Teaching English at the Consulate

In the past two weeks I have been staying busy by teaching English at the American Center at the U.S Consulate. I did five different sessions, the first had only 24 people, but my last session had 42! That made me so happy that each time more and more people came. The students are all around my age, most of them are enrolled in a University but some have just graduated. It was so great to meet a lot of new people and start to build close relationships with a few of them– I wish I had more time with them! In the two weeks I think I learned a lot about teaching English– like how DIFFICULT it is. It is so challenging to teach your native language. I think I would be a better Spanish teacher than English teacher!! But just looking at the difference in my first and last lesson made me proud of my accomplishments. The first day I just went into it with a lot of icebreakers and games to play, it was a very fun and jovial environment. But on the last day of class I was holding thought provoking discussions, monitoring some heated debates, and making the students share their opinions and thoughts with the whole class. I started spending more and more time preparing for each lesson and trying to figure out the best way to get students involved and make them understand. Many of these students are in the process of applying for scholarships that will help them study abroad in either America or Australia so I tried to teach them new vocabulary that they could use to wow admission committees, but without sounding too verbose. One of the classes was mainly a question and answer session on American schools and my experience applying and attending college. I put a huge emphasis on the essay portion of the application and tried to explain to the students what makes a strong essay.

 

My last day at the center!

I wanted this post to be a little more in depth, but I am exhausted and still have some last minute packing to do. Packing? For what? Well, I am ringing in the New Year in style– headed to Cambodia tomorrow morning and then Thailand on Tuesday until the 14th of January. I am only bringing a backpack meaning I packed super super light, like only three tshirts light. I plan on spending lots of time lying on beaches (okay so three tshirts and two bathing suits...) I am not bringing my laptop so there probably won't be many posts for the next two weeks. However, I am bringing a journal and will keep detailed accounts of my days and then have a massive blogging session when I return. So until January 14th, or well maybe before then but there just won't be any pictures.
Phnom Penh > Siem Reap > Bangkok > Phuket > ???? <- still don't know what I am going to do for my last few days in Thailand. Maybe meet up with Erika for some hiking.

Christmas in Vietnam!

So even though Vietnam is predominantly a Buddhist country people were getting into the Christmas spirit. Most hotels, restaurants, banks, and stores (especially malls) had decorations outside and Christmas music blaring at all hours. I couldn't believe it. Here are some photos of Saigon at Christmas time.

This is in District 7.

Outside a mall. People love to pose next to the displays.

This Santa was super sketch.

Look, its almost like a white Christmas!

This is in a mall. Please note the kid's outfit.

Yay Christmas 2011!

Even a rotary got decorated.

Winter Wonderland.

I absolutely loved seeing all of the kids in their Santa outfits. SO CUTE!

Oh la la. So beautiful!

Look at the Christmas scene! SO FUNNY. Okay, what is even better
about this photo though is the bikers in it. I had walked by them a minute
before and they were looking at a map. How cool is that, they are road
biking around Vietnam (maybe even Southeast Asia). I was pretty pleased
when I realized that two of the hot biker dudes made it into my photo. I
didn't plan that, I swear. It was a Christmas Miracle!

There were even poinsettias!

On Christmas Eve Mymy and I went into District 1 to look at all the Christmas decorations. It was quite the experience. There were so many people. It took us so long to get home because we had to try and avoid all the crowds, which was impossible. Motorbikes couldn't even move because all the foot traffic.

Asian Santa Claus

Notre Dame all lit up. So beautiful

So. Many. People.

Fake trees with decorations

Real trees with decorations.

I know I have already posted about the little kids in their Santa
outfits, but what was even cuter was seeing them on motorbikes.

Christmas day was fun. I woke up and had that feeling that today something special was going to happen. Then I remembered it was Christmas. I think that I have never slept so well on Christmas Eve since I didn't have the anticipation of waking up, opening presents and then noshing on delicious holiday food all day. mmm pie. My homestay family got me a really pretty headband, which was so sweet of them! Mymy came into my room and said, Merry Christmas Emma! It was funny because the

I am Emma James and I approve Christmas in Vietnam. That
is what I really should have said.

day before a lot of my Vietnamese friends texted me saying Merry Christmas. I told Mymy about it and she said that was because people never really know if you are supposed to celebrate Christmas on the 24th or the 25th. So then I tried to explain the point of Christmas Eve to her, but realized I didn't really know. I have concluded that it is just an excuse to begin the celebration early. Anyway, Christmas night we went to District 7, the fanciest district in the whole city. We walked around and took more pictures and then I was attacked by a camera crew who wanted to interview me about my thoughts on their event... Christmas in Vietnam. I had only just gotten there and didn't really know what "event" they were talking about but they said it didn't matter that I just needed to talk about my Christmas experience in Vietnam as a foreigner. I asked them what if I was Jewish... they didn't understand (hi Sophie. Happy 6th day of Hanukkah). So I went and told them it was really nice and then they made me say that "More Americans should come celebrate Christmas in Vietnam" or something like that.
My Christmas concluded with me playing Santa Claus and giving Mymy and Moomoo their holiday stockings. This was their first Christmas ever so I wanted to do something special for them. I tried to make it like the stockings I always have– an orange in the toe, pencils, pens, and notebooks. I opted on leaving out the underwear and socks, that just would have been awkward.

Yay!

Moomoo was very excited for her gifts.

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas– definitely not the traditional celebrations or traditions but that is a-okay. There is always next year.

My week in photographs

Sunday was my host dad's birthday so we went to Korean
food to celebrate. It was so good!

Then Monday was Co Thanh's birthday! It is
too bad that all the other SIT students weren't
there to celebrate.

Tuesday I attended another death anniversary of an ancestor.
This was a smaller gathering than the first one I went to in
October. The honored ancestor was the grandfather's
grandmother. Very, very old! Here is my host dad
preparing for the ceremony.

Wednesday I met Vy Ho's dog Bobo (pronounced ba-ba)

Whenever Vy Dinh and I held him he cried until Vy Ho
would take him back.

On Thursday when I was exploring the city I saw
these firefighters. There was big crowd gathered
around an office building but I really don't know
what was going on. I didn't see any fire. I thought it
made a cool picture though!

And Friday I met Tom Cruise. But not really I actually
just went and saw Mission Impossible 4 with my sisters.
Fact: movie tickets are cheaper in Vietnam but the drinks
and popcorn cost just as much as they do in America.

This week I also taught three English lessons at the U.S Consulate's American Center. I will post on that later though because that post is actually going to be through provoking whereas this one I just added some photos and called it good. Until then.

Cat Tien National Park

One of the wonderful things about staying in Vietnam for a few extra weeks before I head off to other SEA countries is that I get to hang out with Co Thanh and both the Vys (my program assistants). On Saturday Co Thanh wanted to scope out Cat Tien National Park to see if it would be a good weekend trip for next semester's SIT students. She invited me and Linh to tag along. It ended up being a really long day since it is about a four hour drive away but it was totally worth it! Cat Tien is very isolated and isn't well known by many tourists, let alone many Vietnamese. It is a huge park though,

Golden-cheek gibbons swinging in the cage

The gibbons swinging freely in the wild. Hard to see them
with all the trees in the way (but who's complaining? At least
there are trees now)

covering about 278 square miles and has so many different activities, like hiking, biking, boating, and just some good old exploring. Since we were only there for a few hours we didn't get the full experience but what we did do was so awesome! We hopped on a little boat and puttered our way to an island where Dao Tien, the Endangered Primate Species Center, is located. Dao Tien is a home to primates who have been rescued from the pet and entertainment trade. Most of the monkeys were Golden Cheeked Gibbons. They are found exclusively in Cambodia and Vietnam and there is an estimated population of only 25,000 in the whole world. It would have been awesome if we had spent the night at Cat Tien National Park because at sunrise the gibbon families all howl, call out, and sing together for fifteen minutes. That would have been so cool to hear! Anyways, many of the gibbons and other primates, langurs and lorises– as in THE SLOW LORIS, (so sad they they are nocturnal and therefore were no where to be found when we were visiting... yet another reason why it would have been awesome to spend the night) have recently been rescued so they are living in cages on the island. To be honest at first I thought this was really silly, why would they rescue animals only to put them in these small cages (still enough room for them to swing around but nothing compared to the wild). On top of that, the cages are all set off the path so that it is really hard to see the monkeys up close, and obviously all I wanted to do was get some good photos of the adorable monkeys. But then our tour guide told us that they are integrating the monkeys back into the wild, so they are trying to limit human contact. The reason for the cages is because the primates have no idea how to survive without the aid of humans, so slowly but surely they are learning how to fend for themselves. When we walked a little further down the path we saw two gibbons that were swinging freely from the trees. These two gibbons are in the second stage of rehabilitation, even though they are free in the trees they are still on the island– meaning that the staff can easily locate them and monitor their behavior. In about two more years they plan on moving these two gibbons to the other side of the river, in the main part of Cat Tien National Park where they will be completely in the wild. Besides rescuing monkeys there is a big emphasis and effort put into forest regeneration. This particular area was hit pretty hard by Agent Orange during the war. It really is unbelievable how a war doesn't only affect the people in a country, but the land as well. It is so sad and depressing that no matter where I go in Vietnam there is always a story regarding the negative impacts the war had. I am glad that there is such an effort in restoring a healthy forest.

Random photo of the day: a line of ants.

When we got back to the mainland we hopped on bikes for a little tour of the park. If you can believe it, my friend Linh has never biked before, and there were no bikes available where she could just sit on the back and catch a ride. The only option was her trying to bike on her own (impossible) or riding on a tandem with yours truly. This could have been a disastrous experience, but Linh surprised us all with her natural biking ability. Whattachamp. We didn't fall once. Hopefully, now that Linh has realized how awesome biking is she will learn. We'll see. On our biking tour we made a lot of pit stops to look at really big trees, rivers, and wander down little walking paths. Whenever we were walking on the paths we had to be careful for leeches since it was so moist in the jungle. I still don't understand how leeches can just live in a moist environment, I always thought they need to be in a body of water. I am really jealous of next semester's students because Cat Tien was absolutely beautiful and there is so much more to see and do. I guess there are crocodiles hiding somewhere in the park. Future SIT students will get to go play with the crocodiles after they sleep in the middle of the jungle. Waaahhh I should have just failed this semester so I would have to repeat it.

Okay, even though this is a selfy give me some
credit for pulling it off on a tandem bike with
someone who has never biked before.

It reminds me of the Sandy River back in Maine!

Wedding #2

Me, Duong, Duc, and Mymy

This past Thursday I attended my second Vietnamese wedding! My homestay family's cousin, Duong, married Duc. Duc is Vietnamese-German, which I found pretty funny since Duc means German in Vietnamese. This is the first of two weddings, next year they will hold another ceremony in Germany so all of Duc's friends and family can attend.

This wedding was very similar to the first wedding I went to. There was a small private ceremony in the morning that only family attended at the bride's house. I got to the behind the scenes action since Mymy and her cousin are very close. We went extra early in the morning to help Duong get ready and also following the ceremony I got to drive around in their wedding car. I really enjoyed going around Hanoi with the bride and groom and taking pictures. I definitely got a lot of strange looks from both tourists and locals when they saw an American all dressed up just hanging out with a Vietnamese bride and groom. We went to the opera house, their hotel, and a fountain to take photos. It was pretty entertaining when we were at the hotel because the photographer was having them pose very seductively on the bed, which no one else was allowed to sit on besides the bride and groom.

This is right after the ceremony outside the bride's house.

The Opera House

At the fountain. I like this photo because it shows two completely
different lifestyles.

At the hotel!

Following the photographs we went to the reception which consisted of introducing the bride and groom, taking more photos, and eating a big lunch. Then Mymy and I left and explored Hanoi. Again, we got lots of strange looks from people because we were both still dressed up in our wedding clothes while we explored. Oh well.

The banquet hall.

One of the biggest difference in the two weddings
I've attended: This one had bubbles.

The old quarter from the rooftop of a coffee house.

I could have a whole blog post just for this kid. I have so many
adorable photos of him. He was the cutest!