the second coming of the new year. tonight was festive.

we gathered around the large, bronze statue of uncle ton. he was the second president after uncle ho and grew up in the area. the streets, normally crowded with motorcycles, were now crowded with people, balloons and new year zeal.

there was a large stage with the words, “mung xuan quy mui”, plastered behind it. we were all wished happiness and prosperity in this new year of the goat. there were a number of acts performed on stage. everything from pop music to traditional dance. it was a cultural tossed salad all united by the ranch dressing of the new year.

hundreds of roving packs of children yelled, “hello.” countless ladies sold balloons twisted and shaped into a variety of animals. there were dragons and monkeys, people and snakes. all was wonderfully loud.

some children had strange haircuts. small boys, about three or four years old, had their hair shaved to the scalp except for three patches: the forehead and above both ears. it looked quite odd to me but i’m sure it had some cultural significance.

jack bought me a balloon. it was large, red and suspended on a thin bamboo pole. i walked around with it proudly for a bit but then gave it to the cutest little child i found. she smiled sincerely and i felt good, like i had saved the world.

back home we can still hear the sounds of bands walking through the streets. we’re two hours away from the year of the goat and we have to reverently say goodbye to the year of the horse. all is well in this strange, strange world.

three motorbikes and no one knew where they were going. it was utter chaos.

jack and i mounted the bikes of two fellow teachers from can tho that decided that they would show us a good time. the third bike only carried one person: the boss. we were going to get something to eat and enjoy supper. if we only knew what lay ahead.

my motorbike was lost within the first ten minutes. we circled around a small park where we thought everyone was and emphatically gave up. my driver, the english teacher, decided he would try to find someone’s phone number. i sat around aimlessly for more than an hour waiting and drinking fresh coconut juice.

after another twenty grueling minutes had passed, we got a hold of the group. we met them at what appeared to be quite a festive place. there was a large archway made up of glowing dragons and crabs. people milled about. i would have liked to spend some time there but, because of our tardiness, the rest of the group was bored. we were off to supper.

no one told anyone where we were going and within ten minutes we were all lost again. my driver had asked directions but the leader gave him the wrong street name. we ended up in some back alleyway. we were looking for a bun bo hue shop. bun bo hue is a bowl of noodles, beef and chilies fashioned in the hue style. it’s quite good but there were no shops on this street. there was nothing but cigarette vendors and odd bums lounging about.

we found the restaurant after passing many bun bo hue stands. we ate our meal and, by this time, i was fed up. jack too. we were ready to go home but everyone was determined to show us the university in can tho. this is where most of the teachers at an giang received their education. the university was huge and ghostly. because it was the lunar new year, only the security guards and their dogs lounged about. the large, stone buildings stood firmly in the marshland. they glared at us like skeletons in the dark, cool, night air.

we were lost again. we were going to coffee but no one told anyone else where we were going. we ended up simply going home.

in the morning we met again but had the same problem. we couldn’t find each other when we went for coffee. three motorbikes and no directions. no one told anyone anything. i really could have used a cup of coffee. i yawned and yawned as we drove eventually ending up back at our hostel. no direction, no action, nothing.

can tho.

down the mekong river about sixty kilometers you'll stumble across a hot-to-trot town that calls itself can tho. its much larger than long xuyen. its streets are larger, cleaner and generally smoother. i haven't stumbled across any dirt roads yet.

can tho is home to a few important sights. it's home to the can tho university where many of the teachers at an giang university studied. it's a large university and i've yet to visit it. because this is the lunar new year, everybody travels home. all of the english teachers from can tho are here now and we were told to come down, see the sights and spend some quality time with them.

the next important sight in can tho is its statue of uncle ho. it is a massive statue of the man raising his right hand and smiling. it was superbly placed right next to the river and is surrounded by a delightful park. the chain surrounding the fence is made up of large, metallic, five-pointed stars. the statue was humorously referred to as the, "tin man", by jack. it's supposed to look like it's made out of silver but it appears to be fashioned from tin. he looks remarkably like the tin man from the wizard of oz.

the final sight to be had here is the floating market. i'd heard many glorious stories of floating markets that one could pass from boat to boat as if on land. it was to be a sea of boats all linked by vegetable/fruit commerce. it was to be wonderful, glorious, a surreal nirvana on the river. it wasn't as exciting as the descriptions promised (but what ever is).

we boarded a small boat that we paid twelve dollars to take us out from five in the morning till twelve noon. our driver was a shy, youngish girl with long, stringy hair and calloused feet. jack and i sat in the front of the boat and we roared off. it was just after five in the morning and everything was mist. the mekong looked like a solid sheet of ice and we seemed to easily push through. the trip down the river was slow but watching the sun come up over our left shoulders. it slowly peered at us through the jungle growth as a huge glowing orange. it rose and gained energy. eventually, it blinded and burned us.

the floating market was a good hour away. we saw it as we rounded a bend in the river. it was a tangled mass of wooden boats all floating aimlessly. some boats had large bamboo poles died to their bows. at the top of the poles were tied a variety of vegetables. this served as a type of advertisement. whatever that particular boat was selling was hanging there.

we entered the middle of the market and it looked less like a myriad of boats creating a new land mass in the water and more like a jumble of boats all sliding, bumping and grinding past one another. we were hungry because we woke up late and had no breakfast. we asked where we could eat and the girl took us to some random house boat and we boarded.

the inside of the boat was all wood and it made you feel like you were in a cigar box. the roof, walls and floor were all worn with age and we sat at a small, wooden table drinking fresh coconut juice. i chatted with the owner of the boat for a while. he was very interested in my story and i was very interested in his.

him and his family usually stayed in the floating market. they sold things generally but led a peaceful life. his wife, daughter-in-law, son and two grandsons lived with them. it was a relatively large boat and most of the family eyed us cautiously from hammocks. one of his grandsons approached us holding his brother. his brother couldn't have been more than six months old. he was pudgy and curious. the older grandson said he was fifteen years old. he looked like he was eight. he was thin and short but had a well proportioned face.

they had no food on this boat and someone went looking for the roaming breakfast boat. it approached and we enjoyed some sort of pig-feet and noodle combination. it was really quite good once you got past the little hairs on the pigs feet. we chatted a bit more and eventually headed off.

the rest of the trip was much too long. there was another market that she wanted to take us to but the sun was burning us and the motor was roaring a bit much. we complied (we had paid and this other market could have turned out to be this semi-floating nirvana we were searching for). it turned out to be nothing of the sort.

we slept the whole ride home. having fresh water spewed in our face, the boat continually weaving under us, everything was beautiful. tomorrow we return home. back to what has oddly enough become the familiar.

jota, our puppy, our pride and joy, seriously needed some boundaries.

keeping chickens and roosters as pets is quite a popular past time here. i already recounted stories of one of our friends, tri, and his roosters. they are majestically colored and strut aimlessly as only flightless birds can. they are normally followed by a harem of loyal hens.

these roosters are kept in large, bamboo baskets. the baskets are about three feet high and about four feet across. they are turned upside down and the roosters and placed underneath. this is to keep them safe from thieves (oh yes, roosters are stolen) and from their own aimless wandering.

we are trying to train jota to go to the bathroom outside. we decided to get him a rooster cage. we bought the cage at the local market and carried it home on our bicycle. while i was driving, my left forearm straining under the weight of the cage and my shirt soaked from sweat from the noon-day sun, a man pulled up next to me. he asked, “how many roosters do you own?” i wasn’t about to explain that the cage was for a dog so i simply answered, “one, beautiful rooster.”

jota doesn’t like his cage. he tries to eat his way through it and we had to put some text-books on top so he wouldn’t move it about the room. he sits on his lime-green blanket/towel and sulks. he looks up at us and mopes. people come in the room and comment. they make fun of our dog sitting in a rooster cage. i think jota is slightly offended.

the lunar new year is approaching and all is hectic.

last night i was invited to go to a pre-tet celebration of the chinese-vietnamese organization here in long xuyen. i was picked up by one of my bosses.

we first went to a traditional chinese temple. the outside was decorated to the hilt. the inside was full of weathered chinese men and golden statues. all was dark and the smoke from the incense hung quietly in the air. we went to a table. sitting around it were eight old, chinese men. they all looked like sages and all had very unique faces. one face seemed to swallow up the eyes. another face had too many cheeks. one face was worn and wrinkled. another man had only one tooth on the right side of his mouth. he looked like an ancient snake that had lost one of his fangs in some sort of terrible cosmic battle.

the chinese temple was only the meeting point. we moved from there to a large hotel room. there were tables and heavy chairs. the room was thin and long with large pillars in the middle. the front of the room was decorated with signs that said, “happy new year”, and some things about this next year being the year of the goat.

there was a band. i use the term “band” loosely. they had a synthesizer, a bass, a guitar and a drum kit that was a throwback to a terrible 1980’s music video.

we listened to speeches in chinese and vietnamese. i understood some things but the only thing i really needed to do was to clap when everyone else did. there was a roving video camera with a huge floodlight. the camera man would blast this light in our direction and we would all pretend that we didn’t notice. he was like zeus hurling lightning bolts around.

some of the people had a wonderful idea. they thought i should sing. they asked if i knew any songs and, stupidly, i said i did. i asked the band if they knew any song by bob dylan. they didn’t. they said i should play guitar.

i stood in front of a silent room of over one hundred chinese people living in long xuyen. i played, “down in a willow garden”, which is an old bluegrass number. it’s sad and slow.

“down in a willow garden where me and my true love did sleep, twas there we fell a courtin’ my love fell off to sleep, i had a bottle of burgundy wine my true love did not know, and there i poisoned that dear little girl down under the banks below. i stabbed her with my dagger which was a bloody mess, i threw her in the river which quickly ended her life, my father often told me that love would set me free, the day i murdered that dear little girl whose name was rose connelly. my father stood at his cabin door watching with tear filled eyes. he watched as his only son mounted the scaffold high, my race is run benieth the sun and hell is waiting for me. all cause i murdered that dear little girl whose name was rose connelly.”

it’s quite a misogynistic and disturbing song.

so the band decided they would join me in the middle. i was standing with the guitar slung around my neck and a small, shy waitress holding the microphone. the drum kit started up. i could have been in a boy george video. the drummer wasn’t listening or didn’t care. he played some strange drum beat that belonged to a hard rock song. the bassist couldn’t follow and the synthesizer was creating chaos.

when i thought all was lost, a table in the back all stood up and started shouting and clapping. in the middle of the song they all ran to the front of the stage and surrounded me. they danced. when i was talking about, “stabbing her with my dagger which was a bloody mess” one of them men handed me a flower.

surreal. the only way to describe it.

the night came to a close and i was dragged up to the stage a few more times to dance with some old men. they were short and wrinkled and were determined to have me spin under their hands. i was the girl, they were the man. so i complied and spun around and around.

the lunar new year is approaching and i had no idea it was going to be this wonderful.

the spring festival.

we unveiled the boot scootin boogie and the electric slide. we watched fashion shows, songs and dances. everything was surreal.

the crowd was huge. hundreds of people but i couldn’t really tell. it was dark and the back of the audience disappeared into the night. there could have been millions of people there. the crowd stretched on infinitely for all i knew. maybe some of you were there.

the music was played through a computer. simultaneously, they showed a slide show. this made the music skip and stutter. the singers were at a loss. each song seemed to stutter and bounce at inappropriate times. every singer threw nervous glances in the direction of the computer. the program listed fifteen acts. they were supposed to be in order of appearance. they decided to skip around. one to five, three then eight. we never really knew when we were performing.

we were also “guests of honor.” this meant that we sat in the front row and were given a bottle of water and a rose. we also found out that we were to be judges. we were to judge the dance competitions even though we were to take part in them. how can one possibly judge themselves especially when they’re performing the boot scootin boogie? integrity?

two banners were unfurled from the top of a building. one said, “happy new year” and the other one was impossible to read. instead of falling and hanging majestically in the air, it dropped like a dead bird. the crowd giggled.

our performance was surprisingly well received. people were perplexed but respectful. they had never seen a line dance before (and we really had no idea what we were doing). they clapped and people brought us roses.

there was a “money tree” near the end of the show. they invited people from the audience up to pick questions off of the tree and, if they answered them correctly, they would pick an envelope and could keep whatever amount of money was inside. one question was, “can you say, ‘i love you’ in five different languages?” another was, “can you sing a song.” the girl sang the song, long and loud. her envelope didn’t have any money in it. her compensation was applause from the audience and some chuckles. they asked if anyone else wanted to come up. one of my students was the mc and i was sitting in the front row. he asked me to come up. i cautiously walked on stage and answered the question, “what is one question that you can never answer, ‘yes’, to?”, with, “are you dead?” i received 20,000 dong.

the show ended and everyone was happy. some people took to the stage and sang a version of “happy birthday” with the words, “happy new year”, inserted. “happy new year to you! happy new year to you! happy new year everybody! happy new year to you!” i couldn’t stop laughing.

beans and salsa. oh, how i long for Mexican food.

jack’s girlfriend sent him three large boxes of food and we’ve been devouring it like any red blooded american would. tonight we ate a nice, spicy bowl full of refried beans, salsa, cheese and fresh tomatoes. we ate it with tortilla chips. it was ecstasy.

the beans bubbled and churned and our greedy fists lunged and devoured without swallowing. we hovered over the bowl like vultures. we dove like pelicans. we ate like dogs eat. we swallowed before we chewed.

how many cultures in this great world lack cheese? how many lack refried beans or a suitable substitute? surely, i’m not sure of the answer. i only know that we lack those essentials here. we lack familiarity. we have rice and fried fish. we don’t have enchiladas.

i rest now, full. i sit satiated. tomorrow i’ll be hungry again but, for now, i’m fine. i can smile, burp, and know that my bowl of refried beans, salsa, cheese flew half way around the world to fill my belly for one short night.

the electric slide and the boot scootin’ boogie. who would have ever thought. i knew not one thing about line dancing but now i’m in charge of organizing one.

my boss, ms. thuy, asked me about a month ago if i would perform a, “line dance.” that’s what i heard. i found out a few days ago that she meant, “live dance.” she had no idea what a line dance was. i said, “yes”, to the line dance before my mind registered what i was saying, “yes”, to. i’m not made for line dances.

a line dance, for those of us who aren’t familiar, is a dance performed in unison that repeats a set of steps over, and over, and over, and over… normally it’s accompanied by country music.

we organized the students into two groups. one group will perform the, “electric slide”, which is a discoish number that is simple and slow. we will try to teach it to the audience as well. that was also ms. thuy’s idea. what do i get myself into. the, “electric slide”, consists of sliding three times to the right, clapping, three times to the left, clapping and then shuffling around aimlessly. agh.

the second dance is much more difficult. brooks and dunn wrote a song called the, “boot scootin’ boogie” and some dolt decided to create a dance to coincide with it. some of the lyrics to the song are, “out in the country past the city limit signs there’s a honky tonky past the county line, the joint starts jumpin’ every night when the sun goes down.” and so on.

the dance is fast and full of spins and stereotypical cowboy moves. lots of leg crossing shuffling and stomps. there’s also something called a, “clomp”, but jack and i have no idea what that is. we made something up and everyone believed us.

in two days we’re destined to perform. we’re to perform in front of hundreds of guests and we’re destined to make fools of ourselves. we’re claiming that this is part of our culture while, in reality, we knew little or nothing about it before a week ago. imagine two towering white people stomping around a small, wooden stage with ten or so Vietnamese students. the thought’s enough to make my stomach flip-flop.

soccer, soccer, soccer. while the eagles were disgracing themselves against the buccs, the education department and i were annihilating the economics department.

it was hot yesterday. we were out of shape. most of us were old and half of us weren’t wearing shoes. the economics department was younger, leaner and generally more amicable.

for some reason, this game was taken very seriously. we had two referees even though there were only five people to a side. we had lines painted in the grassless earth with crushed limestone. we had whistles and goals and even uniforms. i wore number four and pushed the collar up in order to look that much faster.

the game started and we ran and sweated and pounced in every direction imaginable. i played defense and kept kicking it up to our fatter, slower front line. they would run a bit and occasionally fall. their bodies would slide in the dust and everything seemed much more dramatic and exciting then it really was.

everything was over emphasized by the crowd. every kick elicited an "oh!" or an "ah!" the economics department had many an opportunity to score but our balding goalie always found a way to fall in their path or push the ball out of bounds.

at halftime we were deadlocked. brows were furrowed and sweat had poured through us. we stood on the sidelines and strategize. i listened and looked interested but understood little. two older members of our team took the halftime break to smoke a cigarette. i've never seen a stranger sight: two old, balding men with small paunches, completely covered in sweat, breathing heavily and, all the while, sucking dryly on a cigarette.

the second half began with a roar from the surprisingly sizeable crowd. this is where the education faculty would shine. we had the stamina. we had the maxi. we had that special something that can't be defined or described that pushed us to the top. the economics department couldn't handle us. too many long nights staring at obscure charts and graphs had dulled them. too abstract. this was real.

two fluke goals put us up early. we cheered and hugged each other like brothers. we danced in a circle causing dust to swirl about. the crowd loved it. we scored one more by the end and we collapsed on the sideline. three to zero. the education department had come through.

i woke up this morning felt like i had slept under a small pile of bricks and rubble. my knees were scabbed over and my legs were oddly heavy and lethargic. tomorrow we play the agricultural department. oh, they're going to be tough. too many days spent out in rice paddies researching strange bugs and plants has made them animalistic. i'm sure of it.

soccer, soccer, soccer. while the eagles were disgracing themselves against the buccs, the education department and i were annihilating the economics department.

it was hot yesterday. we were out of shape. most of us were old and half of us weren’t wearing shoes. the economics department was younger, leaner and generally more amicable.

for some reason, this game was taken very seriously. we had two referees even though there were only five people to a side. we had lines painted in the grassless earth with crushed limestone. we had whistles and goals and even uniforms. i wore number four and pushed the collar up in order to look that much faster.

the game started and we ran and sweated and pounced in every direction imaginable. i played defense and kept kicking it up to our fatter, slower front line. they would run a bit and occasionally fall. their bodies would slide in the dust and everything seemed much more dramatic and exciting then it really was.

everything was over emphasized by the crowd. every kick elicited an "oh!" or an "ah!" the economics department had many an opportunity to score but our balding goalie always found a way to fall in their path or push the ball out of bounds.

at halftime we were deadlocked. brows were furrowed and sweat had poured through us. we stood on the sidelines and strategize. i listened and looked interested but understood little. two older members of our team took the halftime break to smoke a cigarette. i've never seen a stranger sight: two old, balding men with small paunches, completely covered in sweat, breathing heavily and, all the while, sucking dryly on a cigarette.

the second half began with a roar from the surprisingly sizeable crowd. this is where the education faculty would shine. we had the stamina. we had the maxi. we had that special something that can't be defined or described that pushed us to the top. the economics department couldn't handle us. too many long nights staring at obscure charts and graphs had dulled them. too abstract. this was real.

two fluke goals put us up early. we cheered and hugged each other like brothers. we danced in a circle causing dust to swirl about. the crowd loved it. we scored one more by the end and we collapsed on the sideline. three to zero. the education department had come through.

i woke up this morning felt like i had slept under a small pile of bricks and rubble. my knees were scabbed over and my legs were oddly heavy and lethargic. tomorrow we play the agricultural department. oh, they're going to be tough. too many days spent out in rice paddies researching strange bugs and plants has made them animalistic. i'm sure of it.

long xuyen. i really missed home.

tonight we took little jota for a walk. he was taken care of by the lady that cleans this building. i don’t believe that she understood when i told her to only feed him a little at a time. she went through the entire bag of food that we gave her and jota returned as plump as ever. he looks like a suckling pig.

we walked around the dirt streets. he wouldn’t stray too far away from us. well, there was this one time when he ran right into some stranger’s house. as we were heading home the unthinkable happened. our little boy, our baby, our only child (a son no less!) was involved in a hit and run accident.

jota ambled towards the center of the road. bicycles were slowly passing and then a bolt of lightning roared by. some teenagers on a blue motorcycle plowed into our little boy at break-neck speed. jack ran after them yelling and i tended to our fallen child. he was yelping and screaming. i held him close to my chest afraid that his leg was broken. he cried on my shoulder as we carried him home.

what a tragic night. thank goodness our little boy is safe and quietly sleeping at my feet.

back in the big city.

after a terribly bumpy bus ride, we arrived. we are staying in our favorite hotel: the splendor. the only part of the name it deserves is 'hotel".

what do i notice upon my return? i notice white faces. in long xuyen there isn't a white face for miles. jack and i saw a white lady walking around once and we stopped out bikes and talked to her. actually we turned out bikes around and followed her until we got her attention.

here there are swarms of tourists and expats roaming the streets. they are dressed in shorts, tanktops and beach shoes. they are all fat and their skin is the color of vanilla yogurt. i stare.

i saw my old friends last night from the yokohama tire dealership. huy with his crooked teeth, quyen with her faint smile and loan with her quiet voice. they were very excited to see me again and huy almost cried. we sat on lawn chairs and drank coffee. it was wonderful. the sky was dark and the air was thick. the music, as always, was a bit too loud.

listening class.

it’s the same group of students as yesterday. we started out in the “c” block of the university. there are no working listening rooms there so we moved to “listening room one”. a listening room is full of separate desks with headphones. a computer sits at the front of the room and the teacher can control what all of the students hear.

we moved from “listening room one” to “listening room three” because the first room didn’t have enough seats and it didn’t have a cd player. for only having a day to prepare for this class, i set up some pretty interesting lesson plans. first of all we were going to listen to, “the sound of silence.” this would take up about an hour and would provide some entertainment. afterwards we were to take a practice test. that would hopefully eat up the remaining two hours.

the second listening room’s computer wasn’t working so my first activity was out. a room full of forty three students and nothing to do. i started with the rules of listening class. they’re the same as the rules of speaking class except for one addition: no cheating. that became rule number five. i’ve heard a lot of stories of people cheating in class and i want to do my best to avoid it. we dove right into the practice test. it was about television violence and was slightly more interesting than watching clouds pass on a windless day.

the test was split up into two parts. we did the first part before the break and the second part after the break. during the break two new students showed up. they remembered how hard i was on students who came in late to yesterday’s speaking class and they didn’t want to be singled out. they came in and sat in the back thinking i wouldn’t notice them. they surely weren’t expecting to take a practice test on the first day. i scolded them a bit for being late. they weren’t too happy about it. i gave them the test knowing that they had no answers for the first part. oh well.

then i saw the one boy cheating. his hair was parted down the middle and his face was pale and pock marked. he wore a terrible green and blue plaid shirt. he would softly look up at me when the students were answering questions. he made the mistake of quickly looking back at his paper. he came in late and was now acting shifty. as if he was hiding something. i plotted to spoil his fun. there is a large television hanging from the front of the room. in it, one can see the reflections of all of the students. i turned my back to the class and clasped my hands behind my back and stared thoughtfully up at it. i watched his head. i watched his thin mop of hair move around. he glanced up. i wasn’t looking. he glanced up again. i was seemingly not paying any attention. he took the bold move. the desks are separated by two foot high petitions. he lifted his body partially out of the chair and fixed his eyes on the person’s paper next to him. no one would say anything if they saw him cheating. i turned on a dime. caught. “i want to see you after class.” his face flushed and his head bowed.

ha!

so, we chatted after class and he remained indignant. i know his name and i’ll give him his final grade. if he wishes to succeed in my class he’ll learn to come to class on time and not cheat. that’s all i ask. that and a smile every once in a while.

jack and i are on the bus traveling up to the big city once more. we’ve run out of teaching material. it will be a quick trip but i sure need the break from long xuyen.

today i taught. my first time playing the role of instructor. my first time wielding so much authority. my first time pretending i knew something.

i found out yesterday. i found out at nine at night that i was to teach at seven the next morning. that would give me a solid ten hours to prepare for a three hour session. three hours with a class i never met teaching something i never taught. that’s ten hours if i was to avoid sleeping. i decided to sleep and it gave me only three.

i prepared a lesson plan that was simple and time consuming. the marathon class (three hours with two ten minute breaks in between) began without much fanfare. i introduced myself thoroughly. i drew a map on the board of america and explained what pennsylvania and philadelphia were. they all sat there stone-faced. i told them what i was doing here. i’m not sure i know myself but i sounded convincing.

we moved on to the rules of my classroom. i came up with these rules last night before i went to bed. i proclaimed them to my loyal pupils as if they were written by the hand of god herself/himself. the four rules are: participate, respect, no vietnamese and punctuality. the first one is geared towards those shy girls sitting in the front row adorned in shiny ao dai. they do not speak but peep. they do not move but glide. they do not laugh but giggle. i want them to speak in class and i tell them that their participation is paramount to their success. i look deeply and sincerely into each pair of eyes. it’s quite a motley list but i think it’ll work.

we moved on to a pairs dialogue. they got into groups of two and asked each other such interesting questions as, “what is your name?”, and, “where are you from?, and, don’t forget, my favorite, “what is your favorite food?” i also threw in two interesting ones: “if you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why?”, and, “who is the person you respect most in life and why?”

they began to slowly cackle back and fort and stumble over words. i ambled around the room appearing important and continuously wondering what i was doing there. i had two hours to go.

they presented their dialogues but with, oh, so much coaxing. jon: “ok, which group would like to go first?” class: silence. jon: “guys (firmly but sincerely), i need to know who wants to go first.” class: silence. jon: (confused, about to blush but constantly reminding himself that students, like dogs, can smell fear for miles. must exude confidence.) “ok, i’m going to begin picking groups. we’ll start in the front left. please stand up and present your dialogue.” things moved swiftly after they began.

a normal dialogue went something like this: (shy girl stands up in an ao dai. she covers her mouth as she reaches the front of the room. her friend walks behind her. her hair is plagued with some large, puffy apparatus designed to hold her hair in place. the apparatus was formerly employed as a christmas tree ornament.) “hello class. this is my friend phuong. she is from long xuyen city. we all know she is beautiful and smart. (giggle. sticks out tongue.) some of her favorite activities are watching television and shopping. her favorite food is sour soup and she always eats. she says that she would travel to paris if she could go anywhere in the world. she thinks it is a lovely city. maybe she can find a boyfriend there (giggle. sticks out tongue.) the person that she respects most in this world is her father. she says that he is responsible and good. he also gives her money and she likes that. she likes to shop. thank you. (slight bow. glance in my direction for approval. class claps. they always clap for everything.) jon: “very good. go ahead phuong.” and so on.

forty three young adults and me. teaching and absorbing. one person pretending they’re an authority figure and forty three pretending they don’t notice that he’s as much of a child as they are. i enjoyed class today. i enjoyed teaching and looking into the student’s eyes. i was twitchy and nervous at first but i exuded confidence throughout.

i couldn’t have had a better first day teaching. even if i only knew about it ten hours in advance.

tonight i type sitting at my cluttered desk. covered with open vietnamese language books, old computer disks, my camera, wallet, an assortment of chewed up pens and so on.

a behemoth of a spider has been repelling down from the ceiling for the last ten minutes. it is invisibly attached somewhere eight or nine feet above. it hangs in the air defying my sense of reality and seems to be confused. his eight legs are absurdly long for his two pieced body. the back side is long and thin. his underside is covered in yellow armor. he has spun his own chord and attached it arbitrarily to my ceiling. he swings down towards my desk with all of his legs extended. he falls confidently. he reaches my desk only to find a disaster area. one time he lands in an old coffee cup that hasn’t had the energy to move in weeks. another time he lands on an open notebook and quickly scurries up his home-made rope.

the dog is on my lap sleeping. he only knows that i feed him and that’s why he loves me. someday he’ll appreciate the intricacies of my personality but not now. now he’s tired.

today i found out that i might be teaching tomorrow. i had thought it was going to be after the tet holiday which is a few weeks away. jack and i were going to the big city to get teaching supplies this weekend but, if i’m teaching tomorrow, i’ll have to devise some lesson plans tonight.

to say the least i was shocked and my focusing on the minute details of my life (spiders, cluttered desk, affectionate dog) i’m able to ignore the pending doom. i wasn’t even told. someone told jack to tell me. i’m going to have a meeting later on tonight to find out exactly what’s what and who’s who.

i’m sure this online journal is becoming a bit tedious for all of you. living in long xuyen doesn’t provide for the most exciting entries and some of the more interesting things i must avoid recounting. vague enough. i will keep on writing because i want to. i want people to understand my experience in as much depth as possible. two years away from everyone that ever meant something to you. thanks to all who have followed up to this point.

the other day we went to tiger island. jack, charles and myself all mounted our respective bicycles and headed off.

the island is in the middle of the murky mekong river. after a breakfast of cambodian noodles with shrimp we piled onto a light blue ferry. it was more of a large floating board. it was about ten feet wide and twice as long. it churned through the water because of a large engine which was powered by gasoline which was controlled by a stout man powered by rice.

the ferry pulled up to a dock partially hidden by overgrowth. charles knew the way and we were off down long, winding dirt roads past hundreds of smiling faces.

our first stop was the temple/museum of uncle ton. he was the president after uncle ho chi minh and was born on tiger island. his house has been preserved and sets off to the left of the road while the temple sets off to the right. its grounds were full of enthusiastic school children.

we weren’t in the mood for a museum.

the rest of our day was spent strolling around talking to people. the small path is dotted with small farm houses. they are all built a bit off of the ground because of the rainy season and all have some variety of animal lurking about. either a large goose, a stray dog, some water buffalo, maybe some pigs or, rarely, a dirty cat. we stopped at the house of a farmer that charles knew. he’s here doing agricultural research and knows everything. the farmer had five steers feeding out back. they were housed under a short roof and surrounded by mosquito netting. their heads were bowed in thanks for the grass they were eating.

one of the farmers had three teeth in the front of his mouth. they occupied the right side. the left side had no teeth. he did most of the talking and i spent most of my time staring in his mouth.

we left and found a small café to have coffee. it was only a small shack with three small children and a smallish older lady. they made us coffee and lemonade and we chatted about politics, religion and, of course, mennonites (charles and jack really don’t understand what mennonites are. i try to explain but worry that i’m telling them some half-truth.)

after circling the island we left. we had had enough cycling for one day. my bicycle isn’t designed for long trips and we were all saddle sore. we piled on another ferry and headed home. the wind was cool on our faces and the water licked the sides of the floating board.

today i sid something that caused me to lie on my bed and furrow my brow. i was alone and i went insane.

this dog, jota, is taking over my life. i don’t really have a life as it is, but this dog took over whatever semblance i had left. my life consisted of reading, writing and learning vietnamese. all has changed and oh so quickly.

potty training a dog is a piece of work. i don’t know if i’m doing it right or if the dog is too young or what not. after he squats on the floor and delivers his payload i’m forced to yell and hit him on the nose. i don’t know of any other way. today was a frustrating day. he marked his territory near my bed. it would have been a relatively normal occurrence but it just so happened that we had returned from a trip outside. i scolded him and sent him to bed.

he sulked. his bed is my underwear and sock drawer. well, it’s more of a cabinet dug out of the wall. it’s only a few inches off of the ground and he’s taken to sleeping on a pair of my striped, red, boxer briefs. he sat on those briefs staring at me as i read. his gaze was piercing and tragic. after a bit of a nap i went over to him, crouched down and looked him in the eyes.

i said something my father would have told me when i was a baby except i was talking to a dog. a dog that peed everywhere. i said, “jota, you know that we (jack and i) love you. we just want you to succeed.” i said it with the utmost sincerity too. i told a puppy i wanted it to succeed. i sat back in awe of my own insanity. no work and few responsibilities makes jon a dull boy.

i bought some shampoo today. i asked for the cheapest kind and they sure gave it to me.

it cost five thousand dong. about 33 cents. it’s called, “fresh” but i have my doubts. the bottle is tall and thin. it’s a bit square and looks a little like a squat man. it’s head is pink.

the actual shampoo is what i’m concerned about. i’ve never seen shampoo that’s completely black. i put it on my hand and it’s thin and runs through my fingers like watered down tar. i put it in my hair and stare into the mirror. “how on earth did it turn white?” i really can’t fathom (my simple mind) how the shampoo turned from tar black to bright white. i stare haplessly at myself. i’m like a parrot discovering its own reflection.

anyway, i guess it’s not that important. my hair seems to be clean and has yet to fall out. black shampoo. what on earth am i doing.

i already explained what da cau was. there’s a small plastic cylinder attached to two feathers that soars through the air when it’s kicked. i’m no professional but i can hold my own.

when the afternoon heat has retreated and cooler air has taken it’s place, most of the students pour out into any available space to play. they mostly play da cau but some also play soccer, badminton, volleyball, and so on. the da cau circles are all pressed against each other. the students play until there’s no more light.

two days ago i noticed a small, folded paper airplane on my balcony. it was laying in a muddy, mosquito infested pool of water and i thought it was trash at first. i picked it up and, much to my surprise, noticed that it had writing on it. it said, “hello!!!” then had the words, “this plane is” scratched out. the words, “teacher, da cau khong?” written under the, “hello!!!” the other wing said, “hello!!!” then the phrase, “i am batman” was scratched out and the bottom said, “do you da cau?” it was all accompanied with a little picture of a shuttlecock and a foot kicking it. there was also a small picture of a bat flying to a window which i assumed was in reference to the crossed out batman line.

i thought nothing of it. a simple invitation that i wasn’t present for. no name was attached.

the next night i walked out onto my balcony to find another piece of paper lying in the same mud/mosquito pool. it said, “evening friday, teacher jon, teacher jack and me play da cau, duoc khong?” and on the other wing it said, “gui teacher jon” send to teacher jon.

so i’m bombarded with invitations to play da cau. they land on my balcony when i’m away. the only problem is they have no name.

strange, strange food. jack and i play “menu roulette” every time we sit down.

we normally go to a restaurant called the no name. well, i think i’ve already described it. it’s not a restaurant at all. there’s no name out front so people just call it the no name. we normally eat the tuna, corn, french fries and spinach.

tonight we decided to spin the wheel. roll the dice. just pick something at random.

we picked a couple of dishes and they were wonderful. some beef and pepper dish came to us steaming. another tofu dish was quite a treat. i ordered something else but it was yet to arrive.

it came and jack exclaimed, “oh, crabs.” he was sorely mistaken. the next thing he said was, “whoops!” it was a plate full of tiny birds, roasted. they were about the size of my pinkie and still contained their heads. there were about fifteen of them and they came surrounded by lettuce, tomatoes and other greens. they looked like baby bluebirds that had fallen out of the nest. their eyes were disturbingly large for their heads. they looked almost alien. their wings were folded in front of them as if in prayer. at least the bottoms of their feet were cut off.

jack and i pretended to be full. we asked if we could have them to go. our friendly waiter who always wears blue, baggy pants, wrapped them up and we were off.

immediately we took them to a vietnamese friend’s house. he said that they were a small type of bird and, alleviating some of our fears, said that they were at least a year old. they were caught in a small net, de-feathered and then roasted whole (insides, brains, eyeballs, bones, skin, everything). he said they were quite good and that we really should eat them. i couldn’t bring myself to it.

some other vietnamese friends came into the room and we all chatted for a bit. they noticed the plate full of baby bird carcasses and commented. they started to eat them. well, first i said to them, “if you guys all eat one, i’ll eat one.” how stupid of me. i thought that their stomachs would be turned too. they all picked one up and crunched their way through. one man just bit the head off and slowly mulled it around in his mouth.

so now it was my turn. i picked up a greasy chick by it’s severed foot and held it a bit. i looked at its eyes and beak. it surely was dead but it looked too much like a dirty bird you find mangled on some suburban sidewalk. then, before my hand told my mouth what it was doing, i was eating. crunch. chew, chew, crunch.

they were incredibly good. i couldn’t believe it. they tasted of roasted garlic and sugar that was surrounded by some wonderfully crunchy shell.

i actually ate a few of them. jack couldn’t stomach the idea and i teased him by placing a bird on my tongue, sliding it in my mouth and then opening my mouth and saying, “cuckoo!” he didn’t find it nearly as funny as i did.

well, as i write this the birds aren’t sitting too well in my stomach. their souls may have taken to flying again or maybe it’s just the brains, guts and bones.

yesterday we got a dog.

he’s really the most adorable thing i’ve ever seen and i’ve seen a bunch of things. he has a long snout and ears that flop down limply. his eyes are black and his tail is curled up and over and resembles a question mark. the eyes have wrinkles above them which make him look inquisitive. his nose is black and it is surrounded by a thin band of white which comes together in the middle and shoots up his forehead. he has a wonderfully thin white streak running between his eyes. the white is contrasted by large black circles around his eyes. the rest of him is white with brown blotch marks. if he was larger and produced milk, i’m sure he could be mistaken for a cow. his back legs are bowed out.

he’s only one month old so concepts like, “this is the bathroom”, and, “now we go to bed”, and, “no, don’t eat my new shirt”, are all foreign. he’s so young he’s always shaking and exploring.

we were given this dog, jota is his name (jack had a dog when he lived in costa rica named jota. i had no better ideas seeing as how my family has always come up with terrible names for pets: christopher, jennifer.) by a friend in the agricultural department. he’s been living the last week under a set of bunk beds in the room where they carry out their experiments on fish and such.

last night we went to bed after a long day of adjusting. he’s only a baby. he went to bed on my college newspaper sweatshirt that i brought along incase there was a miraculous climate change. at about one i was woken up by the most energetic dog i’d ever seen. he took my rain parka off of a shelf that i was sure was too high for him. he ran all about the room shaking it and yelping. i ushered him up to the roof incase he had to go to the bathroom. he didn’t, and just ran around shaking with excitement. i took him back to bed. he stayed up trouncing about the room and peeing.

at three he woke me up again. i took him out again and he made his circles in the gravel on rooftop. i took him back. at four i he woke me up because he was crying. he had no one to play with. i took him under my mosquito net and let him trounce around there. that appeased him. he trounced from my feet to my head continually biting me. it tickled. i couldn’t laugh because i was exhausted.

surprisingly enough, he didn’t wake me up again. he decided that the sweatshirt that we had laid out for him wasn’t good enough to sleep on. i have a small cubbyhole where i keep my socks and underwear. he burrowed in there, right next to my sleeping head, and fell asleep. i woke up in the morning to find him staring at me.

so, today i’m groggy. it was my first night of being a parent and it wasn’t too enjoyable. i couldn’t ignore the whimpers, or the sound of my parka being torn to shreds, or the yelping. this morning, jota’s running around the room as only a puppy can: half galloping, half jumping, and completely uncoordinated. jack and i are fathers. we needed something that would love us unconditionally and that we could boss around. sometimes, our lives here seem to be spinning out of control. we needed something that we could control.

oh, this morning, he left me four or five small presents. the joys of parenting.

the man with the bronzed body that dances on metal cylinders is still at it. the swamp across the way from my house has been the stage of a one-man dirt moving crew for the past week and a half. jack and i are amazed.

every day he waltzes out there in either his peach colored shorts or his green colored shorts. they are both thoroughly stained from the mud. he continues to slowly move the earth, one cylinder at a time, over to a neat row by his house. there is a narrow, long pool forming.

the visiting agriculture professor from scottland said he was moving the earth for two reasons. the first was to create a small pool in which he can raise fish during the rainy season. the second is to create a swath of land where he can raise vegetables that don’t like too much water. so much work for a half an acre of fish farming and a half an acre of vegetables.

occasionally he smokes a cigarette. it never leaves his mouth and trails of smoke trail him as if he was a factory. or maybe an earth-grader. sometimes his wife comes out and says something to him and he shouts something back. he never stops working. he keeps his slow, methodical pace up from dawn till supper time.

probably within the week he’ll be done his project. he will have moved all of the dirt from a once barren, mosquito-infested swamp into two half-acres of productive earth. it will have taken at least two weeks of scooping out the earth and moving it, basically a shovel full at a time, to the other bank.

empathy. that’s all i can feel.

gifts and generosity. people here give calendars for gifts. well, at least they give me and jack calendars. i guess they don’t really know what else to get us.

the calendars are huge. we’re not talking about the small, desktop variety. we’re talking about calendars that are two feet tall and a foot across. each page is graced with a huge picture as well as three months worth of days. three months staring at one photo.

the first calendar i received was from some of the other english teachers. it shows various landscape scenes from around vietnam. the first three months of my year will be spent looking at a scene from hanoi. at the top of the scene there is a huge budding tree superimposed. if the tree were true to life it would be at least one thousand feet high. it’s easily ten times as tall as the tallest building. it’s buds would be the size of small cars.

the next calendar i received sported pictures of beautiful vietnamese girls dressed in traditional dress. they are either sleeping or doing something that would have been done here at least one hundred years ago. one girl is spinning yarn. jack and i joke that we would like a calendar with pictures of american girls dressed in colonial garb doing household chores; gathering eggs, churning butter, etc.

the last calendar i received is quite modern. it’s pages scream at you with pictures of beautiful teenagers, light colors and dyed hair. i’ve never seen so many pastel colors in one place. each page has a random assortment of teenagers blowing kisses, smiling or just generally enjoying themselves. my level of cynicism increases exponentially the longer i stare at it.

i hung all of them up in my room. i have three months to stare at each picture and slowly cross off the days.

little ants walk around here everywhere.

today i sat in my chair and watched one scurry around on my white tile floor. she walked near my feet and quickly darted away. the ants here have a tendency of running, stopping and changing direction all at once. it’s hard to follow them.

sometimes i stomp on them or smash them under the weight of my finger. when they are crawling around on my arm or run up my leg they make me nervous. i crush the life out of them simply because they scare me. what gives me the right to dictate whether they live or not? i guess it makes me feel like god.

this one i let scurry about. it ran all around me making circles and inspecting gecko poop. yes, geckos poop and you do have to sweep it up at least once every two or three days. they crawl all over the walls eating insects. it’s the least that you can do for them.

the ant ran around and i followed it as best i could for about a minute or so. what an interesting animal. all the time discovering. all day long just searching. kind of like me.

well, i’ve gone letting as many ants live as possible. they’re not harming me and i try not to harm them. i feel it’s my duty not to kill them. so many bugs around here and the only ones that bother me are the mosquitoes. those blood thirsty vultures suck me dry almost daily. the ants are just diversion.

i went to tri’s house tonight. as i drove jack’s bicycle (my left pedal fell off again. nothing like having a pedal fall off of your bike twice in one week.) people slowed their motorcycles down to stare at me. they get a good look and then zoom off smiling. it’s nothing malicious, they’re just curious.

next to tri’s house is a shoe store. they were running a promotion and they had very loud music pumping into the street. someone was dressed up in a large mouse costume. the head of the costume was much too big and seemed about to topple over at any moment. the person wearing the mask couldn’t quite see through the mouth correctly because it was so large. they held the head upright with their yellow-gloved hand. it looked like a large-headed rodent continuously chomping on it’s hand.

as i pulled up there was a ring of children gathered around the mascot. it was dancing to a techno version of, “jesus was born on christmas day.” the mouse would scoot around spin all the while keeping that yellow hand in its mouth. i slid off of jack’s bicycle and everyone turned to look. i was more exciting than a mouse dancing to, “jesus was born on christmas day” sang on top of a bouncing techno beat. even the mouse turned its bulbous head with its hand still placed in its mouth to get a better look at me.

oh well, we were off to play tennis. playing tennis with tri at night. life can’t get much better.

you see, tri is a tennis master and i say that with the utmost respect. he wallops the ball to and fro. it spins and falls and dies at my feet. he smiles and laughs and i plod around swinging frantically like a clumsy giant with a stick.

the courts are well lit at night and they provide you with a ball boy. they silently collect the balls scattered around the court. you can’t hear them because they don’t wear shoes. one of the ball boys is a mute. he smiles a lot and seems to be a wonderful person.

.

i went to tri’s house tonight. as i drove jack’s bicycle (my left pedal fell off again. nothing like having a pedal fall off of your bike twice in one week.) people slowed their motorcycles down to stare at me. they get a good look and then zoom off smiling. it’s nothing malicious, they’re just curious.

next to tri’s house is a shoe store. they were running a promotion and they had very loud music pumping into the street. someone was dressed up in a large mouse costume. the head of the costume was much too big and seemed about to topple over at any moment. the person wearing the mask couldn’t quite see through the mouth correctly because it was so large. they held the head upright with their yellow-gloved hand. it looked like a large-headed rodent continuously chomping on it’s hand.

as i pulled up there was a ring of children gathered around the mascot. it was dancing to a techno version of, “jesus was born on christmas day.” the mouse would scoot around spin all the while keeping that yellow hand in its mouth. i slid off of jack’s bicycle and everyone turned to look. i was more exciting than a mouse dancing to, “jesus was born on christmas day” sang on top of a bouncing techno beat. even the mouse turned its bulbous head with its hand still placed in its mouth to get a better look at me.

oh well, we were off to play tennis. playing tennis with tri at night. life can’t get much better.

you see, tri is a tennis master and i say that with the utmost respect. he wallops the ball to and fro. it spins and falls and dies at my feet. he smiles and laughs and i plod around swinging frantically like a clumsy giant with a stick.

the courts are well lit at night and they provide you with a ball boy. they silently collect the balls scattered around the court. you can’t hear them because they don’t wear shoes. one of the ball boys is a mute. he smiles a lot and seems to be a wonderful person.

i have a rash on my feet. who knows where it came from but it’s unmistakably a rash and i think it’s the first official rash i’ve ever had.

small, white bumps surrounded by large clumps of red, festering skin. it itches terribly. at first i thought it was just a mosquito bite but after a day of itching and spreading i diagnosed myself with a rash.

the itching pain is unbearable. i’ve no problem dealing with that. the most troubling thing is that i have no idea where it came from or what it’s doing on my feet. i only think about it because i don’t understand it and the unknown can always be troublesome.

i guess you shouldn’t tell people when you have a rash. it’s not something most people make public. i guess it’s because most people think that rashes come from poor hygiene. i wash my feet every day (sometimes twice a day). i’m sure it came from some strange plant or maybe a bug. but, once again, the troubling thing is that i truly have no idea.

strangers in a strange land are susceptible to all kinds of odd aliments. i’ve been lucky: no food poisoning, no fever, no malaria, only a simple, itchy rash.