Classroom Management

Last year, one of Katherine's first graders, Giami, came in to teach her one Vietnamese word per day. It was nice. She was cute. Giami would teach the word, then leave.

Words like "mother," "father" and "teacher."

This year Katherine has a teaching partner, Ron, who shares her office. Giami still comes in at lunch to teach the one word per day, but Katherine says that as a teacher weighing the heavy load of TWO students, she is beginning to really take things seriously. She has come up with systems - like her tally system: she will say a word like "dog" and they must repeat "dog" correctly ten times before she will pass them on that word.

She has implemented techniques to handle inattention, too. Whenever they get distracted by anything, such as students or phone calls, she uses her Hang Man Strategy: when they misbehave, a limb goes up on their respective nooses (they each have their own).

Lately, she has become quite weary over her teaching load, saying things like, "I'm having a bad day," and "You're not listening," and "I'm gonna quit."

Katherine thinks that this weariness has forced her into using more "Non-Western Teaching Techniques." The other day, after a lunchtime filled with other-student distractions, Ron and Katherine looked up to see the following messages on the board: (the first one says " You are better than Ms. Katherine - just a little bit!)

Mungo, I couldn't help but think of how fast you would have been hung in Mr. Smith's class. That strategy would have saved you from having to do those fake book reports, right?

Seems that Giami, as a seven-year-old teacher with experience, will be able to weigh the pros and cons of positive vs. negative reinforcement a lot sooner than most of us~

Sunday Night Spring Rolls

Here are the beautiful shrimp in their cooked (boiled) form, and below is Thuy ready to eat a head. She ends up eating every one of the heads and does not pressure me at all. She doesn't even eat any bodies, she is just so happy with the heads.

Aren't the legs of the Daddy Shrimp great?

We roll these guys up into fresh spring rolls tonight - along with rice noodles, lettuce/basil, star fruit, crispy onions and my favorite fish paste mixture with lime, chili, sugar, pineapple and water. Pictured below is a pre-rolled spring roll.

Because my family will be here in about five weeks, tonight I give T and T pictures of everyone so that they can learn names. Thanh practices during Thuy's dinner preparation...she calls my brother-in-law Lewis "Lewey" and notes the similarity between "Brian" and "Brain." What a strange name, so close to "Brain." (She's memorizing you, too, Brian and Kristi, just in case you come...). She likes it that Megan's name is so close to mine ("Maggie").

Dinner is, of course, so tasty again that I ask them if they will move in and cook for my family in December. "You can sleep in the balcony room and make us breakfast, lunch and dinner," I tell them.

Without hesitation, Thuy replies, "One hundred dollars a day."

I'm afraid that they are finally understanding what they are worth~

Successful Losers

My homeroom did not win the Halloween contest this year. All that really matters, though, is that the rubber snake they rigged above the door did in fact drop onto the judges' heads when they entered.

For the rest of the period, I heard, "Did you see that? That was so funny!"

Definition of "success."

Like I said, that's all that matters. I am able to put my ego aside, I think. (Brian, I am working on making the black streamers that say "losers!" now.)

The class that won - which includes many members of my great 6C class from last year (remember Alex and the "I hear that people from Seattle..." entries?)- created a "Horror Hospital." They all wore white coats and had bloody babies being operated on one table and Lucky being operated on at another (with a knife). It was pretty cool.

And another cool thing is that I bought this blonde wig at the Ben Thanh Market and I love it; I am going to buy two more before leaving Saigon (the women running the stand really liked the dark brown bob, but when I told them it was for Halloween, they insisted on this one). It cost $12, and my black leather cowboy hat cost $3. (I was much happier about it than the picture suggests.)

The kids thought it was fantastic. They kept asking me if it was my real hair and I wasn't quite sure how to answer them. They are so...funny.

On to another topic, aren't these the most beautiful shrimp you have ever seen? Thuy and Thanh are coming over to cook these guys tonight, and Thuy has informed me that I must eat their heads. I told her I didn't think I could eat their heads and she just laughed a laugh that said, "You are going to eat their heads."

I have not really enjoyed my day since that laugh. I will let you know how the shrimp head eating goes.

Thriller Reputation at Stake

All homeroom classes are supposed to decorate classrooms for Halloween tomorrow. I'm really dreading it. For weeks now, last year's members of 6E -of the epic Thriller Dance Halloween win- have been seeking me out to ask, "Ms. Marjorie, you're not going to teach this year's class the Thriller Dance, are you?"

Of course, I get very serious and answer them, "The Thriller Dance was OURS. I will not share it with ANYONE!"

Usually I get a response like "Yeah! It's OURS! Thank you Ms. Marjorie. You're so cool!" (here's the story:

http://marjiebowker.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html)

Well, my homeroom this year has only seven students - six girls and one boy. They heard that my sixth grade class won last year so they are putting pressure on me; they have high expectations that the sixth graders can pull it off again for another shocking win.

I've given it my best shot, but for one week, all they want to talk about is what they can rig up above the door entry to fall on the judges when they enter the room. Homeroom conversations have gone something like this:

Me: OK, listen up everyone. The thing that impressed the judges last year was that we had something different than everyone else. What can we do that is different?

Nhung: We should put something up above the door so that when the judges open it, something falls on their heads!

Whole class: Yeah!

Me: Well, OK, we can do that, but that is just one thing. I was thinking that we could read the Halloween stories that we are writing out loud; that would be really cool and different.

Jessica: Maybe we could put a bunch of fake spiders in a box and that could drop on the judges' heads!

Whole class: Yeah!

Me: OK, well, I guess that would be good. But I was thinking that to set the mood for the stories, we could find a Halloween track of scary noises to add a spooky background.

Maria: Or we could put a bunch of black streamers in with the fake spiders and all of that could fall on the judges' heads when they come in!

Whole class: Yeah!

Me: That would be funny. And we can dress up to read our stories and have special lighting on us so that the room looks really creepy. We could cover the windows with black material and put white blinking lights behind the material.

Truong: Maybe we could put red paint above the door, so when the judges open it, blood will fall on them!

Whole class: Yeah! That is so cool!

Me: Well, I'm not sure about the red paint, but...

You get the picture.
I'm just not convinced that I will be able to uphold my reputation this year.

Traveler's Tales that Make You Want to Stay Home, Part Two

It's Saturday night in Dalat and six of us are wandering around looking for something to do - Dalat is not a real happening place at night. Karaoke was the plan, but the cool-looking Karaoke place is "fully booked." Down around the corner and back up a hill, we see another sign for "Karaoke." It's a hotel/Karaoke place, and this tells us something right from the start. It tells us that Karaoke is definitely a side business, that their other business is~ well, it's something else. Six small voices whisper to six foreigners that this might not be the best place, but twelve ears choose not hear the whispering.

At $5 per hour, it's a good deal. So we take a Karaoke room.

Right away, the painted hostesses bring us four trays of goodies: one tray of pomelo, one tray of grapes, one tray of apples and one tray of dried squid in packages - none of it requested. Again, six small voices tell six foreigners "Don't eat the fruit." But, again, twelve ears do not listen to the voices. At one point, K asks, "Is this free?" But the woman pretends she doesn't understand.

We pick at the fruit. On the up side, the list of songs is fantastic and the microphones and speakers are better than we've ever had in Saigon. We sing, drink beer, and eat a few pieces of the fruit. But the fruit is not so good, so we leave ninety percent of it on the plate.

After two hours, the painted hostesses bring us the bill. It is not $10 plus beer, as it should have been. It is $41. Each tray of fruit is listed as $6. Our pomelo guy in the market peels the most delicious pomelo for us and charges us 4,000 VND - about 24 cents. All three trays of fruit, together, possiby cost them under a dollar to buy, but the bill claims something very different. The woman comes back and we begin to fight with her. We didn't even eat this fruit, we tell her, and she points to about six grape seeds. We tell her how bad the pomelo is...we tried one piece, but it was inedible. She argues and argues, but then finally tells us she doesn't speak English. She's done, and she leaves the room. We do get her to remove the package of squid from the bill, and the wet towelettes - both unopened. Finally, we decide to pay $30 and just be done with it. In hindsight, we should have just paid for the two hours and the beer, but we didn't listen to those six voices, either.

You lose perspective, living in a country where everything is so cheap. Five dollars each is not a lot of money, but it seems like a fortune when you are paying it out to dishonest people who are most likely laughing at your stupidity as you walk out the door. Stupidity that shouldn't be stupidity. We all know better by now.

One more Tale for you: the last hour, I ask K if she wants to see the skinned dogs being sold in the market. She looks guilty but her answer is "yes." I had seen the skinned dogs the day before while with another friend and had suppressed a gag reflex many times (they were right next to caged ducks sitting one right on top of the other, and next to that the seafood section of the market - not lovely smells. ) We have both been here for over a year, and this is the first dog-for-eating either of us has witnessed. I'm acting pretty brave, leading K over to the dog section. But suddenly, I just can't do it again. I'm feeling really, really sick. I tell K I can't go back and she says she can't stomach it, either. We both get out of that market as fast as we can, and when we are out we are thinking the exact same thing: our market is so cool and so clean and doesn't smell like death.

Hotel karaoke, anyone? An eight hour bus ride, with comedy? Dog for dinner?

Traveler's Tales that Make You Want to Stay Home, Part One

Trip to Dalat #2 happened this past weekend. If you want to hear how great Dalat is, see the Dalat blog from one year ago and read about what a beautiful mountain town it is, how the air is fresh and the hills are beautiful and how the lake is surrounded by immaculately kept gardens and how you can mountain bike or rappel down waterfalls.

http://marjiebowker.blogspot.com/2008/11/36-hours-in-dalat.html

In this post, you are not going to hear about the good stuff (there was lots). You are going to hear about the down side of traveling - the kind that wears you out and makes you promise yourself you will stop doing this crazy thing sometime very soon.

The bus ride from Saigon to Dalat is supposed to take about six hours. Part of the road is washed out, though, (six of us leave after work on Friday, at 5:15), so - instead of six hours, the trip takes over eight hours.

When we go to book the bus back to Saigon on Sunday, we are told that the only bus available will be leaving at 5 - all of the earlier ones are booked - this according to our hotel guy, Rot. Not wanting to get back at 2 am the night before a work Monday, we check into flying. Flights are booked, too. Feeling despair, we reluctantly decide to book the 5:00 bus back to Saigon.

But at the last minute - after witnessing our agony for over half an hour - Rot says, "Well, there is another bus that I can check." When we ask him why he didn't mention this other bus before, he says it's a "second-best" bus. We check to make sure that "second best" doesn't mean "high fatality rate" and when he calls, we get 1:00 tickets on the Mai Linh bus. Mai Linh is a taxi service that we all like, so we feel pretty happy. We get on the bright-green bus promptly at 1:00 and rave over the neck balloon pillows that are provided.

"We've upgraded!" we all proclaim. "This isn't second-best, this is first-best!"

And then, when the bus gets going, The DVD is inserted. The DVD is Vietnamese slapstick comedy, and it comes with a laugh track. Like everything else played through speakers here, it's turned up to distortion. We are instantly miserable. But it can't last long, right?

After three hours of listening to comedy in a very loud, tonal language we don't know, we stop at an odd tea room/rest stop. Over artichoke tea, we come up with a plan: I am persuaded by my fellow-travellers to dig out my newest Michael Jackson DVD (I collect them, found this new one in Dalat - started this before he died, just FYI) and give it to the bus officials in hopes that they will switch things up in our favor. "He is the god of pop," they tell me. "The whole bus will love it."

So I ask the driver to open the storage under the bus and fish out my DVD. I give Michael to the assistant on the bus and she smiles and says, "Yes!" She looks excited, too.

We all move to the back of the bus feeling light and full of expectation, just waitng for the DVD to appear on screen. We are all laughing, joking and happy. However, not for long. I notice it first: the DVD is struggling to play. After a minute of the swirling icon, it says, "Cannot read DVD." Our hopes are dashed. Michael is ejected and Vietnamese slapstick comedy goes right back in. It plays for the rest of the trip - for eight hours total. Every so often, I look around because I think that, surely, the patrons on the bus will tire of this loud formula. But no; most of the people on the bus are thoroughly enjoying the never-ending comedy show. They are laughing their heads off.

I try to concentrate on the book I am reading: it's called Sold~ it's about a British girl and her sister who are sold as Yemeni wives/slaves by their British/Yemeni father. The laugh track in the background serves as a twisted sound track to the tragedies the book describes.

When the bus finally arrives back in Saigon, the DVD continues to play until every last person steps down from the bus. We are the last ones off. We have listened to over eight hours of purgatory comedy.

During the taxi ride home - all of us sitting in stunned silence - I wonder if I have been permanently damaged by the ordeal. All night I dream of things that are supposed to be funny but aren't. Somewhere in there, what is not funny has something to do with British women being sold as Yemeni wife-slaves.

Tales That Make You Want to Stay Home, Part Two will air tomorrow.

How to Peel a Mango

I'm walking through the alley at night- the alley that by morning is the market - when a group of people I'm always friendly with says hello and waves me over. In the evenings, many families sit outside their homes reclining in lawn chairs, just passing the time.

The woman in the group- who, by morning, sells me baguettes from time to time - offers me some dried squid. You know how much I love squid...but in its dried form, it is nothing like its former self. It's smelly. Men ride carts around with dried squid hanging from a wooden bar and I almost get up and run from them to escape the smell when they and their dried squid pass.

Of course I pretend to enjoy this woman's squid and say "Cam on" (thank you).

I begin to walk away but she calls me back. She runs inside her house and comes out holding four baby mangoes. They're so cute, and these little ones are always extra sweet and juicy. I don't see them much in the market. "Cam on!" I say, no longer pretending.

But then, listen to what she does. As an afterthought, she grabs one of the mangoes back. She looks at me to make sure I am watching and makes a peeling gesture to the mango, like, "You have to peel these first, then you eat the fruit inside." She does this a couple of times so that I am sure to get it. The others in the group sit quietly...patiently, while this woman demonstrates the necessity of peeling fruit.

Does this remind you of anyone? Maybe I was too hard on Nam; I mean, maybe this culture really believes we have no clue as to how to peel corn on the cob or fruit, or how to wash lettuce. Maybe it's part of the cultural propaganda that our entire nation eats at McDonald's for every meal. Who knows.

But the point is...what is the point?

It brought back uncomfortable memories. I have not yet reached cultural peace with this type of Vietnamese kindness.

I'm so glad my banana lady has never tried to show me how to peel a banana.