The 4 Stages and Comicbooks

It seems that my stay in Vietnam could be summed up into 4 main phases, upon reflection. And I’ll outline them here for mere posterity, if that.

First Phase: Characterized mainly by a sense of delirious acceptance amidst a world I didn’t understand but thought I was getting to understand. It took me a full 5 or 6 months to break out of this phase and realize that everything I was learning was all to naught. That what I was learning was mainly just dictated by what I wanted to learn, not by what I ought to learn, or could have learned. This first phase I was mainly fucking around, learning little by little, but not invested in the place that I was at. In many senses, being intoxicated, and not taking my role here very seriously. My students were generally secondary, although I really appreciated interaction with them. My friends were paramount. In earnest, this part of my stay is a bit hazy to me.

Second Phase: This basically came around the second semester. Eric, Lillian, Steven and Bich had all left. It basically came down to me and Emily. With Emily as my ever-increasingly close friend. We shared much in common. Philosophy, vegetarianism, raw experience with Vietnam, open conversation about romance and sex, and trips to Saigon. This open friendship helped me to kinda reflect on my experience in Vietnam. At this same time, I had accepted a bigger workload, teaching people from 6d, 7d, and 8d all at once. It was in this semester that I began to understand more deeply the politics and concerns of the students and teachers. Mainly I got deeper into what I saw were managerial problems with the Foreign Languages Department and the started to put together how I saw Vietnam, with respect to the present and the future. It’s around this time that I started to have almost daily realizations about Vietnam and Vietnamese people. Something clicked. All the cards that I’d been seeing and thought I understood, and didn’t understand were falling together: losing face, politeness, lack of promptness, family obligations, poverty, supposed government oppression, coffee, drinking culture, etc. etc.

I think it’s around this time that the thought that I was developing during the first phase came to fruition. The thought that Viet Kieu’s in the USA don’t really know what the hell they’re talking about when they talk about Vietnam. As I came to understand Vietnam more deeply I realized the way that people in states talk about Vietnam reveals their lack of understanding. Interestingly enough, my three years of studying colonialism, Orientalism, neo-colonialism, capitalism, global capitalism, etc. came in handy in seeing the psychology hegemony of “privileged Viet Kieu’s” versus Vietnamese. But of course, no book can truly tell you how people live, and how your personality is bound to react to them.

Third Phase: With the departure of Emily I was faced with a hole. She left for some international travelling across Southeast Asia. I was stuck here, and decided to finally implement a project with ten students over the summer to put a backbone behind the Foreign Languages Department. I also spent more time getting to know my colleagues more deeply. I think this is when learning about Vietnam wasn’t just restricted to one or two things daily, but every few days, my entire view of Vietnam changed completely. This is one of my first positions as a manager in Vietnam. The repurcussions of this risk helped me learn a lot about Vietnamese people and to gain some great friends. This was of the most pressing times of my life. The challenges that I met with here though were only precursors to what were to happen in the fall, when new students arrived and the supposed backbone we were trying to build was put to the test.

Fourth Phase: The income of fall students, and the reality of our planning came to fruition. I have never learned more about people than in the last two months. The reason for this is that my understanding of Vietnamese social interactions had come to a certain head. I feel like I can navigate the people quite smoothly, and naturally. I understand most of their generic intentions. And by understanding at least this much it’s helped me understand where I fit in as a semi-foreigner, how I can contribute to their culture in a way that is useful and sensitive, and how can I share myself in a suitable way (maturely compromising my own needs for acknowledgement and self-worth).

aphorisms and others…

A best friend is a person that you let see the extent of your ego.

Judge a person by their judgement of character.

Boiling over into that scenic moisture.

Now, to at least be a part of someone’s life, that’s all I can ask.

The present moment is just another dead end.

What is the different between a citizen and a consumer? and a customer?

Rejection loses out to integration, always.

I’ve been spending too much time checking my tongue in the mirror.

The sky is yours.

I’m yours.

Humanity’s lived with itself for thousands of years and the best its come up with is religions visions?

don’t pain an image of yourself that you can’t live up to.

Lately, I haven’t been able to have true reflection without those stars shining down from above.

Her contours unmatched by any, though some come out more beautifully baked, or more proportionate, there’s just something about those specific sides and curves that gets me off.

Few things produce a lightness of heart.

A few months ago my grandmother, my father’s mother, came to visit me. She’s friendly but not used to VietNam yet, so it was funny to hang out with her. The funniest thing was when she saw me teach the students for a few minutes, and assumed all these things about my teaching style. It was tiring, therefore, to talk to her after. Nevertheless, it was good to see her.

Student Guests: Common practice now in my living room

On the left is Steven, a Canadian graduate students working on his masters. The two girls are students from 5d3. The seniors I taught. My room has changed a lot though, in the last few months. It looks bigger now. There are more whiteboards, My laptop’s on a table that has my back to that window there. There’s a bamboo mat on the floor. There’s two fans that Lillian gave me in the living room that blow the mosuiqotes away from my legs. There’s more chairs and Eric’s couch is up against the window, which is where I’m sitting now, typing this. Oh yeah, and the new rector gave us bigger TV’s and I bought a new DVD player.

Now, though, since 5D isn’t around anymore, I usually invite 6D, 7D, and 8D over to my room. We have meetings. Sometimes I make coffee. Sometimes I put on American music (which they kinda hate, but are silent, until I ask them “Do you like this?” and they say “Can you put on Vietnamese music?”, that’s considerate, right?) I like conversation, because it’s more casual and I can be closer to the students. And they have more of an opportunity to meet me more intimately. And vice versa. I think I teach better when I know them better. But obviously, I have to manage my time wisely.

The reason for me inviting them over so much, is hopefully, to begin to train them all. And to support student leadership. I mean, I don’t know if they know this, but I really want all my students to trust themselves. But it’s hard. Vietnamese students have been exposed to Vietnamese education all their lives. This creates a certain effect in the way they think, feel, and act. I just want to add another piece to their puzzle of life.

Teaching Observation

My students (seniors, I taught them last semester) are currently teaching in various high schools in An Giang province. I’ve been learning a lot about education here and have a lot of ideas of my own. I really want to improve education here. But it’s really hard.

Most of my students don’t really like to teach, but all of them are agreed that the students are cute, and lovable. 🙂

The Kitty

This could only be Buong, originally Eric’s cat, and now my roommate. My student, Minh Phuong (from 7d1) asked me to post the kitty. Most vietnamese people think he’s huge. But American cats usually look that big, or sometimes bigger. Anyways, scroll down to see how he has affected my room ecology, in the post “Karma of My Room”.

What am I reading?

Here’s a list of books that I’m interested in which may point you towards what I’m thinking about…

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman – A great work on the current state of affairs (especially global cyberculture). Quote: “To put it another way, the experiences of the high-tech companies in the last few decades that failed to navigate the rapid changes brought about in their marketplace by these types of forces may be warning to all the businesses, institutions, and nation-states that are now facing this ineviable, even predictable, changes but lack the leadership, flexibility, and imagination to adapt – not because they are not smart or aware, but because the speed of change is simply overwhelming them.”

Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche – A compilation of aphorisms, sayings, proverbs, paragraphs, and pages by the great philosopher. Quote: “There are highly gifted spirits who are always unfruitful simply because, from a weakness in their temperament, they are too impatient to wait out the term of their pregnancy.”

Mt. Lu Revisited by Beata Grant – An awesome book recommended to me by Raoul. Ms. Grant did a study on the poet Su Shih and his poetic Buddhist career. Lots of poetry and stories. Quote (dedicated to a monk):

“If everyone flocks to the world,

who then will be a hermit?

If everyone abandons the world,

who then will manage the world?

There is none like this Great Master

who dwells between the two,

Neither defiled, nor pure; neither Vinaya, nor Ch’an,

There is none like Hai-yueh”

 

Concise English Handbook by James W. Kirkland/Collett B. Dilworth Jr. – Great book that I just recently discovered. Pretty helpful for English teaching. I had another book similar to this, but I left it in the USA. Quote: “…the book treats features of the writing process and elements of sentences and paragraphs not as mechanical parts to be assembled according to rigid formulas, but as options at the disposal of your creativity.”

From left to right: Morton (hope I spelled that right, a Dane my friend Emily brought back from Nha Trang on her small trip. He was really cool, and he knew all these American songs, who knows how. He was traveling with his close buddy Brian, whom at first, was quite quiet, but after this night, we really got to see the real him, a bubbly fun character), I don’t know the guy in the middle, and Truyen (I’ve known this guy ever since I got here, my buddy Eric introduced me to him. Truyen is an entity all his own and he’s the kinda guy that needs to be experienced. He is ALWAYS a host. It’s like an addiction). Good men, all.

This is a picture I took on the airport from my Nokia on the way back to Viet Nam from Cambodia. A monk in an airport. I thought it was ironic to meet this scene here.

So…my friend Alia asked me to share some pictures. And here one is. This is me holding my Nokia e51 cellphone taking a picture of (from left to right) Mr. Hoa (a teacher, and good friend, who is currently working on his Master’s, he does not teach the English major students), Mr. Tuan Anh (my good friend and teacher, who has not started his Master’s yet, I refer to him as the idiom Master, because his knowledge of idioms is expansive, he also loves American folk music), Tuan Anh’s mom, and Mr. Tien (in glasses, he is the colleague I work closest with at the University, he has been teaching for over 13 years, and has a real genuine passion for it, we also see eye-to-eye on a lot of crucial points about education, which is helpful for working together).

The Karma of My Room. A very personal telling.

As many of you know, I am somewhat of a Buddhist. More so, I have Buddhist mental inclinations, but I’d never say that I’m Buddhist right off the bat, because I’m self-conscious, which is totally unBuddhist. So I’m unBuddhist!..

so…

um….

what was I talking about again? oh yah…so the karma of my room. Well, one thing I’ve been utterly loyal to, for certain reasons known and unknown to me, is keeping my vegetarian diet and trying not to intentionally harm other beings (at least, physically…I’ve yet to master not harming others mentally, and spiritually). So this makes for a very interesting room in Viet Nam.

 

These exists in my room three to four species of ant, about two to three tribes of mosquitoes, varoius small flying bugs (seasonal), a small team of spiders, geckos, and a cat. I live in a jungle. And this jungle is NOT tame. It has, if anything tamed me. Because, of course, I don’t intentionally kill any of these beings.

 

There are two groups that reek the most havoc on me. The mosquitoes and the small diligent red ants. The mosquitoes hang out in my bathroom, in my dresser and the cupboard behind my couch, and any place where cloth has been left for over 12 hours. The mosquitoes are definitely tribes. At sunrise and sunset they are the most numerous and go into specific kinds of ritualistic behavior. I think the morning is more like “every man for himself”, where they all do scavenging. But late at night, it’s fascinating. It’s definitely a jungle feeling when I walk from my bedroom to my living room to find a host of mosquitoes swarming together hovering over my backpack (because it has some cloth, I guess). Maybe about 20-30 of them, like seagulls over dead carcass at the California beach. They test my patience and my values more than anything else in Long Xuyen, An Giang, Viet Nam. Some nights I wake up in the middle of the night (mostly because of my cat, who moves around from time to time from sleeping next to me, to at my feet, to outside to take a poo) with a mosquito inside my mosquito net. What do I do? Sometimes I put the blanket over my head and sleep away. Sometimes I flail about, and for a split second or even a minute, I wish death upon the mosquito. For me, that’s pretty intense. But I’m honest with myself. I’m facing that kinda feeling for a reason, because it’s there, and it’s good for me, to watch myself.

 

The diligent red ants are a fascinating bunch, and of another annoying genre of experience in my room. Resourceful, enduring, cunning, and numerous, they pose a definite threat to any piece of exposed food in my room. They are amazing. Despite that they are tiny, and slow, they react faster to exposed food than anything else in this room. I’ve been watching, for the last two days, this colony slowly tear apart one half of a peanut every single hour of the day. The peanut is on its last legs. They have taught me to clean up after myself. But at the same time, to observe their behavior and even, sometimes, leave food around for them to just destroy. Unfortunate thing about these pets is that, they bite, and worse than mosquitoes. Mosquito bites are just itchy, and slightly annoying. A red ant bite kinda painfully throbs inside of your skin and gets relatively big. Rest assured, I don’t eat in bed.

 

The only thing I’ll mention, before boring you to death, is my cat, who has only entered this ecosystem for the last 3-4 months since I’ve been here (which is about 7-8 months). His presence has made a deep and rippling effect on my room’s sound system. How? well…this might get grotesque, but I must tell it. When I first moved in I had about 8-10 geckoes in my bedroom and 8-10 in my living room that I’d hear and see everyday. The number has been reduced to one I see about once a week, and there’s no gaurantee on his survival. Buong-y, my cat, is a cold-blooded paganistic sinner…One day I woke up, and my room smelled like death, you know that smell? like…you know…I can’t describe it. Anyway, I scoured the whole room for the death smell. Didn’t know where it was coming from, even thought it was Buong-y for a second. Turned out, under one of my tables, I found a dead bird. Buong had dragged it in. Lo and behold, the diligent red ants were already on it. Picking it apart. I quickly plastic bagged the body and threw it out. One less bird chirping and 20 less geckoes chirping. Buong is stickin’ it to this morally struggling unBuddhist vegetarian dude.

 

All that aside, I’m glad they’re all here with me in this room. I get moments of deep fascination with the insects, and I give Buong a lot of hugs all day. But most of the time I spend with the creatures is rooting for the lives of the geckoes. They’re fast, but not as fast as Buong.

 

I’m also not as fast as Buong.

 

please comment!

hi everyone who’s reading this. I can’t remember who I gave this blog address to, but after a recent e-mail I read that notifies me that my mom’s co-workers are reading this, I am realizing that I have no idea who my readers are. I know that my close friends from Santa Cruz read this, and maybe a few family members, and maybe some people I interact with on facebook (who happened to look at what I selected as my religion)…so…I’m interested in knowing who these people are. That way, I can cater my writings accordingly. So please! click on the button and comment and tell me what you think and who you are! Much appreciated.

As for latest thoughts, whew, as one of the only active foreigners in the English department I’ve found my workload quadruple. On top of that, I’ve got my own ideas and projects. We’ll see how this mellows out as I train more students. I recommend keeping an eye on the Wikipedia article for: Long Xuyen, which the English teachers and students will begin editing as training to use wikis.

By the way, this blog is also hosted by my closest friend Tully. Who is MIA at the moment, I’m hoping he’ll comment soon. If you go towards the beginning posts on this website you will find his really beautiful writing. This blog has had several phases…starting off with Tully’s growth as a storyteller, and then poet, and then my growth as a writer of phrases/aphorisms, and then Tully’s further growth, and now that I’ve been in Viet Nam, I guess this is like the fourth phase, where I’ve been contributing the most and Tully’s been spinning the world like a top.

the struggle of a vietnamese-american in viet nam.

wow, i’ve had an intense week of vietnamese people being incompetent and lazy. It’s very unprofessional. If Raoul, my hero, is climbing uphill against the academic institution that is UC Santa Cruz (specifically, in America). Then I’m scaling a vertical slope.