They’re Crazy!!

They are just over the top! I’ve just come back from my routine Iced coffee and Ice Yoghurt drinks (9.30am every morning).. and the security office is chok-a-block full of people eating dried squid and drinking iced beer. They all gesture to me to come in, I was only there 5 minutes and they got 3 glasses of beer (only little ones) into me and a handful of dried squid.. I couldn’t even work out the occasion.. it must have been quite important because the women were drinking also…. Not wanting to spoil my whole day with a hangover, I hailed them with praise and ran off upstairs.. although I am a little buzzy in the head right now..

They don’t even HAVE a word for “alcoholic”, and they told me beer does not get you drunk. “it doesn’t matter that you meet, it matters that you DRINK together” is what I have heard said before.

They really are ‘expert’ drinkers. Last Tuesday I was taken to a duck restaurant by the younger guys. It was no particular ocasion, they just wanted to eat somewhere different. Between the 5 of us, we drank 3 large bottles of vodka, in less than 2 hours. What I found particularly admirable was that 2 of these young fella’s were having a heated discussion regarding the university they both went to, and the politics in a particular university club. In Australia, these kinds of arguments can get out of hand if fuelled with alcohol, sometimes even best friends will fight. And I have NEVER seen so much alcohol poured into an argument like this. But they didn’t even raise voices. It was quite mature, and the restraint was unbelievable.

In contrast, on our way back to the office, and feeling a bit merry, I ripped off my shirt and started throwing my thongs around the place, like an idiot. They other guys got very concerned about this, and had they to work hard to get my shirt back on and to keep my thongs on my feet. A little later on, I got a little emotional about something. Thinking I should go somewhere quiet and private to “let it all out” I found a spot outside and lay down and cried for a while… only the place I chose wasn’t very quiet OR private (no such place in Vietnam) and the WHOLE academy could see this drunken crazed foreigner laying on his face, blubbing into the concrete…

Funnily enough, I come from Darwin, and the white people are always “tsk tsk”-ing the Aboriginals about their shocking drinking behaviours and lack of control….. I guess I can see the picture the Vietnamese are forming in their heads about westerners…

The latest in weirdness!!

This is pretty f@cked up. My friend is down in Hai Phong, on a business trip. She’s meeting with a lot of government research bodies, and fisheries departments, and a lot of other folks from other NGO’s. And things are going well, the Vietnamese are very good with schmoosing. They like to go to a good restaurant and treat their guests well, and drink some wine and beer.

Anyway, my good friend is talking with a chap from an NGO, who has been involved in training fisheries workers. He’s telling a story about one of these training courses. During the course, one bloke puts his hand up, and out of the blue, he asks “can you catch AIDS from fish?”. The trainer doesn’t know WHAT to think… this guy is having sex with FISH? How does THAT work? What SORT of fish?

The story goes thus… apparently a lot of fishermen, who are usually quite bored in the boat, smoke opium to help pass the time. Recently, most of them have switched to injecting heroine. I don’t know why heroine has become so popular these days here, Vietnam has been next door to the golden triangle for so long.. maybe its access to syringes.. or improved economy has made Vietnam a viable market for dealers.. don’t know..

Anyway, so their all "blasting up" in their spare time on the boats. So where does fish enter the equation? They sell their catch by the weight. To improve profits, they inject the fish with salt water, using the same syringes they use for heroine injection. Hence the mans concern, and some

Barnsey never got a look in here..

My lot are a bit on the slack side, theres plenty of drinking and sleeping.

But they work pretty hard here... if its a labour job. They are pulling down the house next door. Houses here are litterally wall to wall. theres no yard, not usually. Certainly not in my street. They collapsed this 3 storey house in on itself. Using one jackhammer for the concrete, and about 7 hand hammers.

The work crew was 3 older blokes and about 5 young boys, aged 15 - 20 I'd say. They worked all day, and rested a little, then did shift work through the night, carrying baskets of bricks and rubble on their heads, and carting them out to a large skip bin out the front.

At night, if they werent working, they slept on little thin bamboo or cane mats, outside in the alley (which is only a metre and a half wide) in front of the house they were working on. I had to wake them up in the morning to get past them on my way to the gym.

And not a single barnsey tune to keep the morale.

Actually, that house blocked out a lot of sun, I'm on the 2nd floor myself, but that house is 3 storeys high. Now its gone I have a pretty clear view of the sky when I wake up and walk out onto the balcony. Rather nice. Its just a big empty gap in the alley now.

More on working people. I ride down Kim Ma st, on my way to work. Its a pretty broad street, with a wide nature strip of grass and trees in the middle. Yesterday, they were cutting the grass. 5 old ladies, squatting down in a row, with large scissors in their hands! And a young boy following behind with a cane broom and a plastic garbage bag.

What I will spend on breakfast this morning, is probably more than some folks will earn in a week, here. I cant blame them for people trying to rip me off 100% of the time.

Motorcycle Fashion and Icecream Heaven

I got a new rental motorcycle today. The Honda Wave. Very standard bike here. It’s yellow, bright yellow, like a bumble bee! It’s so cool. Much better than the last one. Its quite new, and works really well. I probably look a little stupid on it, because I’m a little big and its little small… anyway.. perhaps I can balance that out with an equally cool helmet.. maybe something white with orange stripes.. and a flip down visor.

Also.. it seems that working in the suburbs with the everyday average people really does have its perks, much much cheaper food. After lunch... if I buy some desert for everyone.... a coffee, icecream, some yogurt.. its only 21,000 vnd! which is $2.00 Australian!!

I am actually in icecream heaven. For $1 australian, I can buy 4 icecreams... that means the australian government are paying me the equivalent of 5,800 icecreams per month!! My workmates, Tuan, Hao and Hieu, they are only paid 400 icecreams... poor buggers.. so I told them if ever they want to eat icecream.. they can come to me.

In fact, because of me, these days, they eat icecream at the cafe more often than they drink beer at the bia hoi. I dont think they want to live their lives like the older guys here. ..

I'm gonna get sooo fat living here...

Hanoi Traffic

Its so crazy, and folks are so stupid. People will speed and duck and weave through the traffic with no helmet AND talking on the mobile phone. Its got its own order, sure, learned through experience and social conditioning, but dont be fooled! The road markings create the false impression that they are there for a reason other than to impress westerners.

My friend Lee told me a story about a woman, who, while zipping along on her honda Wave and talking on the phone, lost total control. She pulled a 90 degree turn, mounted the curb and knocked over 2 parked motor scooters. Panicking, she wrenched the handle bars around and ripped open the throttle. This sent her back onto the road at full speed, she holds this direction, cutting across all the traffic on Hang Bai street, which is NEVER less than 20 motor scooters wide, mounts the opposite curb, and flies into the open doors of a shop selling large flat screen televisions. Gosh I wish I could have seen that!

Size matters on the streets. If you're bigger then honk your horn until whoever gets the F@ck out of your way. I cant stop thinking that its some extension of the class based society. Its so expensive to own a car or a truck, and if you're driving one, then you are representing wealth and status.

Coming from Australia, and being a guy who respects the individual, intrinsic qualities of a person and not their birth status, the horn honking irritates the SH!T out of me! I've never considered myself a road rager.. and I've NEVER seen it on the streets of Hanoi.. however there is a little devil inside my head who, whenever I hear the loud impatient honk of a car horn behind me(even though the lights are STILL red and theres 40 other motorscooters in front of me), tells me to get off the bike, stride up to the car, reach into the window, and SMASH his f@cking skull against the steering wheel until the honking mechanism breaks, and he can bother me no more.

OK, with that out of my system, I'm nearly finished up with my first month on the road. I've had a crappy no-name brand rental scooter for practice. The engine is not timed, and it always stops when cold.. also the breaks aint that great. But if I crash it, then its not very expensive to replace.

With my newly developed experience and confidence with hanoi traffic. I'm ready to upgrade into something a little more stylish. The Honda Wave is the big rage here at the moment. But thats not me. I'm thinking something a little bigger... perhaps a yamaha Jupiter.. Definitely somethng in shiny red, or bright bumble Bee yellow.

Fat Bings Restaurant

"Fat Bings" cafeteria is a little grotty hole in the side of an old building
in the Academy. It has dirty walls, a ceiling that is falling in, the
tables and chairs are just old old office furniture. You can see through to
the kitchen, there is a lot of rubble and broken wood on the floor, and bits
of pig etc...

The food is ... interesting. There is rice (of course), Zau Muong (which is
a boiled water plant), some sliced, boiled pork, small sour tomatoes in
vinegar, some fermented cabbage (not as nice as Kim Chi), a pinealpple and
Liver dish, pig throats, deep fried whole goldfish, deep fried prawn heads,
deep fried silk-worms, some sliced cucumber, a thin soup and a really really
yummy pork and coconut dish. It is accompanied by small plates of chille
and salt, little bowls of fish sauce ...

they say Fat Bings is the cheapest place to eat, only 6000 VND per person,
which is only 60cents australian. Actually, until recently, I thought it
was the ONLY place to eat at the academy, it is the only place they have
ever shown me. Also there, you can buy a bottle of hanoi vodka for only
3000VND (30cents!!). And they like to drink that, I can tell you!!

At the moment, worried for my health, I put myself on a 1 month drinking
ban. This means that sometimes I cannot eat with my workmates, because
you must drink if everybody else does. So one day last week, not being
allowed to go with the guys, I eat lunch with the older ladies I work with.

They take me to a DIFFERENT restaurant, a bigger, cleaner nicer place, the
food is more diverse and more tasty. It is just around the corner from Fat
Bings (in the Academy), but I had never been there. They serve a nice
banana curry, spring rolls, fish, the zau muong has garlic and chille, the
chopsticks are clean.

Also, there are many people there. Fat Bings is so small, maybe it can fit
about 30 people at a tight squeeze. So I always wonder, if the Academy is
so big, WHERE does everybody eat?? They eat here, its called "2 boys"
restaurant. I ask about the price, the ladies tell me it is only 7000VND
per person.. not so expensive.. So I ask why my boss and my workfriends
always eat at Fat Bings.. the old ladies tell me.. "you cannot drink here at
Two Boys Restaurant."

I have been here nearly 3 months now... and that was my first introduction to a non drinking cafeteria.