Super Woman Sunday

Entrance to the Temple of Literature- Hanoi, Vietnam

Calling my Sunday jammed packed with activities is an understatement. I woke up on a boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam and had a small breakfast on board. I was scheduled to take a smaller boat into the harbour, but was delayed due to some mechanical malfunctions. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I finally set foot on land and took a bumpy, 3 hour long ride in a rickety old van back to Hanoi. After we got to Hanoi, I had to hustle to make a graduation ceremony my friend, a law professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Vietnam, was in. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to pack dress shoes - all I had were neon green flip flops and tennis shoes. The ceremony was held in the Temple of Literature, a 1,000 year old building home to the oldest school in Vietnam. I had to be seated at at 5:30PM and all I had on were jogging pants, an athletic top and sneakers.

Do I abandon my friend and wait outside? Do I attend the ceremony in my pathetic clothing and bring shame upon myself sitting amongst the elite and inside a building of such high honor?  At 5:15PM I decided to go for it. I had on sprinting flats, might as well put them to good use! I ran around the Temple, across the busy street (narrowly getting ran over my mopeds and cars), down the crowded avenue and into a shoe store. I was feeling like The Flash, but a more sweaty version. "I need at pair of black pumps, this size (as I held up my sprinting flats)! I need this now, please!" The shoe store owner and her daughter looked at me with wide eyes for 2 seconds and quickly sprung into action. Within 60 seconds, I had tried on a pair of patented leather pumps that was a Cinderella-worthy fit. I paid for the shoes, ran back to Temple, snaked my away around to the back where the professors in the procession were gowing (and where my friend had stored our suitcase) and changed right then and there. I put my dress over my tank top and removed my pants from underneath. I felt very, very wrong for changing in a place of worship with a few men lurking around. By U.S. standards, no biggie. But my traditional Vietnamese standards, what I was doing could be considered appalling! Thank goodness everyone was too busy to notice me. By this time, it was 5:29PM and I was fully dressed. I even had pretty pearls around my neck to look a little more formal. I was seated by 5:33PM by a volunteer and more guests were still being ushered in.

The Flash!!

The ceromony lasted a little after 7PM and after the waiting for my friend to finish his photo-ops with graduates and other faculty members, it was time to catch a cab and hustle back to my friend's apartment to pack. After that, I had to hail another cab to the airport to catch my flight back to the United States. I also had to write some last minute postcards! After bidding my best friend a sad goodbye, I made it the airport with exactly 1 hour to get my plane tickets, make it through customs and find my gate.

When my butt hit the airplane seat, I sighed one of the biggest sighs of relief. No more running. No more huslting. I felt like Super Woman. I kicked of my shoes, wrapped my purple airplane-issued blanket around me and sunk into my seat. I put on my headphones and started to watch the movie Eat, Pray, Love.

So within the span of 12 hours, I had traveled by sea, by land and by air. I am exhausted, but a little proud of myself for getting so much squeezed into those 12 hours.

I'm currently blogging from Icheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea. Yet another flight to catch in about half an hour. Good thing I can see my gate from here! Tune in for my review of Incheon! This has got to be the best airport in the world! For very little money, I was able to eat, drink, nap AND shower in a private lounge! Gotta down this cappucino and grab my luggage...until next time!

Disgrace #1

For those who have been bamboozled by my magnetic and winsome personality into thinking I am this graceful being, the best thing since sliced bagels...these are my humiliating confessions. Confessions to truths so atrociously embarrassing, one would need to do more than dig a hole to hide in it. One would need to a dig a hole all the way to China and change one's name to Dum Fu Hai Ding. Welcome to the section titled "Oh the Humilty!"

Boat ride on a part of the
Mekong Delta River with my
bamboo hat. 

I traveled with my father to visit his hometown of My Tho, Vietnam in spring of 2008. This was the place where my hero grew up. A place of peaceful, luscious rice paddies and wholesome peasant life. After visiting the family tomb and lighting incense for the ancestors, my father took me to see the people he grew up around. I was looking forward to meeting the village elders and hearing them reminisce about stories of yesteryear. The nostalgia! The history! I had all this positive chi flowing until...

Dad: Hello! Hello! So good to see you! You remember my daughter don't you Ba Hai? You remember Phuong right? She was probably less than 3 years old the last time you saw her. Look how tall she's grown! 

In my mind: Of course! How could I forget? She was that adorable little girl who used to play no nicely with the other children! 

Ba Hai (reality): Of course! How could I forget? She was that rambunctious little girl who used to pee into a funnel standing up when she played make-believe that she was a boy!

Oh yes, she did!

Mortified. Stunned. Face frozen. Botox face. Good news. China is only across the border. I can still make it. Where's that damn shovel?!?!   

Ba Hai must have been at least 80 years old. She had seen everything. Foreign occupation. War. The rebuilding of a nation. And apparently, she had seen me pee into a plastic funnel by the pond out back and remembered it 2 decades later at the drop of a bamboo hat. 

On the way home, my father turned to me and said, "I can't believe you peed into a funnel. In public! How did you realize the difference in male and female anatomy? How did you know boys had penises when you were less than 3? My little daughter was so smart!" (Gotta love dad!)

My dad in a tunnel.
He was always a support parent.
I hope China is nice this time of year. 

The Cat Lady Cometh: A Reflection on Being Alone

Single life has become more comfortable to me, like an old, over-sized sweater with deep sentimental value. I don't even mind going out alone like I did initially. Coffee for one, breakfast for one (although I tend to order for two and never finish any of it. What I can say? I'm a breakfast kinda girl)...museum and Forest Park explorations completely solo. I am relaxing into this time of self reflection and it feels as amazing as slipping your tired body into a steamy bubble bath. I even catch myself smiling when I'm cruising around in the convertible. Nowhere to go. No one to see. Just simply living in the moment. Relishing the sweet and warm kisses from the sun on my cheeks. Taking in the sensation of gentle caresses from the crisp autumn breeze through my hair.

Suddenly, my blissful and lovey-dovey single life honeymoon suffered the harsh frigidness of realism. It felt like a cold bitch slap to the soul. And it stung like hell.

A dear friend joked about how I have the potential of becoming a cat lady in my old age if I keep up this single life. The comment was humorous at first, but it really got me thinking. Cat lady? Me? I can't picture myself as some old disheveled, jilted granny-hoarder with a festive feline following. I do not like clutter, I plan on being fashionable well into my old age and I am still not 100% comfortable with the thought of being in a home full of fur-balls. But really, what will happen to me when I wake up one day weary of being alone? I am more than grateful to have loving family and friends, but a part of me yearns for a significant other.

My motto is, "It's better to be by yourself, than miserable with someone else." I simply do not believe in settling. The friend who teased me about being a future cat lady also asked if I thought my standards were either too high or too unrealistic. After some honest gut checking, my answer is a positive and resounding, "No." I am realistic and practical. None of my "requirements" are outlandish. Of course, I know it's going to be difficult finding that one man who has the qualities I want on paper plus that X-factor that sweeps me off my feet. I am a woman with incredible balance. It's going to take a very special someone to make me fall head over heels. I like to think I love myself enough to know I deserve to have it all.

So, after I took a step back from heavy contemplation and slipped back into my figurative honeymoon and bubble bath, I have learned that I am not afraid of being a "cat lady." I have resolved that it is going to be all or nothing. No settling. No selling myself short. If that day I so dread comes along, that day when I wake up weary of being alone...well, I know exactly where to find an animal shelter.

Maybe I will one day meet my knight in shining Beamer. Maybe I won't...and I'm OK with that. (OK for now, that is. Let's reassess in 5 years when I am 30 and we'll see if this delicate, youthful optimism survives the tides of time and cynicism).




Side Note: Technically, a Beamer/Beemer is a motorcycle by BMW and a Bimmer is a car by BMW. In case I have offend any BMW enthusiasts out there, I do know the difference. I just decided to go with Beamer since not many people realize this difference. If rappers can play around with words for the sake of flow, so can I.

The Soulmate Situation

Thank you, Hollywood 

When people (and by people, I mean mostly women) talk about relationships, they tend to bring up the word “soulmate.” Your soulmate is supposed to be the person with whom you strongly connect on many levels (spiritual, mental, emotional, sexual, etc.). Some argue that there is only one soulmate for each person and others argue that there can be many soulmates.

Before I delve into my opinions on this “soulmate” situation, I would like to take a step back and give some background on where this notion of soulmates may have originated. The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes presented the mythology of soulmates in Plato’s Symposium.  According to legend, humans once had four arms, four legs and one head with two faces. Since Zeus feared that humans would become too powerful, he sliced them in half with his lightning bolts and fated them to wander the world searching for their other halves for the rest of eternity. He also threatened that if they posed any threats to him in the future, he would split them in half once more and they would hop on only one leg.

I was in a long-term relationship. An extremely loving and supportive one, I might add. It took me a long time, but I somehow mustered up the courage to let it go. Something was obviously missing and at the time, I just didn’t know what.  All I knew was that I needed time. Time to reflect.  Time to devote to myself and only myself.

At first, single life was difficult. I missed all the good things that came with the “relationship package.” But when I discovered the missing puzzle piece, single life became the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. The only thing missing was the ability to fully love myself and be happy independent of someone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not an island, entire of myself. A wise friend once told me that the best type of relationship is one in which both partners are already happy by his/herself and don't necessarily need another person in the equation to complete him/her.  When those two people come together, the relationship is a more stable and long-lasting one. No person has to “carry” the other one in anyway. No person has to act as the other one’s crutch or make up for the other one’s short comings.  The two can grow together in a dynamic environment of complete equal partnership.  That’s what I want.

As a kid in biology class, I favored reading about the symbiotic relationships in nature over parasitic or commensalitic ones. Why wouldn’t two organisms want to equally benefit from the relationship as opposed to one benefits and the other harmed or one benefits and other is indifferently affected?

Why do you need someone else to complete you? Don’t you love yourself to know that you are enough? Let’s go back to our little Greek mythology. Maybe the other half we are looking for is just ourselves. Weren’t we after all, just split up from ourselves?

No "You complete me" lines for this girl. I complete me. I am my own soulmate. 

To Hell with “It’s the Thought That Counts”

What my postcard said:
I told the dolphins "Hi!" for you & they said "Hi!" back ;-) I will tell you all about it when I see you.
-Phuong

Personally, I think the phrase “It’s the thought that counts” is equivalent to an admission of failure.  This all dawned on me when I got really irked over my failure to properly send someone a postcard from my trip to Mexico.  I wrote down the correct address and everything, but I neglected to include “United States of America.” Obviously, I am not accustomed to writing my own country’s name on whatever letter or package I send...we just don't do that domestically and it’s something that can easily be forgotten when one is abroad.  I have sent dozens of postcards from my trips around the world (I have even sent some via papal mail) and they have all reached their intended destinations. Why did I fail this time? Perhaps it was due to lack of planning.

From now on, for me, “It’s the thought that counts” is not going to hack it anymore. I am replacing that worthless phrase with “It’s the execution that counts.” To show someone you thought of him/her, you must carry out your objective or else it’s just meaningless. Everyone has good intentions, but we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.