Việt Nam Diaries 2.2: Winging It

A reminder: While everything you are about to read is based on real things that happened to me, if I identify someone by name I am almost certainly not using their real name.

I have uploaded two videos this week. They are rather in rough form, but I hope you enjoy seeing the footage.

Saturday, September 19

It's the last day that all of the Peace Corps volunteers from the third cohort in Việt Nam will be in the same city at once, and it coincides with the playoff finals of the VBA: the Vietnamese Basketball Association. The final teams are the Hanoi Buffaloes versus the Saigon Heat.

The entry queues are a little hectic, as the game is sold out. The cheapest bleacher seats are around $10-15 USD, which is about 3 times the expense of going out to the movies in Việt Nam. We are given a team scarf upon entry. A Vietnamese beer company gives one of our friends a free beer for allowing them to take a picture to post on social media.

We enter just as the Vietnamese national anthem is finishing up, and another usher passes us each two big foam-filled clapper sticks. The rhythmic clapping reverberates loudly through the arena start to finish. The team's water buffalo mascot does somersaults to get everyone cheering. One eagle-eyed Peace Corps volunteer spots the U.S. Ambassador to Việt Nam watching the game from courtside, right next to a big orange mascot giddily bouncing up and down, shaped like a Tide detergent bottle.

The Saigon Heat pull out to an early lead, and the Hanoi Buffaloes keep trying to hit 3-point shots to catch up, which goes poorly. There are several air balls in a row.

I grimace and look over to Sean who has a wry smile.

"This is not very good basketball... But this is a lot of fun though."

We haven't really been to any major sporting events here in the last two years, and it reminds us so much of basketball games back home. The atmosphere is electric. A snack company rep runs up to our place at the top of the rafters with a big cardboard box of various individually-wrapped wafer cookies and lets us take handfuls of them for free. A big squad of cheerleaders performs a K-Pop style dance routine (to a V-Pop song) at halftime.

In the final minutes, the Buffaloes try to get within striking range of the Heat, and the whole crowd jumps to their feet at a crucial shot which goes in. But a hand tugs on my shirt from someone in the row behind. And a young Vietnamese college student with perfect English asks: "Excuse me, can you please sit down?" I reluctantly agree.

The Saigon Heat win. The Saigon Peace Corps volunteers jeer at the Hanoi volunteers.

Tuesday, September 21

Walking through the school between classes, almost everyone wants to say 'Hi' to me. With more students and even more 10th graders there are even more students to greet. Despite constructing an extension of the school with more classrooms, it feels like the school is already at max capacity again.

Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, Việt Nam finally made high school tuition free for all students. There are still other fees, but many more students can now afford to extend their education. I've seen chartered buses parked nearby the school before and after classes. I was told that some students are being bussed in from as far as 50km away.

A group of 10th grade boys whose classroom is on the 2nd floor overlooking my room always shout "Hello, Ch-ris!" when I leave for class in the morning. My fan club.

Female students usually roam the halls hand-in-hand with their best girl friend and giggle when I return their "Hello, teach-er" with a chipper "Good morning!" One bold new 10th-grader has memorably been shouting "Hello! My Name Is Linh Anh!" at me every day.

Well, that's one new student whose name I will be able to remember...

A surprising new development is new students greeting me by calling me "Ch-ris" with a 'ch' sound instead of a 'k' sound. I still haven't been able to introduce myself to all of the new classes, so some students have probably seen my name written on the blackboards without hearing me say it. I try to correct them in the hallway, but they just get nervous and confused when I try to talk to them. Even if I speak Vietnamese, they don't understand right away.

Friday, September 25

For the past month, stores everywhere have had huge stacks of bánh trung thu (moon cakes). I am now fully accustomed to using the lunar calendar, so I knew exactly when the holiday Tết Trung Thu was coming up, although I hadn't really seen it celebrated the previous year. The Mid-Autumn Festival occurs on the 15th (the full moon) of the 8th lunar month, and one teacher told me it is the most important traditional festival after only Tết itself. The festival has origins in China, where it is even more popular.

When I asked about it from other teachers, they would tell me it's only for children. The previous year, I was given so many moon cakes by teachers and students. I have a suspicion that like Christmas fruit cakes, there were a large number going around that they wanted to get rid of.

There are two types of moon cakes: one is a round sticky rice cake that's chewy like mochi and has a mung bean filling that is disgustingly sweet. The other has a wheat exterior stamped with traditional symbols and given an appealing brown glaze. Inside, it has a dense filling of nuts, dried fruit, spices, and sometimes bits of Chinese-style sausage. Savory and sweet and spiced like, well, fruit cake!

So on the night of the full moon, I cycled to the center of my village, where the local đình (communal house) sits, usually closed. This is a type of temple which holds shrines and sometimes relics related to a village's history, usually devoted to venerating great warriors, leaders, or scholars.

About a dozen boys are milling in front of the temple wearing traditional costumes in red and yellow. I am surprised to see that most of them are my students. I had assumed I would see more adults directing them, but there is only the elder who is the groundskeeper of the temple there to supply the drum and the lion costumes.

The boys are excited to see me and after taking selfies I am recruited to take their group photo for the year in the courtyard of the temple.

I take a spot on the street corner and one of the nearby shopkeepers who always says 'hi' to me brings me a plastic chair to sit on. Families with small children have started to arrive clinging onto their parents on motorbike, 2 or 3 children to a bike. Their eyes are wide when they see me.

Some of the children are starting to be taught English and their moms try to push them to say "hello teacher" to me. At first, they try to hide behind their parents, but eventually they get the courage to come say 'hello' after I surprise them with the age-appropriate (but funny-sounding) greeting "Chào cháu!"

There are certain toys that are traditionally given to children on this day, the most iconic of which is a "candle" that looks like a wand with a light-up, 5-pointed star at the end. Every child has come to the parade tonight with a light-up toy of some kind, but I don't see any stars. Only dolls and animals and swords.

At 7:00pm, with the full moon perfectly shining down, two boys get on a motorbike and take off through the streets of the village. The one on the back of the bike is banging a metal pot lid like a noisy gong as they ride. This is the signal to everyone that the parade is about to start.

To the jaunty beat of a drum, the first of many multi-round fireworks are set off from a mortar in the middle of the village's main intersection, while traffic - motorbikes and a few cars - still tries to get by the crowds of people gathered. It takes two boys to perform as one lion, and our village has two lions who prance around and sometimes stand on their hind legs - the boy in front jumps and is lifted to a standing position on the shoulders of the larger boy in back. The standing lions then circle around the ongoing fireworks.

The drum and the lions then parade through the town, stopping occasionally to set off more fireworks or have little pre-planned interactions with local people. One shop-owner had something to dangle on a stick to tease one of the "lions".

I couldn't see all of it because I let the families get closer, but it was a properly festive night.

On the way back to the school, an older uncle waved me into his house. We sat down for tea and bánh trung thu, and slices of guava and pomelo were already there on the table. I told him about my service program in Vietnamese, and he made sure I tried one of everything on the table.

Back at the school, I can see across the football field to an even smaller neighboring village. A much smaller but similar parade is taking place there but without the lion dancers; door-to-door they go collecting the kids into their parade like the Pied Piper.

The "village" is a very small unit in the building blocks of communities in Việt Nam, closer to a neighborhood in America. Several villages make a commune, which more closely resembles a small town. I think to myself, if every village in Việt Nam is celebrating this holiday in a similar fashion, there must be thousands of little parades going on right now on this night.

Saturday, September 26

Two of my best students come to see me in the school courtyard at 6:00 PM. The sun has already gone down, and these students have just finished extra math classes at a teacher's house across the street from a school. They are 12th graders and they are cramming with 8-10 hours of classes every day to prepare for final exams next year.

One of these students speaks fair English: "Look, Teacher!"

The other student reveals a small songbird sitting patiently in her cupped hand. It cocks its head to look at me, unafraid.

"Do you want to pet it?"

I do, but I'm bewildered and I ask them if it is their pet.

"No, we found it. It's, um ... ?? ... is broken."

"Wing?"

"Yes, it's wing is broken."

The student holds the bird near a bush and lets it peck around at it for a while and after practicing their English with me for a few minutes they leave, taking it to get some water.

Monday, September 28

I go to my first class in the morning and the teacher isn't there yet. I ask the students what lesson they are on, and seeing that they're on a Pronunciation lesson I start going through it with them on my own.

I have to go more slowly than usual to make sure the class understands what I am saying, but they like repeating after me. They start comically mimicking everything that I say.

After 15 minutes the teacher arrives and says "Oh, I am sorry. I am in a meeting. Can you please continue teaching my class?"

And with that I am alone again.

We move on to Vocabulary. At one point the students are getting a little confused. I tell them in Vietnamese: "I'm sorry. I didn't prepare this lesson because it wasn't on my schedule. But we can learn it together, okay?"

And for some reason, they get more invested in the lesson, and we get through it well enough.

Tuesday, September 29

Mr. L keeps me after the last class of the day to tell me about a new class project he is assigning. One of the top ranked 10th grade classes is his "homeroom" class for the year. He wants the top English students in this class to roleplay as tour guides to nearby tour destinations and give a presentation.

"That sounds great!" I say. "Can I prepare questions and pretend like I am their tourist?"

Mr. L says he likes this idea.

Side note: He keeps describing the project as a STEM project, when to me it doesn't sound related to STEM at all. But when he sends me the grading criterion for the project, I see that each letter of the acronym STEM has been incorporated into the project in some way. For example:

Technology: Students will use GPS apps to get maps of the historical site
Math: Students will calculate the square footage of the historical site

This is not the first time that I've seen a major "buzzword" from the English word become a hot topic here and not carry strictly the same connotation. I don't mean that as a criticism; it's just interesting to see how differently something can be interpreted.

Wednesday, September 30

Ms. D asks me to help teach her class today in the English department's new Computer Lab. The equipment was installed last year when the new building on campus was completed. But when the teachers tried to use the room, they quickly gave up because they didn't know how or what to do with it.

Both the students' computers and the teacher's computer feature a headset with microphone. There is an electronic system for calling on a student and broadcasting the audio from their microphone either privately or to the whole class. They can be put into randomized groups for speaking practice. Their screens can mirror the teacher's presentation. Or they can be tested with multiple choice or fill in the blank questions and the teacher can see everyone's answers immediately.

The problem is that no tests/quizzes are ready to go in the proper .txt format. And there are not enough computers to go around. In a normal Vietnamese class of 50 students, there are three students to every two computers.

On this morning, we spend an entire period just trying to set up for a class here. We don't have the slides for the class loaded onto the room's computer, and they have blocked internet access since the last time we used the room when all the students were immediately playing online games.

I run to the equipment person's office on behalf of Ms. D to ask about the internet for the teacher's computer. I am given a firm 'No'. We cannot, for fear of giving the students internet access.

We hookup Ms. D's laptop instead to the TV at the front of the class. In this classroom, the TV has an app that allows you to draw on top of the presentation.

By complete coincidence, the warm-up for our lesson is a "drawing" game where students are supposed to guess what vocabulary word is being depicted.

Ms. D and I probably have a little bit too much fun drawing on the English lesson's Powerpoint slides and highlighting and underlying parts of words. To be fair, the students were also a bit more engaged than usual because of the novelty of this. But in the sound-proofed room, it is even more difficult to hear students in the back of the class, since we're not using the headset system. And that means it's harder for them to hear their teachers as well.

Thursday, October 1

I'm still on Zoom with my Vietnamese tutor at 4:00pm when I get a knock at my door. My principal is standing there in the window, and I need to open the door for him now.

"I invite you to dinner."

"Ok. One minute. I am about to finish Vietnamese class."

The principal pushes his way into my room with a big smile to see my laptop screen and wave to my tutor. I pick up my earbuds and apologize:

"Apparently, I need to go to dinner right now."

She laughs and we agree to our next regularly scheduled meeting on Monday.

I motion to my shorts and tell my principal I will change pants, but he says 'no, let's go.'

The school's chapter of the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union has just had their first big meeting of the year. Over a dozen students and several teachers who are part of the Youth Union are waiting for us in the private upstairs room of our village's restaurant. A spread of food with celebratory specialties is already laid out for us. The students are all in their Youth Union uniforms, a rich cornflower blue dress shirt with a red logo patch on the breast.

The Youth Union is very important in Việt Nam. Historically, it helped spread Communism across the country, thus allowing leaders to successfully organize a revolution against the French. Nowadays, the students organize events for the school, speak on behalf of the students to the administration, learn leadership skills and civic responsibility, and prepare for joining the Communist Party as adults.

As always, I am sat next to the principal with some of the male teachers and staff, the ones who will be drinking wine. The students are invited to drink, but after participating in the opening toast they abstain responsibly. Part of the Youth Union is making good impressions to your community's leaders.

Several cans of cold 333 beer are cracked open and split between the students poured into black plastic cups. In North Việt Nam it is acceptable for students to drink a little beer at special occasions. It is also custom that everyone toasts at the start of the meal drinking the same thing, but the adult men will then usually switch to drinking the stronger rice wine.

We all stand and the principal says a few words and then we clink our glasses together with anyone close enough to do it. After drinking a third of a glass of beer, everyone at each table puts one of their hands in a stack in the center of the table and throws their hands up together after shouting "1! 2! 3! Cheers!" Although on this occasion, since it is the start of the school year, instead of saying 'cheers' we swap in the word for 'upward'.

"Một. Hai! Ba! Lên!!"

It is both a positive and negative that I just had my twice-a-week Vietnamese class, because my tongue for speaking has been loosened up, but after 90 minutes my brain is getting tired of translating what I hear. I lean into that and try to lead the conversation with questions, so I know the topic at hand.

Across from me is the only woman who is sitting with the men at the head table and drinking wine (but carefully pacing herself, which the men are respecting more than usual because of the nature of the event). It is Phương, a young teacher in her early 20s, who is the leader of our school's Youth Union.

I don't know if they have elections every year for the leader, but last year Phương was elected. I ask the guard Anh, sitting next to me, "Who is the leader this year? Still Phương?"

He looks at me like I'm an idiot, like he usually does, and motions to her.

"Ok. Good!"

I am about to make a compliment about her work as the leader, but I'm cut off.

Phương has spoken a sentence into translation on her phone which she hands to me. It says:

"Would you like to marry me?"

When being taught about the "indirect" communication style of Vietnamese people by our Language & Culture teachers, I was never prepared for how often women - often 20 years younger than me, because those are the ones still unmarried - would bluntly ask me this question. Especially when it was our first time meeting. The first thing they ever ask me.

The first time it happened, I was so caught off guard, that I couldn't think of anything I could say in Vietnamese along the lines of 'I think we should date first so that we know if we like each other', so the only thing I could manage to say was 'No'.

Which pissed her off.

After working at the school for two years, she still usually doesn't look at me.

After that experience, I quickly worked up a more "indirect" and diplomatic answer.

But today, I'm language-tired and emboldened by wine and the knowledge that I only have to live with any consequences here for two more months.

So I say "Yes." Just to see what happens next.

Phương is shocked and lets out a laugh that's also a gasp and her hand shoots up to cover her mouth.

The rest of the table erupts in gales of laughter too. They must have known what she was asking and probably goaded her into it. The other men have been dying to hear me express interest in somebody at the school.

Phương then gestures excitedly to my phone: "Give me your phone number! Give me your phone number!"

She also says she will invite me to her house to meet her parents this weekend...

Later that night, still wine-buzzed and unable to judge the seriousness of the situation, I text her:

"I would like to meet your family, if you really want me to. I don't think we are a match for marriage, but I would like to be friends and I want to know more about your perspective on life."

Which is true. I genuinely haven't spoken at length to many people in their 20s here. I have been wanting to know more about her generation's perspective on Việt Nam, the traditional values, and how fast things are changing here for better or worse.

She texts back:

"Don't overthink it! Everyone's just teasing. Don't feel any pressure about it!"

And "Let's just be friends, ok?"

Have I been taking the teasing about matchmaking too seriously the whole time I've been here? Or is this just how the younger generation deals with it? Was she just ready to play along in front of older colleagues because it's easier? Or did I disappoint her by accidentally indirectly communicating that I wasn't interested in her?

I still have no idea...