Chicken Rice Full Moon

Halloween and a full moon, what good luck. Back in Ohio, I remember that the commute between my university and Cincinnati would go through a forest rich in autumn colours. While there the weather cools and the green browns, in Saigon what trees there are haven't changed their hue and won't. The dry season will be starting soon, however, so that'll be a first for me.
My school goes crazy for Halloween, kids go from room to room asking for candy, and then throwing paper at each other. They prefer tricks over treats. After my class got raided by a neighbouring room, we dropped in on them to exact revenge. The other class held the door fast to prevent our entry as my students struggled to get the door opened. In the push and pull the door actually broke off the dry wall. Oops.
Also, the younger kids got to pay a visit to the ILA haunted 'house', a converted classroom on the fifth floor across from the bathrooms.


My students were so scared to go in, only three in a class of eighteen even tried, of those only two made it through. And there were many tears. My favorite part of Halloween? I got to wear flip flops instead of dress shoes to work as part of my pirate 'costume'. First time my feet didn't hurt at the end of a weekend.
Halloween night Daphne and I joined our friends and former CELTA colleagues, Rob and Sylven, at Muntaz for some Indian food and then went to the club up in the Sheraton for their Halloween party to meet up with my roommate, Anh. It was a good time, but having to wake up at 5am the next morning for work, I couldn't stay out that long.
Today, my real weekend[Monday], we had several errands to run through out the day. Taking lunch at a chicken rice place, we got into a bit of a disagreement with the proprietor. First, never ask for chicken, or you end up getting fish. The words are very similar but the inflection is opposite. So 'asking' chicken yields fish. But we do get our chicken,regretting we didn't get the fish instead, which was cold and chewy. Finishing the meal, we got the bill and it was for 134,000 VND[$7USD]. Ok, so this probably doesn't seem like much, but this is Vietnam. It shouldn't have been half that price. The chicken rice was 90,000 and should've been more like 45-50,000. I had a word with the owner and called foul. Put 105 on the table[still more than I should] and she got angry. She blocked the entrance, threatening to call the cops. Daphne and I told her to go ahead, we weren't going to pay the other 30, not because its expensive, but for the principle. She fiddled with her phone but kept putting it away and instead yelling at passing locals to bare witness. But I could tell by their faces that she wasn't winning favour with them. Especially after I showed them another customer's receipt I had found there, showing that they were charged only 40,000 for the chicken rice. In the end, both Daphne and I had reached our time limit for how long our principles would hold out against a dispute over $1.50. So I paid up and we left. Outside, one of the women watching walked with us and motioned that the place was bad and not worth coming back to. For Anh's two cents, he said, 'so basically what happened was, you were white in Vietnam.' But usually when a merchant gets caught gauging they correct themselves. This woman just went berserk, not willing to lose face in front of me, but instead losing face in front of her neighbours. My two cents? People go crazy when the moon is full.