Well to all my family and friends virtually accompanying me on my adventures in Vietnam, welcome! Or should I say "xin chào"? Nope. We had our first Vietnamese class at the University of Economics and Finance (UEF), and let me tell you that it is hard. Hopefully I'll have mastered a couple of handy phrases by the time my two weeks are up.
So I'll start at the beginning: We left from Pittsburgh on Saturday morning... only 21 hours of flight time later we landed here in Ho Chi Minh City! The sixteen hour flight wasn't too miserable; I think I was so excited I blocked out all the negative parts of being stranded in a metal cylinder for almost a day. At least the jet lag hasn't hit me too hard. The city is beautiful--vibrant and green. It reminds me a lot of Chennai (where my family lives in India)... the smells and sights aren't too foreign in that regard.
The Victory Hotel is great so far and the food is delicious! Cannot underscore how yummy everything has been... The foodie in me is in hog heaven. I'm determined to try everything at least once so that I can experience it all--I've already planned what I'm eating at the hotel's breakfast tomorrow morning.
After breakfast we headed to UEF where the students welcomed us with a medley of dances wearing traditional garb from different regions of Vietnam. I'd only seen the ao zai, so it was really interesting to see the other outfits and hats (pictures to come; I wore one of them). One of the students also sang "I'm Yours"--Abe was put on the spot to join in until he forgot the words... it was hilarious, but goes to show how inviting everyone has been! We also got shown up because apparently we haven't brushed up on our MJ. He has this song "Heal the World" that none of the Pitt students knew, but all the UEF kids did. Ha.
Later, we headed to one of the classrooms to butcher their language with our American accents. Just kidding, we tried desperately to learn some Vietnamese and failed miserably. The UEF students were cracking up because we must have sounded so pathetic. Their vowels and tones are so different than any other language I've learned... Makes up (and more) in difficulty for the omission of tense, conjugation, and plurality.
Post-class we ate lunch at the UEF canteen. Repeat of breakfast, so tasty. Except for the fish bones, I loved it. Looking forward to more Vietnamese food tonight at Wrap and Roll. Our afternoon was spent at the US Consulate, which is on the grounds of the former US Embassy and location of the part of the Tet Offensive. The tour and learning about the history associated with the place was cool to hear, but the most interesting part was talking to the foreign service officers. They really get into the thick of things trying to navigate the political and economic climate of their country post; I'm really intrigued... I wonder if they'd take an engineer. I may have also been drawn in because they were all coincidentally coordinating wearing purple.
We've been touring around HCMC in a UEF bus with Tin Tin, our Vietnamese leader. He's very small (like everyone else, I feel like a giant) and enthusiastic. It really struck me as true what one of the officers, Sean, said at the consulate: Vietnam is the real land of smiles (as opposed to Thailand, which used this phrase to attract tourists). I'm really looking forward to the next two weeks, I hope you all can enjoy the ride with me!
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| Our flight path over the North Pole |
So I'll start at the beginning: We left from Pittsburgh on Saturday morning... only 21 hours of flight time later we landed here in Ho Chi Minh City! The sixteen hour flight wasn't too miserable; I think I was so excited I blocked out all the negative parts of being stranded in a metal cylinder for almost a day. At least the jet lag hasn't hit me too hard. The city is beautiful--vibrant and green. It reminds me a lot of Chennai (where my family lives in India)... the smells and sights aren't too foreign in that regard.
The Victory Hotel is great so far and the food is delicious! Cannot underscore how yummy everything has been... The foodie in me is in hog heaven. I'm determined to try everything at least once so that I can experience it all--I've already planned what I'm eating at the hotel's breakfast tomorrow morning.
After breakfast we headed to UEF where the students welcomed us with a medley of dances wearing traditional garb from different regions of Vietnam. I'd only seen the ao zai, so it was really interesting to see the other outfits and hats (pictures to come; I wore one of them). One of the students also sang "I'm Yours"--Abe was put on the spot to join in until he forgot the words... it was hilarious, but goes to show how inviting everyone has been! We also got shown up because apparently we haven't brushed up on our MJ. He has this song "Heal the World" that none of the Pitt students knew, but all the UEF kids did. Ha.
Post-class we ate lunch at the UEF canteen. Repeat of breakfast, so tasty. Except for the fish bones, I loved it. Looking forward to more Vietnamese food tonight at Wrap and Roll. Our afternoon was spent at the US Consulate, which is on the grounds of the former US Embassy and location of the part of the Tet Offensive. The tour and learning about the history associated with the place was cool to hear, but the most interesting part was talking to the foreign service officers. They really get into the thick of things trying to navigate the political and economic climate of their country post; I'm really intrigued... I wonder if they'd take an engineer. I may have also been drawn in because they were all coincidentally coordinating wearing purple.
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| The Vietnamese memorial to all the Viet Cong who died during the siege of the US Embassy, directly outside of the US Consulate |
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