Wearing the Hello Kitty Backpack with pride

Today was my first official day of work. I taught 5 35-minute english classes to students ranging from grades 1-4. All I have to say is, CELTA never prepared me to teach large groups of children. Focused on teaching english to adults, we had only one 1-hour session devoted to teaching kids in general, and basically no time at all on discipline. Now, maybe this is a mass over-generalization, but I always figured controlling a class full of adorable little Asian children would be far easier than a group of their American peers. I don't have any experience teaching American kids so comparison isn't possible, but it was far from easy for me to keep my students in line. We are technically supposed to have TAs for each partnership class (their actual teachers), but for some reason I had not one single teacher present, leaving it up to me to discipline 25 kids at a time, none of whom speak english. I'm probably making it sound way worse than it actually was; a lot of the kids were super sweet and really excited to play the games and participate. About half of them were either totally uninterested, or just spent the whole time talking and/or fighting with each other. I feel like karma has really come back to bite me in the ass.

On a different note, I had some very interesting conversations today that made me think about my identity as a westerner. I am fully aware of how cliche this sounds, but I have never really identified with my socialization as both an American and a westerner until recently. I have always seen myself as more of an individual, or 'outsider' if we want to tap into that deeply buried and embarrassing teen angst that still lives on in most of us on some level. Especially with living in Australia at the delicious age of 13, when I really got an outsider's look at America, and have never really saw myself as completely a part of the American collective since. Of course, all of my long-term travel experiences have been western until now. And, in an appropriately ironic way, this feeling of alienation and 'difference' is a part of one of the most western concepts: individualism.

As much as I love the idea of really digging into Vietnamese culture head first, I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that no matter how I try, I will always value my privacy and 'me time' too much to really become a part of the Vietnamese fabric. Take my living situation. I rent a room in the house of an old Vietnamese woman who speaks no english at all. You really can't beat the price, especially considering I live in the downtown area of a big city. That does not make up for the fact that in addition to dealing with living in someone else's house (waking people up when I come home late, having to take off my shoes before I enter the house, etc), I am basically living with a nosy grandmother, only this one doesn't speak the same language. In her defense, she is very sweet, and housekeeping comes with the deal (for any people who have ever lived with me, you know how amazing that really is). However, she knocks on the door at all hours to have long mime-based conversations, if she knocks at all. I also share my bathroom with another person, so it's not unlike a dorm in that sense. My point here is not to write several paragraphs bitching about my living situation, but to illustrate the differences in personal space.

There are really some beautiful things to the idea of living as a collective; eating is seen as a group activity, and everything is served family style. I have eaten many a VN home-cooked meal, thanks to my good friend Chinh and all of his delightful friends. This eating style is based on the enjoyment of good food with good company, and fosters a wonderful sense of sharing, something we are not always good at. I know I usually feel entitled to my own milkshake. My neighborhood is such a collective; every day you see the same people sitting outside together, chatting and/or eating. Though I get stares literally everywhere I go (kind of stand out here...), after a while they recognized me and now just greet me like anyone else. It's a really nice feeling.

Francesca and I have had some previous conversations about the cynicism inherent in our respective cultures; in my experience, it's kind of lame to be happy and non-judgmental growing up in America. With so many people dealing with depression, feeling like outsiders, or just acknowledging the despicable underbelly of our culture, that is a totally logical way of thinking. I also think it has a lot to do with our sense of individualism versus collective thinking. In all honesty, it's rather refreshing to see teens proudly sporting Hello Kitty and Disney labels here, completely free of irony. In fact, I don't think irony is a huge thing here in general. Obviously, once you get to know people on a deeper level I don't actually think they are more innocent or anything (though I do love being patronizing), but people here are free to embrace things we would denote as childish or lame, and not worry about never again being taken seriously by their friends and peers.

I say all this with an insane interest in how these things will change over the next decade or so. With the frenzy of capitalism and influx of western culture, I wonder how long such things will last. With capitalism comes an abundance of product, comes high demand for material wealth, comes a larger sense of possession, etc. I haven't had time to fully flesh out my feelings or complete thoughts on the topic, but it has definitely given me a good deal to contemplate. And we all know how important random brooding is to my sense of self.

Other interesting tidbits:
-I have now met 5 other people working here from Michigan. I can't even count the number of midwesterners I've met here. This is clearly an choice escape destination for all of us sick of cold weather, gray skys, and an economy in the toilet.
-I have a meeting with the director of the Children's Cancer center to hopefully get involved in volunteering/fundraising. It's a super interesting situation, since the after effects of Agent Orange have created a huge number of pediatric cancer cases, yet since it's hard to actually pinpoint the cause of one specific person's cancer, these cases are largely ignored. Agent Orange: America's gift to Vietnam that just keeps giving.
-My basic cable package includes HBO. I'm tickled pink.
-Attempting to find a side job singing in a club or bar. hopefully that will pan out, seeing as I'm currently only working part time as a teacher.