Some overlooked details:
When I was in Ho Chi Minh, talking to other ETAs revealed a magical secret. In American body language, we have one gesture that means no, no thanks, not interested, and another gesture that means so-so, kind of, maybe. In Vietnamese body language, the latter gesture means no, far more than the former. When dealing with lottery ticket salespeople/beggars in the past I would say no and shake my head but they were persistent and insistent. I started using the new gesture, and all of a sudden they started backing off immediately. I see the gesture everywhere, too. Sometimes it is vertical, more like a weird wave or a lightbulb-screwing-in gesture, but now I know what it means. Now I know that when I ask if you sell something you're not saying 'sort of', you're saying 'no'.
Yesterday, I got my Vietnamese lesson from my students. They had showed up for my office hours, and I guess decided to stick around to play audience to my Vietnamese lesson. However, while Ms. Nga helped Morena, the students got conscripted to become my teachers. This actually worked out quite well, because it meant I got personalized attention from not one but four native speakers, and I could work at my own pace and ask my random questions without feeling like I was interrupting things. It was nice.
This morning I met with Mr. Hung Vu for coffee. He is working on a linguistics masters thesis and wanted to record me, a native speaker, reading an English text so that he can use it to compare against his elicitations from his students. Afterward he invited me to lunch (at the perfectly Vietnamese lunch hour of 10:45am). I asked him about his thesis work, and it was really nice to have an academic conversation, especially in a field I am particularly interested in. He is testing the effectiveness of a method he has developed that he thinks will improve his students' reading comprehension and reading speed.
Today in class my students asked for an encore of my song. I was half-tempted, but I used Morena's absence as an excuse to decline the invitation.
So now you should make a video of all these things. How about the daily Vietnamese Body Language video?
ReplyDeleteI thought of you and your translation yesterday. I am now anonymously famous. I was asked to record a public service announcement in Spanish for a Families Empowered event this weekend. It was sent to families across the Houston area, encouraging them to attend an educational opportunities program :-)