Night market

Wednesday, July, 5, 2011

We only had one patient to interview this morning, so Ngan, Tien, Scott, and I went to our favorite and most convenient spot to do work –Hai Au Restaurant – right across from the hospital. It has outdoor seating right where the ocean meets the river and a cool breeze—a nice break from the glaring heat. Scott and I really want to repay Ngan and Tien for all their dedication to us, especially volunteering their time and being our tourgides, by helping them with their English. I think we, as Americans, sometimes underestimate the value of our education and the value of the English language. English is extremely complicated with all its strange verb tenses, irregular words, and everyday slang, yet English is the language that everyone wants to learn. Finding English speakers in Vietnam is like finding gold to those who are learning the language because it is a real chance for them to practice and put to use what they have learned.

We went to Hai Au Restaurant to order some sinh to (smoothies) and iced tea and start our first official English class. I started off by having Ngan and Tien write a paragraph describing their experience with us, reading it aloud, and helping them with their pronunciation. We proceeded to teach them common words such as jewelry names, parts of the face, and some fruits. Sounds I discovered that were extremely difficult for native Vietnamese speakers: “th”, “s”, “x”, “tr”, “str,” and “ile.” We worked on these sounds and asked them to repeat and repeat them to us. I feel like they are much better at learning English than Scott is at learning Vietnamese! He can’t get a single sound right (but I don’t blame him). Before we knew it, two hours flew by. Scott and I love teaching. It is such an enjoyable experience to share something about yourself, whether it is language or your hobbies, to someone eager to learn. You form a special bond with that person.

Street food at the night marke

The rest of the day was pretty eventless. Scott took a nap, and I watched a horrible movie on Netflix. We met Ngan, Tien, and Annie outside of the guesthouse at 6 pm to head to the famous Night Market, which is basically stalls and stalls of cheap clothing, jewelry, and accessories. We started off the night with some street food. 5 of us sat at a tiny toddler-sized table. Scott is already tall for an American, but he is a absolute giant here. They do not make any sizes that fit him. He bought the biggest flip flop he could find the other day, and his heel still hangs off the back. He tried buying a ring, and the biggest size could not fit pass his first knuckle. Scott’s sitting at a street food table is just a ridiculous site. Legs nearly bent to his face and completely hunched over to reach the food. We ordered rice, soup, stir-fried noodles, and summer rolls – all for $8-9 for five people.

We finished dinner off by buying freshly made sugar cane juice at another stand across the street. They take the long fibrous canes and role it under a machine that squeezes out all the sugary juice and mix it with some kumquat juice. The final product is summer in your mouth. It’s refreshing and light. We perused the stalls with nuoc mia (sugar cane juice) in hand and found clothing at inexpensive prices. The clothes are also all labeled and embroidered with tags from Gucci, Burberry, Prada, and Abercrombie and Fitch, but they are all fake. Locals say that even if you wore the real thing here, it wouldn’t matter because everyone would just assume it wasn’t real anyway. I opted for some plain tanks, and Scott found some awesome button up shirts for $2 USD a piece.

Many stalls to choose from

Enjoying nuoc mia while shopping

The night market

Then, we went on the hunt for the ever-elusive mask. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, everyone wears masks here to protect themselves from the sun and from pollution, though unsettling to see at first. You wonder if they are trying to protect themselves from some sort of disease. We went to several places before we finally found some masks. We put them on and instead of feelling more integrated, I felt even more foreign wearing my mask. I also looked like I was about to rob a bank or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Scott looked especially scary because he bought a black mask that pointed in the front like a beak. We didn’t wear them for the night.

The friendly robbers

We finished the night going to Yumi Coffee and ordering some smoothies and ice tea. I think at the rate Scott and I are going, with drinking 1-2 smoothies a day, we are seriously going to give ourselves some health problems (but it’s so good – says my subconscience). Scott accidentally ordered “mint juice” that ended up tasting and looking like someone had poured Scope over ice and served it to Scott. I guess not everything foreign is necessarily delicious. We laughed over this one for awhile. We headed home satisfied with our purchases and stomachs full of blended tropical fruits.

-Audrey

See the rest of Scott's full-size photos here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbauer810/sets/72157627011360334/with/5855972348/