Oh, right, I have a job

In the last week and a half, I’ve mostly worked. Those of you who know me very well might be surprised at that, but the people I work with seem unsurprised. And speaking of work, let’s see, how is that going? My school is basically an IELTS preparation course. IELTS is the test that ‘foreign’ students have to take to get into English-speaking universities in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, etc etc. The school has classes from beginner (I mean the “ABC” kind of beginner) through eight levels up to the actual IELTS preparation course. Each course lasts through a five week term with class four hours a day. For about the first month I worked, I was filling in for teachers on holiday, so I had different classes and different schedules. Now a new term has started and I have a regular schedule.

I have one level three class with twelve students. I think level three is good for me. They are advanced enough that I can talk to them without always having to resort to sign language, my acting skills or drawing silly pictures on the board. They are not so advanced that they ask me questions about adverbial clauses and nominative phrasal verbs and intransitive quantifiers and all that jazz that I don’t know much about… Plus with only twelve students, some of whom I taught last term, I can actually remember all their names, which is good. So I usually enjoy teaching that class.

I also have two level five classes, which so far have been mostly another story. I only have them two days a week, so I don’t get to know the students as well. And, obviously, they are a lot more advanced. So they are doing things like speed reading, academic essays (that is the theory at least), impromptu speaking etc. So, in those classes I think of myself as a surfer who is being dragged along by the cord between my foot and my board which has been attacked by a shark. In level three I can usually keep on my feet. Well, maybe I will get better after a couple weeks. Four hour classes tend to defy all possible efforts in terms of preparation.

So I take ‘pages’ from my speech class, my myriad writing classes, and really nothing from the ‘English’ classes I’ve had. My attitude in the classroom is, well you could say lazy. These are students who are trying to get into university abroad, and our classes are supposed to prepare them for that experience. So, being inspired by all my favorite professors, I tell them that they can get out of the class whatever they are willing to put into it. People who don’t bother to do the work sort of annoy me but I don’t spend a whole lot of time lecturing them, they’ll figure it out when they take their exams. The idea of me actually motivating someone else is a little laughable. Anyway, that is the job.

Outside of the job I am still thinking about getting back into a Vietnamese class. Somehow being an English teacher doesn’t help my Vietnamese much... I have used a bit of that in my class, for example in a writing assignment about ‘famous buildings in your city,’ I kept running into the One Legged Temple. This place is generally called, in English, the One Pillar Pagoda, but in Vietnamese is called one-legged… I can understand just enough to know if my students are talking about me on break, but not enough to know what they are saying. Not really all that helpful! I can, however, tell motorbike taxi drivers which way to turn, not as if they listen to me but at least I can tell them!

And it is summertime, even here in Hanoi, which is hot with a capital T. Downpours happen a lot. The other day a huge tree was knocked down just up the street from my school. And on occasion the downpour climbs up into my bedroom through the three inch 'crack' under the door. I haven’t really figured that out yet – there is a door which seems to open towards the rest of the building, but there is some space out there which apparently has no purpose whatsoever other than so that you can open the door which goes to it. And for breakfast this morning I passed on my typical Vietnamese iced coffee for a Mocha which I didn’t much like, Vietnam is not a place where I miss coffee from America…

Thoughts of the day

I am about to become "elegant and civilized." Both at once. I am so excited. I am not joking, see, I have no choice. By virtue of my location I am improving myself, just read the news... Please click on this link for more details about how you, too, could take advantage of this unique and valuable opportunity. Moving to Hanoi, that is!

ps I am not joking, but I may be laughing.

One more link for my Mom. You never know what will show up in the Vietnam News!

Nhà Hát Múa Rối Thang Long

So the next stop on the tourist trail involved water puppets. Water puppets are truly amusing. A traditional art in northern Vietnam, water puppetry is now kept alive not in the villages where it began, but in the Thanh Long Water Puppet Theatre in the middle of Hanoi. Anyway, they also do a show out at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. This museum, aside from having some fascinating on some of the primary ethnic groups in Vietnam, has just opened a gallery on Hanoi from 1975 to 1989, the period of the subsidized economy. Very interesting, and, to say it mildly, unusual to see.

The GREEN words in the above paragraph are links to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology.

Randomly, just to keep you thankful for fresh air and freedom, here is what you would look like if you were a snake and were dropped into a large jar of fermenting rice with some of your friends and left on a shelf somewhere. “Snake wine.”

So here is a photo of the water puppets.


To top all of that, today is also to test out my ability to post videos. Apologies to people using dialup, it might take forever to actually see the videos, but they are still there, trust me!

Dragon Dancing

The first is Múa Rối Nước.

Saigon Traffic

An old video of a typical quiet xe ôm ride.

More ‘lost on a motorbike’ photos

One more day of wandering the countryside. Today I went southeast from Hanoi, roughly following the Red River. It was easy not to get lost that way – there is a road following the top of a flood control dike, which you can see from far away so I found my way back without a problem today. Unlike Saturday, when I spent two hours getting from Tam Dao back to Hanoi, then two more hours getting from the Thanh Long Bridge part of Hanoi to the ‘my house’ part of Hanoi. Darkness and large trucks and light-absorbing pedestrians and ox carts stuffed and overflowing with bamboo and elbow to elbow crowds of traffic and testosterone driven racer bikes … Well, I did get to ‘see’ some parts of Hanoi that I don’t think I have seen before. Anyway, I was talking about today.

First, here is the obligatory water buffalo photo. They are kind of far away, not a great photo, but water buffalos are my favorite large slow farm animal here so I had to take a picture anyway!


























Here you can see a ‘field’ of lotus. Lotuses. Loti. Whatever. Aside from being an important symbol in Vietnamese Buddhism, lotus flowers are sold fresh, used to make medicine, and most importantly, you can put lotus seeds in che. Mmmm! The area behind the lotus is a cemetery.



A cathedral on the delta. There was no one around so I couldn’t go inside. Catholicism has been around in Vietnam for a long time. I am always fascinated to see the similarities in iconography between the cathedrals here and the pagodas (Buddhist temples). In any case, the grounds outside were very nice.


























The road, following the dike, gave a nice view of everything else which was flat like a pancake. Well, flat like Indianapolis, maybe I should say.




And finally, the Red River itself which is of course brown. There seem to be a lot of these barges/houseboats on the rivers and canals here. They are quite big, as you can tell when they are empty and have six or eight feet of the keel between the water and the deck. Anyway, that is my day at the river. I may not be able to go play along the Susquehanna, but I can keep busy!

The Motorcycle Diary I

Well, I guess number II, if you count the vote. The vote which at the moment is dead even, not counting one write-in vote for a bicycle and one intrepid voter who decided to flood the ballot. Both of those over-ruled by the election commission... Anyway, I decided to rent a motorbike last weekend, to get a taste before actually buying anything. Saturday I went to Tam Dao hill station. About 80 km outside of Hanoi, it was rather a long ride for initiation day, but it all worked. A few bumpy muddy spots, and a few large trucks with over-zealous egos, a few roadside coconut milk stands, a lot of kids staring at the nguoi nuoc ngoai on a motorbike, a lot of noise coming from the chain which was about to fall apart, a large hill (thus the 'hill station' idea I suppose). A large hill which was a bit much for a 100 cc bike with two people on, one of whom is roughly equivalent to two Vietnamese people in tonnage terms... Anyway, Tam Dao is a sort of northern futile attempt at copying DaLat, for anybody who has been there. It's on a mountain, the weather IS cooler, there are jungles and waterfalls and endless bamboo dragonflies for sale... Now that I think about it, this is the first time that I have been out to the countryside since I got here to Hanoi. Nice. Mostly a flat ride, through, well, rice paddies of course, also a lot of flower fields - roses etc. And a few field/paddies with lotus plants. Dog restaurants and bia hois. Lots of people who generally gave good directions. A couple herds of water buffalos. The friendly kind. A lot of dust. It didn't rain though, that was good. I rented, of course, a Honda not a Minsk. That's my current inclination. And next are a bunch of photos from Tam Dao, and other countryside shots. Although I saw a lot more that would have made nice pictures - driving a motorbike and taking pictures don't really mix, do they?

Tam Dao and countryside photos

Temple of Literature

Two photos from the Temple of Literature here in Hanoi. This place was built, the first time, in the 11th Century I believe, in honor of Confucius. It is to this day connected to a functioning university. As far as I know the bushy animals and lily-covered turtle ponds are not really related to the actual studying going on.
This photo is not of gravestones, rather these are markers which have inscribed on them the names of students passing the exams in a given year, these people became the mandarins, or ruling class, and provided the technical know-how to run the government. I don't know whose idea it was to put the markers on the backs of giant turtles, but it looks cool anyway!

Poll in progress

Hi all. I am probably going to buy a motorbike. I have options. I can get a new Honda Wave for the cost of a roundtrip ticket home, with a warranty and every reason to believe it will not break down for years.





Or, I can get a Minsk for not much. Vote. It's your civic duty. Click the "comment" button at the bottom of this post and type "honda" or "minsk."





You do not need to put in your name or anything, only type the characters you see - that feature stops spam comments.

Remembering Tibet

This is my third post today, trust me this will not become a habit! Just reading the news and saw an article about the opening of the Chinese railway from Qinghai to Tibet. To be specific, Golmud to Lhasa. Three and a half years ago, in January, I was in Tibet. Anybody who has known me that long, has a really good memory and nothing else to remember, may recall that instead of flying out of Lhasa I took a bus. That bus was from Lhasa to Golmud. I read about the railway project then. The BBC has an interesting article about the opening of the railway, as well as some pictures. If you want to read my account of the Lhasa-Golmud bus, which will presumably now be only taken by foolhardy pennypinchers unwilling to pay for the train, click right here on this link and you should be able to read about the entire sordid affair in your warm soft comfortable space. Bon voyage!!

HAPPY CANADA DAY

Tuesday I celebrated Canada Day (which is today, by the way) by going to a concert by James Gordon, a Canadian folk singer. Sponsored by the Canadian Embassy, he seemed to be truly enjoying himself and fascinated with Hanoi.

However, there was a certain disconnect listening to some of his songs about canoe trips, and whalers being frozen in Frobisher Bay, etc, while a steamy tropical rain was pouring down outside the theatre, soaking the cyclo drivers and washing away the days trash from the street side. North Americans tend to glorify, in a religious sense, nature – that was very clear in his music. ‘Nature’ in North America is something best left untouched – virgin forests are better than managed forests. That concept seems so strange here. In Asia untouched nature is wilderness, untapped resources, unused land is not an asset. Most people who live in cities have spent enough time in the countryside that they have no illusions about the beauty of untouched nature. Development is good here, most people want it. City parks are plentiful here in Hanoi, but untouched wilderness is not a great attraction.

Aside from that his typical self-deprecating humor (for example the song “I’m Canadian and I’m Sorry) was very familiar to me and I enjoyed the concert a lot. Plus a number of songs he wrote last week about Hanoi and the people here, it's always good to hear a fresh perspective! And that is all I have to say about that.

About my job…

Well I think it is going pretty well so far. My students are in their late teens or twenties, most of them are applying to study in foreign English-speaking universities. None of my students have run away in terror, or started throwing coconuts at me. As long as I am somewhere in between those points I can call myself a success … ? So far I teach a four hour morning class some days, and a two hour evening class. The things that are difficult for me are not surprises. I have to talk loudly for a long time, so I have a sore throat. I have to go fast enough to keep the ‘smart’ students awake (those who have already done the exercises in the book before we even get there) and slow enough not to lose everyone else. I am supposed to teach grammar points to students who usually know more about English grammar than I do. Knowing grammar and knowing how to communicate effectively are very different things! I have to make mundane subjects interesting by virtue of the difficulty of communicating in a second language. Well, or I have to try at least.

One class this week we talked about music. The text had some readings from Paul McCartney’s book, and I brought in a cd with various styles of music to talk about. Well, really just to amuse the students on Friday. None of them like Gregorian Chant. None of them like Muddy Waters. None of them like The Beatles. Most of them liked Eminem, and squarely at the top of the heap, the very epitome of popularity - Peter, Paul and Mary singing Puff the Magic Dragon. I expect that has more to do with the understandability (!) of the lyrics than the music.

Down the street from my school is a French deli/restaurant where you can get a baguette sandwich for lunch with cheeses like gorgonzola, Blue d’auvergne, etc. I picked the right street to work on. Plus, on the same street, you can get bun cha which I will explain some other day. So, yeah, my job is going pretty well.