Let's hear it for the girls

Blame the internet's early bedtime for the infrequency of my posts.

3.7.12
It was the last day of my USA class. I held a review session disguised as a contest, and teams worked together to 1. list as many states as they could in eight minutes, 2. match a list of states and cities, 3. match a list of historical figures with their descriptions. In the first activity I only counted correctly spelled states, and teams' scores ranged from 17 to 30. Interesting alleged states included: Huron, Ontario, Brooklyn, Bronx, Mohata (Manhattan, I think), Canada, and Mexico. I expected the students to do really well, or at least better than they did, on the city-state matching exercise. Everyone paired Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and New York City with the right states, but St. Louis was almost exclusively paired with Louisiana. Much to my surprise, the students did a speedy and stellar job on the last exercise, and most groups got them all right. This was surprising since, when I used to have more specific quiz questions, questions about historical figures were rarely answered correctly. Members of the winning team received pens decorated with images from Texas, and I was happy to see them start using them right away. I also gave out magnets with the NYC skyline to the two students with the highest average quiz grade.

States, states, states

The evening's English club went especially well. It turns out that asking students what topic they want to discuss makes for much more active students during the discussion. What a surprise! Not only did everyone participate, they asked follow-up questions to their peers' replies and proposed additional questions for discussion. It probably also helped that there were only ten students. The topic was marriage, and there were only 9 female students until about halfway through, when one guy arrived. I learned about their ideal husbands and wives. One student (who is a ham and a half) said that she wanted to get married at 22 to an American, go live in the US, and have 12 children, which is why she wanted to get married so young. I wasn't sure if she was serious. The other students asked her if she wanted to make her own soccer team. Much to my surprise, two students said they don't want to get married. The class agreed that having eight boyfriends before getting married is too many, but 5 is ok. In between is a gray area.

Attractive professions and the qualities of an ideal husband

On my walk to dinner I talked to myself in Italian to refresh my memory. I figured talking to myself wouldn't make me stand out any more than I already do as a foreigner, female, person walking alone at night, and there wouldn't be much difference between me speaking one language no one else here understands and another. When I started speaking in different voices I decided maybe it was time to stop talking to myself.

3.8.12
Today is international women's day. In Italy, people give you yellow flowers and bars all have male strip shows to entertain the night's female patrons. In Vietnam, people give you flowers and other small gifts. So far, it seems that I am well on my way to having a full Vietnamese disguise. On Tuesday night I got a bedazzled purple shirt from the teachers' English club. Last night I got a flower arrangement and oranges, the latter for my continued recovery. Today I got a rose and a big floppy hat from my students, who also took me out for coffee during the break between periods. I also got a dress from the administrators.

After the gift-giving, class was business as usual until break. The students invited me to go to the canteen to have coffee with them, and break ended up being much longer than the scheduled 15 minutes.
 

Around lunchtime I got a very unexpected text message from an unknown number. Take a look:

My teacher! Please accept me today my wish for u HAPPY WOMAN DAY! Teacher isso bauety body and lovely hjhj. Love for you is  alway. I see u in my heart wish to forever with u. My LOVE my WIFE my DREAM FREIN and KISS. Som day i can hope to spaek open to u:D pjpj teacher

When I replied, asking for the texter to tell me his or her name, this is what I got: "Oh u do not reconi me :DDD i am wait for u hope for see u teach me in futre MY LOVE." Interesting.

In the afternoon I was supposed to go watch the women's day activities that were taking place. Originally, Trang had plotted to get me in the cooking contest despite my protests, but I was spared by the fact that only union members were allowed to compete. As I headed to the gymnasium, I was trying to set aside my misgivings about women's day being celebrated with a cooking contest, but when I arrived I was pleased to see that there were as many men as women on the cooking teams. It was a spring roll making contest, judged on quantity produced, presentation, and flavor.

The winning team

Another fanciful display

After the judging, everyone in attendance got to dig in. I should have known that any remotely important day would include food, and I should have known that there would be more food waiting in the wings. And with food and celebration, there is always alcohol. I watched the men flit from table to table, inviting people to partake of the shotglass they refilled with a plastic bottle full of moonshine. I had already eaten my last bite of dessert and some of the teachers at my table were starting to leave but my table had not yet been pollinated by the alcohol butterflies. Could it be possible that I would make it through the meal without having to down any drinks? Vietnam would never allow such a thing. They swooped in just in time, and then I was snared again later, as I was on my way out.