'Twas the Week Before Christmas

I had a few days to sit around bored after Nancy headed back to the US to be with her dad, who is in the final stages of cancer, and then the Christmas parties began. From 15 December through Christmas Day, I think I will have averaged one party a day. (Fortunately, I've only been attending them, not planning them.) I've been decorated as a Christmas present by a group of students, sat cross-legged on a mat listening to teammates tell the Christmas story, and been a guest of high government officials. This afternoon when I got together with the VTF team, I remembered that we were feeling a little frustrated in October that student relationships seemed to be developing so slowly. It's been encouraging to see how that's changed.

Lately we've been conducting finals and finishing our freshman classes. My freshmen this semester are the minority kids who are here as kind of an affirmative action group -- "positive discrimination" is the official term. Their English is about at the high beginner level so it's pretty overwhelming for them to have a teacher who speaks to them mostly in English.

Two weeks ago, we gave the freshmen 10 conversation topics. On 9 January, they'll come to class and randomly choose one for their final exam. They'll be expected to talk about it in English for 3 minutes and answer questions for 2.

They're pretty worried about it, as you might be if 60% of your course grade was based on 5 minutes. To get them ready, I've been pushing the "G.L.U.E." approach: Get what you need; Learn what you get; Use what you learn; Evaluate it. Friday was "G" day for the topic, "Describe a typical Vietnamese house." After going over some vocabulary from the book and getting some practice in class, we took the 5-minute walk over to my house for their "lab." I had them stand in the rooms and describe the room and its furnishings to their partner. If they used Vietnamese, they were exiled to the entryway for one minute. I think there were only 3 exiles, including me!

It was a lot of fun for all of us and, hopefully, helpful for those who will get that topic on their exam. An added benefit is that they now know where I live. We'd like to get more students to visit, but it's hard to break that ice because they're not used to that kind of access to their teachers.

Hope your Christmas is (or was) merry and blessed.

Helmet Law

BEFORE: Nobody likes helmets. Hot. Ugly. Messes up your hair. Like wearing a rice cooker on your head. So, nobody wore them. Well, almost nobody. There's one in this photo from August '06. A couple years earlier, the government tried a helmet law on, but people gave them so much feedback that they limited it to a requirement to wear a helmet only on the major highways between cities.


AFTER: Nobody likes helmets. Hot. Ugly. Messes up your hair. Like wearing a rice cooker on your head. But, tired of the traumatic head injuries (and bodies) piling up, the VN government passed a law this year that requires everyone everywhere to wear one - drivers and passengers. It went into effect yesterday (15 December). I was interested to see what compliance was going to be like Saturday morning when I woke up. Much to my surprise, nearly everyone had a "mu bao hiem" on their head! I had to ride about 4 km to a meeting and could have counted the number of helmet-less drivers on the fingers of one hand - till I decided I needed both hands (and eyes) to drive.

Cops were out in force. The traffic cops even recruited help from district police, security police and a few good men from the army. Every major intersection had police standing ready to crack down on scofflaws. But I also heard a rumor that in Saigon some enterprising folks had set up helmet rental booths near the intersections of one of the main roads. If you didn't have a helmet you could pull over, rent one for a few cents and return it to another booth on the other side of the traffic stop. (Just a rumor, I'm sure.)

Enforcement is going to be strong for a few weeks at least. It will be interesting to see how long those helmets stay on.

Environmental Irony

Been reading news articles lately on pollution in Asia. It's pretty discouraging. Being "green" is often a privilege of the better-off (ever price a Prius?) and developing countries sometimes take the same attitude. Their focus is on economic development, not so much environmental impact. The irony of the news lately is that the businesses, specifically fish farming, are creating problems that are hurting the businesses.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/world/asia/15fish.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all)
(http://vietnamnews.vnanet.vn/showarticle.php?num=01ENV111207)

VTF Santas

One Wednesday morning, we all went over to CAMA Services and helped them pack up hundreds of presents for the kids at the preschools they work with. Each package contained: two pair of socks, a winter hat, a bar of soap and a small hand towel. That may not seem like much, but where these kids live the per capita income is about $200 per year.