Once upon a time

I awoke with a bang on my door. Dreading that I had overslept and was late to the class I was supposed to teach, I jolted awake. Then I looked at my clock. It was 630. Class wasn't until eight. What? Then it dawned on me. Last week I had agreed to join some of my students for breakfast today. I don't think I have ever gotten dressed and out the door so fast in my life. We were going to a cơm tấm place. It is literally across the street from school, and quite good. Maybe I'll start making myself get up early enough to go out for breakfast at a Vietnamese time. Afterward, we walked back to campus and enjoyed a drink at the canteen. I finally got to try the sweetened milk and carrot drink. It wasn't a standout among the drinks I've had, but it was refreshing. My students told me that they and their peers had really enjoyed the interview activity from yesterday's class, and that afterward they had all been talking about what a great class it was. It felt really great to get unprompted positive feedback directly from my students.

Cơm tấm, or dare I say, yum tấm

Sweet and carroty

Later in the day I taught the two classes for local teachers. The first one was in the morning and, maybe 10 minutes before I was supposed to go to the class, it started pouring. Luckily, I now have an umbrella, so it was no big deal. Still, when I arrived at the classroom, the teacher asked me if I was ok, with great concern. I tried not to laugh. With the afternoon class, we played the game where you tell a story by having each person say only one sentence. We made three original stories and I also asked them to tell me some Vietnamese folktales. Below is one of the original stories. I think you can see why I chose to share that one in particular. One guess at who the implied protagonist is. Thank goodness for the female teachers who steered it in the right direction.

Once upon a time… there was a beautiful girl who came to Vietnam. At first she came to Ben Tre College for teaching. She lived in the dormitories. She taught the Speaking FCE class. Every student wanted to see her everyday. Everyone was very happy to speak English with her. I used to be the student in her class; I like her voice very much because it is very sweet. She looked very lovely. One day, there was a handsome man who appeared in the class. When she saw the handsome man she felt very happy. He fell in love with her and proposed to her. Unfortunately, she refused because she had a boyfriend. She said, “I am too young to get married.” The man looked very disappointed. The young man was very sad, and he didn’t want to do anything. He loved her very much, and he always dreamed about her, so he slept every day and every night, so that when he slept he could meet her. At that time, the girl came to visit him and give him a lot of advice. He realized that she was right, and he lived happily again. They have been good friends since then, but the man still loved her, and hoped that in the future she would fall in love with him. He decided he would wait for her forever. One day her younger sister came to Vietnam to visit her, and this girl looked just like her. She introduced her sister to this man. He realized that both of them are very intelligent. He wanted to have an occasion to meet the younger sister, and then the man took the younger sister around the city and showed her some special places in the city. And then he fell in love with her sister. To avoid hurting her, he invited her to a restaurant to explain. Poor young man, he loved the beautiful girl but he couldn’t say any words to her; he only dreamed of her; he only had nice feelings in his dream. He was lovesick. But it was only his dream, and he woke up. THE END 

Immediately following the second class, I had a meeting regarding my schedule for the coming month. Yesterday I received a copy of the proposed schedule so that I could review it and, as far as I could tell, there were a lot of things that were flat-out wrong. For starters, even though all of the classes I teach will now be in the afternoon, the schedule still claimed that they would be in the morning. I went in all ready with my list of questions and corrections and a firm resolve, and things ended up not being nearly as big a battle as I anticipated. Furthermore, my two days that start at 8am, which used to be the days I considered sleeping in days, are now by far my earliest starts.

After our meeting, Morena and I decided to take a bus trip into the city center. Well. Anyone who knows about my Italy experiences knows how buses and I get along. Buses are supposed to come by every 20 minutes or so. We stood at the stop outside the school for almost an hour, and not a single bus passed by. At first I entertained myself by trying to catch some good pictures of the daily hilarity of Vietnamese motorists. After a while some of my students came by and decided to chat with us and keep us company while we waited. Eventually, we just gave in and asked them to call a cab for us.

Truck bed not necessary

Sidecar not necessary
Who says motorcycles aren't family friendly?

Trunk also not necessary

Cute picture just for good measure

Three dollars and five minutes later, we were in the city center. Morena and I both let out a deep exhale. After all this time of being babysat, it felt quite liberating to be doing something on our own. Strolling among the shops, there was a scale on the sidewalk. Morena stepped on and when she got off I followed suit. We were promptly approached by a woman demanding money. We had thought that the scale was for sale, but it turned out it was just there for you pay to check your weight. We felt quite foolish; luckily our foolishness only cost us 1000VND, or half of a cent. We caught the last few minutes of the sunset over the river, and got some bánh mì for a dinner on the go.

Bánh mì in progress

I realized that I didn't exactly know how to get to the night market, our ultimate destination, from the city center. Emboldened by my recent successes, I asked a woman where it was (with the backup of an index card with the words 'night market'). I may not be great at Vietnamese, but I can understand pointing, and we found it quickly. At first the night market seemed like a goldmine of hilarity, but I didn't see anything worth buying. I saw so many shirts with absurdly incomprehensible "English." Perhaps the best was one with a picture of a bicycle and the words:

It takes two to stupid. I like voice performa ait mean singer weather was sugar notice drive. Who in door. I had this old truer that we need in his freshman outdoor.

Another shirt also stood out to me:

Also available in red.

The English on it is perfectly acceptable, but that image might give me nightmares. As happy as I am whenever I see Texas somewhere foreign, this is definitely not my favorite shout out. Usually I would complain about the fact that the majority of the clothes were too small, but I didn't even get that far. To say that they were eyesores would be an understatement. I entertained myself by trying to come up with similes to describe just how hideous they were, but nothing I came up with did them justice. There were bizarre color and pattern combinations, incomprehensible embellishments, and rampant layering. Near the end, though, we saw the light. I got a cute shirt at one shop, and the last place was a shoe vendor. Rifling through the piles of shoes, I discovered a pair of black heels that didn't have any glitter or bows. They fit perfectly, and I decided to go for it. How much did they cost? Only the giddiness-inducing sum of $2. While waiting for our taxi home, I finally got some pictures of the city center at night.

Statue in the temple courtyard

Statue by the roundabout