Vietnam- Cast of Characters

Linda: Dad's long time girlfriend that still has family in Vietnam. She has a moderate English mastery.

Ba: Elderly lady that my dad says has many similarities with my grandmother. She has no English comprehension and lives in Los Angeles. I do not know her real name and dad says don't bother trying to learn it because I can never use it anyway. I address here as Chao Ba (respectfully hello elderly woman), thus the name Ba. Within a few minutes of meeting her she is showing me pictures of her grand daughters. Later she invites me to visit here in CA. It is not hard to guess her motives since she and I can not communicate. The next day she would tell my father that she thinks I have a kinder aura than my brother. I guess she can tell all this from the way I carry myself because I am sure it is not something I said.

Packer: This is the nickname I gave the Cantonese speaker I met on the 2nd day of the tour. I helped him with a user-generated problem with his camera, thus winning his friendship. From that point on he and his wife actually spoke to me. He speaks Cantonese and his wife moderately speaks English.

Mohawk: I would interact with him and his wife more on the 3rd day of the tour onward. His wife has a moderate mastery of English and he has a weak comprehension of it.

Amy: She is the mother of QUOC and the aunt of Xien. The whole family present speaks Cantonese and she has a mild command of English. At the start of the tour I would start off literally in the back of the bus with the luggage. The seal back there is poor so the exhaust enters the bus from the back corners, one of which I would be sitting at. An hour and a half into the trip I move up to sit next to Amy. When I figure out that they speak Cantonese this is a great relief because going 3 days without understanding anything other than what my Dad chooses to translate for me gets old. She invites me to visit her boutique in Chinatown, LA. After 5 days of speaking Cantonese with the people on the bus I can tell that I have vastly improved and pretty much gotten up to a plateau point. This practice would greatly help me when I got to Ben Tre to see Uncle. I had been worried that because of my lack of use of the language it was deteriorating very rapidly, it appears it had not quite deteriorated as much as I thought.

QUOC: The eldest son of Amy, is an Engineer and if fluent in English. He is about 6 foot tall and laughs about his cousin Xien, saying that she "can't drink". He ends up paying for it the next day. Karma is a wonderful thing when it happens to other people.

Xien (seen): Niece? of Amy? She is a local Vietnamese lady whose primary language is Cantonese and also is fluent in Vietnamese and a number of other languages that I can not translate. She speaks no English. My first interaction with her was after I sat down next to Amy on the bus. Xien offers me a piece of fruit she had just cored. I believe in the saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. You know it is going to be a good relationship when the first thing a pretty girl does is feed you. One of the few occasions I spoke with QUOC in English Xien berates us and says that we are in Vietnam so we are not allowed to speak English. I tell her that my Grandmother says that when we speak English around her that we are yelling at her. Therefore Xien sounds like my grandmother, an old lady. She does not appreciate this comment but her cousin and aunt gets a chuckle out of it. She has an interesting complex about being not pretty she seems to think that she was hit by a bus and truck at the same time. Of course I refute this many times, but she does not know how to take a compliment. She questions why I am not courting an American woman and says that's what she would be doing if she were as good-looking as me. She thinks I am too picky. I would later that I find out there is a rumor floating around the bus that I came to Vietnam to find a wife. I can guess where that rumor started. Xien makes two references to having light colored skin is better. Think about it, all the Asian models and superstars are very pale. This makes sense because the Western world went through the same mentality when we had more agricultural influence. The second time was when I ask why she had put on her jacket in the scorching heat and she said it was to keep the sun off. I tell her that in the US people pay to get a tan, ask your cousin. She doesn't appreciate this comment and demands to know why I must always turn everything around on her. Her cousin and I get a chuckle out of it when the bus opens up and she huffs and states that she is getting on the bus and the people who are not afraid of tanning can stay outside. After lunch one day she playfully says that she is jealous that I can just go upstairs and rest while she has to ride the bus back to her [better] hotel. I offer to let her rest in my room on the pillows. She huffs and exclaims in an exasperated tone “Pillows!” I say that if she wants to sleep in the bed that can be arranged too.

Tham: The tour guide. He command of English is weak. My first significant interaction with her is at the mud baths. While we are in the sun waiting for the mud to dry we are the only ones in the immediate vicinity. She explains to me that my skin will be very soft after this mud treatment. She says that all the girls will want to kiss me. I turn my cheek toward her and to allow her to prove her claim. She gets a real chuckle out of this and the story would be retold a number of times throughout the trip. I can tell when the story is being told in Vietnamese because she would point at me and eventually turn her cheek and everyone would laugh.

Uncle/Cousins/Aunt: Interactions between this group will all be observations except with Uncle since none of them speak Cantonese or English except him. He has a mastery of Cantonese. They live in Ben Tre many of them work in the coconut industry as laborers. Uncle commented that I blew through in about 10 minutes the amount of money he makes in 40 hours of shucking 8000 coconuts. That small fortune I burn through was about $30 USD. There is no trash pickup or disposal in the rural areas so the residents get to figure our what they are going to do about it. Many of them choose to leave it lying around, especially if it cannot be burned.