week 2: mapping the development city

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Well this week is about some kind of KĐTMs. We went to KĐTM Trung Yên , which has changed a little bit since my high school with more offices and more cars parking along Trung Hòa Street (it is quite near my high school, so i used to go through it like everyday).
We started with trà đá and asked the trà đá-seller about the places where we can go for some phở bò, or badminton, etc. It turned out that we'd have a tough day finding things there.
So, the place was kinda airy with wide roads (almost all start with "Trung" like Trung Yên 1,2,9,10; Trung Hòa and Trung Kính, tall and big detached houses, a small park for people to jog, children to play and a tennis court for those who like to watch other people playing tennis LOL. Well the park was what i like the most about this place. Not having to walk on the street, too (cuz we have pavement). The worst part is we can't find any place to buy vegetable or pork or get a knife sharpened WITHIN the area of KĐTM Trung Yên, not until we went south to the lake near Trần Duy Hưng street.
Talking about the lake, there's a disturbing fact in the neighborhood is that near the lake there are some whatyoumaycallthem with a few dozens of gamers playing almost 24/7 (I know that because I was one of them, no not really, just played games a few times a month), and that's quite money-consuming and time-consuming to me. The kids in the area may get hooked on games and spend most of their time at those places.
Well I spent like 3 years biking around the place, doing crazy things with friends there so I would live there cuz I know my kids would grow up healthy in the area, without much exhaust from vehicles, and a place to play with other kids, not with other gamers. I have a lot of friends here so that's quite convenient to hang out with them. Well maybe it's the memories that would make the decision to stay in this area.

week 1: mapping the pre-development city

We had a visit to đền Bạch Mã on Sunday (22/8) to map the pre-development city.



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It was something. Đền Bạch Mã is really near JAM where we went to last Friday so we didnt have to spend much time to find it. well we started at Hang Buom, that's where đền Bạch Mã is (actually when I got there they've done half of the tasks, so what I experienced was what's left of the tasks, ). We went around looking for cooked rice, nước mắm, pork meet and veggies, all kind of Vietnamese food (Why's there no tofu? Cuz the UC guys were so interested in tofu or so i thought). It was funny that some kind of tasks like finding trà đá and thuốc lá place, or bia hơi place, shoes shine task were done by the girls, while I did something like going for pork meat or nước mắm and uncooked rice. The keymaking place and the xôi xéo place were the farthest places. The badminton place was nowhere to be found. The police station task seemed so hard at first, actually we had to walk pass Đồng Xuân market to find one, but when we get back to Hàng Buồm, we found out that "Oh god there were like 3 police stations around" and when we got back to HANU, Nancy found out the 4th and the keymaker place but it's too far away. She was like " Oh my oh my there's another police station", "look we have a keymaker here, wait wait the address, i cannnnnnnnnnnn't remember it", Xi you were so funny. 
We had snails and nem nướng Nha Trang for dinner. Both Xi and Thư surprised me. Mindy with a bottle of bia Hà Nội and Xi with "I've been here before with Yến", awww. However it was fun. Next time we have snails lets wash our hands in lemon tea guys, haha.
Well the place was small and the streets were narrow, crooked, and crowded. To be honest i hate to have walked on the streets and got lost everytime I go there. From where I live we have paddy fields and trees, (even buffalo poo) and the streets are so wide however dusty. We had fun in the Old Quarter with JAM, Red Lounge, mì vằn thắn, etc. but a place to live? I prefer the outskirts of Hanoi.    

Week 0: Gig reading: Bounty Hunter (p539)

This entry is about a bounty hunter, Charles Robinson, talking about his job.

The first time i looked at the title "Bounty hunter" I immediately recalled watching Star Wars. Boba Fett and Jango Fett, they were Mandalorian bounty hunters, and they were bad guys who ended up killed. And recently I've watched "Bounty Hunter" starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. They are the first things that come to mind, and they are the reasons why i choose this entry. 

Before reading the entry, I thought of bounty hunters as big intimidating, daring and well-equipped guys who had less power than police but enough to hurt a fugitive and put him into jail. And money-craving. Yeah there are millions of jobs out there and if you are not big and strong and in need of money badly, you can't do it. That's what i thought.

Robinson, now a full-time bounty hunter, works for about 8 different bail bondsmen, under the law of Taintor v. Taylor. In short, his job is about hunting down people who skip their bails, that is, failing to show up at the court for some reason. He can carry weapons, cross state lines, ignore local laws, do whatever it takes to get the fugitives. In a cheap way because I think what motivates a bounty hunter is the bounty. It is funny to think that he is a law enforcer who cares for money more than public security.

To get the job done, Robinson needs some people acting as some kind of "living database and tracking machine", with commission fees, say "thirty bucks a whack". He's lucky to have cousins and uncles in two federal agencies.

I guess the interviewer wanted him to depict his story in a certain way so that it looks like Robinson's solving a riddle. More like a treasure hunt because it can bring money. It sounded so easy to him, just like a case study in the textbook to the old professor. There are some steps to the case:

First step, we have the situation, someone's missing at the wrong time and someone else wanted him back. So Robinson just took any chance to find the clues from his boss, dad and mom. 

Second step, the target must be residing at someone's place. Girlfriend, close friend, siblings, cousins. By utilizing his "living database and tracking system", Robinson could find a target's whereabouts from a very small clue and he's proud of that. He called that "creative manhunting" and "creative investigating".

Third step, catching the target mostly by INTIMIDATING him. The target belongs to several kinds of bail-skippers, from misdemeanors to petty criminal and violent crimes. The most important thing is to make use of "manipulation, diplomacy and confident bullshitting". It's time to look intimidating and sound intimidating. But it's kind of different depending on the target, whether he chooses to give in or to run or to fight back. 

So, Robinson's not so different from what I thought, daring, intimidating, he's got a gun and he likes money. Personally I think they're a little bit violent. But somehow they're doing good deeds.

My autobiography

I should begin my first entry with this: I contradict myself most of the time.
At the moment my mind is empty so I am gonna begin with just giving some information about me:
Full name: Đào Tuấn Dũng (Dũng is my given name, Đào is my surname)
Date of birth: March 12th, 1990
I like baseball, heavy metal and socializing
I was born in Hanoi and I've been in Hanoi for most of the time. I've never been out of Northern Vietnam. It sounds local I know. I always wanted to go to the south to see the seashores there cuz they say those in Nha Trang are the most beautiful.
Now I study Business Administration, however I've realized that I'm not good with money.

(This part is being written in a different day from the above part. Maybe it'll sound like some kind of confession. I'm being really emotional)

Ive been afraid and hesitated and lacked self-esteem since i was small. When I was in primary school, I was always under the impression that I was worse than anyone in class. When I was in secondary school, I had the fear that my friends in 5th grade would look down on me since I went a school that was less popular than most of them. When I failed the exam to my desired high school I felt like my life was about to end. Yeah at that time my life's goal was that simple. I was lucky to have my parents caring for me all the time. I was so dependent on them, even now I live mostly on their money and care. 

I have done many stupid things in my life. The most stupid thing was to indirectly make my grandmother unable to walk when I was 15. That's been haunting me ever since. She never told me anything like I was the one responsible but the feeling kind of bit me. Ive been trying to see her, talk to her, let her hold me everyday hoping I could forget about it. We never know how precious something is till the moment we have lost it forever.

I have this friend Van, we were together for 7 years from 3th grade to 7th grade. All the time I wanted to look better than him, play sports better than him and do better at exams than him. I didn't. He was a great friend, I stayed at his house and had lunch with his family almost every school-day then. Sometimes even Sunday. Now he's studying abroad. When he came back to Hanoi a month ago, I haven't even met him though he called me and said he wanted to see me. I said I was busy. Being busy is just an excuse. I was jealous of him. Hope I can see him several times before he flew back to Holland in September. 

There are so many things i always want to turn back time to do. I could have saved my grandma's leg, could have seen my friend, could have mended the toy I broke several days ago. But that never happens. However they brought lessons besides regrets. Hope that I'm not gonna make such a mistake that brings a regret for life. 

I like Andrew's idea when he said "post less information online and make people understand you for real". So here are my goals:
- Help UC students understand Vietnamese, both language and culture. I know many of them have Vietnamese blood in their veins and they long so much to know about Việt Nam, so I want them to know that they're welcome here. :)
- Improve my knowledge of Vietnam, especially that from the viewpoint of foreigners.
- Make friends and learn more English.
- Have some stupid and crazy moments with UC friends.