As I mentioned in my last post, pretty soon E and I are going to be hopping the pond (that other one, filled with tsunamis and shit) to visit Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Though we’ve both kind of vaguely wanted to go on an Asia trip before this - even so far as considering teaching in Korea for a year, like all our other peers who don’t know what to do with their lives - our reasons for going now are twofold. 1) E is turning 30 soon and doesn’t want to officially turn “old” in the states and 2) we actually do have a number of friends who are teaching in Japan and Korea, and I have a battalion’s worth of aunties stationed in Vietnam. We won’t always have free housing and tour guides available in the places where we want to go, so we decided we needed to take advantage of these soon.
Now, for some odd reason, the “Vietnam” portion of the trip is making me the most nervous. Perhaps it’s because my Vietnamese is embarrassingly poor. I…well, I know the names of dishes my mom makes that I like. I can also say “sorry,” which will probably come in very handy. After that, I’m bracing for a chorus of “không biet nói Tieng Viet* Ha ha ha!!” Yeah, whatever, um, just put me and my boyfriend up for the night, mmm kay?
Maybe another reason is the traffic in Saigon:
Yeah. Um. If that’s how it’s going to be, I’m probably not going to see much of Saigon, beyond a narrow city block around the airport!
For awhile I was actually kind of reluctant to tell my parents that I was going. I’m not sure why, beyond just this vague apprehension of offending my father, who has offered to take me to Vietnam in the past year. I eventually told him, and then my mother, and from both parents I was kind of met by this…silence. I don’t know if it was shock or surprise that I wanted to go on my own, or what. I told my sister about this reaction.
“Well, I don’t know about Dad,” she said, “but I think Mom is worried you’re going to get kidnapped.”
What?! Oh, that’s right, it’s just my reliably paranoid mom. Apparently since I don’t speak the language, that makes me ripe for kidnapping. I have the intelligence and street smarts of a four year old, see, and I would just willingly climb into the back of a car with anyone, even if I didn’t understand what they were saying! My sister has been suggesting a trip to Vietnam for years, and my mother’s always put it off, claiming to be too busy. But since I’ve told Mom of my plans, she has started seriously thinking about using her minimal vacation time to come visit when I am there.
I’m touched and would actually be really thrilled about having my mom there, to show me around and stuff - but they just cut her hours at work! And she’ll have a grandbaby to come visit soon, as well! I can’t help but think of what Suze Orman would say.
And then there was the issue of telling one of the aunties, who we’d be staying with. For the longest time I hesitated about contacting this auntie, who I’ll call Auntie Needles because she taught me sewing lessons when I was little. I learned how to sew by making traditional Vietnamese style dresses for my troll doll. Back then she was known as the sternest of the aunties, and my cousins and I were a little scared of her. Sloppy hems and other transgressions were met with sharp scolding. But in retrospect, all that scolding resulted in what was probably the most well-dressed troll doll, ever. And when Auntie Needles tired of America and went back home to Vietnam, something changed in her demeanor - she relaxed, laughed, and seemed delighted even to have us noisy kids running around!
I haven’t seen this auntie since I was ten, so I really have no idea if she’s relapsed to her grumpy auntie ways. Or if she’d be happy to see me, or annoyed that this random stranger-like niece was contacting her out of the blue, to crash on her couch. Or if she even remembered English - hell, my Vietnamese has vastly deteriorated since I last spoke to her.
Our departure date for Japan is coming up very rapidly, so I finally got off my duff and emailed her. If she was going to be slightly annoyed at me trying to bum her couch, then it would follow that she’d be REALLY annoyed if I did so without advance notice.
Here was her response:
welcome you and your boyfriend,very happy.Ok you stay with me and uncle My .we are ready everything for you…I love you and hope see you soon
She’s family. Of course she’d welcome me! Sometimes it’s easy to forget, the way we live here in the states, drifting apart on our own little islands.
Still, I’m a little nervous about my upcoming reunion with Auntie Needles. I kind of wish I still had that troll doll.
*Translation: “you don’t know how to speak Vietnamese?” The one phrase I will never forget, as I’ve had it barked at me by disapproving relatives all my life. I had no idea how to write that, by the way, and am just guessing using an online translator.
Pattern by