Home

No, I am not home yet, but my title does represent that I am on the home stretch and will return to my Canadian home in one week. It also stands for the home of one of the Vietnamese students I was a guest in for three days this past week. As well, tonight is my last night in Tra Vinh which has been my home for the last month.

Last week all of us students split up into five groups to spend three nights in different homes. Some students had to bike for a couple hours as their home was in a neighboring province. I was staying nearby the city but still down a shaky, narrow dirt path lined with ponds and rice paddies that I was sure I was going to fall into everytime we biked down it, especially at night after a rain. The. houses here are simple and functional. There wad a lot of livestock at the house including a very pregnant pig that gave birth to 14 little piglets. The animals were usually outside but sometimes inside as I learned when I looked up one night early enough for a duck to not poop on my head, but too late to make it miss my pants. Each morning we went to the market to buy ingredients for the Canadian salad we made everyday. Through this I perfected my recognition of Vietnamese numbers up to ten and found our favorite stalls including our tomato lady who kept throwing things in for free. Our evenings were spent at coffee shops and eating twelve cent ice cream that will make it hard to readjust to lake prices. On the last night we joined in a family dinner and the thoughtful mother made us her own delicious salad as she had seen us eat one everyday. Ahe also let us watch and help make Vietnamese pancakes which are like savory crepes. CThere was beer and we tried our hand at learning Khmer (the ethnic minority here with their own language) and taught some English too.

As today was our last day in Tra Vinh we tried to hit up all of our favorite places. For lunch there is a woman with awesome spring rolls. She saw us coming and although she was out of them, she got on the phone to her daughter and had some motorbiked over and fried them fresh, giving us a plate of extra for free. Her and her husband loved us even though our only communication was through gestures and smiles. We also have our pho place where they know our orders, and overwhelmed the lady who paints crazy designs on our nails for $1.50. After one last peruse through the market and a final night of karaoke, I feel I am ready to move on.

The research paper is done and we have out first of three presentations tomorrow fir Tra Vinh University, then on to Can Tho for one night so we can wake up early and go to the floating markets before heading back to our final destination for the ladt five nights- Ho Chi Minh City!

Vacation from my vacation

I returned yesterday from our rest and relaxation weekend. It may seem kind if silly that we needed a vacation but we have been working hard with four interviews a day requiring anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes of biking to each one. We spent three nights on Phu Quoc which is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand off the southwest tip of Vietnam. The trip there involved six hours in a little bus meant for people with Asian-lengthen legs, a car ferry, and 2.5 hours on a speed ferry named the Superdong 3, which all of us very mature Canadians thought was oh so funny.

The vacation was just what we needed - some personal free time, a change of scenery and Western food! I went scuba diving with a few others and as I am still not certified it was fairly shallow and definitely left me itching to get certified even more than I had been before. We were staying right on a beach with wonderful sand and huge waves. The Vietnamese girls all went swimming for the first time and they tackled the waves with a lot of courage, even though my roomate preferred to hold my hand, and I happily obliged. I also rented and drove a motorbike for the first time which was also awesome, and terrifying as the roads are in various stages of development. For the amount of tourism that is here (Vietnamese and foreign vacationers) I was surprized by how horrendously bumpy and rustic most of the roads are. A couple were paved, but most tourists fly in, rather than sit through the ferry and rocky drive from the port to the main town. The island us known for it's pearl farms so the girls enjoyed the markets and all of the Canadians enjoyed the pizza and burgers.

We are back in Tra Vinh and the next two weeks will be a bit of a whirlwind as we have to write our report as well as fit in some say trips, presentations, and a three night homestay.

All that glitters is not gold...

A couple days ago we toured a couple local businesses. One of them was the MyLan company, which makes printing plates and some sort of chemical products. The place was gorgeous with sprawling, well landscaped grounds, a soccer field, and tennis courts. The insides of the buildings were equally impressive with fountains and probably the cleanest bathrooms in all of Vietnam. The company is one of the mOst successful in the province and is owned by a Canadian-Vietnamese man who really prides himself on the workplace environment he created. We had lunch with one of the employees who really enjoyed her job. However on the tour we ran into some very typical Vietnamese situations that frustrate the Canadian students.

As an introduction to the electrical engineering department we were told, with a giggle, that only handsome men worked here. When asked if women could work there we were told, again with laughter, that it was a job my h better suited to men. I wish that I had gone into engineering instead of medicine just so I could shock them. Many people we interview here say that there is not a lot of gender discrimination here but the Canadians are still struggling with this. In Canada this type of blatant gender streaming and career expectations would be the definition of discrimination. We have been told, for example, that now women can go into engineering and IT...because there are more indoor office jobs available. Also, women are expected fo stay closer to home after graduation more so than their male counterparts. So while this is angering, we keep trying to look at it through the lens if cultural relativism. Is it like this because women are being forced into these roles or, based on the cultural environment they are brought up in, is this just a reflection of the collective choices of all Vietnamese women? It is very difficult to tease these two ideas apart, but is interesting to think about and discuss for sure.

On Friday we head to the beach island of Phu Quoc for a chance to see more if Vietnam and to get a bit of a break from our research before coming back and finishing up our report. Last week we took a day trip to a nearby island on the delta known for its fruit trees. I swam in the Mekong, biked around, and picked some rambutans ( chum chums in Vietnamese). These extra excursions help ke appreciate the fact that I am in Vietnam, far from home as Tra Vinh is getting very familiar. I have my favorite pho place where the owner knows our order.

A few tidbits

An interesting fact I forgot to mention on the Canada Day post - last year 9200 people ran in the Terry Fox Run in Ho Chi Minh city.

So a couple Vietnamese myths to dispel. The majority of the students here have either never tried or do not enjoy eating dog so it is very uncommon. Dogs are actually kept as pets here as back home and I have seen several different breeds.

The designer surgical type masks people wear around here, especially by women, have nothing to do with pollution or sickness. It is so they will not tan as lighter skin is desired here. They also wear socks, sweatshirts and sometimes gloves while biking for the same reason.

Mot, hai, ba, JO!

While the spelling is almost certainly incorrect the title is how to do cheers in Vietnamese and there was a lot of that happening in celebration of Canada Day yesterday. The university here has a large Canada Day celebration each year because of the connections it has with various Canadian schools and organizations. So in the afternoon there was a ceremony filled with speeches, gifts, trivia, and performances. Students, faculty, local dignitaries and the consular general were all in attendence and of course we were expected to do a performance as well. We tried to sing Hello Vietnam and failed miserably, but did better with a rousing rendition of the I Am Canadian anthem from the Molson commercial. Following the ceremony there was a delicious dinner with the presidents of the university and local government members. It was here that we were introduced to this Vietnamese cheer business. It is customary to chug your entire drink, alcoholic or not, with every cheers. Let's just say that there was a lot if cheer going around that night and the Vietnamese can put the Canadians to shame when chugging beer if they want do. They won't take no for an answer either as we were egged on by them shouting "100%!". And of course karaoke followed. Canada was well-honoured in Tra Vinh this year.

We are two-thirds through our interviews and the recurring themes with the parents are how important it is to have connections and know the right people in order to get a good job, especially with the government. Sometimes parents say it is more important than your skills. Also, the university here gets mixed reviews with several parents saying the teaching and student support must improve, and sone local businesses look down on a degree from there. I have to give my Vietnamese partners credit for being good researchers and collecting this data without getting upset as they are students at this university and we have heard some harsh comments.