Lonely and Alone in Viet Nam

Lonely and Alone in Viet Nam

For some reason I can’t remember, I thought that when my wife left me

 

No, she did not “Leave Me”

anyway, when Kim Lien left me to go help her sister in Texas take care of 3 children who strangely belong to the OTHER two sisters, (are you still with me?) I thought I would have lots of time to write and being lonely, lots of that drive that loneliness used to create in my artsy fartsy part of my brain would arise to stimulate my writing juices.  

It didn’t happen.  

Oh, I have lots of ideas drifting in and out of my memory, but am lacking the energy to expand them onto paper.  I even downloaded a new word processing program called “Bean”, but it sits unused in my dock, somewhat like my long gone sailboat, the inappropriately named:  ”R & R”.  Living aboard one rarely has any rest and never much time for recreation.

But this sailor is once more adrift in that Sea of Fomenting Ideas.  A dear friend who I think of as a writer tho he denies it once told me that sitting down to write is like having your blood sucked out drop for drop.  I won’t apologize to him for the inaccuracies of that quote because I know that he won’t remember exactly what he said any more than I can.

So, bleedingly, here’s some mental ramblings you might find interesting:

My sweet daughter told me that she is shelving the pressure creating art projects for the summer and is going to build a cedar planked wood/fiberglass canoe.  There is a website where you can see the finished product/project,  http://www.feathercanoes.com/html/wee%20lassie.html  .The canoe looks fabulous.  In fact it looks so good that if I had built something that beautiful, I would cry and cry if going down river I hit something and scratched the woodwork.  The neat thing is that a ten or twelve (I can’t recall which) foot canoe only weighs 20 pounds, or around 9.07185 KG.  Easy to put on a car roof alone or to portage over distance.  I wish her well and expect that her canoe will look even better than the one in the picture.

I want to write about the beauty of Viet Nam but there is a pillow on my bed that is waiting to cuddle my tired brain, so sadly, that will have to wait.

 

Bill

A really bad experience at BuyDig.com

I recently tried to buy a camera through buydig.com.  I never have had such a run-around. Here’s a copy of my experience–start at the bottom and read up:

Thank you for your prompt response, Mr. Haley.  I appreciate the $20 offer but it just isn’t worth it.  I went around and around with your billing department (by the way, they have the worst hours I have ever experienced on line) and don’t really want the aggravation of trying again.  I just bought the camera through Amazon.

If the billing department was as efficient and responsive as the sales department, I am sure your job would be much easier.

William Robinson

On May 15, 2012, at 10:23 PM, Buydig Sales Dept wrote:

Reference number: LTK52805059536X Please use this ticket number in any correspondence with us.
Subject: Re: Your BuyDig.com OrderDear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us.

  Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience. I am both shocked and appalled at what happened to you. I will certainly look into this for you. Here at buydig.com we believe that our  customers are the most important thing.  Although verifying an order is an important part of our business, the customer must still be treated with the utmost care. This obviously did not happen here.

   If you would like to give us another chance, I know that I can make this work for you. I will also give you a $20 discount on any purchase that you wish to make with us. Please call me at 1800-617-4686 ext 568 if you wish to redeem this coupon at any time. It would be my pleasure to serve you.

  

Sincerely,

Bill Haley

Director of sales

Buydig.com  Service Department
For Customer Service: customerservice@buydig.com
For Sales: sales@buydig.com
For Billing and Verification: billing@buydig.com

—————Original Message—————

From:	William Robinson < >
Subject:	Re: Your BuyDig.com Order
	Please cancel this order.  I find doing business with your company both frustrating and nearly impossible.  I had called my credit card company and was assured that the order would be accepted, but when I called your billing department yesterday, a Russian woman told me that there was some problem with the billing vs. the shipping addresses. I told her that I buy things on line all the time, and nearly every company has both a billing address listing and a shipping address listing.  She said that if there was a problem, Buydig would send me an email. Then I got this email.  I tried calling 3 times today and on the third time the person could finally understand me.  I am a native born American, have a BA in Communications, and a MA in English.  I assure you I speak clearly and correctly.  The third person who answered the phone was obviously black.  I had difficulty understanding HIM.  He told me that my credit card company declined the order.  Enough.  I have no trouble buying things at Amazon.com and will make my purchase there. Your company is a great example of how a customer should not be treated.  It is the worst company I have ever tried to do business with, and I will pass my experience on to anyone who cares to listen. Again, cancel my order.  I will not do business with Buydig ever again. William Robinson On May 15, 2012, at 2:05 AM, billing@buydig.com wrote: Dear  William Robinson,Reference order number:  WC14349733 Your order can not be processed as it was submitted online; this is most commonly due to an error made when submitting your billing address, zip code or apartment # in the wrong field during checkout. This may also be due to a security measure by your Credit card Company due to a simple typing error. Help us process your order quick and efficiently by responding with the correct billing address exactly how it appears on your Bank or credit card statement. ( Billing@Buydig.com ) Our billing department can be reached at (800) 617-4686 option 3 Monday – Thursday 10:00 AM to 6:45 PM EST and Friday 9:45 AM to 1:30 PM.  For international inquiries please call (732) 623-4678 option 3.  The billing department can be emailed at billing@buydig.com. Important Note: We are making every effort to process your existing order. Please do NOT replace your order (online or by phone) unless you are advised to do so by a representative in our billing department. We will ship your order upon our receipt of authorization from your credit card company. Our goal is to ship your order to you as soon as possible! Thank you for your patience and understanding. Buydig.com Service Department For Customer Service:  customerservice@Buydig.com For Sales:  sales@Buydig.com For Billing and Verification:  billing@Buydig.com Fax: (732) 424-1105 Thanks again for choosing BuyDig.com. We appreciate your business.  V:R.3ofc “The question is not what you look at, but what you see” – Henry David Thoreau

Language

I love languages.  The sounds created by people speaking endearingly in their native language caress my ears and emotions almost as if someone was actually touching me.  If you stop and listen to a woman speaking softly to someone she loves, you hear music as beautiful as a delicate Mozart symphony.  It warms me, amazes me, and folds me in a comfort blanket that makes me think of tiny bells tinkling softly in a gentle breeze.

I came to this enlightenment when I moved to SE Asia.  I had traveled a lot in China, and although most of the voices I heard were conversational or street vendors hawking wares, there were those moments when a woman whispered softly and made me think of sweet warm chocolate flowing like a river over me.  In Thailand, the same happened, and now in Vietnam again.  I overhear a girl speaking to her boyfriend and I don’t need to understand the words because the meaning is so obvious, and so beautiful to my ears.  When my wife speaks softly to me of things that are only for us, and sometimes switches to Vietnamese because her emotions are too strong to be conveyed in English, her voice becomes like her singing–full of love and gentle music just for me.

It is at these times that I most want to understand Vietnamese.  I thought I was pretty adept at learning languages, and even in China and Thailand I was able to quickly learn some basic phrases to get me through most situations.  I was never fluent as I am in Hebrew, and at times I thought that my inability to read was holding me back, stopping my progress.  When I came to Vietnam I thought it would be much easier to learn the language because the characters of the alphabet are Roman, same as English. I didn’t think much about the little marks above and sometimes below the letters, not until I started to study.

I found this in a website for learning phrases–they promise to teach you 50 useful phrases for $25:

“The writing system used in Vietnam is the Vietnamese alphabet “quốc ngữ” or “national script.” The system is based on the Latin alphabet, resulting from European influence on Vietnam.

The phonology of Vietnamese is comparitely difficult to other languages, as Vietnamese is a tonal language. There are six tones in Vietnamese:

• first tone – high level tone
• second tone – low falling tone
• third tone – high rising tone
• fourth tone – falling-rising tone
• fifth tone – breaking-rising tone
• sixth – constricted tone”      …and that’s the problem.  Six tones.  The explanation sounds simple (well, “constricted tone” is admittedly complicated, but the others are just as stated.  What they don’t tell you is that deviation of any kind is not allowed.  Get the tone wrong on any word, and you might as well be speaking Hebrew to this Vietnamese.  He or she just is not going to understand what you are saying.  I’ll continue this in the next blog.  Stay tuned please.

Thanks Carol

My dear friend who lives in the mountains of Colorado sent me this gem, and I really want to share it with my readers.  What I would ask you good folks out there is to please write me with a translation.  I know the guy is speaking English, and that there are no “hard” or multi-syllabic words, and perhaps I’m confused by the screaming from the other room where my wife is playing a Chinese card game with a sister and two friends, OR, perhaps I have been “in-country” too long and lost my linguistic edge.

I, however, don’t think so.  What I think is that

Well, you listen and see.  I don’t want to sway your opinions until after you hear this:

http://getfile6.posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/keithrowland/LRsUBlx1BAusWh0RjcoNpdDm9yFSWR1S7HALuQajb7lUQ3UyksQmUzYyax94/AFGUID.wav

If that wouldn’t open, try this:

http://mylifedock.com/how-a-usaf-missile-knows-where-it-is

Doesn’t get much better than this!

I’m not awake yet.  It is six twenty-one in the morning here and we are about to embark on a lovely Sunday in HCMC.  We have a busy day planned:  Walk in a beautiful, tree, flower, and topiary filled park; Breakfast at a 5 star hotel where we can get a huge breakfast including lox & chive cream cheese with my scrambled eggs, brown bread, butter, fresh squeezed OJ, and Vietnamese coffee, OR, for my wife, an omlette with bacon and sausage, two kinds of jelly, honey, white toast, fresh squeezed OJ, and Vietnamese coffee, all served in a beautiful, air conditioned, glass enclosed setting with a good view; then a pedicure for me and a manicure for her followed by a visit to a lovely massage salon where you get a herbal foot bath, a great massage by a very lovely Vietnamese girl, hot stones (to cool me off), and including a foot, face, scalp massage as well as the rest of the body, all in a private room with perfect air conditioning and soft music.

And people ask why I live in Vietnam!

Loves

Right now I am watching Australian TV and listening to a Chinese Violinist playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons while viewing scenes from New York City, and just now the scenes switched to Finland and a Finnish man first continuing the Vivaldi and then going into some local fiddle playing that resembles US Country music.  Now the scenes shift to Lapland and Ice Fishing, reindeer pulling sleds, and scenes redolent of the last 3 minutes of the Sunday Morning TV Program founded by Charles Kuralt.  

This is one of the moments when I love Vietnamese TV as compared to those when they decide to throw in commercials and obliterate the last 15 minutes of the movie, A FEW GOOD MEN.  The program ends with more Vivaldi and a beautiful Chinese girl making a violin do what it was created to do–make beautiful music.

Australian TV has some really boring programs–political discussion groups, police dramas without anything interesting happening, and cooking shows demonstrating how to cook boring food.  Every once in a while they come up with a show like NOT QUITE ART  or  THE NEW INVENTORS.  The first show is on now, and they are doing a walk-thru of a Melbourne neighborhood showing “Tagging”, or Graffiti or Wall Art. The moderator even tries to show us what the artist was portraying and the meaning thereof.  They call it Street Art, and here’s an old brick wall covered with framed old pictures, and the tourists who photograph this for lack of anything interesting in and around Melbourne.  The art is eclectic, with amazing ingenuity that is redolent of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollack,  as well as collages featuring stuck-on forms of art.  It really makes the streets into galleries, and the program questions whether a gallery per se is really necessary.

There are the rare moments in American TV like SUNDAY MORNING and 60 MINUTES when one’s mind is actually pushed into wakeful excitement, but they are few.  Here, in Vietnam, I can turn on TV and see Chinese Opera, Vietnamese Opera, Vietnamese Drama, Vietnamese Variety Shows which remind me of the worst days of Ed Sullivan or Sid Caesar. At times we slip into the muck of watching The Dog Whisperer, but then on the same National Geographic Channel we are treated to an explanation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity that makes sense and is comprehensible. It is these moments when I feel happy and excited to be alive here and now, and a bit sad that one of these days I’m going to be ashes on the Eastern Sea. 

I wonder if I’ll hear the water music.

HOW DO YOU GET 150,000 QUIET VIETNAMESE IN ONE PLACE

Simple–you have a concert featuring the music of TRINH CÔNG SƠN – the poet and songwriter laureate of Vietnam.   Trinh Cong Son – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We attended this concert on Saturday night.  As at every Vietnamese event, it began one hour late.  I think that this is a deliberate action because traffic everywhere is so bad that they allow extra time for people to get to the party, and THIS was some party.  There were no reserved seats, but if you had a special ticket you could get into the area where there were plastic stools to sit on. Otherwise it was Ravinia/Wolf Trap sit on the grass style, and plenty of people just sat on the hillsides in the huge park in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City.

Our friendly dentist gave us the tickets, and although I thought we might see her there with her husband and children, once we got to the outlying areas of the venue I knew that we would never find them.  There were six movie screen sized video screens set up in a rough line that stretched for about 5 blocks.  This allowed everyone to see the performers and the art of this remarkable artist who was born in Hue but lived much of his life in Ho Chi Minh City.  Even more remarkable is the fact that he composed, painted, drew, and lived much of his life with both a cigarette and a glass of whiskey in his hands.  He lived to be 61 years old, and died eleven years ago.  His family received ten thousand emails when he died, a remarkable number considering that in 2001 Vietnam was very poor and few people had computers.  It was like a guy who was a combination of Irving Berlin, Michael Jackson, and Georgia O’Keefe passed away, so versatile and great was his talent.

I am not a huge fan of Vietnamese Music, but Trinh Cong Son  wrote beautiful music that at times echoed Vivaldi, Rodrigo, and Cole Porter.  My wife assures me that the lyrics are tear-jerkingly beautiful as well, and the huge crowds and amazing silence attested to that fact. I have never heard a group of Vietnamese people (not even a group of ten, no less 150,000) be so quiet.  The audience ranged in age from infants to ancients, but all listened in quiet awe to the amazing sounds as they saw many of Trinh Cong Son’s paintings and drawings displayed on the huge screens.  As the music reminded one of classical composers, the art had tones of Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Al Herschfeld, but was simple and original and every bit as wonderful as the music.

The concert tickets were not expensive, but I don’t think it would have made a difference.  People came from all over Vietnam for this annual event, and we heard accents from Hanoi, Hue, and the Mekong blending in the soft evening.  My wife tells me that every year more and more people attend the concert, held on the April 1 anniversary of his death.  We got up to leave when we felt the first raindrops, but few people were moving as we walked away into the night.  I’m told that most people do not leave a Trinh Cong Son concert, even if it is pouring rain.  Nobody leaves early in an attempt to beat the huge traffic jams that would surely occur at the end, and nobody makes noise.  Even applause is minimal as the people do not want to miss a single note or a word of the maestro’s compositions.  Everyone knows the songs, everyone knows the words, but this is not a time for a sing-along.  Rapture was the order of the night, and on Saturday night, at the Crescent Park in District Seven, 150,000 people succumbed.

Here is one example:   http://youtu.be/9UTkySHIjP8

We Raise Them Tough in Vietnam

My baby sister-in-law had a baby two days ago.  The baby was in a hurry, and her mother’s high blood pressure made the doctor perform a C-Section about two weeks before the due date.  Even then, altho the mother is about five feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds fully pregnant, her daughter weighed the same as I–NO silly, not same as I do now, the same as I did when I was born–seven pounds and one ounce.  The child, a very loud and pretty girl, is fine–until she gets hungry.  THEN the screams for food are so loud that the police have come to the hospital twice.  This in itself is a miracle because the police here NEVER come to emergencies like baby killings (seldom happens), murders (very infrequent), or robberies (as numerous as the motorbikes).  Their normal attitude is if it happened or is happening, by the time we get there everyone will be calm or dead or in the hospital and there won’t be as big a mess to clean up.

But enough about that.  What I really want to write about is hospital care and baby care or the lack of both here in Vietnam.  My sister in law is wealthy and is in the best hospital with the best maternity ward in all Vietnam. The price is by Viet standards, astronomical–$150 US dollars a day for a private room with a toilet in the room.  It is a nice room and very clean by Vietnamese hospital standards, which are 3rd world–old, but they are doing the best that they can.  Meals are extra.  Food for the baby is extra. Everything is extra–not much, but still not included.  Disposable diapers are available, but a nursery is not.  As my wife says, “If you go to the hospital in Vietnam and you don’t have family, you will die.”  She also said that if you run out of money while being treated, they will carry you out and put you on the sidewalk outside the hospital.  I believe her.  I have seen people in hospitals here and they always have friends or family in the room or just outside.  Doors are usually open and anyone who is curious can come in to your room–privacy is not an option.

Privacy is also not an option for a newborn.  There are no nurseries, and the baby stays in the hospital room with the mother.  In this case, my wife and another sister take alternating shifts watching, feeding, cleaning both the baby and the mother.  One night my wife stays, the next night her sister stays.  Same with the day shift–each sister alternates.  It really is a comfort to the baby’s mother but it is murder for the sisters, and I am not complaining but it is strange to be a bachelor again.  This will continue until the baby and her mother come home next wednesday.  Then my wife will only have to go to her sister’s to take the other three daughters to school, and pick them up at the end of the day.

I was amazed to hear that two days after the baby was born, the family showed up to visit–the husband with three children, the mother, the oldest son with his wife and 6 year old, a 23 year old nephew with his girlfriend, and another brother.  Of course my wife was there as caregiver, and the baby and mom had no other choice but to be there.  So there were 14 people, unmasked and ungowned, in the room poking and observing the sleeping newborn.  Contrasting this to the isolation of a newborn in a hospital in the USA, I not only am amazed that the children here don’t get 500 new diseases, coughs, or whatever because of their exposures.  I also think that it might strengthen the infant, as exposure to new and strange germs may help develop immunities that American kids have to start attending nursery schools or kindergarten to acquire.  I don’t know the infant mortality rate here in Vietnam, but I sort of suspect that it might be lower than that in the USA.  Recent readings have indicated not-so-good reports about hospital care in America, despite the fact that the cost per diem is far higher than any in the world.  Just another reason for universal health care.

I haven’t gone to the hospital.  I have a cough and I’m afraid of giving it to the baby.  Apparently I am a majority of one.

Life is so interesting and then you move to another country and it gets more interesting all over again.  So much to see and learn, so little time.

 

 

Seder Here, Seder There, Seder Everywhere!

A person I love very much suggested that I conduct a Seder (if you don’t know what a Seder is, perhaps you shouldn’t continue reading) here for family and friends, making it fun and interesting.  This was to be in contrast to the typical Chabad Seder which serves pretty bad food, has a service that cannot be heard due to their spurning of electronic amplification during the sabbath or religious holidays, and is conducted in a manner which challenges those who cannot speak Hebrew/Aramaic.

Come to think of it, I don’t consider Passover (Pesach) to be a religious holiday any more than Lag BaOmer, but that can be the subject for another blog–not now.

My response to my loved one was this:

“You are probably right, but trying to share a Seder with family and friends would not work.  I tried to share Thanksgiving with people here and it was a waste of time.  Even in America, when I tried to make Seders that were fun and more traditional than religious, I found little success.  Only my children, and some cousins who were not Jewish, appreciated being able to understand what the seder really meant and enjoy the music and joy of freedom from slavery that the original Israelites felt.  My wife at the time complained that the new dishes I bought (I wanted to mollify her “religious” uncles who kept kosher at home and ate pork and shellfish outside their homes, and who really did not understand the Hebrew/Aramaic that they conducted THEIR seders in) did not match.  The following year the uncles resumed holding their boring, unintelligible seders, and my wife had the pleasure of discarding the unmatched dinnerware.

Years before all this I participated in a seder at a not-very-religious Israeli’s home.  It was all in Hebrew which I did not understand at the time, but I shared the joy and exuberance of everyone and I had a great time.  A few years later, I enjoyed a Seder on my Kibbutz, and by that time I did understand the Hebrew.  On all but the ultra-orthodox Kibbutzim they tell the history of their Kibbutz, not about slavery but about freedom and building and independence.  It is a wonderfully joyous celebration of life, and to me that is the real meaning of Pesach, and the true honor and pleasure of being a Jew.  I did my duty and instructed my children in the ritual of the Seder, both from a religious and not-so-religious perspective. It seems to have worked because both still observe Passover in whatever way they are comfortable with–and that makes me very happy.  Like me, neither is too religious, altho they both observe more strictly than I do (ex:  fasting on Yom Kippur), and both are proud of their being Jewish.

As we say, “Di-yaanu!”  It is enough.

Something Great is Happening

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/environment/habitats-environment/habitats-oceans-env/cameron-how-deep/

If you click on this link, or cut and paste it into your browser, you will see the beginning of a great experiment and the first real step to opening the depths of the Ocean for exploration.

We probably know more about outer space than we do our own planet’s oceans, and National Geographic, together with James Cameron, are doing what they can to change that.  Cameron’s bravery in making this solo dive cannot be questioned, and his intelligent and rational approach must be admired and respected.  He deserves the title of “National Geographic Explorer” and I honor him here.

You can subscribe to the National Geographic website for free, and with it you will learn of great achievements and wondrous beauty occurring all around us.  I find it remarkable, interesting, and thought provoking, and I hope you will also.