Smoking

Almost the second I got Vietnam, I started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I haven't had one in a 9 days. (It's been 16 days since I "quit" but I smoked one at Teacher's Day after the wine free flow)

Back in the US, I was a "vacation" smoker. I smoked Camel crushes, only because Camel Crush representatives came into the Fox and Hound on $2 Tuesday (pint night) and gave out a bunch of vouchers for $1 packs. (They normally cost like $10 in the US) These are cigarettes with a little menthol ball in the filter that you crush to make a regular old cig into a menthol. I started out smoking when I was drinking. Or at a music festival. Or when I wanted to get off the floor at the restaurant I worked at. I thought I wasn't in danger of really being addicted-- I went to yoga 2x a week, ran 5x a week, and maybe got plastered on the weekends and smoked some cigarettes then but that was it. They were more of an accessory-- and a way to meet other inebriated people at parties and clubs. My boyfriend at the time also HATED cigarettes, so any time I lit up around him, I felt guilty. 

And then came Vietnam, land of the $1 pack and the near-nonexistent smoking bans. You can smoke everywhere, pretty much. Coffee shops. On your motorbike. Some restaurants. Bars. I even saw someone smoking in a goddamn hospital in District 10. I was in vacation mode for a solid month while I took the CELTA and started my job and went through all these crazy life changes. I was always sitting around waiting for things. What could I do? Play on my phone and smoke cigarettes. 

Starting a stressful, packed Saturday working at the language center? Smoke 2 cigarettes on the commute to work. Another cigarette an hour later on my 10 minute break teaching 4 year olds. Another one 2 hours later on my next break. Smoke at lunch. Smoke while I lesson plan. Smoke before I got to bed.  

Smoke while I write in this blog pretending to be a proper expatriate writer or something. Dumb. 

It was bad, and it's not just me. TONS of expats smoke. And everyone who quit smoking years ago starts smoking again. 

It's considered an epidemic here. According to the World Health Organization, as of 2010, 47.4% of Vietnamese men smoked. (Only 1.4% of women though, which I totally believe, as I have not seen a single female Vietnamese smoker since I have been here!) This is despite the required pictures of diseased eyes, teeth, and lungs plastered all over cigarette packages here. By comparison, about 15% of adults in the US smoke according to the CDC in 2015. 

Yeah, so anyway. I quit smoking, but I might as well have not, because I am probably inhaling at least a pack's worth a day secondhand. 

Homesick (3 months blues)

Maybe it's because the holidays are steadily approaching, or because my life is settling into a routine but I have been homesick in the past week.

Back when I had my apartment in West Philly, and I was planning to come here, I wrote myself a note in my journal. I was super depressed and I hadn't left the house that day. I don't even remember why. It says "You are capable of being miserable and feeling alone no matter where you are. You might as well feel that way in a foreign country." It's true, and it's helped me.

On the bright side: 

1. I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and now I'm not anymore.

2. I found a hooping spot! I have been improving a lot. Now I just need to figure out how to get my hoops shipped here.

3. I am getting more comfortable teaching! I had a class last night that I was actually really happy with and I only planned for about 40 minutes, probably 20 minutes if I account for goofing around playing on AddictingGames.com

4. I booked a flight to Bali for Tet.

5. I went to my first Teacher's Day event through VUS. It was held in this crazy convention center and it was way more opulent than I expected. Everyone was pretty dressed up. They had a pretty extensive buffet and free-flow wine and a bunch of little performances onstage by teachers and assistants at different VUS campuses. 10/10 would attend again.

I finished all my Visa crap, you guys!

It has been about a month since I started at my job, and I JUST now finished gathering all of my paperwork for my work visa and gave it to HR. With any luck, I'll be able to get a visa extension so I do not have to hop the border to Cambodia in 2 weeks when my tourist visa runs out.

So, I came here with ZERO paperwork. (How did I manage to kick around the idea of moving to Asia for 2 years and didn't think to bring any paperwork with me? Because I am an irresponsible moron, that's why)

So, learn from my mistakes. If you are coming to Vietnam and you want a work visa, bring:

1. your original diploma from your college/university
2. your police check
3. passport photos

I didn't do this. I'm dumb. Luckily, I was able to wing it.  And also, despite how insane some things about Vietnam are, most government buildings aren't that bad. Despite the language barrier, a lot of things mostly make sense. Mostly.

Here are all the documents I needed to get my work visa and how I got them: 

1. My diploma from Temple University. I had to contact my school and have them send it expedited (expensive). It took 3 weeks. Then I had to take my diploma to the American Consulate where they notarized it for me for $50. THEN I had to take the notarized form to the ERO (I have no idea what that stands for, maybe external residence office?) and they took it, made me pay another 60,000 VND. They kept it for 24 hours to translate it and give me a big red stamp. I had to pick it up the next day.

2. My American Police Check. So apparently, I could have gotten around this, but I was nervous. I went to the IOM (Immigration Office) and they fingerprinted me. Then, I found an FBI channeling service that promised to expedite my background check request called "National Background Check." I paid them a buttload of money, and sent my fingerprints to them. They sent my background check to my mom in the US. She sent the fingerprints to me. Then I had to get that notarized the same way as the diploma. Ick.

3. My Vietnamese Police Check. UGH. This one. This one sucked. No one spoke English, anywhere. No one wanted to help me. I was extremely confused. After several false starts and much annoyance, this is what happened: I had to get my landlord take my passport to the local police station and have them sign some paper stating that I live in my apartment. My lease wasn't good enough, apparently, and neither was the "house book" that every house in Vietnam apparently must keep. Then I had to take that paper to the Department of Justice attached to another paper, ALL in Vietnamese with zero translation. (They, of course, lost this paper once. I had to go do it again). Then they gave me a receipt and told me to come back and pick up the results in 3 weeks.

4. Health Check. I did this at a Vietnamese hospital. It was confusing. I think that not speaking Vietnamese worked in my favor; I witnessed hundreds of people waiting in various lines, I cut them ALL.

5. A certified copy of my passport (and visa). I had to go to the People's Committee Office in District 1 and see a notary. This was fine. No one spoke English, but they didn't need to, the place ran like clockwork.

6. 6 Passport Photos: I had to go to a photo center. This was also fine. And cheap. And my photos came out really good, I wish I'd bought extras.

7.My Celta Certificate. It took Apollo about 5 weeks to get the actual certificate to me. I picked it up and had it notarized at the same time I did my diploma and American Police Check.

How the Election Looks from Vietnam

"Aren't you glad you're not here right now for this?" -- paraphrased from pretty much everyone I've talked to from home in the past month.

I am 8,100 miles away from home right now, but I might as well not be. Besides the fact that my social life is half digital thanks to Facebook and Instagram, even my real-world surroundings are buzzing with conversations about the election. On the official side, the American consulate in Saigon held an election results viewing party, which seemed to be well attended. (I slept in, and then went to the pool all day instead. My bad). But on the unofficial side, most of the small talk I've had with the locals has been about the election. Two weeks ago on my way home from work, my cab driver decided to campaign to me. He says "Hillary Clinton, number 1! Donald Trump, bad!" followed by him finding a paper cup somewhere in the front of his cab and violently throwing it (presumably the way he would throw Donald Trump were he present). The adult elementary-level students in my CELTA class would ask, "Trump or Clinton?" back in September, months before the actual voting.

In the lounge at work, teachers from all over the world are ready to share their opinions (generally the same opinion, though. Take a wild guess which candidate a bunch of liberal, well-traveled expatriates like). Lots of people are drawing comparisons between Trump's election and Brexit. I went out to a bar on Wednesday night, just about everyone was deep in conversation about the dire situation in the United States. Even my students on Wednesday, aged about 11-13 interrogated me, asking "do you like Donald Trump?"

Maybe I'm an idiot to be surprised at the shockwaves the American election has caused here. I've spent a great deal of time here adjusting my thinking to try to be less Western-centric, assuming that maybe my students don't know major Hollywood movies or American music, or even American food. But holy shit, suddenly everyone is desperately interested in what the hell is going on over in FattyFatFatMcDonaldsland, and I'm left trying to explain (with the shreds of my memories from AP government class, so very badly) how the electoral college works, and even how the branches of American government work.

So everyone at home, in case you were wondering, the world really is watching with a jumbo size of popcorn. I am probably just going to pretend that I am from Canada for a little while.

Talking About Money is Tacky (Part II)

Way back in August, I wrote a post called "Talking About Money is Tacky" where I calculated that I spent about $3,350 on my move to Vietnam and I earmarked another $3,000 as survival money.

Now, one month out from the CELTA ending and a few days shy of receiving my first paycheck, I'm reevaluating.


1. Extra nights at An Vui (my hotel) until I found an apartment: 1,400,000 VND
2. Apartment + deposit: 12,000,000 VND 
3. I budget about 500,000 per day (x 30 days) + (300,000 for 30 days during CELTA) on food and booze: 30,300,000 VND
4. Health Check (required for my work permit): 625,000 VND 
5. Bike Rental (1 month with Honda Airblade at 3 mil, 1 month with Honda Wave at 1 mil) 4,000,000 VND. 
6. Fingerprints done at immigration office for my American Background check: 4,000,000 VND 
7. Cost to mail fingerprints to FBI Channeler: 2,000,000 VND 
8. Paying Temple to send me an original copy of my diploma because I am an idiot and didn't arrange this before: 1,750,000 VND.
9. Applying to have my Vietnamese background check done: 3,000,000 VND 


= 44,075,000 VND ~ $1,974.68 USD  

Truthfully, I have not done Saigon as cheaply as I could have, especially on the food front. I could be getting by on 60,000 VND a day instead of 500,000 VND a day but I am a fat pig.