Colgate = Con Gat
Ford = Pho
Alka Selter = An Kan Set Sen
Head and Shoulders = Het en So Da
Kentucky Fried Chicken = Ken Tuu Ky
Pepsodent (not sold here anymore) = Bet So Den
I could go on, but that's not the reason for this post. My father died in the past couple of weeks, but I was unable to go to the funeral. A colleague commented that my dad was lucky to have lived eighty years. I told my friend that he was only 79. In the Vietnamese way of thinking that's true.
One thing I love to do is visit cemeteries and read tombstones. Vietnam has some beautiful ones. I often noticed the ages posted on the monuments. For example, a woman born on December 28, 1920, who died on January 3, 2006, has her age posted as 86. But the Vietnamese celebrate their birthdays on January 1. Someone on some forum said they did this on Tet, which isn't true since that day can vary up to a month!
Let me try another example: A woman gives birth to identical twins. The first baby is born on December 31 at 11:58 pm. The second baby is born on January 1 at 12:12 am. Although born minutes apart, they are considered to be one year apart from each other. They will be one grade apart from each other in school. If they were born this past New Year's Day/Eve, the older child will begin school in September 2012. The younger one will begin in September 2013. It sounds unfair to my Western mind, but this is the way it's done here.
Now then, the children in my weekend classes often ask questions an adult would be insulted with in America (and I still feel that way). First they ask for my age. Then they ask for my phone number. Some Vietnamese teachers, unaware of American customs (or American crime) tell me I should make up an age or a phone number. They say that they are trying to train them for socialization in the Western world.
Afterwards, the local teachers are shocked at the reason why I won't even make up a phony age or phone number. I can remember one class I taught in California that a student was able to track down my phone number and they began threatening my daughters. I didn't give any phone number!
Instead of the children asking my age, I tell them to ask for my birthday. They don't understand that, since everyone gets older on the same day. I tell them that's the day I turn 50. Some of the younger ones still don't get it.
