Family Far Away

Ahh, internet! Both time-waster and tool. One of the great advantages of it is being able to stay closer in touch from so far away. When we first came to Vietnam, calling America was prohibitively expensive and kept for emergencies only. Our dial-up email connection was a luxury.

Although the $20/month ADSL connection we have now doesn't seem much faster than dial-up, it's nice to be able to be able to send photos back and forth and stay in contact with VOIP and webcams. We've been able to peek in on our granddaughter, Ellie, putting together an aquarium with her dad after he got back from his six months at sea. We've even seen the first grainy ultrasound image of grandchild #2 who's due to liven up Hannah and Phillip's house next summer.

But what's even better is having a friend like Ellen, who has a heart a mile wide. With Beth and Dave planning to visit NY at the beginning of December, Nancy hatched a plot to get some Christmas presents delivered to Ellie. She asked Ellen if she'd be willing to pick up some gifts and bring them over to the house if we sent her some money for the gifts. (We're pretty sure she spent more than we sent, but that's how generous she is.) Ellen shopped, wrapped, and delivered the gifts and sent pictures too. It was closer than we ever expected to being there.

Ahh, internet. Now I've got to get off it and back to planning next week's lessons.

Christmas Cookies Photos

End of the Semester

My third year classes ended last week. Now I'm busier than ever! Some of it is end-of-the-semester work, like reading through the students' evaluations of the VTF teachers, but the main part of my workload these days is a special short-term class.

In October, the school asked for a foreign teacher to conduct a 4-week phonetics/pronunciation class in December. It eventually was trimmed down to 3 weeks. The seven students are in their mid-to-late 20's. Three are teachers; two have very good English, five have excellent English (including the one who earned her masters in Phonology in Australia). It's somewhat intimidating teaching students who could probably teach the course themselves. They've been chosen to attend the European Union's interpreter training program in Brussels, Belgium. My job is to help them brush up on their skills before they leave.

We meet 3 hours each morning, five days a week. That means I finish class and head straight home to get my VTF work done and then prep for the next day's class. I've not been able to prep too far in advance yet because I'm trying to tailor the content to their specific needs. That's meant a lot of careful listening this week.

A typical class for the first week:

• Breaking into their Vietnamese conversation about the woes of applying for visas and asking them to switch to English. Once they do, I let them continue for about 15 minutes while I listen and jot down problem words and sounds. Then we work on them. (Anyone got any advice on how to explain how to get the middle /r/ sound in "world" and "word"?)
• Catch Phrase! (Thanks, Jim & Nancy K.!) It helps them work on their vocabulary, synonyms, and think under pressure. They love it. The teachers want to know where they can get one for their classes. (Taboo is next week. Thanks, Bob & Judy!)
• Recording. One of the benefits of a small class is that I've been able to bring my computer and record them as they translate each others presentations. They've been able to listen to themselves and begin to compile their own list of specific problem words.
• The book. We have a book and cassette tapes that cover intonation (from a British point of view). It's not that helpful, but I try to use it a little every day or two because the boss gave it to me.

Today we also did a Jazz Chant. (Not "Pete Eats Meat." This time it was "Banker's Wife's Blues.") They seemed to like it and, weird as it seems, it really does help refine their speaking.

This afternoon has been my time to relax since I don't have any VTF responsibilities and I'm off till Monday. Tomorrow I'll start working on that. It's been a busy week, but I love small classes and I like teaching adults. It's been good.

In an hour, five of them are coming to the house to help Nancy make Christmas cookies. Time to finish getting things ready.

Custas

The Diplomacy Academy of Vietnam's turn to Ring the Golden Bell (a game show for college students) has come and gone for another year.

The format has changed from last year. Gone are the graduation robes, sitting on the floor, and the opposing team. Now students compete to see how far they can get before giving a wrong answer. The winners get a cash prize.

More interesting this year than the game itself was the Custas commercial from the show's sponsor. Custas are a popular snack cake around here. Though the commercial is probably a "you had to see it" kind of thing, I'll try to describe it anyway.

Opening scene: A little girl, about 5-6 years old is fishing in a green plastic bucket.

Next scene: A mom comes home with a bag of groceries that has a box of Custas poking out of the top.

Next scene: The little girl is fishing with her grandfather at a small pond, sitting next to the same green plastic bucket. They are laughing. The grandpa hands her a Custas.

Next scene: Back in the kitchen the mom calls to her daughter, who shouts with excitement when she sees the box. She grabs it and runs off shouting, "Ong oi! Ong oi!" ("Grandpa! Grandpa!")

Final scene: The little girl places the box of cakes on the family altar in front of the picture of her deceased grandpa.

Very touching. Very sad.

(Click here for an explanation of the family altar written by one of Doug Young's students back in 2005.)

Back From Beijing

Last week Nancy and I traveled to China for 3 days of meetings with the China Teaching Fellowship (CTF) team leaders. Nancy and I are the old people among them; the others are all young women in their 20's. Once again, I came away impressed at sense of purpose and depth of spirituality and commitment of these team leaders. You would be too.

I also came away amazed that anyone would want to live in Beijing. It's a sprawling mass of concrete and the air is as bad as they say. The funny thing is that it feels less crowded and less hectic than Hanoi because, even though it contains 5-6 times as many people, it's much more spread out so it's less densely populated.

Of course, I'm not much of a big city person anyway. Hanoi's a struggle for me until I remember a George MacDonald poem I came across years ago.

I said, "Let me walk in the fields."
He said, "No, walk in the town."
I said, "There are no flowers there."
He said, "No flowers, but a crown."