My Vietnamese friends ;-)
I don't know whether it is dreadful weather of the last few days or my mom's stories of grandparents that have induced me into thinking a lot more of my Vietnamese friends.
The 'On the road" movie also gives memory of a few years of younger youth, where at a secondary, I used to escape extra courses to an air-conditioned karaoke place, having my first taste of Heineken beers with a group of troubled friends. Yes, trying to define who I was, to feel the sense of belonging to a group of cool people, who couldn't care less about other stuff than just having fun with friends. While a group of youngsters who were in our same age in Europe would be experiencing sex, smoking, hard drinking, I and my friends would gather at a friend's place to make beef fondue (thit bo nhung dam) and bought a lot of Heineken. We didn't have money, so usually we just gathered and started to put in money to buy stuff, one of the girls was already dating an older guy (she was pregnant and got married before we finished high school, she now lives in Australia) so he would buy beers for us (I am not sure my mom would have liked to know this :-). One thing we all were spoiled was that we all had a scooter, so we could already cruise in the hot humid weather of Saigon in search of latest cool karaoke place where we could sing the whole afternoon the cheesy Vietnamese songs and then went home. We also took trip with a skinny ugly physic teacher but he was cool in organizing fun trip away from Saigon, we went to the hot spring, singing in groups, playing games and camped the night (no tents, btw, just a big bon fire) in group where we talked about boys ;-). Mind you, none of us fancied boys in our classroom, it was either boys from other school or boys in the neighbourhood or boys at university ;-).
Then came the last year where everybody needed to seriously prepared to enter university. It was one of steps that only lucky Vietnamese youths can experience because not only it costed money but also it was ( and is worse now) so difficult to get in because there were not enough places for everyone, so you had to secure your place by passing the entry exams after passing the exams to get your secondary diploma. Most of my friends did not make it, I did not think I make it. I remembered the day I knew the national university posted the exam results, I wouldn't care less, unfortunately my mom knew, so I had to come with her to the university board to see whether I was in. We were looking at the board where they posted the results of failed students and thought it was those who passed and got in, I scanned the board and turned to tell my mom "Mom, my name is not on here, I failed". A lady who was standing next to me heard me, she said you those who passed had their names posted over there...So, we went there, it made sense because the board with those passed was much smaller, less names on it, my name was on it. My mom did not say a lot. She said "lets tell grandpa that you failed" :-), she was the first to say 'she passed" when we got home. My grandma bought a big roasted piggy, invited so many people to celebrate and I did not invite any of my friends because they fell, so what's all the parade of me passing...
I remembered wondering what it would be like being away from friends that had been hanging out for several years. I fell so sad then.
In the fall, my first day in university, we were given the program, I got into the anthropology department, Southeast Asian and Chinese studies, so a lot of serious Chinese languages, culture, history...etc for us. I made new friends :-). Friends with whom I hang out with for almost two years, friends with whom I spent precious hours on eating street foods after school, friends with whom I did day trip where I rode my scooter, friends who had lunch at my place when we had military lessons, friends with whom I slept over with before travelling...It was a different type of friendship, one that was much more mature than with my secondary friends. Friends with whom we talked about boyfriends or boys that we would one day wanted to be married to ;-). Friends who called me when I was comfortable skipped school to tell me that there was a test, friends with whom I spent time criticizing the boys and girls who dated and held their hands in front of us :-). We were boyish and at the same time so romantic in our own way.
Oh, I so miss my friends!
The 'On the road" movie also gives memory of a few years of younger youth, where at a secondary, I used to escape extra courses to an air-conditioned karaoke place, having my first taste of Heineken beers with a group of troubled friends. Yes, trying to define who I was, to feel the sense of belonging to a group of cool people, who couldn't care less about other stuff than just having fun with friends. While a group of youngsters who were in our same age in Europe would be experiencing sex, smoking, hard drinking, I and my friends would gather at a friend's place to make beef fondue (thit bo nhung dam) and bought a lot of Heineken. We didn't have money, so usually we just gathered and started to put in money to buy stuff, one of the girls was already dating an older guy (she was pregnant and got married before we finished high school, she now lives in Australia) so he would buy beers for us (I am not sure my mom would have liked to know this :-). One thing we all were spoiled was that we all had a scooter, so we could already cruise in the hot humid weather of Saigon in search of latest cool karaoke place where we could sing the whole afternoon the cheesy Vietnamese songs and then went home. We also took trip with a skinny ugly physic teacher but he was cool in organizing fun trip away from Saigon, we went to the hot spring, singing in groups, playing games and camped the night (no tents, btw, just a big bon fire) in group where we talked about boys ;-). Mind you, none of us fancied boys in our classroom, it was either boys from other school or boys in the neighbourhood or boys at university ;-).
Then came the last year where everybody needed to seriously prepared to enter university. It was one of steps that only lucky Vietnamese youths can experience because not only it costed money but also it was ( and is worse now) so difficult to get in because there were not enough places for everyone, so you had to secure your place by passing the entry exams after passing the exams to get your secondary diploma. Most of my friends did not make it, I did not think I make it. I remembered the day I knew the national university posted the exam results, I wouldn't care less, unfortunately my mom knew, so I had to come with her to the university board to see whether I was in. We were looking at the board where they posted the results of failed students and thought it was those who passed and got in, I scanned the board and turned to tell my mom "Mom, my name is not on here, I failed". A lady who was standing next to me heard me, she said you those who passed had their names posted over there...So, we went there, it made sense because the board with those passed was much smaller, less names on it, my name was on it. My mom did not say a lot. She said "lets tell grandpa that you failed" :-), she was the first to say 'she passed" when we got home. My grandma bought a big roasted piggy, invited so many people to celebrate and I did not invite any of my friends because they fell, so what's all the parade of me passing...
I remembered wondering what it would be like being away from friends that had been hanging out for several years. I fell so sad then.
In the fall, my first day in university, we were given the program, I got into the anthropology department, Southeast Asian and Chinese studies, so a lot of serious Chinese languages, culture, history...etc for us. I made new friends :-). Friends with whom I hang out with for almost two years, friends with whom I spent precious hours on eating street foods after school, friends with whom I did day trip where I rode my scooter, friends who had lunch at my place when we had military lessons, friends with whom I slept over with before travelling...It was a different type of friendship, one that was much more mature than with my secondary friends. Friends with whom we talked about boyfriends or boys that we would one day wanted to be married to ;-). Friends who called me when I was comfortable skipped school to tell me that there was a test, friends with whom I spent time criticizing the boys and girls who dated and held their hands in front of us :-). We were boyish and at the same time so romantic in our own way.
Oh, I so miss my friends!
posted by Vagabonder @ 3:07 PM
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