People Are The Same Everywhere

I've always believed that people are the same everywhere. My students have asked me many times, "What country has the nicest/meanest people?" I always say, "There are good people everywhere and bad people everywhere. For example, there are many kind people in Hanoi but there's also a handful of Ninjas who robbed me of everything I owned the first week I was here." Shockingly, my students actually know what Ninjas are. I think it's the 16th English word they learn.

That said, the other night, I had to rethink my belief that people are the same everywhere. About fifteen minutes after school ended, I was driving home and stopped at a red light. As I stared at the handy countdown clock (all the traffic lights countdown the seconds till they will turn green or red) I heard, "Hello, teacher!" I turned to my left and sitting on the back of a motorbike was Linh, one of my teenage students. I immediately noticed two things:
1. Linh's mother was driving her.
2. Linh wasn't wearing a helmet.

I looked at Linh and said, "Linh where is your helmet." She smiled at me and said, "It's right here." She held up her far hand, which was holding the helmet. I said, "Linh, put on your helmet!" Her mother then smiled at me and said in broken English, "It's okay. We live close." I quickly responded, "It doesn't matter. It's dangerous. Put your helmet on." Her mother quickly agreed with me (she clearly wants her to get a good grade) and made Linh put on her helmet.

As the light turned green and I rode off two thoughts struck me:

THOUGHT ONE: My mother would NEVER let me ride on the back of her motorbike (yes, this is EXTREMELY hypothetically speaking) without a helmet. So perhaps people aren't the same everywhere. But then the second thought struck me...
THOUGHT TWO: There are irresponsible parents in America too. And on top of that, there are also overly responsible/nosy parents. For example, I know one very well -- my father. As a child, whenever my father would see a kid in another car not wearing a seatbelt he used to pull up parallel to them and motion for the kid/parent to put on their seatbelt. This used to embarras the hell out of me. However, I now realize that I'm equally as overly responsible/nosy as my father.

So, yeah, my core belief is still true -- people are the same everywhere.

Community Cups

(PICTURE: Water cooler and cups at school)

I had a post a few weeks ago about the community combs in public bathrooms. Well, this one tops them all. I've been meaning to post about this forever because it's just unbelievable. At my school are a bunch of water coolers for the students. Next to each water cooler are four cups sitting upside down in a little basin. The basin has about a 1/4 of an inch of water in it. These cups are for the students -- for all the students.

That's right, these are community cups. All x-hundreds of students who come in and out of Language Link each day share these cups. They fill them up at the water cooler, take a sip, then put them back. The next kid picks up the cup, fills it up, takes a sip, and puts it back. I know kids get sick from each other at school but COME ON!!!!

There Is No Hope

If you read yesterday's blog entry, my class tonight was supposed to discuss when a woman will become president of Vietnam. As soon as I walked into class I was greeted with a chorus of, "Can we change the topic? It is very boring." The chorus was all the girls in the class. I tried to argue with them that it was perhaps the most important topic we could talk about but they didn't want to hear about it. Instead they wanted to talk about something much more exciting -- autumn.

I take back what I said yesterday. There is no hope.

A Tad Behind The Times

I start all of my adult advanced English classes the same way. Every time class starts, we have a fifteen to thirty minute discussion on a pre-assigned topic.

At the the beginning of the semester I have all the students write on a piece of paper a topic they'd like to talk about. We then draw a topic at the end of class to discuss for the next class. I figure this keeps them interested and allows them to think about school on their off days rather than assigning homework, which the adults never do anyways.

So the topic in one of my classes the other day was "My Ideal Lover." First off, don't get too excited. The students didn't want to talk about flexible women, or well-endowed men. The topic is "lost in translation." What it really means is, "my ideal boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife." Yeah, much more boring.

I called on the first student, an 18 year old, and asked, "What is your ideal girlfriend like?" He immediately replied, "My ideal girlfriend is very beautiful and must be good at housework." Nobody batted an eye in the class, not even the four girls who were present. I said, "Really? That's it?" The kid nodded his head as if to say, "Obviously, idiot." I called on another guy and got nearly the same answer, "My ideal girlfriend must be beautiful and cook and clean well." The third guy I called on said something pretty hilarious: "I was married six months ago and she is not my ideal lover." "You mean your wife is your ideal lover, right?" I asked. "No. She is not. I don't know what my ideal lover is like." I wonder if he said that when he proposed.

I wrote a long time ago how Huyen told me right when we started dating that she, "didn't want to be a slave to her husband." Hearing first hand the attitudes on sexual equality made Huyen's point a lot clearer to me. It also made something else clearer to me, Huyen problem likes me because no Vietnamese men would want her! I'm her last resort!

I don't like to impose my political/social views on my classes but the discussion was still bothering me during my next class that night. It was time to assign a topic and I said, "I'm going to choose the topic for next week. The topic is When Will A Woman Be The President of Vietnam?" Immediately a boy said, "Never." I was about to say something when one of the girls proudly said, "I'm gonna be the President of Vietnam." There is hope. We'll find out exactly how much tomorrow when my class talks about the topic.

My Favorite Sign In Singapore

Yes, this is a lazy blog entry. However, this sign caught my attention in Singapore:

I was extremely surprised when I sat down to eat in the restaurant and found out that they only served chicken.

Durian Fruit

If you were blind and wanted to be able to tell the difference between an Asian person and a Foreigner, you could easily figure it out by doing what I call "The Dorian Test." Durian is a gigantic fruit that nearly every Asian person I've met loves. Here are the facts I know about Durian:

Fact 1: They smell. They smell really really bad. They're literally a stink bomb wrapped in a spiky shell.

Fact 2: X amount of people die every year by being plunked on the head by Durians. As someone told me in Cambodia, "Don't lay under a Durian tree at night." Apparently the flower opens at night and that's when they drop.

Fact 3: Durian's are called, "The King of Fruits." Apparently in the fruit kingdon royalty must smell like doodie.

Fact 4: Huyen loves Durian. She literally goes, "Oooooohhhh" whenever we pass a stand selling the fruit. Her "ooooohhhhhh" is simultaneously greeted by my "uhhhhhhhhhh" noise. She once bought a bunch of ice pops for my freezer. I opened one up and put it in my mouth and nearly gagged -- it was a frozen durian pop. I asked her why she bought me Durian and she yelled, "Those were for me! You ate my durian!"

Fact 5: Durians aren't allowed on the subway in Singapore:

Construction

I'm an early riser...and apparently so are Vietnamese construction crews. Since last week a demolition crew has been drilling/smashing/doing-other-exceedingly-loud-things literally feet from my head at 7AM every morning. The noise level is ridiculous. I've resorted to wearing ear plugs and blasting my music but still find myself with a migraine around 7:45AM every day.

The good news is the construction gives me a reason to leave my house everyday. I've been walking around my new neighbor exploring the streets and reading in a local park. The bad news is that I'm going to keep having to explore my neighborhood for another month. The construction has just started.

I knew this house was too good to be true (minus the dolls in attic).