14 June 2006 – Thursday – Hotel Room – 19:17
This morning was the first time I woke up with alarm clock. Last three days, I always woke up before the alarm rang but today I was stubborn enough to keep myself in the bed until 7 am. One thing I did not like about Vietnam is time. We are nearly 1000 kms far from Bangkok and sun rises here nearly 1 hour before it rises in Bangkok. However, HCMC and Bangkok are in the same time zones. This means sun rises before 6 o’clock here but people still start working mostly around 8 am. I get used to wake up at 6 am in Bangkok so I can be in school at 7 am. Here, the school bus takes me at 8:15. I cannot find things to do in the morning to waste my time. I go to meeting point earlier and wait in the sun while sweating wet…
I believe the best way to make friends in a foreign community is playing sports with them. After coming back to my room I grapped my badminton racket and went outside. Many people were playing badminton just in front of my hotel –in the park which goes along with Pham Ngu Lao road- . I saw three people playing and went to join them. One of them was speaking a little bit English. He told me his name, I told him mine. I guess neither of us understood each other’s names. I called him Naam which is a common name for girls in Thailand and he called me Alex. We started to hit the birdy until we could not see it anymore due to the darkness. I left the park with a strong hope of meeting them again. It was good since I had three Vietnamese friends and I guess I also learnt a few new Vietnamese words…
When I tried to cross the street, I was hit by a motorbike. I was crossing half of the road and was waiting for the other half while looking at right –same as Turkey- for a good time. At that moment, a motorbike came from my left side and hit my hand. The driver did not stop although I yelled at him. He was driving fast. I crossed other half of the road. It did not hurt much but gave me an idea about my carelessness. If I would been hit on these roads, nobody would mind what really happened to me. I am alone and I have to be more careful.
Whenever I arrive at my hotel room, I find some of my things moved or changed their positions. On the first day, they moved everything in my room to another room at upstairs. On the second day, I have found that they folded my clothes carefully and put them in the bookshelf which was not in my room one day before. Today, I found they washed my coffee mug and put it in the bathroom upside-down. There is a face picture of J on this mug and whoever washed this mug, she might know that she was putting my wife’s picture upside-down. Of course, she would not know how much I missed my wife nowadays. Her absence is a vacuum in my mind. I can not sleep well at nights and I have difficulty in paying attention to the important things. Once a person gets used to live with someone, it is very hard to get used to live without her/him. When I called her last night, I told her “whenever you feel ready, come to HCMC, don’t wait there alone”. I wish she will be here soon. After she comes, we can look for a nice apartment. She can cook as usual and we can have our normal life as before.
It is interesting that sometimes I forget that I am in Vietnam. People’s faces are different from Thai people but still they are Asian. I speak with them in Thai supposing that they can understand. Most of the people here do not speak English. In the university, we have several Vietnamese lecturers who are native speakers of English. They were born in Vietnam but moved to USA or Australia when they were very young. All the personnel of the university also speak good English. The environment of the university is very different from outside world. Inside the university campus, there are rules and we are not supposed to ignore any rule. Everyone speaks English and there is no problem with communication. Even the food in the school’s cafeteria is amazing. I ate “kus kus” yesterday. There is cheese, all sorts of sandwiches, apple pie, Greek salad and nice coffee in the cafeteria.
I can not read nowadays. I started to read Ismail Kadare’s ‘Palace of Dreams’ before coming to Vietnam but I haven’t completed it yet. It is a good story but somehow I am busy with other things. Every morning, I read a few pages and rest of the day passes like a lightning. I usually come to my room with a tired body and a busy mind. I am also planning to read some history of Vietnam. It looks very interesting since there were many power struggles over this land. Chinese, French, American and finally Vietnamese! It is a long and complicated history. I am also looking for a teacher who can teach me some basic Vietnamese to survive in this society without looking fool.
This is my fourth day in HCMC but I know nothing about this place. I only know the road between my hotel and the school. This weekend, I want to go somewhere away from the city, it might be Mekong river delta or Cu Chi tunnels. I might ask some friends in the school and we might go together.
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