Rain, a Train, and a Chubby Vietnamese Kid
The other morning I got up at 4:30 and learned how lazy I'd been all my life.
On my way to the train station, I crossed the new bridge closest to my house and witnessed hundreds of Vietnamese already in action, either walking at a brisk pace over the kilometer-long span or stopped along it doing calisthenics. Orange street lamps illuminated the scene, but my blood-shot eyes weren't ready to make out more than silhouettes.
"So early," I said to my cab driver, who'd already polished off a ca phe sua da (iced coffee). I could tell from the beads of precipitation still clinging to the empty cup in the holder next to his seat.
"Ba Ria?" he shot back, slowing the vehicle to a virtual halt. He thought I'd asked him to take me to a town two-and-a-half hours away.
"No, no, no, no," I said. "Just ... train station. Di doi, Phan Thiet."
I've been here eight months, You would think a lot of the cultural gaps would've been filled by now. And perhaps some have. I do, after all, have a portfolio of key phrases embedded in my memory bank.
But even as I chugged along those rails to Phan Thiet, and rain began to fall slowly and steadily -- just as it does this time of year in Seattle -- it didn't feel the same. It felt ... well, "same same but different," as the Vietnamese say.
I contemplated this until a pudgy Vietnamese boy, all of about 3 and wearing an all-red outfit, came charging down the aisle and latched on to my arm rest, looking up at me with a smile that made his eyes disappear. Here's what he kind of looked like:
On my way to the train station, I crossed the new bridge closest to my house and witnessed hundreds of Vietnamese already in action, either walking at a brisk pace over the kilometer-long span or stopped along it doing calisthenics. Orange street lamps illuminated the scene, but my blood-shot eyes weren't ready to make out more than silhouettes.
"So early," I said to my cab driver, who'd already polished off a ca phe sua da (iced coffee). I could tell from the beads of precipitation still clinging to the empty cup in the holder next to his seat.
"Ba Ria?" he shot back, slowing the vehicle to a virtual halt. He thought I'd asked him to take me to a town two-and-a-half hours away.
"No, no, no, no," I said. "Just ... train station. Di doi, Phan Thiet."
I've been here eight months, You would think a lot of the cultural gaps would've been filled by now. And perhaps some have. I do, after all, have a portfolio of key phrases embedded in my memory bank.
But even as I chugged along those rails to Phan Thiet, and rain began to fall slowly and steadily -- just as it does this time of year in Seattle -- it didn't feel the same. It felt ... well, "same same but different," as the Vietnamese say.
I contemplated this until a pudgy Vietnamese boy, all of about 3 and wearing an all-red outfit, came charging down the aisle and latched on to my arm rest, looking up at me with a smile that made his eyes disappear. Here's what he kind of looked like:
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