Song and Dance Routine

Let's pretend that we're making a movie about Vietnam. What genre would best sum up the Vietnamese experience? Forty years ago, the answer was unfortunately war, as the likes of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket attest. But its 2008, not 1968. Though memories of the war linger painfully, the Vietnamese are, for better or for worse, trying their best to forget the war.

Tragedy is another viable alternative. Vietnam underwent twenty-five years of nearly constant warfare, eleven years of painfully misguided and backwards communist rule, and still is home to wide swaths of destitution. The nation has enough stories of pain and heartbreak to inspire dozens of tragic films. But today’s Vietnam is too forward-looking and hopeful of the future to be summed up by the genre of tragedy.

Vietnam might even be represented by the action thriller. Any foreigner who has tried to negotiate traffic or even just cross the street in Hanoi or Saigon will agree that what is mundane in the rest of the world is edge-of-your-seat excitement in Vietnam. The Vietnamese even manage to add exhilaration to bureaucracy. Knock, knock; you’ve got a meeting with the Dean of the English department in five minutes. Surprise! Even as an English teacher, you never quite know what’s going to happen next (or at least I never seem to).

In truth, Vietnam could quite possibly be represented by numerous genres, but the one that best offers a taste of life in Vietnam is, in my opinion, the musical. The Vietnamese love to sing and dance. No university ceremony would be complete without at least forty-five minutes of musical performances. The Vietnamese sing traditional songs, modern songs, English songs, patriotic songs, romantic songs, happy songs, sad songs, and anything else they can that wouldn’t offend the party. And song would be complete without a dance? Since my arrival in Vietnam I’ve seen cha-chas, tangos, waltzes, ballet, and hip-hop grooves.

The Vietnamese love of song and dance has commercial impact as well. Karaoke is phenomenon in this country, and even sleepy Cao Lanh has eight or nine karaoke establishments. At seemingly any time of the day or night, one of Vietnam’s TV stations has an American-idol sort of talent show on air. Coffee shops blast Vietnamese pop, and advertise themselves as being CD cafes, whatever that means.

The best example of the Vietnamese’s love of song and dance was when I went with the other Fulbright English teaching assistants to Dien Bien Phu, a town in the far West of the country, practically in Laos. We visited a school, where we were warmly welcomed. The students and staff sang and danced for a good twenty minutes, which was entertaining. Then they asked us to sing. Put on the spot, most of us froze up. Finally, Kevin, a teacher from Iowa, boldly walked to the front of the room and led us in a rousing round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Not to be outdone, I sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with David, a fellow teacher from Ohio. Our songs paled to the beautiful traditional songs the Vietnamese sang, but what would you sing given about 5 seconds’ preparation? No one seemed to care too much that we sang such simple songs; the Vietnamese were just happy we sang.

Since Dien Bien Phu, I’ve been asked to sing numerous times. The university asked me to sing an English song in front of a crowd of several thousand people for teacher’s day, an honor I managed to avoid by suggesting that I read a poem instead (which I ended up not reading because they told me the wrong date). Students ask me to sing a song in front of classes or when we’re out for coffee, a request I usually fulfill. The Vietnamese have no sense that singing or dancing would make Americans somewhat awkward.

But that total incomprehension of awkwardness is probably the best part of the Vietnamese’s love of song and dance. They sing and dance for the fun of it. You don’t have to be an expert to belt one out or cut the rug (and believe me, many of them aren’t). In Vietnam, life sometimes calls for a song or dance, and almost the entire population is happy to join in. Don’t be surprised in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s next big production is set in a rice paddy.

Technical Difficulties

Two weeks ago I was about to write a post about how happy I was to to have full electricity, hot water, and a good Internet connection for a whole week, a first since my arrival in Dong Thap. Before I could make that post, however, I lost my Internet, and it hasn't really come back since. As a result, I haven't been keeping up as I like with the blog, and I apologize for anyone out there following along. A frustrating situation to be sure, but this is what life is like in the developing world, right?

I'm on the road right now, and am currently in Hue and will be moving south to Danang on Monday. I should be able to post from cafes, and will try to get a few pieces up before heading back to Dong Thap. Thanks for your patience.

Ca Phe Sua Da

The café is a central part of Vietnamese society. There is literally a café on every block of Cao Lanh, and many in the countryside as well. When I first arrived in Cao Lanh, I wasn’t sure how so many cafes stayed in business, but now I know better. Many, if not most, Vietnamese men go to a café every day, sometimes several times each day. Women go less frequently, but they are certainly welcome in café culture. Students and teachers meet up at the university’s on-campus café, and in the dozen or so cafes within ten minutes’ walk of the front gate.

Some cafes are fancy affairs, with drinks costing a whopping 12,000 dong (75 cents) or more. The upper-end cafes have four enclosed walls, air conditioning, TVs, sofas with cushions, and look like something you might see in the United States. Most cafes are much simpler. The wall facing the street usually doesn’t exist, and is open like a garage. The roof is typically made of corrugated metal. The walls are usually concrete, though they too may be made of corrugated metal. Tables and chairs are usually whatever the proprietor can put together, and they rarely match. One café across from the university has tables with pictures of Brittany Spears, N*SYNC, and other American pop stars from about ten years ago. Many customers prefer to sit outside next to the street, in spite of the incessant drone of motorbike and automobile engines.

Cafes serve a small variety of drinks. Some specialize in sinh to, yogurt-based fruit drinks, which are quite good. Orange juice with sugar is a favorite drink. Some café-goers like tea, and Lipton is almost all the locals drink, believe it or not. Lipton is so popular that the brand name is synonymous with café tea on order, although every café gives its patrons all the iced non-Lipton tea they want.

But the most popular café drink by far is, not surprisingly, coffee. Coffee would seem to be Vietnam’s national beverage. The nation grows a lot of it, and Vietnam is now second only to Brazil globally in terms of national coffee production. The Vietnamese drink their coffee very differently than Americans. Vietnamese-style coffee is much more like the European variety, which is probably because the French introduced the drink to the Vietnamese.

The coffee is served in a press, which is pictured with this post. The ground coffee is placed in the bottom of the metal press, and hot water is poured into the top of the press. The water slowly drains from the press and into the glass, which is usually the size of a shot glass. The coffee is really more like what an American would call a shot of espresso, and is very strong. The coffee is subsequently served with a lot of sugar. Most Vietnamese prefer to drink their coffee cold and pour their shot into a larger glass with ice. Many Vietnamese (and this American) prefer café sua da, literally “coffee with milk and ice”, in which case the coffee pours onto sweetened condensed milk. The drinker then mixes the coffee and milk and pours the concoction over the ice.

The purpose of the Vietnamese café is not really drinking coffee, though. The café is where the Vietnamese hang out with friends, where they chat and argue, where they relax. The Vietnamese never drink their coffee quickly, especially when compared to Americans, who down their coffee by the mug. I had to learn the fine art of nursing a coffee over the course of a long conversation. An experienced Vietnamese coffee-drinker can make his café sua da last for forty minutes or even an hour. Fortunately I had plenty of opportunities to learn my skills, as the teachers and staff of Dong Thap University were kind enough to invite me to coffee with them nearly every day. By the time I get back to the US, I may have a serious caffeine addiction, but I think the conversation has been well worth it. Besides, the coffee has been fantastic.

Biking in the Country

This afternoon I went biking around Cao Lanh. Sometimes I bike in the city itself, which I enjoy, but my favorite routes are those around the city in the countryside. Biking in rural Vietnamese is a truly unique experience. The macadam of the city streets slowly gives way to white pavement. Many of the country roads feel like I'm riding on one giant driveway through the jungle. But jungle isn't really quite the right word. The plants are tropical to be sure. The areas outside of the city are filled with palm trees, coconut trees, banana trees, and other tropical plants, but the roads are lined with houses. All the animals are domesticated, though. No tigers or monkeys here. It’s sort of like the suburbs, but without that artificial planning feel. These areas have developed organically.

Still, it's all quite a sight to take in. As I ride through the country, chickens strut along the street next to my bicycle while dogs rest in the shade. Children play in front of their houses, sometimes stopping to stare at me, the strange foreigner. Some of the kids cheerfully yell "hello, hello!" as I ride by. The adults go about their business. Some dry rice in the sun, right on the road itself. Others cut and sort wood, or peel fruit. Shopkeepers mind their storefronts. Almost everyone seems rather shocked to see me, but return my greetings of “xin chao”.

If I ride far enough the giant driveway turns into sand or mud. I’ve traveled pretty far, but I haven’t gotten lost yet, because almost every road runs parallel to a canal. If I have to, I can usually just follow the canal back to the city. Water is never far in the Mekong Delta. Given such a waterlogged geography, there are also a lot of bridges. Most of these bridges are of sturdy wooden constructions, but every now and then I’ll cross one that looks like it could use a few more boards. I see motorcycles with two or three people going across with no hesitation, so I figure my bicycle should offer no difficulty. Still, the creaking and the lack of railings don’t do much to boost my confidence. Occasionally I’ll see the famous “monkey bridges” of the delta. These bridges have no hope of carrying my bicycle, because they’re only made of two thin tree branches. The branches run parallel, one on top of the other, and are separated by about a meter and a half. The idea is that the person crossing the bridge puts his feet on the lower branch and his hands and the upper branch. The user clambers across with rather surprising speed.

Even though I don’t plan on crossing any monkey bridges any time soon, my bicycling in the county have been some of my best experiences in Vietnam. When I’m in the country I feel like I really get a look at how the Vietnamese live. As much as I love visiting places like Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City, and as much as I’d like to see major tourist destinations like Nha Tranh and Dalat, I can’t help but feel that this is a slightly distorted view of Vietnamese life. To be sure, many people live in the cities, and yes, some people live at places where the tourists go, but I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to go where most Westerners don’t go and see what life is like for the majority of the country’s inhabitants.

Education in Vietnam

I’ve worked at Dong Thap University for two months now, and I’ve started to gain a better understanding of how the Vietnamese University system works. The most striking aspect of the university is how little the administration has in terms of resources. Most of the classrooms are reminiscent of the old American one-room schoolhouses. Students sit on cramped benches with small narrow tables. The only tool the teacher usually has is a blackboard. Most listening exercises have been played through the teacher’s personal laptop computer or CD player. I’ve seen two classrooms with a computer projector, in addition to the projector in the large lecture hall. There are two color printers on campus, neither of which had ink available when I asked to use them.

The number of students that these limited resources are stretched to serve is daunting. I’ve been told that Dong Thap University has approximately 20,000 students in attendance on a campus smaller than that of St. Mary’s College. The Dong Thap campus is not very large, and consists 10 hectares. To cope with the huge numbers of students, classes are taught continuously from 6:30 in the morning to 9:45 at night. There are also weekend classes taught to part-time students, so the campus facilities are almost constantly in use. There are typically about forty students per class, which severely limits the kinds of activities that can be used in a language class. Most exercises in the Pronunciation classes I assist with consist of the students repeating after the teacher in unison. Sometimes the teacher will try to correct pronunciation individually, but the number of students and the large amount of material that must be covered makes this sort of teaching impractical. As far as I can tell, the large numbers come from the Ministry of Education. Dong Thap University has very little say in the size of its incoming classes, as the Ministry of Education determines who gets in to which university based on the entrance exams. So far, the government has apparently been focused on quantity rather than quality, and so the number of students does not look like its getting lower any time soon.

Given the fact that most Vietnamese do not seem to like to travel (more on this in a future post), the graduates of a university tend to stay in the province of their university, or perhaps return home to where their family lives. In fact, it’s quite common for a university to offer a teaching position to their best BA graduates. While this sort of system does create an intimate community within the university, it also has a few flaws. First, most of the university professors only have a bachelor’s level of education. Furthermore, in the provinces, where the education level just simply isn’t as high as in the cities, the same level of teacher is retained time and time again. Dong Thap University is staffed largely by its alumni, meaning that the majority of the teachers have not had exposure to native speakers (until this semester, anyhow). Meaning no disrespect to the faculty, but this sort of arrangement makes it very difficult for Dong Thap University to raise its standards. On the positive side, many of the more experienced teachers are being encouraged to work towards their master’s degrees, which is certainly a step in the right direction, but the fact remains that Dong Thap has very little diversity in its faculty.

Vietnam looks to the United States educational system as a model, and tries very hard to emulate American colleges and universities. In spite of their hard efforts, their attempts are frustrated by several factors, a lack of resources being one of them. Perhaps more crucial, however, are the cultural factors. The Vietnamese simply view learning in a different light than Westerners. This cultural difference has provided more of a challenge than the limited resources, and I’ll elaborate more on this in my next post.

Sausage Dinner

Last night I was downtown running a few errands, so I decided to have dinner out. I went to Tu Hau, a restaurant I've frequented a few times. The past couple of times that I've eaten at Tu Hau I got the fried rice, so I thought I'd try something different. Tired of fish, not in the mood for chicken, and not willing to get the rat or turtle, I settled on the sweet and sour sausage. As I waited for my food, I sipped my Tiger beer and enjoyed the view from my rooftop table. It was dusk, and the lights were slowly coming on around the city. Lighting flashed in the distance, brightly illuminating the clouds in short bursts. I knew from experience that the storm was at least an hour away, so I would have time to enjoy my dinner. The waiter emerged with my entree, but it wasn't quite what I expected. Instead of sausage in the traditional Western way, the meat was in chunks, and looked like long bits of fat. I tried a bite and found the "sausage" to be very chewy. I flagged my waiter down and asked if this was what I ordered. The waiter, who spoke a little English, said that yes, this was what I had asked for. I must have not looked convinced, though, because he continued to describe the sausage. He pointed to his lower stomach, and drew his finger back and forth across in the general area where the intestines are. I looked back down and the long chewy meat and understood. I smiled politely, thanked the waiter, and asked for a plate of fried rice.

Soccer

I'm afraid that I have brought shame upon the entire American soccer community today. I was invited to play with some of my students this morning in a soccer match. I agreed to play, and was picked up at 7:45 and driven to the field by motorbike. "Field" is a bit of a misnomer, as the term implies that grass is present. Instead of a typical soccer field that one would find in the US, with lines, green grass and flags, I was presented with a dirt patch between two rusty goals. Imagine the infield at Camden Yards, and you're starting to get the right idea. On the upside, though, the field was surrounded by a net, supported by small tree trunks, so usually a missed shot didn't result in the players having to run for five minutes to put the ball back into play.

The pitch was small, and the Vietnamese at Dong Thap play very small sides, five on five. My team was kind enough to put me on the left wing, which is what I'm used to playing. Everyone got into position, and the game began. And that's when things went downhill for me.

At first, I thought things would go my way. I have the advantage of size. Remember that I'm at least a foot taller than pretty much any other Vietnamese guy thanks largely to my large lets. As a result, I can really send the ball when I need to, especially when compared to my fellow players. My long legs also help me outrun my Vietnamese opponents, at least in a long stretch. This advantage is mitigated by the very small size of the field. By the time I would get going, I'd be at the end of the field.

On a dirt field, the ball moves fast. It felt like we were playing indoor at points. Making things worse, the Vietnamese are really quick. To put it bluntly, I'm not. I didn't have much of a chance trying to get past the defense, so I instead tried to move the ball around and occasionally I'd try a shot. My efforts were frustrated by the fact that my teammates didn't know what the heck I was saying. I could yell "flag it" or "I'm on your wing" or "drop it back" all day, but the Vietnamese didn't have the faintest idea what I was saying. The Vietnamese also have a different style of play. I was taught to play a style of soccer that moves the ball around, passing backwards and across the field to set up the perfect shot. This strategy is not used nearly as much with a smaller field and far few players than the usually eleven.

But the biggest problem was that I'm out of practice. I can make up all kinds of excuses about the size of the field, the turf (or lack thereof), language difficulties, and differing strategic theories, but at the end of the day I can't escape the fact that I kind of stunk. My passes were off. My shots went way wide. I couldn't get the ball airborne. My traps were sloppy and the ball bounced off my foot.

My teammates were not very frustrated. I did manage to slow the attack, mostly because I'm a pretty big obstacle on the field. I took a sub about midway through and enjoyed the game from the sidelines because I was exhausted. On the sidelines, I talked with some of the spectators. Soccer games are apparently a pretty big deal, and a rare time where students from different majors meet each other. In Vietnamese universities students don’t choose their classes, and have all of their classes with the same group of about forty students all four years. It’s frankly a lot like American elementary schools. The social bonds that develop between the students in these classes are very tight, and students don’t seem to hang out with kids from other classes or majors. Each class, for example, has its own soccer team. I was playing with the Class of 2007 English B against the Class of 2007 Biology. Although only the guys play soccer, a lot of the girls will come to watch. The game is a big social outing, and I would estimate that about twenty people came out to watch the game at 8 AM

Despite my sub par performance I'm really happy that I played, though. I had a lot of fun, and I got a great insight to what my students do in their spare time. I have the utmost respect for the Vietnamese players. These guys don't care that the field is dirt, that their goals are rusty, or that they don't have a ref. They play out of love of the game. In my eight years of soccer refereeing, I can't think of many players that had as much heart as these guys. I'm also amazed at how well everyone got along. When the ball went out, the right team took possession, with no argument. If a player hit the ball with his hand, he stopped the ball and gave it to the other team for the free kick, no questions asked. Everyone played hard, and few guys went down every now and then. There were no hard feelings, though, no egos.

I was invited to play again, and I'm thinking that I might buy a ball of my own and practice in the afternoons. Hopefully just dribbling and passing will bring back some of my lost skills. I also need to practice sending the ball long on the dirt. Without grass to provide a little bit of a tee, shooting and corner kicks are a new challenge on the dirt. Hopefully an improved soccer game will be another one of the skills I bring home from Vietnam.