Re: Memories of Vietnam

Note: I was talking to a woman in my current master’s cohort about my time in Vietnam. I was rummaging around my computer (if you can do such a thing) to find a topic or a series of photos to share for this week when I stumbled upon this…

This morning I woke up at 5 am after a string of inconsistent bedtimes. Waking up early used to be something I dreaded but lately it has become an inevitability that I look forward to. During the ‘week’ (note: not limited to weekdays for English teachers), I get up before 8 am to go to one of two morning jobs. Today was no different, except that it was.

Around 8 am, I stood outside a local photocopy shop having printed my lessons for the day as I waited for a student to pick me up on her way to class. En route, I met my student’s son, mother-in-law and husband. For the past several weeks, I have had the joy of working with a group of young moms. I am their English teacher, but I find that they often teach me. From them, I learn about what it is to be a woman in Vietnamese society. While I am not Vietnamese, I am understood to be a foreign Asian woman by most people at first glance. I operate in daily life here as both an expat from a native English speaking country (something that is heavily valued here for a number of reasons) and a young woman of color who is not viewed as a ‘typical’ American. It is often an interesting intersection to occupy within an Asian context. Nonetheless, my student informed me our tables and chairs had been moved out of our classroom. Our class takes place in the apartment building of one of my student’s friends. We had class on yoga mats. One of my three students seemed tired, another seemed melancholy and my last student was her usual quiet but curious self. It was in this lesson that the women in my class began to open up to me in a way distinctly different than past classes. They began to open up as my friends, as my community, and as my students. My tired student stretched out on the floor to avoid the very real possibility of falling asleep after a night spent comforting her son. My seemingly sad student mentioned during a sticky ball game that she had to cancel a play date because a friend’s mom had died. At a different point in class, when asked to use the word ‘often’ in a sentence, she replied with: “Often, the prince and the princess have to go through a lot to get a happy ending” when I mentioned that my trip to Mai Chau was just okay; the intuition of my students always surprises me. Unlike in the United States where an “okay” is often left unquestioned, two of my three students seemed to express a desire to use class as a space of sharing and acceptance. A space you can only hope to give students and a lesson you cannot exactly teach.

A few hours went by and it was time for my afternoon lessons. I boarded the local bus to greet a series of secondary school students. Today was exam day. I got my days mixed up and had prepared lessons for Wednesday’s classes (this is a Monday), so I was relieved that students were still testing. Before the drum began to sound (note: the Vietnamese version of the school ‘bell’), my fellow teacher brought up the issue of cheating among students. A widespread issue in public schools. However, it was not until today that I found myself called to action to address cheating among my most difficult class of seventh grade students. I have a deep respect and love for my students but there are a number of students in this room who act out. My most rebellious student greeted me with Vietnamese loud enough to cause the rest of the room to laugh. This student often refuses to speak in English despite having the written work to support that his aptitude for the subject. I simply waved back and smiled while saying hello. Initially, I’d try to coax him into speaking to me or interacting differently via using him as an example, but lately I hark back to a psychological principle. To decrease a behavior, a lack of reinforcement (or response) is sometimes needed for the behavior to extinguish; so, when he mocks me in Vietnamese, I respond as I would to any other student – with kindness. Additionally, I do not believe in sending kids out of the room unless they are causing physical or emotional harm to themselves, myself, or their peers. The above ideas have taken cultivation through lived experience to say the least. Once students were seated again, their exams were handed out. Students had 30 minutes to complete roughly 25 questions. Near the end of the exam, my teaching assistant (an experienced Vietnamese teacher in her late 40’s) noticed a girl writing down answers. She soon handed me a sheet of paper with the answers to the exam listed. Calmly but firmly, I went to collect the exams of the two students who had been using the paper. They received automatic zeros. While I know these students are not the only two in the room who likely used the paper, I knew my response to their behavior had to set the understanding for my classroom that cheating was worse than doing poorly on one exam. To cheat is to cough up the work of someone else and take credit where none is due, so… no credit was given. My last class of the day was one of my beloved sixth grade classes. Students in this room are eager and kind. Two of my best students greeted me as normal, but on the coat-tailed of my last class I found myself feeling like I’d failed in some sense. After all, what is teaching if you are serving students who are already excelling? What more can I do for my students like the boy who finds security in making a joke of me in his mother tongue at the expense of risking a mistake made in English? The drum sounded. The school day was over.

“I sent you so many messages!”, my fellow teacher told me as I saw him while waiting for the bus home. Moments of community can feel hard to find here. However, today’s interaction made me cognizant of the fact that walking to the bus and conversations about teaching and travel with this Egyptian colleague serve as a strong comfort of mine at the end of a hard day’s work. He recounted stories of Romania, Turkey, time in Egypt, goals of his for the future and stories he was engrossed in. It grounded me in the present of the day. Sometimes I’m often still working on cultivating.

“Well, this is me!”, I said as I got off the bus. I made a quick pit-stop for dinner and went to my evening class. I have been working with a small class of seventh grade students who are probably some of the most sincere human beings I have ever had the pleasure of meeting thus far to date. Fairly high praise, right? These kids deserve it. The room is divided into a group of 3 boys who are close friends and 5-6 girls who enjoy working as 1-2 groups of their own given the day. In the elevator, one of my shy students noticed my new dress. Quietly, she mentioned it looked ‘beautiful’. Her thoughtfulness often takes me by pleasant surprise. We entered the class. Most of the time at the beginning of a lesson, the student who sits closest to me asks me precocious questions about words in English. Today was no different. For example, she asked what the word for the brain developing over time was in English. She then asked about different kinds of teas. Her mind seems to go a million miles a minute but I find her questions uplifting. Class proceeded as normal. One of my more outspoken students showed up a bit later than usual. She has a strong presence and is opinionated in ways that I hope she does not lose later in life. Toward the end of class, we played a class favorite – the change your seat game. The game is simple. Students make a circle with their chairs and then one chair is removed from the circle. One student stands in the middle and says: ‘Change your seat if…’. Today, while playing a game one of my students (probably unknowingly) asked students to “Change seats if they did not want be LGBTQ+ people”. She obviously did not understand that people in the room do identify as LGBTQ+. She most certainly did not expect her teacher to be one of ‘those’ people. As uncomfortable as it was in the moment, I took the time to stop class. I asked my students to sit and listen for a minute. As simply as I could, I explained it is okay to like whoever you want. My students are 13-14 so crushes are a big deal right now. All the more reason it seemed appropriate to use this moment to stress that it is okay to be straight, gay, bisexual, lesbian or anything in between. As ESL teachers, we carry such immense power in sharing our knowledge of English as well as a duty to protect the sometimes silenced voices in our classrooms.

The day ended among friends in a small taco bar.

Now, I sit reflecting on today with a candle lit on my desk, my electronic room diffuser sending the smell of peppermint my way and my purple, blue, and white string of lights setting the tone for a calmed evening.

Note: This is a reflection I wrote back in 2020 and I have left largely unedited to preserve this memory of my beautiful Hanoi. Someday, I shall return.