Guest Blogger, Lisa; Part II

The place I resonnated most with was Hoi An, a beautiful city near the beach. Parts of the town were filled with pagoda-style Chinese Buddist temples, which Hoa and I visited on our last morning there. Hoi An was a busy trade center in the last century, and conducted lots of business with China, Japan, and other Asian countries. Subsequently, the existing architecture is informed by many cultural influences. The people we met were also exceptionally open and warm. Hoa took us to a wonderful gallery space, where we met a painter who is making a living selling his art. Again, I was really attracted to the ink drawings on rice paper. The artist invited me to do a couple of paintings with him the next day, which I gladly took him up on. He was such a sweet man. A self-taught artist, he painted scenes from Hoi An, cats, and women dressed in the traditional Ao Dai (long tunics with matching silk pants typically tailored to fit the wearer.) I'd sure love to apprentice with this artist, as well as the tailors we met where Hoa and I had some clothes made!!!! In the 2 days we stayed in Hoi An, I went to Tan Toan the Tailor no fewer than 6 times!!!! Hoa and I designed a couple of summer tops for her, a curdory orange and magenta (deep pinkish-purple) skirt with a sewn flower, for me. I'd like to say it stopped there, but nooooooo-- I also had a pair of cropped kelly green spring pants made, a turquoise silk Chinese-inspired top, and lastly, in fewer than 3 hours, a periwinkle (light blue-violet) Ao Dai made, which we picked up at 9:30 pm, the night before we left (SMILE!). Also while in Hoa An, we met Chloe,a fantastic woman from France who was an engineer in Mali working with Mailian folks to keep their water clean. Her husband works with Doctors without Borders, and her 7-year old twin sons are fluent in an African language, French and English. They attend the local school in the afternoons, and play with friends outdoors till dinner time. Chloe says, it is a challenge for one of the sons to wear shoes when they are visiting relatives in France. Finally, we went on a boat tour in Hoi An to some smaller islands, one of which specialized in carpentry, wood carving, and boat construction. Beautiful furniture and boxes shaped in the form of waves, and slim wooden boats with eyes on each side!

From Hoi An, we spent one day in Da Nang. Our "tour guide", in his fifties, married late in life to a woman who's been teaching for 30 years. They have two young children who keep him busy. Due to the fact that he had worked for a U.S. doctor during the War, he was limited in terms of current employment opportunities. This was also the case with our tour guide in Hoi An, and many of the cyclo drivers, who take tourists around in makeshift bicyles and motor bikes. Both served time in re-education camps and are blacklisted from any of the more secure government jobs. Da Nang was unusually spotless and corporate. Apparently, there is strict legislation about littering. We went to 2 musuems-- the Ho Chi Min museum which spoke to the wars against the U.S. and the French, and a Cham museum that had amazing stone sculptures of lion-dogs, elephants, and Hindu-inspired goddesses.

We concluded our stay with a delicious late sushi dinner at a mall in Ho Chi Min City with Tom and Hoa! I ate till my belly ached, 'cause sushi is a little spendy here, and David and I can only afford it annually.

In terms of general impressions, I was really struck by the aesthetics of food, clothes, architecture and art (both indigenous Champa sculptures, as well as more contemporary ink drawings). These art forms seemed to have a nice balance of the contemporary being informed by the traditional. Secondly, the freshness and variety of the food. We ate no processed foods period. The fruits were stunningly beautiful-- the colors and textures, not to mention the flavors, were works of art in and of themselves! Third, I was struck with "what communism looks like", and how it manifests itself differently in various countries and cultures. For instance, while Vietanam is deemed a communist country, there is a ton of private enterprise, particularly in the south. Further, medicine and education are not socialized there, and Buddist temples, suggesting obviously freedom of religion, are prominent in every town we stayed (but I guess Russia has always had tons of orthodox churches too). Fourth, I was impressed with the stories of the folks that served time in re-education camps-- their resilience, resourcefulness, and capacity to to remain open and not bitter, was astounding! Our favorite English saying in Vietnam was "same, same, but different", to me it suggested a larger concept of this not being so fixed in time and space-- prices of things, time according to the clock on the wall, etc. I personally found it liberating, 'cause I knew I wasn't in control (HA!)

Tom and Hoa are GREAT guides, mentors and teachers!!!! Our experience in Vietnam was very enriched through their guidance. thank you soo much Hoa and Tom for making our summer, and giving us memories that will stay with us for a lifetime!

Lisa

Starting a Business / Guest Blogger, Lisa Kaiser

We're starting a business! When we were thinking about coming to Vietnam, someone, I'm not sure who, maybe Otto from Prescott, it certainly sounds like something he would say, told us just to tell people we were going to Vietnam and it would happen. He was right.

So: we're starting a business. We've been talking about it for a while; well, Hoa, especially, has been talking about it for a while. We're going to start a business teaching English for the workplace. Probably most of the classes will be held at the offices of the companies that hire us. So we will not need classrooms of our own, and we should be able to keep overhead low. We decided that working for other people teaching English was never going to make us much money and would become a little boring pretty quickly. So, here in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, we have decided to start profitting from the labor of others by getting contracts with the businesses and hiring other teachers to do at least some of the teaching. We may begin by focusing on hotels and restaurants; Hoa has already been meeting with people at one of the biggest and most succesful coffee house chains in Vietnam.

My role: being the white face of the business, which is important in Vietnam, especially for English training. I am perfectly capable of fulfilling this role, although I really should buy some nicer clothes to make people think I'm a responsible, professional adult. I'm also the "big picture" and "idea" guy. I have already come up with, within seconds of being asked by Hoa, a terrific name for the business. (This will have to remain a secret until we have our business license.)

Hoa's role: everything else, including all the real work. I'm just kidding of course. But developing curricula is obviously something she is much better qualified and better able to do than I and is something that needs to be done immediately. So this will be one of her priorities.

We welcome advice from all of you. Neither of us has ever started a business before. But we really think this should be a relatively easy, low start-up cost business to get into. And it could be pretty lucrative. That fact that Hoa is considered "overseas Vietnamese" (and therefore subject to some preferential treatment over other foreigners by the government), that I am more obviously a native speaker of English, and that we both speak some Vietnamese (Hoa quite a bit) all should help us get this going.

I'm still enjoying teaching at the university. We've really had some interesting discussions about environmental ethics (and ethics in general) and utilitarianism and animal rights, among other things. Today we talked in one of the sections about "lifestyle choices" to protect the environment, which is discussed in the book. The idea, for example, that someone who can afford a car or motorcycle might choose to ride a bike out of concern for the environment was entirely foreign to them. Right now, the vast majority of Vietnamese are understandably concerned with improving their material standard of living, but soon many will reach a standard of living at which they may begin to think more seriously about improving their quality of life. Actually I was suprised to hear that most of my students think that the average resident of HCMC has adequate housing that satisfies their "needs" and that increasing the standard of housing would be fulfilling a "want." I suspect they may be overestimating the standard of living of the "average" person and may be assuming that they are average when really their standard of living is far above average. Anyway, it's certainly interesting for me to be talking to students in the developing world about issues like this. We've also discussed recently Utilitarian arguments for considering the "non-human" great apes (as the animal rights people describe them, in a scientifically accurate way it seems to me) -- chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans -- to have the rights to life and liberty and for the middle-class and wealthier people in the developed world to donate substantial portions of their incomes to charities providing the necessities to the poorest people of the developing world. (If you're curious there are articles by Peter Singer about these topics at www.project-syndicate.org) I'm surprised that most of the students seem to agree with ideas like these, or at least with ideas such as animal rights. I expected that people in the developing world would think it's a waste of time to be concerned about animals when there is so much human suffering in the world.

I also usually enjoy teaching at the language center, but, for some reason, I don't really look forward to it the way I look forward to teaching the class at the university. I probably won't continue there too much longer, but we're pretty darn cash-poor right now so I should continue for a while I suppose. Although I won't be able to continue there beyond about a month and a half anyway, because I only have three months from when I began there to get a TESL certificate of some kind, which I'm not going to do. I originally told the people at my language center I couldn't work beyond mid-July (because of the university position), so they shouldn't be surprised. In the fall I probably will get more hours at the university.

That's enough for now.

Now, here's our guest blogger, Lisa Kaiser who, with her husband David, recently visted us here in Vietnam:

"Reflections on trip to Vietnam David and Lisa Kaiser took from 7/14-7/22

Hoa's parents and several folks in Prescott have asked me to urge Hoa and Tom to update their articulate and exciting BLOG. Inquiring minds wanna know what's the "haps" in Vietnam. With that in mind, I promised Hoa I would compose an entry on my reflections of a trip David and I took last week to see Hoa and Tom in Vietnam. Here we go . . . . . . . . . . . .

We arrived in steamy Ho Chi Min City late Friday night, July 14th (late as in late at night, and our flight was also late-- it must have been around 10:45 pm). Tom picked us up and took us to a guest house within hundreds of yards to his and Hoa's new apartment, where they had only lived a week or so. The couple who owned the home Ms. Loan and Mr. Thang Loi, were extremely gracious and kind. Mr. Thang Loi spoke 5 languages, including some English (thank goodness!), and at 15 yrs of age fought in the Cambodian Revolution. He had 4 children, two of whom had recently lived, studied, and worked abroad, but were home for the summer.

While Hoa was gone on business-- presentating and training teachers on English instruction in the classroom, Tom met us in the afternoons between his teaching gigs and we ate well at side street mom and pop places and a restaurant near the tourist district. Man-- the blends of lemongrass, cilantro, beef and noodles still make my mouth water. David asked that I get a Vietnamese cook book immediately--'cause he's already missing the food. This will come as a surprise to Hoa, who took offense at David's ordering a steak and fries in Da Nang, our second to last day in Vietmam (SMILE!)

Tom also took us to some contemporary gallery spaces. One in particular exhitited a retrospective of this amazing contemporary Vietnamese painter, draftsman, pastel artist-- who created eloquent figure studies w/ Sumi-e ink on rice paper, and equally beautiful seascapes in watercolor and pastel-- really reflective!

It is worth noting that Tom is darn proficient in Vietnamese! His intonations sounded "dead on" to me, and more importantly, folks seem to understand him just fine. He claims however that he speaks better than he comprehends others when they speak.

Juggling two part-time jobs~ teaching youth English, and an environmental ethics class with adults, Tom has his hands full but is seemingly energized by the students, content, and challenge of career change. Hopefully, Tom and Hoa's respective new jobs and schedules will allow them to do some more traveling in Vietnam, it is quite a LOOOOOONG country, and so much to see in the way of diverse terrain, architecture, people/cultures, etc. as we found in the short time we were there.

The evening before we took off to hither and hon to explore other parts of southern and central Vietnam, Hoa and Tom took us out to this smokin' (literally and figuratively) restaurant, that specialized in goat. One of Hoa's cousins and another cousin's girlfriend, Mariko-san from Japan, and Tracy and Maggie from China all came and we shared a nice big table together. The food was of course, to die for! Afterward, we went to a sophisticated and saavy cafe for tea and coffee, and said good-bye to Tom for the remainder of the week. The next day, Our close friend and expert tour-guide Hoa took us to many a town and village in southern/central Vietman requiring-- motorbikes, boats, trains, buses, and even an airplane ride back from Da Nang to Ho Chi Min City on our last day. I tell ya, Hoa's skills in managing multiple tasks, destinations and people have only become more refined since her arrival to Vietnam.

Our first excursion out of Ho Chi Min City entailed a 6-hour bus ride to Nha Trang, in which David sat several rows behind Hoa and I. While Hoa slept, I watched a pretty surreal and fairly bizarre film which I'll affectionately refer to as Mechanical Girl. While I could NOT understand the dialogue as subtitled text was in Chinese characters, and verbal sound was dubbed in Vietnamese, the springs that would pop out of mechanical girl's hands prior to putting her boyfriend in the dryer were pretty innovative (SMILE!). Now whenever David does something I don't like, I threaten to "turn Mechanical Girl on him".

Arriving at Nha Trang close to midnight, we strolled on the beach, and were invited to join a circle of 20 year old college students/waiters and waitresses in the sand for a mini party. We all shared a "wine" made of liquor and punch from a Heinneken (SP?) bucket with several straws. These young men and women were soooooo sweet. They shared some fruits and dried squid with us, inquired about our stay, and where we were from. We sang a little, and prior to our leaving, I was donned with a grapefruit skin hat-- no joke, the grapefruits are sooooooo huge there, the peeled skin was even large enough to fit my bobble head!!!! The following day, we rented motorcylcles, drove out to some amazing cascades, Buddist temples, and then went to and art museum that featured both ancient works of the Champa people, a group of people who live in Vietnam of Malaysian and Chinese ancestory, as well as a contemporary sculptor whose work is influenced by the Champa. The Terra-Cotta fired pieces of women, children and family were really fun, engaging, friendly, and had incredible form! The prices were extremely low by our standards, and Hoa had her eye on a couple, just in case she and Tom move into a bigger place. That evening we ate at a Turkish restaurant, with sexy waterpipes that you can smoke tobacco from. The Turkish owner spoke of commonalities between Turkey and Vietnam in terms of celebrations, and histories of rebellion and self-defense for autonomy from outside powers. Hoa, of course interpreted a great deal for us, and got us to many a destination safely. We also travelled on a small tour boat with folks from Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia and Canada. The 20-something tour guide referred to Hoa as his little sister. Several folks thought David and I were Hoa's parents, probably 'cause we look so much alike (psyche! I wish). This small electric blue wooden boat, not only had charm, but had a rock band too. The tour guide was the lead singer and knew songs in Vietnamese, Spanish and English, and the cooks and captain played electric guitar and drums made out of large plastic containers tied together with rope. The bench seats we were sitting on were folded down flat for the stage! I loved it- it was my favorite part of the boat ride! If that wasn't enough, the boat stopped at beaches, aquariums, etc. David's favorite part about Nha Trang was meeting an internationally renowned photographer whose work was breathtaking!!!! Thank goodness for Hoa, who engaged the photographer in conversation for a good half hour. This man was not only a talented artist, but a GREAT storyteller, and extremely personable! David bought a print of his entitled "Raining", and yes, we will no doubt have to take down one of my paintings to hang his print up (SMILE!)"

LISA KAISER

TO BE CONTINUED


PS

To: Hoa's Mom, Me Huong:
From: Tom

Co Lisa da viet den de nuong. Co de nuong o "SF Bay Area" khong? Khi chung con di ve my, se rat nho di an de nuong vi di an de nuong vui lam, ngon lam. Hien nay tuan nao chung con cung di an de nuong. Con xin loi chua biet dung "Viet Key" de viet bang tieng viet dung.

Teaching in HCMC

I see that it's been over two months since I've posted anything here, and I seem to recall saying last time that I would try to do weekly postings. Well, I'm going to try again.

Things have been interesting here in the city. I started teaching English about a month and a half ago at one of the language centers. I have six different classes, and the students range from around 4 (I've never asked how old some of the kids are in the class with the youngest kids, but a few of them can't possibly be older) to 17 years old. The classes with the younger kids are fun, but very tiring. They can't really do much on their own, so I have to be constantly teaching. Teaching Vietnamese children English, as you probably would expect, is rather different from providing legal advice to the mentally-ill, the drug-addicted, and, sometimes, the simply morally-deficient people who find themselves in the criminal justice system. But who knows, maybe I'll will incorporate the use of bear-children puppets into the practice of law if I return to it.

Teaching English can be fun, but I prefer teaching at the university. Although teaching at the university certainly involves teaching English as well. I'm teaching in an American university program that uses the facilities of one the Vietnamese universities and offers students American university diplomas. Strangely, the university is North Central University, located in Prescott, Arizona, where we had been living before we went to Vietnam. NCU in the US is really an online for-profit university, much like the University of Phoenix. The course I'm teaching now is "Environmental Issues." I was hoping we would use a book of readings, perhaps some pro and con articles about the threat of various environmental problems and possible solutions. But instead a book had already been selected that is really a textbook on environmental politics in the West, probably intended for upper-division political science courses. (It was probably chosen only because it's the only textbook on the environment in English that was available here.) The chapter titles are things like: "environmental philosophy," "green political thought," "green parties," "policy instruments and implementation," etc. I think the average US university student would find it very difficult to understand; for my students it must be completely incomprehensible. I've selected a few of the chapters to use, but will have to come up with other materials to use in discussing the issues we should discuss like climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, etc.

Last week I did some basic critical thinking stuff with my classes and also talked about what we mean by environmental issues. I also thought that if we were supposed to cover advanced topics about Western politics, we really needed a short introduction to the basics of Western politics, so I talked about the political spectrum and the political parties of the US. The students seemed to enjoy this and really didn't know much about the parties and their positions. I tried to avoid anything that could offend the government here, although I did mention that in the west the spectrum is often described as being horseshoe-shaped with the extreme left (which I described as "Soviet-style communism") and the extreme right (fascism) coming close together in some ways. But I didn't (and won't here) say much more than that.

This week, at least in one section, we began the chapter on environmental philosophy, a subject that I've had some interest in over the last several years. Again, it seemed that before beginning to discuss environmental ethics, we needed to talk a little bit about ethics in general. Even in the section with the more fluent English, I felt I need to take some time just to make sure they knew what I mean by "ethics." But I suppose even in an introductory philosophy course in an English-speaking country, you'd begin this way. I asked them about the sources of traditional Vietnamese ethics and I didn't get much of a response. But when I mentioned Buddhism and Confuscianism, they knew what I was talking about, and could give examples. One of the students mentioned the many Vietnamese sayings about ethics. I asked them for an example, and they agreed an important one is "uong nuoc nho nguon," "drink water, remember the source." (I understood the "drink water, remember . . ., but didn't yet know "nguon," "source" The topic for the day being environmental ethics, I was happy and thought they had given me a saying about protecting watersheds, but really, I learned from the students, it's about being grateful to the people who provide you with things like food and water.

I was becoming concerned that the students, all business majors, would find topics like this boring and a waste of time, but we actually had a pretty good discussion, which is unusual for a couple of reasons: 1) class discussion is not an important part of Vietnamese education (regurgitating on the test what the lecturer has said in class seems to be the emphasis) and 2) for most of them, their English is not at a high enough level that they feel very comfortable talking about things like this in English. We were able to find some connections between pretty abstract western philosophical terms, like ecocentrism, and strains of Vietnamese culture, like Buddhism. For example, when discussing whether non-human species have intrinsic value (the position of the ecocentrists), one of the students pointed out that Buddhists generally believe non-human animal species have souls and therefore have intrinsic value.

Well, I've gone on too long already about class, but I have to mention that I had the opportunity (for a reason that would take too long to explain, but I will say it had to do with alleged biblical sources of anthropocentrism mentioned in the textbook) to tell the story of Noah's Ark to Vietnamese university students, a majority of whom were hearing it for the first time.

I'm home alone. Hoa's travelling with our friends Lisa and David who are here visiting from Prescott. They're in Hoi An right now, which I'm sure Lisa, especially, must really like, given all the traditional arts and crafts that are practiced there. I couldn't go because I had to work. They'll get back tomorrow night (Friday) and then fly home Saturday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to spend a lot of time with them, because I'm working and they're only here for about 9 days. But we were all able to go out for grilled goat, one of my favorite dishes, and goat hotpot, with Lisa and David, Hoa's cousin's girlfriend (also Hoa), one of Hoa's second cousins from Dak Lak province ("Dung," which is pronounced more like "Yoom"), our Chinese friend Maggie, a another young Chinese woman who taught with Hoa at her old school, and our Japanese neighbor, who we just met. It was really fun, and Lisa, who lived in Japan for a little over a year, was able to brush up on her Japanese a little bit. Thinking about grilled goat is making me hungry, so it's time to go eat.

Tom