vietnam | iDreamz

Lesson 1 – Introducing yourself

I’m following a vietnamese class for absolute beginners in Hanoi, from L’Espace, which is the french institute in the Hoan Kiem district. As I need to practice it, I thought that writing it down on this blog will help me, and it might also be nice for anyone else passing by.

The first lesson, introduced us some basics on how to address other people, this will mostly depend on the age difference between the 2 people, but it’s not just about age, it’s also about the rank in the family. For example a cousin who’s father is the little brother of my father, I will address him differently if his father had been the elder brother. If someone is older than you, probably the age of your own parents, then it’s different again. And if the person is more in the age range of a grand parent, then it’s different again, and if you are not sure exactly, it’s better to play it on the safe side, as you don’t want to be rude :)

As I’ve been living with my fiancee’s family in Hanoi for 2 months already, I’m a bit familiar with this, and it’s still very difficult to remember all the forms, and then you need to remember their position in the family. The list given in the course is incomplete as it’s probably the hardest thing for a foreigner to learn, but here is a mix from the class, and the ones I know:

Masculin	Feminin
cháu	–	very young children
em	–	someone younger than you
bạn	–	someone the same age as you
anh	chị	someone older than you
thầy	cô	a teacher
bố	mẹ	your parents
chú	thím	younger brother of father (and his wife)
cậu	mợ	younger brother of mother (and his wife)
chú	cô	younger sister of father (and her husband)
chú	dì	younger sister of mother (and her husband)
bác	–	older brother and sister of father and mother
ông	bà	someone your grand parents age

Next step was to say what your name is, and how to ask people their own names:

Em tên là gì ?

em	the way you would address someone, I will always write this in italic to indicate it will vary
tên	name
là	to be (verb)
gì	what

Em tên là Anthony

còn em ?

còn

and

If you want to call someone (and I mean anyone, friend, parent, taxi driver …), you can use the following:

Em ơi !

The next thing you will want to ask, is where is someone from:

Em là người nước nào ?

người	people, human, …
nước	country
nào	which

Em là người Pháp

Pháp	France
Việt Nam	Vietnam
Anh	England
Bỉ	Belgium
Đức	Germany
Nga	Russia
Nhật	Japan
Hàn Quốc	Korea

Then you could ask how the person is doing:

Em (có) khoé không ?

có … không	how (the first word can be omitted in the question)
khoé	good

Em khoé, cám ơn

cám ơn

thank you, this can also be written: cảm ơn

Không có gì

	we already have all the words for this, but it means: you’re welcome
không	this word has several meanings: 0 (zero), no (as opposed to yes), and to express the negation

Finally, you can ask what does someone do:

Em làm nghề gì ?

làm	to do (verb)
nghề	job

Em là kỹ sư

kỹ sư	engineer
giáo viên	teacher
học sinh	pupil
sinh viên	student
thư ký	secretary
luật sư	lawyer
nghệ sỹ	artist

Em không làm việc

I don’t have a job

If you want to talk about someone else (he/she):

Em ấy tên là gì ?
Em ấy tên là Tom

ấy	when you add this to the subject, it means you are talking about someone else

That’s almost it for the first lesson about introduction yourself, here are some extra words picked up during the class:

tốt	good
rất tốt	very good
xin lỗi	excuse me
nhé
thế thôi	that’s it (as in we are done)
Thứ năm nhé	see you on Thursday

There was also a part about the 6 tones used in the vietnamese language, but I’m not sure how I’m going to put this here :)

If you want to know how to write these vietnamese letters and tones on a computer, check this other post of mine.

Thế thôi !

Interview with Vietnamese Administration

Well, that’s it !

This afternoon we went for our individual interviews with the vietnamese administration about our marriage. This is only needed when a foreigner wants to get married with a vietnamese. They do these interviews to try to screen out any marriage that might be a fake one, such as those organized by “agencies” to find wives for example.

For this interview, I had to hire an interpreter to translate questions and answers back and forth. I was a bit stressed about it at first, as it’s not just any “job interview” … this is my marriage we are talking about here! And from some comments we had read from people going through this procedure, some people had actually failed the interviews! But after a few minutes in there, everything was going alright, I even noticed the women smiling as I was explaining how I proposed to N. Which I hope is a good sign …

The interview was also shorter than I thought it would be, I believe it lasted around 20 minutes or so, and I was expecting to have to into much details , but that wasn’t necessary after all.

Here is a list of questions I’ve been asked, I may have forgotten a couple :

How and when did I meet N
When did I fall in love with her
How many times did I come to Vietnam
Have I met N’s family
Has N met my family
What do our families think about our wedding
What do I do for a living
What does N do these days
Have I been planning the wedding
When was our wedding
Will my family come to my wedding
Where will we live after our wedding
Was I forced into marrying N

That’s all I can remember for now. I will update the list if I remember any others.

Another positive note about our interviews, the women doing them is the mother of one of N’s friends who is currently living in Lyon in France. So that might get us some sympathy ^^

With the interview over, we have now finished the administrative paperwork, all that’s left on this side now, is waiting. I believe they will be publishing our names for a few weeks, and if everything goes well, that should be it !

Now we need to continue to organize the engagement and wedding days.

Cheers!

Wedding administration, almost done !

Well well, 2 posts in 2 days … who would have thought !

Anyway, a quick update, I “survived” the mental check up we went for this morning. Of course, it didn’t have anything to do with me being crazy or not, go figure. It was quite straight forward, if not a little awkward in fact. After filling a little form to say who I was, we were measured and weighed. Then, a little heart beat check to make sure I was still alive … and then … I had to take my pants off, for the doctor to “peak” to see if I had any sexual diseases … awwwkwaaard.

And that was it, 30 mins later we received our “mental” check up approval letter! This was the last document we needed to be able to finally apply for the marriage. So, that’s what we did just after this “joke”.

The marriage application, will take between 30 to 40 days to be processed apparently, and we were booked for individual interviews. I will need to hire a translator to get through this one though. Our interviews are early next week, so we are almost done with the all the administrative part. All that will be left will be some little waiting!

Next week, I will need to look into renewing my VISA for Vietnam. I initially got a 3 month one (which is the longest you can get for a tourist visa), and it’s been 2 months already, time flies when you are having fun !

That’s it for today, don’t want to be writing too much or you will get used to me giving frequent news, and expect some more often ^^

Cheers!

Enjoying life in Hanoi

Hey there !

Well, I think it’s been a week, maybe 2 since my last post. I’ve been quite busy with work, and lazy about writing, so nothing new here!

I’m still following yoga classes, twice a week (1.5h each), and despite the fact that my legs are definitely not souple enough, I quite enjoy it. But yeah, I need to practice my legs so I can bend them in that lotus sitting position. Can’t do that yet. And that’s like the only thing I can’t do in the class so far, so still quite happy with myself ! About yoga itself, I feel really good after my classes. Everything seems easy and smooth afterwards.

I’m also looking for some more things to do. One thing that’s quite popular here is martial arts. I’ve done a few years of judo when I was a kid, and contact sports is not really my favorite. Nhung’s father mentioned some special vietnamese martial art called Vũ Gia Thân Pháp, and made me a little demonstration. It seems interesting, and as many other martial arts, it’s defense oriented and based on avoidance and speed. He also seems to know the local Masters, so that could be an option. However, it is very very local, and there is very little information about it. Not to mention it’s all in vietnamese, except for one of the Masters who apparently would be able to teach me in english.

So I’ve been thinking of something else, like tai chi chuan, which is very popular world wide, and probably less agressive, although I believe there is a combat style. I’ve had an introduction class when I was at university, and I remember enjoying it, but never got round to picking it up. So now might be a good time. It is also very popular in Vietnam, as everyone gathers around the various lakes and parks in the city, at any time of the day to practice together. So I’m currently looking for some classes to get myself started. I think that might be a good combination with yoga, especially in terms of balance and relaxation.

I’m just back from a Salsa night, and those evenings are filled with bachata. We really need some classes for this, they are playing so much of it here. We tried going to some salsa class too, but they were doing Advanced On2, which I tried to follow but couldn’t really keep up, since we’ve only learned On1 so far, so we are back to looking for some Advanced On1 classes.

We also started the paperwork for the wedding, but I’ll write more on that later on. I have a little more to say regarding ‘administration’ in Vietnam that will need a separate post.

For now, I’m exhausted, so that’ll be all for today.

Cheers from Hanoi!

Living in Vietnam

I arrived in Vietnam 2 weeks ago. So far I’ve been spending most of my time working, and trying to find a rhythm, that would leave me with enough time to enjoy being here. I haven’t yet reached a balance but still working on it.

The main problem comes from my job shared hours. I’m working remotely, for an US company (based in San Francisco), and I’m part of a SCRUM team which is mostly in european timezone. That means, I’m respectively, 14 hours and 5 hours ahead of them. To be able to work remotely, SCRUM teams have some shared hours when all team members need to be online, so we can do our stand up meeting, and then get some things done together. There are usually 3 shared hours a day, and then I still have to put in at least 5 more hours, that I can arrange during the day as I please.

Fitting those 5 hours is quite easy, some in the morning, more in the afternoon, or I can also plan to work through the afternoon. This freedom in arranging these hours is quite nice.

However my shared hours are set between 9 PM and midnight. So I’m working every evening, which leaves little time to go out during those times. Luckily, people tend to eat quite early here so we can easily go out for dinner and be back on time to start working again. It’s definitely not ideal as a couple though, as I can’t spend my evenings with my other half.

Anyway, this is only supposed to be for a few months, until my VISA (H1B) for the US is ready.

In the mean time, I’ve been looking to get some vietnamese language lessons, and I just a missed a new session which started the day after I landed. That’s a shame, the next session is in November, which is quite far away. I found some other classes but heard mixed feedbacks about it.

Yesterday I started a yoga class too, from what I understood the teacher is at the terminal stage for a cancer, so she started yoga 14 years ago, and she’s fighting it back. This class is definitely not for foreigners, it takes place in a tiny room in a back alley somewhere in Hanoi. There’s no air conditioning that westerners would probably expect when doing indoor exercise, just a couple of ceiling fans, turning slowly.

The place was full of vietnamese women from all ages, even a very young kid, who was probably with his mother, we were 2 guys, and I was of course the only foreigner. It was quite an experience. Having been avoiding any kind of exercise for the last .. 15 years or so, and sitting down behind a computer all day, I knew I was definitely not in shape, and especially when it comes to stretching, or sitting in that lotus position. One of the exercise was about sitting cross legged and then leaning forward until the head touched the ground in front of you. No need to say I didn’t go very far down on that one ! I was told I’ll get better at it, so we’ll see about that ^^

In the evening, after a delicious korean diner, we went to a bar that had a special salsa night, where we met one of Nhung’s friends. The dancing level was quite high, but after a couple of mojitos, I took Nhung out on the dance floor! As I expected, most people were looking at “the foreigner” but I think I did ok ! Our salsa classes in Amsterdam ended at the end of July, and I have to admit we didn’t practice since, so I was a bit rusty, trying to remember some moves. I remembered most of them, so I wasn’t completely lost. Anyway, we are going to try to pick up some salsa classes here also, and maybe also some bachata classes which seems to be very popular here. For each salsa song played, there were 2 bachata songs.

I think Nhung wants to go dancing salsa again tonight, we’ll see how that goes.

That’s it for now, cheers!

Anthony