Some news, sort of

Well, tonight we learned that the US embassy called our adoption agency's representative in Hanoi to ask for some information about something from the province that Julia is from. The piece of information that they asked for COULD have something to do with Julia's file, but of course it could have something to do with another child's file as well. So the news is...the US embassy in Hanoi is at least looking at some file from our agency! That gives us hope that perhaps Julia's visa won't be so far away...but then again...who knows.

We called the airline to change Barbie's ticket to a later date. We tried to change it to a week later than our departure (which would be January 6). Unfortunately, the airline said that the soonest date that ANY SEATS were available between Hanoi and Minnesota would be JANUARY 17! And that date includes a 12 hour wait in LA and taking the red-eye flight (which would actually be during Barbie and Julia's day time). We confirmed the change for now, but if the visa comes more than a few days before that, we will work to figure out how we can get them home sooner than that (note to self...send an email to our Minnesota travel agent).

We took a look at the Sunny Hotel today. Four other families from our agency are staying there right now and we wanted to see what it looks like and if it might be a good place for Barbie and Julia to be after we leave. It was pretty nice, but the rooms were smaller. The breakfast is better and the cable TV is far superior and it is close to some other Americans, so if Mr. Hien is able to get a good price for us, Barbie thinks it would be a good move to make.

I had a chance to enter into another negotiation in Vietnam. As many of you know I stupidly lost our camera a couple of weeks ago. Many of you also know that I bought a new camera here to replace it. Well...on Christmas night, the automatically-opening shutter cap started malfunctioning. It doesn't happen often...but for a brand new camera, it was unsuccessful. So, today I went (by myself) to the camera store to exchange the camera for one that worked properly. My warranty was only supposed to be good for Vietnam, so I wanted to take care of this right away!

When I got there, two guys looked at the camera and it wouldn't malfunction. They said that the camera is not broken so there is not anything that they could do for me. I insisted that something had to be done, and they went along helping other customers. A bit later, one of them was turning the camera off and on and finally the lens cap malfunctioned! He looked up at me and I said, "AHA!" He looked up at me and I knew that he understood that there was a problem. The other guy (his supervisor) did not see the malfunction and he stated that the camera is not broken, and besides, the camera couldn't be exchanged for a new one after the first week. I was beside myself. I explained to the gentleman that his salesman told me that there price was a little bit higher than other places, but that they buy direct from the factor and offer the best quality and best service and we should trust them more than the cheaper places. Well, the fellow said, in Vietnam you can only exchange the camera in the first week.

I was quite disappointed. First I lost the camera. Next I decided that we should buy a replacement in Vietnam (not a cheap one) and in Vietnam I probably paid $25-50 more for the camera than I would have at Best Buy (with a real warranty there!) I would be very disappointed in myself if the result of my poor decisions landed us with a half-working camera for a lot of money.

I decided it was time for an ultimatum. I said that I was not going to leave the store until I got a new camera and that I would sit down and make myself comfortable until they brought the camera. Then I sat down. There were a couple of teenage girls that seemed to be friends of the salesman, and when I did this, they started laughing.

Well, the salesman's supervisor seemed put off by the idea of my ugly carcass being in his store indefinitely, so he said something to the salesman. The salesman left and came back 5 minutes later with a new camera. I was elated, but had to keep my cool and act like this was exactly what I expected to happen. As the supervisor handed me the camera he said, you know, we wouldn't give this new camera to a Vietnamese person, because they wouldn't expect the camera to be exchanged after one week. Because of this experience, I think that if Julia's visa doesn't come through and we need to move to Vietnam and live for two years, maybe I could start a consumer consulting/training business where I could help Vietnamese citizens to learn how to demand a 90 day exchange policy...either that or be a boat captain at Ha Long Bay. At least now I have options.

Well...that's the news (soft of). Hope all is well there. Please remember to watch the Rose Bowl on January 1 and root for the Illini (although USC will kill us).

Take care,
Doug