Awards Season

My friend Michael in Hanoi has been a bit full of himself lately since he got appointed to the Australian Order of Merit for his work with Blue Dragon.

But did you get a certificate Michael?  Huh? Check this out - Standard of Achievement: Excellent. 

Absolutely NO children were rescued in the making of this production.  Not even one. 

While arguably my award is not quite so glamourous - I still think it's pretty cool. Here's my acceptance speech:

I would like to thank my mother! Who only has about 97 posts to go towards getting her own certificate.

Customary

 Almost everything you buy in Vietnam comes with some kind of customs sticker.  Every wine bottle has a little sticker over the seal, for example.  Our new apartment is furnished but not serviced like the last one.  This means that there were quite a few small household items I needed to buy, like extra sheets and towels, cleaning stuff, and pots and pans.

 The landlady is going to bring me a microwave and a rice cooker today, but I couldn't wait until after Tet to make a cup of tea at home, so I had to buy myself a kettle.  Annoyingly enough, my kettle was stickered too:

 

 

That damn sticker WOULD NOT come off. 

 

 

 I had to scrub at it with the scrubby thing on the kitchen sponge.  Now my beautiful new kettle features brushed steel AND glass. But at least it has official communist approval. 

Building walls

One of the nice things for me about moving to Vietnam has been this blog.  By writing it, I've created a record of a lot of the interesting things I've done, and having the blog to update has given me a reason to go and sort through photos, and an audience to tell stories to.

But the problem with being a public blog is that it's PUBLIC.  The internet is goddamned accessible.  And I'm a little shy.

When I first started writing, I thought nobody was reading it at all apart from a few friends and family. Those early posts had a really different feel to the later ones - partially because I was writing about all the things that were hard and horrible as well as the things that were amazing and fun.

But once I got here to Vietnam, and more and more people I barely knew were reading, I began to feel less and less confident about what I felt I should say online. I want to tell people back home about the people here, but I don't want to offend or exploit people by saying things about them publicly.

I want to talk about my job and my volunteer work - but I REALLY don't want to do that in a public forum. 

So as I've integrated more and more with life in Vietnam, and interacted more and more with people, I've found that what I can confidently say has dwindled. There have been fewer and fewer posts, and now, I am barely writing at all.

But I really miss it!  I want to tell you all about the cool stuff I'm doing! So I have decided to limit the audience.  I love getting your comments and I love having the opportunity to share this amazing life with you.

If you want to keep reading, please drop me a line and I'll add you to the blog. There will be more posts, but you will have to log in to read them from now on. I hope that by having this extra layer of privacy, I'll feel more confident about writing more frequently.

And thanks to everyone who has been reading!  I really appreciate your support!

Who do you think you are?

Our names have gotten us into trouble again.


My mother in law (bless her soul) sent us a much anticipated care package.  It contained some clothing items we can't find here, and some small gifts.  My sister in law (hello anonymous) posted this package for my mother in law through the courier company DHL.

DHL contacted Mr Martin when the package arrived:  They have the package. The package is addressed to:

M & K Sutcliffe

Who are they?  To the Vietnamese - M&K Sutcliffe sounds like a business name.  And therefore we have some explaining to do.  What is this illegal, unregistered company?

There was much passing of the telephone to helpful people who can speak Vietnamese.

Mr Martin had to write a letter, explaining that his name is M Sutcliffe and that the "& K" on the address is me - his wife, whose initial is K.  It is complicated by the fact that I am not K Sutcliffe (duh, I'm Mrs Martin, aren't I?), so there is no proof.  I believe he sent copies of our passports and marriage certificate.

Then, a couple of days later he was told that he needed to send the letter in Vietnamese as well as English. Which is a pain because - you know - we don't speak Vietnamese.  So Mr Martin was  trying to find time to get a friend to translate his letter.

And then when I arrived home a couple of days later (the package had now been in the country for a week) the receptionist in our building told me that DHL had been, with a package, and were ready to drop it off if she would pay the whopping customs charge of 2.1 million dong - which is around $100 US.  Which is a lot more than the petty cash that our reception office carries. Which is actually none.  Ocassionally the office girls have paid small bills for me when I am out (like, 20,000 dong) out of their own pockets.  But 2 million is ridiculous.  And I wasn't here, so she had to send him on his way again.

Maybe they got tired of waiting for their Vietnamese letter?

But my receptionist was very conscientious about the whole business. She got a tracking number and a phone number and other useful information off  the delivery man, and so when I got back I was able to get her on the phone to him again.

The 2 million dong is because of the value of goods that was written on the customs declaration form that NZ Post sticks to packages. There was nothing we could do about that, unfortunately. 

And I had to explain very painstakingly the naming convention that had caused our names to be written as M&K Sutcliffe to the receptionist, so that she can explain it to DHL. I thought that she had it, but then she came back to my apartment and asked me - "What is the company M&K Sutcliffe?" and I had to start again.


The irony here is that of course in Vietnam everything is backwards.  In my country, combining the names of a married couple like this is a way of simplifying the address, and also a little bit more formal.  By writing the names together like that, my MIL would have intended that either Mr Martin or myself could then easily receive the package.  But here in upside-down land, that attempt at formality/simplicity actually complicated things quite a bit. 

And actually, our names were only shortened like that on the customs form attached to the package - not on the address label itself.

So, if you are in Vietnam and your loved ones at home want to send you pressies, tell them to do this:

• Come and visit and put the present in their suitcase (Hi Mummy!  Can't wait to see you!).

If a visit is really not possible, then:

• Spend the extra money on postage to make sure it is handled by a courier company - the ordinary postal service in Vietnam is too unreliable.
• Make sure a contact phone number and email address for the recipient are included in the consignment note/written on the address label. I would even recommend this for a simple letter.
• Write names of the recipients as they appear on their passports - as these will be required for identification.
• Make sure the overall declared price of goods written on the customs declaration is low - like less than $50.  Remember that second hand or reconditioned items have a very low value. Not that I'm encouraging to you lie to the customs office or anything. 
• Use the Vietnamese alphabet on your address if you can. Remember to include all those accents. 
• I notice that Vietnamese people have uniformly beautiful handwriting and can struggle to read untidy or eccentric handwriting. It's best to type address labels and print them out, or else write in BLOCK CAPITALS.
• Finally, be sure to include a consignment note or packing slip that lists the items in the package.  It is a very good deterrent for anybody who might be tempted to intercept anything - because they know that you'll know.

Remember - in Vietnam problems can happen, but they also do get sorted out.  If you have a problem like ours, stay calm and smile - it's the easiest way to get people to help you.

So, if M&K Sutcliffe were a company - what kind of company do you think it would be?

How's the language going?

So you might be curious about how my Vietnamese language acquisition is going.

It's terrible!  I can't speak Vietnamese!

Quite a lot of the young folk I meet offer to language exchange with me, and I really should take them up on it, I know - but I am so lazy about it. 

But, I am not a complete ignoramus.  Simply by osmosis, and some Vietnamese flashcards on the iPod I have learned a few words and phrases.  So, I can say hello and ask 'How much?'.  Sometimes, I can understand when they tell me how much something costs, and sometimes I can't (improving every day!).  I have that problem that all new language learners have, where all the words run into one another and I can't hear what is being told to me - it just sounds like babbles.  In the Thai language they have a good way of talking about this.  They say "Fung my dai," which means not "I can't understand," but, "I can't listen."  Because, when someone slows down or talks more clearly I can understand, but I just can't listen....

Even after 13 years of concentrated forgetting I can still speak Thai better than I can speak Vietnamese.  Which really demonstrates the power of immersion for language learning.  I lived with a Thai family, and by three months I could read the language OK and could carry out simple conversations.

In Vietnam after 4 months I have a vocabulary of somewhere around 50 words and can use sign language.

There is another problem with Vietnamese though.  It is RIDICULOUSLY difficult to pronounce.  Every day I get in a taxi and I say the name of my street, (let's pretend I live on Apple street). The conversation goes like this.

ME

Xin Chao!  

(This means hello.)

HIM

Hello!

(So, I speak in Vietnamese to him, and he speaks English back.  But believe me, if I said hello in English, he probably wouldn't even crack a smile, let alone say hello back.)

ME

Apple Street!

HIM

(Dead silence.  Driving to Apple Street.)

Or, the other half of the time it goes like this:

ME

Xin Chao!  

HIM

Hello!

ME

Apple Street!

HIM

 O Dau?
(Where?)

ME

Apple Street!

HIM

Eh?

(Cups his hand against his ear.  Pulls a 'what the hell are you on about' face)

ME

Apple Street

HIM

Apple Street?  Apple Street?

(Shakes head.  No such thing as Apple Street surely. What language is she speaking any way?)

ME

(Pulls out notebook.  Shows address: Apple Street)

HIM

Apple Street!

(Drives in silence.)

So, I'm prepared to be misunderstood.  But the bit that gets me is that when I say "Apple Street" and he repeats it like it sounds like gibberish "Apple Street?" and then when he says "Apple Street" and tries to correct me - it all sounds like the same words to me.  I can't spot the difference. Fung my dai.

A few weeks after arriving here I found a "Vietnamese For Beginners" book with CDs at the local government bookstore (Fahasa).  It was cheap, so I bought it, thinking "I'll give that a crack".

So the book is rubbish, but - it's a really good CD...

If you're short on coasters!

Seriously folks, if you're in Vietnam and you find yourself reading this blog thinking: "Oooh! I wonder if she's got any tips for learning Vietnamese?" - well I do.  Keep your 63,000 dong and don't buy that book and CD set at Fahasa.  Also, practise on your taxi drivers:

Visas and other such practical concerns

Even though we have been here now for almost three months, we are still on our tourist visas, and they are about to expire.

Mr Martin did get a work permit a week or so ago.  It's a very flimsy looking thing, with his photo stuck on it lopsidedly.  We both looked at it and thought: 'that looks like would be easy to forge'. 

Getting the work permit is good, because we also found out that our shipment of stuff is about to arrive any day now.  This was a surprise to us, because we thought that the shipment couldn't even be shipped until the visa and work permit were sorted out.  And indeed, the shipping company need to take possession of the work permit for a few days after the stuff gets here in order for the stuff to be released by customs.

And because the shipping company will have the work permit, the visa people can't process the residence visa application until we get it back off them.

Getting visas is a mysterious process from our point of view, as it is mostly managed by the company.  And we just do as we're told from time to time.  Which generally means bringing documents like the passports (and the marriage certificate, today.  I knew we needed to get married.  Phew!) to the office.  Today we were also instructed to go and get more photos taken. In two different sizes.

Move over! You're taking all my good light...

I am slightly worried that we will get told next Wednesday that we will have no choice but to go to Singapore for the weekend because our visas have expired.

That worry made me go looking at airfares (reassuringly cheap!).  And then I saw that Air Asia are offering direct flights from Christchurch to Kuala Lumpur for USD99.  Seriously folks, if you're on a budget and want to come and visit us later in year you should book that flight. Cheap as!

Offencive [sic] Behaviour

Beautiful, isn't it?

Mt Maunganui is a popular spot with New Zealand's Disaffected Yoof, and at no time is it more popular than on New Year's Eve.   For example, this is a typical news report in early January. 

So, flashback to 1990. Or maybe 1991.  It would seem that it was such a great year that we can't exactly remember what year it was. 

And imagine this guy:

But maybe 21 years younger, and quite possibly trying hard to look like this guy:

And now, imagine him doing this:

And you will see that we had a little problem on our hands.  Because New Year's Eve at the Mount is teeming with cops, and apparently was even back in the olden days, when Martin got caught with his pants down.

Dear Reader - we have spent the last 3 weeks nervously waiting to see whether this whole thing would be off because Martin wasn't actually sure whether he got a conviction or not - though he definitely remembers the fine.

But tonight I will be opening a bottle of wine with dinner because we're clear! 

For those of you who are wondering - fining drunk teenagers for peeing on fences does NOTHING AT ALL to deter them from the practice as drunk adult men.  Perhaps he really should have been served a conviction after all...



Halt! Who goes there?

The passport has finally arrived! 

Now the only documentation we are still waiting for is:

• University transcripts (mine)
• Criminal record info (Martin's - the first copy never arrived, second copy ordered, should arrive this week)
• Marriage certificate (ordered, should arrive tomorrow)

Once we have EVERYTHING, we can send the packet off to be notarised and authenticated.

All this so that we can try and avoid a scene like this one on arrival in Vietnam: