Moondance -- Music Tastes Sweeter with Plain Black Tea

Sep 12-13, 2019

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! There is the booming voice of a young American dude on the phone filling up this café as I edit this entry.

One week down as a Thay, or teacher in Hanoi. Not only does the spot require me to be a chameleon, I have to be a one-man stage show, an author of children’s games, poems, songs and stories, and Raffi. Children as old as 11 poke and climb on me. It’s hard to say if I’m not just an exotic animal to them at this point. I’m not sure how much deep creative energy is utilized – it is a very formulaic, ad hoc business, but it is a mechanism of creation I’ve not utilized much I suppose. I’ve not been a musical ESL Teacher before after all.

There’s a singular odor Hanoi exudes. It’s pervasive where ever I dare tread, and it’s the smell of my sweat.

Last week a ceremony to kick off the new school year brought parents and kids alike to my little place of work on the premises of the Victory Hotel on Ho Tay. Perhaps as a reminder of my advanced 36 years, or of the youth of elementary school children’s parents, or of the fact I still live on the exact same planet, one father I conversed with complemented me on my given name, telling me that it is the name of his favorite character in Grand theft Auto. My own father introduced me to GTA about 20 years ago. I’m thinking this father I spoke to is not the same one from 20 years past; but there’s something remarkable about finding commonality so far from home. In places like the U.S., sometimes when we scrutinize our own culture, and admonish ourselves for eccentricities, excesses, and abjections, regularly rightfully, we exoticize others through idealization or simplification/essentialism. Indeed, children here have cognitive and behavioral disabilities in my school, not because American social engineers planted them hereabouts, but because the exact same types of human traits that normally show up in Connecticut and Oregon also tend to pop up here and everywhere else in the world. Same goes for blindness, sightedness, being a police officer, and chronic exposure to GTA syndrome, which I presume is heightened deference to people named Trevor. Lisa in Sweden informs me there is a Harry Potter character named Trevor also -- I’m going to get around to investigating this very soon.  

On a related note, I recall that someone in the U.S., upon hearing how I was going to go teach school children in Vietnam, told me of how kids in the country really respect their elders, and teacher’s in particular. I’d like to get some video footage of our 3^rd grade class from any time of day, and send it to him, begging him to account for his misinformation campaign. In deed it is true to say Vietnam’s extent Confucian tradition persists in its demand for reverence to elders, and celebration of learning and educators. But traditions are traditions, contemporary or not, and school time is traditionally a time of suffering for all parties when bucking broncos are brought in from prairie pasture. Much of my goal then is mitigation of suffering.

Moondance

Sep 13, 2019

Just the Same

               One thing that invokes some faith in humanity is the fact that there are awful people and dreadful behavior in plentitude everywhere you go. There are also tall people, kindly people, fat people, people that refuse to pick up after their dogs on the street, etc. The latter may just be American or Parisian expats though – I’m sure the trend is getting around, along with throwing KFC packaging on the ground for dogs to sniff and eat. People are people, although I admit I am always slightly surprised at how dogs across the world bark in pretty much the same dialect and accent (see someone in England who believes he can tell the county home of a dog by his or her bark for a different opinion).

               Another thing that happens in this brand new ancient city, just as elsewhere, is that I can walk for miles and miles (Kms and kms * 1.6), including trudging through puddles, rubble piles, up and down dozens of flights of stairs, and on the noisiest of streets, then encounter a befuddled Samaritan who springs into action upon seeing me approach a set of five steps. Yes, we got that in the U.S. too. Just like in the U.S., when I stop to greet English speakers with a “how’s it going” etc., the response is usually something in the key of “can I help you find some place?”

An admitted obstacle remains my very basic language skills. Many speak English somewhat in this part of town, but I know that once I can speak Vietnamese fluently, I will know what directions my fellow pedestrians are shouting to me on the street. If it is not something like “careful! Careful! Careful! ok, ok!” then I’d be happy to stop and investigate what they are selling.

Many internationals are here to teach English, whether it is something they aspired to do before they were well into adulthood or not. Many of the same people live much more comfortably here than they ever could in their home countries despite making less money. Now I know that unless I take a longer route home from the school each day, I will run into the same South African couple that I stopped and chatted with two days ago, sitting at a bar/coffee place across from the lake, fueling up on some beers before teaching their English, to adults I presume.

“Hey! Anglophones! How’s it going!”

“Can we help you get to some place?”

The convo took off from there.

               A propensity I’ve encountered in even the earliest of English language learners in Vietnam is their use of the departure phrase “see you again”. It’s unfamiliarity to me must account for the fact I forget it is no more meaningless and undeniable a phrase than “see you later”, or “see you next time”. But who is convincing Vietnamese folks that this is what we Anglophones say when we give our goodbyes?

When I bad farewell to my new South African expat mates/specters, the gentleman, who seemed to be in a sleeveless shirt, shook my hand, saying with utmost assuredness to my face, “see you again.”

Unflinching, my retort was a swift “later bro!”

On my way home from the market last night I heard a familiarly structured English line: “are you trying to get to some place in particular?”

It was an American accent. The oddest thing about this part of town is the American accents. I never heard them in Vietnam in my two prior, more touristy visits.

“My home” I said, “but that’s a ways away yet.”

“Oh, I thought I could help you find one of the restaurants … ha ha… ok.”

I gave her a reassuring laugh, and said it was quite ok. But she was more than a kilometer and a half off by then.                     

Just the Same

On a Natural Education

Sep 4, 2019

There are plenty of children’s songs and poems written to instruct on and build appreciation for nature. One issue is a great lot of these are clearly written with temperate landscapes in mind. So often we see trees with leaves that turn color and fall in the Autumn, followed by winter snow, spring flowers, the arrival of spring birds, etc. Moreover, didactic songs and literature concerning the months and seasons are clearly from a Northern Hemisphere perspective.

This relates to a broader issue I’ve known about, in part thanks to Portland State University Anthro Prof Jeromy Spoon, who clewed me into the fact that international environmental education efforts are often severely lacking in local knowledge. Children are taught about globally renowned and charismatic species like lions and elephants, but less about the creatures they are likely to encounter in their local setting. This has been connected with declining interest in local environmental stewardship in places like the Himalayas. 

               Children’s songs about nature, flora and fauna, even when not concerned with endangered, charismatic big game, are still distinctly products of their place of authorship. This is acute in the context of English instruction. English language folk songs, unless composed ad hoc or from good translation, are almost certain to come from an English-speaking country. Not surprisingly, the British Isles, with their lengthy English-speaking history, are probably the most bountiful source.

This isn’t all bad mind you. One asset an international foreign language instructor like yours truly brings is the fact that this person carries a cultural experience. When children learn my native tongue, they also learn about my culture and background. This can help with memory, and gives the children a broadened perspective of the globe. But environmental knowledge need not be language specific. There’s no good reason why speakers of English as a second language should necessarily be unable to think or communicate about their own native environment when talking to me in my native tongue. This little private school in Ha Noi I’m working at just now is a “Waldorf Steiner” school, which means a particular enthesis on nature education and naturalistic learning. Yet in Vietnam, the “caw!” of a crow, is not the ubiquitous thing it is an many countries, the eponymous call of a Common cuckoo is not a harbinger of Spring or summer like it is in England, swallows do not disappear in the winter, and one is far more likely  to hear a red-whiskered bulbul in the garden than some of the celebrated figures of English song and heraldry, like the European Blackbird or European Robbin.

There are plenty of examples of how certain creatures have expanded their notoriety well beyond their natural range or even body. That’s to say nothing of the problem of spreading invasive species, which is a significant issue of global concern about which books have been written, but purely species expantion through media and culture. Think the disproportionate ubiquity of the sounds of the red-tailed Hawk, the Great-horned Owl, or the Pacific Chorus frog. These are creatures whose voices you can almost guarantee are being misapplied when heard in media. The consequences lie where we actually want people to know, respect, and discuss the living things that inhabit the space around them. International language instruction unfortunately has the potential to promote Environmental ignorance on a local scale, where it is typically most important. For someone like me, who still has much to learn about his host country’s natural environment, it is a quandary indeed.   

Chameleon

Sep 3 2019

Chameleon

Interesting times.

I find myself needing to test my chameleon abilities in order to do what keeps me here in Ha Noi – my impending job as an ESL teacher for elementary school kids. I knew I could be a chameleon at least. Even when I was a child, I was never particularly in love with children’s things that weren’t or wouldn’t soon be my very own. Children are interesting, but have never been a principal passion. It is a widespread demographic, and needless to say, their needs invoke opportunities like what I have now.

I’ve taught kids before – small groups of blind kids each time. And I’ve had at least one nephew for the past 15 years. Sad to say I wish I could have gotten more emersion with this last specimen source than I did, but there it is. I was also a child for at least a decade.

 For a little while at least, I’m going to try to make the reptilian shoes fit. I’ve researched and recited children’s rhymes, songs, and stories, and have even done some of my own composition. Reconnecting with the children’s classics has been a funny thing. Some recollection of the fact that I didn’t always exactly dig being a child is present. There’s a lot of partial familiarity with the games, which I credit to the fact that often no one bothered to verbalize the rules for me, and thus I never actually fully learned how to play. Memories of ostracism pounce where I seem to recall these were games that other kids played, but which I was rarely if ever invited or allowed to join in. “The Farmer and the Dell” – I remember the first refrain of the song, but I have no recollection of actually learning the game. I think the potential thrill is gone sadly. “The Bride Cuts the Cheese” – there’s a children’s song.

               Anyways, chins up, and with rewriting the past unlikely, I can at least make a decent chameleon in Mother Goose’s nest.