Chris and Reese's Vietnam Trip

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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

Thursday, June 01, 2006

One of these Kids is not Like the Others ...



Taiwanese pre-school class photo circa '78. I'm in the third row up from the bottom and 4th in from the left.

Removing the Blinders

After my cathartic post Tuesday I took a stroll toward Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis. To get there I had to pass by Pho Tau Bay, a restaurant Reese and I always used to just order out from. Outside the door was a group of Vietnamese men chatting it up as usual in the afternoons and this time I could actually understand a word here and there.

I smiled at them and said, "Xin chao!" They all replied, surprised, "Xin chao!" to me, then asked in English if I spoke Vietnamese. I replied "Toi noi tien viet chup chup!" or "I speak it a little." Then I joined their discussion for 15 minutes or so.

I continued on north up Nicollet and visited a couple of the Asian grocery stores. Outside one of them were a couple middle-aged Vietnamese men squatting on a stoop engaged in conversation.

It was exactly what I needed to ease the culture shock, and it was shocking how blind I was to all this before. Yes, it helped that I could at least recognize a few words in Vietnamese when I heard them, but I think I also for a long time had a psychological blind spot when it came to Asians in America due to painful memories.

Yesterday Reese and I got together for lunch and went to, you guessed it, Pho Tau Bay. I greeted the hostess there (I believe she and her husband own the place) with "Xin chao" and got a smile. A little Vietnamese goes a long way, and before we knew it our server was telling us all about how she gets over to visit family in Saigon every other year and how the next trip might be delayed a little because she's having a baby.

The host of the place (I've got to get names next time!) is smiling at us more and engaging in conversation, making jokes to me in front of Reese about how I need to get a Vietnamese girlfriend. "I'm married to her!" I point at Reese. "Right, you need a Vietnamese girlfriend!" "No, you don't understand, I'm married." "Yes, you need a Vietnamese girlfriend!" He rules.

Thank you, Viet Nam. Thanks for reminding me.

Pictures from the 8th Wonder of the World

Our last full day in Vietnam was Sunday, May 28, 2006. It was Memorial Day weekend and the running joke was to complain that we could have been at a BBQ in the back yard but instead had to be in this dump otherwise known as Ha Long Bay:



Erika jumps into Ha Long Bay from the roof of the junk.



Reese and I sit down to lunch inside the ship.



Best crab ever.



We toured a cave in one of the many islets.



The upper deck of the junk anchored next to an islet.



I took a portrait of everyone with Ha Long Bay in the background and Ashley got me back by snapping a shot of me with my camera. Goodbye, Viet Nam!