[ray7ray]

Chào các bạn và bạn đồng- song!

Hiện nay sớm lắm. Tôi vừa thức dậy sớm để có dịp lên chatroom (chatroom bằng tiếng Việt nói sao? ) mà chẳng có ai ở đó! Giời ơi, chán qúa! Bây giờ là 5 giờ buổi sáng. 5:00 a.m. in the morning on a saturday may not be early for people in Vietnam, but it is in the United States. Many people like to sleep in on saturdays till at least 8:00 a.m. before getting up, unless they have made plans for something. Thôi, Ray nói về điều khác nhé!!

I want to talk to everyone about introduction, especially since this is the social forum. There is a core group of people who participate on a regular basis at this VIEX site. Let's ALL get to know one another better! Unless you prefer to stay anonymous which is okay. But after looking at most profile of people writing at this site I find that most are blank. So how about everyone start getting to know each other, okay?!!!

Let us at least give out the basics. Like how about a real first name? It doesn't have to be your true name, but that would be nice. I think it's more personal to talk with someone who has a real name instead of just letters and numbers as a user name, for example Huê164. And for other information, how about whether you are male or female. That way we can get use to knowing names in one language and being able to understand that name is male or female name in that language. And how about an age, where you live- city and or at least country. How about at least three subjects of interest to you so that others can have a subject in common to begin conversation with. If you want you can even put personal information like family, but you don't have to. How about occupation??

Okay, Ray sẽ bắt đầu vịêc này.

My true name is Ray, of course. Năm nay Ray có 52 tuổi (mỹ). I am half Vietnamese by blood/birth. Mẹ Ray was Vietnamese of Chinese decent from Vietnam. My father was Mexican American. Họ gặp nhau tại nước Việt Nam. That's where I was born. Nhưng mà gia đình Ray qua Mỹ khi Ray còn nhỏ tuổi. I was two years old when we came to the United States. We came by boat, Vietnam to the Philippines, then to Hawaii, then arrived in San Francisco where we lived. My father told me that we had a short stop in Hawaii , so we went to the beach. He said I didn't like Hawaii very much because when he put me in the ocean water I cried and pee-ed my diapers, LOL !! Trông khi gia đình Ray ở Hawaii chúng ta ra ngoài thăm bãi biển. Ba Ray để bé con Ray trên/dưới nứơc và lúc đó bé Ray bắt đầu khóc và đi dải. Cha nói là vì thế bé Ray không thích Hawaii đâu cả! LOL!

My mother, Lưu thị Bi Bi, didn't like this country. My parents divorceed when I was about seven years old. By then I had two brothers both born here in the United states. The American court system awarded custody of us boys to my dad. After that we never saw our mother again. So we are completely American culturally, raised completely in American society.

I am married and have a twenty year old daughter. I work in a hospital. We have four dogs. two horses, a rabbit, and a guinea pig. They are all pets we love! I love to read, love Vietnam and anything asian. I love to eat. I am a Christian. I like to hike/walk, am interested in nutrition, different cultures. My wife grew up on a cattle ranch in the state of Wyoming and her family are all cowboys. My dream is to some day at least visit Vietnam again since I haven't been there since birth. It's all a matter of economics. I've lived in many places in the United states. We have lived in California, Texas (moved up to Utah from San Antonio, Texas), New Mexico, Florida, New York, and I have been in Utah since 1979. I also have been to Korea, and Okinawa while serving four year of service in the United States Army.

Okay, enough for now. Everybody have a wonderful day!!

ray7ray or just Ray. :lol: :lol:

[ray7ray]

Fast note,

By the way, Ray is a man's name. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is in the Rocky Mountains.

Ray

[giang]

Chào anh Ray,

At first, I will try to answer your questions:

"Chatroom" is "phòng chát" in Vietnamese
Năm nay Ray có 52 tuổi < Năm nay Ray 52 tuổi (có obmitted)
...bé Ray không thích Hawaii đâu cả < bé Ray không thích Hawaii TÍ NÀO.
Ba Ray để bé con Ray trên/dưới nứơc < Better to say "dưới nước"

Your story is very interesting. I think there are many people who wil share it with a lot of emotion.

When I have free time, I will post my story, too.
Giang

[ray7ray]

Hello to all,

Wow, I have been gone a whole two weeks. I must say I am disappointed in the fact that nobody (except for thầy Giang) has taken up my suggestion to share a little about themselves here in this forum. :cry:

Come on now, please don't be shy. How else can we develop friendships??



Ray

[Ern]

G'day Ray
I'm a 57 year old retired Veteran from Australia......currently trying to understand the Vietnam that has haunted me for nearly 30years.
So I have returned many times and I am trying to learn basic Vietnamese, while also reading as much about the history and culture as I can.
It is a very interesting journey ....
Ern

[Jameelia]

Hello everyone. My name is Jameelia. I was born in America and want to learn different languages. I have a large family. I want to explore new people. I also want to travel to different places around the world. I am 14 and want to learn new things. I am only 14. I like sports cars, music, and getting to meet new interesting people.

[Ern]

Welcome Jameelia
I hope you enjoy your time and can learn something here. Please ask questions and give opinions, that way we can all learn together. Next post if you want to post in English that is, turn the "Vietnamese Typing" of by ticking the "off" button. Just makes it easier for you
Ern

[Jameelia]

Originally Posted by Ern

Welcome Jameelia
I hope you enjoy your time and can learn something here. Please ask questions and give opinions, that way we can all learn together. Next post if you want to post in English that is, turn the "Vietnamese Typing" of by ticking the "off" button. Just makes it easier for you
Ern

Thanks very much. I just want to meet new people and learn a little Vietnamese so I can talk to my friends here in America.

[ray7ray]

Xin Chào Các bạn mến !!
Hello to Everybody!

Ern, thanks for helping out and sharing. Tell us a little about Mildura. Are you married? How do you spend your free time? Ern is an interesting name. Is it short for Ernest? How many times have you been to Vietnam?

A lot of you all are students. Maybe you can tell us what you are studying. Perhaps everone can share their age. Maybe each person here can share with us about one meaningful event that happened in your life.

Katores, are you a student also? Are you Vietnamese? From reading your user ID, I would guess you might be like me, half Vietnamese American and half Hispanic American. Kha for Việt and Tores for Hispanic ? Am I close? I know we all apreciate all your contributions and thank you.

Jameelia, welcome to our forum! I see that you speak a little Japanese, you should talk to Okijapan too since she is a student from Japan. Have you tried starting the beginning lessons in Vietnamese here at this site? You tell us that you have a very big family. How many are there of you?

nktvn, you are also a good contributor too, and I can see you want to help. Did you grow up in America or are you just studying here?

abc, tell us a little about Quảng Bình, your home town. abc có thể cho chúng tôi biết một ít về quê nhà ( Quảng Bình) của abc không? Are you still in school in Hồ Chí Minh City? abc còn đi học không? Is it college? Hopefully you have family close by as it is probably hard to travel from Sài Gồn to Quảng Bình often. Have you ever traveled outside of Vietnam?

How about the rest of you? won't you tell us a little about yourselves? Hey Eck, How's it going? I know, con ếck, means "frog" in Vietnamese. May I ask why you chose that particular name, eck? abc là con trai hay là con gái? Have you ever heard the English story about the frog Prince?

okijapan, how was your trip to Vietnam? I used to have an American friend here in Salt Lake City named Tyler who was married to a very nice Japanese woman in her twenties named Megume. She attending college here. She didn't have any Japanese friends in this city. But they moved to the state of kentucky. There is a very large Toyota factory there and many, many Japanese workers as well as Americans. They even have a Japanese school for the kids! they will put their son in that school and now are very happy as they have lots of Japanese friends! I miss them very much.

Mr. Sài Gồn, I think that maybe you work in Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh. Where are you from and what do you do in Ho Chi Minh City? Do you have family there?

Thưa thầy Giang, will we hear about your story soon? Are you currently working in Korea? How is that going? How do they treat you there? I assume you must know some Korean language. By the way, how many students have participated in the online live classroom?? I hope to join soon, but I need to purchase a headset. Oh, and I was confused on the time. Which time and date is the class, Vietnam time?

In Vietnam, do people exchange cards for special occassions? In America, we exchange cards in the major holidays, like Christmas, Easter, birthdays, Valentines Day (To celebrate and give gifts to our sweethearts), etc... Besides Tết, what are two other major holidays that are celebrated in Vietnam???

Okay, I will stop for now. I just wanted to create some way for people to get to know each other. There are people from many different places around the world. Sharing is always fun. Anyone who wants to write me is more than welcome!
_________________________________

" Count that day lost whose descending sun finds you with no good deeds done."

Ray from Salt Lake City

[Ern]

G'day Ray
Your first Australian lesson
G'day shortened version of Good Day. a greeting that is meant to imply "I hope that you will have a good day"
I must say that you are certainly keen to get everybody into talking and sharing. I agree with you 100%. I hope every body takes the time to reply to you.
Yes Ray Ern is short for Ernest. I first went to Vietnam in 1968 (sigh) I finally realized that I had to go back in about 1995 got the courage to go in 2001.
There I met this beautiful Vietnamese woman. To make a long story short. I brought her and her two children to Australia and got mariied. It turned out that she did not love me and only wanted Australian citizenship.
So now I am applying for a divorce.
But these things happen in life and I am not bitter, I have been back to Vietnam another 6 times.
My free time at the moment is studying Viet history and customs and fooling around on my computer. I believe that I am to old to learn Vietnamese fluently so I'll just settle for being able to communicate in basic terms
Ern