It seemed that their English level, even it wasn’t very good, was much better than the level you can find in our country. The big deal was the pronunciation. As days went by we verify that we had to repeat everything several times (either they had) in order to communicate to each other. We had to draw or to write things sometimes because of the pronunciation problems.
On the other side we start learning some Vietnamese words that will be so usefully for our life in Ho Chi Minh. As the taxi was our regular transport as it was so cheap we learned how to say go straight, turn left, turn right, being respectively đi thẳng, o phải and o trái. We also learned the name of some dishes that allowed us to understand the menus at the restaurants. Beef (bò), chiken (gà) and fish (cá) are the most appealing together with the classic noodles soup (Phở).
ADAPTATION (Montse Pla García-Castany)
I remember that few days after my arrival to Ho Chi Minh City it looked to me funny how quickly you get used to routine and schedules changes when you arrive to other country, long away from your habits and known people.
For example, in HCMC, 6 a.m is the rush hour, light is very strong and the noise at the street is deafening. Due to it ,even we don't start working until 9 am, is not strange, even my parents believe I am kidding them, that someone like me who loves to sleep, is at 7 am ready. Not just ready as sometimes at this hour I went to swim before and going later to have breakfast at the next door bar, which by the way is so full.
It is sorprising also the fact that at 12 am I am enough hungry to eat. I guess it's because all the people you see eating plus the smell, and dishes and chopsticks hurly-burly. We normally have the menu or the vietnamese speciality, the Pho, a hot soup that has infinitely ways to be done. We usually have a Bum Bo soup, with beef and nodles, and the odd thing about it is having hot soup with an exterior temperature of 30 degrees.
TO BE CONTINUED... NEXT WEEK MORE!! > "FENG SHUI, LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE"
IN TREATMENT - METALOCUS
DIRECTOR: JOSÉ JUAN BARBA. COORDINATION: MARINA DIEZ-CASCÓN. ORGANIZATION: INÉS LALUETA, PEDRO NAVARRO. ENGLISH VERSION: KAREN SIMPSON. GUESTS FIRST SEASON: JOSÉ JUAN BARBA, MARINA DIEZ-CASCÓN, SERGIO DIEZ-CASCÓN SOLER, LARA FERNÁNDEZ GONZÁLEZ, CARLOS GERHARD PI-SUÑER, MONTSE PLA GARCÍA-CASTANY, XAVIER NICOLAU CUYÀS, FERNANDO RIAL PONCE, VERÓNICA ROSERO.
