I swear I get more Vietnamese every day.

I think the reason I haven't written in a long time is not due to lack of weird things to write about, but that the oddities of a life in Viet Nam have just become the norm. Most mornings I wake up early and try to dress conservatively because showing any shoulders, stomach or knees is considered whore-ish. In one hand as I walk out the door is a green army helmet covered in mesh with a Viet Nam flag on the side.. A gift from my boyfriend Haydin, it is so I don't have to wear other peoples helmets on the multiple moto-taxis I take all the time. In the other hand is a pink and white flowery face mask with a filter in it.. The face mask is a common accessory here in Hanoi due to the raging polution problem. The first time a giant bus hacks up a cloud of black exhaust in your face, you will wear a filtered face mask too. If it's raining, which is often, a bubblegum pink rain coat keeps me and my school supplies somewhat dry. So with my helmet, face mask, rain coat and a pair of giant purple sunglasses I look like a smaller, more colorful version of Darth Vader. The funny thing is that I still look like everyone else.

I walk down my alley to the street where a couple of xe om (motorcycle taxi) drivers usually hang out. A quick conversation in Vietnamese as to where I need to go and how much I will pay and I'm on the back of the bike zooming towards 15-30 kids waiting for me to teach them English. It really makes my day when I can have a little joke with the xe om guys, because unless they know me, most of them aren't expecting Hanoi street slang from a big, tall, white girl. (Insert: ling ta ling ting.) My Vietnamese is coming along nicely, but it has been quite an interesting challenge. For example, there are six different tones, eight accents, eleven vowels, and nothing is said the way it is spelled. As you might imagine, I spend a lot of time trying to get the right pronounciation so that I can get simple messages across. I have a theory about the Vietnamese language: it is made of so many minute differences that any deviation of the exact pronounciation does not register at all. So if I'm trying to get to my street, Ngo Van So, I might have to say it seven different times in seven different ways before they understand.

I'm not giving myself much credit, but I do speak a little. I can hold small conversations, answer questions, haggle, and not get ripped off as much as other foreigners, which I'm actually quite proud of. There's a three-way tie for my favorite phrase:

Toi la giao vien, khong phai la hach du lich.
(I'm a teacher, not a stupid tourist.)

Ling ta ling ting.
(You're talking shit. (in a joking way))

Khong phai ga viet!
I am not a Vietnamese chicken!

Basically all my key phrases are in effort to save me money and not be pegged for some oblivious tourist that will pay triple the price because they just don't know better. I'm not shocked by it though, as nothing shocks me anymore. Twelve year olds driving mopeds through morning traffic with giant, slaughtered pigs strapped to the sides while chain smoking cigarretes no longer phases me. The roads of Hanoi no longer scare me, but kind of remind me of the Super Nintendo version of Super Mario Cart, complete with slippery banana peels laid out by giant Donkeys driving go-carts and explosive red turtle shells bopping across the lanes of traffic. I've stopped flinching at chicken heads and feet floating in bowls of soup, deep-fried whole baby ducklings, and dog-meat kebabs. Seventeen year olds weilding AK-47s at major tourist sites make me laugh, as do the great lengths the people here go through to remain as pasty white as possible, while I run around trying to soak up the sun for a better tan.

I'm also never shocked when a Vietnamese friend or acquaintance of mine will bend over backward to help me out. My favorite Vietnamese person is a woman named Huyen, a manager at one of the schools I teach at. She takes me to the outdoor market so I can buy fresh fruit and veg without being overcharged. She invited Haydin, Brittney and I for coffee on her one night off a week so I could meet her husband, son and mother. She has taken me to the Van Phuc Silk Village outside of the city twice so I can find some nice, affordable clothes. We swap teaching each other English and Vietnamese phrases and laugh at the beautiful differences between our two cultures.

The differences here are amazing, but we learn to live with it, laugh about it and love it, like when the government shuts off the power in different areas of Hanoi (including mine) a couple times a week to save energy. That's always fun.