A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Life at Le Quy Don Jr. High -- Part 2

OK, to resume where I left off last week, when I get to LQD in the morning the kids are all in military formation wearing red white and blue uniforms and getting their extra homework checked. Once this is finished the evil part of the assembly begins, led by a bitter-faced man I privately refer to as Captain Bligh. He has "evil vice principal" written all over his discontented, hostile weasel-face, and is, as you can imagine, universally loathed by the students. He doesn't speak to me, but periodically he will come and glare at me and my class if we're being too noisy. I avoid eye contact.

The Captain stands at a podium in the front, in view of all students, and spends 10 minutes each morning (and the whole of the subsequent school assembly at 9:00) berating the students about how stupid and underachieving and monumentally useless they are, while teachers wander through the lines carrying long thin sticks (which I have yet to see used). Students who speak or laugh or otherwise misbehave suddenly find themselves the focus of the Captain's Skeletal Pointing Finger of Death: he points menacingly, then strides forward to grab the student by the ear lobe and haul him or her up to the front for a little public humiliation. It's really grim.

At 7:00 (or a bit later if Daily Harangue #1 runs especially long) the Captain signals a student assistant to begin the drumming, which in lieu of a bell system is how the students know when the next class starts or ends. All the kids march in formation to their classrooms.

OK, since I don't want you to get spoiled with long posts here at TravelerKaty, I'll leave the description of my actual classes for tomorrow. Besides, today on my way to school I was foolishly reading my book (the new Harry Potter, which is a knockoff photocopy and is already falling apart) and managed to do a face plant right on the sidewalk by failing to notice a slight rise in the pavement. No permanent damage, as usual, but since I broke my fall with my hands (only one bleeding) my right wrist is now killing me and I think I'll wait a few hours before I type again. Man, it's tough being a klutz!



Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 11:06 PM

 
My God, am I a slacker, or what? Sure, I promise "tomorrow", then "Monday", and here it is Wednesday (for you) and I still haven't posted. Well I have to make a confession. While I have indeed been busy (too many classes!) my real problem this week is that I have a new fabulous laptop that I discovered will play DVD's.

To those of you living in a typical American multi-media household you probably can't imagine how overwhelmingly thrilling this was for me. For the six months before I got back to Saigon I only stayed in hotel rooms with TV's a handful of times (I'm thinking you need to budget a bit more for that) and my house here in Saigon doesn't even have a radio, let alone a TV or DVD player. And I am a movie fanatic! Seriously, I even went to see Charlie's Angels and The Incredible Hulk while I was in Bangkok, two superlatively awful movies (and I don't have especially high standards), all because I HAD TO SEE A MOVIE. And this week, all of a sudden, I have access to all those movies that I've wanted to see over the last 14 months.

So forgive me if I went a bit overboard. Some friends loaned me some of their DVD's, and after an absolute orgy of viewing, I then went hunting around town for a good place to buy my own. This is not a difficult task, mind you. As I have reported previously, the Vietnamese have a very, shall we say, flexible attitude toward copyright laws. As you walk down the main tourist boulevard that runs from the big market to the Opera House, hawkers from the stores alongside wave knock-off DVD's and CD's in your face and promise ludicrously low prices.

The problem, of course, is that these are sometimes extremely bad Chinese copies, suitable more for using as a coasters than for entertainment. So I had to go someplace with English-speaking clerks, to whom I could explain the concept of "long term customer" so I wouldn't get palmed off with all the crap they sell to tourists who will never know until they fire up their machine back in Peoria and start to watch a shaky hand-held version of their movie, complete with audience noise and the occasional popcorn-fetcher crossing in front of the screen.

I ended up taking the recommendation of a friend and installed myself on one of the handy stools next to the DVD bins at the brand new SaigonTourist Department Store. In fact I was somewhat surprised to find them there at all. SaigonTourist is the official government travel conglomerate -- they run tours, buses, conferences, etc., and this year they've opened two ritzy (by Vietnamese standards) department stores complete with Western prices. The thing is, in the inaccurately named propoganda tool known as the Vietnam News, every week or two they run a story about how the government is cracking down on businesses who are selling counterfeit or smuggled CD's, cell phones, designer goods, you name it. Yet for a dollar and thirty cents I can buy a DVD of a movie practically before it's even released in the U.S. on the big screen, right in the government's own store. Call me crazy, but this set up sounds just the teensiest bit hypocritical to me.

However, I'm not complaining. I've been able to gorge on movies this week, and for the first time I've successfully convinced a Vietnamese salesclerk that if they are straight with me and actually give me the good stuff I'll come back for more (the Vietnamese pretty much live for the moment -- concepts such as customer service or relationship building are still very foreign to their business strategy). But don't fear -- I will do Part Two tomorrow. Really! I'm not kidding this time!

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 5:37 AM

 
Did I say tune in tomorrow? I clearly meant to say Monday. I must have gotten those time zones mixed up or something.
posted by Katy at 4:00 AM

 
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In the USA many parents and educators (justifiably) worry and complain about large class sizes. Year after year bills are proposed to limit the number of children per teacher or staff member, and all decry inner-city schools with more than 35 students per class.

I'm here to testify that these people have a very good point, but they have absolutely no idea how bad it can be. I defy any teacher to walk into a room of 64 6th graders sitting four to a desk, with no air-conditioning, constant traffic noise, little if any discipline, and without speaking more than a hundred words of their native language. Did I mention that these kids have perhaps never been called upon to speak English before this point? And that they are now up to Chapter 3 of their English textbook, entitled "Where are you from?"? And that they have absolutely no discipline? OK, now try to imagine spending 2 hours with this class, able to explain only the simplest exercise, game or song. I really believe that I should be going straight from this class to a therapist.

But you needn't feel sorry for me. (Not that I thought you would be -- my family is relentlessly unsympathetic, so I expect the worst from you.) My other three classes at Le Quy Don Jr. High School are fabulous, the kind of classes that make you think that teaching is a fabulously rewarding and entertaining profession. These classes are also huge -- between 40 and 60 students each -- but they are worlds away from the Waking Nightmare, as I call it.

But before I extol the virtues of my three good classes, I'll back up a bit and tell you a bit about the setup at Le Quy Don. The middle school is basically a big rectangular complex with a large paved courtyard in the middle, but that basic description doesn't really give a sense of how green and alive it is. The perimeter buildings are two or three stories high and each floor houses a row of high-ceilinged classrooms opening onto a wide hallway with balcony. All classrooms have a bank of huge windows that look out on the noisy street, and all the windows facing the balcony and courtyard are windowed as well for one fundamental reason -- lack of air conditioning. There are only a handful of classrooms that are fitted with air-con, and thankfully two of my classes are in these. During my other two I sweat like a pig; it's not a pretty sight.

The paved courtyard is not as stark as it sounds. It features towering trees which are surrounded, for some unknown reason, with colorful houses for birds. I suspect these pigeon condo complexes are not a favorite with the faculty, as they have been directed to park their motorbikes directly under them. Although there are badminton court lines painted all over, I've never actually seen anyone playing, but the area is used for Phys. Ed., which is accomplished in typical Vietnamese style -- lots of regimental marching and guided calisthenics. It looks deadly dull.

But the most interesting thing that goes on in this courtyard is the daily assembly. Actually, there seem to be several daily assemblies -- I teach for 3 hours in the morning and I see two of them, and they have to be seen to be believed. Each class makes two lines in their appointed space in the square, girls on the left, boys on the right, and they all reach their arm out to touch the next person's shoulder to ensure that they are an equidistance apart. It's telling that one of the first commands Vietnamese students learn when they learn English, right after "Open your book" and "Sit down", is "Make two lines." All students wear uniforms, of course. Boys are in white shirt, blue pants, and a red scarf tied around their necks like boy scouts. Girls have a more feminine puffed-sleeved white blouse, the same scarf, and a dark blue jumper. They all have "Le Quy Don" and their own names and class numbers embroidered on a patch on the front, and on gym days they wear official LQD athletic shirts and track pants with prominent Adidas logos. They look adorable, truly.

The first assembly starts at the god-awful hour of 6:30 a.m. Classes don't start until seven, and when I first started at LQD the kids were free until ten to seven, but apparently the administration decided that not enough mental and physical torture was taking place and some students were in danger of having a good time while at school. So now every day they line up a half hour early and have a lesson of some kind, some universal truths that all grades will benefit from, while teachers and monitors wander around and check kids' homework. That's actually the good part of the assembly.

For the bad part, you'll have to turn in tomorrow -- I'm off to teach another class!

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 9:01 PM