I never did run this morning, but I did get out right after 6:30 breakfast to walk around Can Tho where I had been several years ago. The ubiquitous ferry boat on the river, the children walking with their mother on the way to school, and the market selling zucchini flowers and endless other multi-colored vegetables and fruits made the morning promise good things to come.
This adorable grandmother was playing with the little boy, and they all posed for me despite their serious faces. They beamed when I showed them the photo.
As I turned the corner to the street where the hotel was, I saw this delightful gathering of men, drinking coffee behind this cute little picket fence.
We got into our bus, I riding shot-gun and photographing like a mad woman, and drove to Ca Mau, a good three hours from Can Tho. Ca Mau is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta, and the drive to it was like driving through paradise for me, the crisp green paddy fields, the endless canals, the water throughout the firleds and between the houses, and the side of the road occasionally harboring a bulbous water buffalo or a slew of ducklings dousing themselves in the water. The whole ride was bliss.
When we arrived, we went right to the Tien Hoe Temple where I burned some incense, said a prayer three times and then got a written scroll charm for my house.
This was a guard lady outside the temple who was working on her needlepoint of a woman playing the guqin, or something like it. 
This man kept ringing the dong, for what purpose I was never clear, but he concentrated and played it consistently enough to give one a headache. The temple is a Chaozhou (referred to in Malaysia as Teow Chew, I believe), and in the afternoon we met with their association.
This is our "Best CM Hotel," which was over a kilometer out of town, and after we ate lunch I walked back into the city with a colleague, and I bought a pair of those pajamas that all the Vietnamese in the south seem to wear when they are selling their wares. One of the leaders of our group teased me and suggested I get a pair, and now I've got some. It's definitely worth a photo.
We met for over two hours with these men who told us ALL about their Association affiliated with the temple, and they answered our endless questions, after which we walked to the "All in One Temple," where we were told the Hakkas had as association. The temple itself is for ALL the worshipping Chinese Vietnamese.
This is the head of their association.
One of our Vietnamese scholars wanted us to see the "stadium" or "arena" that the Chaozhou had built, and it turned out to be a gym where people were playing wickedly fast badminton; upstairs we learned there was a disco dance hall where people learned to dance. Here is the photograph of Hi Chi Minh lifting weights with his skinny little arms waving listlessly as the Communist flag flutters above. What a hoot!
My eye is always drawn to the abstract, the color and the shapes.
On our way to Professor Tho's in-laws' house, we saw this little boy leaning dreamily on his father's motorcycle. I can only imagine what he is imagining.
This little girl was squatting right between her grandfather's legs as he squatted on the sidewalk, and I tried to get that photo before she stood up; even though I missed that one, I got this one, and when I showed it to the two of them, grandpa beamed with a smile a mile wide and a substantial gap in his teeth.
We stopped to get fruit for the festival tonight, and this beautiful woman helped us select a quarter of a heavenly jack fruit, mangosteens, lychee, rose apples and guavas. It promised to be a feast because Professor Tho's father-in-law was cooking up some crabs.
When we got there, we saw a long table set for us and the women in the kitchen were piling plates and bowls of food on the table; I looked hungrily at the gigantic shrimp, the blackened fish and the other fish dishes (no crab), but then I was shown to the head of the table where an array of dishes for "the vegetarian" were plopped right in front of me. They were so scrumptious that I skipped the fish almost entirely except for the sour soup with long, skinny little fish with their heads still on were joined with crispy greens and mushrooms. The broth was such a tasty flavor that I loaded up on it until the fruits were brought out, and then, I ate entirely TOO MUCH of it all! It was a grand feast, so generously prepared and offered to us by Tho's sweet and dear mother-in-law and sister-in-law and helper ladies that by the end we were all hugging each them and babbling our thanks, knowing that they could not understand a word of English.
Before the taxis came to take us back to our hotel, I had to snap this photo of one of the little boys playing on the computer - it is certainly the universal dilemma!
Tomorrow we fly to Hoi An, leaving here at 6:15, breakfast at 5:45. I must stop and get to bed, but a parting word from our Vietnamese scholar who is married to a Chinese Vietnamese woman. I asked if push came to shove, who were these Chinese Vietnamese and whom would they support if there were another conflict between Vietnam and China. He responded, "Being Chinese is their destiny."
That pretty much sums it up; you can assimilate all you want to as a diasporic Chinese, but if your destiny is being Chinese, you are never anything else. It is a bone chilling thought to me... I'm not quite sure why, AND I'm not sure that I believe it!
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