Saigon Summary

I've been in Vietnam for 4 short days. But I feel like I can write a book about the experience. For now, I'll settle for a blog post. FAMILY OH FAMILY Without question the biggest reason for choosing Vietnam as a travel destination has to do with my family, prioritizing my ailing 81 year old grandmother. Born in 1926 as Ong Thi Thong (last name, middle, then first..that's the way my peeps make name pronouncements), she married my late grandfather, Vo Van pho. Lucid as a whip and still able to climb stairs, she suffers from osteoporosis and cataracts. She can talk to you for hours. In 1940, Grandmother Ong married my handsome grandfather, Vo Van Pho. With "mysteriously" French blood, raised in the days of French Indochina (when the French colonialized Vietnam), he married my grandmother when she was 14. Those were the days. In fact, when she married him (arranged) she thought he was a French man and didn't speak to him for a week. I guess both were too shy to open their mouths. Can you imagine? Sadly, he died of cancer when my mother was just 12. The family had been living in Dalat (where I am currently staying) . My grandmother packed all SEVEN children and headed to Saigon, for what would be a life of hard labor for my mother and my uncles and aunts growing up, and living post Vietnam War era. This is my Aunt Thuy. She's number five in the Vo pecking order, and the Aunt with whom I'm most close. She raised me until I was two, the most she could, since my family fled Saigon and the Vo family stayed behind. She's a teacher, who teaches high school six days a week, and earns wages of about 70 USD. I cringed when she told me the other night how two Vietnamese bills i had been holding was her entire month's salary. That's about the average salary around here. Its not much, but relatively speaking, food is cheap (like you can eat like a king for dollars a day) housing is shared by family, and people chip in if you need a moped or something pricey. She's married to Uncle Thanh, just the nicest man you'll meet. He fixes mopeds and says work is really good. It should be. Just about everyone owns one these days. It's a sign that even though things in Vietnam are far from American standards, shit, I had to take a cold bucket shower because the hot water was off)... it's proof that the quality of life has improved. I took this photo riding with my uncle. Here we are stuck in Vietnam's version of friday rush hour traffic. There is never a dull moment on the streets of Saigon. And since I stayed with Aunt Thuy, I went riding all over the city. It was great fun for me and a unique experience, since I was a tourist disguised as a local. I love the buzz of the whizzing cars and traffic. And it still amazes me, even as I have now witnessed this constant flow firsthand, how there are not more accidents. Don't get me wrong, there are wrecks, but not pileups after pileups. And now that I have been back for the third time, it's still beguiling that people criss cross without getting hurt. The past few days have been spent doing nothing but eating and seeing family. And boy have I eaten... and eaten and eaten....

Friday night family night

For my family to take me out to dinner, and to pick up the tab, is a clear sign of progress.

I think we happily cheered with our beers 10 times. Then my cousins took me out for a night on the town, their style.

We karaoked for THREE HOURS.

It was so nice to see them all get together, happy, dancing, and obviously very close. In the Vietnamese culture, kids don't just go off to college and that's it. Invariably, as a young couple, some grandmother or aunt or uncle and their families will be living with you. Family stays close, both physically and emotionally.

I have a really neat family. Here's an old photo of my mom and me. I want to make sure I preserve the past as well as nurture the present. I have so many cousins, and they ALL came out on Friday night to meet me. They told me large family get togethers like the one friday is rare, that they came out to see me.

My mother was the only one in this family who escaped and left in 1975. Now, more than 3 decades later, I find myself increasingly drawn back to this side of my dual culture...

The side that while they may not be rich, have so much.

Cheers and happy training!