Orientation Week

I'm finally in Vietnam!!!! Even though it's been only a few days, I feel like I've been here for two weeks. Things move so fast around here and we have been so constantly busy that I've had little time to write in my journal let alone update the blog! Ho Chi Minh City is such a fantastic place- it far exceeded every expectation I had. Every day is a new adventure! Let me try to explain:

My arrival in Vietnam was at a very unique and distinct time. The entire city is getting ready for Tet, the New Year, and everyone's family is coming home to celebrate. I walked through customs, got my bags, and walked out the door into chaos. Literally thousands of people were barely being restrained by a few guards with whistles and official uniforms as they waited anxiously for their relatives to emerge. So not only did the heat and humidity of the night air take my breath away (a dramatic change from the snow storm I left Lincoln in), but the shock of seeing thousands of Vietnamese people staring at me and pointing at me also threw me for a loop! I made my way through the crowd of people, which reminded me of the tunnel walk at a Nebraska football game, I saw one little sign that said "SIT" and I headed straight for it. It was being held by the program's student advisor, Phat, a genuinely kind and endearing student from the University of Economics in HCMC. He welcomed me with enthusiasm in excellent English. We met the three other students who arrived on my flight (everyone else had arrived earlier), we climbed into a taxi, and took off for our guest house. It was my first taste of driving in Vietnam but little did I know that the traffic at that point was light and reasonable compared to rush hour traffic I would experience the next day. Motorbikes were zipping so close to our car that I was afraid that we were going to knock them over. The drivers all seem to have a sense of where everyone else on the road is though. The constant honking isn't so much to snap a driver's attention back to the road as it is a kind of sonar that lets every driver knows where the other is relative to him or her. We arrived at the guest house, which, I admit, was a little intimidating at first sight. It is walled and surrounded by razor wire. We rang in, and were admitted to the guest house, which is sort of like a small hotel. We have an open court yard and rooms surrounding it that far exceeded my expectations for our accommodations on the trip. I share a room with the only other guy on the trip, and Phat, when he is staying with us. We have a sitting area, refrigerator, and bathroom that get cleaned every day by the guest house staff. It’s fortunately far enough back from the street that the city noise is greatly reduced so we can have peaceful sleeps!

The first night I was here, I realized that somehow I lost my camera. Not sure if I left it in the taxi or if it got taken at the airport but when I got back it was gone. That, along with jet lag really upset me the first night, so I went to bed that night a little overwhelmed. Phat was really nice and tried to help me track down the cab we took, but I knew it would be useless.

The next day really helped raise my spirits. I woke up early to a beautiful day and walked out to the main lobby to meet the rest of the students on the program. All are very nice, come from around the US and Canada. We have some characters so I think this will be an interesting if not entertaining semester in terms of group dynamics! I decided to venture out on my own for the first time to go exchange my money at the post office. There are so many things that foreigners really have to adjust to in Vietnam, and let me tell you, crossing the street is one of them. It really is just as bad as you’ve ever heard. Thousands of motorbikes are flying by, along with a few cars and busses, and there are no traffic signals. To cross the street, you just take a deep breath and walk out into the street, looking straight ahead. If you do it right, the motorbikes will swerve around you. The only things that I yield to are the cars and busses. Making eye contact with the motorbike drivers means you’re giving them the right of way, so they won’t swerve. You’ve just got to trust that the Vietnamese “sonar” is working properly and you should make it ok! The motorbikes play a really big part of Vietnamese life. The city itself smells of cooking street foods and gasoline.

That first day I also met our academic director, Co Thanh, and our assistant director, Vy. Both are extremely nice, helpful, warm, caring, outgoing, and knowledgeable. Co Thanh has a family back in the US, but she spends most of her time leading SIT groups around Vietnam. She is very well respected in Vietnam as a former Fulbright Scholar who, from what I gathered, used to be a big deal in the Ministry of Education in the Vietnamese government, or at least until she moved to the US for a couple years. Now, she has many contacts throughout Vietnam and has already begun introducing us to them! Vy is a staff member for SIT, and graduated in September from the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City.

On my first day we ate breakfast and lunch at two beautiful restaurants. The food at these restaurants is considered expensive and runs around $3-5 per meal. We had a private room in one and a private balcony at the other. My stomach was still adjusting to time lag so I had just a little pho bo (famous beef noodle soup) for breakfast and a fresh mango smoothie for lunch. After lunch, Co Thanh took us to the International Clinic, located just up the street from the guest house to hear about health concerns in Vietnam as well as emergency health procedures. It was comforting to know that such a nice, clean, well kept group of people are here to help if anything serious should happen while I’m over here. Every person speaks English there and it is immaculate-cleaner than many doctor’s offices I’ve been to in the US. Of course this clinic is private and is used by tourists and foreigners living in Vietnam. The other clinic, a few blocks away, is not nearly as nice.

After the doctor’s visit, we walked back to the guest house to meet an entire group of students from the University of Economics (UEH) who had volunteered to show us all around the city on their motorbikes!! These students were all Phat’s friends and most were also members of the Bell Club, an English language club. So, we got outfitted with helmets, and I jumped on the back of a motorbike driven by a really nice girl named Trang. She’s about half my size, so I was a little worried at first that I’d tip the bike completely over, but she drove it like a pro and we just zipped right off through the crazy chaotic streets. What a blast! We drove around for about an hour, talking about the sites and events of the upcoming Tet celebration. Trang showed me the upscale shopping mall and also helped me buy another camera from a vendor. She helped me haggle the price down from 160 USD to 100, so I was really grateful. Trang was such a help and so nice. I hope that I will see her again! She dropped me off back at the guest house and had to run to her job at a French restaurant a ways away. Since everyone else had been back for a while, I saw only Phat and the UEH students outside the hotel. They were going out for pizza and invited me to come along with them. So I had a great time at Pizza Hut (much nicer here than in the US) with Phat and his friends, who were all so nice and talked as much as they could to me in English. Truly I haven’t met a single person here who wasn’t enthusiastically kind to me. Jamy Sullivan told me that they were the most kind and welcoming people that she has ever encountered, and I support her statement wholeheartedly. Vietnam is a really wonderful country in that regard, and in many others. That night we had a wonderful dinner at a Vietnamese bbq restaurant (which means they grill your food in front of you) and tried many new Vietnamese foods. The owner seated our group in the special rooftop table and gave us half of our meal for free. Co Thanh translated “the owner wishes to invite you to have the prawns.” Everything in Vietnamese culture is about respect and dignity, so an invitation like that is very special. Thus, we ate every last prawn her brought to us, even though it was three huge trays of them and all of us were already stuffed! On our walk home we stopped at the festival which takes place nearly every night directly across the street from our guest house. We can go up on the rooftop to watch dragon dances, fashion shows, and crowds gathered around people selling traditional Tet merchandise—such a fun environment!!

The next day we went to the Reunification Palace, which was basically the White House of the Southern Vietnamese regime. It has been bombed multiple times and still has maps in the war room –bunker basement with original markings of where the Viet Cong were located, and how many troops were being mobilized. Very fascinating. Directly after our tour of the palace, we were split into teams of two, given a map and an address and let loose. My partner, Lynanne and I were assigned to find the HCMC Zoo. After finding the street on the map we made our way about 10 blocks to the Zoo! It was exciting to be able navigate our own way through the city. The Zoo is really a good place for a typical person who lives in HCMC to take their children. Admission was 8,000 dong, or less than 50 cents. Although it’s not on par with any American Zoo, it does have a nice park-like quality with some animals to observe. On the way to the Zoo we passed the American consulate, which is the site of the old American Embassy which is where the famous pictures of the last helicopters airlifting Americans out of Saigon were taken. Of course the American Embassy is now located in Hanoi, but there is now a consulate in the old Embassy’s place. This entire city is so historic and it really is amazing to think about how much has happened here and how different it has become since that the difficult times of conflict.

Since then we have spent the last few days in orientation mode-talking about classes. We have visited our school, which is located only a few blocks from our guest house, and is one of the top 14 schools in Vietnam. It has over 50,000 applicants and accepts only 15% of them. The facilities are small but well kept, and the beautiful garden in the center will be a really nice place to study or chat during breaks. During our school orientation, we were privileged to have Kitt Norland, the Director of Public Affairs of the American Consulate in HCMC come speak to us about her job and the roll of the American Consulate. It was fascinating to learn about all of the regulations placed upon them by the Ministry of Security, as well as unique programs that they maintain to help send Vietnamese students to the United States to study. Improving education in Vietnam is a central goal of the consulate. We have also begun our study of Vietnamese language and culture. The culture will be easy to grasp because it is all around us. We are immersed in it every day—we get to see it, smell it, taste it, participate in it. The language on the other hand, is proving to be much more difficult (Vietnamese is rated the third hardest language in the world to learn) but I have faith that by the time I leave here I will be able to feel confident living on my own (something I’m nervous about right at this point)! This of course will be facilitated by my time in my homestays. I’ve already met the student that I will be living with in March when I have my homestay in HCMC. We met at a restaurant. I can’t remember his real name, but he goes by “CaCa” and he is 18 years old. He’s really nice and speaks English pretty well. From what I can understand, he lives with only his mother, who was unable to attend our dinner. He instead brought his two neighbor friends with him (18 and 10) who were all both very good at English. They live far from my school but they have assured me that they will be willing to drive me to class! Very nice!

Our orientation week is already finished and tomorrow we head to Dalat for a 9 day homestay. I am excited to meet my family! It is about an 8 hour drive from HCMC. Supposedly it will be a little cooler there, so I will welcome any relief from the heat and humidity here! This week really has been eye opening. Ho Chi Minh City has far exceeded my expectations, startled me, confused me, and made me laugh. I’ve loved this week here and I will really be excited to get back to this bustling city. I’ve made some really great friends so far. The group of student volunteers from the University have really become close to all of us. We had an ice cream social with them last night which was another great chance to talk with them. It was a huge 5 story building in the middle of literally the most beautiful street I’ve ever seen. It is a huge central street that has been blocked off from traffic, and it has been decorated for Tet with hundreds of lanterns hanging from the trees, lining the street for blocks and blocks. After that we all drove over to a Karaoke bar where we got a private room and sang songs all night long! You would never know how fun Karaoke could be until you put a group of American and Vietnamese 20 year olds into one room, give them some cheap drinks and a microphone, and play American 80’s music all night long. They are really fun, kind, warm, and great at speaking English to us while being patient with our wholehearted, yet, laughable attempts at Vietnamese. Today they picked us up and took us shopping in the traditional Vietnamese market, then to dinner at another beautiful restaurant. We paid for their meals (we split a meal for 7 between 3 people at a fancy restaurant tonight and paid $7 each) and they drove us all over the city on their motorbikes. I have no idea how they do it, but it is an absolute blast to zip around on them. We have already planned to see each other when we return from Dalat!

Not sure how much internet access I’ll have in Dalat, so this may be the last blog for a week but I’ll make sure to keep journaling so I remember everything that happens and update you all later! Love to all, and thanks for reading such a long entry. I miss you all but am still thrilled to be here. There are times when I’m walking down the street and I just think about how lucky I am to get to experience this place first hand!