The school hosted a new family tea this morning. We met parents from Japan, Australia, Germany and Paupau New Guinea. Did you know Paupau New Guinea is a country all to itself? There is also a Paupau in New Guinea, which is the other half of the island. I'll have to ask my new friend Lydia how that all works out with the postal system. Wickipedia is a wonderful tool. Anyway, at the open house we toured the new auditorium and gymnasium and learned about the Cambridge Academic Program (lower grades) and the International Baccalaureate Program (upper grades). The IB program is developed using input from teachers, administrators, and curriculum from over 120 countries. Sounds to me like something the whole world could use and agree upon, though nothing could ever be that easy. I met a few women who live a few blocks away from our apartment and made plans to attend the "ILV" - International Ladies of Vietnam" tea with them after Tet. Such a formal name - I feel I should get my hair and nails done beforehand.
The kids are settling in pretty well. They are on target or ahead in their subjects. A little catch up in math and a lot of catch up in Chinese but nothing they can't handle. Silas came home yesterday and casually mentioned that he had dissected a pig heart in science class!
I should have some new pictures to post after the weekend. We are taking a car out to Phan Thiet for the weekend to the Blue Ocean Resort - here is a link if you want to see what it looks like:
http://www.life-resorts.com/index.php?nav1=gallery&gallery_id=3
Hal is relaxed and ready to go - he had a massage at lunchtime at a place recommended to him by one of his writers here. It was so reasonable and made his back feel so good that I believe he should treat himself every week!
Conversion charts come in very handy here: dollars to dong; cups to ml; Farenheit to Celsius. More things I should have retained from grade school! Next time your child asks you why they need to know those things you can tell them it is so they will understand everything better when they grow up and travel out of the country. The oven is coded in Celsius, with symbols indicating three different settings. Oh, and there are no potholders to be found anywhere. I ventured out to a local store called The Metro that we had heard is like a BJs or Costco. I thought for sure they would have them, but no. What an adventure that was too! Turns out you need your passport to get a membership card. I did not have my passport with me, and when I left the store to take a taxi back to our apartment to get it, I couldn't find a taxi! All in all it took me a good two hours to get it all in order and I didn't end up buying a single thing.
Thanks to everyone for their comments on our posts. It's nice to know we're on the right track with the blog.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Laundry Rules and Other Observations
Laundry rule #1 in gecko land: do not leave the door to the washer or dryer open - and if you do, check for creatures before use. I found most of a cute-but-very-dead gecko in my dried clothes today. A foot and tail were in the lint trap.... my first thought was that I was glad it wasn't something bigger and snakes did come to mind.
I walked to the local market today and one of the streets I take was flooded. I followed a cute little grandma up onto the driveways of local homes to avoid the water. She noticed me at the end of the road, gently took my arm, then pointed to her flip-flops - meaning she had shoes that could get wet and I did not. We walked together for a bit and were joined by three other young women and an adorable baby. We parted ways up the road, and met up again when we had all finished our respective shopping. Local food is very inexpensive - a pound of carrots, a pound of green beans, four cucumbers, and a head of lettuce for about $1.75. It is very frustrating not being able to communicate. My foray today inspired me to start my rosetta stone up again, regardless of how hard the language is to learn. I feel a strong need to be able to exchange at least a few words....
I walked to the local market today and one of the streets I take was flooded. I followed a cute little grandma up onto the driveways of local homes to avoid the water. She noticed me at the end of the road, gently took my arm, then pointed to her flip-flops - meaning she had shoes that could get wet and I did not. We walked together for a bit and were joined by three other young women and an adorable baby. We parted ways up the road, and met up again when we had all finished our respective shopping. Local food is very inexpensive - a pound of carrots, a pound of green beans, four cucumbers, and a head of lettuce for about $1.75. It is very frustrating not being able to communicate. My foray today inspired me to start my rosetta stone up again, regardless of how hard the language is to learn. I feel a strong need to be able to exchange at least a few words....
Free to choose?
The more I travel about, the more I suspect that peoples have a more active hand in the choosing of political systems and philosophies, as opposed to simply having those systems or philosophies foisted upon them. I don’t claim this as any sort of original insight, but it’s been driven home to me these past few months. Yes, of course: No one in North Korea (no one anywhere actually) would choose to live under the thumb of some megalomaniacal totalitarian. And surely the yoke of Communism in, say, post-WWII Poland was just that. But if you spend time in Vietnam, and Sweden, and the United States, as I have in the past four months, you begin to see that certain peoples are drawn to systems that speak to them, or were created by them, for specific, long-standing cultural reasons. Take the Swedes. I think that lingering American Cold War attitudes sort of take for granted that the Swedes were duped or bullied somehow into the socialism that pervades their culture still today. But the Swedes love socialism; it comes naturally to them. And it makes sense that a sparse population living in the freaking tundra is probably obliged to act collectively to stay alive; this became clear to them long ago and this ethic has filtered down to the modern day. In the 20th century, when peoples first had a choice about their systems of government, the Swedes naturally gravitated toward socialism.
Here in Vietnam, where strict Communism has given way to a sort of one-party market socialism, you see that it’s a very short and logical segue from the highly bureaucratic, top-down, authoritarian, Confucian culture that pervaded here for a thousand years to the highly bureaucratic, top-down, authoritarian, Communistic nationalism instituted by Ho Chi Minh — in the north after 1954, and everywhere else after 1975. It was a perfect fit. The Vietnamese love a system where authority is wielded and followed. You may have read Sharon’s blog post re. the clerk in Gloria Jeans — there is very little freelancing here, and they prefer it that way. This hurts them when it comes to entrepreneurial innovation, but it helps when you have to mobilize a population to resist/oust a colonial occupier. I learned last week of a client here that has instituted a LEAN program, whereby individual workers are empowered to make more decisions on their own, thereby making the overall operation more efficient, productive and less wasteful of resources. That’s the theory anyway, and it’s antithetical to the Vietnamese ethos. But the idea that it’s working here (and apparently, it is in this one case) shows there are limitations to the stereotype.
What about the States? Well, let’s see… Americans are, if nothing else, born exceptionalists who hate to be told what to do, whose initial idea of themselves was formed in response to what they saw as an oppressive government and state church, who see the individual accumulation of wealth as more vital to the national ethos than anything the state or we as a people might attempt collectively… Is it any surprise that we’re a bunch of gun-toting evangelicals whose government features the lowest tax burden of any industrialized country, the most meager social safety net and a legislative process completely controlled by corporate interests?
Here in Vietnam, where strict Communism has given way to a sort of one-party market socialism, you see that it’s a very short and logical segue from the highly bureaucratic, top-down, authoritarian, Confucian culture that pervaded here for a thousand years to the highly bureaucratic, top-down, authoritarian, Communistic nationalism instituted by Ho Chi Minh — in the north after 1954, and everywhere else after 1975. It was a perfect fit. The Vietnamese love a system where authority is wielded and followed. You may have read Sharon’s blog post re. the clerk in Gloria Jeans — there is very little freelancing here, and they prefer it that way. This hurts them when it comes to entrepreneurial innovation, but it helps when you have to mobilize a population to resist/oust a colonial occupier. I learned last week of a client here that has instituted a LEAN program, whereby individual workers are empowered to make more decisions on their own, thereby making the overall operation more efficient, productive and less wasteful of resources. That’s the theory anyway, and it’s antithetical to the Vietnamese ethos. But the idea that it’s working here (and apparently, it is in this one case) shows there are limitations to the stereotype.
What about the States? Well, let’s see… Americans are, if nothing else, born exceptionalists who hate to be told what to do, whose initial idea of themselves was formed in response to what they saw as an oppressive government and state church, who see the individual accumulation of wealth as more vital to the national ethos than anything the state or we as a people might attempt collectively… Is it any surprise that we’re a bunch of gun-toting evangelicals whose government features the lowest tax burden of any industrialized country, the most meager social safety net and a legislative process completely controlled by corporate interests?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Jade Emperor Pagoda
On Sunday we visited the Jade Emperor Pagoda. According to our Nat. Geo. travel guide, it was built by the Cantonese in the early 1900s. It is a quiet oasis within the busy, noisy city.
A vendor outside the temple sells fish and turtles that you can set free inside the temple - I think I read somewhere that is a way to honor your ancestors, or maybe it was a way to seek absolution for a wrong? I'll try to find out more.
There were a lot of worshipers bowing toward the various altars with hands full of incense, and papers were being burned in a large outdoor altar. Inside the air was thick with smoke and incense - the ancient wood carvings encased by the smoky trappings of a century of worship.
A vendor outside the temple sells fish and turtles that you can set free inside the temple - I think I read somewhere that is a way to honor your ancestors, or maybe it was a way to seek absolution for a wrong? I'll try to find out more.
There were a lot of worshipers bowing toward the various altars with hands full of incense, and papers were being burned in a large outdoor altar. Inside the air was thick with smoke and incense - the ancient wood carvings encased by the smoky trappings of a century of worship.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Leaving Saigon tomorrow
Joyce Vandermay
It has been a wonderful 10 days. And I'm so happy that I endured the plane ride here, fifteen hours is a long, long time to sit in a tiny seat. And we had the chorus of two extremely un-happy babies, if the one in the front was quiet, then the poor child in the back was crying.
It is quite an adventure to travel around the city by taxi, lots of horns blaring, and a sea of scooters undulating down the street in a haze of smog. A nice breeze will blow the air some-what cleaner. Most of the scooter drivers wear a mask, and often the women wear gloves that go almost to their shoulders,to keep the sun off their skin. And again a wide brimmed hat under their helmet.Some scooters have a scooter "bed" in front of their handle-bars, and some scooters have them behind their seat, it's amazing how much cargo they can carry.
Shopping at the Ben Than market is over-whelming, tiny stalls and the clerks call out Madame, Madame, you want leather purse, shirt, or what ever they have for sale, and sometimes they grab your hand and pull you into their little stall, "you like this, many color" very aggresive sales technique. The fabric stalls are absolutely packed as high as they can with colorful fabric, one day a man was sleeping on top of the stack! Another day a woman crawled out from under a clothing rack, stretched out and went back to work. Clara was concerned about being rude to the clerks by always telling them no, so we decided that a "no thank you" would work.
Sharon and I found a beautiful silk that will become dresses for Analyse and Clara.
Another grand thing we bought was silk pajamas, How nice to wear those to bed!
The meat market was a "trip" all on its own, everything but the moo. Cows tongue, and also testicles, Sharon wimped out in that section.
Don't be worried about traveling to Saigon, you can get any kind of American food you choose, and through charades you can get across what you need, this has been a great trip.
It has been a wonderful 10 days. And I'm so happy that I endured the plane ride here, fifteen hours is a long, long time to sit in a tiny seat. And we had the chorus of two extremely un-happy babies, if the one in the front was quiet, then the poor child in the back was crying.
It is quite an adventure to travel around the city by taxi, lots of horns blaring, and a sea of scooters undulating down the street in a haze of smog. A nice breeze will blow the air some-what cleaner. Most of the scooter drivers wear a mask, and often the women wear gloves that go almost to their shoulders,to keep the sun off their skin. And again a wide brimmed hat under their helmet.Some scooters have a scooter "bed" in front of their handle-bars, and some scooters have them behind their seat, it's amazing how much cargo they can carry.
Shopping at the Ben Than market is over-whelming, tiny stalls and the clerks call out Madame, Madame, you want leather purse, shirt, or what ever they have for sale, and sometimes they grab your hand and pull you into their little stall, "you like this, many color" very aggresive sales technique. The fabric stalls are absolutely packed as high as they can with colorful fabric, one day a man was sleeping on top of the stack! Another day a woman crawled out from under a clothing rack, stretched out and went back to work. Clara was concerned about being rude to the clerks by always telling them no, so we decided that a "no thank you" would work.
Sharon and I found a beautiful silk that will become dresses for Analyse and Clara.
Another grand thing we bought was silk pajamas, How nice to wear those to bed!
The meat market was a "trip" all on its own, everything but the moo. Cows tongue, and also testicles, Sharon wimped out in that section.
Don't be worried about traveling to Saigon, you can get any kind of American food you choose, and through charades you can get across what you need, this has been a great trip.
Friday, January 9, 2009
From the Small World Dept.
Okay, so Silas and I have been sucked into the orbit of Fulham Football Club, the most unfancied Premiership team in London and, not coincidentally, the one that most frequently signs American players. Fellow Wellesley soccer product Tom Wadlington has, not surprisingly, thrown himself into Fulham support without reserve, jetting over to Putney for the odd match, kindly picking up authentic FFC gear for Silas, and mixing it up on the Fulham chat boards. Tom the Yank, a.k.a., Tommy Three Points, has become something of a folk legend in SW6. In any case, a few weeks back Tom informs me there’s this raging Fulham fan on the chat boards based in Saigon, of indeterminate British/Commonwealth extraction, goes by the handle “Polecat”, or simply The Cat. It’s incumbent upon me, of course, to hook up with him for some FFC footy-watching in HCMC, Tom says. I’m dubious. This guy could be any manner of whack-job, but Tom introduces us by email and one thing leads to another… Turns out he lives in District 2, as we do. He seems quite normal (for a guy called “Polecat”) and eventually he asks where I’m living and what I’m doing here. Uh, no dice. I don’t want The Cat showing up on my doorstep, in his cups, cursing Frank Lampard. I dodge this adroitly and ask what HE’s doing here. Well, he’s an English teacher — at the ACG International School, Year 8 to be precise. Yep, he’s Silas’ English teacher.
The First Week
Okay... it is hard to believe we have been here a week! Hal, being the most familiar with the country, has settled right in and has been off to numerous meetings and will golf tomorrow morning. Everyone but me seems to have adjusted their internal clocks and are sleeping through the night.
We've discovered the local supermarket which does carry a few western products - cereal, granola bars, potato chips and pepsi. We've been advised to purchase milk from Australia or New Zealand in shelf stable packaging - king of like a super-size juice box. We've picked up fruit and vegetables from the neighborhood produce stands. We're still figuring out the meat part of it - we've purchased frozen products from the supermarket but haven't dared to buy anything from the open air. Eggs are not refrigerated here and you can buy chicken eggs or tiny brown and white quail eggs. I'll try to get a picture of those. There are also BLACK eggs, and we'll have to ask our friend Thuy (twee) what THOSE are. There is a good french bakery in our neighborhood as well. I walked downtown during breakfast time one morning and was intrigued to see the locals getting baguettes with vegetables and meat on them from a local pushcart, or sitting down at a cafe for pho which is a type of broth that you add bits of meat and vegetables to. I'll try to get a picture because it is quite different from having cereal or toast. Also, the food here is very inexpensive - 25 cents for a coke, $6 for a sandwich, fries, and a coke, $6 for a cab into district 1. Clothing is inexpensive too - $5 for silk pajamas; $4/meter for silk fabric, $4 for a shirt...
Silas and Clara really like their school. The system they are in calls kindergarten "year 1" which means Clara is in year 6 and Silas is in year 8. So far the only subject they feel behind in is Mandarin Chinese. Of course, Silas at least is far ahead in spanish! Clara has one teacher for most subjects except computer, library, and physical education - just like Dunn School. Silas has a different teacher for each subject. Clara was teamed up with a girl from Korea named Anna, and Silas was teamed up with a boy from Australia and a boy from Vietnam. They are both of great interest in the school since the majority of the students are Asian. For lunch each day they can choose from a western lunch or an asian lunch. Today Silas had shrimp scampi - the asian choice was a fish dish. We received the first school newsletter today. There is a new family orientation "tea" next Friday. The school has chosen a local orphanage as a charity and there is a drive for food, clothes, toys and money going on. The students will deliver the collected items in February. School begins at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 2:45. After the Tet holiday there will be an afterschool activity from 2:55 - 3:55 Tues. - Thur.: homework lab, computer club, science club, tennis, flag football, dance, art, or a bookclub. There were 28 new students that started school this quarter! There are about 350 students in the school. Last year (year 1) there were 150. To give you an idea of the growth in this country, they expect to have over 1,000 students within two years.
Our apartment is lovely and maids magically arrive to clean it EVERY DAY! We tried to send them away one day but they insisted that they must clean. The kitchen cupboards are positioned very high! I'm not especially short and it is difficult for me to reach the top shelf of the cabinets. When the air conditioning in one of the bedrooms wasn't working they came to fix it immediately. Also, the first sofa we had was made of some sort of fake leather and it started peeling, for lack of a better word, two days after we got here. We showed it to the office manager and they brought a new one the next day. We weren't really asking for a replacement, we just wanted to note the flaking on our inventory sheet so that we wouldn't be charged for the sofa when we left but that is how it was handled. This doesn't bode well for my own home maintenance this spring. I'll be very disappointed when I dial 0 and find my problems aren't fixed IMMEDIATELY, it will be even worse when my feet return to earth and I realize I have to fix things myself!
One thing that we've rapidly learned is that everything has a system that MUST BE FOLLOWED or there will be BIG PROBLEMS. For example, I went to Gloria Jeans to purchase a french press so we could have coffee, and included three bags of coffee - columbian roast, mocha java, and bena bena. Well, the guy rang up 2 columbians and one mocha instead of one of each and you'd thing the world was coming to an end. I told him "no big deal" since the bottom line was that the charge was correct, but he said "oh no, BIG PROBLEM with bank!". My mother, Silas and Clara were waiting for me outside and thought I'd been taken hostage. Since I mentioned it, there are few american chains here - Gloria Jeans, KFC, and Pizza Hut are the only three I've seen. There are many american apparel labels however - my Mother picked up a Chanel purse for $7.00 (120,000 VND), and we've seen copious quantities of Louis Vuitton, Ambercrombie, La Coste, Timberland, Banana Republic, etc... DVD's can also be had for a song though they don't always work in US machines apparently. The woman at one DVD stall said they do work in US computers, usually not on DVD machines. A lot of the movies currently out at the movies are on DVD here. So, let me know if you are dying for a designer label and I'll see what I can do for you... and as a special note to Sandy McDonald - how about copious instead of plethora for a change?
Ho Chi Mihn is divided into districts. Our neighborhood is located in Thao Dien Ward, District 2. Much of the central shopping and high-end hotels are located in the adjacent district 1. We went to dinner in district 1 last night at a place called Bun - there should be a symbol over the "u" but I don't know how to do that. Anyway, bun means rice noodle. We've managed to cook or eat primarily western meals up until then. I'm quite proud of Silas and Clara for trying new foods, though entire crabs came in the dish their grandmother ordered last night and we weren't sure what to do with them. We ended up setting them aside - Silas had a dish with duck - he had to take the duck off the bone to eat it. Clara loved the rolled noodles and the bean sprouts.
We're going to the pagoda tomorrow so keep watch for those pictures along with notes from Silas and Clara.
We've discovered the local supermarket which does carry a few western products - cereal, granola bars, potato chips and pepsi. We've been advised to purchase milk from Australia or New Zealand in shelf stable packaging - king of like a super-size juice box. We've picked up fruit and vegetables from the neighborhood produce stands. We're still figuring out the meat part of it - we've purchased frozen products from the supermarket but haven't dared to buy anything from the open air. Eggs are not refrigerated here and you can buy chicken eggs or tiny brown and white quail eggs. I'll try to get a picture of those. There are also BLACK eggs, and we'll have to ask our friend Thuy (twee) what THOSE are. There is a good french bakery in our neighborhood as well. I walked downtown during breakfast time one morning and was intrigued to see the locals getting baguettes with vegetables and meat on them from a local pushcart, or sitting down at a cafe for pho which is a type of broth that you add bits of meat and vegetables to. I'll try to get a picture because it is quite different from having cereal or toast. Also, the food here is very inexpensive - 25 cents for a coke, $6 for a sandwich, fries, and a coke, $6 for a cab into district 1. Clothing is inexpensive too - $5 for silk pajamas; $4/meter for silk fabric, $4 for a shirt...
Silas and Clara really like their school. The system they are in calls kindergarten "year 1" which means Clara is in year 6 and Silas is in year 8. So far the only subject they feel behind in is Mandarin Chinese. Of course, Silas at least is far ahead in spanish! Clara has one teacher for most subjects except computer, library, and physical education - just like Dunn School. Silas has a different teacher for each subject. Clara was teamed up with a girl from Korea named Anna, and Silas was teamed up with a boy from Australia and a boy from Vietnam. They are both of great interest in the school since the majority of the students are Asian. For lunch each day they can choose from a western lunch or an asian lunch. Today Silas had shrimp scampi - the asian choice was a fish dish. We received the first school newsletter today. There is a new family orientation "tea" next Friday. The school has chosen a local orphanage as a charity and there is a drive for food, clothes, toys and money going on. The students will deliver the collected items in February. School begins at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 2:45. After the Tet holiday there will be an afterschool activity from 2:55 - 3:55 Tues. - Thur.: homework lab, computer club, science club, tennis, flag football, dance, art, or a bookclub. There were 28 new students that started school this quarter! There are about 350 students in the school. Last year (year 1) there were 150. To give you an idea of the growth in this country, they expect to have over 1,000 students within two years.
Our apartment is lovely and maids magically arrive to clean it EVERY DAY! We tried to send them away one day but they insisted that they must clean. The kitchen cupboards are positioned very high! I'm not especially short and it is difficult for me to reach the top shelf of the cabinets. When the air conditioning in one of the bedrooms wasn't working they came to fix it immediately. Also, the first sofa we had was made of some sort of fake leather and it started peeling, for lack of a better word, two days after we got here. We showed it to the office manager and they brought a new one the next day. We weren't really asking for a replacement, we just wanted to note the flaking on our inventory sheet so that we wouldn't be charged for the sofa when we left but that is how it was handled. This doesn't bode well for my own home maintenance this spring. I'll be very disappointed when I dial 0 and find my problems aren't fixed IMMEDIATELY, it will be even worse when my feet return to earth and I realize I have to fix things myself!
One thing that we've rapidly learned is that everything has a system that MUST BE FOLLOWED or there will be BIG PROBLEMS. For example, I went to Gloria Jeans to purchase a french press so we could have coffee, and included three bags of coffee - columbian roast, mocha java, and bena bena. Well, the guy rang up 2 columbians and one mocha instead of one of each and you'd thing the world was coming to an end. I told him "no big deal" since the bottom line was that the charge was correct, but he said "oh no, BIG PROBLEM with bank!". My mother, Silas and Clara were waiting for me outside and thought I'd been taken hostage. Since I mentioned it, there are few american chains here - Gloria Jeans, KFC, and Pizza Hut are the only three I've seen. There are many american apparel labels however - my Mother picked up a Chanel purse for $7.00 (120,000 VND), and we've seen copious quantities of Louis Vuitton, Ambercrombie, La Coste, Timberland, Banana Republic, etc... DVD's can also be had for a song though they don't always work in US machines apparently. The woman at one DVD stall said they do work in US computers, usually not on DVD machines. A lot of the movies currently out at the movies are on DVD here. So, let me know if you are dying for a designer label and I'll see what I can do for you... and as a special note to Sandy McDonald - how about copious instead of plethora for a change?
Ho Chi Mihn is divided into districts. Our neighborhood is located in Thao Dien Ward, District 2. Much of the central shopping and high-end hotels are located in the adjacent district 1. We went to dinner in district 1 last night at a place called Bun - there should be a symbol over the "u" but I don't know how to do that. Anyway, bun means rice noodle. We've managed to cook or eat primarily western meals up until then. I'm quite proud of Silas and Clara for trying new foods, though entire crabs came in the dish their grandmother ordered last night and we weren't sure what to do with them. We ended up setting them aside - Silas had a dish with duck - he had to take the duck off the bone to eat it. Clara loved the rolled noodles and the bean sprouts.
We're going to the pagoda tomorrow so keep watch for those pictures along with notes from Silas and Clara.
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