"My shoulder hurts...do you think I have bird flu?"

Okay, despite my seemingly casual attitude toward all things pandemic, I gotta admit, I'm a little worried. It's hard not to be with the constant drumbeat of news about "it's not IF there's a pandemic, but WHEN". The first thing my editor greeted me with today was, "Vietnam just confirmed another bird flu death" - this time a Hanoi man who lives in MY district. He ate a chicken bought from a local market, developed symptoms, and died a few days later (although nine family members who ate the chicken with him haven't shown any symptoms).

So I inwardly freaked (or not-so-inwardly, if you count the piercing shrieks that permeated the newsroom.). Just yesterday I ate grilled chicken in a neighboring district! Up until this morning, I heard that you couldn't get bird flu from properly cooked chicken (and you possibly still can't; I don't know how his chicken was prepared). But it's a cause for concern and I've sworn off all chicken. Still on the fence about eggs.

When I first came here six months ago, bird flu made an occasional appearance in the news, but it wasn't a huge concern. I saw chickens walking around on sidewalks in the Old Quarter and on Nguyen Thai Hoc, a big street, and laughed to think how unconcerned people were.

Now you definitely won't see chickens strolling about. The government has banned the popular duck blood pudding (truly as DELICIOUS as it sounds...kidding), and the Health Ministry recently advised people not to eat chicken at all. My relatives in the city won't eat it, the street that specializes in grilled chicken is now quiet, and yesterday a restaurant informed us they no longer serve chicken.

I'm still trying to get a feel for what people know. One of the Vietnam Investment Review reporters wrote an article last week that claimed, "Bird flu has appeared in countries like Indonesia and Taiwan. Indonesia has had dozens of deaths and recently reported four more deaths." I changed this to "Bird flu has appeared in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Indonesia recently reported four deaths that pushed the total number of deaths to 62. According to the World Health Organisation, Vietnam has had 41 deaths from bird flu" (although since then the numbers have risen slightly).

I asked my teenage class if they heard of any bird flu deaths in Vietnam. One boy actually said there weren't any yet. The other students quickly corrected him, but some of them were quoting figures like six deaths. Bird flu re-emerged in Vietnam in December 2003 and Vietnam now has 42 bird flu deaths - out of 64 worldwide (65.6 percent). Vietnam has also had 92 human cases out of 125 confirmed by the WHO (73.6 percent).

Anyway, here are some WHO figures, as of Nov. 9. WHO only counts cases which have been confirmed in their laboratory.

CAMBODIA:
4 cases
4 deaths

THAILAND:
20 cases
13 deaths

INDONESIA:
9 cases
5 deaths
*On Nov. 9 Indonesia reported a death it believes is due to bird flu, but this has yet to be confirmed by WHO

VIETNAM:
92 cases
42 deaths

TOTAL:
125 cases
64 deaths

No, I don't have the bird flu...

...although I guess you could say it IS too early to tell.

Sorry for not writing in so long. I'll just give a quick update.

So we moved into the house I mentioned; the owner relented, but on terms more favorable to her (three months' rent in advance and a month's deposit). The house isn't perfect, but we're happy in it. There's me, Patrick (24, also an American Viet Kieu), Daniela (26, an Italian who interns for an NGO) and Thanh (22, a tourism female student at the University of Society and Culture). Thanh pays a less than one-fourth of what I pay, but I don't care. She's still learning English, and we speak primarily in Vietnamese.

As for work, I'm now a regular staffer at Vietnam Investment Review. Despite shoddy journalistic standards (people PAY us to do Q&As with them), I actually do like changing and improving a story. I'm also still with the golf magazine, which I consider pretty damn low, but as established in previous posts, I'm a whore.

Still teaching as well. In fact, the school gave me a new class when I subbed for another teacher and the students requested that I be their permanent teacher. I consider this a nice little coup because the previous teacher was Caucasian, and the Vietnamese tend to prefer a white English teacher to an Asian one (despite knowing I was born in the States).

Other than that, life is going well here. My Vietnamese is improving; I'm not fluent and won't be for a long time, but I can understand some movies and can read some articles from the local women's magazines (the other day I read a short story about a woman who thought her husband was cheating on her, only to find out it was all in her head)(that's right, highbrow literature for Pauline). Unless bird flu dramatically changes my plans, I'm not planning on coming home for four or five months. I love the unhurried pace of life here.