the usual, please

I am a regular at a food establishment. It has always been a goal of mine to be able to walk into a restaurant, sit down, and say, "I'll have the usual." E-Mack and I tried for an entire semester to be regulars at Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe on Franklin Street, but we kept switching up our orders and a different person would serve us every time even though we sat at the same table every time. Do I want the M&M pancakes today or not? This question haunted me and prevented my ever having a regular order. The good news is, I have a usual order at my favorite fried rice place. I need only walk up and I am greeted with smiles as my beef fried rice begins its delicious crisping process. (I should mention that I always get beef fried rice even though my insufficient mastery of the Vietnamese tones meant that I often ordered "fried rice with father".) The only thing that could make my being a regular any better is if everyone shouted my name Norm-style every time I walk up, but I'm not going to be picky when it comes to regular-status.

The other day, our lecturer was an American Vietnam War veteran who lives and works in Hanoi with Project Renew. Project Renew is a program that works to remove unexploded ordinances in Vietnam. I learned that the problem in Vietnam is not undiscovered landmines, such as is the problem in Cambodia, but is rather the bombs and such that were dropped during the war that never exploded. Strangely enough, the website is www.landmines.org, but I think that using "land mines" was a way to catch people's attention. The really large bombs that sank into the ground are relatively harmless. They need to be removed safely but pose little immediate threat. It's the cluster bombs that are truly dangerous and must be dealt with immediately. They continue to explode and will either severely maim or kill any person in their path. Project Renew also has a number of educational programs to teach kids to identify unexploded ordinances so that they can call them in to the organization and has a mushroom growing program to help family's affected by the ordinances to generate revenue. 

I couldn't help but ask the Vet at the end of his presentation what branch of the service he was in. Turns out it was Army- Military Intelligence. The majority of Vets I know from Vietnam were Army Air, which would make sense given that I hang out with the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation (AAHF). I told our speaker about AAHF and how they still fly Vietnam-era aircraft for tactical displays in airshows and do Huey rides for anyone at those airshows. He was surprised that anyone was still flying the old aircraft. Sha-bam, I just spread some knowledge. I also felt great that I understood pretty much all of what he was saying when the military jargon came out. One point for military kids everywhere.

Today's lecture on drug use and mental health brought a really fantastic moment. The speaker mentioned that the Sheraton holds the only nightclub that actually has a dance floor in Hanoi, and that dancing at clubs isn't really allowed in Hanoi. He then asked if any of us knew why dancing wasn't allowed, to which, without any kind of filter engaged from brain-to-mouth, I blurted out "Footloose?". Thankfully, today's lecturer was from Boston and knew exactly what I was talking about. In point of fact, there was a police raid of a dance club where a lot of illicit drugs were found, so Hanoi kind of outlawed dance nightclubs. Kevin Bacon is the greatest.

A few of us were going to go see a movie this evening. We were first going to watch a Vietnamese film whose translated title is Hotboy Rebellion. It's about a gay Vietnamese relationship and has come up several times in conversation in our classes. We called the movie theater and on the second attempt were connected to someone who spoke English. This person informed us that the movie had no English subtitles. So, we re-adjusted our plan to go see the new movie 50-50 with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it. It's a movie from the U.S. so one would think it would be in English. Upon arriving at the theater, we were told that it had been dubbed into Vietnamese. This was not the case with the previous movie we saw at this theater, but we dejectedly bought some kettle corn and made our way out to the lake to sit and talk for a while. Other than the one man who stopped in front of us to stare for a good ten minutes as we sat on a bench, it was a relaxing evening.

Top Three Things I won't miss upon returning to the U.S.:

1. Durian, the world's most repugnant fruit. It is a disgrace to fruit everywhere. Even calling it a fruit makes other fruit sad. It smells like nothing I could ever describe and makes me want to gag. Ew.

2. Traffic- I've discussed this at much length before, so I won't go into further details here.

3. Getting Stared At- I always thought I wanted to stand out and be noticed, until I got to Vietnam. I want to go home and fade into the background for a while. I want no one to look at me ever.