reside in Vietnam and not attempt to immigrate. Then, they denied to the
Senator's staff that we had submitted it.
So we will proceed with our lives, hopefully get
married in Nha Trang with a big traditional Vietnamese wedding and take a belated honeymoon to Europe next spring. I had hoped we would spend Thanksgiving in the U.S. but it's not to be!
In the meantime, there have been some interesting and enjoyable developments.
Crazy Kim's, the bar where we teach English to street-children, has been torn up for expansion and there was no place to hold class. In addition, I had gotten their paid teacher, Mr. Hein (my cow partner) a job with my friend's new hotel so he couldn't continue to teach. The solution was to move the class to our livingroom and Yum is their teacher, with my help for pronunciation. The children love it and we have a wonderful time. We have started a new tradition. The girls told us it was the birthday of one of them so Yum slipped out while I worked on new words and got her a cake complete with her name and birthdate and
some other treats plus a gift from us. Several of the girls had brought her little gifts also so we had an old-fashioned class birthday party. (See attached picture) Next week will be the twins 15th birthday so we must come up with a creative way to make them both feel special. I'm going to check on taking them to an ice cream parlor that has 40% off before 4:00 p.m. When Kim finishes her building we will miss having them at our house.
This month we opened a gift shop in partnership with Yum's younger sister Tuyet (Tweet) and so far it has been going very well. We called it Tropical Tuyet has a shop next door specializing in custom tailored silk dresses so she keeps an eye on Tropical for us although we go by several times a day when we're in town.
One of the unfortunate aspects of the highly security-conscious communist government is their refusal to permit private yachting in Vietnamese waters. This means that beautiful bays like Nha Trang are forbidden to international yachtsmen or even Vietnamese, who might want to buy a boat for themselves (there are plenty who can afford it). This week a kind of milestone was reached with the arrival in Nha Trang Bay of 13 yachts that raced from Hong Kong to Nha Trang after arrangements were made to permit them to
sail in Viet waters. However, an advance boat from Sweden arrived early last week and suffered such harrassment from the police, they swore they would never have anything more to do with Vietnam.
Since the country is so anxious to have more tourism, it's a shame they do this to themselves. There is a strong effort being made by Australian yachtsmen to change this policy and perhaps in time, they will succeed.
After nearly eight months in Nha Trang, I am still as happy with my decision to retire here as I was in the beginning, and my awareness and understanding of the contemporary Vietnamese culture has increased tenfold (I still have a long way to go). The increased prosperity of some of the people only serves to emphasize the plight of the working poor. The city of Nha Trang, as a major tourist destination, tends to highlight these contrasts dramatically.
Every day, women, including lovely young girls,(most young women in Vietnam are amazingly attractive) in conical hats and black pajamas traverse the city with a yoke of baskets on their shoulder, sifting through trash in search of salvageable, recycleable materials like cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic containers, etc. On occasion when we have some large boxes to
dispose of we will give them to one of these girls
along with a 20,000 Dong note (about $1.10 and as much as they are apt to earn in a good day) for "assisting us by removing the box for us!" The appreciative delight you get in return is heartbreaking.
The civility of the country has suffered dramatically since the war. Every day the shopkeepers throw their trash in the street and every night the dustmen and women collect it. The concept of garbage receptacles is unknown outside of a few public areas like the park
along the beach which is pristine. Yum tells me that before the new government, civic cleanliness was a way of life in Nha Trang. In addition, males of all ages feel no embarrasment at urinating practically anywhere they feel like it, day or night.
Yum has decided that it is her job to insure my good health and one way she has chosen to do this is to see that I get a massage twice a week. She has a young woman come to the house. She would get 15,000 Dong at the shop she works in. We give her 50,000, which is only $3 but she's thrilled. Our $40 a month maid went to Saigon one day on an emergency and never came back so we have been doing our own housework and will probably continue till we get the new house
built. Our architect is coming up from Saigon this
weekend to take a look at the site before we finalize the plan. We will start demolition on the existing house around the first of December.
I'm gradually learning a little Vietnamese. Yum's
sister taught me how to tell Yum she is driving me
crazy, and my students taught me how to yell "Turn on your lights" to motorbike drivers at night. Thank you sounds like "come on" and your welcome sounds like "cup of tea". The intonation sensitive language is so hard to master that I've found people pronouncing their own names differently. What fun!
In addition to the little children, I have about seven adults who come to my house three days a week to talk English to try to improve. Learning English is a preoccupation with much of Vietnam and a huge industry. Much of the teaching is poorly handled. I have had to turn away a number of people who have heard of my conversation sessions because they really need basic instruction even though they may have had extensive lessons in the past. They are lost at my house if they can't understand a simple sentence.
Tonight is Halloween at the Guava Bar and four of us are going to see how it looks in Vietnam. Tuyet has made costums for several of the people who will be there so she wants to see how they look.
Guess that will do it for this month.
Love, Dad, Grandad, Dick
Nov. 2, 2004
Dear Family:
Thought you might find some recent experiences interesting.
After I sent the last letter (at left) I rode down to Emperor Boa Dia's summer villas where the international sailing race participants I mentioned were moored. They invited me to bring Yum to a big party they were having that night so we went for awhile but we had
plans with Tuyet and Jean-guy to go to a Halloween party so we left early. We were to meet at Tropical and when we got there Yum discovered she had broken a strap on her shoes so I ran home to get her another pair. It was raining and the road was slick and on
the way a woman ran a red light in front of me and I took a bad skid and fell, scrapping my head. I cursed
out everyone in sight for the careless driving of Viet motorbike drivers and went on home, blood streaming
from my head.
At home a couple of neighbors saw me and immediately I was surrounded by helpers, including a nurse who
cleaned and bandaged my injury. One of them called Yum at the shop and she got a ride home followed by half the family. I got cleaned up and felt fine and
insisted we go to the party which we did and had a grand time.
The next day I felt fine but at the party a friend of mine suggested I should be concerned about a possible concussion so I had Yum take me to the hospital near our house where they examined me and X-rayed my head. About $3. They suggested that if I really wanted
to be careful, I go to the Provincal Hospital for a CAT scan. I was surprised first of all that they would have a CAT in Nha Trang and even more so to discover that it was a state of the art Seimans short tunnel model. Nothing out of place on the scan ($100) so I went home and resumed a normal day.
However, about 7 p.m. I started to get dizzy and extremely nauseous until I began to vomit violently. I can't remember being so sick or scared. I just wanted to die. Yum got me in a cab and took me back to the hospital where I was admitted with severe
hypertension, nothing to do with the accident except maybe the stress factor. They treated me with blood
pressure medication and anti-nausea medication as well as an intravenous drip to restore the fluids I'd lost. Only two of the people I saw spoke English but Yum never left my side and spent the next two nights sleeping on a straw mat by my bed. Gradually the dizzyness subsided and I began to feel normal.
Everybody from friends to family to students came to see me bringing food and drinks and petting me all over and cooing at me. Even the ministers from the church came in to say a prayer for me.
After two nights and one and a half days they let me go home. Total charges, about $120.
Since I am well insured in the U.S., unlike many, I am more than happy to get my medical treatment where everyone speaks English, but Kanh Hoa Hospital was clean, well run; my room was air-conditioned and comfortable and my (and others) initial anxiety about
what to expect if I had to be hospitalized in Vietnam
were well dispelled. Thought you might find this interesting.
Dick
