Bao nhieu

But yes I asked my VN friend to teach the Argentinians to say bao nhieu because I cannot do it right in the slighted 😂😂

I just told the Argentinians to say "bao" and English "new" like "nueva en Español" and that's close enough for me 😂😂

Argentinians in Ba Na Hills

In the cable car I met a group of Argentinians musicians who are temporarily working for the amusement park on top of Ba Na Hills. So I spoke to them in spanish, but the problem is that I have been cheating memorizing Vietnamese by using my Spanish brain. So all the sudden I started forgetting how to speak Spanish and started speaking Spavietnamese. So they would ask me something and I would say "khong, no tengo familia en este pais" 😂 And because we went to Italy, I spoke with some idiotic Italian intonation: "Khong, no-a tengooo familiaaa en este paisaaa" 

Omg garbage 

But the nice thing about South Americans vs Spaniards is that they speak slowly and so I can understand them and they can understand me 😂

But that was absolutely terrible, they asked me in spanish how to say "cuanto Cuesta" in Vietnamese and I taught them it's "bao nhieu" but I am just translating one garbage version of a language to another 😂😂

Chilling at cafe with Grab driver in Da Nang

Vietnamese is so hard 😂😂

I tried to ask him if he lived near or far from the cafe and he was like "boi I don't live on a farm"

xa = far

xã = boonies 

🤦‍♂️ 

Language salad at the Da Nang Vincom Center mall

Ran into this weird Japanese tourist at the mall in Da Nang today. Possibly a crazy. Idk, she heard me speaking English for a second and got super excited then tried speaking to me in the worst English-but-actually-Japanese to tell me that her brother is a Stanford professor?? Of course had to use Google translate. So I got taken aback because that was a weird coincidence, and then some Vietnamese lady next to me was confused that I knew English. Then this Japanese lady tried telling me that she traveled to and lived in Chile, but again in raw Japanese. And this Vietnamese lady started asking me why I knew English. So I had to switch to my bad Vietnamese to tell her I'm from the US. Then switch back to talking to this Japanese lady. And she kept saying Chile, so I switched to Spanish because maybe she knew Spanish and that would be better than her trying to speak Japanese to me. Then the Vietnamese lady got super shocked that I spoke spanish and started asking about that 😂😂 Anyway there were like 2 conversations in 4 languages going on at the same time

Other cultural observations of Vietnam

Sometimes the locals are worried I am displeased but I think it's because they cannot read my facial expressions (cultural difference), which is interesting because as an American and southern Californian my expressions ought to be rather… expressive. And smiley! Relative to the global population or constituency of Vietnam 

Re VN, in the US we have our own interesting facets of age judging

Namely, difficulties around judging ages is one component of race relations and police brutality in the United States 

Cultural and public health observations in Vietnam

Without judgement, some observation notes for safekeeping: 

1) stark emphasis on age rank, almost opposite the US. Instead of how are you, the polite thing to ask upon first meeting someone is their age

2) people don't seem to be as ceremonious about saying goodbye as in the US. I think that was the same too of the Singaporeans. Kind of interesting because without insight it might feel like someone just kind of ditched you without properly saying goodbye because they didn't like you or something. And of course hugging is not as big as in the Americas 

3) seafood allergy. Met at least 2 VN who are allergic to seafood. Suggests that allergy is likely not a consequence of overcleanliness as in US and EU, but maybe my hypothesis of pollution-induced allergies (since the sea floor is polluted and facilitates bio accumulation of pollutants). Also that's why I think peanut allergies are a thing, because the legumes are buried in the soil and the soil likely had some pollutants. Also because peanuts and nuts are high in lipids so you get bioaccumulation 

Kem vs klem

I tried to ask someone if they like to eat ice cream 🍦 

I learned very quickly it's 

Kem 🍦 

Not klem ❌ 🍦 

Someone died laughing 

They told me that's what children say because they don't know how to say ice cream 

I basically asked "Do you wike to eat i-cweam?"

They pointed to a corner of children at an ice cream stall and said

You can go eat klem with them 😂😂😂

Di ve nha

I say

Di ve nha ⬆️ 

And they're like no idiot

It's not nha ⬆️ 

It's not nha ↗️

It's nha ⬆️↗️➡️↘️➡️↗️↘️➡️↗️➡️↘️➡️↗️➡️➡️↘️

Vietnamese is so hard

Vietnamese is so hard 😂

Dua ⬇️ coconut

Dua ⬆️ pineapple