Power in powerlessness

This morning I awoke feeling hot. My fruitless fiddling with the a/c remote revealed that the power was out. The water was out, too. I expected the power to come back in a few minutes, as it has done in the past, but it ended up not coming back until the mid-afternoon. But life goes on, especially in Vietnam. No one needs lights during the day; the sun streaming in through the windows is light enough. Everyone cooks with gas, so that's not impeded by the sudden absence of electricity, either. The only real reasons electricity is important is to run the a/c, tv, and to power or charge electronics. And not that many people have any of those, anyway. Walking around outside, the only indicator of the lack of power was the fact that none of the shops had their electric fans on. I wonder whether daily life is so independent of electricity because it is so unreliable, or whether it can continue to be unreliable because there is minimal pressure to improve the infrastructure.

Not much else of note happened. I was missing home and missing home people more than usual today.

The autumn leaves are falling like rain
Although my neighbors are all barbarians
And you, you are a thousand miles away
There are always two cups at my table.
– T’ang dynasty poem

Late to bed, early to rise

 “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy 

After coming back from HCMC, I had been questioning my practice of blogging every day. Is it really necessary to write so much and so often? Does anyone really care to read about my life in so much detail (the blogger's dilemma, in a nutshell)? But then I remember that I care. Last night I was reading some posts from late August and early September, and it felt like it had been ages ago. If it weren't for my rigorous blogging regimen I wouldn't remember the first time I had hotpot or how I felt the first time I had to sneeze while on a motorcycle. Sure, it would be ok if the passage of time rinsed these daily details from my memory and they weren't preserved anywhere, but how nice is it to have them stored away somewhere for rediscovering and reliving? I validate myself.


Last night I stayed up altogether too late, but I knew I would have the luxury of sleeping in enough this morning for it not to matter. Or so I thought. "Một ha, một hai, một hai." I awoke to the sound of a microphone being tested, and the chatter of hundreds of people. I hoped it would stop soon, but once the microphone's functionality was confirmed, rousing, military-sounding music started playing. I got a text from Trang saying, "If you love taking photos, there's something happening in front of your room." Unfortunately, at 630am, I like sleeping better than I like taking pictures. But, at this point it was clear sleep wasn't going to be happening again any time soon, so I got up to take some pictures from my window. Indeed, there were so many people so densely packed in the courtyard in front of the dorm I can only estimate that there were several hundred of them.

Then, in just under an hour, the rousing speeches and music and cheering and chanting ended and the people dispersed almost instantly. I found out later it was a protest concerning the disputed Chinese claim over the Spratly Islands. Why the protest needed to happen outside my room at 630am is a question with no answer.

In less than two weeks I will be participating in an interdepartmental faculty singing contest. Morena and I are the English department's intended secret weapon, and we are to sing a song in Vietnamese. Obviously, in order to do this, we must learn the song first. We met up to go to a karaoke place to learn and practice the song, but first, lunch was in order. We went to a place that serves cơm niêu,  rice is cooked in a clay pot more or less the size of an individual's rice portion. Except when that individual is me. The dishes were the traditional sour soup, screaming fish, and a dish of fish stomachs, and everything was delicious. I tried to pace myself with the rice allotment, but it was all too good. Luckily, as soon as I finished my first clay pot I received another. There's something to be said for being an observant host.

Screaming fish and fish stomach

Rice, clearly

As for the karaoke, we sang the song so many times it's been stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I don't really know what I'm saying, but I can sing it well enough. I'm thinking singing in Vietnamese is easier than speaking; tone kind of becomes secondary when notes come into the equation. Eventually our companions got as bored of hearing the same song as we did of singing it, and the afternoon devolved into a full-on karaoke party. I have to say, it seems like every Vietnamese person was born with golden vocal chords.

Our private room looked more like a demented nursery than a karaoke place

I thought we were going home after that, but we went to the city center and then we went to the supermarket. At the supermarket I was finally able to do something I've been wanting to do for a while: just scope out everything they stock. My secret hope was fulfilled when I found plain old pasta. I also got rice to make with my new rice cooker and stocked my nonexistent condiment supply with hot sauce and sweet and sour sauce for my spring rolls. I never thought I'd have hot sauce in my (figurative) kitchen. It was only until I got home that I realized I don't have salt.

Death by dessert

Any time spent with Trang yields good blogging content. Today she told me that I look like Britney Spears. When I asked her to explain how (because I don't see it. Do you?) she said it was because we have similar face shapes and big brown eyes. Ok. She also said I am mạn mòi, which literally means salty but is a very high compliment and something that all women hope to be called. I couldn't quite figure out what it would be in English; the best I could come up with is striking. Trang explained it as having features that are beautiful but not in a forgettable way, but also that your beauty slowly reveals itself as someone continues to look at you. Whatever it is, exactly, I'll take the compliment.

There are only two weeks left of the FCE class. After the last class, the teachers will re-take the test. Let me remind you that all of them are in this class because they did not pass the first time around. (In fact, Trang's younger sister is the only teacher in the province who did pass the first time.) I am as curious and anxious as they are about the outcome of this next test. Sometimes I have high hopes for them, but other times I am worried. Today I taught them about Halloween, and I started by explaining its origins. Later, two students asked me to explain the history of Halloween at different points in the class.

As their teacher and a native speaker of English, they see me as someone with all the answers. During our coffee/tea/iced beverage break they aired all of their grievances about the test and asked me for advice. "Sometimes they want us to talk about pictures but I can't tell what is happening in the picture. What should I do?" "I have good grammar and good vocabulary, but I am not good at finding key ideas. What should I do?" "The examiner speaks very quickly and is hard to understand. What should I do?" But there isn't some easy fix I can offer for any of these problems.

There is a question I have gotten from many people here, and it has stumped me every time. "What is the most important festival in your country?" First of all, everyone refers to holidays as festivals, which I think is the first indicator of the disconnect in views from which the question itself stems. Holidays/festivals are seen as prolonged public cultural events, not just a big meal with family and traditions. Vietnamese new year is traditionally accompanied by two weeks off for preparation and celebration. So what is the most important American holiday? Christmas is probably the biggest commercially and has the longest period of preparation, but that doesn't mean it is the most important. Today I went with Thanksgiving, if only because it is one of the most widely celebrated and least commercialized. But what makes a holiday important? I'm still ruminating on this. Your thoughts are appreciated.

This evening Morena and I were invited out for chè by two teachers who are my students in the English club. Having recently discovered my favorite chè, I made sure to get the corn one. But then another one was ordered for us: chè mè đen, black sesame. It was edible, as all chè is, but not thrilling. Then it was proposed that we try every kind of chè. No! I tried to pass off my severe initial reaction. We can come again another time and try more.

Chè #1, meet chè #2

I thought we would only be eating chè, but after that we went for a jaunt along the riverbank, or we tried. First, we were lucky that I have a better sense of direction than the teacher whose motorbike I was on, and I kept us from going astray. However, the two teachers changed their minds about the river and we went up to the ever-popular rooftop café by the river. There we were to have mandarin oranges and rambutan, as well as the gelatin dessert that may or may not be complimentary but is served without request every time I go to that café. In addition, they ordered dừa dứa, translated as an aromatic coconut. I couldn't smell much in particular, but it was enormous. My motorcycle helmet would probably fit it better than it fits my head. Sweet after sweet after sweet. It was dinner by way of dessert.

Have a nice trip. See you next fall.

This morning I overdid it with the cooking zeal, and my breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, spring rolls, pomelo, and strawberry yogurt extended itself into both breakfast and lunch. Later, my morning was brightened in the form of two epically long, illustrated letters.

I wore my purple aó dài to teach today. Something I neglected to mention about the last time I wore an aó dài was that, between classes, I got tangled up and fell up some steps. When I told people here they seemed more concerned with the subsequent state of my aó dài, but it was unharmed. My knees, on the other hand, boldly match today's outfit. During break today, one teacher invited me for a drink at the canteen, and on the way there and back we used those nefarious four steps. Both times, he cautioned me to 'be careful.' As if I needed reminding. When wearing aó dài it is necessary to perform idealized femininity by walking slowly. Everyone knows I walk (too) fast. Maybe this snafu is what I needed to behave more 'femininely'; when I walk now I mentally repeat the words "gently, slowly, carefully" like I'm meditating. So far so good.

Yesterday and today we held class in the regular classrooms, instead of in the 'workshop room,' where I normally teach. Somehow, these classrooms, though less than half of the size of the workshop room, hold all of my students just as comfortably. I'd actually almost like the classroom better because the students are closer to me, but the rooms are not air conditioned and I have to use a chalkboard instead of a dry-erase board. On the one hand, chalk doesn't dry out like my markers do, but the chalk dust gets on everything and dries out my hands.

Same number of students, smaller classroom

Trang took me out for cơm tăm, which is usually only a breakfast food, but there are a few places that specifically serve it at night. More for me. Over dinner I taught Trang the word 'to fast' and subsequently about the morphological structure of the word 'breakfast'. She found it quite fascinating, particularly because it clarified a proverb she had heard before. After that we spent a good while sharing proverbs and idioms.

Dinner was followed by ice cream, which was followed by an epic quest for an ATM machine that would accept my card. We ended up going to every machine between dinner and campus, five machines all together. Ironically but conveniently, the only one that worked was the one closest to campus, which is withing walking distance.

Weathering the storm

In the classroom, hinges creaked and glass rattled as windows and doors slammed open and shut. The wind swirled leaves across the courtyard cement. The sky was a steely gray that matched the courtyard concrete, where the wind swirled dry leaves. All that was missing was a grizzled old timer sagely murmuring "storm's a-comin'." But the wind blew on through and despite a few near-misses of Marilyn Monroe steam vent skirt flying moments while teaching, the rain never came.

I was a little frustrated with my classes today. With my 3rd year listening class, I pretty much had to give up on soliciting answers. My questions were met with the inscrutable silence that can just as easily indicate lack of understanding, lack of desire to participate, or just shyness. Was the audio just particularly challenging today? Even the class standouts sat there looking disconnected. Yet, when I stopped asking questions, and just asked them to tell me something they heard, they could answer. One of them could recite the audio back almost word for word. Is it possible to remember every word but not understand it enough to answer basic comprehension questions? This didn't happen at the beginning of the semester, but it has been happening more and more in the last few weeks. I've had to resort to rewriting key phrases of the audio, which turns listening comprehension into reading comprehension, and then playing the audio again so that they can at least pick out the words I have already told them are there for them to hear. If I knew what the problem was, I could brainstorm ways to fix it. But I'm at a loss.

My 2nd year speaking class's behavior was not so different from usual, but maybe because of what had preceded it it was further disheartening. Though it seems that in Vietnamese culture it is not considered rude to talk when others are speaking -- indeed, this happens during meetings, during assemblies, when the rector is making a speech -- that doesn't mean that it is not distracting and disruptive in a classroom. Students usually keep quiet when I speak, but the second it is their peers' turn to talk, the parallel conversations start up. Today it was so bad I caught myself not paying attention to the speaker because I was trying to count how many people were speaking at the same time. When more than half of the class is talking, you can't just move someone across the room or send someone home. Equally frustrating was that when I asked them to come up with imaginative possible Halloween costumes, only five of the answers were ones that were not part of the lesson's vocabulary. And this is not a limited vocabulary issue; they know enough people and objects to come up with costumes beyond witch, ghost, spider, bat, vampire, mummy, etc. Instead of teaching being the uplifting experience it usually is, today it was a drain on my already low energy.

This morning things went slightly better. Even though it was delayed by almost an hour, I had my first (sort of) real Vietnamese class in over a month. It was gratifying to be a student again, to add to my small trove of vocabulary, and to realize I can understand whole sentences that I haven't specifically learned.

In other news, mostly from yesterday:
I finally found a palatable flavor of chè. It doesn't look like much, but if this blog has taught anyone anything, it should be that chè never looks like much.

Corn chè: gelatinous but not powdery

I have an industrious new guest in my bathroom.

Meet Mr. Mud Dauber

I spent the better part of 10 minutes trying to tap and poke and prod this guy out of my door frame so I could close the door without crushing him. After all of my efforts, the next time I opened my door he was still lurking just outside the door. Given that he fits under the bottom of the door, I'll give you one guess as to where he probably ended up.

This guy seemed to think that puffing up would be a good way of intimidating
my shoe.

A minor in Pictionary is a prerequisite for becoming a language teacher. And yes, I did not deal with the goat or the dog, but this post demonstrates my goat-drawing 'prowess'.

This was for the teachers' English club. I was
half-tempted to teach them to ask 'what's your sign?'.

I feel the need to recognize a milestone of my internet existence: this blog has hit over 2500 page views. Thanks for the love and attention!

There and back again

 “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

This weekend was just the right length to transition from:

1. frenzied quest for western comfort foods
2. calming down long enough to do some sight seeing and hitting the major sights
3. having time for aimless (or misguided) wandering
4. actually discovering delicious and reasonably priced, non-tourist-oriented eating establishments
5. feeling ready to go home but still looking forward to going back to the city in the future

and now for the details.

Morena and I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) on Friday morning with no plans other than a hotel reservation. After a few hours of lounging around -- which for me meant appreciating having a pliant mattress again -- Kelly arrived as well and we began the search for lunch. We ended up at a place with alternative phở, alternative in this case meaning more expensive, smaller, less flavorful, and with noodles made from pumpkin.

The orange noodles are the pumpkin-based ones

Our next stop was Ben Thanh Market. It was an intense experience that put us on a fast learning curve. When I had gone to the Ben Tre Market, vendors seemed vaguely interested in my presence. Here, as soon as we walked in, wares were being shoved in my face and I was being implored to buy. Once, I asked about the price of some shorts, which cost more than I even had on me, and as I tried to walk away I was seized by the wrist in a death grip and another shopkeeper came to help her friend box me in. As I struggled to free myself, the price dropped lower and lower and lower. It would have been helpful if I were really interested in buying the shorts, but I wasn't. I made a mental note not to express interest in anything unless I was really seriously interested. I also noted just how inflated the prices are that they were willing to lower it so much just to make the sale.

By that time, Andrea had arrived, and we met her at a café. After the requisite hour or more of catching up on the joys and grievances of life in Vietnam, Brittanye had also joined us at the café. We spent the rest of the afternoon roaming until we came back to the tourist area for an indulgently western dinner. And when I say indulgent, I mean indulgent. I had a pizza and a plate of pasta.

After that, Violet finally made it in, and all of us went out to enjoy the city at night from above.

Saturday we gave ourselves the luxury of sleeping in. When we visited Da Nang we awoke to the city symphony of motorcycle horns; here, we awoke to the sounds of chanting, wafting in from who knows where. Once we got rolling we chose our destinations over breakfast and started with a visit to the HCMC museum. It was an interesting collection of artifacts, before and after maps and photos showing how the city has changed over the years, and documentation of revolutionary struggles. After that we roamed around and hit many of the major sights, including the Reunification Palace, the Hotel de Ville, and the Notre Dame Cathedral. With all of the grandiose French architecture, it was almost easy to forget that we were in Vietnam. In the midst of that, of course, I managed to squeeze in some shopping and got a new dress.

Ho Chi Minh City Museum

Reunification Palace

Hotel de Ville, HCMC City Hall

And then I ran into this guy. Check out his shirt!

Our next stop was the botanical gardens. We thought that the zoo and gardens were two separate entities, but it turned out that they were kind of fused together. Animal enclosures were surrounded by trees with taxonomical signs nailed into them. The conditions for the animals looked about how animals were kept 10 or 15 years ago in the US. Not inhumane, but not really optimal. We tried to go to the Jade Emperor's Pagoda, but the walk was longer than we anticipated and it had closed just a few minutes before we arrived.

On Sunday morning, a few people had to head back to their respective provinces. However, Violet, Brittanye, Morena, and I still had time. We went back to the market and did some damage. I got some desperately needed new shoes and continued to hone my bargaining skills. We shopped until we dropped, and then Brittanye and Violet said their goodbyes. Morena and I returned to the Pagoda that we had attempted to see the night before. As with any place of worship, I felt like my attempts at cultural appreciation doubled as intrusion, and I felt somewhat guilty about being there as a tourist while people were obviously practicing their faith.The temple had many chambers honoring different deities and gods, but since it was an active temple and not a museum, I didn't have much guidance regarding the significance or symbolism in each room.

Morena and I let our feet follow our stomachs after visiting the museum, and boy did our stomachs lead us right! We discovered a very curious looking setup with a bunch of clay hemispheres over a fire. Our curiosity was assuaged by a young lady who was fluent in English, and she explained that this was bánh căn, made with rice flour, shrimp, squid, and egg poured into these hemispheres. We decided it was worth a try, and ordered one each. What we didn't realize was that an order of 'one' meant a plate of eight. Luckily they were extraordinarily delicious, especially after being topped with chives and a peanut fish sauce, and only our self-control kept us from ordering even more. It will be a mandatory stop for all of my upcoming visitors.

Sorry for poor photo quality. In the upper left, one woman is adding raw shrimp
to the rice flour mixture that the woman on the right has already poured in.

Scrumptiousness

We spent a good while chatting with An, the young lady who encouraged us to give it a try. We found out that the restaurant is owned by her boyfriend's family, and that she and he help out on weekend evenings. Morena had been jonesing for a massage, but I'd heard so many stories of fellow ETAs stumbling into massages of ill repute, or just plain bad ones, that I had been reluctant. However, I thought An might be able to point us in the right direction, and the next thing you know we were headed to an after-dinner massage. I'm still on the fence about it. Some parts of it were great; some parts were kind of painful; and some parts just made me want to laugh.

I did get a pretty good view of downtown HCMC from the balcony, though.

We had gone through many proposed plans for Monday, everything from going to a beach to going into the Cu Chi Tunnels to just going back. We decided to go to Cholon, also known as Chinatown, instead. We knew what street it was on and we figured it was walkable, but our plan had one major (or minor, depending on how you look at it) logical flaw. We didn't know the cross street. After an hour of walking we had stumbled upon a great open air market, bustling traffic, and some street snacks, but still no discernible Chinatown.

Lots of squirmers at the market

Fried rice cake snacks, xôi chiên, which I though would be plain but then got
stuffed with mystery contents that I suspect included dried pork.

 
We tried asking for directions but only got vague hand gestures that mostly seemed to suggest that we just needed to cross the street. We had barely more than an hour before we had to check out of our hotel, so we decided to bite the bullet and take a taxi. Cholon wasn't a sufficient landmark, but luckily I remembered that it is known for its market, and I remembered the word for market, so we got on our way. Based on the taxi's trajectory, I have no idea if we ever would have found it, had we persevered. Binh Tay Market was interesting, but not particularly notable. It's structure looked Chinese, but from guidebook descriptions I had expected Cholon to be an entire neighborhood dominated by old Chinese architecture. We wandered around for a while before deciding it was time to head back.

Market entrance

Row upon row of dried goods

In the market courtyard

Now comes the story of my awesome street smarts. The last time I came to HCMC I took a xe ôm (motorcycle taxi) to the airport for 40k VND. The airport is pretty far, so I have figured out that if normal taxi fare will come out to more than 40k/person, it is cheaper to take a xe ôm. Given that the taxi for just the last leg of our walk to the market had been a total of about 50k, it was time to start bargaining with the motorcycles. Morena was a little worried about finding trustworthy xe ôm drivers, but the first ones we ran into were wearing uniforms, which was comforting whether or not it was really significant. For 40k each of us had a swift, riverside ride from the market back to our hotel, which was pretty far away. I was proud of myself for being a good traveler, and for now being able to recognize streets and make sure we were going the right way. One of the many good things about xe ôms is that since you agree on the price ahead of time, there is no incentive for them to take a circuitous route. Another good yet adrenaline-releasing thing about them is that traffic rules apply to them least of all, so they are often the fastest mode of transportation, even if they rarely get above 30km/hr. Anyway, we made it to the hotel with 15 minutes to spare before checkout, and after that it was time for our next round of xe ôm-ing, this time to the bus station. The first pair we encountered insisted it couldn't be done for less than 80k VND, but I knew better. I was shooting for 30k, but the next pair offered us a price of 25k, right off the bat. Perfect. I showed them the bus company's business card and address, and we were on our way. But things didn't look quite right. We 'arrived' at a company that was not the one I intended to depart from. After a lot of yelling and passing around of the business card, it was revealed that this bus company didn't even send buses to Ben Tre, so the drivers carried us onward, this time to the right place. When we arrived they tried to charge us more, but I insisted that their failure to take me to the right place the first time around did not earn them a bonus. This was a situation that demonstrates the value of having exact change when taking a xe ôm. We arrived a comfortable 15 minutes before the departure of the next bus home. So, all in all, I was very proud of myself for savvily navigating both the city itself and its transportation options.

Crossing the bridge back into Ben Tre

Very Vietnamese

 “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” - James Michener

I was very proud of myself this morning for being so industrious. For starters, I made breakfast for the first time: six spring rolls and a fried egg. Today was Vietnamese Women's Day, so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to unveil my new aó dài. However, it was still covered in the seamstress's purple chalk marks. I had been advised to rub it with a damp cloth, but that had no effect. Trang suggested that I wash it; the fabric is so thin it would be dry before I had to teach in the afternoon. So, I did my first round of hand-washing in Vietnam. I also ironed my aó dài pants, which is theoretically required but which I had been previously too lazy to actually do.

Spring rolls, egg, and sweet soy milk

If you ever want to know what it feels like to be a celebrity, be a Westerner in Vietnam. If you stand out enough (which I usually didn't until Morena came), people will point at you and shout "Hello!" when you walk down the street. If you wear an aó dài, strangers will shout "Beautiful!" at you as you walk by. It was endearing and flattering when a group of my students spotted me from across the courtyard and burst into a chorus of squeals. It was flattering but not endearing when my male co-teacher's jaw dropped. If you really want to feel like a celebrity, let someone take a picture with you. The next thing you know, every combination of everyone around will want to take a picture with you. My students presented me with a beautiful flower arrangement to honor me on Vietnamese Women's Day. We started out with a class picture, and it quickly devolved into pictures of me with assorted sets of students. They were very careful to make sure we were never photographed in a group of three, since that is bad luck for whoever is in the middle.

Beautiful rose practically the size of my face

Me and the K8 (2nd year) English Majors

Subsequent photo-op line. Also, look how tall I am!

After class I went out to dinner with some students. To my delight and apprehension, they had decided to take us out for hột vịt lộn, the infamous embryonic duck eggs. I only learned the name for them a few days ago, and subsequently realized that there many places along my street that sell them. I had been trying to work up the courage to buy some on my own, but had yet to succeed. This is something I had been looking forward to (and dreading) trying since before I left the US. Probably to my advantage, we ate them outside and away from bright lights, so the only times I could really see what I was eating was when I took a picture. You put the egg in a little egg-cup, skinny end down, and whack the top side with a spoon. You peel it open, scoop out some egg, and dip it into a mixture of salt, pepper, chili, and citrus juice. I was expecting something much featherier and beakier to be inside. To my surprise, I found them to be absolutely delicious! So delicious, in fact, that I had three. They tasted like duck meat with the consistency of an egg -- and only a few small bones.

The woman laughed at me for taking a picture of each egg, but it paid off:
this was the last egg and by far the most dramatic looking.

I don't even know.

Morena was not so enamored with the hột vịt lộn, so the girls got some cút nướng, whole grilled quail. It was also quite tasty. The girls dared me to eat the head and neck. I gnawed off the neck meat as best I could, and couldn't really figure out what to do with the head. It wasn't until I later, when I saw one of them eat it by just putting the whole head in her mouth and chewing until it was swallowable, that I realized how it was meant to be done. 

I dare you.

Once dinner was over, my social calendar held one more event for the evening: joining one of my students/teachers and Trang for dessert at the rooftop cafe overlooking the river. I was ready to order a smoothie, but Trang recommended a coconut with ice cream, and I followed her advice. It was quite decadent. The coconut contained two scoops of whatever vague but good flavor most of the ice cream here seems to be, two large pieces of jackfruit, whipped cream and a strawberry, and of course the coconut flesh. The coconut juice was served on the side. It felt like another meal.

Tropical desserts are not complete without a little umbrella.

Over the course of dessert I heard the lovelorn legend of the betel nut. The betel nut (actually an areca nut and a betel leaf with mineral lime) was traditionally chewed in Vietnam as a stimulant, which also stains your lips red and your teeth brown (which was not considered a bad thing).

What with the apparel, the dinner, and the folktales, it felt like a particularly Vietnamese day, or at least very much how I envisioned my days before I arrived.

I am going to HCMC for the weekend, so I won't be updating for the next three days.

Master Chef

Does serving as a sous chef count as cooking? When I first arrived on campus I was often invited out by English teachers. After a week or two, that completely tapered off. Last week it struck me that I didn't have to sit around waiting for an invitation; I could do the inviting. I talked to Ms. Hoang, a tiny spunky writing teacher whose company I enjoy, and asked if we could have lunch together this week. After a few rounds of planning, it was decided that Trang and I would go to her house and we would all cook lunch together. I have often heard that Ms. Hoang is rich and has a huge house, so I was curious to see how that would manifest itself. She lives in a decidedly residential area, while most other houses I have seen are on larger streets and have shops nearby. It was, in some ways, hard to see what made her house so different, aside from the fact that it was multi-storied but narrow. I did notice that her house seemed to have more 'stuff', in the American sense of the word, than other houses.

At first I was told to sit in front of the TV while others cooked. Then I was moved to the kitchen, which contained a large bed frame with a bamboo mat instead of a mattress. Ms. Hoang asked if I wanted a soft drink and I said yes. I was expecting something like 7Up, but I received a can of Winter Melon Tea. It tasted like liquid brown sugar. After my time in Vietnam thus far I have come to the conclusion that most beverages are designed to become drinkable after the first heap of ice in it has melted. Instead of sitting there idly, I asked if there was anything I could help with. I fully expected the usual, no no don't worry, but instead I was given a task. "You can wash this," Trang told me, handing me a grocery bag with something inside. I assumed there would be some fruits or vegetables inside. Much to my surprise, I discovered a whole chicken. Feet, tail, body, head, beak, eyes; the body cavity had been cut open and the edible organs had been removed but were also in the bag. Next I was asked to prepare the pineapple. This may sound simple, but it was a very daunting task. There is a very specific way that people cut pineapples here, and I was fully expecting to ruin the aesthetic of the outcome by clumsily, accidentally excising ungainly chunks of fruit (or perhaps my fingers). By some miracle, neither of those things happened. Instead, I was praised for my beautiful and skillful knife work. I was very pleased. Next, I had to thinly slice cabbage or some other similar leafy thing. I earned myself more praise and the prize of chopping all of it, which was quite a lot.

Presenting the pro pineapple prepper

So, technically, I didn't cook anything. But I contributed. And I did kitchen work. And it was fun. And the food was really good. We ended up with a veritable feast of braised pork, rice porridge, chicken with cabbage and greens, and a soup with shrimp and kumquat juice. As often happens, I was fed beyond capacity, and still urged to have more. The food was so good I wanted to oblige, but there was no more room left. I even had to loosen my skirt.
 

Shrimp soup

Pork

Duck

The spread, also featuring rice cooked with bananas and rice porridge

I might have capitulated a breakthrough for my students today. Pronunciation is an uphill battle that I don't often fight, or at least try not to dwell on.  One word I do place an emphasis on is 'because,' which more often than not becomes 'becau.' When I emphatically point at the 's' students are perfectly capable of pronouncing it; they just have the bad habit of not doing so. Today I stepped things up. Another major pronunciation issue is that 'is' often becomes 'i,' and 'it is' becomes 'is i' or 'is is' if I'm lucky. I asked my students to say 'it is,' emphasizing the final consonants. Then I asked them to say 'is is.' then I asked them to say both, one after the other. The class erupted in giggles as they suddenly realized that they sounded exactly the same, but shouldn't. With that new awareness, we practiced some more. There wasn't really any discernible improvement in pronunciation, but their knowing that they are saying it wrong is the first step towards their saying it right.

This evening, the place where we hold English club was unavailable for the first hour, so we started out with an hour of playground games. In addition to playing red light/green light and Simon Says, I got my workout and foot exfoliation in the form of a highly competitive game of duck-duck-goose, barefoot and on cement. Once we got inside we sang the Hokey Pokey and Old MacDonald. After a few rounds of the latter, I asked the students to tell me the Vietnamese words for the same animal sounds, and we sang it again with those sounds. My favorite sound is the rooster's call, which in Vietnamese is òóo. Sometimes I worry that the English club is not as (academically) educational as people might like, but I think it is important for students to see that English isn't just about sitting in a classroom listening to the same recording five times. Tonight, a high schooler who also comes to the club came up to me and told me how much she enjoys it, and that she finds the subject matter more interesting than what they cover in her classes at school. It's always nice to get affirmation directly from my students.

After English club we went out for snacks and smoothies, and this time I tried the 'everything' smoothie. It was so good I think next time I might have to get one of each.

Reality bites

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." - George Orwell, 1984

I had a frustrating and confusing morning. First. I awoke to an email from one of the teachers I work with. From Day 1 he had given me his syllabus as a sample but urged me to do whatever I wanted with the class. At first I tried to run lesson plans by him, but he always replied that it was my class and I could do as I pleased. This morning's email 'suggested' that I follow his syllabus, because that is the content the students will be tested on in the upcoming midterm. What? I emailed him my concerns: my students have been doing really well in class, but they seem doomed to bomb the midterm since I haven't been following his syllabus at all, and there are only a handful of classes left before the exam. This hardly seems fair.

Second. Last night I mentioned to Trang in passing that Anh Thu had invited me to have lunch with her today. Apparently, this set wheels in motion, and Trang invited me to breakfast to inform me that she and the school administration thought it was not safe for me to do this, and they didn't want me to do so. Moreover, we had a long, vague but disconcerting discussion about my (lack of) freedoms in Vietnam. By the end of it, I was left under the impression that I am more or less being watched and must always be careful about what I am doing. Whenever a teacher takes me out to lunch, they must first inform the authorities (who exactly the authorities are was part of the vagueness) that they are doing so. It seems like the authorities can call the school at any time to ask where I am and what I am doing and how I am feeling and the school must be able to answer. I don't understand, then, why I can go places alone seemingly at will but if I am accompanied by anyone else it becomes an official matter. Trang told me that this district is notoriously strict with all of its residents.

I was planning on meeting Anh Thu anyway, but then Trang contacted me to make lunch plans, perhaps to make sure I didn't do exactly what I was planning. I understood that the school was looking out for me, and watching it's own back, too, but I feel like I should be able to make my own decisions and trust my own judgment. I felt very very upset. Anh Thu has shown me nothing but kindness. We would be eating in her shop, on the side of the road, in plain sight. Pretty low-risk. I had really been looking forward to lunch, but now I found myself having to reject her kindness against my will and couldn't really explain why. When Trang came to pick me up for lunch it was clear on my face that I had been crying. I have heard other ETAs' stories of awkwardly received public crying (in Vietnam it is considered shameful to cry in public) and it was my turn to experience it. Instead of acknowledging that I was upset, Trang seemed to be doing everything in her power to ignore it. But, when she asked me what I was thinking I couldn't not tell her. We were still standing outside my door so I asked her to come inside. When I started explaining my frustrations, my eyes started watering again. She pointedly looked away from me the whole time.

After the crying moment we ended up having a really good talk during which I expressed my confusions and many things were cleared up. Some details augmented the 1984 feelings, but overall it was important to me to have my questions addressed directly rather than circuitously. I made a point of telling Trang that I wasn't upset with her, just with the situation. Trang decided to accompany me and Morena to Anh Thu's place to help explain things to her as well. It wasn't really the vibe I wanted: Trang and Anh Thu just spoke Vietnamese to each other with occasional translations from Trang, but after a while Trang left and I got to fend for myself. We talked about how light skin is beautiful in Vietnam but tan skin is beautiful in the US; we talked about our weather preferences; we talked about naps, and more. If you were to ask me for specific vocabulary relevant to any of those themes, I wouldn't be able to come up with much. But somehow we talk. Somehow we understand each other, and it's not just because of body language or translation. Anh Thu invited us to her wedding next month. We'll see what happens.

Literally the highlight of my evening. What is it? A firefly in my hand.

My evening was much better. I had the English club for teachers, and teaching was fun and energizing as usual. After that I went out with Hong and her friends, a group that included Phong, the only boy in the class, as well. It was nice to get to talk to a different student, and also to observe boy-girl interactions.

Mango smoothie. So good I might just have to
get one for breakfast tomorrow.

Just a simple human

One of the questions I have posed to my students as a conversation starter is, "If you could have any super power, what would it be?" While answers like flight, super-strength, and invisibility are certainly acceptable, I try to get them to be creative. To give them an example, I usually tell them that I would want the power of knowing every language. Every time I say this, though, a part of me raises a little flag. Would possessing an innate knowledge of every language make them less valuable to me? Sure, at a basic level, languages are about communication. If I knew every language that would be undeniably useful, valuable, even super. But, if I wasn't learning languages, if I just knew them, would I analyze them the way I do love to do when I am working to internalize every new word and structure?  Is part of my love for language the thrill of the chase, the sense of triumph that comes every time another piece clicks into place? Absolutely.

This evening I had dinner plans with Trang, but before that I accompanied Morena to go get some food. On the way back, Anh Thu, the pajama shop lady, waved at us from across the street and gestured for us to come over to her. I wondered if she was going to try to sell me more pajamas. I probably would have obliged. However, she just wanted me and Morena to sit and chat with her. At first things were going surprisingly smoothly. I understood enough words to understand her questions. She asked how many people were in our families. I answered. She asked if I had a boyfriend. I said yes. She asked how tall he was. I told her how tall. She said Americans are very big. We were having real conversation. And then we hit a road block. We spent around 15 minutes trying to get around it. It was at this time that I reflected on the relative joys of learning languages versus knowing languages. I have to give Anh Thu credit; she wouldn't give up. Actually, I intuited what she was saying pretty early on, but I didn't know how to make it clear to her that I understood. She was inviting us to join her for lunch tomorrow. She tried using English and I tried rephrasing with my limited Vietnamese to make sure my intuitions were correct. But, neither one of us was quite getting through. Eventually, we concluded that yes, she was inviting us to lunch with her tomorrow. Next she wanted to know what we liked to eat. Everything. But I don't know how to say that in Vietnamese, so I just started listing all the food I know (which is the bulk of my vocabulary anyway). She just laughed. We may have spent over half an hour having a conversation that would take five minutes between two people who are fluent in the same language, but it was really nice to just sit and talk with someone and discover or confirm that I am able to have some form of conversation, at least when my co-conversant has the patience for it. Tomorrow I'll find out what comes of tonight's chat, and I'll bring my dictionary to have smoother sailing.

Anh Thu and her little helper

I went out to dinner with Trang, her son, and her sister. We ate a fancy version of spring rolls. Beef thigh, pork thigh, mystery greens that were even mysterious to Trang and her sister (one smelled like licorice or anise), pickled papaya and shrimp, cucumber, pineapple, pickled orange and white carrot, and vermicelli. Despite my penchant for piling an unladylike amount of everything onto my sheet of rice paper, I was able to maintain my daughter-in-law-quality rolling. Once again, it seems fitting to say that this was one of my favorite dishes.

Next we went for drinks and dessert. I ordered a jackfruit smoothie, but got coerced into getting an ice cream like everyone else, as well. On one hand, having ice cream feels so out of place here, but the topping of peanuts and caramelized jackfruit helped bring me back to Vietnam.