Mai Chau

A few weeks after I first came to Hanoi, one of my co-workers, Phuong, invited me to go on a camping trip. A weekend thing with a bunch of her pals, to a place called Mai Chau. "Sure!" I said, and only afterwards did I realize that I had no clue what or where Mai Chau was. Querying the security guards at my apartment complex was difficult, but I gathered via my crap Vietnamese that a) Mai Chau was very big, b) it was close to Hanoi, and c) many people go there to buy many things.

I was very perplexed then, about this supposed camping trip. Did chi Phuong mean "camping" as in the kind of camping where there are electrical facilities? And was it possible I had just misunderstood the shopping bit? I resolved to pack both my mosquito net and debit card.

As it turns out, Mai Chau is a) tiny b) three hours north of Hanoi and c) breathtaking.

Our intrepid crew:

The split bamboo flooring of our guest stilt house:

Tiny tabby guest:

The pile of greenery being chopped is sugar cane. We bought a bag each to snack on later. As for the bit about Mai Chau being a place where "many people go to buy many things", it turns out I half understood. Many tourists go to Mai Chau to buy things, like handwoven scarves and other ethnic souvenirs. Mai Chau is one of those ethnic minority villages in the mountains, and it's a popular stop for the ubiquitous pink tourist buses I see around Hanoi. What it's really ideal for is to take a long, quiet nap. It's the anithesis of Hanoi, and I was glad to get away, if only for one weekend. The fact that the journey had some gorgeous scenery and that Mai Chau is amazing doesn't hurt either.

Sucky Romance Novelists

Back in my salad days, a well-meaning family friend gave me two romance novels for my birthday. I think that this must have been because she assumed that that I was much more mature than I actually was. That or she just wanted to be rid of them, because I'm sure my life ambition at the time was to become Batman. Or a writer. The romance novels didn't sit too well with my parents. They forbade me to open a box set of "Anne of Green Gables", because, gasp, the blurb on the back indicated quite clearly that Rilla Blythe, Anne's plucky youngest daughter, experiences her first kiss. Horrors! I needed to be shielded from such scandalous matters for my own good.

Just look at that lusty little tramp.

Needless to say the romance novels vanished down the same hole as Anne. I forgot all about them until a few years later, when I received my first rejection slip from a magazine. I'd submitted a story titled, "The Best Present", about two hedgehogs named Prickle and Spike. The editor critiqued my story and suggested that, "depending on [my] age, [I] might want to read some Harlequin novels to get an ear for dialogue." By this time I was smart enough to head directly to the kitchen and climb up on the cabinets next to the refrigerator. I started feeling around the top of the fridge, and presently withdrew a dusty copy of:

written by Ms. Charlotte Maclay:

Thus, I was introduced to such literary stylings as, "creamy white flesh that cried out for a man's touch."

A professor of mine once mentioned in class that he knew a friend who made a great living on the side churning out romance novels. As a poor graduate student studying literature, he decided it would be a no-brainer. He was studying creative writing, after all! Throw in some ripped bodices and straining manhoods and he'd be able to stop eating ramen!

Wrong. He kept on getting sidetracked by having his characters expound on Blakeian mythology and never got around to the heaving bosoms.

And as more proof that I and my fellow writer friends are still horrible at romantic narrative:

Friend: Hey
Vi: Hey
Vi : What's up?
Friend : I got kissed!!
Vi : WHOA
Vi : DETAILS, please.
Friend : hahaha
Friend : so it was Saturday night
Friend : and we went to go see "The Last King of Scotland".
Vi : glad it was a good experience.
Vi : oh, fun romantic movie.
Friend : yeah its an awesome movie
Friend : we've both never seen it before
Friend : besides, we cuddled in the really scary scenes where I covered my eyes
Vi : awww.
Friend: So, after the movie
Friend : we were driving around in his car
Friend: and we parked by the playground next to my apartment
Vi : uh huh
Friend : we were talking in the car
Friend: for about half an hour
Friend : and then he leaned over and put his arm around me
Friend : and he started kissing all over my face

*beat*

Friend : Ok, it sounds less romantic than it really is.

*beat*

Vi : yeah. I'm picturing slobbery dogs.
Friend : okay, okay
Friend : he kissed along the line of my jaw
Friend : and he started from the back going towards my mouth
Vi : eek, eek, got it! Not too much!
Friend : Oh.
Friend : Well, I'm trying to make it sound like it wasn't a dog.

Kitten News

There used to be kittens in that cage.

Good to Know

Welcoming Committee at Hai Phong

Nathan and I spent the Tet holiday down in Hai Phong, a city that is supposedly by the sea. We never did see any sea, but chi Trang (the one wielding the knife) said that it was pretty digusting anyway. I give occasional English lessons to one of my boss' tennis partners, Anh Thai. He and his sister Trang invited me and Nathan down to Hai Phong to spend the holidays with their family. Since much of Hanoi closes down during Tet, and anh Thai and chi Trang are awesome, we of course decided to go.

Still, I don't think Nathan bargained for three straight days of people asking if his hair was real.

And then asking to feel it.

Masala Massacre

Working at two companies is getting to me; my weekdays taken up til 7 and I work split shifts on the weekends. My neighbors have been clucking at me for getting home at 9, and I just smile and explain that it's work.

At that time of day, the traditional open air markets are usually closed, or it's extremely slim pickings. A modern supermarket generally has a pathetic produce section the size of my office desk, and is several times more expensive than a market. Either way, I'd have to walk at least 15-20 minutes there and back, and the anticipation is working me into a foul mood. On the bright side, Nathan's waiting for me, but I notice his lips look pretty chapped.

"Hey, hey, you have some blood on your lip."

"Huh?"

Frustrated at his typical clueless boyness, I've errupted into full-blown Nagging Shrew mode.

"There's blood in the corner of your lip, you doof." I toss some chapstick at him and stalk away into the kitchen, where I know there's no food in the fridge, but I hope that if I look hard enough, genuis will strike me with a brillant way to combine shallots, condensed milk, and pineapple juice.

"Oh, that's not blood."

"Um, it's that red crusty stuff in the corner of your mouth."

"No, that's..." And then it dawns on me.

"YOU WENT TO TANDOOR WITHOUT ME?" I'm so hungry I momentarily considered attacking his face to get at the masala sauce, (which was utterly an gross and digusting impulse but I was actually considering it, and am ashamed).

Nathan pauses. "I ordered out." Egads, decadence upon unimaginable decadence! Our relationship was on the line! The monstruous betrayal of it all! The starving waif trudging home after a day at the mines to find a shameless boyfriend licking his masala-smeared chops!

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and pointed at the table. "I got you some."

Kitten chow

There are kittens on the third floor of my apartment building, and I'm not entirely sure that the owners aren't eating them.

A few weeks ago cats were yowling all over Hanoi, and every cat that crossed my path seemed to be pregnant. Then I discovered a cageful of kittens as I walked downstairs on my way to work, and now I reserve an extra ten minutes of my day cooing over their cuteness.

That is, when I'm not chased away by their hissing demoncat mother. Of course, there's no way she can know that I'm just a sucker for kitties, and that I'm not out to chow down on her babies. Her owners, on the other hand...are very nice people and I'm a terrible person for thinking that they might eat kittens. The other day, I had just gotten back from an evening shift at VTV, and was debating whether to eat instant noodles, or make the extra effort to class up the ramen with a poached egg. Enter the kindly cat owner who whisked me off into her apartment, served me dinner and scolded me over not dressing warmly enough. Then she shooed me out the door with a bag of oranges, ramen, and some menthol salve for my cough.

I really like her and her adorable son, who's eighteen but looks twelve. It's just that a few days ago there were six kittens, and then there were less, and today there were two. Definitely just two. The family could just be giving the kittens away, but as far as I can tell, the kittens have yet to be weaned. Early adoption, or domestic livestock? Maybe here it's not so different from keeping chickens for their eggs. I have seen signs advertising cat meat, though it's much rarer than dog meat.

I hope there are still two kittens when I get back tonight.