Freaky Fruit Vol 8: What the Hell is THAT?

We have had an enduring Mystery in Long Xuyen: identifying what, exactly, these things are. There is a great busstop halfway between Long Xuyen and Saigon, and in addition to a yummy restaurant, they have food stalls serving all varieties of snacks. Including a steaming pile of these things. They are very hard, black, obviously roasted, and have two kind of sharp horns. (all of which would sugggest, "don't eat me") . When we asked the guy what they were, he simply repeated the name, Au, which Linda had never heard, and is ominously pronounced "Ow!" I should have taken heed.

We suspected a nut or a bean, because they were next to the peanuts. I like nuts and beans, so on my way through yesterday, i bought some. After a good five minutes of exertion, I managed to break one in half, and low and behold - its a chestnut! Just an evil, tasty variety. I happily munched away, breaking several nails in the process. A little internet research proved that they are "bat nuts" or Trapana bicornis.

And a little time in my tummy proves that you should never eat anything shaped like the devil. I have finally fallen afoul of street food.

You Might Have Gone Native If...

Tonight is my last night in Long Xuyen - tomorrow I head to Saigon and Vacation! We celebrated with a potluck with my adopted family in the market. I made gazpacho, which was a novelty - food is never served chilled in Vietnamese cuisine. My adopted family made my favorite Vietnamese curry, gave me a wristwatch to remember them by and showered me with lots of hugs. There was also a debate about whether my "Mami-San" (I dont know why she calls her self that) succeeded in fattening me, which was deemed necessary at the start of my trip. Also, the Coconut Conspiracy continued right up to the end - my hot humors apparently require a LOT of coconut juice.

But its probably good that I am leaving...I'm approaching the "Heart of Darkness" boundary of living abroad where you get reverse culture shock when you go back:

You Might Have Gone Native If...

1. Someone hands you a fork; it feels unwieldy, unnatural and like a generally stupid utensil
   
2. When your new housemate violates the sacred Asian Footwear Hierarchy and wears her "inside slippers" outside the house, you have an inner giggle
3. When those same slippers are worn in your bathroom, you have an inner hissy fit
   
4. You have stopped noticing the vile stench of some fermented ingredient emanating from one of the cupboards in the kitchen
   
5. Boiling water for drinkingvstops being a depressing exercise in deprivation, and becomes a part of the morning routine
   
6. People in the market stop overcharging you and start ignoring you
   
7. Intestinal parasites = conceptually icky, but not serious
   
8. Your knee tendons are now stretchy enough to allow comfortable squatting, even when bathing out of a bucket
   
9. You wear a conical reed hat in public, entirely without irony (....not me...)
   
10. Seaweed, jello and salted plums are yummy together - in a beverage!

Hello Moto!

I swore I wouldn't do it, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Our power went out this morning, as happens pretty regularly. Sadly, it happened about two minutes before Obama went on, depriving the Vietnamese staff not only of A/C and lights, but also the amusing daily spectacle of me yelling along with the crowd in Denver and sniffling incomprehensibly. (Hey, if Bill Clinton gets to cry during Hillary's speech, so do I!)


We found out the power would be out until about 10pm and by lunchtime, I was desperate for some artificially chilled air, some power for my laptop (and so I can finish my project), and some wifi so i could download the speech. There is only one place in Long Xuyen (and probably the whole province) where one can get these things: The Panda Cafe. This place is the hip hot spot in town and every surface is covered with some fashion of cartoon pandas. Its like a bad trip.



Panda Cafe is also a little far from the house - too far to bike in the middle of the day. There was only one option - Xe Om, which translates as "vehicle hug" or more simply, motorcycle taxi. Meaning you climb on the back a motorbike and snuggle up to a stranger for dear life. Motorbikes are the main form of transportation here - and often are way overloaded, which provides endless entertainment. The record so far is an entire family of six on a bike in Cambodia, and I have seen them piled high with baskets of produce, animals, and occasionally construction materials.

I have a healthy fear of motorcycles and had never ridden one. But I went to the corner of the market where the Xe Om guys hang out, and picked one who looked like good ballast. The whole family came out to watch the negotiations, and to laugh as I squealed like a little girl when we took off. It was really terrifying - i started out chastely holding on to the guys shoulders, but in about ten seconds was clinging to him like a baby koala. There is sadly no picture, but when i climbed off the poor guy had star-staped creases in the front of his shirt where I had grabbed fistfuls, and I had a sore jaw from clenching my teeth in terror. We got safely to Panda Cafe, where I am enjoying the AC and salted plum tea, downloading video of Obama's speech, and wondering how I will get back home.

Freaky Fruit Vol 7: Sticky Rice

Okay, okay. I know sticky rice is not a "fruit" but neither were the lotus pods, and I haven't been able to locate a jackfruit (stay tuned). Plus, sticky rice here is not a dish. Its a food group, and yummy!


Xôi (pronounced zoy), is made out of a special kind of rice that gets particularly sticky when you cook it. This also means it attaches to whatever else you put in the pot. Hence, it comes a lot of different ways. I have had it:

• three or four different ways with sweet mung bean
• at least three ways with corn
  
• dyed purple, and sprinkled with coconut, salt and sugar (frequently for breakfast, see above)
  
• dyed green and purple and formed into a petit four (at the all-veggie pigout buffet - my training in Houston unfortunately did not stand up to Lily's ability to eat four plates of food...and a snack two hours later)
• with unidentifiable, sweetened green stuff, which i suspect were veggies
  
• with black beans
• as a gooey case for mung bean paste, steamed
• ground up into flour and steamed into a rice-y, sticky cake
  

And the best "Banana in a Blanket": grilled banana, coated in sticky rice, grilled again and slathered in sweet, creamy coconut sauce. Holy God.

Southern VietNam is prone to sweet foods, so I haven't seen any of the savory varieties, but they are generally not vegetarian. (But I imagine its damn good with pork).

Warning: Cutestorm

I am working on outreach materials for approaching corporate sponsors - My job this month is to figure out how ADAPT can expand vocational training services. Chi Thao just sent me some exceptionally cute pictures of scholarship recipients, below, and I included a story about one of them. The pictures of the girls are all from scholarship awards ceremonies, when they get all the materials and supplies they need for the school year. ADAPT pays for all required fees, uniforms, supplies, books, backpacks, and a bike to get to school if its a long way.


In the fall of 2006, Mỹ, an ADAPT scholarship recipient, dropped out of school despite having access to everything a student needs. When ADAPT visited her to follow up, she was working with her mother washing dishes, earning $19 per month. Though only a 6th grader, Mỹ told her mother: "I am going to work to pay back some of the family debt, and then I am going back to school." Sadly, $19 a month is not enough to lift her family out of poverty. The only real chance they have would be for Mỹ to graduate from secondary school, to a higher wage rate. Unfortunately, Mỹ didn't think this way, nor did her family.


ADAPT staffers traveled by motorbike for more than two hours in the rain to her house, bringing a school official, a women's union representative, and her schoolteacher to demonstrate to Mỹ's parents the depth of concern for her. By the end of the visit, Mỹ, with her mother's permission, promised to go back to school. The community also rallied support, promising her family a low-interest loan to buy a motorbike so Mỹ's father can earn a living transporting goods for other villagers.


We saw Mỹ at the following scholarship delivery ceremony—she had kept her word and was heading back to school. Soon after, her mother was diagnosed with cancer and had no financial means to seek treatment. One ADAPT staff member personally raised funds and helped the mother received treatment in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, Mỹ’s mother has recovered and has returned home. We recently saw Mỹ walking hand in hand with other classmates on her way home. Her bright smile showed her happiness of being able to continue to go to school, play with friends, and develop her dreams.

Different Countries Are Different

Despite all my advanced training in global management, I arrived in Vietnam completely incompetent in good manners. There seemed to be basic mores about offers and refusals, people communicate and interact differently from Americans, and most frighteningly, I had no idea what to do with my shoes. Knowing how to get along with people is as important in business (if not more), as understanding global market dynamics. Here is what I've learned the hard way...

1. Never clean your plate. If you finish all the food in your bowl, the host will hijack your bowl, fill it with more food, and watch you mindfully until its consumed. In the long run this leads to kidney explosion and obesity, so just leave a "rice buffer" in the bottom of the bowl, and claim fullness (see #3 for making an effective claim)

2. The Sacred Asian Hierarchy of Shoes. Outside shoes may only be worn outside. Inside slippers may only be worn inside, except in bathrooms where shoes are forbidden. In confusing house/office arrangements (like the one I live in), outside shoes may be worn in common areas by non-residents, but not upstairs, unless they are high heels, which are somehow immune to shoe rules. Residents must wear inside slippers at all times indoors, except when entering a bedroom thats not your own. No shoes are allowing in unfamiliar bedrooms. Please keep your shoes lined up neatly in the "Shoe Pit" at the bottom of the stairs.

3. The Rule of Three. If you want to refuse something, you have to refuse three times. If you want to offer something, you have to persist through three refusals before you will know if they actually want it.

4. Host/ess gifts = more important than in the US and a little different. Hit the airport giftshop for trinkets before you leave the States - anything with relevance to your town, state, etc. will be really popular. I totally forgot about this, and have made pitiful attempts with what I can come up with locally, eg. a bag of oranges.

5. "Chi" and "Co" are not peoples first names. Everyone here has a prefix based on their place in a broad family hierarchy. Co Ngoc Ahn means "Older woman Ngoc Anh" and Chi Thao means "Older Sister Thao" - and a Chi is just a friendly woman who is older than you, even if not related. Em is little sibling or cousin. When we talked about "relationships" being really important in Asia, they weren't kidding.

There are probably more - I would love to hear the social rules everyone else has learned this summer. If you want to contribute anonymously, email me.

Freaky Fruit Vol 6: Mangosteens

I have been putting off trying mangosteens because every time I even think the word, it conjures up a large underwater sea creature, something like a lobster crossed with a manatee. And definitely not tasty.

This delay may be the worst thing dyslexia has ever done to me.


Mangosteens = better than any soft fruit I have ever eaten, with the possible exception of "warm from the tree" ripe peaches. They look like, frankly, the tomatoes from Super Mario Brothers (and incidentally, are perfect for throwing at friends). The purple layer is a thick rind, about the consistency of a tough grapefruit rind, and is as bitter as it is pretty.

Inside, there are segments of white fruit, one of which has a pit. And Oh My God. They taste like crack-laced cherries; its just a super-powered flavor. (And incidentally, its been classified as a superfood). I secretly ate three before sharing the fourth with my roomate. Evil glutton that I am.

Here is a link to an article in the NYT on Mangosteens by David Karp, my favorite food writer, discussing the mangosteen's rarity in the states. They are apparently so hard to grow in North America and so tough to import, that they sell for $45 a pound in New York City, and when I have a greenhouse, I will grow a mangosteen tree. And eat them all myself. Mark my words!

Such a Hottie

I am sorry to inform Helen and Janet that I have been adopted by a family in the market and will not be coming home.


My new parents are in their mid-forties, own a foodstall where they make THE BEST sandwiches ever (have you figured out the key to winning my affection yet? I don't even like sandwiches) and have two daughters in their early twenties. My new dad is deceptively shorter than me and doesn't speak any English, and I don't look anything like my new sisters, but no worries. My Vietnamese is coming along.

I had never really thought my foodie-ism was that extreme, but this all came about because apparently I am fun to feed. Lily has been trying to fatten me up by appearing at my desk several times a day with a snack and my new family has gotten in on the act. I recently learned that you have to keep a buffer of food in your bowl, because if you empty it, it will be snatched from your hands and refilled. And Im not sure speaking Vietnamese would help you protest. Meals are usually a five-course affair - savory vegetable rice porridge with homemade croutons, sour tofu soup, fried morning glory, bitter melon stew, stewed mushrooms... eaten in the market. I think they like having me around because I help the girls practice their English, and because it gives them a reason to cook. I like stealing recipes.


Also, they are homeopathic healers of a sort. I got a monster cankersore (thanks, Malarone) and am generally the sweatiest German in the county, so it was determined that I am generally "too hot." Hot humors and cold humors are constantly at war in a person, and my hot humors win. So there have been lots of dishes with coconut, which is cooling, and also some drinks made out of untranslatable ground up vegetables, but the cankersore went away immediately.


This gets me to the challenge of my new clan. I am the only one who doesnt speak Vietnamese, which means I am effectively the little sister who can't protest ill treatment. If one of the other volunteers, who were adopted long before I got here, are handed an avocado smoothie they don't want to drink, for instance... guess who gets it. "Claire really likes avocado and she has an upset stomach, too." This is karmic payback for all the times I locked Janet in the closet when we were kids.

A side note: Dad's family was in the VietCong, and Mom's was in the South Vietnamese Army. Now Dad's connected, so his daughter has access to some higher education that wouldn't be available otherwise, and all of Mom's family are in the US. This was communicated in a very light-hearted pragmatic fashion, which sort of astounds me.

Freaky Fruit Vol 5: Dragonfruit

I was pre-disposed to like dragonfruit because I heard them described as "what eggs look like on in the Klingon homeworld" and because they are bright pink. So it must taste as exotic as it looks, right?



Wrong. Although dragonfruit is ver refreshing and has a fun crunchy texture like a kiwi, it really doesnt do much for the tastebuds. They are purportedly better cold (according to Lily and Wikipedia), but only because it makes them a guilt free treat in hot weather. When someone describes fruit with "delicate aroma" and "low in calories" they secretly mean "doesnt taste like much."

Postscript: We are all on Rambutan watch because its the end of the season... :(

Babyfaces

There aren't going to be any pictures in this post, because I'm going to tell the stories of the trafficking victims I have met, and I want to protect their identities.

Here is the generic story: A girl from a very poor family is taken out of school in the second or third grade to work in the fields. For one of many reasons - accelerated by a general lack of education and economic need - the family sells the girl to a trafficker for about $500 (or less), or slightly less than the annual GDP. The girl is taken illegally upriver into Cambodia and is put to work for a pimp in a casino, hotel or brothel. She may work there for several years, during which time she is totally isolated. If she is lucky, she escapes, sometimes after many years of slavery.

And, they can't go home. Stigma aside, if your family sold you into the sex trade when you were 12, they are very likely to do it again. Returnees are at the highest risk for re-trafficking: they lack life skills, literacy and general education, so getting a job is very difficult. They lack a social network to support them and doctors who are willing to treat them, because they are underage. The government will happily house them - with drug addicts and prostitutes who have been taken off the street. They are mostly unaware of sexually transmitted infections, even if they have them.

So Adapt opened an group home, to give returnees a safe haven where they get educational and vocational support, mental and physical healthcare, life skills training (because pimps don't teach their sex slaves how to balance a check book), and reintegration support. And they often hang out here.

Cathy tutors two of the girls from the Open House every night. I will call them Laverne and Shirley. Laverne is 21, but looks 13. She's very sweet, and you would never guess that she was a sex worker for two years. Shes also very bright smart, but behind on her reading and writing. She's great at helping Shirley, who is 19 and hasn't been in school since the 1st grade. Shirley's learning to read and write for the first time, and to count past ten. She is very stylish.

There is also a pair of twins who randomly wander and cook for us - (I think because they love Chi Thao, who runs the Open House, and lives here). They were trafficked to Malaysia in the 10th grade and managed to escape. When they returned, were placed in a home since their mother is in jail in Cambodia, but they were both such exceptional students that they were put in a boarding school and spend their summers here. Almost three years after being trafficked, they are in the 11th grade, and are considered a miraculous story of keeping your shit together.

The mood in the office is very communal, family-like and safe. Its all women, we all live here. The twins made dinner the other night, and we watched kung fu panda. I was sitting there over dinner and looking across at the girls from the open house. Its real cognitive dissonance, to be joking around with these girls and think that at 13, they had their first sexual experience in captivity with a stranger. That they lived in slavery. The fact that they can still crack a joke, is a testament to human resilience.

I'm A Little Teapot

On Sunday, the girls from the office, the Open House, and I volunteered at a local orphanage. Volunteered = played with 150 kids.


The place itself looks like hell - the facilities are bare bones, old and open to the air, the place is generally decrepit, and supplies - including food - are meager. This is the part where I am supposed to turn and say "but the orphans have such warm hearts, and are so well treated it was an uplifting day." Sorry, it was an exhausting day, and we all came home filthy. When kids outnumber adults at a ratio of 30-1, they get starved for attention and affection in even the best institution. But its a credit to the institution that despite a lack of resources, the kids are clean, helathy, good at sharing, treat adults with respect...and few of them are orphans.


Vietnam is definitely an emerging economy. Even in the countryside, you can see tremendous real estate and consumer spending growth, increased access to banking (now 3 atms in Long Xuyen!), and general business investment. But there is also extreme inflation on the most basic staples (~30% for rice and gas this year), and increased isolation of rural communities in who cant take part in the manufacturing and export economy. Thus, there is a wide strata between the economic participants and the destitute. The kids in the orphanage? They come from the destitute.


One girl had her first day at the Orphanage on Sunday (she spent the weekend with us getting spoiled and kitted out. One must not enter 5th grade without an art book and a change purse shaped like a pig). For her, the orphanage is a big step up. Her parents are both unemployed. Her sister was trafficked into the sex trade in Malaysia, was rescued, and is now back and working two jobs in a sewing factory. One of her brothers was indentured to the family's debtors, and no one knows where he is. And the little girl had been harvesting snails in a swamp so full of pesticides, that her hands and fore-arms are covered in sores and scabs. Even worse, shes been approached by trafficking brokers. When her father dropped her off, he was distinctly relieved.

She was psyched to get to the orphanage, and immediately fell in with the gleeful troops, who turned into a mob of hysterical monkeys upon our arrival. She is excited for uninterrupted school, especially art class. It wont all be roses for her - one of the little boys was teased while we were there, for wearing a pearl bracelet - he has four older sisters, and no parents, so the only clothes he has are girls clothes, and the only thing he has from home is a bracelet. The kids make fun of him.


But we had a fun day - there was lots of drawing, practicing English, horseplay, and clinging to volunteers. Then we all sang our favorite songs - there was a complicated disco performance by some tweens (see above), a love song by some appropriately forlorn teenage girls, various renditions of jingle bells. At the end, Linda and I gave an audience-silencing rendition of "I'm A Little Teapot." Linda is a good singer, but apparently, I am not a convincing little teapot.

Freaky Fruit Vol 4: Lotus Pods

The area around Long Xuyen has a lot of beautiful Lotus fields (and rice paddies, lots of rice paddies).

Little did I know, Lotus Pods are edible. I had thought they were for decorative purposes only, for use in "exotic" flower arrangements after being dried and spray painted a complimentary color.



Honestly, I think they should stay that way. They're too much work: You have to break open the pod, then husk the seed (I nearly ate one without husking, causing a shriek from a nearby local), and then you get a boring, bitter seed. The lady that sells them also sells boiled peanuts, which (although my southern friends may disown me), I hadn't actually tried until I got here. And they are good! And very little work.

My other objection - as they ripen Lotus Pods start to get creepy.
This brings the sum total of "Vietnamese Foods I Don't Like" to 2, the other being "Milk Paper" which is essentially dried milk in sheets. In my former office, the lounge doubled as our lactation room, and acquired a yicky dried milk smell, like milk spilled on a couch and left to dry. That's what Milk Paper tastes like. And its bright green - the only food in recent memory that I have reflexively spit out.
(For the record, I am pro-lactation room, lest you think I am a traitor to my gender)

Malarone: A Comedy of Terrors

Ten years ago when I was traveling in the jungles of Ecuador, I took Lariam (an anti-malarial), and I might as well have been dropping acid before bedtime. And after about five days, I decided to chance it with the mosquitos - the nightmares were too scary, and I was markedly not myself during the day. The one dream I remember: I was dragged into the amazon and eaten by a giant anaconda.

I suspected I would have a response to Malarone, the anti-malarial I'm taking now. And I almost didn't get the prescription. But, its more advanced, and the idea of having to truck it five hours to Saigon, suffering from severe fever and exploding red blood cells, through a country where I dont speak the language, was enough to convince me.

So, now Im having "vivid dreams" every night.

They range from "weird" to "terrifying," but in general: If Lariam affects my brain like acid, Malarone is like eating a lot of cheese before going to bed. I normally have vivid dreams, and remember them on waking up, but this is a strange step beyond.

First, the snakes are back. Despite the fact that I grew up in snake country, I am terrified of of them. Just snakes. I actually like spiders and other scary creepy crawlies. Now, I dream about snakes every other night, but they are usually brightly colored, benign, chubby little snakes. I am usually subduing them in some way thats totally unnecessary, causing them to freak out and in their tiny way. Hmph.

Then there are the "Whats going on in my room" dreams: The night I put up my mosquito net was also a night I was feeling lonesome for my Stanford friends who have been interning outside the bay area this summer. I dreamt that about 20 of my friends were sedated and put in big metal boxes, to sleep for a year. Some were fine, others had horrible experiences. I was completely freaked out all day. (It took about 24 hours to realize that my mosquito net forms a fabric box).

Also, I have never had dreams before that had real tactile sensations, and now its common: I tuck myself in, and kind of half-ass it with the corners of the mosquito net, but determine its enough to keep the cockroaches out. About half an hour after i fall asleep, I feel something chomp my big toe. I shriek, jump up, and start wielding a broom, trying to hunt down the critter that bit me - probably a rat. I shake out all the bedding, make and unmake the bed, and then I realize, Theres no bite mark. And there wasnt a big enough hole my mosquito net to let a chomping critter in. Aha... and remarkably I'm able to sleep after this.

So today there was discussion of my stopping the drug, but Im going to stick with it. In two weeks, I've had only one really terrifying nightmare, and I am still a long way from an english-speaking doctor. Plus, now that I can see how its amplifying my subconscious, its sort of amusing.

A Day In My Life in Long Xuyen

I was biking home through a rice paddy after dinner tonight , and it struck me that my life is a little unusual these days, so I thought I would give everyone a glimpse. (and Mandy, these pictures are for you).

5:15 am
I wake up because my arm HURTS - there is a dime-sized welt - a new bug bite I have been itching in my sleep. There is also a loud rummaging sound coming from the office on our main floor, so I throw on some clothes and go down to investigate if we are being robbed and if Linda left her green potion on her desk. The robbers prove to be Chi Thao, our head of reintegration services, heading out through the massive steel gates that cover the front of the house. I apply the green potion, which is extremely effective against bugbites, but may be Snake Oil and fall back into bed.

10am
After meeting with Lily and Linda, I try downloading service patches for Excel which has crashed my spreadsheet four times. The download takes FOREVER, and it is suggested that we are being watched by the local authorities who are jamming the internet. They are not super big fans of the organization, which highlights the fact that trafficking is a problem in this region and happens more often than they would like to admit. As I ponder this, the power goes out, so Lily and I head out to the market. I want to investigate a lady selling cakes, find some snake oil of my own and buy a Durian.



11am
The market is a ramshackle collection of stalls selling an odd assortment of necessaries, like wedding invitations and live frogs. People in the market are getting used to me - and we stop to chat with a couple of ladies selling green mango. One says "Hello!" at which point her friend erupts (in Vietnamese): "What are you doing, you old fool? You don't speak English." I wave cheerily. Lily buys every snack in the market, and I nibble: a banana-wrapped glob of rice gluten filled with coconut, a puffy sweet fried rice flour cake, some taro balls, and of course the durian. I also get some homemade soy milk. Its so much better than the stuff I get in the states. Half an hour later, the lights come back on.
This is Lily:



3pm
By the time the power goes out again, I have fixed my software issue and made some respectable headway on my work. Despite the fact that this is a non-profit, there are no slackers here. I drink a cup of tea and work offline in the hot dark. (When you're sweating just sitting at a desk, why not drink hot tea?)

3:20pm
Power comes back on.

6pm
Some girls from the Open House come by for their tutoring as Linda and I head out to dinner. All the bikes are a little run down, broken and flat, but Linda is used to it. I have decided that even tho the Locals will think I'm nuts, I'm wearing a helmet when I bike. And because I'm WAY too big for the bike, I roll up my pants to keep myself from getting tangled. There is some commentary and giggling about my look from the girls (who are quite hip), but I feel safer. We bike on roads with more or less pavement, weaving in and out of motorbikes, pedestrians, trucks, and the occasional coffin in a handcart (no, Im not kidding). We pass rice paddies and shacks, open air cafes that are gearing up for the evening, and arrive at a newly opened vegetarian restaurant.


7pm
I am in vegetarian heaven. Long Xuyen is populated by followers of Hoa Hao, a strictly vegetarian buddhist sect. Excellent!!! Furthermore, tomorrow is a full moon day, which is special in a lot of Buddhist traditions. People here generally treat the full and new moon days as Sabbath days, and go veg for the day, so everyone in town is Vegetarian today. And the veggie restaurant is hopping (as are the temples, more on that later). The owner proudly shows me five bubbling pots. We squat on plastic chairs and eat some of the best fake meat I have ever had. Total bill for four, very full people: 62,000vnd or $3.80. AND, they remembered that Lily was in last week and had a bad coconut and try to refund her. We bike back home and stop at a pharmacy that sells Snake Oil.
I get my own.

The five large pots at our favorite veggie place:



8pm
The house/office is full of people studying and visitors for dinner. I need a break from people (and requiring a translator), so I head upstairs, turn on the water heater so I can "shower", and the AC so I can sleep later. I also assemble the mosquito netting that i have finally organized, washed and found string for. While the water is heating, I read and relax, since we don't have TV.

8:30pm
The ceiling erupts in about the most terrifying noise I have ever heard. Its deafening, metallic and sounds like we're being bombed. Then it dawns on me: thunderstorm on a tin roof. Furthermore, everything is louder here because the whole house is tiled and without carpets. I wait till its over, bathe out of my bucket and read for an hour before heading to bed. Sorry, no pictures of that part.

Freaky Fruit Vol 3: Durian

I have to admit, it was a dare.


Several girls in the office claimed it was their favorite, another that the only time she ate it she threw up, and my friend Tom wrote: "Glad you discovered longans, but you’re not an advanced Asian fruit goer until you’ve had durian fruit …" So of course i rushed right out and bought one today when the power went out.

For anyone who hasnt met a Durian in person, let me paint a picture. You pass a Durian cart on the street and its like walking through a fog of sweetened hot garbage. To wit:

The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Regarded by some as fragrant, others as overpowering and offensive, the smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in Southeast Asia.

If you can buy one before fainting, the vendor with crack open the spiny shell with an icepick, because the husk is really tough. There are the fruit pods, which are about the size of a film canister and look like fatty tumors. Mmmmm... The fruit itself is an offwhite, creamy goo clinging to a soft pod.

But, i actually enjoyed it! I had a fresh one, so it only smelled a little like garbage, not fetid. It was custardy, and tasted like a creamy, spicy cantaloupe, with a slightly tangy finish, almost like an eau de vie. And an aftertaste that is distinctly...raw onion. Anyway, I finished the whole thing - partially to keep the office from smelling.

The Walking Traffic Hazard

In a town of 300,000 locals, I am almost the only white person. We are way off the tourist route, so even if I weren't a foot taller than the local women and blond, I would stick out just by being white (and a totally incompetent cyclist). Everyone stares. Little kids point. People call out as I cycle by, or honk and holler as they overtake me on my bike (which is just plain scary when they are driving a large, loud garbage truck). Yesterday, a guy on a motorbike, with his wife on the back, buzzed by me, yelled hello and waved, at which point his wife started whacking him on the head. A woman cycled past me tonight, looked over, did a double take, and was so startled she swerved into opposite traffic.

Cathy and I were sitting in the local Coop Mart (a very hip place to be and much like a walmart), chatting and eating jellies, and everyone who walked by stared at her as much as me. I am really accustomed to sticking out when i travel, but she blushed elegantly at the attention and asked how it felt to be an obvious minority. I hadn't been thinking about any of this - I have traveled in places where everyone stared because being a white girl made me, by definition, an infidel and a slut. Here, it feels very positive, but it got me thinking about being different, which has been a pervasive theme in my life, but not one i have thought about in a while.

When I was growing up, my parents chanted to me: "Tall is Beautiful!!" - they didn't want me to feel self-conscious and slouch. They knew I was going to get teased - and I did. But their conditioning worked and despite the slings and arrows of adolescence, I ended up six inches taller than the average American woman, and very happy to be different. But I am human... recently, someone I thought cared about me said, "You would be a '10' if you were shorter and had bigger boobs." Whoa! That really hurt my feelings. Not since I was 13 and the boys called me "The Wall" had anyone criticized my height.

Oddly, sticking out as much I do here feels great. If I were shorter and more generic looking, the people who run the market stalls giggle as profusely when I come in. Although Im sure i will run into some negative sentiment at some point, but so far having people gleeully scream "Hello! Hello!" at me from the sidewalks makes me feel like a celebrity (and a traffic hazard).

The bigger concern is that my coworkers, who are Vietnamese American, more or less pass for
locals. My presence outs them as foreigners, and I am not sure thats a good thing, given the sensitive work they are doing.

Freaky Fruit Vol 2: Rambutans

I would like to thank the gringos for the enthusiasm and suggestions on this part of the blog. On to my new friend the Rambutan...

"Exotic fruit of Southeast Asia: The rambutan, Nephelium lappaceum, is a fruit considered exotic to people outside of its native range. To people of Malaysia, Thailand, the Phillippines (...ahem, Justin), Vietnam, Borneo, and other countries of this region, the rambutan is a relatively common fruit the same way an apple is common to many people in cooler climates. This may change for the rambutan over time as availability and distribution improve." - Rambutan.com

It may look like the balls of a flaming Martian baboon, but the Rambutan is a study in fruity subtlety. If Liz Ewing were here, she would know how to describe what it tastes like, but I'm at a loss. Its delicate, a little melony and plummy, with aromatic tones kind of like a Riesling, but very very light in flavor. I'm a big, big fan.

Side note: Long Xuyen, where I am working is the capital of an agricultural province, and I live right near the market. Unfortunately, I cant pronounce a word of Vietnamese. When I went to the market, I pointed and held up five fingers. The Rambutan lady held up 18. I thought, "well thats a little extortionate, but its only a dollar" But then she filled a bag with half a kilo (or about 50 fruit), and gave me 3000 dong change for my 20.

Good thing they're tasty!

Positive Karma at the Cu Chi Tunnels

Yesterday I followed the well-beaten tourist path to Cu Chi tunnels, part of a 200km network of tunnels constructed by the VietCong. I have read about tunnel rats and also had heard about the entirely offensive propaganda "documentary" that precedes the tour, so my expectations were low... but I met a guy named Minh, who was the highlight of my trip. I want to share his story because I think it says a lot about the South Vietnamese experience during and since the war.

Minh was born in 1944 in Hanoi, but his family fled South in 1954 when the Communists took control of North Vietnam, after a decade of bloddy fighting with the locals, the Chinese and the French. His best quote: "I was born in war, I grew up in wartime, I fought in a war, I paid for fighting and I survived the war."

After moving to Saigon, which was being transitioned from French to American support, he thought he would go into Seminary, but met a girl, and decided that "he didnt want to spend the rest of his life going to bed next to an empty pillow." So instead, he went to university, and majored in linguistics. When he graduated in 1969, the war was fully escalated, and he was married. Working for the Americans was the best gig in town, so he became a translator for the 101st Airborne. He served with the American army until the end of the war, as a field translator and as an interrogation translator for the Military Intelligence Department. Some of the people he helped interrogate had been taken out of the tunnel system.

After the North took control of the south, his assets were seized and he was sent to a reeducation camp for three years. After that, he was sent home on a collective farm in his home village. 14 years later, Vietnam starts to open up to free trade, so he was able to get a job as a tour guide. Where I met him.


I would have expected someone with such gruesome experiences, to be a little jaded or toughened, but he was an extremely soft - and peacefully reconciled - guy. What moved me the most was the way he spoke about his "GI friends." His take on GIs: they didn't want to be fighting, they made him realize that people are generally similar ("because everyone sits down on his helmet and cries when it gets to be too much"), they drank a lot and most of them were deeply troubled by their experience. He talked about this in a deeply compassionate way, which was particularly moving for me to hear, because as some of you might know, my dad was a troubled Vietnam Vet who drank a lot.

When we got to the CuChi tunnel, he sat outside while we all crawled through them. I thought it was so he could count heads and make sure no one was lost, but he told us this story on the way home: When he first started giving tours, he took the guy writing the lonely planet guide to CuChi and went through the tunnel with him. While he was in the tunnel (which have a lot of turns, are completely dark, and scary under the best conditions), he saw what he thought was the ghosts of one of his GI buddies as he turned a corner. He fainted, but kept going, and saw another ghost. And another. He was so unnerved, he hasnt been in the tunnels in 16 years.

He shared many of his views with us during the trip, but the pervasive message was
"War is awful, and we should be grateful for every day we are able to live without it. Don't waste time wondering why it happens, just get through it and when its over, focus on the fact that life goes on." I really wish my dad could have heard that, but I like to think that there was some karmic good in my hearing it. And sharing!

Sugar High - Ca Phe Sua Da!

I stopped at a little street stand for an iced coffee, on my way back from the Independence Palace last night and had a lovely chat with an old Vietnamese guy who taught me how to order iced coffee like a local. My attempts elicited giggles from him, his wife, his exwife, and their many grandchildren. Ah... blended families.

Ca Phe Sua Da - really strong iced coffee, with sweetened condensed milk over ice. Guaranteed to make your teeth fall out, and very tasty even tho I dont usually like sweet coffee. Two glasses in the afternoon, however, will cure your jetlag. I am now hooked. So much for my decaffeinated life.

Fun fact: Although coffee production here was virtually halted during the Vietnam war, when the highlands were depopulated by intense fighting, Doi Moi - the free market reforms launched in 1986 have made Vietnam the #2 global coffee producer. More interesting tidbits on the benefits of free enterprise to product quality can be found in the Wikipedia article , as well as recipes.

Freaky Fruit - Vol. 1 Longans

Anyone who has ever travelled with me will not be surprised that the first thing I did today was head straight to the Ben Thanh market, where you can buy anything. Theres nothing like several hundred hucksters to make you really get a feel for a place. Its very glittery.

The first thing I noticed, other than the smell of mothballs, was that I didn't recognize any of the fruit. (Except for some tiny green bananas, and I'm not eating those). So begins my exploration of South East Asian Fruits. Many of which are in season. Hurray!

First up.... Longans...


To quote "Fruit in Warm Climates"

Closely allied to the glamorous lychee, in the family Sapindaceae, the longan, or lungan, also known as dragon's eye or eyeball, and as mamoncillo chino in Cuba, has been referred to as the "little brother of the lychee", or li-chihnu, "slave of the lychee".

Outside is a hard shell like a peanut (definitely requires cracking with teeth), and inside is a gelatinous fruit that tastes like a cross between grape and melon...with a mouthfeel best described as "eyeball." Net net, totally yummy if you're not snacking during a horror movie.

Everyone said it would be an adventure...little did they know!

I arrived in HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City) last night to a great shock: there is a functional tourist infrastructure here! None of the unmitigated pandemonium I have met in other developing cities (that means you, Cairo). Less than an hour after landing, I was installed in an immaculate, quiet and cheap hotel... equipped with WiFi and cold bottled water. Perhaps my expectations were skewed by the nightmare of getting on the plane...Flashback 24 hours...

Now let me start by saying, I rarely panic. Even whilst being smuggled out of Puno, Peru in the middle of the night to escape an armed insurrection, did i not crack as much as a sniffle. But there's always a first time... and i found it yesterday at SFO of all places.

I arrived at the Japan Airlines ticket counter, well-cushioned for time, travel docs in order. And was promptly informed that my travel agent, despite having made a reservation, reserved seats and charged my credit card, had not actually issued my ticket. No ticket. No getting on plane. No GMIX. No graduate. Panic spiral ensues.

A very nice man at Japan Airlines and I spent the next two hours on the phone, trying to get the travel agent to get their consolidator to fax Japan Airlines some written proof of a ticket, which I am still convinced does not exist. With 40 minutes til boarding, and after some great moral support from GSBers, I got my act together, bought a new ticket at the airport counter and got the travel agent to refund the old one waiving all fees. If they actually give me the money back, the whole endeavour should only cost a couple hundred bucks. Fingers crossed. Hope I used my Amex. (And the travel agent in question: Vayama.com)

But after that, it was easy - I slept through what I thought was nighttime in Vietnam, caffeinated when it was night in california, and ate when the nice stewardesses fed me. Got here, got some sleep, had some pho for breakfast, and got my cell phone hooked up. I thought this was going to be hard...?

Next, on to getting some work done!

Trafficking in Vietnam - Overview

I leave for Vietnam on Monday, and thought it might be good to start the blog with a basic overview of human trafficking in Vientam...

Overview from the UN:
Human Trafficking is defined by the United Nations as "the recruitment, transportation, and receipt of a person for sexual or economical exploitation by force, fraud, coercion, or deception" in order to make a profit. The UN estimates that at any one time there are 2.5 million trafficked victims in the world, with the majority of these victims in Asia and the Pacific. It is the second largest illegal trade after drugs, with criminal traffickers earning over US$ 10 billion every year through the buying and selling of human beings.

Article: In the World of Human Trafficking, Vietnam Remains a 'Supply Country'

News Analysis, Andrew Lam,
Pacific News Service, Jul 19, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO--While visiting Ho Chi Minh City (more known as Saigon) last December I asked a group of well-educated young women for their thoughts on Vietnamese women being sold abroad. Their answers were surprisingly tempered.

"Not everyone is going to end up as a prostitute or badly treated by her husband," said Tuyen Nguyen, a 19-year-old who is attending college and planning to be a doctor. "I know this one girl who came back wealthy. It's true, she's one of the lucky ones, but still, it's a better chance than staying home."

According to sources from UNICEF and Vietnam's Ministry of Justice as well as other groups, as many as 400,000 Vietnamese women and children have been trafficked overseas, most since the end of the Cold War. That's around 10 percent of trafficked women and children worldwide. They are smuggled to Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Czech Republic -- and, to a lesser extent, the United States -- for commercial sexual exploitation.

"Still, if your parents and siblings are starving, you've got to do something," observed Thuy Le, a young woman in her mid-20s. "It's the right thing to do."

"It's the girl in the countryside who would do this kind of thing," said another woman, a publicist for a cosmetic company. "No one in the city would go. I mean, it's hard work in the rice field. Besides, who is to say their Vietnamese husbands won't beat them just like their Korean or Taiwanese one?" Her friends murmured in agreement.

Unfortunately, not all trafficked women end up in real marriages, even if their paperwork says so. According to Huy Phan, who is part of a group of Vietnamese Americans trying to help victims of trafficking, "the scheme is, the brothel or mafia finances a man to go to Vietnam to buy a wife. But the marriage is a ruse, and the girl ends up as a prostitute or indentured servant when she gets to Taiwan. It's a way to legalize trafficking."

In June, the U.S. State Department released the "Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report." Vietnam was classified as a "tier two" country, meaning that the government of Vietnam, according to the report, makes some effort to eliminate the problem but "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking."

In March 2004, a Taiwanese tried to sell three young Vietnamese women on E-bay. The starting bid was $5,400. Vietnamese living abroad protested, and E-Bay quickly pulled the auction page. But the language used on that page, along with the images of the three young, hapless women smiling to the camera, bespoke of modern-day slavery: "Products will be delivered only to Taiwan," the page said.

A typical trafficking scenario in Saigon goes something like this: A group of men come in from a foreign country, Taiwan or Korea, perhaps, and are chauffeured to a designated bar where young women and teenage girls await. The girls are lined up. The men pick and choose their brides, and pay around $5,000 to $10,000 dollars depending on the "quality" of the bride, which depends largely on whether she is a virgin. Soon these so-called brides are taken to unknown destinies. Their families back in the rural areas receive around $500 dollars for the sale. The rest goes to middlemen and to grease the legal machine.

Girls and women may also be promised jobs in Cambodia, Laos or China, only to end up as sex slaves once they cross the border. Recent raids in Cambodian brothels came up with Vietnamese girls as young as 5 years old. Young boys, too, are bought, and are highly prized in China, especially for families that have no children and want to adopt.

Many problems help perpetuate this form of exploitation. First are rising population pressures. There are now 82 million people in Vietnam. Two out of three Vietnamese are under 35, and there are an estimated 1.5 million abortions each year. The rural-urban gap is widening. Peasants trying to survive become easy prey.

Second is corruption. Government officials can be bribed to look the other way or, worse, actively assist the sale of these women by stamping their exit visas.

Third, and most important, Vietnamese people themselves have developed a lackadaisical attitude about the plight of trafficked women. After all, when there are approximately half a million prostitutes in Vietnam trying to make ends meet, who cares if a few hundred thousand more are plying their trade abroad?

Thien-Tam Tran, another Vietnamese American activist, remembers a scene in the airport in Taipei, Taiwan. Three Vietnamese girls were waiting to be taken away by gangsters. "I asked them if they wanted help but they wouldn't talk. They were very afraid. When the gangsters showed up the girls finally realized what would happen to them and started to weep. One girl, about 17, held onto me. But it was too late."

In Vietnam, self-sacrifice is still perceived as the highest Confucian virtue, but few seem to notice that to sell or induce one's own offspring into slavery is an absolute evil -- and highly un-Confucian. "Some women and girls are raped by their captors, husband, and/or male members of the family," Tran notes sadly.

Unless human rights become a real dialogue in Vietnam and the urban rural gap is seriously addressed, the nation seems fated to play a role that many activists working against human trafficking refer to as "a supply country."

From HumanTrafficking.org:
Vietnam is a source and destination country for human trafficking...Many Vietnamese women and girls are trafficked through Dong Tham, An Giang, and Kien Giang to Cambodia for sexual exploitation. In 2004, Cambodian police estimated that more than 50,000 girls were in brothels through Cambodia, many of whom were Vietnamese. The World Human Rights Organization and UNICEF estimate that one-third of the prostitutes in Cambodia are under the age of 18, the majority of whom are Vietnamese. 2

Vietnamese women are also recruited through fraudulent marriages. The Vietnamese Government estimates that approximately 10 percent of the arranged marriages with Chinese men may have become trafficking victims. Many women raped and abused by their husbands and in-laws. In some cases, they are sold off to other men. ³

A Vietnamese NGO estimated that the average age of Vietnamese trafficking victims was between 15 and 17; other NGOs have estimated lower ages. ⁴ There are no reliable estimates on the number of Vietnamese who are trafficked but Chinese police stated that they rescued more than 1,800 trafficking victims on the China-Vietnam border between 2001 and 2005. ⁵