One foot in front of the other

Getting up at 630 on my day off to observe the classes I will be teaching was a great decision. I am always more comfortable when I can visualize my future, and now I know who and where and how many. I have observed the pace at which students are comfortable learning; I have seen what kind of activities they are used to, and I have some ideas about easy ways to take those activities one step further. After everything that we were told about students doing rote memorization and being receivers of information rather than critical thinkers, some of the classrooms and lesson plans were much more student-centered than I expected. They work in groups, share their findings, and write on the board. However, as I suspected, I didn't really get to be a fly on the wall like I wanted. As willing as I was to introduce myself and field questions, what I really wanted was to know what it's like when I'm not around, not to teach an impromptu class without prior warning. But I think ultimately I did get a sense of what class is like, and talking to the teachers afterward started clearing up more of the bushel of questions that I have about what is in store for me.

In the second class I visited, I experienced the moment I have been waiting for since I got to Vietnam. I was asked to sing. In front of the whole class. Luckily, students do not expect you to sing a ballad. A lot of students in Vietnam know the song, 'If you're happy and you know it', but these students either did not or did not understand me when I asked if they knew it. I then opted for Happy Birthday, because it is short and easy. I wanted to sing it to whomever had the most impending birthday, but I think that question was not understood either, or they were too shy to reply. I started asking if anyone had a birthday in September, October, ... Bueller... Bueller... Eventually I just sang it to the girl who had asked me to sing.

I rescued a black carpenter bee today. It was buzzing along on its back on the ground, apparently unable to turn itself over. I debated marking myself as a weirdo American bug girl, but it would be an accurate perception. I found a twig and lay it over the bee's flailing limbs and it quickly righted itself and flew away. I was happy.

Today was the first time it was totally up to me to get food. I was a little daunted by the prospect even though I'd done it plenty of times in Hanoi. For lunch I found a rice place not even a block away and returned triumphant. Perhaps because I was alone or because it was after the normal lunchtime here, the woman assumed that I wanted the food to-go. My styrofoam container came with a plastic flat-bottomed Asian-style spoon. And for some reason I felt the need to have a photoshooot with it...

In the evening I decided to be more intrepid. I took a walk. That might not sound like a bold move, but when your communication skills are limited almost exclusively to body language, it feels like walking into the street blindfolded. I only walked to the roundabout and back, which is a twenty or thirty minute walk, but it felt good to know I can do this on my own. I have been so coddled and cared for since I got here, which I understand and appreciate, that I had started to forget that I am independently capable. It is also nice to know how far things are on foot, since until now I had only gone places on the back of Trang's motorcycle. If I can figure out how to cross the streets that merge at the roundabout (the biggest in Ben Tre!) then I can easily walk to many kinds of stores. Along my walk I scoped out the myriad food places on my street and made mental notes of ones that appealed to me for tonight's dinner. On the way back I stopped to buy a gỏi cuốn (spring roll) with peanut sauce, some sort of puffy sesame pastry, and bánh ướt, each at a different establishment. A feast of a dinner for 75 cents. I am looking forward to trying things from the many other shops and carts along the road.

Above, today's bánh ướt. Photo courtesy of my laptop camera. Notice the big baggie of fish sauce on the left. The baggie was also full of peppers, so this dinner packed a punch. The sweet sesame bun (not pictured) was the perfect way to soothe the burn. At ten cents each, that might be my new nightly dessert.

Even though most people at Ben Tre College have asked me where I am 'really from', I think it is because I am introduced to people who already expect me to be (and look) American. Just as I do in the United States, I often wonder where people think I am from at first sight. While there it is because I look different, here I wonder if I can blend in. Yesterday, the rector of the school told me that I looked like the Vietnamese people. Today, as I walked, I wondered if I would stand out. I did not notice stares, but I know that at the very least the way I dress singles me out as someone from somewhere else. I thought maybe people had not much noticed me, but when I got to the roundabout and turned around, a man on a motorbike approached me and asked, in English, if I had lost my way. I guess that would be confirmation that people did notice me and that I do look foreign.



I forgot to mention that I was in the local newspaper. In addition to my name, I can read the words for school and America and English. Maybe by the time I leave here I will be able to read most of the article.

Better than fish guts

“A smile can always overcome the barrier of language.” – Pre-departure fortune cookie

I have had a smile plastered on my face all day long. I met every one from what felt like every department. I understood only what was translated to me. I don't totally mind sitting on the outskirts of every conversation; I mind more the fact that I cannot offer my own linguistic olive branch. Instead, I smile, and hope it is enough. I also feel for Trang, who translated the many meetings for me. I have been in her position, and I think translating can be even more trying than understanding nothing. I feel like what I learned during my few Vietnamese lessons has all but disappeared. And that which I do remember, no one seems to understand. I am supposed to start having my lessons next week, but a week from now seems like too long and three hours a week feels like too little. This is something I'm going to have to pursue independently.

Trang took me out to lunch to try a local specialty, canh chua, which translates as sour soup. It seems like every new thing I try is my new favorite dish. It is a savory fish soup with a tamarind-flavored broth, according to the wikipedia link above. As the guest, I received the honor of eating the head. Trang told me that people say that the head is the best part, and that it is always given to the most important guest. However, when I asked her if she agreed, she said that she prefers the middle of the fish. If I thought it were possible for Trang to have a devious bone in her body, I might suspect her of pulling the wool over my eyes to get me to eat the part she didn't want. Still, it was good and a new experience. I thought I had thoroughly cleaned the head cavity of its meat, but apparently people like to suck on it, too. That I did not do, since Trang demonstrated the technique. I also ate what apparently was the fish's stomach. I think I need to learn more about fish anatomy.

Today's table manners lesson: If you see someone struggling to pull a piece of meat off of the skin or to serve themselves just a bit of some tangled greens, it is rude to not help them out by pulling down with your chopsticks on the opposite end.

On the way there we got me a motorcycle helmet that, if I'm honest, feels more like a wash basin with a chin strap.

Everyone here wants to know where I am 'really from'. Trang tells me it is because they want to know why I don't look like what they think Americans look like. She says they want to know why I am so much more beautiful. I'll take the compliment.

I admit I have been feeling lonely since I got here. I want to start meeting students, but by the time I have a break I am worn out from hours of smiling and just want a break. The combination of emotional exhaustion and my reclusive tendencies are making me less outgoing than I know I should be. I had a small personal triumph, though. Dinner was to be my first meal alone. Mr. Vu Hung took me to the open-air canteen in the early afternoon so that I could order ahead of time and just come later and get food when I was hungry. I headed to the canteen around 545, wondering if I would ask for it to be boxed so I could eat in my room, eat at a table alone surrounded by others, or eat at a table and be joined by the allegedly curious but shy throng of students. I decided that one way or another I wouldn't let myself retreat to my room. I don't know if there was some kind of schedule miscommunication, but I was the only person there when I went. So I ate alone. And it was ok. Some people count sheep to fall asleep; I counted geckos on the wall to pass the time. At highest count I got to 31. I had a pleasant, unhurried meal alone. I communicated sufficiently with the staff. One of the staff members is also a student, and we agreed to help each other with our respective languages. It was a start, but everything happens one step at a time.

No pictures today because my camera is on the fritz :(

Let's go home

The lack of internet over the last two nights caused me to embroider more and more detail into my personal accounts of what transpired. Now, in the interest of brevity, I try to reduce those six pages to the big picture.

1. I made it to Ben Tre. Internet access is hopefully on its way to my room.
2. I have big windows and no curtains, so I feel like I am constantly scampering around on tiptoe trying to sneak from one room to the next. It doesn't help that I was told that everyone is curious to catch sight of me, which makes me feel like I should expect people to be loitering around my windows. My bedroom is enclosed in a metal and blurred plexiglass cubicle, so I do have some level of privacy. But I don't want students' first glimpse of me to be as I plod to the bathroom in boxers and an oversized sweatshirt.
3. Story time

08. 28. 11
This morning at breakfast Hang came and sat right next to me and put her arms around me and started crying, saying that she was going to miss us. I was simultaneously flabbergasted and moved. I don’t think I have written much at all about the hotel or its staff, but they have been like big brothers and sisters to us all month. This is the third year the Fulbright contingent stays at the Rising Dragon II, and every year the ETAs and the staff get very close. I had actually been feeling guilty about not making more of a point to get to know the staff, so for Hang to choose me as her shoulder to cry on meant a lot to me.

I got a call from Trang, the woman picking me up from the airport. I was comforted by her excellent English. She told me to look for a big woman in a navy suit. I was curious to find out what the descriptor ‘big woman’ would mean when uttered by a Vietnamese person. After breakfast we went to a place called Western Canned Goods looking for gifts for our hosts. I briefly but strongly considered buying a box of grits, which I was shocked to find, but was dissuaded by the fact that it would add an extra pound to my luggage.

Andrea, Kelly, Taylor, and I were all on the same flight to Ho Chi Minh City, and I was glad to not have to navigate the airport alone. The flight was brief and I slept most of the way. When I woke up I moved my arm onto the armrest and grazed something. I thought it might be a hand but it was the sock-clad foot of the person behind me. Ack. Is grazing a monk’s foot good luck? Once we dropped below the clouds, the landscape changed from mountainous to agricultural with a smattering of settlement to densely and expansively urban. There was a skyline! Hanoi is certainly a city in its own right but, as a big city girl, ‘city’ just doesn’t feel quite right without a distinctive skyline. Ho Chi Minh struck me for its completely un-American organization. It looked as though someone had dumped out a bag of sprinkles, and they piled on each other in every color and facing any direction. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh is huge. I am looking forward to visiting it on the occasional weekend, and getting a taste of it.

 The foot!

Ho Chi Minh

The welcoming committee

We landed; I got my bags quickly, and I found Trang easily enough from her description. It helped that she was carrying a glittery bouquet of flowers, indicating that she was waiting to receive someone. Trang asked me if I was hungry and the truth was that I was famished but didn’t know if it was appropriate to say so. I gave a vague and indirect answer, which is generally the right approach. She told me that she was quite hungry, so I hoped that this would mean food in my near future. When everyone arrived we took a zillion pictures and then set out for Ben Tre. No sign of intent to eat. After just a few minutes of driving we pulled over on the side of a large roundabout. Apparently we were waiting for a ‘hitch-hiker’. At first I stared at the passing traffic and salivated at the many food stands just across the street. Though I would have felt very confident doing so, I doubted that they would have been happy if I had hopped into oncoming traffic to go buy food. So I sat. Once I ingested the big picture I started savoring the details: some geckos had a well-lit showdown on a billboard featuring living room furniture. Several language schools were on this street and I decoded which words meant that. Finally our hitch-hiker arrived and we were really on the road.

At first most of the passengers spoke to each other in Vietnamese and I took in the sights. Eventually, though, Trang and I got to talking. I got to know a lot about her and I also started getting some answers about my time here. Trang already invited me to spend independence day (September 2nd) with her and her mother in her hometown. Her mother will make the local specialty, bánh xèo. I can’t wait.

After a good while on the road we pulled over for roadside phở. Even though I bought a shirt claiming that ‘I [heart] phở’ in Hanoi, I never actually had street phở. This is kind of sad since phở is a Hanoi specialty, but at least I’m having it now. We got back in the car and Trang turned to me and said, “Let’s go home.” It was such a casual turn of phrase, but it triggered an internal reaction. I wasn’t just headed to Bến Tre; I was headed home. Maybe it was just my newly increased energy level, but the second half of the ride seemed much shorter. We crossed the longest bridge in southern Vietnam, which connects Bến Tre Province to its neighbor. Until its completion two years ago, the only way to get into the province was with a 45-minute ferry ride; now, it is a five-minute drive. Residents hope that Bến Tre’s improved accessibility will lead to an increase in development.

At long last, we arrived on campus. I am now in my room and I am not sure how to feel. This is going to be my space for the next nine months, so I better make the most of it. This is not the space I envisioned but it is the space I have so I will make it mine. It is daunting, but so is the rest of this adventure.

“Life is a roller coaster. You can either scream every time you hit a bump, or you can throw your hands up in the air and enjoy it.” – Unknown

08.29.11
I am kind of overwhelmed by the expectations people have of me. This morning I met a ton of people whose names I promptly forgot. One of my longer meetings was with the facilitator of the newly formed English club, who seemed to expect me to already have a plan for the four three-hour sessions that will take place this coming month, despite the fact that this was almost the first I’d heard of it. He is also the professor for the second year speaking skills class that I will be assisting. In my efforts to nail down exactly what he was telling me regarded the club and what regarded the class, I think I gave him the impression that I am rather dense. Hopefully I can turn that around. I think the problem is that people have very specific expectations, but no one has really told me what they are. Am I teaching classes or just helping? Will I be making lesson plans after all or not? It turns out that I am teaching two two-hour classes twice a week. And then I have additional activities including two three-hour English Club meetings, one for students and one for faculty and staff. Three hours? How does anybody keep people engaged for three hours? It will be a challenge.

I am quickly learning that even though people ask me about my preference or seem to offer me a say in the matter, the person doing the asking usually has a desired reply in mind. If I say something else, I will be shown why there is another option that is better. My hosts asked me if I would like an au dai and what color I would like, perhaps purple? I suggested green. But purple means faithfulness, and green is not a popular color. No one really likes green, but purple has a very beautiful cultural symbolic value. Purple it is.

Trang took me to her home for lunch. We rode her motorcycle and I got to meet her son and her husband. He is recently retired and takes care of things while she works – he was the one that cooked our lunch. I suspect that this is a rather unusual arrangement. We ate mildly spicy trout and okra and rice. I used to hate okra as a child but I actually enjoyed it today. Trang’s son was eager to practice his English (or so she insisted) so he and I chatted for a while as Trang served the food.

Over lunch I learned a lot about table politics and guest/host relations. If you need to put your chopsticks down, put them flat on the table with the ends past the edge of the table. This keeps the table and your chopsticks clean and indicates that you are still eating. If you put your chopsticks together on top of your bowl it indicates that you are done and your food may be taken away. It is a host’s duty to serve the guest whatever the host anticipates the guest will find most delicious, and it is the guest’s duty to eat it. If the host does not do so it is rude, but it is a tricky procedure as what the host serves may not actually be something that the guest likes. The host should always be the last person to finish eating. A guest may claim to be full but if the host does not offer more food the guest may leave hungry and think poorly of the host. So, the host should always offer more food, but the guest is allowed to decline if she is indeed full. However, if the guest does not eat a ‘normal’ amount (about three small bowls), then it will seem as though the guest did not like the food. Did you follow all that? I am constantly afraid of committing a cultural blunder, so I am grateful to Trang for being willing and able to explain things to me. I think she is also eager to see what things carry across to US culture and which things are different.

I learned that the combination of words ‘eat+rice,’ means meal, and if you add the time of day then it becomes the equivalent of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

After lunch Trang took me home to nap. I don’t know if this is common practice here or if she just thought I would be tired or thinks that Americans nap. I took a 40ish minute nap and spent the rest of my two and a half hours brainstorming activities for the English club. When the time came, Tran picked me up to go buy ‘necessities’. She showed me where the nearest market was, took me to the post office, took me to get measured for my purple au giai, took me to the bookstore where I bought a Vietnamese-English/English-Vietnamese dictionary and some picture frames, and took me to dinner. We had my new favorite dish: bánh ướt, which literally means wet cake but doesn’t fit that mental image at all. I was pretty full after that but a street vendor passed by and Trang flagged him down. This was going to be interesting. He brought us something that I can only describe as fish jerky. Dried grilled fish run through a press to soften it up and served with a brown tangerine dipping sauce. This is what I get for saying I like to try new things. It wasn’t bad at all, not even unpleasant, just probably not something I would have ever ventured to try on my own. It was certainly edible, and I probably would have enjoyed more if I hadn’t felt full but obligated to finish it. I tried to be clever and divide the last piece in two to leave the rest for Trang, but she divided that piece in two and gave me the last last piece. The joys of being the guest. We washed it down with cool coconut water.

Cart of dried fish, etc. What I had is dangling from the string closest to the camera. Some of the other ones are squid. Final product in the next picture.

I learned more manners at this meal. Apparently, because I am a woman, I must take care to keep my plate looking tidy throughout the meal. If your chopstick usage causes you to push and prod and spread your food all over the plate, you should be using the spoon to keep it in check lest you seem improper. I have also heard that you should try to hold your chopsticks as far from the tip as possible, but I have not yet asked Trang about this. Some things make me laugh. There was something funny looking in my food and when she noticed it Trang reached into my plate to pick it out. Which is worse, mystery item or someone else’s fingers in your food? Trang is clearly eager to make the most of me as a cultural resource, and I am happy to be one, though sometimes I feel ill-equipped. At least she is not asking me about politics. Instead, she asks me for very specific words that we may or may not have, like 'what do you call a dish that you eat so that you do not have to eat rice?' Questions like these, that stem from a completely different way of looking at the world, sometimes take me a while just to understand before I can even address them, but I’m sure they seem like perfectly normal curiosities to her. I’ll have to keep this in mind when I have my own questions to ask.

Raise a glass

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”  - Henry David Thoreau

A toast I toast to myself:

Here's to getting lost. It's going to happen and that's ok.
Here's to losing things -- patience, hope, marbles -- and finding them again.
Here's to not understanding a word around me, but coming to understand more about myself.
Here's to taking off the training wheels and jumping into the deep end.

Here's to AMSM in Vietnam, part 2.
Here I go.
Bến Tre here I come.

The day without a schedule

The internet has been misbehaving. Hence, two day's posts in one.

Part 1
Yesterday we were treated to a schedule change that bestowed us an extra hour to sleep in. As it was our last day, we spent it doing evaluations and other wrap-up activities. For our last lunch we went to our regular bun cha provider. Considering that I go there about twice a week, and that we don't all always go together, Auntie Bun Cha has gotten quite used to her western clientele. After we became regulars she lowered the price, reducing or eliminating the padding that any price gets when a westerner is paying. Yesterday we were greeted with a friendly smile of recognition and space was made for us. It's a popular place, and sometimes there are no tables available when we arrive but, upon seeing our faces, she immediately identifies lingerers who are done eating and shoos them out. At the end our meal we felt compelled to tell her we would no longer be coming back. Surely she never expected us to stay forever, but after a month we felt like a goodbye was necessary.

On the way back to class I passed a row of tubing shops that I have been wanting to photograph since I first saw them. Every day I was on the wrong side of the street or it was raining or I just didn't have my camera out and I would just put it off until 'tomorrow'. Now there was no more tomorrow, and so the pictures finally got taken. At the end of the day it was our last departure from the Heritage Hotel, the host of our makeshift classroom. As much as sitting in that room all day every day has grated on us, it was almost sad to think we would never be back. No more visits from our rat mascot, no more rivulets coming down from the ceiling when it rains, but also no more snack time fruit smorgasbords and no more spending all of our days together. In the afternoon we went looking for a thank you gift for our teaching teacher. It turns out there is a whole street of lantern shops just a few blocks from the hotel.

Last night we had a farewell dinner reception with our teachers, lecturers, and the embassy staff. Throughout this month I have generally dispreferred eating western food, but tonight I could not complain. It is true that we ate at a hotel buffet, but I feel that that does not give the right impression. It was an immense spread of delicious. I had five plates of food. I haven't seen cheese in a month and they had brie, boursin, emmenthal, and gouda.They had raw oysters. They had pasta. They had grilled beef. They had grape tomatoes. They had broccoli! I felt like I was getting up every five minutes to get more food. I was taking my already famous appetite to the next level. I concluded with grapefruit and Asian pear and mango. Holy guacamole, it was good.

After dinner we had a farewell karaoke party with the hotel staff. They learned all of our names just a few days after our arrival, and have been an invaluable source of smiles and help. If you have received a postcard from me, you can thank them for getting it stamped and put in the mail. Anyway, going to karaoke is the local equivalent of the American practice of going to a bar with friends. It has a lot of social significance to karaoke with someone. This was my first real karaoke experience and true to form the power went out a couple times during the night, but it was a blast. Even if it was so loud conversation was impossible, we got to know each other as closeted divas and rappers emerged. I had my moment in the limelight singing Summer Lovin' from Grease, and throughout the night as the mike was desperately passed around when English songs that no one actually knew were passed around. Sometimes it seemed as though the technician taking our lists of song requests substituted similarly named songs when they didn't have a song we requested (e.g. Bye Bye Love instead of Bye Bye Bye) and other times songs just didn't ever get played. But we laughed our way through attempting to sing along with Vietnamese pop, a capella-d our way through lulls, and bonded all night. It was a fitting send off.

Part 2
In the morning we said our first set of goodbyes as three people set out for their institutions. I had my last day checklist items ready and Violet and I went adventuring. Our first destination was the French Quarter. Mapless (but informed) and bold, we wandered confidently in the general direction of the southeast side of the lake, stopping whenever and wherever we felt so inclined, taking pictures of the things I'd been meaning to photograph all along.

Shoe store with giant shoe and tiny shoe

The pagoda in the lake, a quintessential Hanoi image.

We got to the lake from an entirely different angle than expected, but we got there. We passed by the Monopole, an old hotel with a classic cyclo outside; we passed the French Institute, and we got to the opera house, the essence of the French Quarter. I had expected the French Quarter to be more of a distinctive, cohesive area of Hanoi, but though it was not it still felt like we were strolling down a strange, tropical, bamboo décor, European avenue.

Paris or Hanoi?

After lunch we went to an ice cream place that has been around since 1958. The ice cream is in popsicle form and the flavors are distinctly Asian: green bean, coconut, and young rice. I had the young rice and it was delicious. It mostly just tasted sweet and creamy and refreshing. I wish I had discovered it sooner. At a bookstore I bought a book in English and Vietnamese that tells the story of Tet (the lunar new year celebration), an epic tale if there ever was one. If you have the patience, you can look forward to reading it in February, when it is celebrated.

Having spent several hours walking in the sun, Violet and I decided to head back to the hotel for a break. Later, we walked back to the lake to sit on a rooftop cafe to watch the sunset. Our plans didn't quite work out, but we did end up on the fourth floor of a cafe that faced South and overlooked a roundabout on the north side of the lake. Eventually we did make it to the rooftop cafe, but the sunset was hidden behind the many tall buildings around it. We watched the sky pale into darkness, saw the colored lanterns around the lake light up, listened to a fellow patron strum his guitar, and watched an industrial rat climb up and down the neighboring building. It was one of those moments that feels like it could go on forever, and yet so clearly communicates that things are ending.

How many directions of movement do you see? How many modes of transportation?

Overlooking the lake at night

There were other things on my to do list that have been transposed to the metaphorical 'next time' list. In clothing stores all over town, a sometimes disturbing array of mannequins haunts the windows and sidewalks. It is as though the old and misshapen mannequins of the rest of the world are put out to pasture here. Mannequins sport their wigs akimbo, often with a chin strap keeping them in place. The clothes are so small that all of the mannequins are forced to have their flies down or their dresses unzipped. A few days ago I saw a mannequin whose nose had been broken off, and a display window that has been left undisturbed long enough that there was a pall of dust on the mannequin's wigs and shoulders. They often have undersized heads or makeup that seems modeled after an 80s aesthetic. Of the many shop-specific streets in the Old Quarter, one of the ones I find most striking is the mannequin street. Store after store with rows of naked bodies painted in flesh tones or silver and child mannequins with eerie airbrushed faces. There are rows of mannequins with only the lower half of a face, or that are just legs. I had wanted to go there and photograph the bizarre collection to share with you all, but my words will have to do.

Here is just a taste of the mannequins around the city.

To not end on that note, here's a picture of me on the back of my Vietnamese teacher's bike. Don't worry, it was just a photo-op; I didn't get to ride around town with her.

Tomorrow I'm off to Ben Tre. Here goes.

Finding some southern comfort

For lunch today I followed through with my resolve to have cháo tim, rice porridge with heart meat. It may sound unappealing, but it was great. I love rice; I love grits, and this was somewhere in between, plus greens, garlic, and heart. It felt like comfort food.

Lately there has been a notable absence of sweat. We walk outside and it feels wonderfully cool. Upon checking the weather reports, it turns out that we've been in the mid to high 80s. You know the weather here is 'special' when high 80s feels like heaven. I suspect the humidity must be lower lately, too, because today it got up into the 90s and still felt great.

This evening we joined our embassy coordinator in celebrating her son's sixth birthday. If you have ever visited the site cuteoverload.com, imagine spending three hours in that world. Bi was precocious, rambunctious, enthusiastic, and the perfect host. He was thrilled with all of his gifts and, as kids often do, found some unexpected ways to enjoy them. Apparently birthdays aren't a big thing in Vietnam (everyone's age changes at Tet, the new year), so this was the first time Bi had a birthday party and got presents. After cake Bi enthusiastically treated us to several songs with minimal urging from his mother. Then, as though he had been sitting in on our last two weeks of teacher training, he used his new box of crayons to test our knowledge of colors. First he went through each one, asking us what color it was. Then he put us in groups and started naming colors and we were supposed to see which group could point to it first. Next, he asked us to raise our hand if the color he named was a color we liked. Seriously, it could be a real lesson plan.

Though I don't leave until Sunday, tomorrow is our official last day. It's hard to believe. Step two is coming.

Troubleshooting 101

This morning we set out bright and early in our Fulbright Vietnam polo shirts to have our first real foray in teaching English at a Vietnamese university. We were each responsible for about 20-30 minutes of a two-hour lesson. The biggest question mark going in was that even if we knew what level the students were classified as, we had no idea how that translated into what they actually knew. What if our material was over their heads? What if it was too easy?

After an hour-long bus ride on roads that were more fitted for an ATV, with frequent interruptions from cows, we arrived at the university, situated amidst rice fields. Quyen and I were teaching for the first hour, followed by Lam, Maria, and Andrea. We weren't expecting smooth sailing, but I don't think any of us expected it to be quite as rocky. It all began with snag #1: my MacBook projector adapter didn't fit Quyen's MacBook Pro. Luckily the school brought us a spare laptop and we had our presentations saved on a flash drive. While we set up we all introduced ourselves to the class. Snag #2: Their professor stood in the back of the class and kept translating everything into Vietnamese and interrupting Quyen to tell her how better to teach. Luckily our coordinators asked her to leave before she could continue undermining our authority. Snag #3: Our lesson plan was over their heads. Quyen's two years with Teach For America and quick thinking skills enabled her to edit our lesson plan on the fly and make it more accessible.

But there were good things, too. We were teaching listening skills by presenting about tourist destinations in the US (this is a tourism-focused university). We asked them if they knew of any famous places in the United States, and the only place someone volunteered was Texas. Once we crossed the hurdles of explaining instructions, students were more than capable of performing what was expected of them. At the end of class, again, students wanted to take pictures, pictures and more pictures with us. As we posed, one girl linked her arm with mine. It was such a simple, camera-oriented act, but it made me feel very welcomed and appreciated.

Our class

The view from the classroom

For lunch, our coordinator recommended that we all go to a restaurant together instead of splitting up for lunch like we usually do. Since it was her suggestion, it was hard to turn down. We got off of the bus and to my dismay I discovered that we would be eating at a 'Tex Mex' restaurant. I wanted to cry. To elucidate my feelings, it is necessary to understand that I generally avoid Tex Mex in Texas, so to be taken to somewhere offering a confused Vietnamese rendition was far less than thrilling. It made me feel the way normal people would feel if they were told that lunch would be pig's feet and puppy tails.  I had been hoping to try rice porridge today, but it had to be put on the back burner. Instead, I had to tiptoe my way through a menu that offered items like a 'quesadiliad' made with a 'totila'. I ended up sharing two dishes, surprisingly good pasta and very filling fried rice, and it turned out ok. But it definitely would not have been even near my top choices for lunch spots.

After this we re-hashed and evaluated the day's teaching and then headed to our corner bia (beer) hoi place to toast our teaching. We spent some time in the hotel relaxing before dinner, and then sought 'chicken street.' There, we had some savory skewered chicken and the highly anticipated honey bread: mini-baguettes doused with honey, pressed, and grilled. It was, in a word, delicious. In three words, it was finger-licking good. After dinner we took the most terrifying cab ride of my life. We hailed a cab and seven of us (not including the driver) piled into a tiny four-passenger cab. I sat on someone's lap in the front, and pretty much had my head in the windshield. Visually, I was subjected to a particularly up-close and personal experience of just how close the driver got to motorcycles and other cars before braking. I also had really prime seating to appreciate the full acoustic effect of his frequent horn honking. Meanwhile, very heated discussions in Vietnamese were taking place between him and other members of our group. I could understand people yelling to stop and the rear door opening and closing while we were still in motion. Then the cab driver electronically locked all the doors. Mildly creepy. Finally I heard a number and agreement and I realized that this had all been aggressive haggling techniques because he wasn't using the meter. Parents, you can breathe easy because I'm still alive.

When we got back to the hotel I got my first bee sting ever and then we headed out on foot to a cafe. A few blocks, a super sketchy alley, and three flights of stairs later, we were on a rooftop overlooking the lake. It was a picturesque ending to what felt like a largely absurd day.

Contradicting myself

Part 1
I feel like I am running out of new experiences to have, and consequently running out of blog material. I know that there are a zillion things I haven't done or tried or experienced or seen, but I'm finding a routine. Lunch today was the by-now-normal 'rice et cetera'/'rice and point'. But, afterward I had a delicious if grossly unphotogenic fried banana. Sorry, no picture; imagine a very flat red-orange crackly strip of ambiguous friedness. After lunch, setting aside our original intentions to wander the market during our remaining break time, we sat to chat with an elderly woman that Maria had already met. It was my first genuine interaction in Vietnamese. Usually when you know that someone is a beginner in a language, you speak slowly and simply. Our new grandma-friend named Thi did not take the above approach. She spoke quickly and interestedly and laughed kindly at our blank faces and cobbled words and gestures. But, she was willing to write down her sentences. Thanks to Andrea’s phrase book/dictionary, we were able to decode enough to have a modicum of a conversation. It was surprising how many times translating just one word was enough to reveal the whole question. I was really proud of myself for recognizing the phrase ‘brothers and sisters’ that I learned from mass and understanding that she was asking whether we had any siblings. Overall it got me excited and optimistic if not confident about my future adventures in communication. It was also an interesting linguistic insight into what and how much information is necessary for understanding.


Part 2
I wrote most of part one right after lunch. Speaking of (not) running out of new experiences, I had hot-pot for dinner. You get a hot plate, a pot with broth, and a pile of raw meat, dry noodles, and greens. You add them to the steaming broth at the pace and quantity you desire. The meat is so thinly sliced it browns thoroughly (by my raw preferring standards) as soon as it is submerged. Don't worry, Mom, I let it cook for longer than that. As for the large floating bubbly sheets in the broth in the picture below, those remain a mystery. At first we thought they were skin, but upon tasting them we hypothesized that they might be sheets of something tofu-esque.

On the way back to the hotel we passed a lamp store. I feel like this picture exemplifies street-side shops here. Space is premium, so every inch is covered in a mind-boggling mass of product. Now imagine a block with this shop repeated from one corner to the other. We have taken to referring streets by the product they feature: Fan Street, Motorcycle Seat Cover Street, Bamboo Street, and so on.

Tomorrow we are team-teaching a real class at a local university. I'd ask you to cross your fingers for me but that's an obscene gesture here.

Swimming with dragons

Originally, Hanoi was named Thăng Long, which means ascending or rising dragon (also the name of my hotel). This stems from a legend, and the dragon that rose eventually had to come to rest. Hạ Long means descending dragon, and it is where the dragons that defended Vietnam decided to live. Today, it is possibly one of the most-visited sites in Vietnam and is rallying to be named one of the seven modern natural wonders of the world. It is also featured in the Academy Award winning film "Indochine" and the episode of Top Gear that takes place in Vietnam.


Saturday morning we loaded up on to a bus headed for Hạ Long Bay. In my journal I jotted:

Headed to Hạ Long Bay. Santa Gertrudis cows, lotus fields, banana fields, water buffalo, people working rice fields. Conversations with a Kiwi kiwi orchard owner who disturbingly detailedly described the proper way to cook a human. Rain-washed windows, mountains hiding in mist and clouds, listening to my 'Rogue Fleet' playlist. Urbanity clustered at the edge of the road fading away into fields, construction workers in conical straw hats. "If you survived the nuclear holocaust and your only source of protein was cockroaches, how would you prepare them?" "If you had to choose between more ultimatums or eating the ultimatum giver, which would you choose?" Photographs that would have been make my heart twinge as they are left behind in the rainy dust.

 The bus ride was a long and drizzling three-plus hours but eventually we made it to the docks, where we took a transfer boat and boarded the Galaxy Cruise ship with the sun on our shoulders. Lunch was first and not soon enough. We had some time to rest and then it was time for the first activity. 

My new shorts!

We got on the transfer boat again, which when not in use clung to the back of the ship like a remora to a shark, and were taken to Surprising Cave. I have been to a fair number of impressive caves and caverns in my life, so I spent most of the time trying to figure out what might make it so surprising. While the cave was beautiful, I felt like its treatment was lackluster and highlighted the difference between the US and Vietnam. Here, the walls were graffitied and though there were ropes along the path, there was no warning asking that people not touch the walls or formations. I felt like an American cave specialist might cry at the sight of people wantonly touching wherever they pleased, and even being urged to rub the lucky turtle formation. Furthermore, certain formations were lit with colorful lights, making this seem more like some sort of constructed theme park.

The surprise?

Doesn't this look like it could be from The Goonies or something?

Next was the activity that was most worthwhile: kayaking! Violet and I partnered up, and once we got away from the flurry of paddling tourists it was very enjoyable. We saw schools of tiny jumping fish and there were hawks everywhere, with the strangest, fakest sounding caw ever. We drifted under a pair on a high branch and we stared each other down until, in unison, they spread their wings and soared to another rock. We only had an hour or so to kayak before it was time to head back to the transfer boat.

When we got back on the ship we set out for where we would put down anchor for the night. We had been told that we might be able to swim there, but that there were a lot of jellyfish around. In one of those funny mistranslation kind of moments, our guide said 'I recommend you the jellyfish', by which he meant to caution us about them. This whole idea of there being jellyfish around seemed odd since we hadn't seen any all day, but sure enough, as soon as we reached our stopping point, there was a jellyfish lazily drifting not too far from our boat. Wisely or not, we took our chances. One by one we jumped in from the top deck of the boat to each other's shouts of 'một, hai, ba!' (one, two, three!). I don't know if the resultant waves wafted the jellyfish away, but we didn't have any encounters. As I floated on my back the surreality of the moment struck me. There I lay, with my eyes just above water level and a 360 degree view of the horizon during a pinking sunset, the dome of the sky above me, in the water of Hạ Long Bay. How did my life bring me to that moment? We were warned that there would be even more jellyfish after dusk, so I got out of the water in time to photograph the end of the sunset.

Once the sky grew dark I saw the stars for the first time since I got here. And boy could I see stars. There were so many it was hard to pick out the few constellations that make it through the filter of city lights and smog that I am used to. Mars hovered between two karsts and the Milky Way banded the sky directly above us.

This morning we were summoned to breakfast at 730, which seemed cruelly early until I remembered that with my current schedule that's technically sleeping in. We had some time to relax and sun on the top deck before our next activity. It was then that my weekend finally sank in. I think I had been in a haze of disbelief for much of the first day, and the swarm of tourists interfered with my appreciation of the natural beauty. Here, finally, we were out on the water and I realized how amazingly breath taking everything around me really was. Later we moved to the transfer boat again; we were to take a tour of Hạ Long Bay's picturesque floating villages. While charming, it felt disconcerting to zoom through people's watery yards, snapping pictures. Can you imagine driving through suburbia hoping to catch a sight of its inhabitants through windows and open doors?

We were told that kids usually take the family boat to the floating school, but if their parents are out fishing when it is time to go to school, they just strip down, put their books in a plastic bag, and swim to class. After our tour of the village we had to be back for a cooking class. It very quickly became apparent that this was more a pretense of an activity than an informative session. We watched as our guide mixed all of the ingredients for spring rolls, doled out a heap of filling on a sheet of rice paper, and instructed us to roll it. Once the rolling was finished the rolls were whisked away to be cooked by the chef. I admit that as annoying as that perfunctory activity may have been, I was glad that it didn't render last weekend's investment a waste of time and money.

Once we had been fed it was time to return to dry, stable land, and we did so reluctantly. After our visit to Ninh Binh last weekend and this trip to Hạ Long Bay, it has become apparent that tour companies put a premium on organizing activities rather than letting travelers have down time or free time. While on paper this makes for a fuller experience and offers more bang for your buck, after my packed weekdays I just want time to exhale the city and inhale paradise.

Tonight's lullabye

"Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tonight we went to a private ca trù performance, many thanks to Lam who took it upon himself to organize it for the whole group. Ca trù, like many things here, is an ancient cultural practice and now recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage that deserves protection. The experience could only be described as serene. We entered an ancient but overlookable building sandwiched into a street that bustled with convenience stores, western restaurants, and everything else that graces every other street here in the Old Quarter. After passing through a courtyard we were greeted with tea and bean cakes, both of which were remarkably delicious. I still think it is impossible for me to become a coffee drinker, but I might let myself be wooed by tea in Vietnam. Performers sat on stage behind a bamboo curtain, and as they began to play the curtain was slowly rolled up. A young woman sang and played a percussive instrument, another woman played a stringed instrument, and a man beside the stage played a drum. With each song, a new set of performers graced the stage. The lyrics are classical poetry and the instrumentation is improvised. At intermission we were treated to a second round of tea and cakes and were given a brief history of ca trù. We were also invited to try our hands at any and all of the instruments. Music not being my forté, I went for the drum. It turns out there is a very specific way to hit the drum with the stick (there is probably a more proper term for it) in order to achieve the target resonance, and it turns out that I had a knack for it. Yay! The show proceeded and the first song after intermission was my favorite of the evening. At the end I bought their CD.

I am feeling very good about my (still limited) Vietnamese today. At dinner I ordered a dish in Vietnamese and was understood without having to point to the words on the menu or even repeat myself. On the way back to the hotel I paid another visit to the night market. I bargained independently and successfully for a pair of much-needed shorts and was on a post-bargain high when I spotted a pile of shoes. After last week's practical shoe purchase, I indulged in a pair of adorable heels that are low enough they might qualify as practical. I didn't use my bargaining skills for these because my Vietnamese reading skills informed me that the stall's sign said 'no bargaining', but at just $3 I was happy to accept the sticker price.

 

This weekend we are going on a cruise in Ha Long Bay, a famously beautiful part of Vietnam.

A short ode to teachers

“To learn and never be filled, is wisdom; to teach and never be weary, is love.”

Today I bought my ticket to Ho Chi Minh City. My second one way ticket and my last one for a while. Next Sunday I'll be headed to the next nine months of my life.

As I embark on my meager days of teacher training, things are starting to sink in. I have taught before and I feel comfortable and confident, but the scale is vastly different. My semester of leading a weekly conversation class netted me 10 or 15 hours of teaching. Starting in a few weeks I'll be teaching 8 or 12 hours a week. For nine months. And I don't know what my host institution's expectations are, what the resources are, what the student's abilities are... I don't know much of anything. I go with the flow because I have no other choice, but it isn't always easy to swallow.

If I was ever a lazy student, it was to my own detriment. If I am ever a lazy teacher, it will be to everyone else's detriment. I have to be on top of my game every day. That's a tall order.

I'm appreciating my past teachers a little more today.

Wood, water, fire

The morning began with a scavenger hunt/trip to the market. It was time to put our two weeks of Vietnamese class to the test. Each team was to haggle for and buy three kinds of fruit. After completing this first task we were to meet up with our teachers and get an envelope containing further directions. I admit I was a little more excited about taking pictures at the market than about haggling.

Tarps are a perfectly valid building material when it comes to awnings as well as walls.

Sometimes I feel destined to live somewhere with old yellow buildings.

The back of a laden-down motorcycle: not an unusual sight.

More tarp, more market.

After successfully buying quả chôm chôm (rambutan), quả nho (grapes), and quả thang long (dragon fruit), we received our envelope. Inside there were directions to our final destination, a cafe, and questions we needed to ask the cab driver while in transit. Fortunately, our cabbie was good natured and willing to be interviewed by semi-tone-deaf 'tây' (the Vietnamese gringo-equivalent/word for Westerner). Upon arriving at the cafe, we did mini-presentations about our cab driver and I presented on behalf of my group. We then sang -- over and over and over again -- the song I hope to use to impress my future Vietnamese students: Và tôi cũng yêu em. Meanwhile, several couples were taking wedding photos on the outdoor patio adjacent to our room, so our old-school pop ballad felt very fitting for their occasion. We feasted on our fruits and casually celebrated the conclusion of the first phase of our orientation.


Lunch, learning how to teach, and a nap later, it was storming and dinner time. I got to test out some teva-type shoes I bought at the night market last weekend, and to my delight they were both comfy and weather appropriate. We moseyed into a restaurant called Gecko, whose menu featured some excellent typos. Every page proclaimed "We will make you delicious!" and some of the dishes' ingredients included "mushromoms", "minced bee" (beef, I think), and "lettukce", "lettuc", "lettuce" in subsequent dishes (I guess they figured they'd get at least one right if they included all three). 


Tonight's big activity was seeing a water puppet show. As the name might suggest, the stage is a pool of water. At first I was strongly reminded of the "It's a Small World After All" ride at Disney World, and had a hard time taking the show seriously, but I grew to appreciate it. I had to override my 21st century, MTV generation expectations of big and quick and flashy, and view this 11th century tradition as a cultural artifact instead. I really enjoyed the music, but was also entertained by the idea of having wooden puppets wielding flames while partly submerged in water.