Ceremony, food, and friends

 Even though I have been teaching for over a month and school had already started when I arrived, the first year students did not arrive until this week, and so yesterday the school held the opening ceremony for the academic year. I got to wear my fancy green and white aó dài and felt very beautiful. Indeed, everyone told me that I looked very beautiful and very Vietnamese. Part of the opening was the singing of the national anthem, The three hour ceremony was much less boring than I feared, though that was mostly thanks to Trang, who chatted with me throughout the whole thing. We were sitting in the second row, and she told me that she had never gotten to sit this  close to the front, as these seats are usually reserved for very important guests. In our vicinity were people like the Secretary General of the province, and other similarly ranked officials. I guess I have a fairly skewed experience as a foreign visitor: I am always in the first or second row at events.

Student performances were the best part

Trang received a high honor during the ceremony!

The ceremony was followed by a celebratory feast, and when I say feast, I mean feast. I felt like I was back in Italy, because I kept thinking the food was done coming out, but each dish was followed by another and another. I am known for my appetite, but the amount of food, the extreme heat, and the form-fittingness of my aó dài were just too many factors against me. I actually unzipped the top inch of my pants (concealed by the length of the aó dài) to be more comfortable.

Course 1: egg drop soup

Course 2: pork and coconut trunk and rice cracker puff thing

Courses 3: vermicelli and pork yum yum yum

Courses 4 and 5: amazing beef stew and hotpot soup
Not pictured: dessert

Mandatory rice wine shots with administrators and local officials

I taught all afternoon, and despite some more schedule confusion it all went well. In my 3rd year speaking class the students drew monsters, traded, and wrote stories about the monsters.

Monster drawing

Story time

When Morena and I went out for dinner we passed by the pajama shop and got her a set of matching pajamas. It would seem that the lady who owns the place remembered me, and decided, like everyone else does, to strike up conversation despite my limited language skills. By the miracles of intuition, again, I think we managed to actually have a conversation. It doesn't hurt that most people ask more or less the same questions. It also didn't hurt that she actually had some English skills up her pajama sleeve, so when I was totally lost she could cobble together enough English words to phrase a question, and I could cobble together enough Vietnamese words to phrase a reply. When we left Morena asked me, "How is it that you speak Vietnamese already?" To be honest it hadn't even hit me that I was actually communicating. But I'm finding that a handful of phrases and 20-50 words can sometimes be enough to make it through small talk or maybe even a little more.

On this same adventure I found a cute dress for sale on the street. The saleswoman refused to bargain, though, and it wasn't that cheap so I didn't buy it. I called Hong for advice and ultimately it was decided that she and her friends would meet me after their evening class to help me bargain. I described the dress to them and stood some 100 feet away,  but the woman wouldn't bargain with them either, so I didn't get it. I felt a little like I was taking advantage of my students, but on the way home Hong said to me, "I'm so glad you called us for help. We are your friends and that is what friends are for."

Later in the evening I got a phone call from Hong, saying that they had found the what they thought was the same dress at another shop and had bargained it down to a reasonable price. She wanted to know whether to buy it. I was worried that it would be a different dress or that it would be the same one but in a smaller size, but I said yes. This morning we met for our 630am Friday breakfast and they brought me the dress. It was the same one and it fit! But the story gets even better. It turns out that when they got home after our first shopping attempt they called another student who owns a motorbike, and asked him to take them to a dress shop in the city center, where perhaps they might also find the dress. Luckily for all of us, they did. Friends indeed. While we might normally call this a kind gesture, I often find that gesture is insufficient to describe the kindness and love that I'm experiencing here.

I'll be traveling all weekend, but you can most likely look forward to a long, picture-filled post come Monday!