Hello all,
Well this weekend was another fun little expedition into Ben
Tre, with a few different adventures.
First of all, on Friday morning I was invited to have lunch
with my second year students. Khanh, Quyen, and An had all gotten scholarships!
They won’t have to pay tuition next year, which is pretty cool. So after class
I went with about eight of my students to An’s house for a party. A lot of rice
wine and delicious food followed.
My students from left to right: Phong (on the hammock), Quyen, An's brother, Thu, Nhi, Khanh, An
Saturday was a very quiet day with me just focusing on my
writing and lesson planning. Vietnam is a great place to relax and get some
work done, especially if you know a nice coffee shop.
On Sunday I went with another student, Ngan, to her
grandparent’s house. Her grandparents live in Tien Giang, Lindsay’s province,
about 30 minutes away from the main city of My Tho. It took us an hour and a
half to get there, and I was definitely a bit groggy from the 6:30 am start. I
went with Thu, Truc, and Ngan’s little sister Ngan (who henceforward shall be
known as Little Ngan).
To reach Ngan’s grandfather’s village you have to take a
ferry across the river. We waited in a huge pack for the ferry to unload, then
streamed onto it. This used to be the main way of getting around Ben Tre
province, and the ferry used to be the only way to cross into Ben Tre, so this
gave a bit of insight into what daily life in Ben Tre must have been like.
boarding the ferry
Crossing the river
On the ferry
In my opinion, ferries are kind of horrible. They go slowly,
you breathe in a lot of smog from the motorcycle engines and from the ferry
itself and you have to wait forever for the ferry to be ready and to cross.
It’s kind of cool as a novelty, but as an actual form of transportation? Not so
much. You win, bridges.
We finally reached Ngan’s grandparent’s lovely
little house. I sat down to have tea with her grandfather as the rest of the
students bustled around the place. Talking to Ngan’s grandfather was a little
frustrating, unfortunately. I could understand some of what he said, but he
could barely understand anything I said. I could grasp the words he was
saying, if not always the structure, but when I would try to respond it was
clear he wasn’t understanding. We had to have some of the students assist with
translation for even relatively basic concepts. Then even when I did understand
his questions he would assume that I didn’t actually understand and would ask a
student to translate a question I already understood. Grrr.
I definitely feel like I’m hitting a valley in my Vietnamese
learning. A valley is a point where I just feel like I’m making no progress,
and maybe even slipping backward. I’ve gone through a few different peaks and
valleys of learning Vietnamese, and I know that in another month/couple weeks
this feeling will pass if I work at it. It’s still frustrating though.
Anyways, after spending some time at the house we wandered out and
headed for a nearby durian orchard.
Truc stopped for about 1242351 pictures. This is one of them.
Thu with Little Ngan
Ngan's cousin climbs a tree to bring down some starfruit. Thu helps
Little Ngan displays a bug she found
After exploring the neighborhood we walked back and had
lunch.
Delicious as always. Thu and Truc approve
Then we all had a long, relaxing nap (seriously, the Vietnamese
institution of nap time is the best) before leaving her grandparent’s
home.
Nap time. The best.
On the way back we stopped at Dong Tham Zoo. This place was
advertised as both a snake farm and a zoo, making me a little confused about
it’s original purpose. The zoo was full of different animals, although they
were all kept in conditions that were fairly troubling. I was torn between
excitement at seeing the animals and sadness at their condition. Cages were
small, cramped and dirty for the most part, and there were monkeys chained to
cages in the trees for presumably aesthetic purposes.
The first snake we saw at the snake farm
At the zoo
One of the exhibits. This one was for guinea pigs
So, guinea pigs are a zoo exhibit in Vietnam. K
One of the monkeys, chained to the tree.
Little Ngan feeding the monkeys
Ngan, little Ngan, Truc and Thu at the zoo
The monkeys were the biggest hit. Here is a monkey with a baby
Big monkey
It's a piglet!
My students were all really excited to be at the zoo (although Truc’s afraid of snakes, so that was a bit of an issue.) They definitely enjoyed feeding the monkeys, and the snakes were pretty cool as well.
Outside the snake museum
Tons of snakes
Can you spot the three snakes here?
Five snake heads. Creepy as all get-up
And snakes that can swim. Well, that's great. Thank you future nightmares.
Outside the zoo
After the tour of the zoo it was time for me to head home.
This whole experience has made me reconsider the student-teacher
boundaries I imposed on myself. At first when I started teaching I was very
careful about how much I socialized with my students. I was always friendly in
class, of course, and tried to be approachable outside of class. But whenever
students would invite me to go out to coffee, or to karaoke, or drinking, I
politely made excuses. I wanted to make sure the boundaries were clear.
Being about the same age as my students (most of them are
only a year or two younger than me) I thought it would be very easy to lose any
sense of authority over them. Most of my students are women as well, so I was
also worried about some of them potentially getting the wrong ideas if I got
too friendly.
I was friends with a few different groups of students, but
only with the students I had observed for a while and had been consistently
friendly towards me. It would have been more fun to be socializing, but I was
sure it was the right thing to do. Now, in retrospect, I’m not so sure.
In the last few weeks I’ve really let my guard down around
my students. Being in the play, going out to coffee with them, going to parties, singing karaoke and going to people’s homes. It’s been wonderful getting to know them more as
people and as friends. I’ve felt comfortable doing so because my classes with
the second years are basically finished. I have one more class with them and
then I am done.
Maybe if I was a teacher I would have felt uncomfortable
grading my students after drinking, singing karaoke, and hanging out with them.
But at the same time, my students have been nothing but respectful towards me
this entire time. No female student has ever made inappropriate advances; no student
has ever challenged my authority. Perhaps I was too closed off initially.
It is difficult to walk the line between teacher and friend.
A teacher can always be friendly, certainly, but for a teacher and a student to
be true friends requires great awareness and diplomacy from both parties.
It has been very rewarding to be a teacher these past nine
months. I have enjoyed being a teacher to my students immensely. But in these
last few weeks I have found a calm relief in laying aside the burdens of being
a teacher and being simply a friend.
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