a new post!

i know it's been so long! i learned that i'm not meant to be a blogger...however since I've started one I will keep it up!

So sketchiest night pt. 2...
-RR (who's name is something like Emeson...think "msn")took us to this upstairs bar/club place with a rock band of sorts that played covers of such songs like "The only thing that looks good on me (is you)" originated by the illustrious Bryan Adams, and the song "B*tch" by Meredith Brooks. Emeson bought us drinks and then called his friend Don to come meet us. I think Emeson wanted to hook me up with him. Don comes, wearing a white long sleeve shirt, with the top few buttons unopened to show his chest. Don is ten shades of nasty. The first few seconds i met him he proclaimed how he wanted to go to my hotel room tonight. gross! i should've been a lot meaner about him getting away from me, but part of me thought the whole thing was entertaining, and i had high opinions of my ability to avoid contact. i thought it was entertaining because don claims to be a football player in singapore here on vacation. then for the next half hour I had to dodge him trying to kiss me. about 98% successful. except once he tried to french kiss me, but i dodged it, but not in time to prevent face-tongue contact. ew!!!!!!!!!!! wait...i don't think you get the full picture: EW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyways...had to split....but they decided to get in the taxi with us, and i was too drunk to make a big stink. when we got to the hotel, they expected to go back to our rooms with us (nasty!). we told the guy working in the lobby (who's now our friend! his name is lee) that we didn't want that. he took our cue, and told them to leave. then emeson tried to check into the hotel, and lee told him that the hotel was full (yay lee!).

-pretty soon emeson began "courting" kyla, which includes behavior that by american standards would be called "stalking"...he called everyday, multiple times, stopped by the hotel (luckily the staff told emeson that we weren't here). This went on for awhile...oh yeah until a few days ago when Emeson checked into the hotel, with a middle-aged vietnamese woman who's his sugar mama (who happened resemble stephen huie's mother...no seriously!). there are two computers with internet in the lobby, so kyla and me happened to be online and in the lobby when emeson had checked in. he left his lady friend and began talking to kyla, saying shit like "why don't you call me". Then his ladyfriend beckoned him to come back. Then they went upstairs. We talked to the woman working at the desk at the time. Apparently he had checked in onto the floor above us (gross!)...and the lady didn't like us. The woman at the desk told us that she talked shit about us, telling emeson "I don't like those girls" to which he replied "Don't worry, we won't see them"....this whole kyla-emeson thing is too long and difficult to describe! anyways...now professor thai wants kyla to help him write an article using her expertise in nigerian prostitutes.

-what's fascinating is how race is dealt here. going to school in LA, and the legay of the LA rebellion, looking at the dynamics between black and asian communities is important. it's interesting to see the similarities and differences in this situation, between vietnamese locals and foreigners from africa (besides nigerians, we've met some south africans, folks from togo). There's definitely some hostility, which is cyclically reinforced. for example (in crude terms) taxi driver mean to emeson, emeson mean to taxi driver, each one is reinforcing the stereotypes they think of each other. What also has been hard dealing with, is relying on the racism here. Emeson, again by American standards, was relentlessly pursuing Kyla, being very stubborn, not taking no for an answer or leaving her alone. Whenever we got in a sketchy situation with Emeson (in our hotel or at a restaurant), we knew nothing bad would happen to us, because the staff there was just waiting for an opportunity to kick him out. there's ugly shit out there, and it's a shitty thing to face when you conform to it.

other highlights
-started doing research...now am just studying gays and lesbians in general
-Professor Thai has an assistant named Loc who's a university student, who helped me get in touch with his classmate Ha, who's gay. I met Ha and his boyfriend, Tuan, who introduced to their friend Tony. Tony has been taking me to different gay spots. I went to this bar where the waitors wear different costumes, such as spider shirts with short shorts, or sexy monk costumes (unfortunately i wasn't there on sexy monk night). Yesterday I went to this park where men pick up other men. You drive around the park on your motorbike until you find a guy you like. When people go to the park, they say they're "going shopping", or "di cho" (in vietnamese). However, there are straight people there making out as well as wholesome university students playing soccer in the park as well. Parks here are crazy. At night, there are dozens of couples who just make out there. it's really fun but i haven't met any lesbians (or queer women in general) yet..or maybe i have...more accurately I haven't seen anything of a queer women's scene yet. The gay men I've been talking to say that lesbians are no fun and are mean. I'd like to contradict them but.....

what surprised me, is that the words the men i've been hanging out use to describe themselves, are words that are derogatory when used by straights. words such as "bong" or "pe de". Bong Lo is somoeone who's obviously gay while Bong Kinh is someone who you can't tell is gay. Tony and friends use bong with each other all the time. Also, I interviewed this gay tour guide and when he told me vietnamese terms he only used those too. However, when I talked to my professor, I said bong, and he told me to use another word because that means faggot. However, the term professor told me use, i've never heard being used by my informants.

-as i expected...the only white people i see in the gay spots are nasty old white men....all with gray hair (if not balding)...some in shape but others with potbellies. My interview with the tour guide confirmed this, he said that all of his white gay male clients are in their late fifties. the only non-white clients he has are asian men that have older white boyfriends who come along. i pretty much expected this but it is still on the hellza nasty side.