A pleasant day

Today was thoroughly enjoyable. My friend Niall, the British ex-pat who I hang out with occasionally, is incredibly considerate of my loneliness/isolation here. Every time his international coworkers are passing through on a two-week stint in Ha Tinh, he always makes sure to inform me. "I have Americans here! Here are their phone numbers!"

Niall has been in Singapore on his own business trip over the past week or so, but these two men (one stationed in Beijing, and one stationed in Seoul) who are vaguely associated with Niall (still unsure of the line of development consulting they do, but I prefer not to talk business when I finally have Americans to talk to at all!) were passing through Ha Tinh for a two-week assessment-and-prescription project. The result? I had two new friends to hang out with today!!

And, ah, the luxury of speaking rapid English in a restaurant full of people who can't understand (Ryan and Shannon: think of our taxi rides in Senegal for a point of reference). I took Andrew and David to my favorite bun cha restaurant, and I felt like I had opened them up to a new world. They have been confined mostly to the BMC Hotel and have been eating its mediocre hotel food for 3 meals a day, partly due to how busy they are, and partly due to how-the-heck-could-they-ever-find-stuff-on-their-own-otherwise? They were thrilled to eat some "real" Vietnamese food.

I took them to bun cha, and they were still hungry, so I took them for banh mi and then cu do on my street, and then gave them a tour of the university (not much compared to their respective alma maters of Cornell and UPenn). Sadly, they will only be around for another week or so, so I will not get too attached to the new ex-pats in town. However, it was so enjoyable to be a "tour guide" for some wide-eyed visitors and show them all of my favorite spots to eat. It was even more enjoyable just to relax and talk about our shared frustrations with living abroad, bureaucracy, weird customs, and being an outsider.

However, the unfortunate draw-back to their visit today just reminded me of how alone I really am here. Most of the time, the isolation doesn't bother me. I have to reach my goal of reading 100 books, after all, so I am (usually) perfectly content to curl up in my room with hot chocolate and a book. However, I am also beginning to realize that this reclusive lifestyle only works for so long before it starts to seem psycho-pathological. I am spending an awful lot of time by myself, and I know that if I don't make a change soon, my mood is going to take a dramatic dip.

The problem, though, is that there truly are no people around. Me and Niall are the only ex-pats in Ha Tinh, and I appreciate his (sporadic) presence so much. When his wife, Moon, is around, I am even more happy. And I love spending time with Mr. Duc and Chi Hang, but they are so, so, so, so, so busy. I need to remind myself that I was just plopped down in the middle of Ha Tinh with no pre-existing safety net. I am happy to be friends with anyone who makes a friendly gesture towards me. However, those people who make the friendly gestures towards me do have pre-existing lives. They have families, children, full-time (and over-time) jobs, and their own social networks already. While they may be happy to spend some time with me, my guess is that they do not have the amount of free time, or relative desperation to make a new friend, that I have. So when I text Chi Hang to ask her if she wants to go for a walk, or to go for a massage, or to grab something to eat [always my treat, by the way], and she is busy, I'm not hurt because I understand that she has a million things that keep her busy. I have very few obligations, unlike her, since I'm only a relative visitor here.

But I really would like to make more friends, preferably ex-pats, only because Vietnamese people in Ha Tinh (with the exception of my co-workers in the English department) speak so little English that a friendship would be very surface-level with such minimal emotional communication. While, in life, this may not be an unreasonable request, I realize that in Ha Tinh, it is simply unreasonable to expect an abundance of ex-pats or proficient English speakers.

This loneliness might just need to be a state-of-mind that I need to learn to live with for 6 more months. I don't see any easy solution to the problem besides casting a magic spell that conjures up more foreigners.



In other news, today I had one of my new favorite foods in Ha Tinh, and realized that it has been AGES since I have food-blogged. So here is an update on my newest culinary treat in Ha Tinh:

Meet banh goi, which is possibly the closest thing I will find to soup dumplings in all of Vietnam (an absence that I find baffling, considering Vietnam's proximity to Hong Kong and mainland China), and, in all honesty, not at all a bad runner-up!

The texture is more like Italian ravioli (think boiled noodle with ground meat inside), but the flavor is unmistakably Asian. Spicy and fragrant and (probably) loaded with MSG, producing a delicious flavor buzz. The dumpling is served in a little pool of beef broth (the same broth which is inside the dumpling, keeping the ground meat company) which is floating with chili peppers.

Each dumpling is only 7,000VND (less than 50 cents) and comes in two varieties (banh goi and banh nep). Banh goi is the dumpling that is pictured, although I ordered one of each tonight. The banh nep is made with sticky rice flour, so the outer casing is a bit more chewy and difficult to cut through, while the banh nep is just made with regular rice flour (who knew there were so many variations of rice derivatives?!).

The restaurant that serves the banh goi is a bit far from campus, and is indisputably a motor-bike ride away (unlike the supermarket which I walked to today just to see how long it would take: 45 minutes each way), so keep your fingers crossed that my motorbike continues to start so I can enjoy this new treat.

Oh yeah, that's the update: motorbike still not working at 100%, but after 3 or 4 tries, it will grudgingly start. I know that it's going to break down again some time soon because it sounds like it's in a lot of pain. Oh, and the other update? My Internet is back! Not sure who fixed it or how, but I woke up from a nap this afternoon to perfectly functioning Internet. Lastly? Chi Hang came into my room and remarked that it was freezing inside. I explained the predicament with my fan stuck in the on-position. She climbed up on a chair, tinkered for several minutes, and maneuvered it to "off." She even told me she would call the school mechanic to have him come fix it this week.

SCORE. In any case, my room is remarkably warmer even with the fan off for just 20 minutes. Perhaps tonight I won't have to sleep in long-johns, a sweatshirt, and socks now that there isn't an icy blast of air directed right at my bed.

Despite the pangs of loneliness, today was a great day. I was happy to make some new (albeit temporary) friends, I got to enjoy a long walk to the supermarket (the weather has warmed up a bit so that it is no longer painful to be outside in the cold), and have had some exciting developments in my Vietnamese-speaking life.

Yesterday at my banh xeo restaurant, I was able to ask the proprietress (an old grandmotherly woman who likes to sit with me while I eat) if she would let me come into the kitchen and watch her cook, and maybe even help her, some time. Not only did she understand my request, but she laughed and said okay!

The second success occurred today when I was eating bun cha with Andrew and David. After finishing the food that was brought to us, they decided that they were still hungry, so I offered to order them more, while warning them that I had only just learned the word for "more" or "extra" the previous night and that my request might not be understood. However, I said, clearly enough apparently, "Excuse me, can you please bring me some more meat?" A minute later, more meat was brought to our table.

Overall, a day of minor successes that add up to me being in a much more cheerful mood. Tomorrow I will take my motorbike back to the Yamaha repair shop, equipped with a note written by Chi Hang that says (in Vietnamese), "The bike will go for a while but then will turn off. Then it is difficult to restart. Please check and replace the spark plugs." FOOLPROOF, dontchathink?