Revelations

Since arriving, I've been trying to figure out why the teachers here seem so much more dedicated to teaching - spending countless hours planning lessons that will not just meet but exceed the requirements of the job - than any I have worked with before.  I wondered if it was a cultural difference between the UK and America, the Draconian nature of management at the university here, the fact that many of these teachers are newly certified, or some combination of these.  But I think the real answer hit me tonight: it involves the difference between public school and private language school.  In America, a public school teacher has to be a hero - someone who is willing to devote their lives to students even if there is little reward in it.  ESL teachers, on the other hand, are paid very well (at least at UCLA) to do a much easier job, and therefore the job ends up being a way to pay the bills for people who don't consider teaching to be their real career.  In the UK, it's the opposite: ESL teachers are paid very little compared to public school teachers, so they tend to be the types who are doing it for the adventure and the satisfaction they get from teaching.  So the crowd that I'm surrounded with here is akin to American public school teachers, who I admire a great deal (though don't envy at all.)  As inspiring as they are, this group of teachers is also a bit daunting, as I feel like I really have to step up my game.  But that's why I came here, to work hard and push myself to advance professionally.  I look forward to attending some of the teaching workshops offered at the university next week.  I am admittedly dreading the following week when my teaching load suddenly goes from 6 hours/week to 21 hours, entailing 5 different levels of English and textbooks I've never used before. The stress will be temporary, though, as we will be offloading some of these classes to new teachers who are coming on board in the next couple months.

Another revelation I had is about the power of Communism.  I spent a pretty amazing Sunday confronting both my fear of riding a motorbike and my fear of small spaces.  A group of 10 of us visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, a tourist attraction about an hour west of our city and whose name fortunately only makes the Americans snicker.  Instead of taking the 15 mph hour bus which takes forever, we took motorbikes, since most of the teachers rent or own one (not me, never).  I borrowed a helmet and accepted a ride with a young Brit named Sam - I told him I was slightly terrified and he promised to drive safely, which he did (unlike a certain teacher who drove me, Molly, and Greg around Morocco and nearly killed us.)  Though I was gripping the seat handles for dear life (my wrists and knees were aching after an hour), I quite enjoyed the ride - the breeze was a great way to escape the heat, and it was nice to leave the navigating and truck-dodging in someone else's hands.  I was quite aware of the risk in the high-traffic areas - in 3 weeks, I've already seen 2 bikes get hit by cars - but the fact that we barely went more than 35 mph put my mind at ease.  It was especially pleasant when we got into the less urban areas, onto smaller roads lined with shops, palm trees, other jungle-like vegetation, and occasional farms.  One thing that occurred to me as I watched the Vietnamese landscape roll by is that a defining feature of the developing world is life without the fourth wall: people live and work in structures that are open to the street.  You don't go through a door to enter a store.  People lounge in front of their living room TV, a few feet from the sidewalk.  There is no barrier between public and private life, both physically and metaphorically.  Here life happens in the community, whereas in America life happens in the confines of your home. Yet paradoxically, we respect our public spaces and make a mess of our bedrooms, and here they litter everywhere but keep their homes pretty tidy (at least it appears that way from the street).  Maybe that's not a paradox - the place where you spend the most time is going to be the most disorderly.  I wish I had photos to show of the roadside bars featuring arrays of hammocks, and the sun setting over the rice paddies, but on this outing, I was not yet brave enough to whip out my camera while speeding along at 35 mph.  Maybe next time.

Back to the main revelation.  The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of underground tunnels that were used by the Viet Cong as a hiding place and base of operations during the war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_tunnels
Our tour started with a film that depicted happy Vietnamese soldiers setting traps for the nasty Americans while bizarrely upbeat music played over the narration…oooooh, I had forgotten that the guys who won this war are still running the country, so of course any information you get about the war is going to put it in a very positive light.  ("Propaganda" is the usual term, though I think any information we receive about anything could qualify as propaganda.) Not once during the tour did they mention the horrors of living underground in a space that is about as big as a coffin.  But they didn't need to, because we got to experience that first hand as we crawled through a tunnel (widened and lit for tourists) for about 180 seconds, and that was about all that I could bear.  I didn't think of myself as claustrophobic until I saw the opening that we were about to enter and seriously doubted whether I could do it.  But I had bravely come all that way on the back of a motorbike so this was no time to wimp out.  I got through the oppressively hot tunnel and managed to avoid a panic attack.  When I popped out, I was sweatier than I've ever been, my quadriceps burned from the crouching (and remained sore for the next 2 days), and I couldn't help but wonder why anyone forced to live in those conditions for more than an hour wouldn't just pop out and gladly take an enemy's bullet. Death seemed like such an easy choice in that situation.  So what gave them such an extraordinary power of will?  Well, I guess many wars have been fought in the name of religion, and in this case, the religion was Communism.  The tunnels and all the cruel traps that the Viet Cong ingeniously engineered made me think of Orwell's harrowing 1984, which I read for the first time this year, and also of all the Chinese students I've taught for whom "happiness" is an unfamiliar concept.  I guess the common thread here is the idea that life = pain, and anything else is self-indulgent and wrong.  The irony is that in Vietnam at least, Communism has proven much less compelling  during times of peace, and as a result, I work in a 22-story glass office building with a  KFC in the food court.
Here are photos from the Cu Chi Tunnels

Unrelated but newsworthy items:

• I vacated my lovely huge hotel room for a much smaller one on the floor below.  This will save me about $200/month so it was the sensible thing to do, though I do miss my big bathroom, cockroaches and all.  The new room is actually quite nice though so it's been less traumatic than I anticipated.
• I got a clean bill of health from the French hospital in Saigon.  The packet of results they sent was extremely thorough and included an ECG graph, urinalysis, blood analysis, and a chest x-ray.  This all cost me $80 which was reimbursed by my school.  I can only imagine what this type of exam would cost me in the states. 

More photos here of Cake and Party