One thing that is very impressive about Vietnam is that the people are busy hustling a living and working very hard, yet they seem to enjoy life as well. So many have their own little business. There are a million little shops and restaurants set up on the sidewalks of the cities and you see them filled with mostly men chatting and sipping their coffee or tea. Individuals and sometimes whole families get around easily on their motorbike. The children are going to decent-looking schools and not begging for money or food as in many other poor countries. Communist symbols are very evident, but it is difficult to tell how many people feel an allegiance or appreciation of the Communist government. Clearly there is general agreement that overall there has been a tremendous amount of progress here. This place is functioning quite well overall for a country that 20 years ago was one of the poorest in the world. I would guess people are relatively satisfied with life, more so than in so many other places. I am sure there is corruption like everywhere, but my sense is that the government tries to be responsive to the needs of the working class here.
As a tourist, though, it is a different story. Many Vietnamese have the annoying habit of being over persistent in trying to sell us something. They kind of harass you. For example, today a young fellow gave us a hard sell and we hired a boat to take us for a ride on the river. Once the boat got underway, we realized we were with a family that slept and cooked on the boat. The woman soon opened up her trunk of goodies and for the rest of the hour she tried to sell us her stuff ranging from post cards, art work, and then clothes. After a short while the boat turned around; it was a shorter ride than we had expected. It is very common for Vietnamese to try to overcharge the tourists (not that I blame them), so you have to be on your toes unless you don't care.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Hue
We are in Hue now, the old imperial capital of Vietnam (and parts of Laos and Cambodia) when the Nguyen dynesty ruled in the 18th and 19th centuries until the French took over Hue in 1885. Hue was also the scene of the bloodiest battles of the 1968 Tet Offensive in which Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces controlled the city for several weeks. Much of the city was devestated by bombing.
The beautiful city lies along the wide Perfume River which has quite a number of river boats moving up and down. It was fun to walk across the river yesterday evening enjoying the peaceful river scene besides a virtual river of bicycle and motorbike traffic flowed across the bridge. We are staying in a simple hotel on a quiet street and are enjoying the excellent food in Hue.
The bus ride yesterday from Lang Co up the coast reminded me that Vietnam is fortunate to have a long, rich and beautiful coast line. Along the route we passed many fishing villages and saw many boats and shrimp and fish ponds on the right hand side while on the left side of the bus we passed large rice paddies that seemed to shine in an almost flourescent green color with lush, steep, forested mountains beyond the paddies. The weather was about 80 degrees and extemely muggy and hazy. The previous day, when our bus stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant and hotel, we made a spontaneous decision to get off our bus and spend the night at a hotel there. In the morning, we rented a motorbike and drove up the beautiful Hai Van Pass between Da Nang and the town of Lang Co where we were staying. We enjoyed viewing the outstanding mountain and coastal scenery.At the top of the pass, one can see Da Nang looking south through the mist.
The beautiful city lies along the wide Perfume River which has quite a number of river boats moving up and down. It was fun to walk across the river yesterday evening enjoying the peaceful river scene besides a virtual river of bicycle and motorbike traffic flowed across the bridge. We are staying in a simple hotel on a quiet street and are enjoying the excellent food in Hue.
The bus ride yesterday from Lang Co up the coast reminded me that Vietnam is fortunate to have a long, rich and beautiful coast line. Along the route we passed many fishing villages and saw many boats and shrimp and fish ponds on the right hand side while on the left side of the bus we passed large rice paddies that seemed to shine in an almost flourescent green color with lush, steep, forested mountains beyond the paddies. The weather was about 80 degrees and extemely muggy and hazy. The previous day, when our bus stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant and hotel, we made a spontaneous decision to get off our bus and spend the night at a hotel there. In the morning, we rented a motorbike and drove up the beautiful Hai Van Pass between Da Nang and the town of Lang Co where we were staying. We enjoyed viewing the outstanding mountain and coastal scenery.At the top of the pass, one can see Da Nang looking south through the mist.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Account of 2005 Vietnam trip from journalist Bob Wing
I am including this account of a Vietnam trip from Bob Wing because he expresses much of what I sense about Vietnam after being here for one month and also provides some more details about the country and of some of the places we visited. Here is his account:
Author: Bob Wing
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 01/19/06
“Vietnam is a country, not a war.”
I now understand that better than ever. But I must admit I was excited to visit Vietnam this November, mostly because the war, and its opposition, had re-shaped forever my young life in the 1960s.
I was moved, often to tears, by My Lai, the War Remnants Museum, the Cu Chi Tunnels and other war sites. I had the privilege of meeting former Vice President Madame Nguyen Thi Binh and other leaders of the campaign for justice for the Agent Orange victims of what the Vietnamese call the American phase of their 100-year war for independence.
But when I left the country 17 days later, I found myself most struck by the many forms of beauty of Vietnam and by the bustling energy, optimism and sense of purpose of its people as they struggle to improve their lives in one of the world’s poorest countries.
And I am still wondering where they hide the uniformed armed men that menace the populace of most countries. Although I moved in and out of at least a dozen high governmental and party buildings and visited Vietnam’s most precious tombs and temples, the armed presence was almost non-existent.
Tunneling to victory
I made an emotional visit to My Lai, site of the most famous U.S. massacre of the war. Pham Thanh Cong, director of the My Lai Museum, told me he was one of only 10 people who survived the senseless U.S. slaughter of more than 500 unarmed villagers on March 16, 1968.
He recounted how U.S. troops corralled his family in a cave and then cold-bloodedly executed his parents, grandparents and siblings. To this day he wonders whether he was spared only because his traumatized 10-year-old figure was hidden by the shadows.
A visit to the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels jolts the conscience of even the most jaded tourist, especially if guided by Mr. Binh of Delta Tours. During the war, Mr. Binh fought for the U.S. as a member of our Coast Guard in and around Saigon. Thirty years later, he curses his (and the U.S.’s) “stupidity” and now passionately, and in detail, debunks U.S. war propaganda and the Lonely Planet guidebook’s distortions to all who will listen.
The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City documents in horrific detail the effects of the barbaric U.S. war strategy on the Vietnamese people. At the museum I had a chance encounter with Ms. Huynh Thi Kieu Thu, who as a teenage fighter was savagely tortured and jailed in the infamous prison on Con Dao Island for 10 years. And in private conversations I learned that almost half of the officials I had meetings with had also been jailed or tortured.
By contrast, the Cu Chi tunnels are a testament to the creativity, mass support and extraordinary determination of the Vietnamese revolutionaries. The hand-dug, 250-kilometer tunnel system provided infiltration and escape routes, and enabled the National Liberation Front to coordinate its work throughout the Saigon area.
The Vietnamese began surreptitiously digging the tunnels during the fight against the French in the late 1940s. By the 1960s their painstaking labor had created a vast three-tiered mosaic of tunnels that zigzagged from the outskirts of Saigon to the Cambodian border, even plunging into and under the Saigon River.
They contained hundreds of hidden entryways, dozens of kitchens and barracks, clothing and weapons workshops, and even emergency clinics.
The tunnels were so intricately engineered that kitchen smoke was vented far away to disguise the tunnels. Deadly booby traps, sudden drops and numerous dead ends prevented enemy troops from discovering the extent and purpose of the tunnels for decades.
The tunnels were undoubtedly the product of the labor of thousands of people. Many thousands more poured through them to launch the stunning 1968 Tet Offensive in which the NLF temporarily occupied the U.S. embassy in Saigon.
Yet even after Tet the tunnels remained a tightly held secret; amazingly it was not until the early 1970s that the U.S. discovered their existence. After many unsuccessful attempts to destroy the tunnels, the U.S. vengefully turned Cu Chi into what experts have called “the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare.”
But by then it was too late: the defeated U.S. troops were already quitting the country.
Rapid growth
The U.S. war on Vietnam lives on in the continued horrors caused by the massive use of chemicals like Agent Orange (dioxin). Madame Binh told me that 3 million Vietnamese still suffer its effects. Scientists say its ghastly harm will be inherited for at least two or three more generations.
Vietnamese victims recently filed a U.S. suit against the chemical companies that produced Agent Orange. See www.vn-agentorange.org.
But the main effect of the war is found in the determined effort of Vietnamese to improve their lives. Indeed 100 years of continuous war from 1880 to 1980 left this once prosperous country in dire straits. Its per capita income of $550 is less than the poverty benchmark of $2 per day and ranks Vietnam 164th out of 208 countries.
The good news is that Vietnam has made great strides over the last 10 years, achieving one of the highest growth rates in the world. The brisk economic energy of daily life is unmistakable throughout the country, with the exception of some mountain communities.
While the Asian financial crisis of 1997 sent the rest of Southeast Asia spiraling into negative growth, Vietnam has expanded at a 7-8 percent clip. Communist Party representatives suggested this should give second thoughts to those who simplistically believe that Vietnam’s adoption of a market strategy means that it is now capitalist.
And this is no barracks style of development. Vietnam brims with beautiful French colonial buildings and houses, stylish modern structures and traditional Vietnamese architecture. The vivid, multi-colored facades of the French-influenced buildings are positively entrancing, from the majestic Hotel de Ville (now the People’s Committee) in Ho Chi Minh City and the stunning Opera House in Hanoi, to the thousands of gorgeous homes sprouting throughout the country.
Vietnam is also replete with ancient temples and tombs. Hue is the traditional capital of Vietnam and its royal sites are magnificent. The beautiful Old Town of Hoi An is so precious that the United Nations has designated it a UNESCO World Heritage site. The country also boasts world-class beaches and breathtaking trekking areas.
Thousands of art galleries displaying (and purveying) exquisite contemporary Vietnamese painting, and the delectable Vietnamese cuisine, add to the sensory delight.
No socialist model
To the tourist, Vietnam feels like a purely capitalist country swarming with hawking merchants, restaurants, hotels, drivers and tour agencies. I found it infinitely easier to use a credit card in Vietnam than in Italy.
But in fact, the development of the tourist industry is a state-planned priority. It is no accident that the standard of hotels and restaurants is extraordinary (even compared with the U.S.) and that every dinky hotel can arrange more transportation and tours than a five-star hotel in the West — and even charge it to your hotel bill.
A central committee representative told me that individual enterprises now account for about 40 percent of the economy and that both the Vietnamese and foreign capitalist sectors are growing, but that the state owns or controls the main industries and arteries.
Faced with bankruptcy and even starvation, the Vietnamese government scrapped the Soviet-style centrally planned system in 1986 and commenced “Doi Moi” (renewal). Some officials privately told me that they no longer believe there is a “socialist model” let alone a “socialist system,” only “socialist objectives.”
And even these objectives, they say, can only be achieved based on the level of development attained by Vietnam in a world dominated by capitalism. For example, in the 1990s Vietnam imposed modest entry fees starting with middle school, and limited free health care to the very poor and those who work for the state or state-owned companies.
Interestingly, I was told that one of the reasons for these fees was to raise the pay of doctors and teachers to stem their exodus into private business. Still, a cyclo driver in the tourist-infested old quarter of Hanoi logs about the same pay as a government official with a master’s degree, about $50-$75 per month.
I met numerous people, especially young women, who earned $20 per month to toil in restaurants and hotels for 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. And income is much lower in the countryside, which is still home to the great majority of Vietnamese.
Yet Doi Moi has produced outstanding results over the past decade or more, and there is a palpable feeling of energy and optimism among the people of this beautiful country. Vietnam has greatly reduced poverty and recently won recognition for that achievement from the United Nations.
After 75 years of fighting the French, 20 years of battling the U.S., and five years of war with Pol Pot and then China, peace and development are the order of the day.
Vietnam is a (beautiful and developing) country, not (just) a war.
Bob Wing is an Oakland/Bay Area-based writer and activist who traveled the length of Vietnam in November 2005.
===================================================
Author: Bob Wing
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 01/19/06
“Vietnam is a country, not a war.”
I now understand that better than ever. But I must admit I was excited to visit Vietnam this November, mostly because the war, and its opposition, had re-shaped forever my young life in the 1960s.
I was moved, often to tears, by My Lai, the War Remnants Museum, the Cu Chi Tunnels and other war sites. I had the privilege of meeting former Vice President Madame Nguyen Thi Binh and other leaders of the campaign for justice for the Agent Orange victims of what the Vietnamese call the American phase of their 100-year war for independence.
But when I left the country 17 days later, I found myself most struck by the many forms of beauty of Vietnam and by the bustling energy, optimism and sense of purpose of its people as they struggle to improve their lives in one of the world’s poorest countries.
And I am still wondering where they hide the uniformed armed men that menace the populace of most countries. Although I moved in and out of at least a dozen high governmental and party buildings and visited Vietnam’s most precious tombs and temples, the armed presence was almost non-existent.
Tunneling to victory
I made an emotional visit to My Lai, site of the most famous U.S. massacre of the war. Pham Thanh Cong, director of the My Lai Museum, told me he was one of only 10 people who survived the senseless U.S. slaughter of more than 500 unarmed villagers on March 16, 1968.
He recounted how U.S. troops corralled his family in a cave and then cold-bloodedly executed his parents, grandparents and siblings. To this day he wonders whether he was spared only because his traumatized 10-year-old figure was hidden by the shadows.
A visit to the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels jolts the conscience of even the most jaded tourist, especially if guided by Mr. Binh of Delta Tours. During the war, Mr. Binh fought for the U.S. as a member of our Coast Guard in and around Saigon. Thirty years later, he curses his (and the U.S.’s) “stupidity” and now passionately, and in detail, debunks U.S. war propaganda and the Lonely Planet guidebook’s distortions to all who will listen.
The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City documents in horrific detail the effects of the barbaric U.S. war strategy on the Vietnamese people. At the museum I had a chance encounter with Ms. Huynh Thi Kieu Thu, who as a teenage fighter was savagely tortured and jailed in the infamous prison on Con Dao Island for 10 years. And in private conversations I learned that almost half of the officials I had meetings with had also been jailed or tortured.
By contrast, the Cu Chi tunnels are a testament to the creativity, mass support and extraordinary determination of the Vietnamese revolutionaries. The hand-dug, 250-kilometer tunnel system provided infiltration and escape routes, and enabled the National Liberation Front to coordinate its work throughout the Saigon area.
The Vietnamese began surreptitiously digging the tunnels during the fight against the French in the late 1940s. By the 1960s their painstaking labor had created a vast three-tiered mosaic of tunnels that zigzagged from the outskirts of Saigon to the Cambodian border, even plunging into and under the Saigon River.
They contained hundreds of hidden entryways, dozens of kitchens and barracks, clothing and weapons workshops, and even emergency clinics.
The tunnels were so intricately engineered that kitchen smoke was vented far away to disguise the tunnels. Deadly booby traps, sudden drops and numerous dead ends prevented enemy troops from discovering the extent and purpose of the tunnels for decades.
The tunnels were undoubtedly the product of the labor of thousands of people. Many thousands more poured through them to launch the stunning 1968 Tet Offensive in which the NLF temporarily occupied the U.S. embassy in Saigon.
Yet even after Tet the tunnels remained a tightly held secret; amazingly it was not until the early 1970s that the U.S. discovered their existence. After many unsuccessful attempts to destroy the tunnels, the U.S. vengefully turned Cu Chi into what experts have called “the most bombed, shelled, gassed, defoliated and generally devastated area in the history of warfare.”
But by then it was too late: the defeated U.S. troops were already quitting the country.
Rapid growth
The U.S. war on Vietnam lives on in the continued horrors caused by the massive use of chemicals like Agent Orange (dioxin). Madame Binh told me that 3 million Vietnamese still suffer its effects. Scientists say its ghastly harm will be inherited for at least two or three more generations.
Vietnamese victims recently filed a U.S. suit against the chemical companies that produced Agent Orange. See www.vn-agentorange.org.
But the main effect of the war is found in the determined effort of Vietnamese to improve their lives. Indeed 100 years of continuous war from 1880 to 1980 left this once prosperous country in dire straits. Its per capita income of $550 is less than the poverty benchmark of $2 per day and ranks Vietnam 164th out of 208 countries.
The good news is that Vietnam has made great strides over the last 10 years, achieving one of the highest growth rates in the world. The brisk economic energy of daily life is unmistakable throughout the country, with the exception of some mountain communities.
While the Asian financial crisis of 1997 sent the rest of Southeast Asia spiraling into negative growth, Vietnam has expanded at a 7-8 percent clip. Communist Party representatives suggested this should give second thoughts to those who simplistically believe that Vietnam’s adoption of a market strategy means that it is now capitalist.
And this is no barracks style of development. Vietnam brims with beautiful French colonial buildings and houses, stylish modern structures and traditional Vietnamese architecture. The vivid, multi-colored facades of the French-influenced buildings are positively entrancing, from the majestic Hotel de Ville (now the People’s Committee) in Ho Chi Minh City and the stunning Opera House in Hanoi, to the thousands of gorgeous homes sprouting throughout the country.
Vietnam is also replete with ancient temples and tombs. Hue is the traditional capital of Vietnam and its royal sites are magnificent. The beautiful Old Town of Hoi An is so precious that the United Nations has designated it a UNESCO World Heritage site. The country also boasts world-class beaches and breathtaking trekking areas.
Thousands of art galleries displaying (and purveying) exquisite contemporary Vietnamese painting, and the delectable Vietnamese cuisine, add to the sensory delight.
No socialist model
To the tourist, Vietnam feels like a purely capitalist country swarming with hawking merchants, restaurants, hotels, drivers and tour agencies. I found it infinitely easier to use a credit card in Vietnam than in Italy.
But in fact, the development of the tourist industry is a state-planned priority. It is no accident that the standard of hotels and restaurants is extraordinary (even compared with the U.S.) and that every dinky hotel can arrange more transportation and tours than a five-star hotel in the West — and even charge it to your hotel bill.
A central committee representative told me that individual enterprises now account for about 40 percent of the economy and that both the Vietnamese and foreign capitalist sectors are growing, but that the state owns or controls the main industries and arteries.
Faced with bankruptcy and even starvation, the Vietnamese government scrapped the Soviet-style centrally planned system in 1986 and commenced “Doi Moi” (renewal). Some officials privately told me that they no longer believe there is a “socialist model” let alone a “socialist system,” only “socialist objectives.”
And even these objectives, they say, can only be achieved based on the level of development attained by Vietnam in a world dominated by capitalism. For example, in the 1990s Vietnam imposed modest entry fees starting with middle school, and limited free health care to the very poor and those who work for the state or state-owned companies.
Interestingly, I was told that one of the reasons for these fees was to raise the pay of doctors and teachers to stem their exodus into private business. Still, a cyclo driver in the tourist-infested old quarter of Hanoi logs about the same pay as a government official with a master’s degree, about $50-$75 per month.
I met numerous people, especially young women, who earned $20 per month to toil in restaurants and hotels for 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. And income is much lower in the countryside, which is still home to the great majority of Vietnamese.
Yet Doi Moi has produced outstanding results over the past decade or more, and there is a palpable feeling of energy and optimism among the people of this beautiful country. Vietnam has greatly reduced poverty and recently won recognition for that achievement from the United Nations.
After 75 years of fighting the French, 20 years of battling the U.S., and five years of war with Pol Pot and then China, peace and development are the order of the day.
Vietnam is a (beautiful and developing) country, not (just) a war.
Bob Wing is an Oakland/Bay Area-based writer and activist who traveled the length of Vietnam in November 2005.
===================================================
Monday, March 9, 2009
Hoi An
Still in Central Vietnam a bit south of Da Nang, we have been staying in historic Hoi An, a small, picturesque city with narrow streets and well-preserved colonial and pre-colonial buildings. There are many tourists here enjoying the city and its restaurants and hotels, the nearby beaches and other excursion possibilities. Our first day we took a tour to My Son to see the ruins from the Cham Empire that thrived here 1000 years ago. The ruins lie in a beautiful jungle valley at the foot of a mountain about 55 kilometers from Hoi An. The ruins are impressive with many beautiful carvings. We also saw many bomb craters and the remains of some of the temples destroyed from U.S. bombing. The Vietcong had used the area as a staging site for attacks on U.S. and ARVAN forces.
Last night, I visited a school (The Hoi An Foreign Language Center) located in a high school and observed an English class of about 25 students. The teacher asked me to introduce myself to the class and I learned that at least half of these students, aged about 18 to 24, worked in hotels and restaurants. The students exhibited a high level of English language ability and asked about my religion and about the economy in the U.S. I briefly discussed religion in the U.S. and told them that my religion is love of nature and helping other people.
After that, the teacher and I worked together with the class on a grammar exercise from their book. This lesson was a cloze exercise (fill in the gaps) about the writer Daniel Defoe and his great work "Robinson Crusoe". The teacher helped the students analyze the syntax of sentences and asked them what kind of word (noun, verb form, article, etc.) was needed to fill in the blank. This exercise was very difficult even for me and sometimes the teacher and I differed on the correct answer. We left time for students to attempt to find the right word to put in the blank, but usually we had to help them find the correct word. In a couple of instances the teacher asked me to come up with the correct word, which was challenging. The teacher seemed to know more about English grammar at this advanced level than I do.
Although the teacher had told me before class that he used a communicative approach to teach English, today's class offered few opportunities at real communication and didn't seem to relate to their lives. The teacher told me that the students were preparing to take an exam, and that the exam included oral communication as well as reading and writing components. The class is taught three nights a week.
When I came back two nights later seeking to attend another class, the teacher asked me to practice oral interviews with the students. He had me ask students one by one personal questions regarding their work, studies, families, free time activities, language abilities, and future plans. He asked me to correct the students' mistakes when they tried to answer my questions. I proceeded to go around the room asking individuals questions spending several minutes with each student. Due to the background noise from outside , the chatter within the classroom, and the lack of clarity in students answers (students not speaking loudly and clearly and their pronunciation problems), I found it difficult to understand some of the students. Many of the students already had jobs in hotels or restaurants as waitresses, desk clerks or maids. They said they liked their jobs but had little free time. Others were full-time students and did not work. I continued with this exercise for about 40 minutes and then excused myself to go have dinner.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
A Visit to the My Lai memorial
A few kilometers from the village where we stayed by the beach lies the site of the most infamous massacre of the Vietnam War (known as the American War here); here 504 civilians including women, children, and elderly people were slaughtered by U.S. soldiers in 1968. The military authorities ordered a coverup of the atrocities, but after reports in the alternative press, the corporate media finally exposed the massacre more than a year later. People come from all over the world to pay their respects at the memorial site.
The memorial site is located in a peaceful farming area with green rice paddies and palm trees all around. There is an impressive large statue of a woman at once shielding her children while defiantly crying out for justice. There are the foundation remains of some of the burned out buildings and a replica of one of the destroyed homes so one can understand how the villagers lived. There is also a rebuilt model of one of the buildings that one can go inside of and see how the villagers lived before the massacre. There were several elderly ladies there asking for a handout, presumably they were from one of the villages that experienced the massacre. The museum does a good job of educating the visitor about the context and the details of what happened that morning on March 16, 1968. There are many photographs of the event since an army photographer accompanied the soldiers. The museum traces the background of some of the soldiers and what happened to them after they returned to the U.S. The museum also relates how several American soldiers flying in a helicopter were finally able to stop the massacre and honors them for their actions. This is a very somber place and we were very moved by the terrible events that occurred here. May humanity learn and finally put an end to war.
Moving up the coast of Central Vietnam
From Dal Lat we took a long (10 hours) bus ride. First we rode through some beautiful green mountains down to the coastal city of Nha Trang. We decided not to stop there so as to avoid the big tourist scene in that resort city known for its great beaches, night life, snorkling and offshore islands with clear water. The bus continued up the coast until reaching the coastal city of Quy Nhon, where we stayed in a three star hotel by the beach. The next day, we rented a motor bike and explored the area south of the city, trying to find a nice beach. We visited a small seaside village off the main road where we bought some coconuts to drink and tried to communicate with some of the people which was difficult. We did find a beautiful beach, which unfortunately had quite a bit of garbage that had washed up on the beach or been discarded by previous visitors.
The following morning we had intended to take a large, comfortable bus north, but in front of the main bus terminal in Quy Nhon, there was a large van, the kind that has about 18 seats in it. We were persuaded to get on the van, since the crew promised to leave right away and give us the front seats. The problem was that once on the bus we had to wait for more than an hour in the heat while the crew tried to hustle up more passengers. Then the bus drove around the city looking for more passengers; a few more got on and soon we were full. But that was not good enough because when we finally got going, the bus driver kept slowing down whenever he saw people along the road who might want to have a ride with us. The bareshirted helper would lean out the open door and yell something that I guess meant something like "attention do you want a ride?" The worst part about this 4 hour ride, though, was that the driver was racing with another similar van. Each driver wanted to get in front of the other in order to have an opportunity to cram more people into the bus. These drivers passed other vehicles in blind spots, not as dangerous as it sounds since Vietnamese drivers are ready for this and cooperate to avoid collisions, but our driver would sometimes go over 60 miles an hour in the crowded streets of the towns we passed weaving around and scattering pedestrians, bikes, and motorbikes to avoid collisions. We were so scared that I made motions to the driver to slow down, but he didn't listen.
We got off on the outskirts of Quang Nai City from where we took two motorcycle taxis to the coastal village of Mi Khe. Unfortunately, the nice hotel was full, but we found a nearby restaurant that rented us a primitive bungaloo that would have to do for the night. Van, the 40 year old woman in charge of this place spoke a little English and impressed us with her genuine concern for and interest in us. She and the other women here are so hard-working and really try to keep the place clean. This is difficult to do because the evening customers who come to enjoy the seafood like to party and make quite a mess of the place. Van has two children who live in a nearby village and a husband in the army.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
visiting an adult school in Da Lat
Two days ago in Da Lat, in the evening I went to visit an adult school and managed to observe a couple of English classes. The school is called "New Century", and the night classes are held in an elementary school with a picture of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese flag in front of each classroom. The students, who pay for these classes, range in age from about 15 to 25 years old. Many of them work during the day.
The first class I observed was taught by the Dean of English at Da Lat University, whom I had met in the morning when I requested to observe classes there. He told us that at the university the teachers would need advance notice to be observed, but suggested that we visit the "New Century" school in the evening. He explained that his class was a TOEFL preparation class.
The first class I observed (taught by the Dean himself), was a vocabulary class and very teacher-centered. All the students had a workbook that said "New Century" on the cover. The teacher said the words (inform - information; invite - invitation; educate - education, etc.) but the students did not repeat the words for pronunciation practice. After a few minutes, the teacher would break this routine up by explaining in Vietnamese briefly the meaning of certain words. After about 15 minutes of this, the teacher asked the students to work in their workbook and left the classroom to smoke a cigarette outside.
Since the teacher seemed uncomfortable with my presence, I politely said goodbye and walked past several other classrooms. I poked my head inside one of them and asked the teacher, a woman about 30 years old, if it would be OK for me to observe her class. She smiled and welcomed me into her class. I introduced myself, explaining that I was an English teacher from California and that I wished to observe some classes. There were only about 15 students in this class. After spending a couple of minutes with me in front of the class in which I gave a quick presentation, she had me sit in the back and continued with her grammar - conversation lesson. In this class, the teacher, working with the text, which all the students had in front of them, introduced an exercise where the students were given several words in random order and had to put them together to form the correct syntax for questions. Then, the teacher would ask the students these questions and try to get a response. For example, the teacher used the question "did he have a happy childhood" (based on a biography of the writer Tolkien) to talk a bit about childhood and asked the students if they had had a happy childhood. Although the students didn't respond much to her questions, I think it made for a more interesting class. This teacher was energetic and dynamic and tried hard to communicate in English. She spoke English well enough for me to understand most of what she said. After this exercise was completed, she played a tape in which the students had to listen to some information about the life of the writer Tolkien and then had the students work in pairs to answer questions based on the listening activity.
This teacher told me she taught in a high school during the day and also taught this class three nights a week. She said it was very tiring but that she really enjoyed her job which was evident in her demeaner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
