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....

China - They call it the Middle Kingdom

I slept all the way from LAX to Shanghai. Then I woke up to get off the plane and get on another one. Then I slept all the way from Shanghai to Beijing. I'm not sure how I was able to do this but it made the trip pretty easy to handle. I think it was a subconscious coping mechanism to deal with all the anxiety and thoughts of "What the heck am I doing..."

From Beijing to Qinhuangdao...

After spending the night (like 6 hours!) in a great hotel (though not as nice as the Lakeside Hotel in Hanoi), we headed by bus to Qinhuangdao, a port city due east of Beijing, and home to Yanshan University - the site of our 2 week training. Once again, as in Cali, ELI continued to impress me with its organization. We were well taken care of. The training was good and introduced me to a lesson plan for the first time. However... there was probably no way to prepare me for the actual university experience I'm deep into right now. Adjusting to teaching high-level students has been difficult but even being creative enough to come up with games or other interest-holding & English-teaching activities has taxed me very much. But, I continue to adjust.

Oh yeah, and we saw the Temple of Heaven... a throw-back to a monotheistic time in China's past. Very intriguing. And did I mention climbing the Great Wall?
This was also a time I experienced lots of fatigue and developed some dark circles under my eyes. A light stomach ailment hit me after a week of real Chinese food... not sure if it was a bug or just trouble adjusting.

I once spent some time in Rancho Cucamonga

On August 9th, I arrived in some suburb of Los Angeles to meet some 50+ new people, a few of whom (pictured above), I would be spending nearly every day with for the next year. From left to right: David, Me, Melia, Scott, Deena, Will, and Nancy. The Vietnam Teaching Fellowship.

4 days at a Best Western with orientation on company policies, health info, team building, cultural relations training, and so on... not to mention a sweet game of Ultimate Frisbee that for me, really made the experience.

An American Abroad

"He was a Midwestern boy on his own..." Bob Seger

It's a strange thing to leave. 2 years of life since Michigan State have seen lessons learned, new friendships made, old friendships enjoyed, some old friendships lost, and a faith deepened. I learned who I am - coming to terms with myself. I learned who people are - every person another opportunity to serve and love selflessly. I met a girl for coffee and she became a close friend. I played catch with a guy and he became a buddy and a roommate. (but not for long enough) I bought a pair of shoes one day... and who knows what will come of that. I wish I did.

I was trained at one of the last great corporations. People went out of their way to show me they cared. I glimpsed a better way of doing business for patients and employees and it affected me profoundly. I made mistakes but there are few regrets since every moment was a teaching moment.

I count as friends men and women of all ages. Each relationship imparted to me a little wisdom and a little refinement. 1:1s, walks around the track, office chats, lunches - first Chinese and then, as we became more adventurous, Japanese. What a great birthday I had, turning 25 on the 25th. I had the opportunity to be a part of great things.

And oh, those Monday nights on Clinton Ave. in the Edison 'hood. Living in the tension as we sought the deeper meaning of those same passages we had read so many times... but maybe this was the first time surrounded by people being vulnerable and saying, "What if we actually did this?". So awkward, so good. We tasted revolution.

And then, I left... and those levels of needs that had been filled... by a job, friends, an apartment, family, romance... they were empty. And this is where I live now, in Hanoi, missing so many things, but trying to give out of my own small poverty... there is nowhere else I want to be right now.

(Pictures: Left - Me at my farewell party. The next day I packed up my office and I have not worn a suit in some 80 days. Right - Me in the Beijing airport enjoying a taste of America before boarding the plane to Hanoi. That coffee cost me at least 4 times the average cost of a dinner in China.)

We'll Meet Again...

"I don't know where and I don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day." Johnny Cash