Work itself is going on pretty much as expected. This week is a new term – I introduce myself to my classes as the teacher who croaks. I have a level 6 class this term, new heights of grammatically fortified students expecting me to enlighten them. That is an evening class, primarily adult students, so at least I am mostly unburdened of the testosterone gallery of the class!
Say No To Dishonesty
Speaking of education, I found this article on education in Vietnam exemplary of, what should I say, verbosity masquerading as obtusity, or perhaps the opposite, I’m not sure. That’s the point.
Foie Gras Feast
I always read the important news from the good old US of A. Open invitation to anyone interested in foie gras to head for Chicago. Illegality is so appealing. This fact is demonstrated by what I saw this morning. Red lights, here in Hanoi, are sort of like a gentle suggestion. Typically, about half the traffic stops, the other half guns it and shoots through the congealed blob of stopped motorbikes like hornets through the crack in your window. Usually this is when you use your horn. Today I saw a kid do it on a bicycle, going about as fast as you can go on a bicycle like that, whipping past the motorbikes and, upon hitting the middle of the intersection, he just let out a piercing scream to attract the attention of any traffic foolish enough to assume that a green light means you can go… Think of it as a swarm of Mayflies in Michigan being swatted with a radio antenna, you’ll hit a couple but the herd moves on. On my motorbike, unlike in my life, I try to run with the herd!
Chillies Aid Sumatra Jail Break
Pocket a habanera next time you see one, you never know when it might come in handy.
Prison guard: "The is the first time chilli has been used to get out of this penitentiary,"
Recaptured prisoner: “Nothing takes the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth like … ketchup or yoghurt or bread or anything but chillies!
Can you tell that I am reading a Bill Bryson book right now?
I have never kept much of a reading list, exactly, but here are a few comments on what I’ve read lately. Upon finishing my training in Saigon, I read Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond, which is a really fascinating, um, history of the world. The most interesting part, for me, was not so much the history itself, but his ability to summarize and synthesize information from many different disciplines into a comprehensible whole. It’s a great book to read when you are jobless – it is dense and it makes you feel like the tiniest blip on history’s radar screen. Somehow that is comforting when you are just watching TV and waiting for the phone to ring all day. And, on top of that, it’s not that difficult of a book to read, not like a textbook.
There were few other books in there somewhere, and one of them was Memoirs of a Geisha which is very informative for anybody interested in Geisha, or, indeed, humans in general since most of us are more similar than different. Even if you have no clue what a Geisha is, you are more similar than different.
Finally, my quote of the day from Bill Bryson’s book on Australia, Down Under.
“Listening to cricket on the radio is like listening to two men sitting on a
rowing boat on a large, placid lake on a day when the fish aren’t biting; it’s
like having a nap without losing consciousness. It actually helps to not
know what’s going on. In such a rarified world of contentment and
inactivity, comprehension would become a distraction.”
Anybody who can do what Bill Bryson does and apparently make a living at it deserves my attention!
