"I'm not looking for condoms, I'm looking for UHT milk," yelled my roommate Clara.

She is describing a scene in the not so aptly named "Western Canned Foods" where as we'd finally given up the luxury of gone off fresh milk (no freezer motorbikes as yet me thinks), she was searching for the UHT variety. However, due to the rising AIDS problem in Vietnam, and the fact that Vietnamese condoms are less than reliable, Western Canned Foods is more concerned with importing Durex.

This could be handy though, as after two and a half months here, some of my fellow teachers have Vietnamese boyfriends. Already boyfriended myself this was not going to happen to me, but it does provide an interesting insight into Vietnamese relationships. Within five days, one friend was told that her beau was in love with her, cheesy text messages are very much the order of the day, so are, of course, the obligatory trips to the lakes and park (following the rule that no kissing can take place unless it is within five metres of water or grass, and preferably on a motorbike or a swan pedal boat).

This makes me wonder whether they are just more open about their feelings and quick to fall in love, or they are doing it to keep the English girl status symbol on their arm, or even whether it is just the failiure of English teachers like us to teach them more suitable vocabulary?

However one teacher is being introduced to her boyfriend's family, and in a country where a woman over thirty is considered unmarriable, and I am regularly asked if I have children... who knows where it could lead.

Not to mention that he's a student at our university.