Việt Nam Diaries 2.1: Back to School
Saturday, September 5, 2026
School begins again. For me, for the last time in Việt Nam.
It starts with a ceremony on a Saturday morning with all the students on their stools in the courtyard. I am ready this year and join the teachers on the dais in my best clothes. They insist that I sit in the front row for honored guests and high-ranking staff.
The new 10th graders have learned a little processional march during the week to ceremonially take their class' place in the yard. Some certificates for achievement from the previous year are belatedly handed out to students in the upper grades. An example to the new students.
After a speech, the principal plays a tattoo on the ceremonial drum - a cultural symbol several millenia old. The students and teachers clap after each beat, slow at first, then faster and faster. Finally, two short beats followed by one loud beat finish the drumming; a 2+1 rhythm that is also played at the beginning of each school day to signal it's time to start. He then raises the drumstick with two hands to the students in an invitational gesture, and the ceremony is over.
After the ceremony, all of the teachers and staff meet at our usual restaurant in town to eat and drink together for lunch. Because it's a special occasion, the lunch includes some fried dishes, a plate of massive prawns, and sticky rice with corn and lotus seeds.
As usual, the talk turns to who I might want to marry. Speculation is growing around how much I fancy Ms. D, the new English teacher, who is nearly half my age. She speaks fluent English and I have praised her teaching ability to the administration.
They all know that I am leaving in a few months, so you might have thought the matchmaking would die down. If anything, it has gotten stronger; the time is ticking now on whether or not Mr. Chris will marry a Vietnamese girl.
Tuesday, September 8
I still don't have a schedule for teaching. Typical. I have decided to be patient since it's the first week and even the teachers are just thrown into things here with little preparation.
Unlike previous years, I don't understand where any of the classes are anymore. There are several hundred more students this year than last year; fifteen 10th grade classes instead of ten last year. Despite having a whole new building full of classrooms, we are overfilled again already. The classrooms nearest to my room are now filled with 10th graders instead of 12th graders, who love to gawk and shout questions at me ("WHATS YEUH NAME, WHEAH AH YOU FROM?") rather than ignore me when I'm trying to take my morning visit to the bathroom. The meeting room above my room has been converted into another 10th grade class, so I hear desks and chairs being shifted around all morning.
During the first week, installation crews are coming every day to install TVs in these new rooms, and wall-mounted oscillating fans for the teachers. Air conditioners will come later during parent-teacher meetings, if the parents agree to foot the bill.
I meet Chị T in the evening and she explains that the 11th graders and 12th graders stayed in the same classes this year, because some of them purchased air conditioners for themselves. The 10th graders are now where the graduated classes from last year, plus other rooms sprinkled throughout the school.
The other Chị T joins us (there are three) and then the guard Anh H beckons us to come to the other side of the schoolground.
Always busy and struggling to add the income he needs for his big family, H's wife sells snacks and drinks to the students in the back corner of the schoolyard behind the gym. He opens a storage area in the back of the gym, and we see he's bought some new equipment for this year: a new freezer with the logo of an ice cream brand on the side.
He gives us each an ice cream cone. It's honeydew melon flavored, which isn't usually my choice of ice cream flavor, but after a hot day it tastes insanely good. Creamy, refreshing, and not overly sweet.
Wednesday, September 9
I text the head English teacher late in the evening (when school business really gets attended to):
"When can I start teaching again?"
"Are you ready to start teaching again?"
I have started to interpret these inversions of my question as a face-saving technique. Whenever I ask a question about an issue I'm having at the school, first it's given a positive spin: well, we thought you wanted it that way.
"Yes, I am ready."
I receive a heart emoji in response. This doesn't necessarily mean "like" or "love" as in the American context. The heart emoji is a default acknowledgement. You can heart emoji something multiple times if you really like something.
After a few minutes:
"Tomorrow, you can follow me to class."
Thursday, September 10
I go to her classes in the morning and the students are as excited as always. There is also a big smile on the teacher's face. Everything goes well, even though I'm winging it, but I know all of these lessons already.
As we walk to our last class of the day, she suddenly says to me:
"I am no longer head English teacher. ****** is head teacher now. The school decided yesterday."
"Oh! Whoa..." I manage.
"Yes." She says stoically. There is no hint of emotion behind it. Absolutely none. But somehow, I know that it is painful for her. My sense is that demotion is very uncommon in most fields in Việt Nam because of the face-saving culture.
But things are changing rapidly in Việt Nam, and the English language program is still lagging behind at my school.
Monday, September 14
Walking in between classes, I see that a truck has backed up to the front steps of the school and big clear plastic bags are being tossed out to a cluster of waiting students checking what is written on each bag. New school uniforms have arrived!
Even though class should be going on, it's all interrupted as each tenth-grade class retrieves their order and distributes uniforms. There is a white dress shirt uniform of very thin and breathable material, and another uniform that is military style for when the students have compulsory national defense readiness training.
That evening it starts pouring rain and doesn't stop for two days. The previous year it rained like this a lot in September, but this year this is the only time. It has been an unusually dry year so far.
Tuesday, September 15
Each new 10th grade class I go to I have to introduce myself. I tell them where I'm from - most of them have heard of Texas - and that I'm a volunteer teacher, and why I wanted to come to Việt Nam. (To learn more about your culture, and because I like your food! I like bún chả!)
They always have trouble distinguishing between "How are you?" and "How old are you?". The latter is a very Vietnamese thing to ask, but I try to explain to them that I am going to ask them the first question whenever I see them.
As I'm teaching, I see movement in my peripheral vision. Just the eyes and top of the head of a student are comically visible peeking around the doorframe. It retracts.
"Hello! I see you!"
He comes back.
"Sorry! Hello teacher!"
He runs back to his classroom and I can hear him shout in Vietnamese there's a foreign teacher in there!
Wednesday, September 16
The previous afternoon I started to feel a sore throat after class, and today I text my head teacher that I needed to rest because I am sick.
The response from the teachers is that I got sick because of the change in weather. (It definitely was that and couldn't have been the introduction of new germs from coughing students.)
But this was also the day that I needed to go into town for a conference for the rest of the week: it is time for my Peace Corps cohort's Close of Service Conference, where we will get all of the information we need to finish our time here strong and transition back to the United States.
After sleeping all morning, I put on a facemask and take the bus into the city. There is a group dinner, but I tell them I'm not feeling well and can't make it. This is the nicest hotel we have been put up in so far. When I check into the hotel, they give me a coupon for 15% off room service. When I can't find anything on the local delivery apps that's striking me as what I need for my head cold, I check the hotel's restaurant menu. It's Malaysian themed. It's expensive for my budget, but it's an easy choice.
Within minutes, a spicy seafood noodle soup is delivered to my room. And a Caesar salad because I haven't had one in two years, okay? The salad actually had fresh shaved parmesan cheese and real anchovies in it.
I go to sleep content and wake up feeling much better.
Thursday, September 17
I head to the conference room in the morning with my facemask and sit in the back until the PCMO comes.
The Peace Corps' Medical Officer, it turns out, has come on her day off to administer a couple of tests for my peace of mind. We try to find an empty room on the otherwise empty conference floor of the hotel, and she quickly decides that we will just commandeer the men's room.
Fortunately, no one is in there.
She places equipment around the fancy hotel sinks, and soon I am doing two nose swabs, for COVID and flu. They're both negative.
I really love the doctors here. They take care of us so well.
Volunteers from Saigon are in town for this conference, and it is one of the last times I will get to see some of these new good friends before we leave VN. There were several possible dates for us to leave, and everyone has fallen into two groups on two different dates.
Soon they are all coming to check on how I'm feeling, and everyone at lunch is asking each other the same question: "What are you doing when you get back?"
With me, the question is a little bit different because word has started to get around. "Are you going to Nepal?"
I have applied for another Peace Corps post teaching English in Nepal. I have been interested in potentially teaching in Korea or Japan after my travels there the last two summers. But an even more interesting challenge and goal for myself is to not stay in East Asia but to challenge myself even further. To live in South Asia, to learn about Hinduism first-hand, to learn a Sanskrit-derived language. This is on my "bucket list".
As a current volunteer in good standing, I was quickly (provisionally) accepted.
Friday, September 18
In one of the sessions of the conference, the PCMO returns with the rest of the medical staff to train us about all of the short-term insurance coverage that we will be eligible for after finishing service in December.
After that we are each given a small paper bag with three small jars. The PCMO mentioned this to us in our prior conference, but to a few volunteers it still comes as a shock. We need to take three stool samples.
"Wait, do we need to do this today?"
"No! You have to do it next month at site."
"When?"
"Anytime, over the course of 10 days."
"Can we just do it in 3 days?"
"No, it has to be at least two days in between samples.
Now everyone's even more confused.
"And if you can't get them picked up right away, put them in your fridge."
Groans of dismay.
"Okay! Does everyone understand?"
There are loud protests "No!", "Wait!"
Will speaks up: "Guys, so there's going to be a little stick inside that you can use to collect the sample..."
"WHAT?!"
Meanwhile, I'm in the back, laughing hard, because the PCMO has always had very detailed sessions, but clearly were embarrassed to talk to us about poop.
With the conference over, the idea that we will be leaving VN in a few months is finally starting to hit us, and everyone is trying to hang out one last time.
I meet up with Matt and Jackson - Saigon volunteers - in the lobby. There are no bia hơis ('fresh beer' joints) near the hotel, so we walk to the nearest tạp hóa. Just a little store counter in the front of an old man's home; he's selling chips, cigarettes, and bottled drinks. After a quick calculation, Matt asks for 18 cold beers (not warm in the box). The old man asks us to confirm a few times, to make sure, and then he scavenges in the home refrigerator unit behind him to fill a plastic bag to its breaking point with 18 cans of miscellaneous brands.
We meet a few of the other boys on a park bench on the West Lake as the sun goes down. (There are generally no laws against drinking in public here, but it still feels weird to me because we don't often do it.)
A little gecko comes and stares at me on the green railing.
After sunset, we move back to the hotel but continue to just hang out.
We reminisce until the early hours about our best and worst times in Việt Nam - a country that now feels like a second home, and a part of us forever.
