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.
SchoolI 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.
