After a day of it, I got used to being constantly offered pot on the street. Kind of like how I kept getting offered heroin on the street in London (and can pretty much guarantee I don't look like I'm using heroin, pot belly is telltale). But then, I was just offered opium - in between the dried squashed squid-y looking thing with hotsauce and a 5 foot high stak of photocopied books. Seriously, opium? I just keep picturing the caterpillar thing on the toadstool in Alice in Wonderland. And although that seemed cool at first (she looked like she was having fun) - opium? This one is definitely new. Interesting though.
Happily, my lonely meal was not a waste, as one of the waitresses seemed to take an interest in me - for no apparent reason she sat down next to me and started speaking Vietnames - or really bad English, to be honest I couldn't really tell. We laughed for about an hour, each speaking to each other and having absolutely no bloody idea what the other person was saying. She finally found a book to try to help me out, but it was Vietnamese - English, not the other way around, and all I could find was how to say 'I think your dog has peed on my leg'. At least she found that amusing. In any case, I have a new pen pal to add to my list (the most recent in a series of Turkmen-Uzbeks), and I look forward to seeing if we can come to understand each other. I am forever amazed at how the world seems to want to speak English, and how lucky I am to speak it as a first language.
Even better, apparently, is the fact that I speak American English (this is most definitely the first time anyone has EVER complimented anything about being american to me). I went to the Cu Chi tunnels & Cao Dai on the typical Saigon trip. The tour guide spoke fab English. And although I was trying to hide out with my American-ness in the corner, I had had to write my passport details down to take the trip, and he cornered me - although for once, he was someone seeming extremely happy to see an American in his group. Apparently, he grew up during the war, learned English from GIs (which he loved throwing around 'Get off your ass and drive' or 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse and the b++++ who rode in on it'). His father was a village chief who escaped the 're-education camps' by denying allegiance to the US in 73. PRetty sure the tour guide was not so lucky. He apparently tried to escape 4 times, and was caught each time. Once he got to Thailand, and apparently they were waiting for American ships to rescue them. Which, of course, never came. This entire description made me want to cry for him being left. All this guy had ever done was pretty much devote his life to Americans, and we pretty much left him there. And yet he still seems to love us. It's very hard for me to understand. His cousins, apparently, live in the OC (I was going to ask him if they hung out with Sandy Cohen, but thought that might be a tad insensitive). But they can't sponsor him to come into the US, for some reason (I don't really know how this works). Anyway, he just kept telling me that he learned English from a book about the US, how much it was his dream to go there - and it was so distressing to me that he probably never would.
Oh yeah, and Cao Dai and Cu Chi were great, but they probably won't stick in my memory as much as our tourguide.
