Well I’m very proud of myself. I have just successfully executed one of the key driving maneuvers here in Saigon. I haven’t figured out how to import it, but you can click the link below to view my illustration of the maneuver.
By way of preface: You’re the blue guy, the red ones are everyone else, and this is all happening at once. This is when it is emphatically not your turn to turn left by US standards. But then, in Saigon, it’s never your turn, unless to declare it to be so. So without further ado, please click below for my artwork. Apologies in advance for the shaky hand – I’m not the artist my mom is – but the shaky hand does seem fitting in this context.
My favorite part of the work day is when I get to hang out with 18 4-to-6-year-olds. It’s true.
I recently got my first class of my own – up until now I’ve been doing various kinds of subbing at this school. I’ve taught high-schoolers who are nearly fluent, 8-yr-olds in their first English class ever, and almost everything in between. All the while, I had people asking me “do you wanna teach Jumpstarts, do you wanna teach Jumpstarts????” (Those are the 4-6-yr-olds). I always gave sort of luke-warm answers like “I mean, if you need me to I will, but . . . ” As much as I love little kids by themselves, I’ve always had this thing about masses of them all in one place. Besides, there’s just something I really love about nitty-gritty grammar stuff with the older kids, but I’ll spare you the gory details.
HOWEVER.
This first class at least is, alas, the babies. And maybe it’s something in the water, but these kids are so cute is it literally almost unbearable. And they’re still so young and malleable that they will do anything teacha says. All the while squealing with joy or giving you this look like “what’s next what’s next?!?!”
I had to go to break earlier than planned in one class b/c one girl was so excited about this game we were playing that I couldn’t stop laughing enough to actually play the game.
Yesterday, they learned “My name is _______, and I am special.”
Their brains are like little sponges for language, which makes the teaching part quite a bit easier . . .
It’s also like having a room full of 18 shadows. They’re not doing it to be annoying – they’re just trying to learn to speak and do things like you. This has the unexpected result of revealing to you habits that you never knew you had . . .
My kids now say “a’ight,” and turn in their work with an enthusiastic thumbs up going “good job, good job.”
Intonation alters meaning in Vietnamese. So they’re not just repeating your words. They’re repeating them in exactly the way that you said them.
They also don’t quite understand that I don’t speak Vietnamese. So they often come up to me and give me an earful of Vietnamese with the fullest expectation that I will get it. Because why wouldn’t I? I’m a person, and I’m living in Vietnam. It just doesn’t make any sense.
They love nothing more than singing “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” as fast as they possibly can. It’s enough to throw them into fits of excitement and laughter.
Next week, I’m going to devise some way to take pictures of them and share them with you, so stay tuned.
In short, I’m glad the school ignored my responses to their questions about what I wanted in this case. I actually couldn’t be more pleased.
PS – we also read Little Red Riding Hood yesterday, which has left me singing Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs “Hey there little red riding hood. You sure are lookin’ good. You’re everything a big bad wolf could waaaaant.” Maybe that’s the next song I should teach them?
I’m going to go ahead and rename this blog “Katie the Nomad . . . and Charlie-her-irresistible-nephew.” OK?
My dancin’ boy has practiced some new moves since we last got down here. See below for the latest. If you don’t have a full minute and 22 seconds, just fast forward to 40 seconds and go from there. This boy listens to his mama!
I had one of those moments today. One of those moments where you go “My God, I’m on the other side of the world. When did this happen and when did I get used to it??”
Jesse and I went to a beach called Mui Ne for the last couple of days. It’s about a 5-hour bus ride away. Tonight, on our way back, I was all absorbed in my little western world. I had just left a beach where most of the folks we saw were western. I had spent the bus ride going back and forth between reading Life of Pi and listening to Patty Griffin or Chris Pureka on my iPod. I may as well have been back in Georgia or Chicago.
Then I looked out the window, apparently expecting to see the Blue Ridge Mountains.
No such luck.
I remembered that you could probably hold a globe with two fingers by placing one where I am right now and one where I was 3 months ago. I remembered that they don’t really do cars here. It’s mostly various forms of 2-wheeled bikes. Instead of looking out and seeing big buildings and English bill boards and proper restaurants and convenience stores, it’s the little fruit stands and pho joints and toddler chairs. And they don’t eat peaches and strawberries here – they eat durian and nhan and jackfruit.
Oh right.
I almost forgot that this was all so brand spankin’ new to me 2 months ago, and most intimidating. At some point, somehow, without me realizing it, it has started to feel normal. This momentary lapse into the world of the west allowed me a few minutes to feel that novelty all over again. I stared out the window for at least half an hour as if I had just arrived in this country for the first time.
It’s good to remember that this world is so far from the one I’ve always known. At times since I’ve been here, I’ve reached boiling points of frustration with the way some things are handled here. Mr. Deadbolt being a familiar and handy example (although he’s been something of a joke on this blog, I have truly reached the heights of anger with him on multiple occasions). But there are also expectations about gender roles that just blow my mind sometimes. There’s also this priority of “saving face,” – which, as far as I can tell, is never losing your temper with anyone and never showing any strong emotion, especially a “negative” emotion in front of people. This includes sadness. It’s hard to overstate how frustrating these things can be over time.
So it was good to feel the novelty again. Good to remember that there’s a very good reason that these norms and expectations are so different from my own. We’ve lived our whole lives on opposite sides of the world, and I’m in their house for the time being. And while I’ve adjusted quickly to the things on the surface and the things that are easy for me to understand and accept, I have a long way to go when it comes to the things I mentioned above. I hope I can occasionally recall this feeling of newness and cultural infancy, and slowly reach a peace with the frustrating bits.
Well I’ve finally left Ho Chi Minh City! It’s true – the rest of the country is actually out there.
So far, we’ve been to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong River Delta . . .
As you may know, the Cu Chi Tunnels are this 75-mile underground network of tunnels that the short and skinny Viet Cong guerrillas used to battle their taller, larger Western enemies during the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it is called here). By nature of the fact that they are, after all, tunnels, they are not very photo-friendly, but I did get a couple.
To give a sense of scale . . .
One of the many versions of spiked traps that they used to fight . . .
Then Jesse and I got serious.
Perhaps the most interesting factoid I learned that day was that 10-20% of the Viet Cong guerrillas were women. I found that just astounding.
…
Then yesterday we went to the Mekong Delta, which included two things I love:
1) Lots of time on the water
2) The convergence of fabulous people from various parts of my life. It was Jesse from college, Entze from my TEFL course in Costa Rica, and Ali from my school now. It. was. joyous.
See a slideshow below (just received a message from Ansley my sister-in-law calling me “slideshow-happy today.” I’ll go ahead and take that as a compliment and give you another):
**note** That’s a dead snake in that jar. And I drank it.
By coincidence, I have two of my fabulous people coming to town at once. My friend Entze got here this morning – he’s a friend you may remember from my course in Costa Rica. He’s been in Singapore visiting with family and will potentially be coming here once he finally decides to grow up and get a job. For now, he’s napping – he decided an early morning flight was a good reason not to sleep last night.
It's why I like this couch . . .
The other one is my Jesse! If all goes according to plan, we’re going to take a trip down the Mekong River over the next couple days. I’m excited to see some of Vietnam beyond Saigon! Starting this job so soon after I got here, I haven’t yet gotten to venture beyond the city.
I know I haven’t posted in a while . . . I’ve been busy falling in love with most things about life here. And watching the election coverage – which I’m sure you know all about, so I’ll leave it alone after a big “WOOHAA.” OK, I’m over it.
I wish I had had a camera on Halloween. The Vietnamese don’t really do Halloween, but we do it up in a big way at the school. There’s a Haunted House for the Juniors (ages 6-12) and a Fun House for the Jumpstarts (everyone under the age of 6). I was almost in tears my little Jumpstarts were so cute. One little girl came in a full elephant jump suit, with a giant trunk coming out of her forehead. I know, I know . . . a picture’s worth a thousand words. I just didn’t plan ahead.
The Haunted House scared the bejeezus out of the Juniors. Lots and lots of tears and jumpiness as they exited. I shouldn’t have found this funny, but . . . there are a lot of things about kids that I shouldn’t laugh at, and I just can’t help myself. Again, a picture would have been all you needed (10 points for me and my mad blogging skillz).
In the meantime, the staff of our school had a Halloween Benefit Party for some of the non-profits we work with. I DID get some photos of this fine event.
Tin - my buddy, real estate dude, and translator, and advocate with Mr. Deadbolt
This is Nichali - ILA teacher from Brew City, WI and fabulous peeps
Apologies for the somewhat scattered and delayed post. Will catch up soon.
For now, he’s napping – he decided an early morning flight was a good reason not to sleep last night.
