One of the boys

Tuesday morning started with a repeat of Wednesday night. Elliot liked the pho so much he wanted to have it again for breakfast, this time with sliced beef instead of meatballs. He concluded that he prefers the beef, but I'm still a bigger fan of meatball pho. Next, we paid a visit to Anh Thu, aka pajama mamma. On the way we bought some rambutan, as much to have something to share with her while we talked as to give Elliot the opportunity to try something new. In addition to our rambutan, she gifted us with two pineapples. It seems she has expanded her sales to pajamas and fruit, I suspect because her new husband (she got married on 11/11/11) is a fruit grower. I tried to ask if that was the case, and I think she confirmed my analysis. Elliot got to observe our halting dialogue, her patience, and my struggles. But also our friendship. On the way back we stopped for bánh bao chiên and bánh tiếu, two of my favorite snacks.

My original plan was for us to go to the city center in the afternoon, but we were invited to have a 'meal' at 330. (I put meal in quotation marks because I'm not quite sure what category a meal at that time fits into.) We got picked up and it was time for Elliot's first ride on a motorbike. He described it as rather hair-raising. I was just entertained to see him completely obscuring the driver in front of him. Trang kept saying he looked like an Indian dancer, though I'm not really sure what she meant by that. I saw four people on one bicycle, which seems like an even greater feat than four on a motorbike.

One of these things is not like the others...
Motorbikes seem perfectly reasonably sized until there's an Elliot sitting on one

When we arrived I discovered that our meal would take place at the fresh beer place. I am certain that Elliot was taken there because he is a man, and consequently needs to experience local drinking culture. To his surprise, the fresh beer (it must be consumed within 24 hours) was pretty tasty. I shocked everyone by saying that I think it is better than Heineken, which is considered the paragon of beers here. As I told Elliot, this meal would certainly fill him up. Courses included: green mango salad, fried rice, rice from the bottom of the pan (a crunchy dish that used to be for the poor and is now a specialty), make-it-yourself spring rolls with fish, and lastly blood clam rice porridge.

At this point Elliot has experienced rice in many of its forms: 'normal', crushed or broken, fried, bún noodles, pho noodles, pan-scrapings, paper, porridge, and perhaps a few others. During the meal there was a sudden rush of water from across the open-air restaurant. At first I thought someone was just hosing things down, but a clang and a crash revealed that a fish tank had failed. One lethargic fish lay unmoving on the pavement.

In the evening Elliot was the main attraction at the teachers' English club.

The meeting was cut short, though, so that we could attend the annual coconut fashion show. Whatever I was expecting, the students' creations were beyond anything I could have imagined. Four departments participated, and while some produced the more expected woven palm frond garments or grassy skirts, some went so far as to make aó dài with coconut husks, cocktail dresses, and menswear. It was quite impressive.

They even made that hat!

A lotus blossom

A lotus pod

My favorite

Elliot, though also impressed, seemed somewhat more entranced by a chalkboard outside covered in physics calculations.

Wednesday was a teaching day. In the afternoon I taught the first class of the new semester: Spotlight on the USA. I kicked things off with an idea I came up with when I was preparing evaluations at the end of last semester: Happy Teacher, Happy Student. I told the students what kind of classroom behavior makes me a happy teacher, and asked them to tell me what I can and should do to make them happy students. I will make a poster of this and put it up for every class. Then, I taught the students about American names and asked them to choose one for themselves. Now I have a class full of Kellys (4), Violets (3), and several Kaylas and Julias.

After that it was time for our guest speaker, Elliot. I encouraged them to ask him questions related to their readings about American holidays, sports, culture, leisure activities, and so on. I played illustrator and, occasionally, interpreter. Inspired by the earlier part of the lesson, my students bestowed Elliot with a Vietnamese name: Nam Tuấn Hải (something like Man Handsome Sea -- it's not really supposed to make sense).

When you kick the football through the goalposts, onto the American flag,
you score three points.

Elliot is taller than all but one of the students standing on the step behind him.

I had mentioned to Trang that Elliot was interested in trying hột vịt lộn, fertilized duck egg, and she came through with a surprise for both of us. It turns out that a woman next to her house prepares them in some unusual ways. We had breaded and deep fried eggs, as well as hard boiled ones in a peanut and tamarind sauce. Who knew there were so many different ways to make hột vịt lộn? Both were delicious, but we all agreed that the fried ones were the best.

Saucy

Fried

Inside the fried egg

English club turnout was pretty low, partly because some students have exams coming up and partly because there wasn't one last week, and people weren't sure whether there would be one this week. For a moment I was tempted to send people home, but then I remembered what a great opportunity this was for the few who had showed up. We sat in a circle, five students, me, Elliot, and the English teacher, so it was a great student-teacher ratio. We just chatted for a while. Topics that came up included how we differentiate between Indians from India and Indians/Native Americans, and what kind of accent a Vietnamese English student should aspire to have. Eventually I steered the conversation towards Christmas and after a while I got up to show some of a powerpoint I had prepared. We wrapped things up by singing a few Christmas carols.

Mr. Hoang, the teacher who attended the club, and Mr. Vu Hung invited us out for some drinks. Mostly, they wanted to shoot the breeze with Elliot, and I was an accessory. It was interesting for me because it is the kind of activity I, as a woman, would never be invited to; it was an insight into male social culture. Naturally, we also needed to eat. Beer snacks were raw peanuts, grilled chicken, cút lộn (fertilized quail egg), and grilled quail. I convinced Elliot to eat the quail head, but I don't think I managed to convince him that it was tasty. They want to hang out again, and plans are underway for a snake lunch on Friday. Here's hoping they follow through with those plans.

Leetle birdie

Over drinks, Mr. Hoang told me that he had learned something from me, and asked whether I knew what it was. I was expecting that he learned something about Christmas or American culture, but what he said was much more moving. He told me that if he had been in my shoes, he wouldn't have held English club for so few students, but he admired that I had. Most people would think that such a low turnout wouldn't make it worthwhile to have a lesson, but I had showed him a new way to look at it.