Angkor Wat

Sometimes you're in Cambodia and you're walking around the streets of Phnom Penh, wondering why nobody has ever said anything like "It's a PHNOM-ena!" like, phenomena, except...you know, Phnom, anyway, so you're doing that and suddenly you kind of stop, except you don't actually stop walking because why would you do that, but you stop mentally and figuratively and you think to yourself "In my entire life, did I ever think that I would ever find myself in Cambodia?" and the answer is obviously no, you didn't ever think that you would find yourself in Cambodia, and even if you did you could have never imagined what it would be like, anyway.

The point is, is that even though I had always kind of known that I would manage to make my way over to Asia at some point in my life, and even to Southeast Asia, I never ever ever thought of Cambodia as a place to go. I don't know why this seems important to me. I'll also be going to Malaysia soon and eventually Laos and some other countries, and the same goes for all of them. I couldn't even pick these places out on a map when I first arrived in Vietnam, and I certainly never thought I'd visit them. Of course I knew I'd visit Thailand and some point, and maybe a few other places, but Cambodia! Who knew?

It's very strange, because they actually use US currency here. They have their own currency, but mostly only use it as if it were change, basically. Like if something costs $1.75 and you give the people $2, you will get Cambodia riel back as change. But even outside of tourist places, many prices are in USD. Very strange. Good thing I randomly had some?

The biggest problem I've had so far is not being able to use Vietnamese. This isn't really a huge problem, as even if people don't speak English, I'm quite used to getting by on hand gestures, as I did when I first got to Vietnam. But it is so nice to be able to even use a few words of Vietnamese, even if it's only "thank you" or to get a waiter's attention. Not being able to do that is a little frustrating, and sometimes my friends find themselves accidentally using Vietnamese words, even though nobody would be able to understand.

In a few hours I will be heading out to Siem Reap, which is near Angkor Wat. I am so excited to see it!!! Also, some of the people I am traveling with are running a half marathon through Angkor Wat this weekend, which should be pretty cool. Running a marathon through one of the wonders of the world? Yes please!

Grade Expectations

Warning: This blog entry is essentially just me being neurotic about boring grade-type teacher stuff. Imagine if Woody Allen was a teacher. Read at your own risk. But I guess you've already put up with the bad pun and overused pun in the entry's title, so you're clearly willing to deal with a lot.

There are lots of other things I could probably write about, but this is what it's gonna be: grading. I was not prepared for the emotional roller coaster that grade giving has turned into! I knew that many teachers become invested in their students and worry a lot about their students' success, but I actually experienced a whole mess of emotions while grading my midterms (and now am experiencing the same feelings for the finals). I was not prepared for how intense these emotions could be! I mean, part of this is probably do to the fact that I do most of my grading pretty late at night (because apparently I can only grade when sleep deprived) and so a lack of sleep makes everything a little wackier. However, when I got to the point where I was actually talking out loud to students that weren't there? That's when I knew I should take a break and continue the next day.

But really though! Besides being happy for my students when they did well, or very upset when they didn't (what this sounds like when I'm in talking out loud mode is something like "Good job! Let's all cheer for student X!!!" or alternatively "What the hell were you thinking? REALLY you thought that was the answer? Did you really think that???") other anxieties come into play. For example, I spend a lot of time worrying about what I could have done differently in the class. Maybe so many of them are getting this question wrong because I didn't teach that concept properly! Maybe if I had written the test differently or prepared them better, we wouldn't be having this problem. But at the end of the day, I know that some students will do well, and by necessity many will do poorly. We have to maintain the bell curve, don't we?

Another worry comes in when I think about the fact that I'm not familiar with the grading standards in this country or even at this university. I am, for example, thrown off by the fact that I can only give pluses. So, my only options are A, B+, B, C+, C, D+, D and F. What about A-, that beautiful grade that says "You did a really good job, but you weren't perfect, and I'm a hardass, sorry!" There is none of that here! I gave out many B+'s on the midterms, and I know that some students were very upset by this. One of the deans (one of my bosses) told me that grade inflation at this university is rampant, and that I should consider giving my students very low grades to shock them into studying harder. Don't know if I have that in me, as I feel terrible even when I give out a B, let alone a C+ or a C (but sometimes you just gotta give somebody a terrible grade, I mean, come on). I just gave my freshmen the grades for their finals, and nobody had hysterics, even though I did give some poor grades. Oh well.

This is Halloween

So for the past week I've been doing almost nothing but Halloween themed classes with my students. Most Vietnamese people seem to be absolutely fascinated by Halloween...one teacher told me that it seems "magical" to them, a time when there are demons and monsters and ghosts everywhere and crazy things happen all night.

Perhaps this is partly true, but I felt like my students all expected more from my Halloween classes, and were maybe a little disappointed. I was kept from showing movies or even video clips in class by technology issues, but I did manage to show one smaller class The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I think was a little bit more in line with what they were expecting than what I did in my other classes, which was hand out some candy, talk about the customs on Halloween, teach a spooky song, and then have students tell ghost stories. Besides, it's hard to get a spooky feeling going in a class of sixty students during the day time. The Halloween thing worked much better in my night classes, which can have anywhere from ten to maybe fifteen or so students. The one real problem though is that no matter how scary I managed to make the atmosphere, it really is impossible to impart what Halloween feels like in a cold place such as New England or regular old England. The roots of Halloween are found in celebrating at a time of year when the earth seemed to be dying, when the last harvest had already been brought in and it was time to worry about the winter ahead. People took this chance to honor their dead relatives and think about their precarious place in our world. I think this idea lends a lot to the modern feel of Halloween, even if we don't think much about it anymore, and I especially believe that cold weather helps remind us, even somewhere far back in our brains, that at one time the holiday meant a bit more. I also feel like it's a little easier to believe a ghost is going to jump out at you when the trees are losing their leaves and a cold, dark, night has descended. A little less easy to be frightened, perhaps, when there are palm trees outside your window and geckoes chilling on your wall. Just saying.

On Saturday night, however, some of the American teachers held a Halloween party, and for the first few hours many of our Vietnamese friends came. Many people actually dressed up (as best we could, it's very hard to find certain things here, although there was one store in the city that sold a few of those rubber Halloween masks) and I made a few jack-o-lanterns. The jack-o-lanterns were very small, as it's pretty difficult to find big gourds of any kind here, but I think they got the point across, and let some of our students and friends see what such a thing would look like. I dressed up as Pikachu, by the way, who is very popular here. It was not something I'm terribly proud of, but went over quite well.

Something interesting that came out of all the Halloween discussions was that I got a lot of information about how Vietnamese people think about ghosts. I have already been told by many students that our university is haunted by the ghosts of students who have committed suicide (other students adamantly deny this) and I also knew that many Vietnamese people believe that the dead freely walk among us, but that many will not admit to believing this. In some of my classes, almost every student said they believed in ghosts, but in others, only a couple did. Additionally, a few students told me that Can Tho (as well as the rest of Vietnam) used to have more ghosts from the war with America, but that because time has passed and cities have grown, many of these ghosts have gone away. I have also been informed that ghosts like warm places, so if a factory gives off a lot of heat, ghosts will go there at night to try to warm themselves up. Keep away from factories, you guys! They also supposedly hang out under trees, and the reason why lightening strikes trees is because it is attracted to the ghosts. Another thing that most of the stories my students told me had in common was that the ghosts all had very long hair that covered their faces and wore white clothing. The long hair thing was sufficiently creepy for me, even without the rest of the story being told! Most of them just involved people seeing such ghosts and being frightened, and nothing much else happening. For an expat's story of his encounter with a Vietnamese ghost, you can go here.

Anyway, that just about does it for Halloween in Vietnam! Somebody broke into my house yesterday (on Halloween...trick or treat? Trick?) and basically stole every electronic item I own, so blogging might be difficult for a while. I'm on a friend's computer now. I've moved to a house that is supposedly more secure and hopefully this won't happen again, especially since I really don't have anything else left to steal. Good times.

Starry Night

This post is not about actual stars, I should say that right now (You can't really see the stars here most of the time, too much pollution of the light and normal fossil fuel varieties. And especially right now during the rainy season, this is doubly impossible). It is, in fact, about my class this morning, in which I attempted to explain a few centuries of Western art to my class.

I exaggerate a little. I had actually done most of the explaining the class before, along with a crash course in art criticism (What do you see in this painting? How does it make you feel?). It's impossible to get too technical, because honestly their English skills, for the most part, aren't up to it. Not their fault, really, more the fault of an overzealous administration whose expectations are waaaaay too high. And they seem to know that they're too high? And be okay with it anyway? But at the very least I tried to teach them some vocabulary with which to talk about art, and explain certain artistic periods in as simple language as possible. I utterly failed when it came to postmodernism, but you know, I don't think the world will implode because of it. I doubt any of my students will soon be facing a British monster who does not understand Vietnamese and will only spare their lives if they can define postmodernism. I actually have no idea what their background in art is like, because when I ask about it they just give me blank stares. It seems like some students are interested in it, and so already knew some stuff, and some aren't interested at all.

For today's class I set up a kind of "museum" in that I printed out a bunch of pictures of famous and semi-famous paintings that I thought might interest them, ranging all the way from the Mona Lisa to a self portrait by Frida Kahlo (They thought it was a painting of a man. Frida might actually be happy about that?). Because most places here print in black and white, I also later on projected the images of the paintings from a computer onto the wall so that they could see the painting in color. The students had to pick one and play art critic with it, talking about what was in the painting, why they chose it, how it made them feel, what they think it meant or was trying to do. Questions like that. Nothing too crazy. Some of my students came up with awesome stuff, and because I'm not really a student of art history (not European art, at least) there was no voice in the back of my head yelling "No! They've got it all wrong! Correct them! That's not what this painting is about at all!" After all, this was an exercise in using language related to art, not an actual art history lesson. When talking about Picasso's The Old Guitarist, one student said something along the lines of "When I see him, I feel very sad and lonely. I think he is poor and alone and has no friends, and the only thing he can use to express his soul is his guitar". Another student suggested that maybe American Gothic was about a couple who had lots of problems that they were powerless to solve and so they worried a lot (I have no idea what that painting is actually supposed to be about, I'll admit it). It's clear that they have many great ideas, they're just held back by language and by how shy they can be.

That having been said, my students are not as as cripplingly shy as I thought they would be. I can get them to speak. Well, I can get some of them to speak. And they start getting into something, the shy ones usually forget to be shy. But it is definitely something that gets in the way.

A side note, one of my students picked Starry Night, talking about the play of light and dark in the painting. Her reason for picking the painting was that it reminded her of a song she liked, called "Vincent". My brain exploded! "That song is about the Vincent who painted this painting!" I exclaimed perhaps a little too loudly. She just nodded politely at me. Later, after class, I asked her about it and she said that the song (it's by Don Mclean) isn't really known in Vietnam, but that she had heard it in a movie whose name I wrote down and have since misplaced. I was totally floored that she knew this song, especially since I had actually been considering basing a lesson around it for next week. It's slow enough that I think they can catch all the words, and we could have a discussion about the lives of artists, etc., but I've since nixed the idea because it isn't that much fun to sing along to. The students here love singing along to songs, and doing so would help with their pronunciation. So I'll just have to find something else! Hopefully something that has to do with art. Suggestions are welcome.

Che, It's a Thing

So when I was in Argentina, "che" was a thing that people said all the time, sort of like we say "like" all the time, but it didn't seem to mean a heck of a lot. HERE, however, che is THIS. I have not yet decided if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I had my first one very recently. It came in a tallish glass with ice, and milk that might have been soy or rice milk, and there were peanuts, and what I thought was corn but turned out to probably be lotus seeds, and then something gelatinous and chewy that was rumored to have been made from grapefruit peel but I really don't see how a grapefruit peel could have produced those gooey gummy worm type things. I sort of enjoyed it, but not enough to actually be able to finish it. Even the milk itself was kind of syrupy and gloopy, and in general was very unsettling, even if the flavor was good (this is going to be a theme, I think...good taste, unsettling texture).

I'm writing about this because I am at a cafe right now, and I ordered what seemed to be a pretty innocuous iced strawberry milk beverage. I was pretty excited for it, and proud of myself for stepping outside of the cafe and sinh to (fruit shake) box that most people stick to when they go to cafes here (although I do love me a good chanh da...iced lemonade, basically, but it's more like a caipirinha that they forgot to put alcohol into). Anyway, I get this thing, and it is NOT just an iced strawberry milk beverage. It has peanuts. And something gooey. And vaguely tastes like cheese maybe? Maybe? I would take a picture, but I forgot my camera, which I really should start bringing everywhere because you never know when something like this is going to happen. Anyway, I am going to gather my strength and see what comes of this. I should have just stuck to cafe.

UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I realized that the peanuts with the strawberry are just kind of like a PB&J so I shouldn't be too weirded out. Still tastes a bit like cheese, though.

Bikes and Classes

Today as I was biking to the store a student of mine biked up next to me and greeted me with the customary “Teacher!” which is what most of my students call me. We chatted as we biked for a bit, and she mentioned that it was very hot out today. I agreed whole-heartedly (it was at least 90 degrees and very humid). She asked me why, if I thought it was hot, I wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt like she was. I was lost for words. I tried saying “but that would just make me hotter!” but I knew that she would be confused, because many people in Vietnam (girls, especially) not only wear long sleeves to keep their skin lighter, but also because it is supposed to keep one cooler. I can almost accept that, I encountered people in Israel with a similar point of view, however, I cannot accept that a sweatshirt of all things would actually help with the heat. Sweatshirts do happen to be very popular here with girls, though, so maybe it’s something that I should give a try?

I should probably make it known: I LOVE biking around this city. I don't get particularly nervous anymore, because I've realized that for the most part people actually know what they're doing, so as long as you don't do anything crazy yourself, there shouldn't be a problem. And there really aren't too many cars, just motorbikes, which don't go as fast as your typical motorcycle. I feel like the coolest person in the world when I'm zipping around on my bike. So cool, you guys.

Side note, I actually had three students swoop up next to me on their bikes while I was riding mine today. This is only odd because it happened so many times in one day whereas before it hasn't happened much at all. However, if you think about the sheer number of students I teach in a week, and the fact that everybody pretty much hangs around the same parts of town, it isn't too strange. I teach probably over 300 students a week. That's right, you heard me. So one of them finding me while I'm biking along probably isn't that weird.

For the record (I don't think I've ever actually said this on the blog before) I teach five different university classes. Two of these classes are Speaking and Listening 2 (also known as Broadcast English? Why does my class have two names?) for sophomores. S+L classes meet once a week, for about 2 and a half hours, and one class has around 60 students while the other has about 45. I also teach 3 Pronunciation classes for freshmen, each of which has at least 60 students, if not more. These classes can be rough because the freshmen have not had much experience listening to spoken English or even speaking it themselves, so I think they get about half of what I say. I also teach three nights a week at a private tutoring center, preparing students for a test called the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) which students typically take so that they can study at English speaking universities. Each of these classes has around 20ish students. So...math, it's a thing. That all adds up to a lot of students. A whole lot.

9/11

I had a different blog entry that I was hoping to post soon, but I thought today I'd write a little impromptu one, brought on by the fact that I've been talking to so many Vietnamese people who have asked me about this 10 year anniversary of the attacks, which was surprising to me. I don't know if it ought to be or not, but until another staff member at the university mentioned a few days ago that Sunday was 9/11, the thought hadn't occurred to me (this might be because my brain hadn't yet processed the fact that it was now September instead of August, but oh well). Since then I've had a few more Vietnamese people talk to me about it, especially when they hear that I'm from New York. One man even asked if I was going back to New York for the anniversary!

I've brushed most of these encounters away, because while they are well intentioned, the interactions are usually a somewhat superficial questioning, as in, these people seem to feel that they have a duty to mention 9/11 and ask about it. However, last night I met the student of an American friend of mine (who has chosen Clark Kent as his English name) who, after the usual conversation starters (where are you from, what do you do, how long are you in Vietnam for) looked at me and said "I am very sorry about what happened. Where were you that morning?" in the most sincere manner possible. It was very simple, but very touching. I think what struck me the most is that I can't remember anyone ever actually asking me what I was doing or where I was, what my experience of the day was, who wasn't actually American. Let me explain why this felt different to me. When an American asks "what were you doing when the towers fell?" it is an opportunity to explore our mutual experience of that day. We are acknowledging mutual suffering and the sense of community that results. When I am asked by a non-American about that day, the selfless desire to hear about the event and how it affected me, and the compassion that is coming from someone who was halfway across the world on that day moves me in a different way. While I know from having talked to people while I was in Argentina that people in other countries felt affected by 9/11 as well, the fact that they are still displaying compassion ten years later is incredible to me.

That having been said, this is a very intense article from the NY Times that goes through that day using the recollections of various New Yorkers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/escape.html?_r=1&hp

Fall

It's hard to believe that I've been here for basically a week. Well, maybe it's not that hard to believe. I actually have no idea how I feel about it. My opinions on the subject change with every minute. One thing I do know for certain is that this will be my second year in a row that I'll miss fall in New York, and I'm very sad about it (although really I only have myself to blame, I suppose). I keep thinking about the leaves, the smell in the air...but it isn't even autumn yet in New York! Oh well.

Flying Out

Well, I guess I'm flying out tomorrow morning, to VIETNAM. I'm pretty much in denial about it, mostly because when I fully realize exactly what I'm doing I start to get this roller coaster feeling. You know the "Oh man I'm at the top of the crest and now we're going to go down and I really don't want to go down but I can't get off and who talked me into this I'm going to kill them!" feeling, a.k.a. how I feel pretty much before I do anything important ever.

I'm flying out of Newark which I think I've only done once before in my life (My grandmother just informed me, I was about 8 or 9 and we were going to Disney World. Nice.) and usually I only ever fly out of JFK. I suppose this is a good thing, though, because I have so many memories associated with JFK that every time I get there my brain automatically starts playing either "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" and then everything starts to get all slowed-down and soft focus as I walk to the plane, and then there are some shots of the New York City skyline slowly pulling away and the soundtrack switches to "Such Great Heights" as a single tear slowly makes its way down my face.

What I'm trying to say is that it's hard to do the single tear thing or the indie soundtrack/movie thing when you're looking out the window at Newark. Or so I imagine. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.