Show Me the Money!

In my last post, about losing my motorcycle keys, I mentioned that we had intended to go to Đà Nẵng to sort out some banking issues. And I hope you are ready for a thrill ride because this post is about that trip to the bank. 

Exciting…I know.

The reason for this trip was because the banking system I use is not really a bank. It is a third-party liaison designed for English-speaking foreigners to be able to easily take care of their finances. It is called TIMO (short for TIme and MOney) and it is amazing. It makes my banking so easy.

However, last month they informed all of their clients that they were cutting ties with the bank they partner with and were moving to a new bank. This meant that all of their services would stop working on a certain day. We would need to download their new app TIMO+ and pop into one of their "hangouts" to get everything switched to the new account with their new bank partner.

They call them hangouts because it sounds better than calling them offices, I guess. But they are very adamant that it is not a bank. They handle no money. They only initiate and process paperwork. And they are not bad places to hang out. They serve free drinks (including beer) while you are there.

The week before, I had popped in for my appointment to switch everything over and was informed that it wasn't really necessary unless I wanted to. I still had an account at the original bank. I just wouldn't have the third-party between us anymore.

Now, as much as I would have liked to keep the convenience of having an English-speaking go-between, I did have some concerns about switching to a new bank. I can't go into all the specifics here, but it had to do with me getting a new passport since opening the account, getting a work permit and residency card, and how Vietnamese taxes work. Going to a new bank would have made things very complicated and possibly have messed a few things up for us long-term, so I opted to stay with the bank I was already in.

Choosing to stay with the bank meant that I had to now go to that bank (for the first time), get a new banking app tied directly to them, get a new ATM card and let them know my intentions to stay. However, without the foreigner liaison service to help me, I was totally on my own and my Vietnamese is far from functional.

I have no idea what is happening.

I had gone in right after my meeting with TIMO, but their computers were down so no one could help me. Then, Typhoon Noul came through. Almost two weeks passed before I got back to the bank.

When I got there, a lovely young woman was coerced by the other tellers motioned for me to sit at her desk. She spoke ZERO English…but she recognized the word TIMO. I assume many foreigners have stepped in who were with TIMO and wanted to stay. She pulled up her computer and said "passport."

This is were everything got screwed up.

Remember when I said I had two passports? Well, I handed her the wrong one. I didn't realize what I had done until she had opened it. "Oh, wait! You need this one."

She didn't understand my words, but she did recognize that I had two passports with my picture and name in them. She got on her phone and through a translation app asked me, "Do you have documentation that these are both the same person?"

I knew I was going to be in for a long morning. My passport is my documentation. No one also carries around extra papers explaining that their passport is real. I grabbed both passports and held them up next to my face. These are me. I then pointed out the birth date on each one and the name. They are the same. I then took the new one and pocketed it. Holding the old one, I told her (for the rest of this story, remember that all communication is severely slowed and misunderstood due to having to use our phones to communicate in the different languages), "This is the one you need."

Unfortunately, she asked for my new passport back and kept looking at them side to side. She then called over other tellers to look at them. They discussed this extensively and started making phone calls. After close to an hour of their confusion (which I understand), she told me that this was a highly unusual situation and they needed to speak with their superiors. She asked for my information so she could contact me in a few days.

I had already been there for a LONG time and my patience was starting to wear thin. Although, I knew this was not their fault. I was irritated, but did not want to take it out on her. I informed her that I had had an account at that bank for two years. I understood that they might be confused about things, but I had not had access to my money for almost two weeks. She could contact anyone she likes, but I needed to get my financial situation resolved today. If I could not get money today, I would just close my account.

I really didn't want to do this because then I would have to open an account with my new passport and I wanted to avoid that if possible.

She looked at me defeated, like "What do you want me to do?"

I took a deep breath to make sure I wasn't getting too excited. Once again, this was not her fault. As frustrated as I might be, she was only doing her job. I pointed at the passport number in my old passport and asked her to type in my number. So far, she had not even looked up my account. She did as I asked and found me. I verified that the amount in the account was correct and she saw that it had my name on it. OKAY! We are starting to get somewhere. Now that I had her attention somewhere other than the extra passport, maybe I could accomplish my goal today.

In order to pay our bills, I needed to get the mobile app up and working, but that requires help from the bank. I couldn't do it all remotely. It took almost another hour of us downloading apps, sending emails back and forth, and using Facebook Messenger to share links so I could access what I needed to. I had done all of this at home, but not knowing Vietnamese meant that I had not understood the verification instructions. I was supposed to send a text message with a code to a specific number they had sent me and then take the new code they would send me back and plug it into the website. She helped me through all of it. Then she re-activated the ATM card I was already carrying.

Everything was fixed (after almost two hours) and we headed out the door. I was happy to have the passport issue behind me and prayed it would be forgotten about. I left the bank very happy to have access to our money again.

A few days later, that teller messages me.

Forgive the way it is worded. She ran this through a translator before sending to me. And I knew what she was asking. With all the confusion, they never got my new number. So, I played dumb.

Haven't heard from her since. I hope that's the end of it.

International living can be fun.

Fortune Cookie #15 - Diversity

I dove into my collection of fortune cookies this morning and came out with this gem.

A diversity of friends is a
credit to your flexible nature.

My immediate thought was that this is one of those rare fortunes that is actually accurate. I DO have a very diverse group of friends. But on further reflection, I realized that this diversity was actually forced on me.

I haven't lived in America for 4 years. In fact, my Facebook Memories this morning had a video of me showing off our empty apartment in Indianapolis hours before leaving it for the first time. We left our home four years ago today.

Since then, we have lived in China for 20 months and have now been in Vietnam for over two years. And we have a wide diversity of friends.

Countries our friends are from:

Australia

Thailand

South Africa

Jamaica

Peru

England

Taiwan

Vietnam

Mexico

New Zealand

France

Romania

Ireland

Russia

China 

South Korea

Canada

Malaysia

Singapore

I am sure there are a few I haven't thought of, but these are the people we associate with. And with so many different cultures over the years, a level of flexibility is necessary. However, I have to acknowledge that it wasn't our flexibility that gave us such a diverse friend group. It was our circumstances.

When you live the expat life, you meet a lot of other people doing the same. Yes, we get to know many of the locals, but we also meet up with and get to know the people who are "foreigners" here. Wherever they may be from.

When I lived in Indianapolis, I guess I had a diversity of friends. I met a lot of people through my job at Amazon and had friends from all walks of life. People of various colors, creeds, religions, and countries. There I had friends from six different African nations. Immigrants from Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal, Namibia, Egypt, and Ghana. However, once again, I met these people because of my job. I guess it does require some flexibility in order for us to form friendships, but work gets the credit for putting us together.

I grew up in an all-white, Polish Catholic community. A very small town.

I don't write this to make it sound like it was a racist place. Many small towns across America are the result of settlers from a couple hundred years ago settling there. The town I lived in and a few of the surrounding towns were heavily comprised of people with Polish ancestry. In fact, a few of the old-timers still spoke Polish. A few towns over was a town of heavy German ancestry. That's where you could go to buy the best sausages. You still can. There was another town that was heavily French. These cultural distinctions are still evident today despite it being many generations since the towns were founded by people emigrating from those countries.

However, being all European settlements meant basically all white residents. Growing up, this was my group of friends.

Can you say DRUNKEN REDNECKS?

There are a few of my old crowd missing from that picture, but you can trust me when I say they would just be more of the same. The only diversity among our group was when we decided to spring for Stag beer instead of our usual cheap Milwaukee's Best.

I am not saying anything bad about these guys. They were (and still are) some of the best friends I ever had. And as for the lack of diversity, it wasn't because of a deficiency of flexibility or racism. It was because of proximity and geography. Most of us had no real interactions with Asians, Latinos, or African-Americans until we turned sixteen and had to get jobs in the bigger city where there was work.

Other cultures just weren't around. There were Polish people and the few of us who weren't. Even if we had a black friend from the city, it's not like they would have wanted to come hang out in our redneck haven anyway. And I can't say I would blame them.

I am not trying to claim there was no racism in my small town. There was, but I have to admit that I was probably blind to most of it since it didn't affect me and, other than the occasional after-school special, I'd never been challenged to even think about it.

I remember going off to college when I was about 30 and loving the fact that I had a neighbor family from Myanmar. Across the hall were three roommates from three African nations. All men who had left their families behind to get an American education and would then return home. I have never had this kind of proximity with the outer-world before.

So, thank you to the cookie for having so much faith in my flexible nature, but location must be given its credit also. I am sure that if I had never left Scheller, IL, I still wouldn't really have international friends or friends of different colors other than people I might meet at work.

 I am so grateful for the intercultural experiences I am having now and wouldn't trade them for anything.

End of Summer

All this week, my Facebook Memories have been reminding me that Red and I left the States three years ago this week. It has been fun seeing our adventures of navigating our new life in Beijing flashing across my screen each morning.

This was a big day for me.

In only five years of marriage, Red and I have changed jobs over a dozen times, visited nine different countries and lived in three of them. When we moved to Vietnam, we didn't even have jobs lined up. We just hopped on a plane confident that "we'll figure it out when we get there."

Even watching us from far, people should pretty easily be able to observe that neither Red nor I are scared of change. We definitely have things that concern us, but walking into the unknown is not one of them. And when you choose to live in another culture, that is a valuable quality to possess. An adventure into the unknown is thrown at us almost every time we step out of our house. It takes a long time to learn all the intricacies of another culture. We have learned that we must be extremely flexible and just go along with almost any mystery, confusion or change that is thrown at us.

I am experiencing a bit of change in my home right now. Summer has come to an end. As a teacher, this carries special significance. All the kids are headed back to school. However, this affects me in a different way than traditional teachers.

In this part of the world, kids go to school for much longer hours than in Western countries. And for most of these kids, even when they are not in school, they are still taking supplementary classes, extra lessons, tutoring appointments, advanced skills training, and many more things. 

When I was teaching in the classroom in Beijing, on Monday mornings I would often ask the students what they did over the weekend. I eventually stopped asking that question because the answer was always the same.

"On Saturday, I had an English class, a math class, and piano lesson. Then after lunch, I had another math class, a swimming class, and a calligraphy class. Then I did homework until I went to bed. On Sunday, I got up early to do homework until my school placement tutor came at ten. Then after lunch, I had my piano recital, Chinese class, and culture class."

These kids also have similar stories about what they do after school each day. It is almost always more classes and doing homework. I feel so sorry for them. The classes and stress never stop. It is work work work all the time.

Now, I am one of the teachers that many of these kids meet with after school and on weekends. I no longer work in the school system. I provide them with part of their supplemental English education. I spend months getting to know the kids and their learning patterns, how to get them to respond, how to draw them out and how to best teach them. Every lesson is individualized for that student. And a couple of times a year, it all changes.

Because I am an extra teacher in their already cramped schedule, things could change at any time. If a parent decides their kid needs to take another math class, they have to find a way to fit it into their schedule. So, occasionally, one of my students disappears. Although, I never know why. It could be a scheduling conflict or they feel like they have met the objective they were trying to achieve through classes with me. It could be because they don't like my style and sought out another teacher. Either way, I am never told. They just disappear one day. It's sometimes sad when a student I have really grown to enjoy falls off my schedule. There is never even an opportunity to say goodbye.

This month is one of the times when things really get shaken up. I may not be a school teacher, but the school schedule does affect me. I can only teach classes in the evenings and on the weekends because that is when the kids are free to take extra classes. And this month all the kids returned to school from their summer break. This means, their summer schedule has been disrupted and everything has to be redone to accommodate the new school year. New classes and teachers mean new challenges that must be met by their extra classes. This means every family re-assesses their educational needs. So, even though I do not work in a school, the lives of every one of my students are in transition. This means massive rescheduling happens. 

Almost overnight, half of my students are gone and replaced with new ones. I get new students all the time, but it is generally one here and there. In the fall, I get a bunch at once. And the ones I have grown to love over the last year are just gone with no notice. No one ever says, "This will be our last class together." They just disappear.

I know regular school teachers get new students every year, but on the last day of school each year, they know their students are moving on. They can say goodbye and are mentally prepared for it. When I get a new student, I don't know if they will be a part of my life for the next three weeks or the next three years. And I won't know until they disappear. It sucks.

Some kids, I am happy to see fall off my schedule, but there a few I genuinely miss and want to be able to follow up and see where their lives take them. But I'm getting used to it. I love my job and would not want to do anything else.

Well, if I have to work.

---

Today's post was inspired by the writing prompt, "It was the end of summer."

Jumbo Prawns, Buffalo & Beer

Last month, Red and I discovered that we would not be able to renew the lease in our house. Our landlords told us they loved us and would like us to stay, but the rent would be going up 25% because of the pool being built.

Now, we would have never taken advantage of that pool, but other tenants might and would be willing to pay for it. So, we opted to move out and find another place. The next day, we found a beautiful home in a very quiet neighborhood. We have been here a month now and absolutely love it.

Large open floor plan

Huge skylight in the dining area

 

Creepy painting over television

We love this house.

We are the same distance from the market as before, but now we are on the other side. We live on a tiny side street, so there is ZERO traffic. This means there is no noise from cars. Just the occasional motorbike. It is so quiet here.

An extra perk we did not expect is our new landlords who live right next door to us. Mom and Dad. We have no idea what their names are, but that is how they asked to be addressed. Neither speaks a word of English, but they just may be the most accommodating people on the planet.

Many times, in the evening, one of them has brought over a silver tray filled with food they made. We never recognize the contents and they can't speak English, so we never know what we are eating. But we do know, it is amazing every time.

Last week, we were invited to their house for a party. We did not know what to expect with this, but we knew there would be food. That's usually all it takes to get me somewhere.

We walked in to find about 40 people (all Vietnamese, we were the only foreigners) already seated at tables piled with food. There were a few more dishes to be brought out and the feasting would begin. We were shown to a table and sat down. None of the people at the table spoke any English, but (despite being guests themselves) immediately set glasses in front of us and filled them with beer.

Noodle dishes, vegetables, fish cake, big plate of squid.
I love the food here.

Soon the invisible cue to start happened and everyone dug in. Except for the old woman sitting next to Red. This woman served everything on the table directly to Red's plate. She pointed out the different sauces to use with which food and then watched as Red sampled each bite. Sometimes Red would try to put something to her lips and the woman would stop her, sprinkle some multi-colored powder on the food and then gesture to eat it. It was fun to watch.

As the food on the plates began to be sucked down my gullet disappear, more food was brought out.

This was the good stuff. Fried prawns, baby water buffalo, duck.
Pork, whole crab, more squid.
We have the meats.

It was great. I stuffed myself and then drank way too much because every local wanted to come over and share a toast with the Americans. And there were a lot of toasts.

I had a glass of beer with every individual here.

As the crowd started to disperse, we got to talk with the landlord's daughter. She speaks decent English. She explained what this party was for.

When we first moved to Vietnam, we learned that there is little significance put on birthdays. In fact, most of the people of the older generations don't even know when their birthdays are or what their actual age is. However, the anniversary of someone's death is commemmorated. This party was to honor the deaths of our landlord's grandparents. This party happens every year.

She informed us that her parents host three "death day" parties annually. This one was the smallest of the three. The big one, to honor our landlord's parents, usually has over 200 people in attendance. Since they died more recently, more people knew them. Thus, the higher numbers.

I better get to work building my alcohol tolerance.

We Call Them Melons In America

A few days ago, I was practicing my typical morning routine of sitting on the toilet with my phone catching up on the news. In the middle of reading the latest on Black Ariel and the Blue Bell Ice Cream Licker, I got a message from my wife.

I immediately knew who she was talking about. We've been dealing with this guy for the last few days. Right next door to us, a construction crew has been putting up a new building and we share a gate with that property. So, we cross paths with the workers daily. Every now and then, one of them comes to us to use our electricity or inform us of excess noise that day or the shutting off of our water. It is always a difficult conversation since we do not speak the local language and have to do everything through inadequate translation apps.

However, this particular guy is especially "friendly." He frequently wanders over to make small talk when he sees me outside. This usually involves lots of hand gestures and pointing at the construction site with a big smile. I never know what he is trying to convey, but it seems like it is not pertinent information. Just friendly banter. Until he stepped up his game a few days ago.

He sat on our porch one day, so I grabbed a Pepsi and my phone and went to join him. I like to be friendly most of the time. Through our translation apps, we tried to talk to each other. After a couple of minutes, he asked to borrow my motorcycle. I made an excuse about how we were about to leave so it wouldn't be available. So, he asked to use it at lunch the next day. As I was telling him no, I started closing up the house so Red and I could leave. He then asked me how I secure my doors when I leave.

What kind of creepy question is that?

This made me nervous because he basically lives right next to us until the house is built. They always know when we are coming and going. And now he wants to know how well I lock my doors.

Due to my inability to effectively communicate all we can really do is try to be aware.

Not being able to communicate has been a common theme in my life. When I lived in Puerto Rico twenty years ago, I saw a sign on a counter that said CUIDADO: CALIENTE.

This sign made no sense to me. CITY: HOT
What?

I leaned closer to contemplate the meaning and it occurred to me as soon as my arms contacted the metal counter. Cuidado does not mean 'city.' It means 'CAUTION.'

The Spanish word for 'city' is ciudad. They may look similar, but the meaning is quite different.

As I rubbed the aloe on my forearms, I knew I would never forget those words again.

Living in Beijing, I almost did not get my work permit due to a communication error. I was asked to send off for my official Master's Degree for the paperwork that had to be filed. They told me that it must be sealed when we turn it into authorities. I did as they asked and it arrived two weeks later. I handed the envelope to my boss and she immediately ripped it open. I yelled, "NO! It has to still be sealed when we give it to them." She gave me a confused look as I sat and put my face in my hands. I had dropped a significant amount of money to get this and have it specially shipped. She had just ruined it.

She looked the degree over and asked, "Where is the seal?"

After a frustrating back-and-forth, I learned when they told me it must be sealed, what they meant was it must have the official State of Illinois International Authentication Seal. This seal is what proves to foreign governments that this is an official document.

She thought she had communicated clearly and I thought that I had understood. We were both wrong.

I have hundreds of stories like this, but let's come back to the present.

That 'creepy little dude' is now talking to my wife when I am not present and chooses to comment on her 'grapes.' If you have met my wife then you are probably aware that she is quite gifted in the area under her shirt. And in a culture that is known for not possessing those assets, it is even more apparent. But that does not mean he needs to be commenting on her grapes.

I head downstairs to confront this man and in my head I am running how I should play this. Should I be firm or gentle? Should I confront him in front of the other workers (to help keep him on their side of the wall) or take him to the side in private? I don't want to create too big of an incident. We do have to live among these people and we are the foreigners.

We may be the foreigners here but this cannot be allowed to happen?

I get downstairs to discover that is has escalated to the point that another worker is now involved and talking to my wife in the doorway. I start to step in to put an end to this harassment and I hear her telling the new man (who speaks a little English), he said: "Chau grapes are very big." Everyone (including my wife) laughed.

What is happening?

It turns out the 'creepy little dude' was wanting to plug into our electricity because the work site was having some work done and would be without power for a few hours. He wasn't being inappropriate at all. The Google Translate app just sucks when dealing with Vietnamese.

I even learned the reason he was asking about how I secured my doors a few days earlier was because our water pump was being replaced. When he discovered we were leaving for the evening, he was wondering how they were going to test the pressure once the new one was installed. There was no ill intent. We just don't have the ability to fully communicate. The extra speculation and guesswork about intent was misguided…again.

I have been putting off receiving official language instruction, but I believe it may be time to change my stance.

Chinese Kidnapping

Red and I have stated many times that we are much happier in Vietnam than we ever were in China. But we have been gone long enough that we often forget how awful some of it was.

This morning, I stumbled upon on old Twitter thread where I live-tweeted the time I thought I was being kidnapped. It all came back to me. One of the most confusing moments I had while living in Beijing.

I'm in a school van in Beijing going to a federal office to finalize my work visa and the van just stopped in the middle of a 3-lane road

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

The school where I worked had put me in a van to be taken to the Entry-Exit Bureau to get my papers completed. Halfway there, I found myself in the middle of a road rage situation. Remember, I did not speak Chinese and couldn't even communicate with my driver.

A car behind us understandably started blowing his horn for us to move off of this very busy road.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

As has been my experience in most of this part of the world, there is not much accommodation made for other drivers. People stop and sometimes even park right in the middle of busy roads. I didn't know why we had stopped but was very concerned that he had not pulled to the shoulder. We were fully blocking a lane of traffic.

The driver of my van jumped out and started screaming at the driver of the car behind us.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

Why? My driver was clearly in the wrong.

They are standing in the middle of the road (basically an interstate highway) screaming at each other as cars whip by at 80 MPH.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

I was debating whether I would be safer staying in the vehicle or getting out and standing on the shoulder. However, the lack of ability to communicate often made me give people the benefit of the doubt and just go along with whatever was happening.

I don't speak Chinese, so I have no idea what is going on, but now the driver is trying to get me out of the van to join them on the road.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

OK. I guess I am getting out.

Now the driver of the honking car is screaming at me to get into his vehicle and the van driver is encouraging this. Am I being kidnapped?

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

They were both ushering me to the second car. "What is happening? Oh, how I wish I could ask some questions!"

OK. So now I'm in a stranger's car going...somewhere? I don't know what's going on. I really need to learn Chinese.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

I probably should have been texting my wife in case she never saw me again or texting my school to ask questions, but all I could think about was "This has the potential to become disastrous. I better keep tweeting so there is a record of the events."

Alright. We're getting off the main road. The rest of today ought to be interesting

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

 I just resigned myself to the fact that I was along for the ride now. Come what may.

The shouty driver just dropped me off at the Entry-Exit Bureau. The place I was headed anyway. Angry Chinese drivers are very accommodating.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

Um…thank you. I guess.

So, this case of road rage escalated into him giving me a lift to my destination. Even though I still don't know why.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

I never did learn what that was all about.

At the very least, I have learned that I would be very easy to kidnap.

KIDNAPPER: Get in the car!
ME: Okay.

— GigaBrett (@brettminor) April 2, 2017

Probably something could be learned here. But it's been over two years since this event and I haven't been kidnapped a second time. So, I think I'm good.

Fortune Cookie #12 - Ghost Month

Red and I have moved into a new house in Hoi An, Vietnam and are still unpacking. Yesterday, I came across one of my old writing prompts.

When we still lived in America, I would save my fortune cookie fortunes to write about them later. Apparently, they have been following us around the world.

FYI: Fortune cookies do not exist in China. 

Here are the posts I have done in the past based on my fortune cookies:

1 - Lesson in Patience - My favorite one
2 - Fortune Cookie #2 - I got lazy with the title on this one
3 - New Experiences Aren't Always Good
4 - Fruitless Argument
5 - Mayan Apocalyptic Debacle
6 - Confidence Isn't Enough
7 - Opportunity Knocks
8 - Let's Get To It
9 - Whistling in the Dark
10 - Adventure is Where You Find It
11 - Chinese Beauracracy

 I pulled the first one off the top and here's what I have to work with today:

Keep an eye on national affairs

As an expat in a foreign country, this is an interesting one. Should I be keeping an eye on the national affairs of my home country (America) or the country I live in (Vietnam). Or a careful eye on both since our countries have quite a complicated (and fairly recent) combined history.

It didn't take long after moving to China to discover that keeping up with American news was more difficult from outside the country. The news I did read had a much different perspective since it wasn't generated in America and I had to make more of an effort to stay on top of it. Plus, when you are not actually there, the constantly changing political climate quickly begins to sound like white noise. I'm just not interested anymore. I've decided that if we ever move back to America, we will just have to get caught up when we get there.

As for the national affairs in this country (Vietnam), I still rarely know what is going on. I hear something every now and then that I feel the need to look up, but so often it is about issues and events that I have no knowledge about. It takes time to understand the people and the culture. I grew more and more interested in what was happening around China the longer I was there, but it took a little while to get a feel for how things work. The better I understood, the more interested I was to read the news and stay up to date.

However, I know that I do need to pay more attention. Yesterday (August 31), I learned that tomorrow (September 2) is National Day here. National Day commemorates President Hồ Chí Minh reading the Declarations of independence of Vietnam at Ba Đình Square in Hanoi on September 2, 1945. It's considered to be the day that the Vietnamese officially declared their independence from French Colonization.

This is a major, major holiday here and it would have gotten by me if I hadn't seen a random post on a Facebook forum mentioning internet quality this weekend. I should probably be up on that kind of stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, Red and I were walking into town to get something to eat and all the businesses had pulled tables out on the sidewalks. They had incense and fake money burning on the tables. Some people were burning cloth. They all had various food items diced up and spread around the fires they had built. The smoke was very thick in the streets and made the already treacherous traffic/pedestrian situation even more difficult to navigate.

Last night, the streets of Hoi An, Vietnam were filled with smoke from businesses burning paper on the street. It was so annoying.

Today, I learned that this weekend is the Ghost Festival. Now, it's really cool.

What a difference perspective makes.

— Minor Character (@brettminor) August 25, 2018

I had no idea what was going on until I got home and learned that we are in the middle of Hungry Ghost Month. It is the time of the year when Taoists and Buddhists believe that the realms of Heaven and Hell are open to the realm of the living. It is believed the dead will come to visit the living during this time and it is the time of year when the living can help to alleviate the suffering of their dead ancestors.

A local making offerings to the ghosts

It's a time to pay respect to your deceased ancestors, but there are also supposed dangers associated with this month. Thanh Nien News provided a list of things you are not supposed to do during the entire month:

1. Don’t hang the washing at night since some ghosts may notice it and borrow your clothes for a while. When they return them, they will leave a miasma which is likely to cause the next wearer a bad flu, headache or an even worse illness. Tip: A tumble-dryer will help you skip the hanging part. Modernity could save the day.
2. Never shout out another person’s name at midnight because ghosts will remember the name and later trick the person into following them. Tip: If you hate someone, such as your ex-spouse, invite them to hang out until late and shout their name at Zero Hour, hopefully thus consigning them to hell.
3. “A leg hair manages three evil entities,” claims an old saying. Dear female readers, you should never wax a limb during these days. Your leg hair will protect you from evil and all other spirits. Thankfully, bikini waxing or underarm waxing is okay during the month.
4. Never steal even a single cookie or small guava from the offerings tray before it is offered to the spirits. They could extract fierce revenge for eating their offerings on the sly.
5. Do not take any photos of people at night, especially in dark places, unless you want to have an unsolicited companion standing beside them in the printed image.
6. If you plan to celebrate your wedding this month, you could do worse than postpone it to next lunar month unless you are the kind who’d love to be available again soon after getting married. The Ghost Month is associated with bad luck in daily life, including married life.
7. Don’t wear clothes with skull and bones images because the ghosts could mistake you for one of their own and take you back with them after their short visit to earth.
8. Don’t pick up any currency bills you see on the street during the month. It could be money offered to the ghosts, who will come after you later to claim it back.
9. Don’t buy white clothes or have white suits made during this month. White clothes are for funerals.
10. If you are sick and hospitalized (maybe because you committed some of the "don’ts" above), be sure to keep the light on in your room at night. Otherwise, a wandering spirit from a nearby mortuary might, seeking out its favorite darkness, call on you.

So, staying up on national affairs isn't just abut being aware of the current political association. More awareness could keep us from getting dragged into the realm of the dead. I believe this is the most ominous fourtune I have ever received.

Vietnamese Banking

If you follow me on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). you are already well aware of the fact that I LOVE Vietnam.

I have lived in Vietnam for just over three months and I love it here. I love the food, the friendliness of the people, the weather, the cost of living, the clean air…absolutely everything. It is incredible here.

On a daily basis, I turn to my wife and say "This is SO much better than freakin' China!"

We had some great experiences in China and we learned a lot, but it cannot be denied that things are so incredibly and unnecessarily difficult there. Anything you try to do is stifled by mountains of ridiculous and redundant paperwork that must be completed and filed at 27 different government offices scattered all around the country who do not communicate with each other to share your information.

To give you a glimpse at what I am talking about, I will tell you about a recent task I had to tackle in Vietnam. I dreaded this task so much, I put it off for almost three months. Last week, I opened a bank account.

I was able to put it off for so long because the cost of living in Vietnam is unbelievably low. We have lived the past three months off the cash we brought with us from China. My pay has been getting dumped into an international account, but I haven't had access to it because I did not have a local bank to funnel the money through. We just lived on (not only bought groceries but paid rent and all our bills) the cash we had on hand FOR THREE MONTHS!

Our cash was starting to run low, so I reluctantly succumbed to the pressure to finally take care of this. I really dreaded it because my only experiences with opening a bank account in another country have been in China and it was not pleasant.

Take your time to count all the smiles in the room.
I'll wait.

Visiting the bank in China is like going to visit someone in prison:

• You have to wait until your number is called
• You must carry proper identification 
• The person you are talking to is behind a thick pane of glass
• Guards with large batons are watching your every move
• The tiniest little (or imaginary) infraction can get you thrown out
• There's always someone screaming in a back room somewhere

And all of this had to be tolerated to visit the bank for anything. The first time I went was to open an account and it was SO much more complicated…and took four attempts to get it right. Seriously, I went back four times. It was not pleasant. Add to this the fact that China doesn't really let you choose your own bank and it gets worse. You have to bank where your employer tells you to because they will only pay through direct deposit and they will only do it at the bank where they do business. And then, in order for you to pay your company-supplied insurance, they will only deduct that amount from a particular bank (not the same bank, a different one because…well, you know…reasons. Shut up!). They don't deduct it from your pay, they will deduct it from your separate bank account.

This means you must open accounts at these two banks (one to receive your pay and one to pay your insurance) and each month you must transfer money from one to another to have the money in the proper place for the insurance.

And none of this was told to me until after I had already gone out and opened an account at the bank I had decided would offer the best customer service to a foreigner. So, after doing all the research to choose just the right bank for me, I wasn't able to use it. I spent the next two weeks sitting in bank lobbies getting all the proper accounts needed to be able to receive pay that never ended up going through any of those banks anyway.

China was fun!

So, you may understand my reluctance to start this process again.

So, back in Vietnam now, after doing a lot of research and talking to other expats about what banks they use, I finally decided on the bank I wanted. The bank I chose had an impressive English-language website (this is one of my requirements) that suggested I register myself with their bank before I go in to save time on the paperwork on site.

So, I started an account and plugged in all my info (passport #, name, address, etc.) and hit enter. I then received an email asking me to set an appointment to come in. I scheduled it to be as soon as possible and set out the door with all my legal documents under my arm.

Twenty minutes later, I walk into the "bank"

Does this look like a bank to you?

This was not what I was expecting. I had to go back outside to ensure I was at the right place. This was the bank. Except, they don't like to call it a bank. They call it a hangout.

As soon as I walked in, a young girl approached me. "You must be Mr. Minor. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?"

They had water, juices, several types of coffee, and even beer.

You conduct your banking business
at a coffee bar counter.

I sat in one of the large cushioned chairs by a low round table while she whipped me up an espresso. She returned with my coffee and the paperwork from my online registration. Over the course of the next ten minutes that I was there (yes, only 10 minutes), she got a copy of my passport, had me sign two papers, gave me a bank card with my name already printed on it and explained to me some of the features of the new account I now had.

DONE!

I stepped back outside unsure about what had just happened. That was way too easy. Even for America. A new bank account in minutes? I didn't need any of the paperwork I brought with me? And I could have drunk a beer if I had ordered one. Incredible!

Here is part of what saved time. The place is able to have the more personable setup because they don't handle any money on site. I could not have made a deposit if I wanted to. This bank is a purely digital bank. It is designed to all be done online. If you want to make a cash deposit, there are a few banks around town they are partnered with where you can do that for a small fee, but it's rare that people do that.

Because there is no money on site, there is no need for all the extra security, guards at the doors, thick glass walls, or cameras everywhere. This place facilitates paperwork and they are incredibly efficient at it. Since I had already filled out all the needed information online before I came in, they didn't need me to do that when I got there. In fact, the only reason I had to go to the office at all was was to physically sign the papers, let them scan my passport, and hand me my card. The only reason they don't just mail you your card and have you do the other two digitally (which would be easily possible) is due to banking regulations to prevent fraud. You must physically show up with your passport. Small price to pay for this kind of ease.

I love this country more and more every day. Vietnam is awesome.

Our First Vietnam Adventure

Red and I have now been in Danang, Vietnam for almost three weeks and haven't really gotten to see much outside of our immediate neighborhood and a whole lot of each other. We are a little tired of each other. Since we are not on vacation and actually live here, this time has been spent performing mundane tasks that really aren't much fun.

• Deciding which bank we should use
• Locating nearby grocery stores
• Learning our way around the city
• Discovering where the post office, hospital, pharmacy, police station, et cetera are located
• Comparing money exchange rates around town to get the best deal
• Applying for jobs
• Exploring all the little back alleys to find where the best goodies are
• Trying to make new friends
• Discovering where I can go that she won't follow me

It's not been miserable by any means, but we've been itching to get out there and start seeing some of the sites and beauty of this wonderful country. Yesterday, we decided to take a day off and do just that. Since I have now started work, we know the money will be starting to come in and we don't have to be quite as tight with our finances.

We rented a motor scooter first thing in the morning and decided to tackle the city traffic to get out of Danang.

I recorded that video the first time I was here back in March. Since then, I've decided I'm just going to have to get used to it.

We hopped on our hog and drove off into the jungle-covered mountains of the Son Tra peninsula with no idea what was out there other than the monkeys that I was really hoping to run into.

But we never saw any

However, we did discover lots of other things. First, we stumbled upon a large Buddhist temple, Chùa Linh Ứng.

Nestled way up in the mountain

Inside one of the smaller buildings

Many statues of Buddha on various animals

The main temple

Inside the main temple

The entire area is covered in beautifully-kept gardens

The tallest Buddhist statue in all of Asia

All signs are in Vietnamese.
If you want to know what they say, 
you have to learn Vietnamese.

We eventually ventured further up the mountain and just enjoyed the view. Vietnam really is a beautiful country.

My wife likes to remain anonymous online.
Because of...ISIS, I think.

We tackled a few jungle paths.

After running around the jungle for a while and not seeing even one single stupid monkey we came out to discover we had a flat tire. We were parked at a small lean-to where three guys were hanging out in hammocks renting life vests to people who wanted to venture down to the water. Luckily, one of them had a tire pump. He pumped us up and frantically pointed down the mountain.

GO! GO! GO!

We got about halfway down when I could feel that the tire was getting low again. There was no way we were going to make it back into town. We were way out in the middle of nowhere on a jungle road in Vietnam and had no idea what we were going to do. We pulled up to a little shack that had drinks for people venturing up to see the temple.

Using our skills of American pantomime that we perfected while living in China, we got the guy running the shack to understand our problem. We needed a tire pump to get us a little further down the mountain. Our plan was to do this as many times as it took to get us back to Danang.

Instead of airing up our tire, he parked our scooter to the side of his little place and started taking off the tire.

Twenty minutes later, we were back on the road. He had patched the leak and charged me only 50,000₫ (just over $2). That patch took care of us for the rest of the day. Thank goodness for people who know how to do stuff.

From there we headed south to the city of Hoi An to check out the ancient city and explore their marketplace.

I wandered off while Red was negotiating prices for some cinnamon boxes and was grabbed by a woman who told me my ears were too hairy. Not the best pick-up line, but she was cute so I followed her to a small bed. She sat me down and set to work on cleaning me up.

My ears were hot the rest of the day.

That was not at all what I was hoping for and it cost me 60,000₫, but now my ears are really sexy.

The rest of the day, we ate amazing food, saw more beautiful sites, discovered places to go back and visit later and got horribly sunburned (the tropical sun will do that when you spend the day on a scooter). It was an amazing day and we cannot wait to venture out and tackle it all again.

Once our peeling skin grows back, of course.