well

I’ll go ahead and put the TL:DR at the top.

Update: daily life is starting to feel more normal. My little stars are making progress, but we still have a long way to go. I’m getting better at crossing the street, although I don’t know if I will ever get used to it. Don’t have any major breakthroughs to report today, but here are some other bits of intelligence that I’ve gathered:

• The most important thing about dealing with traffic is that whatever you do, you can’t half-ass it. Whether you are on bike or on foot, you really have to commit to any change of position or you’ll get yourself into trouble. This is a lesson I’ve learned and accepted gradually, but there was one particular episode that was really quite touching. I had been standing at a busy intersection for a while, trying to muster up the courage to begin crossing. After waiting and waiting for a break, finally a tiny old woman who couldn’t have been taller than 4 ft took my hand and led me across the street at her dainty clip. Hat-tip to this sweet, precious lady and her tough love.  I wish I had been able to thank her properly.

• It is polite to give and receive money with both hands, holding the bills out horizontal to the recipient (not sure if I offended anyone before I started doing this.)

• For reasons I may not ever understand, toilet paper isn't reliably supplied in restrooms, public or private. I’ve begun to carry a tissue stash everywhere I go.

• No such thing as obesity here. I’m a size Large in Vietnamese clothing – which is a big thing for me (ha..ha.) I actually like it very much because this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been able to easily find clothes that are designed for a slight frame.

• Rice beer is not so delicious, but it is also not as cruel in hangovers as the darker brews that we are more accustomed to in the West.

• Anyone who doesn’t believe in the concept of White Privilege would have a major epiphany if they spent a few days here. I recently learned that there is only one English School in HCMC (a city of 16 million people) which actually hires Vietnamese people to teach. Although they can do quite well in other administrative and technical positions, the teaching jobs are pretty much reserved for expats. I learned this from my Vietnamese coworker who got his degree in English and speaks fluently. But the thing is: many of my [white] coworkers are not native English speakers either, nor do we have degrees in education or English. It took a moment for that to sink in with me. I am not blameless here – after all, I’m willingly participating in this unfair system. A lot of Americans (often the same people who deny white privilege) like to harp on immigrants for "stealing jobs." I don't usually agree with those people, but that is essentially what I'm doing here in Vietnam. I tell myself that if I left, I would be replaced immediately by another Westerner, and there’s not much I can do to change that. In fact, that's only the tip of the iceberg - more on this topic later. 

• Similarly, having money in USD is also a huge advantage – people understand it and trade in it everywhere in the world. Although the dollar’s value fluctuates just like any currency, it is remarkably stable and consistently strong. We’re, like, the only nation on earth who can take that for granted.

• It’s still hot and sticky every day, and it’s probably time accept that I’m going to be a sweaty mess always.

~ Time to go wash my face for the third time today ~

The part where I "teach"

Today I had my first official lesson teaching “Little Stars”- that’s Guru Centre's term for the tiniest, newest students. These kids are only 3-5 years old. Not only was this my first class teaching, it was their first class learning at Guru too. It’s an understatement to say that we all performed like beginners.

I have a vague memory from my own first day of preschool. In this distant flash, I cried inconsolably and refused to leave my parents’ arms or play with the other children. Well, it turns out that 20 years and 8,000 miles later, kids still pretty much react the same way I did. Although there were (thankfully) fewer tears, my tots were still very attached to their parents and for the most part, too shy to speak. I know that they will adjust quickly with some time and repetition, but being a fledgling myself, I felt as stressed out and uncomfortable as they did.

It became clear right away that simply following my lesson plan was not going to work. Any educator can attest that teachers have to be adaptable in the classroom, and today was the kind of day that was more improvisation than anything else. I had two back-to-back lessons of the same age group and material, and the second lesson went much better than the first. The content I taught today was short and simple – hello, I’m (name), goodbye, red, yellow, blue, and green. Easy stuff to learn, but difficult for me to assess with some of the students not talking at all. I do think that my kids left the classroom today with a verbal understanding of the material, but if they stare at me blankly tomorrow I won’t know if it’s because they’re still shy or they never really learned the words at all. Adding to the communication barrier is the fact that I don’t speak any Vietnamese  - this is where the teaching assistants come in, and they are a complete godsend. Even though the class is supposed to only use English and most of the instructions I give to students are easy to gesture and understand, it’s really important that someone can help them when I can’t, especially with such young children. In addition to managing the kids’ needs, they also provide feedback and assistance to the teacher. If I didn’t have the TA’s to help out today, my lesson would have been nothing but a circus act.

Despite the frustration, anxiety and disorganization of my first lessons, I would like to think they weren't a complete failure. Even if the students learned nothing, today cemented my belief that Asian kids are absolutely the cutest in the entire world. I adore my students. I'm willing to give it another shot tomorrow, because I want to them to like me. And because it's my job.

Neophyte Notes

Hello! I haven't decided exactly how to format this blog, but I definitely don't want it to read like a diary, so I’ve summed up my observations from the first full day(ish). 

-       - Vietnamese street food is excellent. Very fresh and very mysterious. Here is a bad quality picture of

my dinner last night – a Banh Mi sandwich which I successfully ordered by gesturing helplessly at a cart. I couldn’t tell you what was in it, but it was delicious. I washed it down with coconut juice from another vendor - those are more coconuts on the kiddie table next to my meal. That’s the other thing, if you want to be seated by a street vendor, that usually means knealing on a plastic table about 1 foot of the ground. Not complaining, but I couldn’t help but feel a little childish as I stuffed my face and decided to look at ants on the ground instead of passersby.

-       - When crossing the street, look both ways, then look behind, forwards, up & down, take one step and repeat the process. As counterintuitive as it sounds, navigating the streets as a pedestrian seems to put you at the greatest vulnerability. In the street hierarchy of size and might, foot traffic is the lowliest niche.

-       - And yes, the streets are utter chaos. There is obviously a pattern to the ebb & flow of traffic at major intersections, but I have yet to work out how this system works. If there are indeed stoplights, the CVP has done a remarkable job of hiding them from stupid tourists. 

-     -  Just kidding, tourists are actually treated really well.  And most people are kind and honest. Walking around town as a lone female, I am frequently greeted by strangers, but I haven’t been catcalled even once. In my few business transactions, there have already been multiple opportunities for someone to cheat me out of a few bucks, but so far no one has.

-       - It is very smoggy. I don’t think the air quality is quite at Beijing levels of pollution, but it’s bad enough that most people wear cloth face masks while traveling on motorbikes and walking through dusty streets. Because of their popularity, these masks are somewhat of a fashion statement. I’ve seen designs ranging from Hello Kitty to Burberry. Here I am in my run-of-the-mill surgical mask, still sweaty from my job this morning.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to getting a breath of fresh air on my first day trip next week (location tbd).

-      -  I’ve met a few Americans, but most of the other tourists and expats are European and Australian. Lots of French, Dutch, and German people. I went out with a few Aussies last night, who were a fun bunch. We went to two nightclubs that were nice and very Westernized – I think there’s a lot more to discover.

Which I will write about at a later date!

Punctuated Equilibrium

Punctuated equilibrium –this is the theory that natural selection (and consequently, speciation) doesn’t actually occur as a gradual, constant process over the course of millennia. Rather, evolution happens when periods of scarcity necessitate big changes in rapid bursts. When this term came up in a recent discussion about evolutionary biology, I thought of how the concept applies in a more abstract way to individual lives. Most of my own life has been about going through the motions. When my life is routine, I can coast through days, weeks, and months without looking back or forward very much. But when change happens, it’s big and it happens fast. Going to high school, going to college, graduating from college, becoming independent – even though these major events are planned and calculated, they denote a shift in lifestyle, and for many of us that’s accompanied by reinventing ourselves. I don’t completely expect to emerge from my time in Vietnam as a different, better version of myself, but it seems it would be a waste if I don’t grow at all as a person. Aside from the mid-twenties identity crisis, I have other motives – I want to have fun, I want to meet people, I want to prove that I’m not a kid anymore, I want to make the most of being young and debt-free. Hopefully there are other reasons for doing this that aren’t quite as self-serving, but I’d be lying if I said I know what they are. Anyways, my flight’s about to board. Gotta be present for that moment.