Catch Up Time

During my mother's recent visit to Vietnam, one night during dinner the conversation turned to my blog, particularly how there hasn't been an update in awhile, or to be more exact, nearly two months. This is embarrassing, particularly as I have sent people dozens of assurances since the last post, promising an update coming in a day, by the end of a week, in an hour. This could be seen as procrastination or failure, but as my mother so kindly pointed out to me I'm the kind of person that needs a deadline. Therefore keeping in the spirit of New Year's resolutions, I've decided that my New Year's Resolution will be to update the blog at least once a week. We'll see if this happens, but we all know I'm pretty stubborn, so I think it should work for at least a little while.

But now to play catch up. The past two months have been both wonderful and busy. Not so much with teaching, but with traveling and celebrating. I went to Thailand with some friends for a week, experienced the crazy culture of Bangkok, motorbiked over an island in the south (don't worry I was always a passenger); I celebrated Thanksgiving and my birthday Saigon style; my mother and Alice came to visit where we traveled up the coast of Vietnam and over to Cambodia to see the Temples of Angkor Wat where we took a million cooking classes, met some great people, and saw some beautiful scenery; I celebrated an expat Christmas in Vietnam; I have gotten in a motorcycle accident on the back of one of my xe om's (Mr. Seven's) bike; and I've gotten two motorcycle burns on my right leg, which are now, thankfully, fading to light pink, circular scars. There are a myriad of stories that go along with these adventures, but since I don't want this blog to be fifty pages long I've decided to narrate with pictures.

Thailand

Getting Fresh Pad Thai made in Bangkok for less than a dollar. Delicious and fresh. Definitely a reason to go back to Thailand.

Visiting the Grand Palace in Bangkok. These monks were kind to let me get a picture with them. We weren't allowed to touch them, and we might have been to close to them, for when women came to take pictures after us, all the women had to sit on the ground in front of them, at least a meter away. Oops.

Hanging out on the beach with the locals who worked at the restaurant where we ate. Our first stop after Bangkok. We left the next day and took a ferry to Koh Samui.

Getting ready to get on a motorbike to find a place to stay for the night.

The market where we ate most of our meals. Unbelievable food- curry, banana pancakes, spring rolls... So cheap.

The beach bungalows where we stayed.

One of the many beaches on the island.

Delicious squid dinners.

A summit view of the island, we followed very steep, rocky, dirt roads to arrive.

The nice proprietor of the establishment cut me a flower from his garden while we enjoyed the view and a beer after a grueling motorcycle ride up the steep hills.

An example of the roads. I might have gotten us lost on the way down...

Thanksgiving and My Birthday

We had planned on ordering pizza, but my housemate Greg, ended up being so great and getting Thanksgiving dinner from a restaurant in town for us and some friends. Who knew, turkey in Vietnam?

On my birthday, I discovered this lake about an hour outside the city where I had a picnic and swam. So beautiful!

Birthday party on the roof.

Alice and Mom's Visit

Their first night in town, trying out some Vietnamese dishes.

Alice, our little, picky eater, doesn't look too thrilled with eating a whole fish while we were touring the Mekong Delta.

River Cruise on the Mekong.

A view of Yaley Fashion house in Hoi An. We spent most of our time here getting clothes tailor made. My mother is already planning how she can get back there.

Biking in the countryside outside Hoi An.

Some typical scenes of the country.

Dressing up like a farmer.

First cooking class of our trip.

Learning the ways of the land. We discovered that farming is much harder than it looks.

Hoi An lunch.

Bargaining for pearls with these nice ladies. They were nice enough to pretend to be impressed with the little Vietnamese that I know. My hat courtesy of the woman to my right who thought I would look better with it on in the picture.

With out guide Anh, who insisted that we try on these hats and take pictures, much to my mother's chagrin, who kept insisting that yellow was NOT her color.

Cyclo tour of Hue.

Again, dressed up by the insistence of Anh at a royal dinner. This time my mother put her foot down and was allowed to wear the red dress.

Cyclo tour of Hanoi.

With our culinary expert exploring the markets of Hanoi.

Tea and fruit break during out bike ride outside of Hanoi. This nice family invited us into their home, cut up all the fruit in their house, even going so far as to pick fresh bananas for us.

Then they asked us to have lunch with them. The woman in purple even offered to kill us a chicken if we stayed for lunch.

Having tea with the lady who sold us ceramics after another successful bargain. She is one of ten sisters, who all work at the store her father and uncle own outside of Hanoi.

Halong Bay.

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Touring a floating village in Halong Bay.

Alice, so kindly told our rower that I would love to try my hand at rowing. As you can probably tell, I wasn't successful at all, which was disheartening when four year olds were out playing on the water in their very own row boats.

Said four year olds playing before dinner. Look at their skill.

In Siem Riep, Cambodia taking an elephant ride. This was the highlight for Alice.

On the elephant ride.

Feeding the elephant a bunch of bananas.

Balloon ride to see the temples.

Receiving a blessing from the monks.

Christmas in Vietnam

I wasn't expecting a big deal to be made about Christmas here, and how wrong I was. Stores went all out with decorations, lights, and music, even before Thanksgiving. Santa even came to visit my classes. Everyone wore santa hats. We even had school off. And there were more lights here than I have seen anywhere.

Families dressed up to get their picture taken next to the festive trees that lined the streets.

Some of the lights downtown.

Decorated palm trees.

Gift exchange at our house on Christmas Eve.

Housemate picture.

Our tree, courtesy of Elizabeth.

Christmas lunch.

Sunday after Christmas I went to the orphanage with a friend to assist her in an English lesson. The kids were amazing. Check out the video below of them singing Christmas songs!

Young Leaders

So I know I’ve been horrible in writing entries in my blog. I’ve found that I have so much to say that every time I manage to sit down at the computer I feel so overwhelmed with not even knowing where to begin. But here I am in a coffee shop down the street, escaping the heat because my power just went out at my house (why, I never know, it happens periodically) facing the computer screen.

The monsoon season has nearly come to an end. Instead of overcast, humid days where the clouds hang low in the sky waiting to burst, I wake up to brilliant sunshine and nearly cloudless skies. I never thought I would say this, but I almost miss the rain. There’s nothing like driving in a moto after a rainstorm. As long as I don’t get soaked when my xe om driver accelerates through the pot holes filled with water when I’m on my way to work, I love feeling the cool breeze on my skin- almost like sea spray. Normally when I’m on a moto I pretend like I’m on a sea doo at the beach. I go to that special place to calm myself with the thought of falling off. I just tell myself that the ground is water and that I will just bounce with the waves, instead of breaking a bone against the pavement.

So why haven’t I been writing in a blog? Well, I’ve been busy teaching. For the past month I have been teaching at a language school, which means that people come to the school to take classes after work/school and on the weekends. Therefore, my schedule is crazy. I work all day Saturday, Sunday mornings, and weekday evenings from 6 -9. Because of the crazy traffic I normally leave my house to go to work about 4:30. Sound grueling? Yeah, it isn’t. I’m very spoiled. Teachers are respected here and I only have to go to work at night. The weekends are horrible, but I just keep thinking about so many people I know who work 10 hours every day…y’all should just come to Vietnam.

Teaching has been an adventure to say the least. I teach every age from 4 years old to adult, and each age brings a challenge. The younger ones don’t speak English at all. You teach them maybe three words for an hour and a half class while the scream at the top of their lungs and run around the room. And this is early on Saturday morning. The elementary ages are fun, but as they come to class for three hours after a long day of school, so it’s very challenging to hold their attention. I find that games are the best. The teenagers (the young leaders as they are called) are both the best and the worst. The best because they know a lot of English, but the worst because all they want to do is text on their phone and talk in Vietnamese. My most troublesome class (which is tonight) has gotten a lot better since I gave them a seating chart. I never thought I would do that after all my years griping about seating charts, but their was nothing else I could do. I would go into class all prepared with my lesson excited to teach and they would just whisper the whole time and throw notes to each other. After one horrible day where I wanted to scream with frustration I made them take out a piece of paper and tell me their goals for the class.

Here are some examples of what they wrote:

I learn this class because I want to improve my English better. I want to learn about countries and culture in the world.

My goal of study English is to be study in Harvard or Oxford and after I graduated, I will go back here maybe with my wife, I will have a fine job, 100,000 USD a year and live a happy life with my family.

And my personal favorite:

My goal is !!! I have no idea why I come to this class. (My mom get me here). My study was improve by plays many game in English.

After this class I was disheartened by the stupid young leaders, but after reading their notes and drinking a large cup of coffee and going on a run on the treadmill I became inspired. I saw the sign, so to say. “Marguerite,” I said to myself, “You can reach these young leaders. You can help them learn.” So I vowed to be a better teacher, to be more motivated. I decided I was going to play music at the beginning of class and give them fill in the blank sheets with the lyrics; I was going to tell them about my experiences with learning French and my advice for learning a foreign language. I was going to deviate from the scheduled syllabus to teach them what they want to know. Hooray! Go team.

And as you can see, some of the students are truly great. Some really have big dreams to study abroad and to make a better life for Vietnam, and some just don’t want to be there. But what can you do?

So when I went to the next class I gave them a letter giving them all my advice for learning a foreign language and told them about my experiences. Then I made them change seats, and arranged them boy, girl, boy, girl. Even though these students are 16 the refuse to sit boy, girl, boy, girl. When I go into class the left side is the boys’ side and the right side is the girls’. Even in my adult classes there are some girls who whine and pout if a boy sits next to them. Well, since they weren’t going to listen to me, I knew that if I didn’t want them to talk all I had to do was sit them next to someone of the opposite sex.

Now before I came to Vietnam I had heard stories about how respectful Asian students are, how obedient and polite and demure. Yeah, not so much. When I went up to the first student and asked her to stand up with her stuff to change seats with a boy, she said “No,” shook her head and didn’t move one inch. “Yes,” I said, “Get up.” “No,” she said again. This went back and forth, until I thought I was going to start shaking. I was completely unprepared for her not to listen to me. Part of me wanted to give up and say “Ok, fine, but if you’re not good this class, you will move,” but the other, stubborn my mother hates this half of me knew I couldn’t lose face in front of this snotty young leader (one of the four “mean girls” in my class). I stared her down. She stared me down. I glared. She glared. I sighed and said, “This is ridiculous. You’re acting like a five year old.” And that got her. She moved. But she wasn’t the only obstacle. “Teacher, no teacher, no, I hate him, I hate him” the girls would say. The boys would laugh and shake their head. But my stubborn self got them to move.

After I moved them the class went pretty smoothly, although they all hated me and I found a few of my heart-felt notes scattered on the ground after class.

But in this class, I have made progress. I still make them move seats, but they secretly love it, because they want to be able to talk to the opposite sex, it just wouldn’t be proper in their eyes.

Since this blog entry is already long enough, I’ll leave it at that, but will update soon (Jared, I promise) with more stories of my teaching and living in Vietnam.