Xe Loi

So I finally made it...to the only club in town!

Well okay, that's not TOTALLY true. There is another hot spot called the "Wild Horse" which I've also never been to: apparently, at this one, there are little Vietnamese women dressed in booty shorts and other scantily clad outfits, trying to do tricks on poles that just make them look as though they're not sure whether to fight the pole or make love to it. So I ruled the Horse out and decided to finally venture to Xe Loi with other WHITE PEOPLE tonight.

Yes, emphasis on the WHITE PEOPLE. There were MORE PEOPLE LIKE ME in town today. They were visiting our neighbors in House 4 (Christine and I live in House 6) from a province to the east, Tra Vinh. And one of the newcomers, Justin, who's also teaching English in the aforementioned province, confessed a feeling to my roommate and I that we no doubt feel as well every time we see another caucasian in our territory:

"Yeah, like, when I go out and see other white people in town, in my mind I'm like 'WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE HERE?!' And they never seem to wanna talk to me cuz they're just tourists passing through..."

What he said is so true. The white people who visit from far away lands want to "blend in" and try to act as though they aren't tourists. Psh. As if they don't stick out like SORE THUMBS.

...And heading to Xe Loi confirmed how un-likeable we are, yet again. When Christine and I first got there, I saw two BLONDE GIRLS having an intense conversation with each other at the bar. I told her we needed to go over and make friends ASAP. So we tried our luck.

"Heyyyy," I said, trying to look as friendly as possible. "What are you guys doing here?!"

Cue the confuzzled looks and the not-so-friendly stares.

"We're from Germany, teaching English and German at a university" said the girl to my right in impeccably good English, not looking happy at all that I totally disrupted the ultra-important convo with Blondie Numbero Dos.

"Oh, that's cool, my roommate and I are doing the same thing! And we TOTALLY need friends!"

After I said this, they both just smiled. And said nothing after. And eventually Christine and I got the point and moved on.

I don't get it! What's wrong with these people?! Christine and I are AWESOME. They clearly don't recognize FABULOUS when it's staring them right in the face.

But no matter. Two Vietnamese men who, put together, still wouldn't amount to a body type bigger than mine, wanted to hang out with Christine and myself. And they wanted our numbers. And e-mails. And not because they wanted to "date." They just want to have someone to pracitce their English with.

I fooled the one guy and gave him the wrong e-mail address. That way I won't get bombarded with the "Hello, how is you? You want coffee with me? I get you 7:30 okay? Good" e-mails. But as for the phone, he managed to grab it from my hand when I took it out of my pocket and called his own number.

Sneaky, sneaky guy.