Tieng Viet lovers club

[FireShark]

Originally Posted by hoian

Thanks. This last part had me scratching my head but I figured it out after awhile. Chatting in tv in real time can be quite challenging but it forces one to learn at a faster pace.

Me too also no head no tail. This tieng viet look sound chimmmmm

[hoian]

I am a bit hesitant to give the full context because a bit personal but here goes... the topic was about my past flings... here's what she said which led me to assume what she wanted to know abt my past sexual relationship:

She: E nghj khj 2ngu0j da vu0t qua gj0j hang. h0 se k the b0 nhau chu

She: Anh va co ay da tung quan he voi nhau chua

Me: Told her its been a long time ago ... 3... 4 yrs ago roi...

She: Y a la 3 4 nam la sa0...Moi quan he cua a voi co ay la lich su roi...

Then I start to change topic..

She: Hj. truj 0j. a cung kheo dung tu wa..
(heee... omg... u are clever to evade... not sure if she misspelt "dung tu"...could be "dong tu"??)

Note: I am still learning as I go along. Pls correct me if my assumptions are incorrect. Thanks.

Originally Posted by jackbl

Sorry to ask further. Did you assume she's asking u about the sex thing ???

[hoian]

Learn to speak like a local

Today I hope to share with bros on how to speak like a local. If you refer to phrase books, Youtube lessons etc, they teach the basics.. but seriously... no one on the streets speak in such a formal and structured way.

Let's start with the following. Will add on bit by bit when I have time.

When someone asks you if you can speak tv, a local way of answering is:
Biet chut ít em. (Know a bit, em).

I like to use this phrase to tease someone about enjoying herself without inviting me:
Di choi khong ru. (similar to "bojio" or go enjoy, never invite me..)


... more later...

[Jiaolang]

Thanks for sharing. Will take note!

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by hoian

She: Hj. truj 0j. a cung kheo dung tu wa..
(heee... omg... u are clever to evade... not sure if she misspelt "dung tu"...could be "dong tu"??)

My interpretation is that she praise u are skillful in using words.

[vietboy]

Originally Posted by jackbl

My interpretation is that she praise u are skillful in using words.

Agreed with prof jackbl.

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by vietboy

Agreed with prof jackbl.

Where the hxxx u arised from??? I think your tieng viet now must be very skillful. Everyday also "drink" vietnamese saliva. Hehe

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by hoian

Learn to speak like a local

Today I hope to share with bros on how to speak like a local. If you refer to phrase books, Youtube lessons etc, they teach the basics.. but seriously... no one on the streets speak in such a formal and structured way.

Let's start with the following. Will add on bit by bit when I have time.

... more later...

Why are we waiting?????

[jackbl]

Dancers at bars, beer clubs in Vietnam – P1: Their work
================================================== ===================
Beautiful women with sexy bodies wear only glittering underwear and dance on elevated platforms.

After drinking beer and wine, guests gathered in big groups whirl around the dancers amid continuously moving colorful light beams and loud music.

This is the common atmosphere at most bars and beer clubs in major cities in Vietnam, which are popular at night.

The job of those sexy dancers is not only to lure guests into dancing but also to ‘entertain’ the eyes of guests with their sexy bodies.

Dancers do not work individually for bars and beer clubs but belong to dance groups, the owners of which have contracts with bars regarding the performance time and the number of dancers they need.

Light job, heavy salary

This is a favorite job of young and beautiful girls since it is well paid even though they do not need to possess good academic certificates.

And the demand for dancers is also increasing thanks to the opening of more bars and beer clubs.

Catching the ‘need of the market,’ some people have set up their own music groups and recruited beautiful women to train them to become dancers.

Dancers are paid by their group owners and are at the disposal of the owners to assign them to any bar or beer club.

The common standards required for a dancer to be recruited include a cute face and appearance and a height of at least 1.6 meters. Those who do not know how to dance will be trained by the owners.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper journalists recently disguised themselves to enter a group and learn the ‘true trade’ behind the colorful lights onstage.

After reading a recruitment advertisement in a newspaper, the journalists contacted N., an owner and trainer of a music group in Ho Chi Minh City. N. was previously a professional dancer.

Meeting for the first time at her class, N. glanced at the women’s bodies and decided to allow the undercover journalists to join her training.

Each training session lasted around an hour and N. mainly trained five basic exercises, for example the rhythmic physical movements to music.

The exercises were repeated many times.

At the end of the session, N. told her dancers, “I need you to train diligently so you each will earn a minimum salary of VND9 million [US$414] a month, excluding tips from guests.

“On average you will perform at one or two bars a night and get paid VND700,000 [$32] each.

“I will cover the cost for the performance uniform.”

At the second training session with N., more girls were recruited in. Some did not know how to dance while others worked as disc jockeys (DJs) and danced well.

Quyen, a 20-year-old woman from Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta, and her aunt, 22, were two of the newcomers. A student joined the class as well.

Quyen said she works as a DJ at a bar and is paid VND12 million ($552) a month. Her job ends before midnight so she wants to learn dancing to work after that time.

Making even simple motions leaves dancers sweaty and tired.

N. has a total of 30 dancers who are assigned to perform at bars in Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding provinces.

After only two sessions, N. sent her newcomers out to perform at bars.

The Tuoi Tre journalists also learned that another dancing group is owned by a woman named X.L., who is better known by bar owners thanks to her beautiful dancers.

X.L.’s dancers are at least 1.66m tall and have good looking faces and sexy bodies.

Most of them have had cosmetic surgery on their breasts, bottom, eyes and nose.

On X.L.’s Facebook page she boasts of recruiting dancers with monthly income from VND9 million ($414) to VND18 million ($828) after three months.


The stage

The changing room for dancers at bars is often a small corner in an attic above the bar. This is also where they do make-up before their performance.

The stage for a dancer is actually a small platform some 50cm higher than the dance floor which guests use.

The position and the height ensure that guests sitting at tables are able to see dancers and make them feel like they are dancing with the dancers.

Each dancer is required to dance for three to four periods of time, each lasting ten minutes.

Besides dancers on platforms, guests in bars can also have their eyefuls of the sexy bodies of dancers and talk with girls, who are actually beer waitresses, at every table.

On the elevated stage, dancers do not need to follow uniform acts but can display their freestyle during the ten minutes.

Not only do they dance on the platform, dancers also observe to see if any guest signals at them.

After their performance, they will come to the guests who signaled to smile and drink beer with them, and then talk and take tips.

For dancers, the tips are meant to cover their sweat and work on stage. But it could also be the start of a new relationship.

After performing, every dancer rushes toward water bottles to gulp them down to satisfy their thirst after losing sweat.

[hoian]

I have a few FB friends who work as DJs in HCMC. Even the DJs need to have sexy bodies and they like to post sexy pics and let their "fans" know where they are performing next. Very competitive industry.

[hoian]

Today's lesson in TV: Useful phrases.

If your gf asks u when u are cheonging, what about your wife?
You can reply: "Xa mat cach long ma".
Which means "out of sight, out of mind".

Another useful phrase:
A khong giau em (I have nothing to hide from you).
"Giau" is from the word giấu giếm (hide, cover up).

Ranh is another word quite often used which means "free time".
Eg Ranh roi em di mua - Go buy when you are free.

Another phrase:
Dua em ti thoi - I am just joking with you.

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by hoian

Today's lesson in TV: Useful phrases.

If your gf asks u when u are cheonging, what about your wife?
You can reply: "Xa mat cach long ma".
Which means "out of sight, out of mind".

Do you meant when you are cheonging, what is your wife doing?

Then she'll reply you this "Nguu tam Nguu, Ma tam Ma"!!! ( Birds of a feather flock together)

[jackbl]

Don’t let ugly individuals bring Saigon into disrepute: expert
================================================== ============================
Saigon should not continue letting its reputation be tarnished by the ‘ugly Saigonese,’ those who see foreign tourists as cash cows and blatantly extort them, a seasoned urban studies expert argues.

Dr. Nguyen Minh Hoa said he did not coin the term “ugly Saigonese,” but learnt it from a Malaysian professor, who is the head of an institute for environmental research and has frequently been on business trips to the southern Vietnamese metropolis.

“Professor Badarudin began using that phrase after being badly treated many times by a few people in Saigon,” Hoa said in a piece sent to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The Vietnamese urban studies expert used the former name of Ho Chi Minh City in his statement.

He is among many readers who provided feedback on recent Tuoi Tre reports that unearthed scammers exclusively targeting foreigners in the city.

These scammers are coconut peddlers who are willing to charge foreign tourists cut-throat prices, or invite them to pose for a photograph with their ganh – the bamboo yokes hung with baskets at each end used to carry the fruits around – and demand up to VND200,000 (US$10) for it.

A recent undercover Tuoi Tre mission revealed that foreigners are charged by street vendors as much as VND200,000 for two coconuts, which normally cost only VND30,000 ($1.4) at most.

“The professor told me he is annoyed by the xe om [motorbike taxi] and street peddlers almost every time he is in the city,” Hoa said.

“He once had to pay VND2 million [$93] for a taxi ride from the city’s downtown to RMIT University in District 7.”

Hoa said he works at an organization frequently visited by scientists all over the world, most of whom are cheated by Vietnamese cabbies at least once.

“The taxi drivers would drive without resetting the meters, or take our guests on roundabout trips,” he said. “And our female guests always fall victim to the dishonest vendors who sell coconuts, key chains and maps both on the streets and in the markets.”

Hoa underlined that these international scientists will have a negative impression of Ho Chi Minh City thanks to such bad experiences, no matter how the Vietnamese side tries to excuse and explain.

“Even worse, these international guests will share their bad stories with others,” Hoa said.

Hoa himself is a frequent flyer, and he said it is no surprise to see more than 80 percent of visitors to Vietnam never come back.

“There are dozens of warnings about scams, rip-offs and pickpockets in Vietnam on global travel guidance websites or forums,” he said.

“Our tourism authorities have also strived to improve things, but it does not seem to be enough to reassure tourists.”

The power of public voice

Hoa said the ‘ugly Saigonese’ are those who come to Saigon from other localities to earn a livelihood.

Ho Chi Minh City is known as a melting pot, and while some try their utmost to contribute to the city’s development, others only seek to earn money by all means, even through scams and crimes.

“These are the real ‘ugly Saigonese’ who ruin the reputation of this city,” Hoa pressed.

One problem is that laws are not harsh enough to penalize these scammers.

“The question is why such ugly actions do not exist in Malaysia, Singapore, or South Korea but they can easily be found in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City?” he said.

Hoa said while local residents and tourists cannot bank on the law to have the ‘ugly Saigonese’ penalized, another kind of power should be deployed to “prevent them from bringing the city into disrepute.”

“We should use social attitude and the public voice,” he elaborated.

The expert said the scammers or dishonest peddlers may be discouraged from continuing their acts when they are repeatedly mentioned in the media and condemned, criticized and boycotted by members of the public.

“They will have to review their behavior and actions once their family members, such as parents and children, feel ashamed of what they are doing,” he concluded.

[jackbl]

He said, she said and culture shock issues from a Vietnam perspective
================================================== ======================================
Editor’s note: Stivi Cooke is living in Hoi An, a small town in central Vietnam.



A journalist from Tuoi Tre News asked me about people’s reactions to Vietnam once they return to their home countries. She wanted some opinions about a New Zealand teacher’s criticism of Vietnamese life told to a Vietnamese student in the Australasian country.

The Vietnamese student narrated the whole story in Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in mid-May. In one of his multi-cultural management classes, a teacher who had just returned after two years of working in Vietnam told his students about some habits of Vietnamese people like littering or driving on the sidewalk. Moreover, he said it was “horrible” that Vietnamese put ice in every single kind of beverage they have. The Vietnamese student felt upset, then stood up in the class and said, "I think you need more time to understand Vietnamese culture. Every country has its own social issues and I believe that it's not appropriate to make fun of such things in a multi-culture management class.”

The student then wrote a letter to the school’s deputy rector, saying after two years of living in New Zealand, he understands every country has its own social issues, and no place is perfect. “We cannot judge a culture because it’s different from ours,” he wrote. “There’s nothing hard to understand that people in a tropical country like Vietnam put ice into drinks to cool down their body temperature.”

The school’s deputy principal stood on his side and held a meeting where the teacher apologized to the students. The teacher expressed that he should have used “surprising” instead of “horrible” to describe things.

I told our intrepid journalist a little bit about ‘culture shock’. She asked me to write some more about this and what I thought about the teacher/student incident.

Many people who live and teach in another culture suffer 'culture shock' and automatically measure the new culture against their own country. This teacher only told their side of the story and I don't think the teacher really understood that some bad things happen simply because Vietnam is still a developing country. For example, electricity is expensive in some places so drinks are not stored cold. Littering is an issue of responsibility to the environment which we only learn from school or great parents. Since the teacher apologized, that should be the end of the story.

I used to think that many things were terrible like pissing next to the road but now I'm so used to it that it doesn't really worry me - except the traffic. The ice in the drink is unimportant and the littering is not everywhere so that's really not that true either. The teacher seemed a little bit arrogant to me.

Culture shock is a strange thing. It’s a little bit like grief when someone dies. Everyone has a different reaction. It’s the reaction you get when you are in a foreign country and everything is different and you struggle to make sense of what happens around you. While tourists get a mild dose of this – they can return home so the impact is not lasting.

For expats like me, living a long time in a foreign culture can be quite stressful until you get used to the food, the customs, the way of life and huge distance between their thinking and your thinking. You would be quite surprised how people quit and go home while others take to a foreign culture without any great problems.

I remember arriving in Hanoi around midnight in the summer heat of 2006. I was travelling with an Australian guy who wanted to meet a friend in Hoi An. Our trip to the hotel was like suddenly being thrown into the middle of a typhoon – people roaring past on old motorbikes so close that I could have shaken their hand – the overwhelming smells of food piled high on the bikes and the wall of noise surrounding us.

My friend freaked out and swore all the way to the hotel. We found a restaurant that was open very late next to a street corner and watched Hanoi’s traffic insanity over some cold beers and a good steak. He vowed to stay indoors until we got to Hoi An and never left his room while we were in Hanoi.

But I loved it. The next day I was all over town – the lake, the mausoleum, the French quarter – on a cyclo, a three-wheeled tourist bicycle. Later in Hoi An, I just fell in love with Vietnam for reasons that I still, after seven years of living here, don’t fully understand.

Yet it has never been easy here. The daily frustrations of communication and getting your needs met begin to eat away at your patience and your tolerance of local habits. Things start to become ‘black and white’ – that’s good, this is terrible, I hate it when Vietnamese do this or that, why can’t they think like me, it’s simple to me and impossible to them... the list of irritations can be mind-boggling.

A pet hate (something people like to complain about a lot) was Vietnamese shaking my hand with wet hands. My god, I think... why? Why don’t they dry their hands? Don’t they know about diseases? Another thing that really got under my skin was the apparent inability to admit that something is wrong, incorrect or that they made a mistake. It didn’t take me long to understand that two hands shaken in the air means “I don’t know but I’m not saying anything.”

Yet I learned to live with the differences by trying to understand – ask questions – why do you do this or that? Also I took the time to think about what life is like from a Vietnamese point of view – the need to be practical yet at the same time focused completely on what they are doing at that particular time, not the effects on the people around them. It starts to make sense then.

The New Zealand teacher had lived in Vietnam for two years and was reporting back to the class impressions of life in Vietnam when the Vietnamese student (who had also lived in New Zealand for two years) took offence, complained to the rector of the school and asked for an apology from the teacher.

Everyone judges or measures the life around them. We can’t help that – it’s part of what makes us human. As I see it, both the teacher and the student are a bit hypocritical for picking only the negative parts – but to be fair – what the teacher said was GOOD about Vietnam wasn’t reported.

Then there’s the issue of thoughtfulness. Should the teacher have been more careful about what was said? Should the Vietnamese student have made such a fuss about it?

As an Australian, I do hear comments from time to time about how awful Australians can be when we travel – mostly as young backpackers, rather than more worldly-wise folks. I’m used to it and I sometimes agree. So this is the point of view to me – everyone has the right to complain... and to be offended... however, demanding that one person say sorry is sometimes too much unless there was genuine malice in the comments by the teacher.

And as for the student? Well, it’s not so unusual to hear complaints about a country, any country, and it is part of becoming wiser to let some comments slide rather than make a scene about it.

The simple truth is that the good and the bad of anything are things we love to comment on. So I’d say to both of them...

Get used to it. And learn to live and let others live.

[hoian]

Just to keep this thread alive.
Anyone understands this phrase?

Em khong muon anh hua leo nua.