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.