Dear Twos,
They say that half of life is being lucky, if that’s the case then I am off to a good start. I am pleased to say that I have found a job, and it’s far better than I ever dreamed of before I came here. At least, I think it is. I told many of you that what I would probably end up doing is teaching English, at least at first, until I could find a job that was a little bit more interesting. Well, one of the things that I did when I got here is I met with a guy named Ben Wilkinson, he works for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government by being the associate director of the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program here in Saigon (Harvard is an associate school that helps to fund the program). He did me the courtesy of letting me borrow his copy of the American Chamber of Commerce’s Membership Directory for here in Vietnam. So, in addition to applying to a few of the English schools in the area, I went through the directory and sent resumes to all of the interesting looking companies I saw. A day later I get a response from a guy named Fred Burke, he’s the head of both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh offices of a multinational law firm named Baker & McKenzie. I looked them up on the internet before going to the interview, they employ over 3000 lawyers in 70 offices in 38 countries. When I mentioned to my uncle that I had an interview he just kind of looked at me and said, “really?”
Anyway, the interview went really well, and by the way Mr. Burke spoke it was sort of assumed from the beginning of the interview that I would be offered a position, which made things easy. Then, towards the end of the interview Mr. Burke said, “Oh, and if we can get this sorted out by the 7th we’re having a professional development seminar in Hoi An we can send you to, that’ll help you get acquainted with the office and what we do.” I had no idea where Hoi An was, I had never heard of it, but it sounded good to me. I said okay and the next thing I know I’m getting e-mails from his secretary telling me when to come in and pick up my plane tickets and, at the same time, sign my offer letter, oh, and don’t forget your bathing suit. Uh, okay, sure, I won’t.
So, my first day of work is tomorrow, the 10th, and on the 7th I’m boarding a plane with about 25 people I don’t really know to go to a town I’ve never heard of. But it’s all free, so who cares? I get to Hoi An and am relieved to find out I’m not the only new person, there’s a Vietnamese woman about my age who spent the past year studying in Dallas who’s in the same boat as I am. We take a bus to the hotel, which is named the Golden Sands Resort. This is a bit of a clue. I
walk in to the five star hotel lobby, with fountains and a bar easily accessible, and look out at a gigantic outdoor pool with, as a backdrop, one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. Maybe sixty yards wide of pure white sand that felt like silk on your feet, except burning hot of course. The ocean water was about 80 degrees, I would guess. The waves were small, admittedly, but, well, who cares? Given the hostel I stayed at in Kunming, with cockroaches the size of my thumb and a toilet that doubles as the shower drain, I think I can handle the hardwood floor rooms bigger than my apartment in Boston that overlook the pristine beach. I mean, I suppose if I must, I don’t want to anger my boss before I even start, of course. You understand, I’m sure.
The people I’ll be working with are very nice. I made fast friends with a couple of Kiwis and a German guy from the Hanoi office. Our friendship revolved around our mutual love of all things alcoholic, which perhaps is not necessarily the healthiest basis for a friendship, but when options are limited the picky get weeded out real fast. In any case, on Saturday night the German guy got a few of us together to stay up until 2 AM when the Germany-Portugal World Cup game started. To pass the time we drank at the hotel bar and played pool behind it. At about 11 PM the bar closed, which was bad, we didn’t have our own alcohol and 2 AM was a long ways away. We prayed they would leave the bottles behind the bar. Unfortunately, they were not that stupid and we watched mournfully as they packed all the bottles of liquor into a big crate and wheeled them off. All the bottles, that is, except one. Way up on the top shelf there was a large clear bottle that resembled a wine decanter more than a liquor bottle. Inside was a clear liquid that one of the guys told me was a highly alcoholic liquor made from rice, which I had had before and didn’t mind. This was a little different, though, because, inside the bottle was not just the clear liquid, but a few roots as well, and then also was the curled up and remarkably well preserved body of a snake. In life, the snake probably would have been about 8-10 inches long, and more than likely would have been poisonous. It looked like someone had, for some ungodly reason, put the snake in there when it was alive and left it in there, just to kind of spice things up.
What happens when you put four guys in a room, wait for them to become desperate for more alcohol, and then give them a bottle of the strangest, scariest liquor any of them had ever seen? I’ve been the youngest child for long enough that I knew exactly what happens next long before I heard one of them say, “Hey new guy, come here for a sec.” I took a deep breath and resigned myself to my fate. They handed me a glass of clear liquid with a slight green hue. I looked at it and noticed small fleshy bits of… something floating around inside. I took a deep breath and thought to myself, well Hell, can it really be as bad as silk worm larvae? In case you’re wondering the answer to that question is an emphatic yes, oh dear God, yes it can. I only took a small sip, but what I tasted could only be described as turpentine mixed with urine-soaked rotting flesh. My eyes bulged and I gave a slight cough, then one of the Kiwis asked, “how is it, mate?” I looked up at him, blinked, and replied, “I think it’s probably one of the best liquors I’ve ever had, seriously, you should have some.”
For the next five minutes or so the four of us took turns taking tiny sips, cringing, coughing, and saying things like, “well, it’ll keep us going, anyway,” and “the Vietnamese have a lot to learn about alcohol,” then, a few of our Vietnamese fellow employees walked in and greeted us, including the new girl, Hang. As soon as they walked in one of them told us it was Hang’s birthday. We all cheered and handed her the glass of the snake whiskey, as we had started calling it, and said “Happy Birthday!” The glass was about a third full, which would have taken us about another fifteen minutes of consistent sipping to finish. She looked at the glass in her hand with a bit of a perplexed look on her face, then she sniffed the glass. She cringed and coughed a little and looked at us like we had just handed her a glass of gasoline and a match. We assured her it was good and good for her. She just kind of shrugged, and then, without a word, downed the whole glass. She slammed the glass down upside-down on the pool table, and at the same time four jaws hit the floor. She coughed and pushed out, “Oh, that’s bad.”
“That’s amazing!” I said.
For the rest of the night the Kiwis, the German, the American and the three Vietnamese all played pool together, with the loser of each game having to drink a glass of the snake whiskey. At some point in the night somebody asked the Vietnamese why on earth their countrymen would make such a thing. The Vietnamese kind of shrugged and said that foreigners are usually the only ones stupid enough to drink it. We laughed but then I observed that that may be true, but somebody in Vietnam was still the one to bother to figure out how to make it, which means they thought it was a good idea.
The job sounds interesting enough, I suppose. Baker & McKenzie does all kinds of things ranging from handling mergers and acquisitions to Intellectual Property Rights (enforcing trademarks, it’s big business in this part of the world) to advising the Vietnamese government on what laws need to be fleshed out and improved, and how to do it. There’s also a lot of translation work done in the office as well as helping Vietnam become a member of the WTO. My job is officially labeled as a proofreader/ researcher/ paralegal. My salary is about what I was making in America, and is due to go up in six months. That means that I make relatively little compared to the other foreigners here but a bloody fortune compared to what the Vietnamese make, even Vietnamese with a higher ranking position (not necessarily in my office, but in general this is true), this is a sad truth, but one that one has to kind of accept. It is the physical manifestation of what many would call economies of scale. To put things in perspective, I have one of, if not the, lowest ranking position held be a foreigner, but one of my co-workers politely informed me, “Oh yeah, and you’ll have a secretary.” “A what?” “A secretary. Don’t worry, she speaks English.” “Oh, you mean like a secretary for the portion of the office that I’ll be working in.” “No, I mean like she’ll be working directly for you.” I don’t really know what to do with a secretary, in my last job the only secretary in the office was technically ranked higher than me. I suppose I will find out tomorrow.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope you are all doing well, and I must say that I have really enjoyed hearing from all of you who have replied, even if I have not been able to reply to you individually, I do receive your e-mails and love reading them, so please know that you are all in my heart. Until next time...
Love,
They say that half of life is being lucky, if that’s the case then I am off to a good start. I am pleased to say that I have found a job, and it’s far better than I ever dreamed of before I came here. At least, I think it is. I told many of you that what I would probably end up doing is teaching English, at least at first, until I could find a job that was a little bit more interesting. Well, one of the things that I did when I got here is I met with a guy named Ben Wilkinson, he works for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government by being the associate director of the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program here in Saigon (Harvard is an associate school that helps to fund the program). He did me the courtesy of letting me borrow his copy of the American Chamber of Commerce’s Membership Directory for here in Vietnam. So, in addition to applying to a few of the English schools in the area, I went through the directory and sent resumes to all of the interesting looking companies I saw. A day later I get a response from a guy named Fred Burke, he’s the head of both the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh offices of a multinational law firm named Baker & McKenzie. I looked them up on the internet before going to the interview, they employ over 3000 lawyers in 70 offices in 38 countries. When I mentioned to my uncle that I had an interview he just kind of looked at me and said, “really?”
Anyway, the interview went really well, and by the way Mr. Burke spoke it was sort of assumed from the beginning of the interview that I would be offered a position, which made things easy. Then, towards the end of the interview Mr. Burke said, “Oh, and if we can get this sorted out by the 7th we’re having a professional development seminar in Hoi An we can send you to, that’ll help you get acquainted with the office and what we do.” I had no idea where Hoi An was, I had never heard of it, but it sounded good to me. I said okay and the next thing I know I’m getting e-mails from his secretary telling me when to come in and pick up my plane tickets and, at the same time, sign my offer letter, oh, and don’t forget your bathing suit. Uh, okay, sure, I won’t.
So, my first day of work is tomorrow, the 10th, and on the 7th I’m boarding a plane with about 25 people I don’t really know to go to a town I’ve never heard of. But it’s all free, so who cares? I get to Hoi An and am relieved to find out I’m not the only new person, there’s a Vietnamese woman about my age who spent the past year studying in Dallas who’s in the same boat as I am. We take a bus to the hotel, which is named the Golden Sands Resort. This is a bit of a clue. I
walk in to the five star hotel lobby, with fountains and a bar easily accessible, and look out at a gigantic outdoor pool with, as a backdrop, one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. Maybe sixty yards wide of pure white sand that felt like silk on your feet, except burning hot of course. The ocean water was about 80 degrees, I would guess. The waves were small, admittedly, but, well, who cares? Given the hostel I stayed at in Kunming, with cockroaches the size of my thumb and a toilet that doubles as the shower drain, I think I can handle the hardwood floor rooms bigger than my apartment in Boston that overlook the pristine beach. I mean, I suppose if I must, I don’t want to anger my boss before I even start, of course. You understand, I’m sure.The people I’ll be working with are very nice. I made fast friends with a couple of Kiwis and a German guy from the Hanoi office. Our friendship revolved around our mutual love of all things alcoholic, which perhaps is not necessarily the healthiest basis for a friendship, but when options are limited the picky get weeded out real fast. In any case, on Saturday night the German guy got a few of us together to stay up until 2 AM when the Germany-Portugal World Cup game started. To pass the time we drank at the hotel bar and played pool behind it. At about 11 PM the bar closed, which was bad, we didn’t have our own alcohol and 2 AM was a long ways away. We prayed they would leave the bottles behind the bar. Unfortunately, they were not that stupid and we watched mournfully as they packed all the bottles of liquor into a big crate and wheeled them off. All the bottles, that is, except one. Way up on the top shelf there was a large clear bottle that resembled a wine decanter more than a liquor bottle. Inside was a clear liquid that one of the guys told me was a highly alcoholic liquor made from rice, which I had had before and didn’t mind. This was a little different, though, because, inside the bottle was not just the clear liquid, but a few roots as well, and then also was the curled up and remarkably well preserved body of a snake. In life, the snake probably would have been about 8-10 inches long, and more than likely would have been poisonous. It looked like someone had, for some ungodly reason, put the snake in there when it was alive and left it in there, just to kind of spice things up.
What happens when you put four guys in a room, wait for them to become desperate for more alcohol, and then give them a bottle of the strangest, scariest liquor any of them had ever seen? I’ve been the youngest child for long enough that I knew exactly what happens next long before I heard one of them say, “Hey new guy, come here for a sec.” I took a deep breath and resigned myself to my fate. They handed me a glass of clear liquid with a slight green hue. I looked at it and noticed small fleshy bits of… something floating around inside. I took a deep breath and thought to myself, well Hell, can it really be as bad as silk worm larvae? In case you’re wondering the answer to that question is an emphatic yes, oh dear God, yes it can. I only took a small sip, but what I tasted could only be described as turpentine mixed with urine-soaked rotting flesh. My eyes bulged and I gave a slight cough, then one of the Kiwis asked, “how is it, mate?” I looked up at him, blinked, and replied, “I think it’s probably one of the best liquors I’ve ever had, seriously, you should have some.”
For the next five minutes or so the four of us took turns taking tiny sips, cringing, coughing, and saying things like, “well, it’ll keep us going, anyway,” and “the Vietnamese have a lot to learn about alcohol,” then, a few of our Vietnamese fellow employees walked in and greeted us, including the new girl, Hang. As soon as they walked in one of them told us it was Hang’s birthday. We all cheered and handed her the glass of the snake whiskey, as we had started calling it, and said “Happy Birthday!” The glass was about a third full, which would have taken us about another fifteen minutes of consistent sipping to finish. She looked at the glass in her hand with a bit of a perplexed look on her face, then she sniffed the glass. She cringed and coughed a little and looked at us like we had just handed her a glass of gasoline and a match. We assured her it was good and good for her. She just kind of shrugged, and then, without a word, downed the whole glass. She slammed the glass down upside-down on the pool table, and at the same time four jaws hit the floor. She coughed and pushed out, “Oh, that’s bad.”
“That’s amazing!” I said.
For the rest of the night the Kiwis, the German, the American and the three Vietnamese all played pool together, with the loser of each game having to drink a glass of the snake whiskey. At some point in the night somebody asked the Vietnamese why on earth their countrymen would make such a thing. The Vietnamese kind of shrugged and said that foreigners are usually the only ones stupid enough to drink it. We laughed but then I observed that that may be true, but somebody in Vietnam was still the one to bother to figure out how to make it, which means they thought it was a good idea.
The job sounds interesting enough, I suppose. Baker & McKenzie does all kinds of things ranging from handling mergers and acquisitions to Intellectual Property Rights (enforcing trademarks, it’s big business in this part of the world) to advising the Vietnamese government on what laws need to be fleshed out and improved, and how to do it. There’s also a lot of translation work done in the office as well as helping Vietnam become a member of the WTO. My job is officially labeled as a proofreader/ researcher/ paralegal. My salary is about what I was making in America, and is due to go up in six months. That means that I make relatively little compared to the other foreigners here but a bloody fortune compared to what the Vietnamese make, even Vietnamese with a higher ranking position (not necessarily in my office, but in general this is true), this is a sad truth, but one that one has to kind of accept. It is the physical manifestation of what many would call economies of scale. To put things in perspective, I have one of, if not the, lowest ranking position held be a foreigner, but one of my co-workers politely informed me, “Oh yeah, and you’ll have a secretary.” “A what?” “A secretary. Don’t worry, she speaks English.” “Oh, you mean like a secretary for the portion of the office that I’ll be working in.” “No, I mean like she’ll be working directly for you.” I don’t really know what to do with a secretary, in my last job the only secretary in the office was technically ranked higher than me. I suppose I will find out tomorrow.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope you are all doing well, and I must say that I have really enjoyed hearing from all of you who have replied, even if I have not been able to reply to you individually, I do receive your e-mails and love reading them, so please know that you are all in my heart. Until next time...
Love,
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