She understands me!!!

My Mekong delta excursion included an overnight stay in the city of Cần Thơ in hotel Huy Hoàng. There are pictures at the link. (Note: If there isn't a panoramic view of the street from the hotel's 3rd floor you can check again later if you want to see the hotel and street in front. It takes a while for the pictures to be posted to Google Maps.)

While riding the tour bus into Cần Thơ our guide told us that the locals refer to English speakers as "hellos" because, of course, that's how we greet people and respond when greeted. I've been trying to learn some Vietnamese for quite a while and have learned the Vietnamese "hello" is "chào" followed by an appropriate pronoun. There are many pronouns to choose and the correct one to use reflects the gender, relative age difference, familial relationship and familiarity with the person being addressed! Fortunately if you don't know how to decipher it all getting by with nothing at all or "em" both seem to work fairly well. Whew.

In the evening I went walking to the market along Hai Bà Trưng street.

I walked quite a bit and went from the hotel to Hai Bà Trưng then right to the intersection with Phan Đình Phùng street, turned around and went to the intersection with Vo Van Tanh street, turned around again and found  restaurant for dinner then finally back to the hotel.

While out walking a group of four young Vietnamese, two couples I'd guess to be college students, walked by me. One of the women said "hello" to me and I replied "chào em". On hearing that she began asking me several questions in English and where I thought I knew the appropriate Vietnamese response I replied in Vietnamese. She and her friends seemed to really enjoy my Vietnamese quite a bit. After some conversation with her friends she asked if they could take a picture with me because "Caucasians never try and speak Vietnamese" and not only that, they could understand me. Of course I said YES.

Quite an ego boost. And it was going to get better.

After the conversation with the students I continued my walk until I saw an appealing restaurant. The place had an open air front with tables looking out to the sidewalk to sit and watch the passersby. I sat down and the waitress provided me with a menu. After looking it over I ordered by reading the Vietnamese from the menu. Once I finished the meal I asked for the bill and confirmed the amount still using Vietnamese. When the waitress came back with change she asked, in English, if I live or work in Vietnam! When I asked the reason for her question she said my Vietnamese was very good and she could understand me easily so she thought I must have spent a lot of time in Vietnam. That was great to hear.