Happy Chinese New Year

This year is the year of the tiger. My school put on a special performance again with some fun Chinese activities. It's so wonderful to be able to celebrate this new year. I really like Chinese New Year. Things slow down, because people go home to their families in the villages. The city is decorated with special red lanterns and flowers. This year the new year officially started on Valentine's Day. The picture of me is with one of my violin students. It's been nice to still be able to teach the violin to some students here. This student is very talented and I wish there was an orchestra for him to play with. Maybe someday if I am still here I could start one.

Hoi An Ancient Chinese Village

Close to the last stop on the cruise was Da Nang, Vietnamn. This was my favorite stop besides Borneo. In Da Nang is an ancient Chinese village called Hoi An. It is a beautiful little city. I had no idea how much China has influenced Veitnamn, but it was under Chinese dominion until the 12th century. Veitnamese celebrate the New Year with multi-colored lanterns. The Chinese celebrate the New Year with red lanterns. The buildings were a lovely yellowish color. There were many temples to visit and lots of great shopping. I highly recommend going to Hoi An in Da Nang.

Thoughts from the Tunnels

December 29, 2009

Today I traveled to the Chi Chun Tunnels. My tour guide was Mr. Hoang. His father had helped the Americans. He was a great tour guide. He told us such eye opening and real stories. He and his family are one of the Boat people who tried to escape Vietnam once Communism took over. They sold all their belongings to get on a boat ride to travel to Hong Kong. That’s what they were hoping to do; however, they got lost and were at sea for many days with little water and food. Finally the Vietnamese Coast Guard picked them up. They were put in prison. He was five years old and he was put in prison for 2 weeks. His mother was put in prison for 2 months and his father for 5 months. He was the only child in prison and stayed with the women.

When I first walked out to look at the port of Saigon and take in the scenery I was filled with emotion. I was thinking of my fellow Americans who fought on this land and died. Going to the tunnels and finding out more about the war from the Vietnamese perspective was interesting. We watched a 1967 video about the tunnels. They called Americans devils for killing women, children, chickens, etc. The children whose parents were killed by the American bombing joined the forces to attack and fight against America. These were young girls. The video named several who had killed many Americans and were given war awards. At first I was feeling rather guilty, but then listening to the tour guide he gave the perspective of how there was another side in Vietnam that didn’t want the communism, because this video made it seem like all of Vietnam wanted communism.

Walking through the jungle and looking at the tunnels and seeing the terrible traps the Vietnamese would set for the Americans made me shudder and feel sick. My heart hurts that there is such a thing as war. It seems that war is basically about ideology. I know it is more complicated than that, but I see America as trying to preserve democracy and communism appeared a threat. I see today America trying to preserve something that I’m not sure what it is—to me it seems a battle of ideology between Christianity and Islam. I don’t know if my take on it is accurate, but this is what I’m thinking as I’m processing everything I’m seeing. There is oil in Vietnman, too. There is oil in Iraq, Kuwait. Does America usually fight a war if there are spoils of oil to be had? What dictates America’s foreign policy?

Saigon

When we came into Saigon, we were winding up this river for several hours. You could see the beautiful lush, landscape. I'm writing about Saigon in two parts. First part is the city that I saw from a tour bus. The second part is the Chi Chun tunnels. I'm very glad I was on a bus and didn't have to fight through the crazy Saigon traffic. There are so many motor scooters in Saigon. I can't remember the numbers of motor scooterists, but it was a very large number. And they sell thousands of motor scooters each month. So I've decided that Saigon is the motor scooter capitol of the world based on what I saw and the info the tour guide was giving. We stopped at various famous colonial buildings. Before the Veitnam war, Veitnam was a colony of the French. So many buildings reflected that french colonial flair. And then other buildings reflected an asian flair, very Chinese.

Malaysia, Bruni

The day I went into Bruni I left my camera. So the pictures you see someone else took and emailed them to me. I was hoping to get some pictures from my Coptic Aussie friend, because we were on the tour together, but oh well. The day in Bruni was very unique. We went to one of the world's largest water villages. We visited a mosque, which you see in the picture; however, this picture doesn't look like the mosque I saw.....so my cruise friends I got this from were on another tour. There were alot of mosques on this tiny island. On my tour we also went to look for monkeys in the mangroves. That was fun. We spotted some. Sadly Bruni is not a place I would want to return or recommend people travel to. All I can say is something felt off...not right...not normal...but then what is normal....well seeing the local people would seem normal to me, but it was like no one was there except the tourist people. Very weird!

Singapore

Singapore was a very clean city. I was very surprised to see so many buildings that I'd see in America, especially colonial buildings. I'm learning how much of South East Asia was colonies just like America. So it makes sense that a lot of the architecture would be the same. Singapore sort of felt like Hong Kong to me. Great subway system and very clean and well organized. I think it must be the Brittish influence. The picture of the lion mermaid squirting water is the famous icon statue for Singapore. One of the pictures is of a temple in Little India. Singapore was nice, but I must say I like Hong Kong better. Another picture is the famous Raffles Hotel. I walked around it, but I didn't drink a Singapore Sling in the bar of which I was told to do so...

Mahjong Buddies

On the cruise I ran into some Aussies who were learning how to play Mahjong. So every night we'd play several games. It was a fun time and a good crew to hang out with. Mahjong is really just like rummy, but you have tiles and the writing is in Chinese. So you have to be able to recognize some characters.

Borneo

The next stop on the cruise was Borneo. I went on a Sun and Sea Trekking adventure. Took a speedboat out to an island and trekked around the national park. Saw some amazing mangroves. Some people on my tour spoke Spanish and it was an English tour. They didn't understand what was going on so I tried my best to speak the little spanish I know to help them. I made some new friends. The group took another speedboat trip to another island to go snorkling. It was my first time snorkling. At first I didn't think I was going to be able to, because I only had RMB and no Borneo dollars. But I ran into an Australian friend who was by himself and he wanted to go with someone so he paid my way to go snorkling. Later on that night I found out it was his birthday. He was turning 54. He had been snorkling before on the Great Barrier reef in Australia. I was glad I was able to keep him company some on his birthday. He was one of my majong buddies on the cruise.