It had a shower, but the whole room was tiny. We corralled him into the small bathroom in our basement, the one that was designated for handwashing while doing loads of wash or relieving oneself if you were in the small backyard. My brother was a year and a half younger than me, at 6-1/2. Judy and Claire were cousins and lived across the street from each other. We needed a boy and the only one available was my brother. With nothing to do, and few kids to do it with, Judy, Claire, and myself came up with a brilliant idea. Hershey Pennsylvania or Virginia Beach would be a very special trip. July, the time for families to take the car and the kids for a week or two somewhere, anywhere, though not too far away. If you knew them all – the universally Italian American, with a few odd nationalities, like Armenians, thrown in – you’d laugh. for the neighborhood kids to come to our house, or to go to the “Riggi’s” house. Those days that were not suitable for going around the corner to play outside usually signaled the a.o.k. Mom’s cleaning left lots of time to fill without parental supervision. But within minutes, out woudld come the bucket and mom would scrub the entire floor on her hands and knees.
The kitchen floor was so spotless, one wouldn’t have any hesitation picking up some food item that had dropped and popping it in one’s mouth. I’m sure if it was the fashion to diagnose every behavior, as it is now, she would have been found to have OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder. My own mother didn’t have much interest in minding the children. It was a time when fathers worked and almost all the mothers stayed home to cook and clean and mind the children. We lived at the top of a hill that was the steepest you’d ever seen, and going down, would have meant having to push one’s bike or body back up that hill with great effort. When we needed space to play, it was “around the block,” Morningside Lane, where bunches of kids came together to play kick ball or stick ball or just rode bikes up and down the same block. It was a place where property sizes were tiny – just enough for a house, a bit of perimeter and a small backyard.
For others it might be a humorous memory. For some the experience haunts and scars. It’s a right of passage, one few of us forget. Tony Romeo tends to overprice tours, example, quoted a day trip to Halong Bay, based on sit in tour with another company, at USD 120, however, such tours are only going at USD 38.Lewellen, played by Dakota Fanning, asking her friend for a look at what’s beneath his pants in exchange for a kiss, in “Houndog.” Little is done to orientate you or to point out landmarks while you make your way on the messy tour with Tony Romeo.
The so called secret places to eat that he introduces have already been featured on so many travel bloggers website with instructions on how to get there, example, Dinh cafe which served excellent egg coffee. Really bad experience with this so called local tour guide called Tony Romeo in Hanoi, whose real name should be Nguyen Dung!įirst, his tours are conducted in a very messy manner, you find yourself darting from place to place within the Old Quarters in a complete mess trying the food, which he does not explain. Hope this can be shared with others who might want to book Gay Hanoi Tours in Vietnam! Sharing this bad experience with a local tour guide called Tony Romeo in Hanoi!
Also, there have been various notable LGBTQ Vietnamese movies made, such as “Madam Phung's Last Journey” in 2014, “Finding Phong” in 2017, and the “My Best Gay Friends” YouTube series in 2013, which went viral: For example, the former USA Ambassador to Vietnam, Ted Osius is openly gay and was not shy about posing with his husband and baby. We even have a growing gay scene in Saigon and Hanoi.Īlso, more visibility of successful LGBTQ persons in the media helps society see us as something normal and positive rather than as something wrong or an illness. Today, of course, all that has changed, especially with the advent of Grindr and all the other gay dating apps over the past decade. At best, gay guys would seek each other out via well-known cruising spots or by friends of friends. Back in those days, the Internet as we know it today simply didn't exist and there were no queer hangouts around. It was quite hard when I was younger because traditional Catholic Vietnamese society was not always so open and supportive toward gays. “you better clean up your room if you wanna find a good husband!!” What's it like growing up gay in Vietnam? She's always been accepting of me being gay and we always make jokes about finding husbands. For example, she now worries about me growing old alone without anyone to care for me in my old age. I think my mother, her main concern is my safety well-being and most of all my happiness in life.