Anyway, yesterday the university celebrated Vietnam's Women's Day, which is technically on Monday. Katherine and I were invited to attend a meeting/celebration at 3pm, followed by some food at 5. We assumed it would be something rather casual, but, as usual, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. When we arrived, we were ushered to special seats in the front row, and in the opening speech, we were individually thanked by name for...well, I'm not sure what were thanked for since my Vietnamese is terrible still. After a few more speeches (most of which were by men), we were treated to a dance performance. One of the teachers I co-teach with, Lan Anh, was performing and I was excited to see what they'd prepared. She had told me the day before that it was dance in honor of Ho Chi Minh--and even she noted the irony of performing a dance to honor a man on Women's Day. Ho Chi Minh, the....mother?...of us all? The dance seemed to have nothing to do with good Uncle Ho until they whipped out a big portrait of him. One girl held up his framed likeness while all the others danced around him with flowers and eventually got on their knees on the floor and just fawned over him. Of course, all this occured while a larger-than-life-bust of the same man oversaw everything from the stage. At this point, I was a little confused about the theme of the event. This was supposed to be a women's day celebration, right?
Lan Anh, my co-teacher, is bottom right. So pretty!
Lest I be confused, the next main event was all about women. There was a large flowering, tropical plant in the center of the stage. It boasted beautiful purple flowers, but their appeal was overshadowed by all the Christmas decorations--tinsel, ornaments, etc--strung on the tree. Additionally there were little rolled up pieces of paper tied to the branches. One of the teachers, Ms. Oanh, who was translating for us, informed me and Katherine that the papers were questions that women would answer in front of the entire audience. Then she asked if we wouldn't like to go up and answer some questions, too? We kindly, but persistently, refused her generous offer, explaining that we were happy to just listen. Katherine and I both assumed the questions would be trivia about important women in Vietnam's history or something, but we were wrong. Of course we were wrong. But at least we were right to refust to answer, which we quickly realized... it was a damn good thing we didn't agree to answer any questions...
the purple-flowered, christmas-decorated, question-bearing plant, with Uncle Ho approvingly looking on...The event was some kind of game, quite complicated, with judges, and with three women from every faculty and office each answering a question. Three women from the first faculty got up to take their turn picking a rolled-up question from the tree. After the first question it became quite clear that my expectations about the nature of the inquiries was wrong: The first woman was asked to explain what to do when a nearly one-year-old child won't take the bottle and just wants to be breastfed. Katherine and I just looked at each other, shocked, amused, confused... I found it especially ironic and funny, since the other day I had a dream (during a more successful nap) that I had a baby and was breastfeeding it, and I just hated the baby, absolutely loathed its existence. (No judgment, please! I'm only 23 and really do hate the thought of having a baby right now :) I made some joke about melamine milk (I still can't buy baby formula here, damnit!) to Katherine and waited to hear the next question...
And here are some examples of other questions:
- Your husband drinks and smokes all the time, and you want him to stop. What should you do?
- In order to work at the university, you need to learn English by going to night classes a couple times a week, but your husband refuses to care for the children. What should you do?
- (For unmarried women), Is it better to marry a man you love or a man who loves you?
- How can you be a good woman with a full time job and a family? / How do you manage a job and family?
- How do you stay fit and beautiful in middle age? (This question was asked to a young teacher who was probably about 25 but looked all of 16.)
- Your boyfriend is always late every time you plan to meet. What should you do?
These questions went on and on. For hours. I'm not kidding. And for better or worse, the answering process was intermittently punctuated with more songs from other women, students, and even one man. Finally they let us have a break around 5, to eat some food they'd prepared for us. As is usual, Katherine and I were force-fed fruit and given an armful each of bananas and soursops to take home. We tried to escape before the ceremeony reconvened, but our boss informed us we needed to stay a little longer so that the university could give us a gift. I immediately felt bad for trying to leave and happily returned to a seat in the meeting hall. After a couple more rounds of questions, the head of the Womens' Union interrupted the activities to call Katherine and me up to the front. I had no idea what she was saying, as she was speaking in Vietnamese, but we timidly left our chairs and headed to the front of the meeting hall where some man (maybe the Vice Dean?) gave us each a bouquet of pink roses and lilies. Everyone clapped. The head of the Women's Union extended a mic to us. Katherine took it and promptly handed it to me. Go, go gadget extemporaneous speaking skills! No one told me I'd be making a speech. I thanked everyone (about 40% of the original crowd, as the rest had escaped during the break) for welcoming us to their beautiful university, for inviting us to this lovely celebration and honoring us with flowers. And I made a bland statement about the importance of this holiday and recognizing women's achievements (in weening their children? in convincing their husbands to care for the kids a couple hours a week?). When I concluded, a young teacher (who Katherine and I had dubbed "Sexy Secretary because of her outfit) started chanting "Sing! Sing! Sing! Dance! Dance Dance!" She had been trying to get us to sing or dance all evening, and she just wasnt' giving up! I politely refused by giving the mic back to the head of the Women's Union and returning to my chair.
Back in my seat, though, listening to some speech about the typical life experience of a typical vietnamese woman, I had a flash of what I should have done when Sexy Secretary asked me to sing. I should have burst into rendition, complete with motions, of "Doooooo your ears hang low, do they wobble to a fro, can you tie them in a knot, can you tie them ina bow? Can you throw them over your shoulder like a continental solider? Do your ears, hang, low?" It would have been no worse than "Head Shoulders Knees Toes" or "Yankee Doodle"! I whispered to Katherine the comic possibility occuring in my head, and we started giggling and humming the song and doing mini-hand motions. At that point, we were desperate to entertain ourselves. And we were still confused about this whole women's day thing. Just about babies and husbands? I thought there'd be some mention of the Trung Sisters, at least!
And by that point, it was nearly 6pm. Most of the women had left, because, while they were occupied answering questions about their double-day, they actually had a double-day to tend to--children to pick up, houses to clean, dinners to prepare, husbands to care for, lessons to plan, french classes to attend. Oh, the irony. Katherine and I finally slipped out to go meet her program supervisor who was in town. I really needed a drink after that evening, but I settled for an orange-and-yogurt smoothie instead. And we found a vegetarian sandwich (banh mi chay) stall, to boot!
On the way home from smoothies in the city (which is, by the way, a posisble the title for the upcoming HBO series about my life in Vietnam), some guy on his motorbike drove up beside me (as I was biking) and started talking to me. This happens so often, I really don't like it too much. It makes me nervous, biking with a motorbike 3 inches away while both drivers are distracted trying to make small talk in the guy's inevitably broken English over the noise of the traffic. And the last time this happened, Katherine biked ahead and left me stranded, talking to the guy by myself! I was thankful that she stuck around this time. The guy, who had a girl with him, maybe his girlfriend?, asked me where I was from, if I was married, how long I was here. The standard rotation. I informed him that I lived here and I'm a teacher at the univeristy. He was excited at the news, and started to explain that he had a friend who worked at the university--a foreigner who taught economics here for three weeks. I was so surprised. He was talking about Inaki! Katherine and I laughed in astonishment. Turned out that the guy worked at the hotel where Inaki stayed and had met him there. What a small, small world. Or at least what a small city. We pulled over on the side of the road and exchanged names and numbers so we could meet for coffee sometime. This is the magic of Vietnam--meeting someone, with whom you share a mutual friend, while biking home over the bridge.
Back at home, I answered a knock at my door to find Kamrul holding two red roses. One for Katherine, for women's day. And one for me, not only for women's day but also for my four-year anniversary with Sam, which was yesterday. I was so thankful for his thoughtful gesture and happily added the rose to the vase of flowers I'd received earlier in the evening. My room smells so lovely now, like lilies, which are my favorite....
my flowers, in a lovely vase I bought in Bat Trang pottery village outside of HanoiThis morning Katherine and I went to the market to get some breakfast and some basil for the bruschetta we're going to make for lunch--we're all about assembled food since we don't have a proper kitchen. But the best part of the market trip this morning was the soundtrack: We arrived at the market and walked towards one of our favorite breakfast stalls and immediately heard....The Backstreet Boys! A total fixture from my childhood. I was in love with each of them, individually, on a rotating basis. We sat down to enjoy a bowl of bun chay--vegetarian noodles, which were delicious--and started singing along to "The Shape of Your Heart." Really? Singing along to the Backstreet Boys at an open-air market in Vietnam at barely 8am? How, exactly, is this my life? The guy who was playing the music, at the stand right next to our noodle lady, apparently didn't like our singing and replaced BSB with some Vietnamese pop. We had no other choice but to nurse our disappointment with the yummy noodles..
I love the market but the meat stuff is bothering me more and more. This morning, as I was buying tofu from my favorite tofu lady, a woman was hacking up an animal skull about 1 foot from me, blood flying, bones breaking. Urgh. Every morning at the market I see the same woman--young, pretty--chopping through animal parts and bones with her big cleaver knife. It's an image of such juxtaposition, in my mind. I think about that woman, going home later, caring for her children, carressing her husband with the same hands that earlier chopped a pig's head and skull into bits.
Enough of that mental image. Time to go make bruschetta with Katherine. No nap today, I guess.
Currently listening: The Milk-eyed Mender, by Joanna Newsom
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2 comments:
These experiences are so incredible...I love reading them...I think you should work up a version of "You Don't Know Me" when asked to sing. I think that would be really sweet...and you could do it! And by the way, Happy Anniversary! d.
I vote for "Smoothies in the City." And I think there is probably a Sheryl Crow song that would have been appropriate to sing in front of the crowd. I thought women's progress was too damn slow here...Vietnam is way behind, though some of the issues about balancing work and family will always be tough, unfortunately. And with Sarah Palin, who has set America's women back a couple decades, the two countries may end up tied.
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