Vietnam Ch 2:
My first few days in
Ha Long Bay
So there I was… laid back in a comfy, brown leather chair, with VIP printed on the headrest, all my backpacker belongings stored both in the boot and by my side, being chauffeured in a huge hummer style vehicle, from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay.
I was accompanied initially by only one other person, excluding the driver; a Vietnamese businessman who was sat in the big chair in front of me. As we were driven through the hectic, moped filled streets of Hanoi, the driver pulled over to pick up further customers.
Even once the driver had picked up all it’s passengers, there was still oodles of space between each person. Everyone could lounge in comfort, for a VIP business class ride.
How I came to be there, I really didn’t know.
I’d gone from broke, jobless backpacker, brand new to Vietnam, to suddenly, employed as an English teacher for a company paying out for this luxury taxi service.
I had no idea what the hell was going on…
but I was loving it!
Smiling to myself, I was thinking just how amazing it was that things happened in the way that they did. I’d managed in just a few days to find a teaching course which was ridiculously cheap, $18, and was fast to complete due to only containing multiple choice questions.
Then I had many responses from a post uploaded to a Facebook Page: “English Teacher jobs in Vietnam”. One of them, from “Sally”, was offering me a job at a Centre in Ha Long.
So I took a plane flight from Ho Chi Minh (South Vietnam) to Hanoi (North Vietnam), and had a meeting with my new ‘South African turned Vietnamese’ boss Micah. Then I was in a “limo”, as Sally called it, on my way to a new home and a new job.
To give you some idea of where I was in the world, here’s Google Maps:
On this journey I was happy to lie back with my earphones in and a VIP blanket laid over my legs, while watching out the window as the foreign landscape rolled by.
Once we’d left the city there were cultivated fields of farm land, rice fields and such, land that seemed devoid of vegetation or livestock, and motorway.
About an hour and a half into our journey, we pulled over at a service station. The driver got out and collected the Dong (250,000) from each of us. (My company said they would add this money, as well as the hotel I stayed at in Hanoi, onto my first paycheck.)
I went to the toilet, came back, noticed the driver was having a smoke break, so I had a look at the food stalls.
Out of the weird and wonderful snacks on display, mostly things I didn’t know, I chose in the end, journey foods more usual for me: a bag of nuts and a big packet of crisps.
Back on the road and munching on my nuts, an hour passed before we entered Quang Ninh province. It occurred to me I didn’t actually know where I had to get off. So I spoke to the driver to ask him to tell me when I should disembark…
Of course, I didn’t use the word disembark, as he didn’t know much English. It was more like “Where do I get out?! Can you tell me?” He nodded vigorously saying “yes, o-k o-k”.
A little while later, we reached the entrance bridge to Ha Long Bay.
Through the window, not only did I have a glimpse of the famous mountains erupting from the sea, but also a massive ferris wheel that stood atop a hill on the far side of the bridge, and a gondola was moving along wires between giant towers, which crossed over the water.
This was so exciting. Such beautiful scenery as I’d seen on my Google image search, but now I was there experiencing it…
What a remarkable sight to welcome me to my new home!!
After we’d crossed the bridge the driver started shouting in my direction as though I should get out at this next stop. I checked Google Maps and was glad to see that he was dropping me right outside my destination.
I got my stuff together as the limo drove onto the other side of the road and pulled up outside a building. The time was around 4.30pm as I stood outside The Queen Hotel.
From the information Sally gave me, here was where I was to stay. For how long and how much it was going to be, I hadn’t even thought about it until then.
What I did remember was Micah told me a certain Mr Jerry, the Head Teacher, would be welcoming me upon arrival to the hotel. However, no one was waiting for me…
I therefore entered the glass front doors and carried all my baggage through into a small reception area. I said hello to the lady who was sat behind the desk. Unusually, she wasn’t wearing vibrant lipstick.
“Hello” she said. She was able to speak some English thankfully, so we began a short interaction where I managed to learn the amount I would be paying for a month’s rent… 6million Dong!!
(Sounds pretty steep doesn’t it? Like they’ve signed me up for the high roller penthouse suite… Until you convert it, and with huge relief you realise it’s only around £200.)
As I stated, I had no idea what was going on for me accommodation wise. I didn’t know if my company meant for me to live in this hotel for the duration of my 9 month contract, or this was a temporary place to stay before I found permanent digs.
So I said I would pay her later when I knew what the deal was. She accepted that without much objection and showed me up to my room via the lift behind reception.
Entering onto the third floor, within the small area were just four doors. The floor itself was entirely wooden, this was the same throughout the hotel, and the walls were undecorated, the paint a forest green colour.
We walked a few feet over to door number 17, she unlocked it, motioned me inside and left me to it.
As I stepped over the threshold, the bathroom was right in front of me, while the bedroom was to the right. Putting my bags on the small double bed, I walked over to the window to see what kind of view I had:
Video taken a few days after I first arrived
I was glad to see some impressive nature in the form of a massive rock face full of dense, dark green foliage and a view of the backstreet, with its balconies of locals apartments, the odd moped beeping and a stray dog barking.
In the room I looked around again and discovered a wardrobe hiding behind the front door. The bathroom, as I’d seen sometimes before on my travels, had a showerhead without a cubicle to stand in or a shower curtain. This meant the whole bathroom was soaked whenever you took a shower.
What I’d learned, by trial and error, was to take the toilet roll out, as well as your phone before showering… ;P
After I’d spent a few minutes settling in, I went back out onto the landing, entered the lift once again, but this time selected the 5th floor.
The lift doors drew back to reveal my location. Weirdly, the lift opened directly into the middle of the kitchen.
Tables and chairs were on the left and the main units for cooking, gas hobs, oven, cupboards full of pots and pans and utensils, round to the right. There was a door in this kitchen that was open and I could see led up some stairs. So I wondered up there to see what I would find.
It turned out, what I found on the top floor, was a man stood next to a washing machine in a white vest and shorts, evidently doing his laundry. He had coffee coloured skin and was sporting a large paunch and a shiny bald head.
“Oh hi Giles” he said sheepishly once he’d turned to notice me, “I’m Mr Jerry, I was just so sick today that I couldn’t meet you… my throat is so sore and this morning I was throwing up all over the place, it was nasty.”
He had a camp American accent. It was similar to the way they speak in a reality TV show, such as Keeping up with the Kardashians…
(you know the type I mean:
“Like, O M G you guys, did you see Chad wearing those pants.
“Like, I know, EWW! What was he thinking!?! I’m totally breaking up with him.” 😛 )
I wasn’t sure where he was from, though he likely wasn’t American. This was just his accent from how he’d learned English.
“Oh dear, no that’s alright, sorry to hear that.” I said.
“But I will see you tomorrow at 8am okaaay, I’ll meet you downstairs and we’ll go to the centre.”
“OK, nice to meet you”, I said “see you tomorrow then.”
“Yes see you tomorrow” he said.
And with that, he turned around and carried on handling his laundry, taking his clothes out of the machine.
I left the attic considering this man and his behaviour. He obviously felt a little caught short, as I literally caught him in his shorts, while he was meant to be welcoming me to this hotel and to the new teacher role.
I believed him when he said he was ill, he did have a hoarse, husky voice, but still… if he could make it up to the top floor to do his laundry, why couldn’t he at least pop downstairs and say a brief hello? This was his duty after all as Head Teacher, this welcome having been arranged by Micah.
So not the most encouraging chance meeting with my new boss, but I still felt excited. I was anxious to see what the centre was like, who my colleagues might be and what this job entailed.
What I began to realise while I was back in my room again, was simply: Mr Jerry lived here.
He was living in a hotel when he was Head Teacher on what I knew must be a significant salary.
Even with my own salary of $20 an hour, and the cost of living so low in Vietnam, I would soon have been rich enough to afford better accommodation than that. I presumed he must have a way nicer hotel room than I had…
It was almost dinner time and I hungrily searched google maps for a place nearby to eat. A few places were in short walking distance. One of them was called Rock House Pizza. I was definitely down for some filling food and as I was also trying not to eat meat, pizza was an easy option.
Down the lift to the reception area I walked out the glass swing doors onto the street. Outside, the sun had recently set, though still enough light to make out my new surroundings. Along the other side of the street was simply terrace housing. On my side of the street there were some places which people lived in, while also selling a range of different products and snacks out the front.
(This seemed to be the case as in the rear of some of their houses/shops, their furniture for their home could be seen.)
To find the pizza restaurant, I only needed to follow the road around to the left for a few minutes before I found it around the corner…
The place was small. There was space enough for 4 tables and chairs inside. I took a seat on one of the usual tiny stools used everywhere in Vietnam, and checked out the menu. From then on, my dining experience was pretty abysmal. As I remember it, the staff were less than hospitable, the price was a lot compared to small local places, and the pizza was cheese and tomato on cardboard…
I was so upset about it I actually began to write a scathing review of the restaurant. (I do tend to get quite passionate about food, as some of you will know :P)
Before I pressed send however, I thought better of it. This was going to be my new home after all, and I didn’t want the community to start hating me the minute I arrived due to a duff pizza.
I’ve found it’s always useful to get along with your neighbours and make good first impressions. It just makes life a lot easier. Especially when you’re broke, living in a new country and starting a new job. The last thing you want is to feel more ostracised than you already are. So I let it go.
The barely edible pizza did fulfill some purpose: it filled a hole in my stomach. So I headed back to my hotel room, got my iPad out and continued with my online teaching course.
After an hour or so of streaming information with very little practical value to me in and out of my head, it was time to prepare for the following day. I thought of what I’d need to take with me in my rucksack and also managed a shower.
The bathroom filled with water, as expected… It was therefore tricky to come and go between bathroom and bedroom. I needed to dry my feet to leave the bathroom, otherwise my feet would instantly be dirty again, but going to the toilet meant taking off my socks and getting wet feet. I didn’t want to wear shoes and get them wet also… So basically, this turned out to be a really shit game I was playing with myself to stay clean.
Finally though, I made it to bed. It did however take a while to fall asleep in anticipation for my first day at my new place of work.
The next morning I met with Mr Jerry and a woman named Ligaya, or “Miss Ligaya” in the hotel reception. She was a teacher at the Centre who also lived at the hotel. She was petit, had shoulder length dark hair and a sweet looking, freckled face. I guessed she was early/mid thirties. She had a slightly nervous and childlike energy about her as though she was itching to get to class and start teaching.
She looked professional in her plain black v neck jumper and black and grey check skirt. Her accent, I detected, was American, like Mr Jerry’s.
Mr Jerry was thankfully not in his shorts, as last time I saw him, but had dressed in his Shelton white and green polo shirt with dark trousers and smart shoes. He still had a hoarse, croaky voice.
We exchanged good mornings and pleased to meet you’s then exited the hotel. Ligaya had ordered a taxi and no sooner had we stepped out onto the street had our taxi driver parked up in front of us to take us to work.
Destination: Shelton Centre.
On the car journey I asked where they were both from, to which they answered: The Philippines. Funnily enough, I had literally just been travelling in The Philippines before I arrived in Vietnam. On top of that, Ligaya said she was from Baguio City, which is one of the places I visited and some really amazing things happened there…
You can read what happened in my Short Stories here:
AMAZING Things Happen When We Allow S P A C E
Beauty in Baguio!! – How to Mingle with the Mayor 😉
… I also looked out the window and saw for the first time the area in which I was to live. There still seemed a significant number of mopeds and cars filling the roads. Comparing it to the city though, it was less extreme at least.
[Driving in Vietnam is very different from driving in, say, England. Let me briefly tell you how…
The rule seems to be: There are no rules
The taxi driver would slowly veer between lanes, without so much as a glance in his mirrors, beeping his horn repeatedly as he did so, expecting the other road users to get out of his way. Thankfully, they managed to do so!
And on entering onto a main road, one didn’t need to look behind them for drivers already on the road, no, they just went for it! Apparently it was the responsibility of the vehicle already on the road to get out of the way of the incoming vehicles joining.
This is totally the opposite from most Western countries, and it scared the shit out of me to begin with. But the cool thing about their driving was: no one had road rage…
What I noticed was, the Vietnamese people were never angry like when we English get angry and pissed off by other drivers. And I had a theory why this was and is:
It is because there are no rules (as such).
The way I figure it, when anyone on the road is capable of doing anything, even driving the opposite way down the street, there’s no judgement of “they shouldn’t be doing that”…or “bloody tossers” because it’s not wrong. It’s not against the rules. So there’s nothing to get righteous and upset about.
Most Vietnamese people just casually drive wherever they want, they just do it slowly so people can go around them and not crash into them.
Even when it’s super busy and the road is chocka block with vehicles, a car can perform a slow u-turn in the road, moving against the flow of traffic! The first time I saw that, I was amazed.
For this reason, the Vietnamese people were, who I found to be, the calmest drivers in all the countries I’d been to. You wouldn’t think it by the noise of the constant blaring horns, but I can assure you, the Vietnamese are cool as cucumbers when it comes to driving.]
… I noticed along the ride to work some useful landmarks to remember: a clock tower which stood in the middle of a roundabout, a big park area with a raised pathway running overhead, and beyond that I could finally see in real life, the iconic mountains coming out of the sea!
This gave me a sense of excitement and fulfilment. I felt then that I had made it. From looking at the beautiful pictures of the Bay in bed on my iPad, whilst in my hostel in Ho Chi Minh City, to actually being there in Ha Long Bay beside the giant rocks…
My job finding mission had quickly come into fruition!
It can’t have been much longer than 10minutes before we had arrived at the centre. Ligaya offered to pay for the taxi, then I followed them as they entered a plain building. We stepped into the lift just inside the entrance and made for the second floor.
The doors opened into a reception type area. Here there were several young children, a desk with two Vietnamese ladies sat behind it and two doors leading into classrooms beyond. Some children were sitting together overlooking one child playing on an iPhone. Others were making shapes with elastic bands around their fingers.
As we walked in, I watched as a couple of girls happily greeted Ligaya with a hug and started practicing their English. It was so sweet to see the affection in their teacher and student relationship, and I hoped to experience that for myself.
Stupidly, this was my first real sense that I would be interacting with children as my job. I know that may sound ridiculous, and maybe it is, but there were other things I was concerned about over the job in hand; primarily, just getting to be in this position in the first place.
This included preparing my official documents. I needed to finish my online course, gain the certificate and then start to figure out how I could get my degree and certificate certified. Also there was the plan of a visa run in mind, which was something I had to do soon to be able to stay in the country.
It didn’t really dawn on me what it really was I was getting involved in until that moment. I was there to teach children of course! Somehow that had become overlooked. 😛
It had been a long time since I was interacting with children. Of all the time spent travelling for the past 3 years I was always with adults, fellow backpackers. My jobs were hospitality, cleaning or reception work, so this didn’t involve children much at all either.
And before that I very rarely spent any amount of time with children all the way back until my gap year, when I was lucky enough to work as a tennis coach at Bath Sports Training Village…
Well that was 9 years previously!
I’m saying this because children are generally different from adults. They know how to play and they don’t take life so seriously. I was recognising this while we were sat with the children, waiting for the classes in session to finish.
I could see such innocence, such openness and curiosity. I felt quite happy and inspired that I would be getting along with, playing with and teaching English to these children. And it wouldn’t just be me that would be teaching them either, they were already teaching me.
There came a commotion I could hear in the classrooms as the students were finishing their lessons and getting up to leave.
The doors swung open and streams of young teenagers spilled out from one class and children possibly 6 or 7 years old, tumbled out from the other. The room was suddenly filled with activity.
Many of the teenagers were looking at me as they went by with a sort of shock and excitement, nudging their friend to get a good look at me. I felt a bit like a peacock on show. I supposed I was a rare specimen to these Vietnamese children, who likely never saw an Englishman in the flesh… Especially one with long, strawberry blonde hair.
Rounding up the students were the two Shelton teachers. The two of them were women, both looking to be around my age (28), and they were obviously foreign, like me.
One of them had dark skin and straight, jet black hair while the other had skin white as mine but more freckly, glasses and curly light brown hair tied up at the back.
As they left their classes they said hello to Mr Jerry and Ligaya before I introduced myself to them. Their names were Kelsie and Abi and they both originated from South Africa. I didn’t notice the accent in Abi so much but Kelsie had a stronger twang that couldn’t be missed.
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to stop and chat because we had classes to attend. Ligaya was already marching into the next room and I’d been told that I was to observe one of her classes this morning, so I followed her in.
She put her satchel on the desk, pulled out her laptop and connected it to the TV. This stood by the side of the white board at the front of the class. As she did this she explained this class only had a total of 8 children and they were quite bright and advanced for their age. They were all 10-11 year olds.
Along with the students, an older Vietnamese girl came into the classroom and sat down. She was maybe around 18-20 years old and she shyly introduced herself to me as Mai Nguyen. She explained she was a TA – a Teaching Assistant.
[For the classes that were below a certain level of English, a Vietnamese teaching assistant was employed. This was because the English teachers were all foreigners and not fluent in the Vietnamese language.
Having a teaching assistant was therefore very necessary to translate new words; via writing the Vietnamese on the board and the English word for it, or by simply telling the students what the English word meant.]
Half the class were there already and they looked at me with surprise and inquisitiveness. I just smiled and said hello and they said hello back. Then, becoming more confident, one of them, a boy, started to ask me questions in English:
“Oww old are you?”
(For some reason the first question from students was always ‘how old are you?’, rather than ‘what’s your name?’ or ‘where are you from?’. I thought this was funny)
“I am twenty eight years old.” I replied…
“ahhhh” was their reaction.
“How old are you?” I asked him.
“I’m 10” he replied easily.
Once that one student had asked me a question successfully, all the others started calling out questions. By this time the rest of the students had entered the class and joined in too.
This went on for a minute or so as we made our introductions, before Ligaya called a start to the lesson.
I sat at a desk at the back corner of the room for observation purposes. Mr Jerry had previously handed me a sheet of paper to write notes on the teaching of Ligaya’s class.
Questions such as: “What techniques does the teacher use to engage the students?”.. and “what are the positives and weaknesses of such and such technique” were included on the paper. So I observed as Ligaya kicked things off.
To begin with, she wrote the names of all the students down the far righthand side of the board. It was funny to see that all the Vietnamese children were given English names:
There was Jenny, Linda, Niki and Mary; Henry, Thomas, Jeff and Slen. (Found out later that Slen was short for Slenderman, whom the boy nicknamed Slen apparently loved!
Ligaya divided them into two teams. This time it was the boys vs the girls. She asked each team for a team name. Jeff shouted out “PUPG!!”, which I have no idea what that meant but Ligaya seemed to understand, so she wrote it on the board. Then Jenny came out with “Pink!!”.
So it was to be Team PUPG vs Team Pink. When the Teams were established they were ready for the first game of the lesson: “Board Race”.
The children absolutely loved it! I mean, their excitement was through the roof. Here’s what happened:
Students stood in two lines facing the whiteboard which had pictures of job occupations on. The objective of the game was for one team to beat the other in reaching the far side of the board.
On 3,2,1 GO! The first person would slap the picture in front of them and call out the name in English such as “cleaner” or “office worker”, then, if correct, would progress onto the next picture. If incorrect, the next person in line would go.
This continued until the two students met somewhere in the middle. Suddenly, they turned towards each other for a rapid rock, paper, scissors match!!
Following this, the loser went to the back of their line. The winner proceeded with slapping the pictures and racing across the board, while the next student in line began again from the start. This meant the winner was now closer to the other side of the board before they met for rock paper scissors again.
Essentially, two fun games were cleverly integrated into one, which basically meant: Double the fun.
The atmosphere in the class was truly something to behold. They raced each other back and forth across the board. The children in line were urging their teammates to win, all shouting and jumping up and down in anticipation, before their turn was upon them and the slapping began, and the shouting continued.
I was worn out just sat there watching them.
After the game the students settled back down into their seats while Ligaya deftly whipped off the pictures from the board. (I could see this was not her first time).
The rest of the lesson Ligaya continued to capture the focus of the students as she led them through their work books. On the TV she had the Chapter of where they were in Story Central (the English books they followed).
I couldn’t fault Ligaya in any way. She was in fact one of the best teachers I’d ever seen.
She kept the students fully engaged with some textbook teaching techniques: a fast tempo, a strong voice, repetition of words, asking the whole class to shout back at her, then also picking individual students to give answers. And of course, interactive games and exercises.
She made it look easy… but if I imagined myself taking the lesson, I thought I would look a total amateur compared to her.
(Only after I began teaching could I begin to really appreciate just how brilliant she was at her job.)
At the end of the lesson the students all stood in a line by the door.
“Now, what do you say?” asked Ligaya.
“Goooood Byyyyee Teeeacherrr… Seeeee youuu neeext weeeek..” They replied in chorus.
And with that, they were off out the door.
The last thing she had to do, which she showed me, was click onto her online timetable and select the class she’d just taught. Then she took the register for who attended and wrote a few notes about how the class went and what material they covered.
This information was then shared with the people in charge such as Mr Jerry and Micah.
Ligaya said she was going for lunch with Mr Jerry – she invited me to come too! Well, I was honoured to accept, after her inspiring showcase showing me exactly how it’s done. Plus, of course, I had nothing else to do, so was very happy to join them.
We ate at one of the places they said they often like to go. There was something vege on the menu so I took that. We chatted about teaching in Vietnam and I told them a bit about my travels.
I also commented on their accents and their way of speaking. I said that American is quite different to English in a number of ways. I began to state an example but it seemed to make them slightly embarrassed, so I awkwardly dropped the subject.
(Both of them being experienced English teachers and me the total novice… I was foolish to mention it)
Apart from that tactless moment, it felt really good to be getting to know and spend time with my boss and my colleague. Ligaya I thought was lovely. She seemed to change a lot in demeanour between her confident, outspoken, teacher self and her regular, outside of work self, which was more shy and uncertain. Mr Jerry I could still see was a bit of a pompous arse, but underneath that was his humanity.
I sensed it was important to develop a connection with these two people I’d be working with. I could then feel supported in this new role as teacher and in this totally foreign country to me.
After lunch we took a taxi home. Mr Jerry was telling me something or other about how they (the teachers) create and plan lessons. He started explaining by saying “using your laptop”, and then blah blah blah, I didn’t hear the rest because I paused then said:
“I don’t have a laptop…”
“Well this is down as a requirement, we expect that you have one.” he maintains in a sassy undermining voice.
“Well I wasn’t told actually that I needed one” I said with some heat, in reaction to his attitude.
“Do you have something else then that you can use?” he asked, slightly withdrawing his note of condemnation.
“I have an iPad..” I said.
“Well maybe that will do.” said Mr Jerry, and we left it at that.
I had one more observation to attend that afternoon at 3pm, with Kelsie. Ligaya also had a class next at 3 so we agreed to catch a ride to the centre together a bit later.
As we went up in the lift, she and I got off on the same floor… It turned out she lived in the room adjacent to me!
“Well that’s handy” I thought, “hopefully she could help me out if I’m stuck with my classes.”
Mr Jerry reminded me to meet him tomorrow up in the kitchen for an induction, before carrying on up to the floor above.
Ligaya said she would prepare for her next class and see me later. We parted as we entered our own rooms and I chilled out on my bed reflecting on my day so far. I was feeling pretty pleased with how things were going.
Ligaya and I did share a taxi back to the centre for our afternoon classes. On the short journey to Shelton she said she had two lessons, one after the other, so I wouldn’t be sharing a lift home with her. My only class that afternoon was with Kelsie – so as Ligaya pointed me in the right direction for Kelsie’s class, she zoomed off to her classroom.
I climbed up the stairs round from the second floor reception to find another classroom in front of me. Kelsie was already there, setting up her equipment, with a few of her very young students playing together. The children must have been 6-7 year olds.
As I entered they all looked at me with intrigue, while I smiled and said hello. Kelsie welcomed me to the class and introduced me to the children as a new teacher. Hearing someone refer to me as a teacher for the first time, I had a slight shock.
“Oh wow, that’s weird to think I’m a teacher now!” I thought to myself.
This hadn’t sunk in yet. Throughout the lesson all the students kept referring to me as “Teeeacher, teeeeeacher”, and each time they did this I felt a spark of elation. For some reason it made me very happy to be known as a teacher.
I didn’t think about it at the time but considering why this was now, I would say that I like to help someone learn a skill and “impart knowledge”. I do feel very satisfied when I can see the progress made by a student from both my own effort and theirs.
There can be a very caring interaction between teachers and students. I believe this happens when we go beyond the roles of teacher and student. As I said earlier regarding Ligaya and the affection I saw between her and the two girls, this wouldn’t have happened if Ligaya hadn’t cared for them beyond the job description.
This interaction I felt was a truly lovely thing. Something I was excited to be a part of.
Lastly, I suppose my idea of a teacher is someone to be respected. This would have given me a boost to the ol’ ego 😛 …
Once all the students had arrived, Kelsie instructed them to come to the front of the class where she had cleared a space for them in front of the TV. I observed from a seat at the back of the class as a dance video played for the students to copy the moves to.
Here’s what they danced to:
Just Dance 4. One Direction: What makes you beautiful
I thought this was such a great start to the lesson for students of their age. It got them excited, focused and moving together. This really set the tone for a fun filled, action packed lesson.
And it was! Kelsie played several different games with them and in between activities they completed pages in their work books.
She’d done the same as Ligaya with putting all their names on the board and dividing them into two teams. So this seemed fundamental, as it promoted competition and student participation. I would be expected to do the same in my classes.
One of the games was a variation of “Board Race”. Kelsie would shout out an English word and the two students at the front of their lines would run to the board to slap the corresponding picture.
To make the game more fun, Kelsie provided them with little toy hammers so they could hammer the correct picture instead.
She used her strong voice to draw their attention and kept a fast pace to keep them interacting with her.
Each one of these lessons lasted an hour and a half. That’s a long time to hold the focus of young children. There was a 5minute break however, which was half way through the lesson and the students got up and played games between themselves.
For the final segment, Kelsie handed out a few materials: coloured paper, straws, scissors, glue and other bits and bobs, so that the students could create their own aliens.
The topic in Story Central was Body Parts: heads, legs, eyes, feet etc.
So this was their end project – to make an alien and then be able to describe them.
I thought this a perfect exercise. The students were allowed the time and space to be creative and they really enjoyed doing their own thing. The atmosphere in class changed from a stimulating, group involvement; to a relaxed, personal participation.
The use of these two elements in cultivating the learning and motivation of the students, I thought worked wonderfully well. I was impressed again by the teaching of my new colleagues.
I realised I had some big shoes to fill…
Once class was dismissed with their routine sign off:
“Goooood Byyyyee Teeeacherrr… Seeeee youuu neeext weeeek..”
Pushing and shoving, they clattered out the door.
I took my sheet of observation notes and approached Kelsie as she went about tidying up and packing her stuff away.
I told her that I enjoyed her class and thought she was a great teacher. She humbly replied that she wasn’t that great and started putting herself down. I asked how long she’d been teaching here and she said 3months…
I was amazed. I told her she was already doing very well in such a short period of time. We chatted only briefly as she had another class to go to. I on the other hand was done for the day.
What I was happy to do next was walk back home and see what I found along the way. I left the centre and walked along in the direction of The Queen Hotel. Straight away I noticed a potential place to eat, in a very useful position, right next to Shelton.
There was a local restaurant where people were sat around little tables on little stools, both inside and outside on the pavement. An experienced, hardy looking Vietnamese woman was stood out at the entrance behind a gas stove. She had a massive wok in front of her which she deftly flicked up and around, swirling the rice that fried in the pan.
I wasn’t actually hungry for dinner just yet. It was only around half 4, so I continued walking and looked at the other kinds of shops and stores as I went.
I saw some sort of bakery store selling sweet looking breads, among things that I had no idea what they were. Unusual things which didn’t tempt me this time.
Just beyond this was a woman cooking what looked like potatoes on a portable grill. This grill had wheels so she could roll it along by the side of the road. Again, I’d not seen that before. What I’m used to is people selling snack foods which can be eaten on the go from a stall such as this.
“Did people here simply eat a whole potato on the go?” I wondered. “Of course, they don’t use forks much at all, so they’d be using their hands… interesting.”
Further on down the street, the pavement disappeared so I was to continue on the road side. This didn’t bother me too much as everyone did this as the norm.
However, past the bend I came up to a large, very open roundabout with traffic flying across it. My destination I knew was straight over the other side, but that was far away, and without such a thing as traffic lights or zebra crossing to help.
I did feel quite nervous this time, as there was no easy route to follow. But there was no getting around it! Keeping a close eye on the passing vehicles I traversed the open road, dodging a local bus, taxi’s and mopeds.
A minute later and I’d successfully made it across without dying! Yayy!
Whilst walking past a construction site on my side of the road, I looked at the other side and saw many retail shops. There were also local people who had set up small stalls on the pavement, where passersby could buy a simple range of items, sit and have a smoke, a drink and a snack.
A little further on and I had reached the park I’d seen on my taxi rides to and from work. It was divided up by a number of pathways. Mostly there were grassy areas with some trees here and there, borders of flowers, a pond full of fish, a collection of these artistic, tree like structures, and an elevated pathway.
Beyond the road next to the park were the magnificent rocks in the sea. I walked up the stairs to check out the view, and here it was:
Ha Long Bay Park
Coming to the end of the park, I couldn’t help but notice a huge building in front of me…
Shopping Centre… or Mall if you’re American – or Filipino
Well, this was a good opportunity to buy some food from the supermarket, so I went inside to explore.
Since I arrived in Ho Chi Minh just over a week ago, I hadn’t in fact been to a supermarket yet. It was cheap and easy to eat out, I had a tasty breakfast included at my hostel, plus I wanted to sample the local food.
Now though, I was settling down at the hotel, which had a kitchen and I would shortly be teaching classes at the centre. Hopefully I could save some time and money eating in. I also couldn’t rely on eating out all the time. (Especially with places like Rock House Pizza…)
So I went to see what they had at this Vincom supermarket. I was really quite excited to see what I’d find.
On my way through the giant building, there were fancier looking, higher end shops compared to the shops next to the road. Big branded clothing and accessories were on the ground floor.
Up the escalator to the second floor and there was a cinema with some restaurants. I had a look at what films were playing but it was only in Vietnamese. I also checked out the restaurants and their menus, but again it was much more expensive than a meal at a local place.
Finally, reaching the third floor, I eventually discovered the supermarket. Before I could even enter however, a guard who was stood at the entrance started saying something in Vietnamese, waving and pointing at me. What was going on?
The guard gestured at my bag then shook his head and wagged his finger. Apparently he didn’t want me taking my bag into Vincom.
He then points me over to a customer service looking desk. I walk over and see the woman behind the counter. She takes my bag, shoves it in a locker and gives me a number. Evidently, this store was cracking down on shop lifting.
Bagless, I could finally enter the supermarket!
The setup of the store wasn’t much different to any others I’d been to. The contents and the prices on the other hand, were very interesting to me.
Vietnam being one of the largest rice producers in the world, they obviously had a significant rice section. What caught my eye was a “Red Mountain” rice which really was darkish red in colour. I thought I had to try some, so I bought a bag of that – super cheap in price.
Conversely, and to my dismay, there were only a couple of sliced breads to choose from. The main staple bread eaten in Vietnam is Bánh Mì.
Interestingly, it was the French colonists with their introduction of their baguettes that influenced the production of this bread. Imported wheat was solely used initially, which was costly, and the breads were therefore a luxury item.
Then with the introduction of the inexpensive rice flour blended with the wheat, the bread consequently became widely available to all. The bread also changed into what it is today, the difference being: a lighter, fluffier texture.
… This didn’t help me though. I was looking for more of what I was used to in England, as well as NZ and Aus more recently – At least a whole aisle devoted to bread!
In this matter, the culture in England is the opposite. Bread is what rice is to the Vietnamese. But I would have to make do with what they had for the moment. Though I made a mental note to keep an eye out for different breads.
Next to this aisle I discovered quite a wide range of lentils, which was great for me as I was wanting to eat less meat.
I found tins of baked beans!
I was incredibly happy with this find, as this is such a comfort food to me. (You can’t beat a bit of scrambled egg on toast with baked beans to start the day.)
I thought of what I’d like to eat that night and bought some veges, tofu, spices, fresh coriander and coconut cream. A few other staples such as tinned tomatoes, pasta, cheese, eggs, soy milk were there too.
The dark chocolate that I’d normally buy was expensive, so I didn’t bother with that, resorting to some chocolate digestives instead. The nuts were also a little much I thought, but I simply can’t go without my nuts, so a pack of cashews went into the mix in the trolley.
What is an Englishman without his tea? Well the Vietnamese are also big tea drinkers, so I tried some of their black tea.
As expected, there was sadly no hummus. (I lived on the stuff and hadn’t had it since New Zealand 5 weeks ago.) However, there were tins of chickpeas, so I planned to make some of my own at a later date.
There was a whole aisle dedicated to sauces, both sides full of them. I didn’t venture at these though, for the time being. In the aisle for skin and beauty products, I was starting to notice the advertising had a particular theme to it…
The Vietnamese faces were edited to be much whiter than normal and it seemed bigger eyes, more towards English/American size, were also shown in the images.
So it seemed: white Westerners were made out to be the epitome of beauty.
It was quite sickening to see that. The media promoting the image of how one should look, when the image given is so different from the common look of Vietnamese people. This can only enforce a sense of insecurity for them, at not being “beautiful”.
Of course this is principally the same all over the world… An ugly reminder of how the media and corporations work.
This also explained the kind of attention I was receiving from the locals. From the looks I was getting from the students to simply walking down the road and having passers by staring and some shouting “HE-LLOOO!”
Coming to the end of my first shopping experience I had all I needed, and went over to the checkouts. I paid for my trolley of food with the Dong in my wallet and lugged the bags over to the customer service desk to retrieve my backpack.
With my backpack full to the brim and two large carrier bags in each hand, I continued on my journey home.
Stepping out of the Vincom Plaza, darkness had settled in already, the time was around 6:30pm.
I noticed a side road that ran parallel to the main one I’d come back and forth along. As I couldn’t see very well due to night fall, there being few street lights; not knowing the area yet and being loaded with bags of shopping, I decided I’d better leave that route for another day and take the safer option by the main road.
The Clock Tower roundabout by Vincom Plaza
Down the street I passed hotels, apartment blocks, an inordinate number of different banks, and of course, a lot of the places I had no idea what they were because I couldn’t read the Vietnamese signs.
It took me a good 25minutes before I gladly made it back to the Queen Hotel; arms and back aching from the heavy shopping. A quick hello to the receptionist and I entered the lift just behind, tapping for the 5th floor. I managed to unload all my food into the shared fridge and claimed an empty cupboard.
Tonight was to be my specialty dish. One of my favourites:
It’s different every time this dish. I never follow recipes, just throw ingredients together, experiment, and hope for the best. This one I was mightily pleased with because not only did I achieve a tasty curry, but the red mountain rice was good too! And I’d handily made enough for the next day.
I was alone the whole time I was in the kitchen, which was strange. I guessed there can’t have been many people staying there and/or they were all eating out.
The rest of the evening ran much the same as the previous; trying to quickly finish the teaching course, and playing the dumb game with myself of coming in and out of the wet bathroom trying to stay clean.
I also talked with Hana via Facebook, my girlfriend at the time, to tell her I was still alive. She was happy to hear it.
Hana was still living over in New Zealand, where we first met each other. She had longer on her work holiday visa so was making the most of that, whilst my two year visa in NZ had come to an end, and I’d had to leave the country…
You can read about my NZ adventures here:
… We agreed we would meet up again in Japan. Before this, I hoped she could come visit me in Vietnam. (Seeing as I’d just signed a 9 month contract! I was already feeling sexually frustrated from the month that we’d spent apart so far. I knew 9 months would be difficult.)
My meeting the following day with Mr Jerry was at noon. I therefore had a bit of time in the morning to go for a wonder.
Looking at the place next to my hotel, I noticed what appeared to be a food menu, but it was all written in Vietnamese. Nonetheless, I could see a couple of people in there so I entered to see what it was all about.
I asked the friendly looking woman what food was shown on the menu…
She smiled at me and turned away into the back room, clearly not understanding a word I’d said. She then brought what could have been her daughter to the front to talk to me… but once I asked the question again and pointed at the menu, she had the same reaction as her mum.
They looked at each other questioningly.
Plan B:
I brought up Google Translate on my phone, typed in the question and showed it to them. The daughter seemed to have an idea and went to the back room. She took something down off the shelf and showed it to me saying something in Vietnamese, finishing with a little laugh.
What she held in her hand was a cylindrical block the size of a half ruler, wrapped in plastic packaging. The colour was greyish yellow… I had no idea what it was. The only thing I could imagine was that the block was a type of tofu that they’d cook up and serve with rice or noodles.
The daughter was offering it to me so I thought what the hell, I’ve come this far, I’ll try it. So I said “Yes, OK” and she invited me to sit down while she went to prepare it – whatever it was.
I sat with a feeling of excitement and joy at the funny interaction I was having with these local ladies. We were almost playing charades trying to figure out a mutual understanding. Then there was the feeling of anticipation for what was going to come out…
Meanwhile, a taxi rolled up outside and out stepped two young ladies with bags of shopping. They entered the shop/restaurant animatedly chatting then noticed me.
“Hello” I said.
“He-llo” they replied with a look of interest.
They went through into the back room and talked with the other two women. I supposed they were all one family, or family and friends at least.
A minute later, the daughter came through holding a plate. Well it certainly wasn’t noodles or rice, I could see that much. She laid the plate down in front of me and I looked at it in utter surprise.
I still didn’t know what it was!!
The block had been cut into strips and was accompanied by a dipping sauce. I expected a meal but it turned out to be only a snack. “Oh well, let’s see what it is then” I thought, and had a bite of one of the slices…
It was cheese!! Haha! Oh dear… I’d ordered a plate of cheese.
It wasn’t too bad really, just unusual to eat by itself. It was very salty, so would have been good with beer. I didn’t ask for one though as my induction with Mr Jerry was fairly soon.
As I was tucking into my cheese, all four women came out and sat on the table next to me. One of them held a glamourous gold cake and another brought plastic plates and forks. No doubt this was a celebration of some sort.
The older mum figure said a few words, and I could imagine like it was a speech of thanks. Then they cut the cake and handed out the slices.
I had to ask them what was going on, so with Google Translate coming to my aid, I typed the question and edged my phone in front of the one with glasses for her to read it.
She typed back a reply: They were celebrating the opening of this new restaurant!
This sparked a back and forth conversation via the translator app, in which I said what I was doing there, where I was from etc. I also explained that we were now neighbours because I was staying right next door at the Queen Hotel.
While I was typing, a piece of cake appeared in front of me, given by the daughter. What lovely neighbours I had!!
And here they all are in a cake selfie with me:
(I did not show this picture to Hana – for obvious reasons 😛 )
So after my cheese and cake for breakfast 😀 I thanked them and returned to my room at the hotel.
At 12pm I stepped out of the lift and into the kitchen, where I found Mr Jerry sat at a table with his Mac Book out waiting for me…
