Enduring Images One Year Later

These remind me that I traveled around the world. And my struggle to be content where I am today should not be a surprise.

Goodbye Vietnam

It's been a very ordinary life in an extraordinary place.

Motorbiking with My Friend "Che" in Sapa

I traveled to Sapa in the very north of Vietnam (Lao Cai Province) near the Chinese border at the beginning of April. I spent most of my two days there on a back of a motorbike but saw rolling hills, mountains, clear streams, waterfalls, caves, villages... and best of all, found some peace and quiet with friends.

Blogging a Whole Year

On the ride back from our recent trip to Halong Bay, I discovered a bunch of of Third Eye Blind songs deep in the memory banks of my teammate Melia's iPod which I forced her to listen to as I mouthed all the words and regaled her with stories of ages past. One of those most inappropriate hits was Losing a Whole Year... and as I approach the end of my fellowship year, I realize that to many of my friends, family, and supporters, it may seem as if I simply lost a whole year. I disappeared to Vietnam and soon, I will suddenly return. They may have some image in their mind of where I went and what I did, but few details... few stories... and so, for the faithful readers of my life, I aim to fix that by blogging my year in retrospect.

School
I am a university teacher in the Faculty of English (formerly the Faculty of Foreign Languages) at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (formerly the Institute for International Relations). I mostly teach "Reading/Speaking English for International Relations" to the top 3 junior-level classes at the university as well as Reading/Speaking classes to a smattering of sophomore and freshman classes. In total this year, I have taught almost 375 hours of actual classroom instruction time to approximately 200 students at the Academy.

Teaching challenged me like few other experiences in my life. The first semester was disappointing at times personally because I had a real sense that I was not being effective beyond providing a classroom experience where students could come to listen and talk to a native speaker for a couple hours a week. There were some good days, but some bad days as I struggled with figuring out lesson plan ideas, classroom management, and fulfilling my examination responsibilities.

The gold nugget in all of that was what I will long refer to as the "recovery of my work ethic". When faced with a challenging situation where I was prone to mistakes, lacking know-how or experience, and facing high-level English speakers (mostly), I never stopped trying to figure it all out. I honestly learned from every situation, took negative feedback in stride, and combined others' ideas with my own creativity to continuously improve as a teacher. This has allowed my second semester to be a much more fulfilling experience for both me and my students. I can only imagine how this will continue to benefit me in my life. Some high points from all my lessons include teaching about:

• Extensive/Intensive Reading Skills
• Legal definitions of Civil Liberties and habeas corpus
• The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland
  
• Successful explanations of terms such as: "skeletons in the closet", "deeply intertwined", "precondition/prerequisite", "anarchic pathways", "fair game", "environmental refugees", "presidential primaries", "weapons decommissioning", etc., etc. (And I thought I would be teaching lessons about the weather and how we celebrate birthdays in America)
• The Christmas Story with illustrations by students (for the one holiday lesson I did teach in a freshman English class)
• Kosovar Independence (formed consulting groups to mock-advise the government of Singapore on if they should recognize the new nation)
• Public Health Situations (formed ministry groups to create solutions to HIV/AIDS situations and hypothetical sex education questions in Indian culture)
• And so on...

A picture really is worth thousands of these words, so here you go - (L to R: Teaching my favorite freshman English class, top junior IR class working hard on my exam, me working hard at grading exams in the English department offices)

Friendships
The Vietnamese, or at least Vietnamese students, must be unparalleled in their hospitality towards foreigners, or at least foreign teachers. From day one, I received all kinds of invitations - to see the tourist sites, have coffee, eat some hotpot, sing karaoke, travel to distant villages, and so on. It has made me think about how we treat foreigners in the United States. Most people are probably oblivious to their presence unlike here where foreigners stick out a little more. But, if we do become aware of them, most American are courteous to a degree but would stop short of inviting them into their home or out to see the sights of our country. I think I would like to change this for myself... a Book I read says a lot of things about being kind to the alien in your land.

Anyway, from these invites have sprung friendships with two close friends, about a dozen more I would call "friend", and scores of students I know by name and enjoy conversing with at every opportunity. It is humbling to be here on the other side of the world and be part of others' lives in Hanoi. Sometimes I wish I had more close friendships, but when I look back on how much energy and time it took to develop the ones that exist, I feel very satisfied with what has been built here relationally. On my friends' side, they have had to spend hours upon hours in conversation using a foreign language - English - not to mention the hundreds of kilometers we've clocked on their motorbikes. On my side, I've had to overcome homesickness and loneliness while balancing the demands of teaching and the extra time it seems to take to do everything here just to live a healthy lifestyle (from the afternoon nap to market trips) with all the very important social engagements.

More pictures - (L to R: Ha and I enjoying crepes for the first time at Gang 9, me and my "first term crew" that I sadly see little of this term having Japanese tea, me with freshman guys outside Nha Tho Cathedral)

Việt Nam
Vietnam is nothing like my romantic preconceptions, surely formed from years of watching films like Green Berets and Forrest Gump. To begin with, I live in Hanoi, the industrialized capital of Vietnam that remained far from the front lines of the land battles during the American-Vietnamese War. This city experienced massive bombing during the Rolling Thunder campaigns of the Nixon Administration, but most of those scars have long since been covered up by development. (Except for the B-52 in a pond I still have yet to find) During my first week here I visited Hoa Lo, or the "Hanoi Hilton", that we will hear about more and more during John McCain's presidential bid this year since he was a guest at this prison for a number of years. (And I'll seriously consider giving him my vote based partly on that fact) That prison visit and a hike up a mountain in Vinh City that housed an active anti-aircraft gun have been my only real exposure to the memories of the war that remains so prominent in the American collective mind.

Instead, I have discovered the nation of Doi Moi - "Renovation" - a series of free-market economic reforms implemented since 1986, the year before most of students were born. Moving away from collectivization and the state-planning policies, Vietnam has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world. I'm not an economist and will refrain from getting into statistics, but for anecdotal support I'll point to the surprising number of iPhones popping up in all of my classes. An interesting story in the tech world ran in PCWorld and Fortune recently asking "Where are Apple's Missing iPhones?" (Stop looking. They are in classrooms across Asia - unlocked and using the Mobiphone network) A quick trip outside of Hanoi, which I rarely get to do, will show you that this economic prosperity has not been evenly shared.

Do I love Vietnam? One of my hopes when I left the United States was that I would come here and fall in love with the foreign culture, landscape, food, language, etc. Again - romanticism. After one year, I like many things. I like a bowl of bun ca, a noodle soup with breaded fish. I like a countryside landscape of rice fields and water buffalo with mountains on the horizon. I like lau - hotpot of all different varieties. I like riding my bike - the "Vietnamese special" gifted to me by Jesse - down some of the newer roads in Hanoi, seeing the city change day-by-day with the constant construction and slowly rising high-rises. I like it when my students share their real opinions with me. I like when humor translates in conversation and we all laugh together. And of course, there are a few things I don't like as well. So, do I love Vietnam? Chua. But I love the people.

More pictures!

Our internet connection has been painfully slow for sometime now, but as I type out lesson plans this evening I have plenty of time to wait for pictures to upload...


Clockwise from Top Left: Me and some sophomore ladies at a temple near West Lake, me and the guys cruising a cyclo in Nam Dinh, clowning around with some freshman at a farm, me and the guys after a great meal of lo bo - beef hotpot, me and my good friend on Christmas Eve, me on a motorbike pretending to be cool. (Disclaimer: riding motorbikes is against ELI policy and you'll notice the motorbike is stationary!)

Mid-Year.

Hello from Chiang Mai, Thailand! I'm sleeping in a comfortable bed in a high-rise hotel and my shower this morning had both hot water and high water pressure. This can only mean that the mid-point of my Vietnam experience has arrived.

But before this, I had the opportunity to cross the border into Cambodia for a few days, staying in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. I quickly fell in love with this nation and the Cambodian people. It was hot, which was a welcome change from the cold and rain that has seized Hanoi, and the tropical culture was refreshing - from the coconuts, mangos, and curry to the even more relaxed pace of life. The dark faces of the kids smiling as they laughed and played (or tried to sell you things) will remain with me for a long time. While I was surprised by the development and beauty of these two cities, I suspect that the depth of these people and the tragic storylines they've experienced in Cambodia's dark, genocidal past cannot fully be known in a one-week tourist excursion. I hope to have the chance to see this place again...

And now I am here - in Thailand - at our organization-wide conference. Remember me as I don't enjoy long talks and PowerPoint presentations as much as the others seem to. Still, it's great to be here with my team and with a lot of good-hearted people.

More to come! Please e-mail and touch base! jfitzgibbon@elic.org

Life Goal Complete: Appear on an Asian Gameshow

Top this anyone. Scott, Melia, and I helped our university compete in a Vietnamese gameshow yesterday. If you've seen Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, you might relate a bit. We were sweaty and disoriented most of the time with no clue why much of anything was happening.

Students sat in squares on the floor decked out in graduation gowns and mortarboard caps. Each round they were asked the most random questions possible: from Pippi Longstockings to the former Chairman of the Communist Party of Indochina. We covered it all.

When all the students were eliminated, we the teachers had to "save the students" by playing the game in the video. Kudos to Scott for the tossing and for putting up with the criticism from our peers on his technique.

After the game, I drew a number along with a teacher from the opposing university. She drew 50. I drew 40. Before I saw my number, the host told me to draw a new one. When I refused, he went "off-air" to tell me to draw a new one. I went Bob Barker on him and asked the audience what to do. My students told me to keep it so I kept it. The host and the VN teachers gave me some flak for that. Still, no idea why.

Crazy night... in the end, no school won. They each got 3,000,000 dong and a box of Custas/ChocoPies. So Asian! As a VN teacher told me after the game, "It was a good game. A Win-Win." Indeed.

It will air nationally around Valentine's Day.

My First Care Package

I received my first care package today. A note arrived in the 5th floor English office informing me a package was waiting for me down at the post office. I immediately went down Nguyen Chi Thanh street and announced my presence to the post office staff by holding the slip against the glass window and smiling. (My Vietnamese has not advanced much past Hello, Goodbye, How much money?, and Too Expensive.) Not bringing my passport with me cause a stir, but after figuring out "Michigan" was not a country, they allowed me to use my driver's license instead as identification.

Thank you for the care Nancy! The granola bars are the best and while we can get peanut butter at the supermarket or the Western-style market near the United Nations campus, we cannot get JIF. And even beyond the contents, it's great to hold something in my hands from home. The Christmas-themed Hershey Kisses will be used on our sugar cookies for an upcoming Christmas party me and Deena are throwing for our freshman classes.

Two things to note: This package was sent from the States on Nov. 15th and arrived yesterday, Dec. 7th. That's about a 3 week delivery time. Also, there was a gaping hole in the box that was taped over. So, it was clearly opened somewhere in transit. But all the contents appear to be intact. Thank you again!

Christmastime is here and VTF is on it...

The Vietnam Teaching Fellowship wraps 800 presents for preschool children in the countryside. Apologies for the singing. Merry Christmas!

As many pictures as I can post in 15 minutes...

Thai Nguyen & Vinh Trips

We visited Thai Nguyen, a smaller city about 60km north of Hanoi and the city David and Nancy, our team leaders, lived in previous to their life with the Vietnam Teaching Fellowship. It was hot and more rural. I liked it.

Visiting the city of Vinh, around 120 km south of Hanoi and near the coast, was the real joy. It was amazing. We passed mountains on the way in by train. The streets were wide and
relatively calm. People smiled at us everywhere we went. The university there houses around 30,000 students and its sprawling grounds have athletic fields, a tall and majestic baby-blue library, and a lively campus with students congregating for games, martial arts, and even ballroom dancing out on the quad! I made friends quickly there (Huyen, Dinh, Hin, and more) that were so hospitable, even showing up on our last day there to walk us from the guesthouse to the front gate to see us off by taxi. They were legitimately sad to see us go. We ate weird foods and climbed Mount Quyet, the former site of an active anti-aircraft battery during the war. The mountain still showed the scars of intense bombing.

I spent an afternoon with Ann and Deena visiting Huyen's room. It was amazingly simple. One bed for her and her roommate. One desk. One broken CD player (which she described as a "stupid CD player!") she used to try to play some of her favorite VN music on, giving us twenty seconds of cultural experience before shorting out or suffering some other electronic malfunction. It was for the best though as she sang for us. I was so blessed to hear the words she sang. And I shared with her my own rendition of "Danny Boy". She might have been significantly less blessed by me.

But this was it. This is why I came to Vietnam. To meet people a world away and find all that we share in common. To build friendships. To see new things. To smile and to be smiled at in return. I have not found this yet in Hanoi. Things are busier and the students are more wise to the world. Being a foreigner does not get you nearly as far.

Yet, I hope to use Vinh as an inspiration. Vinh University is a big public, "land-grant" university that one might compare in some ways to my alma mater. I am currently at the small, urban liberal arts school. I will not experience here what I experienced there. However, I can show my students what the Vinh students showed me. In a word, hospitality.



As the giant statue of Ho Chi Minh shows, they really like "Uncle Ho" in Vinh. He was born outside of the city.

This is what I do...

This is where I work...

This is where I live... (Or, be it ever so humble...)

You can click on the pictures to maximize them.

(Left: The white building is our guesthouse next to the IIR campus. Right: The lake across the street as seen from the guesthouse roof.)

(Upper Left-The guesthouse common area as you enter. Upper Right- My apartment door. Lower Left- My bed and "wardrobe". Lower Right- My desk as seen from the doorway.)

(Upper Left- My bathroom in which I shower in the middle of the room. Upper Right- View from one window. Lower Left- View from the other window. Lower Right- The guesthouse roof.)

In Hanoi...

I could not let my last post be about China for much longer. I'm in Vietnam. I teach at Học viện Quan hệ Quốc tế but that's really hard to say so let's call it the Institute for International Relations.

I'd love to hear from you by letter or by e-mail ̣jfitzgibbon@elic.org and if you care to send a package, let me know. That'd be great....