Tales from the Classroom

So much for new leaves.

Ants seem to be everywhere. Everywhere indoors, that is. I'll often see a stream of ants crawling up the walls in the kitchen, or crawling on the counter and threatening my dinner. And they often show up in my bedroom as well. I really can't understand. They're tiny and innocuous enough that it doesn't bother me too much. Still, it's unsettling. The ants must have discovered some tiny forgotten morsel of food. I kinda solved the mystery last night. In between teaching two classes, I went to the break room of the school and had a snack of fried rice. It was an interesting concoction, there were like 6 different kinds of meat inside, as well as bunch of other things. As I was wolfing this down, I dropped a small bean sprout or something on the floor and I didn't pick it up. About ten minutes later, I got up to get a drink of water, and I looked down at the floor in front of my chair. I observed a sea of ants emanating from a hole in the wall to the place where I dropped my piece of food. About halfway to the hole, a dozen or so ants were carrying the food, slowly inching it closer to their home. It was like an epic trophy that they were putting all their effort into recovering. It was partly disgusting and partly awe-inspiring.

Anyway, I wanted to share some stories from the classroom.
One of the classes I taught last week was incredibly raucous. Usually the students are relatively quiet and respectful, but sometimes they can get loud and out of hand. In America, I would just scream at them and strike fear in their hearts, but I've been warned not to yell in Asian classrooms. So I try a small hush and the few students who are watching me join in and eventually the class quiets down. Anyway, these guys were kinda out of control, and maybe it was the topic. We were talking about love, and since the students were all late teens or early 20's, it was a hot topic. One girl in particular was incredibly vocal. In one activity, they were practicing talking about likes and dislikes, and they had to write down things they liked and things they didn't, like countries, cities, food, music, etc. When we got to cities we didn't like, this girl kept yelling "HANOI! HANOI! HA-NOI!" And I said, ok, ok. When we got to food we liked, she kept yelling "KFC! KFC!"
Anyway, the topic got a little serious when I divided up the boys and girls and had them write the characteristics they look for in a member of the opposite sex. For some reason, the boys chose to list characteristics that pertained to this girl, and it was kinda funny and interesting to see what they wrote. They meant to say "talkative", but wrote "talk a tea", which is how they also say it since they don't pronounce final consonants. Well, I don't mean to make fun of them, I just find it interesting. So, the girl found out that they were talking about her but she wasn't too embarrassed. Next, she read what the girls were looking for in a man, and he had to be rich and handsome and tall. I asked them if any of the boys in the class fit the criteria, and they said "no, but maybe the teacher", so I assured them that I was not rich.

After that class, I taught a class where the topic was food. I asked them what food people eat on special occasions. I was expecting to hear something like cake. A girl tried to tell me something but I had trouble understand what she was saying, so she spelled it out for me. Even that didn't work, because they mix up how to say a lot of letters in English, like "g" and "j" and "z". Finally, I got all the letters correct and looked at what I had written on the board: dog. I laughed nervously as the students nodded.

Yesterday I taught two classes, and in one of them the power went out in the middle of the lesson. The students seemed content about the break in the lesson, but I took out my cell phone and used the flashlight function to read my book and keep asking questions, which was met with groans. The lack of A/C was starting to get to me, so I didn't think I'd be able to teach much longer in a dark, hot room, but luckily someone came up and flipped a switch to get the power going again.

I taught another class where they were reviewing for a test and had to go over a bunch of review questions. When of them was about goals in life. One girl stated that her goal was to make a lot of money, to which another replied that her goal was to find a rich husband, and the other girls smiled and nodded in agreement. For a non-capitalistic society, there sure is a lot of obsession with money.

In other news, I checked out a Greek restaurant here the other day. It wasn't exactly Greek, more Mediterranean, but it serves a lot of Greek dishes so I figured I'd give it a shot. The spanakopita is really good, at least. The gyros are nowhere near actual gyros, but as pita pockets filled with meat, they're alright. Uyen got moussaka, which I tried a taste of and it was alright. She really liked it. I've never been a big moussaka fan. For some reason, pasticio wasn't on the menu. They had a lot of dishes that sounded like shish kabob, skewered lamb and chicken and such. Baklava was on the dessert menu, but since I've been having a lot from what my parents sent me over the past few weeks, I didn't feel like trying it. I haven't ever really had bad baklava, honestly, so I don't see how they could screw it up. Overall, it's the best Greek food option in Ho Chi Minh City, so it will have to do.

Over and out.