April 22, 2001.
Happy Birthday Nellie!
Sai Gon lately has been unbearably hot; even the locals can’t stand the heat. In other brief news, Chuong’s back from his trip to China, and because of our print deadline, I won’t make it to Bangkok (some other time) but may possibly take a quick trip to the beach at Phan Thiet/Mui Ne.

I’m adjusting further, and well, into life in Vietnam, but I think I hear New York calling. Recently, quite a lot of people have commented on the difference in my Vietnamese from when I first arrived, even the girl at the film developing shop. There is a noticeable difference in my fluency, though I still occasionally say things with the wrong tone (just yesterday I said “phan mem,” meant as “software” but instead I said “soft stool”), and my vocabulary is still limited. Natural language acquisition – learning to speak by what we hear – is not of good use here since the language of adults and elders is different than that of one’s equals and I cannot use the same vocabulary when speaking to others.

I’ve gotten used to eating on the streets here, though we bring our own disposable chopsticks with us for sanitary reasons. I have fallen into a relative routine (as I suppose we all do when we settle in somewhere) that generally involves drinking coffee in the morning, working about 8 hours, eating dinner out or at home, and then writing to all of you at home, and back into the next day. Weekends change slightly depending on whether I stay in town or not, but have been relatively mundane as of late (which is fine for a bit of rest). When I travel next should be when I have more to say about what I see. Till then, I hate to bother you with my daily details…

I am sending Souris more pictures of Hue, so go to her saigonsoldier site to have a look (give her a coupla days to get them posted).