BIG Changes! And a trip to Can Gio

Saigon River, view from the river!

Hello, faithful followers and curious onlookers!  We've had some big changes since my last post; hang on for the wild ride to come!  That makes it sound exciting, doesn't it?

We've had a busy couple of weeks at school.  We've had two "VOSH Ambassadors" come for a visit; VOSH=Volunteer Optometric Service to Humanity, an organization we have volunteered through before in the US.  VOSH has grown to make connections internationally as well, for example, with the Brien Holden Vision Institute.  Dr. Neelam Patel came from the Chicago area and the following week Dr. Thuyanh Le came from the Boston area, to meet our students and provide a lecture to them about eye care topics. They also brought some equipment donated by VOSH so that our students can improve their skills by using much-needed new equipment.

Dr. Neelam was able to assist in a procedures lab for our 3rd year students.

While Dr. Neelam was here, one of Dr. Lori's friends had a baby shower for her at a beautiful rooftop venue.  Dr. Neelam is also one of her friends and former associates from her optometry career in the US.  I was proud of the cute Tshirt I found as part of the baby gift; people in the US probably don't get the second part of the "keep calm" saying, but lucky money or "li xi" (pronounced lee see) in Vietnamese is what people here give and get for Tet.  Instead of buying toys for your child as we do for Christmas, here children get excited over the li xi that is in the red envelope.  The "Sheep!" part of the shirt is just random, ha ha.  I couldn't buy a cute pink or blue outfit because the baby's gender is to be a surprise!  April 11 is the due date, coming quickly.

Keep Calm!  Sheep!

Dr. Lori with a delicious-looking "diaper cake"--cute but inedible.

Dr. Thuyanh handing over donated equipment from VOSH to our headmaster Mr. Long (and us) after her lecture

Last weekend we played tourist for a day to get away from thinking about work.  We booked a tour to Can Gio that Lori and her husband recommended. Can Gio is the district furthest away from the city center of HCMC, 50 km from downtown.  It is home to many varieties of wildlife including monkeys, crocodiles, bats, and birds in a UNESCO protected mangrove forest.  We took this great fast boat along the river to get there.  After leaving the city, it reminded us of Florida because of the mangroves along the banks.

Juxtaposition between modern, high-rise buildings in the back and "shanty" or stilt houses in the foreground, which are gradually disappearing with government clean-up efforts in HCMC.

Bat swamp: we could see a lot of bats hanging in the trees on a small boat ride.

A small puffer fish our guide pulled out of a small pond to show us the amazing bright green color.

Monkeys!!  We had to stay in the tram because they can get aggressive.  But there was an "elderly" female monkey who was gentle and reportedly bullied by the other monkeys we were allowed to feed (next photo).

Bob handing the gentle monkey an egg to eat.

Feeding crocodiles in the crocodile reserve

The tour was a nice getaway from the big city for a day as well as staying off our computers for a break.  We have had a pretty big change at our university; 2 weeks ago our headmaster Mr. Long informed us that due to personal reasons he had resigned from his position and his last day was to be March 1.  We were shocked and saddened by this news since he has been involved with bringing optometry to Vietnam since the beginning and he has been our primary liasion between the optometry department and the Vietnamese-speaking university personnel.  Upon receiving his announcement we contacted BHVI and 2 urgent meetings were scheduled the following week.  At the meeting with the university rector and other officials involved with the program, we were happy to hear that a replacement had been named already, putting to rest our fears that the process might take weeks or months.  Dr. Chau is our new headmistress, and although she is an ophthalmologist, she seems eager to lead our sub-department and to understand optometry's role as an independent profession working in tandem with ophthalmology to improve vision and eye health.  She has asked our former colleagues (two Vietnamese lecturers) from our first 2 years of teaching back to help our department, and we have another Vietnamese optometrist, trained in France, on board to teach some refraction classes.  In May we expect to welcome another US lecturer to take over Dr. Lori's teaching duties as she will be on maternity leave in addition to preparing to move to Indonesia with her husband's job transfer with Adidas.  Never a dull moment with this job!

One last teaching picture:  our second year students are just learning the skill of looking into the back of the eye using hand instruments (direct ophthalmoscopes).  We were able to bring back a fundus camera (old technology but still working) from the VOSH workday we attended in January, and the students think it's the coolest thing to see the back of their own eye using the camera!  You can see how intently they look on as our teaching assistant Sang demonstrates the use of the instrument.

What a retina looks like through the pupil, so cool!

Time to wrap this up and get to bed.  TGIF tomorrow for us; Bob has morning Academic Vision Clinic with the seniors and I have this same lab in the above picture with the second half of the class.  Thanks for reading about our life in Vietnam!  

Let's get this started!

Valentine's Day dinner at Brix

Hello again at long last!  I decided to get my blog started back up after hearing so many kind comments that people enjoyed reading my observations and experiences.  Thank you for your support!  And this is a good way for me to record and reflect (and notice "funny" things here), so here goes!

We have been back in Ho Chi Minh City for 5 days now.  We took a long break over Christmas into January since we expected to be working more as consultants this year and not as intensively active teachers...oh well!  We contracted to leave Dec. 21 after first semester even though school continued through Jan. 25 before breaking for the Tet holiday.  It was WONDERFUL to be home and attend family Christmas parties and have Christmas with our kids.  But we did feel badly that our new colleague (Dr. Lori who joined the program from California in October, a couple of weeks before we came back) had some extra stress during first semester testing in January without us here.  She did have the five new teaching assistants to help but they are brand new at this teaching assistant job, being some of our first graduating class last November.  Our headmaster Mr. Long is still in the program, but we are still down 2 Vietnamese lecturers.

Our first week back we've had a couple of staff meetings to get organized for 2nd semester's schedules, and I have had 2 lectures in Applied Optics (2nd semester focuses on Progressive Add Lenses--imagine teaching 19-year-olds about the frustrations of losing near focus in one's vision!) and Bob has had a lecture in Contact Lenses and a session in the Academic Vision Clinic.  We've had a bit of a glitch in the policy at the AVC in that patients must now begin in the ophthalmology department before they can be seen by optometry, which is not at all the Western model we teach.  Optometry is primary care and is what we are training our students to do!  We have been working to change this new policy that was somehow instituted.

The Year of the Pig

We took a walk in our local park the day we got back (trying to reset that jet-lagged clock) and found a few decorations remaining from the lunar new year which fell on Feb. 5.  A lot of flowers are used in the beautiful displays, but many of the displays are being taken down this week.

This morning I walked to school and saw 4 workers holding ropes and looking up into a tree.  I stopped to see what was going on and saw tree trimming done the Vietnamese way!  I'm glad that's not my job.   

The ground crew.

The tree trimmer with safety ropes letting down a branch he'd cut, also held by ropes

Lastly, we just returned from dinner.  We'd walked past this Street Food Market several times before and finally tried it tonight.  It's a popular tourist spot near the Ben Thanh market.  We chose a noodle bowl place (actually you could get rice or noodles for "step 1" then "step 2" was choose a meat, then "step 3" was choose 3 vegetable toppings, and a sauce, then the cook stir-fried it all together and put it in a paper bucket!); we liked how "Sprite" was spelled :) on the soft drink option.

The soft drink combo of noodle bowl and "Splite" is $3.88 USD. $4.31 if you choose beer.

That's all for now; it's getting late and it's been a long week!  We had thought to explore a nearby beach this weekend but have just decided to stay home and do some advance schoolwork and rest and maybe explore locally instead.  Thanks for keeping up with us and have a happy weekend!

Travel and visitors--long overdue post!

Even dogs can drive here--just kidding!

Greetings, friends and family!  I am finally crossing this off my "to-do list:"  getting my blog caught up.  Hopefully it won't be too long--maybe go get some caffeine before you start to read!  We've had a very busy 7 weeks since my last blog.

Feb. 4 weekend we flew (one hour flight) up to Da Lat in the highlands to attend/take part in Bob's cousin Drew's wedding to Tran.  We found out in December that he was planning to marry a Vietnamese woman in her hometown!  We'd been to weddings in Ho Chi Minh City already, and found that the rural wedding experience was quite different.  Her family was warm and friendly to us and we are pleased to welcome Tran into the family.  Drew hopes to bring her to the USA when her visa paperwork is completed.

A large tent was set up in Tran's family's front yard for the wedding festivities.  We began with a dinner Friday night, followed by dancing.

Tran and Drew in their "western" clothes:  tie-dyed T-shirts!

Saturday began with pictures taken: these are traditional Vietnamese wedding outfits.  Tran's parents are by her side.  She ended up wearing four different dresses the day of her wedding!  (I'm glad that's not a custom in the US since my daughter is getting married this summer!)

After a change of clothes, the bride and groom enter the tent and come to the stage.

The stage set up for dancing later

You don't know what we ate but everything we had was delicious!  So much food we couldn't even try the last course, we were so full.  Plus, we kept getting pulled out onto the dance floor.

Having fun during the meal.  Tran's uncle on the left, Bob on the right.

It was a happy day for Drew!  P.S. Check out the guy in the background--he had some good dance moves!  As did all the people in the village!  We learned we need to brush up on our ballroom dancing moves...

Next trip!

The weekend after the wedding, our 2-week holiday from school for Tet began.  We had planned a long weekend to Singapore (2.5 hour flight) to visit our colleague from last year, Dr. Hui Hiang Koh.  Her polytechnic university in Singapore didn't give two weeks off for the lunar new year, but she still found time to tour around a bit with us and show us the city.  Singapore is a sovereign city-state and island country.  (Brief history lesson coming up because it's good for me anyway:) Colonial Singapore was founded in 1819 as a trading post of the British East India Company.  In 1963 it gained independence from the UK by federating with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but separated two years later over ideological differences, becoming a sovereign nation in 1965.  It is a   global commerce, finance, and tranport hub.  We found it very clean and saw people of many nationalities.  English is the first of its four official languages.  One morning at breakfast I saw a newspaper in English and it struck me that it's been a long time since I've seen that!!  It's the little things in life...

Gardens by the Bay with Supertrees in the background

The Merlion (fish body, lion head) is the national personification of Singapore

Such a tourist!  Hui Hiang said this photo setup is a "must do."

Selfie with Hui Hiang in front of a lion head display for Lunar New Year inside the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay.

We love museums!  We spent most of a day at the National Museum of Singapore.

We also visited Jurong Bird Park with Hui Hiang and saw a lot of beautiful tropical birds, got some shopping in along some of the famous shopping streets, and spent an afternoon at the Chinatown Heritage Center in Chinatown which was fascinating!  We walked the streets of Chinatown in the evening.

We arrived back in HCMC on Feb. 13, two days before Tet eve.  We were invited to three homes to experience some of the special Tet foods that are eaten during the holiday.  By the way, don't call it "Chinese New Year" in Vietnam!  It's called the "lunar New Year" or "Tet."

One of our pre-Tet meals at the home of Phuong and her parents.  We sang karaoke after the meal!

One of the Tet traditions is to give "lucky money," usually to children or to people who help you in life, i.e. our apartment security guards, or our secretaries at the university.  At our meal with our friend Sammy and her parents, her mom gave Bob a lucky money envelope.  He protested that she shouldn't give him lucky money but Sammy said, "just open it!"  They know we tease about having "a million dong" (because a million dong does NOT EQUAL a million dollars, but it's fun to say!  1 million dong=$44 USD), so the joke was now Bob could say he has a HUNDRED TRILLION DOLLARS in his possession!  Of course, it's from the Bank of Zimbabwe which no longer uses the Zimbabwe dollar as currency as of 2009!  Outstanding accounts could be reimbursed until April 2016.  Darn it!  It's only a fancy piece of paper!!  Haha!

The evening before Tet we could watch a 30-minute long firework show from our apartment window!

The pedestrian street ("Nguyen Hue") downtown is filled with flowers just before and during Tet.  A lot of sculptures featured dogs since this is the Year of the Dog (in the 12-year cycle of animals from the Chinese Zodiac).

Tet, or the first day of the lunar new year, began Friday, Feb. 16.  We had a lion dance set up right outside our apartment building that we could watch!

Before the dance, a photo opp for several of the guards from our building--and a few residents too.

This little guy is handing some "lucky money" to the lion.  The lion also (pretended) ate the fruit offering you see in front of him.

This year is the first year I saw the elevated dance.  Two young men perform some brave acrobatic feats on those little platforms with only a thin pad under them to break a possible fall! 

Feats like this--being airborne and landing on the columns properly!

The lion-up-high also accepts lucky money envelopes.

Late Saturday night/Sunday morning (after midnight) the first of our visitors arrived!  My brother Randall and his wife Maria came in from Chicago.  It was nice to share our Vietnamese experience with them as well as do some tourist things with them since we had the week off school for the Tet holiday.

We did a cooking class for half a day (after a guided visit to the Ben Thanh market to see the interesting foodstuffs available here) to learn to make some good Vietnamese food.

The menu

Another day we did a tour on the Mekong Delta and saw the floating markets, a bee farm, some rice processing, a fruit orchard, a fresh market, and a folk music performance.

Lunch was included on the Mekong tour--some very fresh fish presented artfully!

 We also made sure they had some good Vietnamese coffee and some pho at least twice.  They left to go home to Chicago and we had a few days to rest up and prepare to meet our next guest, Dick Gross from Traverse City.  He is the lab manager of the Essilor lab (think Varilux progressive lenses and high quality lens coatings) we used when he had our practices in Michigan.  After we gave him a couple of days to get on the Vietnam sleeping schedule :) I invited him to share his knowledge with my 2nd year students since we are studying about progressive lenses at this very time in our curriculum!  Dick graciously spent a whole day sharing with 4 groups of students.  They listened respectfully and I told them that I even learned a new trick or two from our guest lecturer!

One of four groups of my second-year students

More second year students.

Third group of second-year students.  I forgot to set up a photo with the first group of four!  This group LOVES getting their pictures taken.

In our Academic Vision Center with some senior students and our secretary Thao and Dr. Robert.  Notice the Crizal sign behind; Crizal is an Essilor product!  Essilor does have a presence in Vietnam but we were unable to coordinate a tour of the Essilor facility while Dick was here.

We can't let a visitor leave without a motorbike experience on the streets of HCMC!

Dick did some touring on his own while we had some work days; he went on the same Mekong Delta tour we had taken with my brother and his wife, and also went on a Cu Chi tunnel tour as well as seeing some of the museums here in HCMC. Before he went back to Michigan, we welcomed our next set of visitors!  Bob's sister Dana and niece Ashtynn arrived after midnight on Saturday (Sunday) March 3. After we gave them one day (lol) to get over their jetlag, we had them take a market tour and cooking class.  Ashtynn really wanted to see Ha Long Bay while she was here, and since Bob had gone on a tour there last fall in conjunction with a meeting he had in Hanoi at the medical university there, he booked us on the same tour.  I was able to take a few days off my teaching/clinic schedule to see the sights with them.

Dana and Ashtynn and me on the plane to Hanoi, the entry point for the tour to Ha Long Bay.

A welcome juice and fruit and beautiful lilies to greet us at our small boutique hotel in Hanoi.

Saigon Special is the HCMC "local beer," so we had to try Hanoi Beer in Hanoi!

The morning after we arrived in Hanoi we took the 3-hour bus ride to Ha Long Bay.  We had an interesting guide who taught us a lot about Vietnamese culture and he answered our questions about the rice paddies we saw along the way and farming techniques used.

An iconic Ha Long Bay picture.  We took a motorized boat ride through the limestone karsts in the bay as well as a smaller boat (rowed by a Vietnamese local) to enter into some of the caves on the water. 

The next morning we headed back to HCMC and were able to attend a Vietnamese wedding that evening!  My dance fitness/Zumba instructor from last year had invited me to her wedding to an Indian man and I asked permission to bring 2 guests along to share the cultural experience with them.  Xuan generously agreed and Ashtynn and Dana could experience a Vietnamese wedding event!

The menu even had English subtitles so we could know what the dishes were called.

The bride Xuan in traditional Indian wedding dress and groom Chandra in background.

The next day we toured our university and clinic.  Here we are in my office.

My second year students were excited to run into us, meet my relatives,  and take a photo outside the Vision Clinic.

A last bowl of pho at Bob's favorite pho restaurant.

How to get to the pho restaurant?  Motorbike of course!  Ashtynn on the back of Bob's bike...

...and Dana took a Grab bike that I booked for her motorbike experience!

Sunday morning March 11 we saw Dana and Ashtynn off to the airport and now we are caught up!  Back to (somewhat) "normal" with our teaching duties and life in general here in HCMC.  We've had a day of testing our senior students on clinical skills, a planning meeting, a visit from a Boston optometrist who was born in Vietnam and lived here until she was 17 (and so speaks Vietnamese and English!  A future resource for the program here or in Hanoi possibly?), some clinic days, and my last couple of lectures and labs in Applied Optics.  Soon we each will start a new topic (Visual Perception and Neurophysiology for Kim and Occupational and Environmental Optics for Bob) as well as continuing to help with Clinical Optometric Procedures.  

Our next visitors will be our daughter and her fiance, in April.  We were excited to watch by livestream (and their video call to us) last weekend their residency match from Saginaw, MI!  Elaina and AJ matched as a couple to the same hospital our son works at as a psychiatry resident!  They will be family practice residents at the hospital, in Livonia, MI.  

This blog has gotten long enough so it's time to end.  I warned you that you might need some caffeine to finish!  ;)  Thank you for checking in on us and keeping us in mind.  We miss our family and friends but do feel as though we are doing some good over here.  Until next post!