the eve of christmas eve [dec.23]

Okay! Gotta get this all down while it's still fresh in my head.

Tonight was our Youth Nite Outreach for Christmas, it was awesome to see the house packed and the items for the night were kick-ass, especially the dance routines.
I also went about santa-ing tonight, I only wished I could've gotten to the shops today to get some more presents, and regret not taking a photo of Thien's face when he opened his present to reveal a "Sorry Girls, I'm Gay" t-shirt...

The weird thing happened after church, when we were all leaving to go home.
As we both live in the same direction, me and Tony take the same route home up to about my house, then Tony keeps going..., most of you will know what I'm talking about (that maddawg shortcut through the new St. Andrews area).
Upon reaching Alexander Drive, Tony jumped out of his car and ran up to mine, and I wound down my window expecting him to try and lift up my windscreen wipers or something annoying like that... He ended up saying "Come back to Church, there's been a car accident!".
We headed back to Church and ended up going down Torquata Drive (?) until we saw a crash scene... and quickly parked to see how we could help.

Chu Duc was there to help out with their family friend and her car as she was involved in the accident, and her daughters were taking charge of the situation, using their multilingual powers for the greater good. Or something. Tony was quicker to park and ran out first to get an idea of the situation, and only after walking over myself did I realise that it was Rory from MSHS who had been hit. In a car of course, not hit while he was walking or something.. he's not that indestructable (but he did seem completely fine after having his driver-side door smashed in). After much glancing and confusion I came to realise that the lady's daughters went to MSHS as well, and of all the people to come back to help, it was me and Tony, both MSHS students (for the uninformed).

Rory's driver-side door was smashed in pretty good... he couldn't get out through it or hazard any chance of prying it fully open, so he climbed out through the passenger door. Only problem was, when he closed the door he realised he locked his keys in the car.
*Cue MSHS Ingenuity* (it was probably his own smart thinking and optimism... not any special kindof ingenuity gained from going to MSHS)
He overcame this by ripping off the black thing on the side of the car (guys help me out, it's black. and it goes along the side of the doors, and it's kind of an extension of the bumper... and on certain cars it says 4.0 DOHC... I'm not a car kind of guy...) he managed to shove it through a gap in the door that had been kept open from the accident, and he managed to turn off his car engine and in a stroke of genius, open the boot.
Using the boot as a secret passageway into his car (pushing through the seats) he managed to unlock his car, retrieve all the documents he needed and eventually drive home (legend).
Obviously after such an experience, me and Tony were pretty damn hungry so we headed over to Tuart Hill Maccas for a feed.

It's good to be ex-MSHS.

afternote to travels.0

This blog is kindof for my own personal record, so it's importance to you and entertainment gained will probably be best represented by:
Thanks to Mike for the pic :D

-pete.|

travels.0 [20/11/2006]

Okay, here goes. I'm at the end of my trip so I decided that I should start documenting everything I've been through in these past few weeks on my holiday. Right now I'm sitting in a netcafe killing time before our taxi comes to pick us up.
Before I left on this trip, I knew I would get alot of, lets say discrimination, for being what's called "Viet Kieu".

A Viet Kieu is a person who left Vietnam and is returning back (technically I guess I'm not a Viet Kieu since I never left Vietnam in the first place, but anyway...). A person can be a Viet Kieu even if they left Vietnam to go to Cambodia, that is, it's not exclusive to Western countries.
- Definition provided by Mike

Anyway, because of my whiter-than-asian skin, poor knowledge of the Vietnamese language and Eurasian looks, I'd get ripped-off and cheated by every street-vendor and salesperson in Vietnam, except in the supermarket where the prices are set. What I didn't count on was being treated like a non-vietnamese before I even left Perth.
On the Monday before leaving, me and Tri went to get a haircut in the city at that Chinese place next to Utopia Bubble Tea... I walked through the door and:

Girl: Chien tou fatt? (Haircut in Cantonese... )
Me: Buh..?
Girl: Hair Cut?
Me: Buh.. oh. Yeah. Please.
Girl: Sit right there.
[ haircut proceeds... to the washing stage ]
Girl 2: So what dialect do you speak? Cos you seemed to be like "Wha..." when she spoke to you?
Me: Uh... dialect.. um. Vietnamese?
Girl 2: Oh.
Me: Yeah.
Girl 2: You look Chinese.

Bah. Chinese. Yeah I guess this is a stupid way to start it, but I thought my days of being called Chinese were over. I used to get it alot before, walking into Dim Sum and being spoken to in Chinese, going into Chinese groceries and newsagents.... Okay, come ot think of it I've only ever been called Chinese specifically in Chinese locales. Maybe I dont look Chinese, just a random mix of Asian that you can't place? Anyway, this was just a nice bit of foreshadowing for my trip, and what I learnt from it was to take it as a compliment. Oh, and nothing against Chinese people in particular, it's just what I happen to get called the most.

Good luck penpals.

-pete.|