This is the end....

The situation is so crazy. I don't know what's going on, and I don't think I ever will. Sunday one of Lan's friends Husbands came by for a visit. He spoke a little english, and so he started translating a conversation between Lan and I. I was basically concerned that her parents where getting hassled by the neighbors because I was living with them before Lan and I were married. So I was trying to ask Lan if I should move out. At first Lan was laughing and joking around it seemed everything was fine. Then at one point Lan got up to use the bathroom, went in the other room and sat down on the stairs in the kitchen. After a while I noticed she hadn't returned and so I went to see what she was doing, I found her balling and sobbing. I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn't talk to me. So her friends husband went to talk to her, he came back and in his broken english said something about how Lan loves only me and wants to marry only me. Then I asked him to go find out what was upseting her and then he came back a few minutes later and said Lan didn't love me and didn't want to marry me. I went in the room and tried to talk to her, her parents tried to talk to her, her sister's tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't talk to anyone. I finally decided the best thing for me to do was to go to my room and leave her alone, because being around her was upsetting her so much. I thought if I left her alone then maybe she would calm down and the next day we could talk about it. 

The next day Lan wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me, completely avoided me. Her parents tried to talk to her, and she wouldn't talk to them either. She told her Mom that she didn't love me and wouldn't marry me, and that was all she would say. Her parents are very traditional and in their cultural world view if someone makes a promise to marry a person, that person becomes their son or daughter from that moment on, so her parents had been going around the whole time I've been here introducing me everyone as their son. All their extended family and friends, all their neighbors, everyone knows I'm marrying Lan. So when Lan said she wouldn't marry me, it caused a huge scandal. Her father told Lan that she needed to talk to me, or she would have to move out. Basically she has brought great shame to her family. She refused. She has refused to talk to anyone in her family about it either.  Her parents asked me Monday if I would stay for one month so that they could talk to Lan and get it all straightened out, so I agreed. Well, I just found out that yesterday her Father kicked Lan out of the house, and she is no longer welcome in the house or in any of her sister's homes. But I am still considered their son, and I am welcome to stay here as long as I want. The funny thing is that her whole family has rallied around me and is trying everything they can to get Lan to talk to me. My only hope of this thing working out, at least long enough to get an explanation is if her family can get through to her.

So here I sit waiting to find out what is going on, but unable to talk to anyone about it. I don't think that Lan will ever talk to me again, and I have absolutely no idea why. I have decided that this relationship is over and for whatever unfathomable reason Lan has dumped me. I don't understand, and neither does her family. It's so weird to me that she would rather be banished by her family than marry me. What happened? I just don't know. So that's the sad saga of Lan and I, it has apparently ended in flames and ruin. Her family says that I should wait and that in a week or two Lan will calm down and we can talk and work everything out. I know of an apartment on the other side of town that will be available on April 1, and so I think I will wait for one week to see if anything happens, and if Lan hasn't stepped forward in a week then I'll move in with my teacher buddy. 

I have some theories as to why Lan is doing what she is doing. I think that one, she is having serious commitment phobia, this is the main reason I think that she is doing this, she sees the wedding looming and she is not ready to make a commitment of this magnitude in her life. There are also major language and cultural barriers that Lan is unwilling or unable to transcend. She said something else to her Mom about not being able to talk to me, so I think that her inability to understand me or talk to me has just proved too much for her. I know that the immediate problems  facing us, what led to the meltdown on Sunday could be fixed with an hour long conversation with a translator, which we were supposed to do Tuesday morning. But there are more deep seated problems that aren't so easily fixed. The last theory might be that there is someone else. She has been acting strangely toward me since tet, around the middle of february, and she keeps very strange hours (,On more than one occasion I have seen her leaving after everyone has gone to bed, and she appears to be gone all night because then the next day she slept the entire day--this happened both times I noticed her leaving) she's gone for long periods of time, she hasn't seemed like she really was that interested in my for while. I don't know, there's other things. I doubt I'll ever know why she has decided she doesn't love me and doesn't want to marry me, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a combination of all these things going on. 

So I am beginning the  heart wrenching process of separating myself from Lan, and I will wait one week to see what happens, but likely by one week from tomorrow I will be living somewhere else starting a new chapter in my life. At least the new apartment my teacher friend has available is super sweet. It's like the nicest place I will have ever lived. It's super modern, swank, full on American party pad, so at least I can drown my sorrows in a beautiful apartment with lots of amenities. I will stay in Vietnam until at least August, no matter what happens. There's no reason to come home to America, when I will have no chance of finding work until after the summer.

My first Birthday in Vietnam

My first birthday in Vietnam was a lot of fun. Lan threw me a big party on the Sunday before my Birthday. We invited all of her family, her parents, and all her sisters, brothers-in-law, and niece and  nephews. Lan has a pretty big family, and so there were about 20 people there. Lan got me a really nice cake with a monkey on it. She and I are both year of the monkey, and we both like monkeys so we she had a monkey put on my cake. then Lan and her family made a huge feast for me, and we all sat around and ate. They don't have a table, so when they have a big meal like that they eat on the floor. It's actually not a bad way to go, there's plenty of room and everyone can sit together and visit.

Afterwards we cut the cake and I opened my presents. I got some nice presents. I got a couple of nice shirts, a tie, and a wallet. Lan bought me a red rose in a nice bouquet. After having cake and opening presents we played games for the rest of the night. Her family likes to play cards, and there are several different card games they like to play. I mostly play Blackjack with them, because the other card games are Vietnamese card games and I don't really understand how to play them.It was a lot of fun, I like Lan's family quite a bit, even though I can't really talk to them very much. We manage to communicate even though we don't speak the same language.

On Thursday my actual birthday I didn't do anything, because I had to work, but the next day Lan and I went out to the movies. We went out to lunch and the movies for my birthday date. We went and saw 'Alice in Wonderland', it was pretty good. I liked it. Lan liked it too. I can actually watch a lot of American movies here, though they don't always get released at the same time as they do in America.

I've included pictures from my birthday party on my blog. 

Things seem to be settling down into a rhythm

I apologize for not writing any blogs for awhile. I'm now working 6 days a week, and I've been spending a lot more time with Lan, so I've been pretty busy. Lan is watching a Vietnamese tv series right now in my room, it's actually Chinese I think, with Vietnamese dubbed in. Many of the shows they like here are from somewhere else, usually China or Thailand, or Singapore. Vietnam doesn't have much of a film industry. Most of the Vietnamese shows that I've seen Lan watching are look llike they are super low budget, and the acting looks horrible. Course I can't speak the language, so I could be totally wrong, but it's pretty easy to tell the difference between one of these Vietnamese shows and an American show like 'Lost', and these show are definitely not Lost.

It's funny, because a lot of these shows that Lan watches shows that look like a porno without the porn, just the first 30 seconds only for 30 minutes (not that I know what a porno would look like, I'm just guessing). Just a lot of people having conversations that look like they could get real interesting real fast and yet end up going no where. I keep trying to see if there is anything that actually happens in the shows, and I can't for the life of me see that anything is happening. Most of the women are rather scantily clad too, at least in this one show that Lan likes, and they always seem to be getting in situations with these guys, but nothing every seems to happen. Not being able to speak the language really changes your perception of tv. I can only imagine how banal and idiotic American tv must be with all the reality shows, of course it's probably less banal and idiotic without understanding what's being said, but when you have no cultural or social context with which to reference what you are seeing, then nothing really makes any sense.

Lan and I are doing well. We're starting to get into a routine, and Lan is spending more time with me. There is still not a lot of scintillating conversation taking place between us, but we are beginning to build an understanding between us. Everyday we learn how to talk to each other a little bit more, and Lan has been doing a good job of studying english with me every day. Lan's nephew, Sumo, has taken it upon himself to teach me Vietnamese, so whenever he's around he'll go around the house pointing to things and repeating them over and over in Vietnamese, and then laughing hysterically when I try to repeat the words as well. He's 4, so language is kind of a new thing for him too. Actually I've picked up a few words having Sumo as a teacher. I don't always know exactly what the word is refering too, but at least I'm starting to gain a little vocabulary. Actually all of Lan's family is pretty good about helping me learn Vietnamese, I think they all want to get to a point where I can at least talk to them a little. I want to look into maybe taking classes somewhere, there has to be Vietnamese classes being taught somewhere in this city. Right now being able to speak to Lan trumps everything else in my life. We have no chance of making this relationship last if we can't figure out a way to talk to each other.

It's getting better slowly, but surely, and my job is really good. I like all the classes I teach. My toughest days are Saturday and Sunday, because I have to get up so early and I'm teaching young kids 8-10 on Saturdays and pre-teens 11-12 on Sunday. I get up at 5:45 am on both days so that I can get to work on time, but the flip side of that is I am finshed teaching by 11:45 am, and I have the rest of the day to relax. The rest of the week, friday is my day off, I teach nights, and it's only for a few hours. I teach adults at night, and they are easy to teach. Teaching Enlish as a foriegn language is actually quite fun. It can also be a little frustrating, especially when your students are beginners. I have to be very patient with Lan right now, because she really doesn't know very much, and I have to repeat many things with her. All my adult students at school are intermediate so they understand most of what I say, and they can converse pretty easily in English. I keep telling myself that Lan will be there someday, and I just have to keep teaching her. I think she will be there by the time we leave to come to America, or at least that is my goal.