(Version française plus bas)

If you wonder whether the Vietnamese celebrate Christmas, the answer is: most Vietnamese do not. If you wonder whether I feel like it’s Christmas, the answer is: yes, most definitely!

I had never heard ”Jingle bells” or ”I wish you a merry Christmas” so many times before Christmas until now. Vietnam is putting on its Christmas garments for tourists.

Christmas decorations everywhere downtown.

(more…)

One of the main things that attracted me to Jet Set Zero was the opportunity to have an adventure that was different than the average traveling experience. We are working in this foreign city, making friends and forming relationships – things that are difficult to achieve if you are whisking your way through a country as a tourist. Through a friend we had recently made, we were invited to see something really unique that gave us a special perspective on Vietnamese culture: we visited an old age home.

In Vietnamese culture, it is expected that children care for their parents when they become too old to care for themselves. Unfortunately, many older people find themselves without family after losing them in the Vietnam War or simply by outliving them (life expectancy is 69 for a Vietnamese man and 75 for a woman, compared to Canada which is 79 for men and 84 for women). Serene, Jen and I visited the home for the elderly after hearing about it from our friend, Ngan. The experience was one I won’t soon forget.

The home itself is run by Catholic missionaries. We brought the ladies cookies and milk and handed them out which was fun and made me feel a bit like Santa Claus. Many looked thrilled to see us and even more excited that we brought them treats. The home was much cleaner than I had imagined – I suppose I was thinking “third world old age home” and expected the worst. But the facilities were very simple and actually reminded me of scenes in “M*A*S*H”. Many bedridden women were lying in these compartment things (I hesitate to call them beds) that were lined with linoleum and had a drain in the centre. This is where they spend their days. On the morning we went, the women were getting haircuts from volunteers which made me smile because they do the same thing at home. Despite their simple surroundings and lack of family and visitors, most of the women seemed in very good spirits and were happy to talk to us (through a translator) about their experiences. I even pulled out a bit of a capella singing for them. Mostly, there were just lots of smiles passed back and forth.

I could feel my karma-meter climbing. And what a treat it was to see something truly local and memorable that we would not normally experience as tourists.

(Version française plus bas)

Funds on December 7th: 1 319 000 Dong + 99 US dollars =3 128 720 Dong ($171.15) (115,29€)


Current funds on December 13th = 1 108 583 Dong ($60.70) ( 41,67€)

Spent: 1 124 907 Dong + 49 US dollars for rent (895 230 Dong) = 2 020 137 Dong
 ($110.60) ( 75,95€)


(more…)

We discovered this tiny little bar called “Yen” the other night. It was difficult to find but once we were there we fell in love with the space. I could have lived there it was so cool. The bar itself was really atmospheric and quiet – lots of hushed voices and overpriced drinks. They had a Vietnamese acoustic trio there the night we went and although the lighting was shitty for video, I took a few shots of them playing various English songs. They covered a very wide range of genres and did a pretty fabulous job for three guys, two guitars and one dude playing one of those box/percussion things. See if you can pick out all the songs!

I know most of you are probably curious as to what I’ve been doing for work and why I’m not sleeping in a gutter. Before arriving in Vietnam, I did a lot of research into ESL teaching and basically every forum said if you’re Asian you will not get hired to teach English even though you’re a native English speaker. But then I got here and realized that it is possible!…. if you have some sort of qualification which I don’t. Luckily, I’ve still been working with a travel agency Turkey editing and rewriting their website so there’s some income coming in. The second thing I started to do is sell Vietnamese knick knacks and what not online. This is not steady by any means but between my two “jobs” I’m making it work.

However, I did apply for one job since I’ve been here. I applied at a bar to be a bartender. The girl laughed and said they couldn’t pay me enough, but when I told her I was serious she went to get the manager to come over to talk to me. He never spoke to me at all, he just kinda walked by and took a look at me and the girl came back and told me the position had been filled. LIAR. Damn these good looks of mine must have been too intimidating….

So while Kris, Laurene and Serene bust their asses working, I spend my days drinking mango shakes and keepin it real.

The Flooded Forest of Kompong Phhluk is by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was a 45 minute tuk tuk ride from Siem Reap, another 45 minute boat ride before we made it to a little fishing village, and from there we had to swap to a paddle boat in order to navigate the dense flooded forest. After we left the flooded forest, we got back onto the bigger boat which took us out to a lake where we saw the raddest sunset ever. Once again, the video cannot do the the flooded forest justice, you’ll need to go check it out for yourself!

My trek to landing a steady job has been well, more difficult than the other Jet Set ladies. I haven’t been able to land anything in an English school here, but tutoring is becoming my preferred occupation. At first, I got a tutoring gig from the website couchsurfers.org, as a replacement for an expat leaving the country. It was only three hours of tutoring a week, but since I couldn’t seem to find anything more than that at the time, I was more than happy to undertake it. All in my first week, that three hours has multiplied to seven and a half, and I now am capable of not only covering my rent of $210/month, I can now eat about $50 of food without going further into the hole. On top of it, one of the mothers of the children I teach is just about the most helpful women in the world. She’s actively helping me look for an English school that will take me in, and has been the only reason for my increased hours.

Thus far, there are two significant reasons why I think tutoring kicks English teachings ass (in a school anyway)

1) Its more personal. You get to know the children better, and its becoming easier and easier for me to understand the culture here through my interactions with these kids. Not to mention, they’re all pretty awesome and well-behaved, which tends to help.

2) The dress code. I hate, and I mean hate, dressing up in any way, form, or fashion. Getting to wear jeans and a t-shirt to my tutoring sessions definitely beats having to wear uncomfortable shoes and a button down blouse. My boss in Los Angeles had a hard enough time asking if I had even ever worn a dress in my life, much less business casual clothing.

If this upward trend continues, maybe I’ll be able to make up some of the money I lost during my first jobless month in Saigon.

Christmas and I have a love/hate relationship. One the one hand, I love that it brings everyone together and makes you appreciate what you have and how lucky you are to be surrounded by people you care about. On the other hand, I hate the commercialization that comes with the holiday and the stress and anxiety it causes people who find themselves dead broke in January. But Christmas at home is usually a great time for me, spent hanging out, eating and chatting with my awesome family and friends.

Christmas when travelling is entirely different, and really depends on where you are when it arrives. I’ve been abroad for it before and to tell you the truth, I actually  kind of like being away. Many of the countries I’ve been to don’t celebrate it at all (Muslim, Hindu, etc.) so you get to skip all the commercials, crappy music and purchasing pressure. As long as you’re with people you care about, you can make your own small, private, tropical Christmas, get drunk and then move on without the painful lead-up and financial hangover.

So I was excited to spend another Christmas away. Vietnam is predominantly Buddhist so I figured we’d see some Christmas related stuff and maybe the guesthouse would put up a Charlie Brown tree in an effort to appease the foreigners. Oh, how I was wrong.

Starting December 1st, we began to hear Christmas carols everywhere. I sit in a coffee shop listening to Jingle Bell Rock or get a manicure to Silent Night. And although the Vietnamese don’t celebrate the holiday to honour the birth of Christ, they do celebrate it just for the hell of it and put up decorations and give gifts to each other. There are decorations EVERYWHERE. It’s strange to see giant snow globes with snowmen inside with the words “Let It Snow” on the front and think that the average Vietnamese has never even seen snow. They get points for enthusiasm, that’s for sure. They even set up Christmas villages.  It appears that I will not be avoiding Christmas this year.

Do they even know what this is supposed to be?

Santa makes a pit stop in Vietnam, too.

Apparently there are giraffes at the North Pole.

On Friday night Jen, Kris, and I decided to head to a bar Vascos with our new friend Alex. We’d hoped since there were four of us, we could hop in a taxi and just head on over. The worst possible time to ever think you can hail a cab comes around soccer celebration time. We attempted to hail about 20 cabs in the street, only to be completely ignored. Then we actually managed to hop into three more cabs, only to be refused because “motorbike too crazy”. When we decided to say “screw it” and walk instead, even walking became an extremely tedious task.

So, as a courtesy note to any tourist in Ho Chi Minh City, never, and I mean never, make plans on soccer night that extend beyond a 30 ft radius. If you do, plan for arrival an hour and a half later.