Market antics

One of the silliest things that occurs on a daily basis is my trip to the market to buy various meal accompaniments. When I buy things that I consider to be totally normal in combination with one another, I get a lot of questions (in Vietnamese) of "What are you going to do with that?" or "What do you plan to eat?"

Earlier this week when I bought only a combination of lettuce leaves (usually used in spring rolls or soup), cucumbers (also used for spring rolls), and shredded carrots (used in sauces), I received a lot of inquisitive looks: "What could you possibly do with those three ingredients?" I don't have the Vietnamese skills (or energy) to explain, "I am going to mix them together and drizzle them with the Wishbone Italian salad dressing that I bought in Hanoi and then eat them with flakes of canned tuna on top." There is no concept of mixed salad as we know it, and I don't feel a need to explain- but boy do they think it is odd when I buy a combination of nonsensical ingredients.

Today I went to the banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) vendor and asked for banh mi khong or "just plain bread with no sandwich stuff on it." While I know that it is fairly common to just buy plain bread, the vendor asked me what I was going to do with it. Luckily, I did have the Vietnamese skills to explain that I was going to eat it with egg and cheese (the imported French edam cheese that I have been buying at the supermarket makes for a very luxurious egg sandwich!), and that explanation sufficed.

In any case, I take a small amount of pleasure in shocking people with the "weird" foods that I buy and the "weird" ideas of how I will prepare them. One time when I bought only an onion, eight tomatoes, and a bunch of parsley, my favorite vendor asked what I was going to do with it. Unable to explain the concept of pasta and tomato sauce (let alone do it in Vietnamese), I side-stepped the question and went on my merry way to enjoy a hearty batch of pasta and meat sauce later that night.

If I ever work up the courage to attempt making beef stew or chili, I can only imagine the bafflement that I might induce when buying all of the necessary vegetables and herbs.

In other news, I may have just made a new friend. As I was writing this blog entry, my phone rang from an unknown number (the pre-cursor for many awkward and annoying phone calls in the past). However, a very chipper and confident English-speaking voice asked for Allison. It turns out that a girl named Jolene from the Philippines is living and working in Ha Tinh and got my number from a student of mine (I will still never get over the culture of simply passing people's telephone numbers around without any discrepancy). We are going to have lunch on Tuesday, and I'm hoping to gain a good friend out of this new interaction. Naturally, I'll keep you posted on our courtship!

Now it is time for the much-procrastinated spring cleaning of my entire apartment. I am going to wash all the surfaces, the floors, and the walls in hopes of removing any mold (it has begun to smell) and starting anew. Here we go!