Fahawesome

I don't know why I feel the need to apologize for only writing once last week.  I've let everyone down!  I'll try to do better this week.

On Saturday we went to the big book store Fahasa (389 Hai Ba Trung, D3).  Reyna needs to go regularly to get supplies for school and, for the first time ever, I was looking for a book as well.  At five floors Fahasa is by far the largest book store in the city. Most of the books are in Vietnamese but the fourth floor contains a decent number of English language books.  When I say "Engligh language books" I mean exactly that:  books that teach you the language of English.  It's filled with dictionaries and all levels of workbooks.  I had to resist spending money on a work book that teaches flight attendants to speak English.  I flipped through it.  Brilliant.  It had all these exercises with pictures of oxygen masks and fire extinguishers, which you then had to match with the appropriate emergency words in English.  Oxygen Mask goes with "Cabin Depressurization" and  Life Raft goes with "Water Landing."  If it hadn't cost $10, it would have come home with me. 

The section containing English books that would be considered "for fun" is pretty weak.  I suppose it's not weak at all if you're obsessed with Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling, but everything else is either a novelization of a screenplay or "young people classics.*"  I don't understand why they don't just stock regular books that are written for people at a certain reading level.  Perhaps reading Treasure Island as it was originally written would be a good goal rather than reading the fifth grade version.  My guess as to why they have so few is that they can't compete with the book bootleggers down in the backpacker area.  They sell bootleg copies of books for about 1/3 the price if you're willing to haggle with them.

*You know, those books that are dumbed down versions of classic books.  Hey are you too stupid or too bad at English to read Pride and Prejudice?  Well I have just the thing for you!  It's Pride and Prejudice written at a fourth grade level!  Come to think of it, maybe they should sell more of these in the US.  Young Classics: When the Cliff's Notes Are Too Hard. 

Anyway, my favorite part of Fahasa by far is the fifth floor.  It contains the most confusingly wonderful mish-mash of things.  When I die, I hope heaven has an unending floor of crap that rivals the fifth floor of Fahasa.  They even have a pottery painting section.  Every time we go I ask Reyna if she want's to paint a piece of pottery, but she always says no.  And why paint pottery yourself when you can buy an unbelievable array of crap that's already finished just a few feet away?  While Reyna busies herself with colored pencils and pens and things, I like to wander around in the housewares.  I remembered to bring a camera on Saturday. Here's a few Fahasa gems you might like to get for your family.

 

I realize that I'm doing a little Beavis and Butthead channeling here ("It says 'use on wood' huh-huh huh-huh") but this really made me laugh.  Let's see if I can think of a children's book title that makes me want to read a book less than The Hole.  How about  The Grate  or The Drywall? Not to mention that the "hole" on the cover isn't all that hole-ish.  It just looks like a smiley face to me.  If you click on the picture, you'll notice that everything other than "The Hole" is in Vietnamese, but the actual text of the book is in English.  It didn't hurt that this was sitting directly beside a stack of Decision Points by George W. Bush.  At least they have everything organized appropriately.  It's really a shame that the book isn't called A Hole rather than The Hole.



Rainy day outside?  Kids getting bored being stuck int he house all day?  There's nothing quite like a rousing game of Monkey Nuts!  Clearly this game was created by a deranged uncle.  I can just imagine a baby sitter showing up to watch a child, and before the parents leave, the sitter says, "Hey, after your parents leave we can play Monkey Nuts!"  Sirens and cool steel of handcuffs ensue.  Also consider the game contains a bunch of small plastic pieces that look like nuts.  This game is intended for four year olds. If you feel like you need to practice your Heimlich Maneuver, or if there's a kid down the street you don't like with a birthday coming up, you might want to consider Monkey Nuts. 



This is a two-for-one.  Now you are no longer relegated to simply showing your O-Face when you pick up that random stranger at the pub.  No.  Now you can also present them with a shining O-Face momento to commemorate that special night.  Picture this scenario:  Couple meet, hook up and then make arrangements for a second date.  When the guy arrives the following exchange takes place:

Man:  Hey I brought you a gift.

Woman: Oh how thoughtful!  [opens the package to find the porcelain o-face.  Pause. A beat.] What is it?

Man: I thought you might want something to remember that killer blow-job.  I've been thinking about it all week.  I'm super excited about our date.

[Woman exits, audience hears the sound of doors slamming offstage. As the lights fade we hear the sound of distant sirens]

Scene

Nothing says, "I enjoyed sexing you, and would like to do it again sometime" in a creepier way than giving this as a gift.  Come on, you laughed.  Admit it.

I couldn't decide if that's better or worse than the not-so-subtly racist "black guy playing the accordian" figurine behind the O-Face, so I took a photo with both.  They have an entire collection of "black guy doing X" figurines.  You can decorate your whole house!  The only thing that would make the figurine even more offensively amazing would be to place a banner at his feet that reads, "Shine Yo Shoes?"  When I was in high school, I dated a girl whose mother collected little figurines of black people.  She called them "Niglets."  Really I should have known right then that the relationship wasn't going anywhere.  I guess when you're sixteen and desperate to touch a boob you overlook that sort of thing.



I only took these three photos, but there is so SO much more.  Aisles and aisles of strange and incomprehensible knick-knacks.  I have to pace myself.  I get so overwhelmed by the amount of amazing crap that I start to sweat when I'm in there.  Most places like this don't allow you to take photos, so I have to be stealthy.  I don't know what I would do if I got banned from Fahasa.  I could fill up am 8Gb memory card with crazy shit from just this one store.  This is what makes it FAHAWESOME, but it's also why I don't have more photos from living here.  Everywhere you go, you see fifty things that are photo-worthy.  If I spent my time documeting everything I saw that was strange or noteworthy, I'd never get anything else done.  I didn't find the book I was looking for either.