A few days ago, I was having dinner with a student who I’ve come to count as close friend. Amidst this meal, stocked with a queue of cuisine that I no longer consider curious, I asked for what seemed to be a simple and straightforward favor. The request was for a small compilation of various phrases, chosen at his own direct discretion, which would serve as fashionable accessories to the bare halter-top that is my Vietnamese lexicon.
He excitedly agreed and, after several swelling servings of food ingested and words spoken, hurried home to hone his fantasy expression roster. A lot of the heavy hitters that dominate many of the everyday exchanges had already been drafted, but I knew there were still some quality picks resting just below my rudimentary radar. I wasn’t necessarily asking for an Air Bud or an Icebox, but rather, simply something solid, like Gary Busey in Rookie of the Year.
Well the next day I received the list and was taken back a bit by the conversational content. The only phrase translated in entirety was as follows, “At the bottom of my heart I want to say that I love you so much,” a statement quite forward for anything short of a Hallmark card.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite partial to the people that daily peruse the bustling street on which I live. It’s largely a cast of familiar characters and, at least mentally, each time they come into view and offer their own salutational catch phrases, given pronounial distinction by their age and gender, I hear a healthy appropriation of applause. However, in response to these friendly fragments of hellos and goodbyes, I just wouldn’t feel anything close to comfortable offering up this newly learned bit of language. In fact, I suppose there’s only one person I could sincerely say this to, and sadly, he stopped being in charge of my days and my nights, my wrongs and my rights, long ago.
Later that day though, pondering hard at my desk, this bit of translated romance began to make sense, in light of something larger. It was a talkably tangible representation of a tendency evident in many of the students here. It made me realize that I was the one who was a little off. I was the cynical American. All I had was Charles, but they had so much more.
I thought back to a teaching episode that had transpired last semester. It had been a week of much work, which had left me faintly fatigued for the final class of that stretch. Afterwards, some of those in this course asked me if I had lost love. It was their first and most confident suspicion to explain this lack of teacherly tenacity. It was a little awkward, and since then, just to be safe, during those days of densely scheduled duties, I’ve taken to mainlining the most extreme energy drink legally available. That’s right, Commando Bear. And my platelets have never been so ferocious. Seriously, they will clot your freaking face off.
(It really is a drink. I saw a billboard for it on the way to a city named Ninh Binh: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11955465/Commando_Bear_Energy_Drink.html)
On another such occasion, I was with some friends enjoying some ice cream. The weather had not yet turned for the frigid, but we were clearly on the cusp of this change. The conversation went from the weather to the ice cream to a combination of the two. I learned that it was regarded as romantic to eat this snowy snack in cold conditions, a fact I consciously filed in a folder already thick from other such notions. I carefully slid it behind the last entry: the romance attached to glasses on guys via the Fabios from Korean films.
However, this too is a piece of something bigger.
In Vietnam, karaoke seems to be the preferred activity for most nights out. As such, the nationals can belt ballads like nobody’s business. The lists of songs vary greatly from place to place, but there seems to a be a few pieces present in each and every papered procession, likely laminated and usually enclosed inside a thin plastic binder. One of these consistencies, often selected and subsequently sung, is “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson. It’s performed with the utmost sincerity, each lyric a layout for global improvement. However, sitting among a room full of swaying shoulders, each in beat with the rhythm and the message, I always find it difficult to take this song seriously.
All that to say that there’s an idealism here quite unlike anything I’m Americanly accustomed to, and I really do admire it. Back in the states, I wouldn’t have counted myself a cynic, but in this land, at least by comparison, I feel like the Larry David of Chua Lang Street. Tomorrow is a new day though, and perhaps, just maybe, each and every person passed will, to me, become a Baio.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Screw the Looking Glass
One of the most acclaimed accounts displaying the sometimes deep discontinuity between faith and reason is a longwinded dialogue given life in The Brothers Karamazov. In this early existential exchange, Ivan, the thinker, artfully articulates the nihilistic notions that have taken form in his burdened brain, and subsequently pried him from the hope to which his brother Alyosha, the then monk-in-training, clings to so firmly. The main thrust of these unsettling sentiments is carried aboard a story Ivan relates, where, in response to the carefully ordered condemnations counted by the character who voices Ivan’s suspicions, the imprisoned, but clear-conscioused convict, offers only one rebuttal, a kiss. Then, Alyosha, after being rebelliously regaled, offers the same objection in thoughtful mimicry, laying lips on his simmering sibling.
I ponder that scene frequently, and am often dumbfounded by the simple genius of Alyosha’s gentle gesture, expressing, perhaps, what words never could. However, sadly, it seems that, at least in my own experience, when riddled by those around me with questions arguably beyond responses of reason, such an affectionate answer would likely put me in prison. On top of that, I’m not so certain that the intended meaning would translate, at least not amidst all of the harassment charges. And it’s true, I am many miles removed from any Russian monastery, but, all the same, I do daily impart perhaps the most mysterious of all matters, that is, English as a foreign language.
Growing up in this linguistic system, it’s natural for me to accept its notoriously strange nuances with a learned and uncritical assurance. When given the task of teaching these in an academic setting though, it’s not uncommon for me feel like I’m explaining love to some token movie robot like Johnny 5. Only by experience will it truly compute, my steel-plated pal.
For example, from the perspective of my students, I have to think that supplying satisfactory suffixes to each adjective and verb is something akin to Minesweeper on my 1993 Compaq Presario. Will “er” let me live to click another flat grey box? Will “ed” drop me in the middle of a mine field? It’s hard to say, but at least this program did provide the player with those colorful numbers that I always assumed navigated every next step in accordance with some strange strategic protocol.
(Note: If that wasn’t the case, then I’d wager that these countable clues were actually the lump sum of “Dorf” viewings that would have been a better use of the clicker’s time. I mean that game was honest to a fault. In that way, it was the Progressive Auto Insurance of early computational entertainment.)
Furthermore, derivational and inflectional inconsistencies are only the tip of this irrational iceberg.
Speaking itself sparks many of its own subtle irregularities. As my students toggle to and fro between tied together terms like photograph and photographer, the strangeness of stressing certain syllables over others is brought to all of our attentions in a strong way. But at least with a few sloped streaks above the separated segments of the words in question, a bit of our naïve hope for normality is restored, as diagramming awards us an apparent degree of systematic structure. It’s in just such an occasion that I think back thankfully to a tenth grade lesson on iambic pentameter, leaving Shakespeare sandwiched between scholastic matinees of Space Jam and Encino Man.
For the record, these two movies were not mentioned mockingly, because they, perhaps more than any other media mechanism, brought to light many of the difficulties produced by societal differences. Quite simply, whether it was portrayed via the dissonance between ice-age and contemporary cultural or human and cartoon culture, the message rang clear: cultural quirks can be a confusing, sometimes frustrating, commodity for the outsider. I’ve come to know this all to well, and like Michael Jordan and Brendan Frasier before me, I feel that such rigors have been both rewarding and refining. However, this isn’t a one-way process, and as a lecturer of language, I often find myself having to explain the entity that entitles words to their very existence and meaning. What the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was to Marty McFly, so culture is to language.
As one might expect, this can further confound the confusion associated with English acquisition. Take for instance, the following encounter with a student politely exiting the classroom:
“Good afternoon Mr. Will.”
“Actually, you can’t say good-bye like that.”
“But you can say good night to say good-bye, right?”
“Well, yeah, but this is different. Good afternoon is like good morning. It’s a way to say hello.”
“So why are they different?”
I suppose this would have been a perfect moment to employ Alyosha’s answer, but, once again, it’s a little less than legal. So instead I admitted my ignorance and played the culture card, all the while harboring a bit of envy for those teachers of simpler subjects. Topics such as particle physics for instance. I mean Yahoo Serious seemed to make it so accessible in that gem of scientific cinema, “Young Einstein.”
Soon though, in such situations, these voices proclaiming the prizes of other vocations are quieted. Then I, like my homeland and its ardent obsession with that bizarre broadcast branded “Lost,” warmly embrace something I don’t fully understand.
I ponder that scene frequently, and am often dumbfounded by the simple genius of Alyosha’s gentle gesture, expressing, perhaps, what words never could. However, sadly, it seems that, at least in my own experience, when riddled by those around me with questions arguably beyond responses of reason, such an affectionate answer would likely put me in prison. On top of that, I’m not so certain that the intended meaning would translate, at least not amidst all of the harassment charges. And it’s true, I am many miles removed from any Russian monastery, but, all the same, I do daily impart perhaps the most mysterious of all matters, that is, English as a foreign language.
Growing up in this linguistic system, it’s natural for me to accept its notoriously strange nuances with a learned and uncritical assurance. When given the task of teaching these in an academic setting though, it’s not uncommon for me feel like I’m explaining love to some token movie robot like Johnny 5. Only by experience will it truly compute, my steel-plated pal.
For example, from the perspective of my students, I have to think that supplying satisfactory suffixes to each adjective and verb is something akin to Minesweeper on my 1993 Compaq Presario. Will “er” let me live to click another flat grey box? Will “ed” drop me in the middle of a mine field? It’s hard to say, but at least this program did provide the player with those colorful numbers that I always assumed navigated every next step in accordance with some strange strategic protocol.
(Note: If that wasn’t the case, then I’d wager that these countable clues were actually the lump sum of “Dorf” viewings that would have been a better use of the clicker’s time. I mean that game was honest to a fault. In that way, it was the Progressive Auto Insurance of early computational entertainment.)
Furthermore, derivational and inflectional inconsistencies are only the tip of this irrational iceberg.
Speaking itself sparks many of its own subtle irregularities. As my students toggle to and fro between tied together terms like photograph and photographer, the strangeness of stressing certain syllables over others is brought to all of our attentions in a strong way. But at least with a few sloped streaks above the separated segments of the words in question, a bit of our naïve hope for normality is restored, as diagramming awards us an apparent degree of systematic structure. It’s in just such an occasion that I think back thankfully to a tenth grade lesson on iambic pentameter, leaving Shakespeare sandwiched between scholastic matinees of Space Jam and Encino Man.
For the record, these two movies were not mentioned mockingly, because they, perhaps more than any other media mechanism, brought to light many of the difficulties produced by societal differences. Quite simply, whether it was portrayed via the dissonance between ice-age and contemporary cultural or human and cartoon culture, the message rang clear: cultural quirks can be a confusing, sometimes frustrating, commodity for the outsider. I’ve come to know this all to well, and like Michael Jordan and Brendan Frasier before me, I feel that such rigors have been both rewarding and refining. However, this isn’t a one-way process, and as a lecturer of language, I often find myself having to explain the entity that entitles words to their very existence and meaning. What the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was to Marty McFly, so culture is to language.
As one might expect, this can further confound the confusion associated with English acquisition. Take for instance, the following encounter with a student politely exiting the classroom:
“Good afternoon Mr. Will.”
“Actually, you can’t say good-bye like that.”
“But you can say good night to say good-bye, right?”
“Well, yeah, but this is different. Good afternoon is like good morning. It’s a way to say hello.”
“So why are they different?”
I suppose this would have been a perfect moment to employ Alyosha’s answer, but, once again, it’s a little less than legal. So instead I admitted my ignorance and played the culture card, all the while harboring a bit of envy for those teachers of simpler subjects. Topics such as particle physics for instance. I mean Yahoo Serious seemed to make it so accessible in that gem of scientific cinema, “Young Einstein.”
Soon though, in such situations, these voices proclaiming the prizes of other vocations are quieted. Then I, like my homeland and its ardent obsession with that bizarre broadcast branded “Lost,” warmly embrace something I don’t fully understand.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Somewhere Between Central and Celsius
For the past few days, I’ve been layering liberally. Contrary to what many might mentally merit, Hanoi is often quite the cold place during these winter months. However, until earlier this week, I had to rely on my own internally guided gauge to judge just what type of temperature had engulfed the city. That’s not to say that Hanoi is without attempt in correctly quantifying this atmospheric entity, it’s just that the only results reported are read in seemingly make-believe measurements, always suffixed with Celsius. I suspect this unusual unit might be quite useful in measuring the blood pressure of unicorns or the certainty of a space rabies diagnosis, but beyond that, its validity seems questionable at best.
Thankfully though, a friend, who just returned from the States, brought with her a certifiably scientific thermometer that reacquainted all of us with that familiar friend called Fahrenheit. This moment was sweet, being both a technological breakthrough and a glorious reunification of sorts, all rolled into one. It was like coming to consciousness while suddenly conceptualizing the flux capacitor, after a nasty toilet bowel injury, compounded with a Montel Williams induced reunion with your long lost high school sweet heart, who, over the last decade, has grown much more confident and taken to wearing a classy pair of leopard skin hot pants. That is, without the burning bump on your head, or, sadly, some sound spectral relationship advice from Sylvia Browne. But, then again, you can’t have your KFC Famous Bowl, and eat it too.
However, when met with these recognizable readouts, I was a bit surprised. The mercury had settled somewhere between 50 and 55, but I had expected it to set up camp much earlier in its upward journey. So here I was, shivering like Billy Zane on the Titanic, when all along, it was really just a crisp autumn day aboard Thunder in Paradise, that is, with my first mate Terry Hogan. But there is good reason for this mistaken case of meteorological measuring.
(Side note: Why has there never been an action movie staring Paul and Terry “Hulk” Hogan? Like Hogan’s Heroes, it could take place in a good-humored Nazi prison camp. Paul could wear a POW uniform he fashioned into a sexy leather vest and Terry would always be ripping his off. The wardrobe dynamics alone would be sensational. Plus, if I’ve learned anything from Indiana Jones, Nazis are always scouring the earth for mystical relics. As such, the movie essentially writes itself. The Hogans, with the Third Reich hot on their trail, must escape the camp and find the ancient weight set that St. Paul used to bulk up with in the Philippi prison yard. However, there’s a surprise ending. This low-rep artifact is the very same set used at the Nazi prison camp, which is evident after the removal of a counterfeit Bowflex sticker. Needless to say, it takes both high-flying Hogans to solve this mystery.)
Hanoi is a city designed to engage the environmental elements. Most of the homes, shops, and cafes, comprising the cluttered urban culture, are open to the air, allowing residents, employees and patrons to, for better or worse (depending on the season), nuzzle up to Mother Nature. In the fall, this afforded a most comfortable climate in each nook and cranny the city had to offer. But, in the winter, it pits you against an arguably mild, but constant, cold that you can never seem to escape. I suppose it’s something similar to that loveable Jason that those 36 soul searching Friday the 13th films introduced us to. There he was, always waiting for you at each and every bend in the forest, his hockey mask peering down at your shivering body.
Regardless, on either count, such an atmosphere is quite novel compared to the climate-controlled heat and air I’ve known for so long, all prefixed with that delightful disclaimer called central. In turn, my biologically innate ability of temperature telling has suffered greatly. Add to that some fantastical Lewis-Carroll/Al-Roker hybrid of a quantifying unit, and even I can correctly predict the approaching of the perfect storm.
To pull it all together, and to place such things in the greater context, I must admit that much of this misfortune does seem directly connected to that muddled up metric system, which vainly attempts to map that world around us, but in the end, serves only to rob us of the wonderful enjoyment that only a myriad of conversion rates can supply. As for Celsius, in light of such occurrences, evidence appears to overwhelmingly convict it as an aiding accomplice. If you find such accusations far-fetched, let’s call a character witness to the courtroom.
In a scene from an internationally celebrated and respected Russian novel, a certain Ivan Karamazov discusses a series of philosophical quandaries with an unwelcome guest, who, amidst these intellectual meanderings, brags of Russia’s conversion to this very system. Well, I hope you’re sitting down as you read this, because that guest was none other than a hallucination claiming to be Satan. So with that, I’ll leave you with two important inquiries regarding this new-age alchemy.
Are such apparitions with evil aspirations the kind of figures you want to keep company with?
If Russia is so much better for this change, then why does the movie Miracle exist?
………………..
Okay so, our organization is holding a conference coming up in Chiang Mai, Thailand and our team is going to spend some extra days in Cambodia and Bangkok along the way, so the next post will likely be more delayed than usual.
Also, I must confess that my bedroom does in fact have a heater.
Thankfully though, a friend, who just returned from the States, brought with her a certifiably scientific thermometer that reacquainted all of us with that familiar friend called Fahrenheit. This moment was sweet, being both a technological breakthrough and a glorious reunification of sorts, all rolled into one. It was like coming to consciousness while suddenly conceptualizing the flux capacitor, after a nasty toilet bowel injury, compounded with a Montel Williams induced reunion with your long lost high school sweet heart, who, over the last decade, has grown much more confident and taken to wearing a classy pair of leopard skin hot pants. That is, without the burning bump on your head, or, sadly, some sound spectral relationship advice from Sylvia Browne. But, then again, you can’t have your KFC Famous Bowl, and eat it too.
However, when met with these recognizable readouts, I was a bit surprised. The mercury had settled somewhere between 50 and 55, but I had expected it to set up camp much earlier in its upward journey. So here I was, shivering like Billy Zane on the Titanic, when all along, it was really just a crisp autumn day aboard Thunder in Paradise, that is, with my first mate Terry Hogan. But there is good reason for this mistaken case of meteorological measuring.
(Side note: Why has there never been an action movie staring Paul and Terry “Hulk” Hogan? Like Hogan’s Heroes, it could take place in a good-humored Nazi prison camp. Paul could wear a POW uniform he fashioned into a sexy leather vest and Terry would always be ripping his off. The wardrobe dynamics alone would be sensational. Plus, if I’ve learned anything from Indiana Jones, Nazis are always scouring the earth for mystical relics. As such, the movie essentially writes itself. The Hogans, with the Third Reich hot on their trail, must escape the camp and find the ancient weight set that St. Paul used to bulk up with in the Philippi prison yard. However, there’s a surprise ending. This low-rep artifact is the very same set used at the Nazi prison camp, which is evident after the removal of a counterfeit Bowflex sticker. Needless to say, it takes both high-flying Hogans to solve this mystery.)
Hanoi is a city designed to engage the environmental elements. Most of the homes, shops, and cafes, comprising the cluttered urban culture, are open to the air, allowing residents, employees and patrons to, for better or worse (depending on the season), nuzzle up to Mother Nature. In the fall, this afforded a most comfortable climate in each nook and cranny the city had to offer. But, in the winter, it pits you against an arguably mild, but constant, cold that you can never seem to escape. I suppose it’s something similar to that loveable Jason that those 36 soul searching Friday the 13th films introduced us to. There he was, always waiting for you at each and every bend in the forest, his hockey mask peering down at your shivering body.
Regardless, on either count, such an atmosphere is quite novel compared to the climate-controlled heat and air I’ve known for so long, all prefixed with that delightful disclaimer called central. In turn, my biologically innate ability of temperature telling has suffered greatly. Add to that some fantastical Lewis-Carroll/Al-Roker hybrid of a quantifying unit, and even I can correctly predict the approaching of the perfect storm.
To pull it all together, and to place such things in the greater context, I must admit that much of this misfortune does seem directly connected to that muddled up metric system, which vainly attempts to map that world around us, but in the end, serves only to rob us of the wonderful enjoyment that only a myriad of conversion rates can supply. As for Celsius, in light of such occurrences, evidence appears to overwhelmingly convict it as an aiding accomplice. If you find such accusations far-fetched, let’s call a character witness to the courtroom.
In a scene from an internationally celebrated and respected Russian novel, a certain Ivan Karamazov discusses a series of philosophical quandaries with an unwelcome guest, who, amidst these intellectual meanderings, brags of Russia’s conversion to this very system. Well, I hope you’re sitting down as you read this, because that guest was none other than a hallucination claiming to be Satan. So with that, I’ll leave you with two important inquiries regarding this new-age alchemy.
Are such apparitions with evil aspirations the kind of figures you want to keep company with?
If Russia is so much better for this change, then why does the movie Miracle exist?
………………..
Okay so, our organization is holding a conference coming up in Chiang Mai, Thailand and our team is going to spend some extra days in Cambodia and Bangkok along the way, so the next post will likely be more delayed than usual.
Also, I must confess that my bedroom does in fact have a heater.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
It's a hard knock life
“All fights. All the Time.”
It was strange hearing that phrase again, in all of its ferocious familiarity. Many years ago, and many times over, this call for continual combat, that trumped all else in my Lisa Frank day planner, leaving room only for a never ending fury of fists, propelled itself from my foaming jaws. I was in with a pretty tough crowd then. We went by The Murderguns and that declaration was our slogan. We were originally going to rally under “Where’s the Beef?” but, unfortunately, Dave Thomas beat us to the punch (and that was just the kind of violent idiom we would use to describe a whole variety of otherwise peaceful situations). So, while he sunk deeper and deeper into the lowlife world of chicken nugget larceny, we focused on our own vicious vices.
Like those valiant knights of old, wrapped tightly in their metal mail, we, for our own protective purposes, suited up each day in a snazzy mesh ensemble. We looked great, and, of course, the majority of our terrible (yet terrific) torsos were visible in the right light, but that was just the commission. The weekly salary was the frictionless fighting that this wardrobe daily awarded. As for economic analogies like these, they were our bread and butter. It’s how we talked. But still, Jay-Z said it best, “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.”
This time though, I was nowhere near the old gang when I heard that anthem ring. Rather, I was seated in a Vietnamese living room, itself situated in the modest city of Vinh. A good friend in Hanoi had graciously invited me to travel with him to this quaint hometown of his. It afforded me a unique opportunity to spend some very telling time in the homes of his aunts and uncles, people who live in a very different place than the ever-bustling capital city I inhabit. As always in Vietnam, I was floored by the warmth and courtesy that was lavished so freely, and everything possible was performed to make both of us feel as comfortable as we could.
However, this place was dealt quite a bit of damage back in a certain war, a fact that, prior to my traveling, had supplied a good amount of anxiety. I was to be the first western guest they had hosted, a role that I feared might be resented. In reality though, as is mentioned above, such notions came to nothing, even with older residents who I suspected had been personally, and directly, affected by my country’s campaign those decades back. With all of that in mind, I couldn’t help marveling at that propensity to forget the past and look lovingly ahead to present matters. At least that’s what seemed to account for this moving reception.
Those five nostalgic words had shaken me though, and my take on the situation was becoming ever less certain. The source of this uncertainty, and thus the phrase itself, was a television tuned to a special American channel, which I assumed was available only to international audiences. I gathered that this aggressive expression was the slogan of the station, titled something along the lines of Fight TV, and that it permeated each and every commercial break. In this specific instance it was preceding, and presumably introducing, a Saturday morning installment of WWE professional wrestling.
In response, an alternative explanation for everything began forming in my head. It started as a seed, but, as I watched hordes of intensely muscular, speedo laden, wild eyes warriors tear into each other, amidst the screaming approval of 20,000 bystanders, it grew into a redwood.
Maybe they were terrified of me. Maybe they had been careful not upset me in the slightest way, as the suspected consequences for such an action would be something strikingly similar to the scenes that filled this television screen. Perhaps.
But I couldn’t be sure. As such, just to be safe, I right away took to ripping off my cloth constraints, that is, my jeans and t-shirt. To my surprise, I found a sporty spandex number, clad with neon-shredded tassels, underneath. Then, to further seal the deal, I followed every handshake with a suplex, because you can never be too careful.
..................
Here's a link to some photos I posted on facebook:
http://purdue.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2309760&l=aea32&id=13715197
It was strange hearing that phrase again, in all of its ferocious familiarity. Many years ago, and many times over, this call for continual combat, that trumped all else in my Lisa Frank day planner, leaving room only for a never ending fury of fists, propelled itself from my foaming jaws. I was in with a pretty tough crowd then. We went by The Murderguns and that declaration was our slogan. We were originally going to rally under “Where’s the Beef?” but, unfortunately, Dave Thomas beat us to the punch (and that was just the kind of violent idiom we would use to describe a whole variety of otherwise peaceful situations). So, while he sunk deeper and deeper into the lowlife world of chicken nugget larceny, we focused on our own vicious vices.
Like those valiant knights of old, wrapped tightly in their metal mail, we, for our own protective purposes, suited up each day in a snazzy mesh ensemble. We looked great, and, of course, the majority of our terrible (yet terrific) torsos were visible in the right light, but that was just the commission. The weekly salary was the frictionless fighting that this wardrobe daily awarded. As for economic analogies like these, they were our bread and butter. It’s how we talked. But still, Jay-Z said it best, “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.”
This time though, I was nowhere near the old gang when I heard that anthem ring. Rather, I was seated in a Vietnamese living room, itself situated in the modest city of Vinh. A good friend in Hanoi had graciously invited me to travel with him to this quaint hometown of his. It afforded me a unique opportunity to spend some very telling time in the homes of his aunts and uncles, people who live in a very different place than the ever-bustling capital city I inhabit. As always in Vietnam, I was floored by the warmth and courtesy that was lavished so freely, and everything possible was performed to make both of us feel as comfortable as we could.
However, this place was dealt quite a bit of damage back in a certain war, a fact that, prior to my traveling, had supplied a good amount of anxiety. I was to be the first western guest they had hosted, a role that I feared might be resented. In reality though, as is mentioned above, such notions came to nothing, even with older residents who I suspected had been personally, and directly, affected by my country’s campaign those decades back. With all of that in mind, I couldn’t help marveling at that propensity to forget the past and look lovingly ahead to present matters. At least that’s what seemed to account for this moving reception.
Those five nostalgic words had shaken me though, and my take on the situation was becoming ever less certain. The source of this uncertainty, and thus the phrase itself, was a television tuned to a special American channel, which I assumed was available only to international audiences. I gathered that this aggressive expression was the slogan of the station, titled something along the lines of Fight TV, and that it permeated each and every commercial break. In this specific instance it was preceding, and presumably introducing, a Saturday morning installment of WWE professional wrestling.
In response, an alternative explanation for everything began forming in my head. It started as a seed, but, as I watched hordes of intensely muscular, speedo laden, wild eyes warriors tear into each other, amidst the screaming approval of 20,000 bystanders, it grew into a redwood.
Maybe they were terrified of me. Maybe they had been careful not upset me in the slightest way, as the suspected consequences for such an action would be something strikingly similar to the scenes that filled this television screen. Perhaps.
But I couldn’t be sure. As such, just to be safe, I right away took to ripping off my cloth constraints, that is, my jeans and t-shirt. To my surprise, I found a sporty spandex number, clad with neon-shredded tassels, underneath. Then, to further seal the deal, I followed every handshake with a suplex, because you can never be too careful.
..................
Here's a link to some photos I posted on facebook:
http://purdue.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2309760&l=aea32&id=13715197
Friday, December 28, 2007
Christmas Overseas. Not quite Sandals, Jamaica. But close.
One might think that a country lending itself neither to plumpness nor facial hair would very likely be lacking any apparent affection for that swollen saint named Nicholas. However, Santa is alive and well on the snow-free, but still festive, streets of Hanoi, perhaps thriving like never before as his gutty girth has been whittled down to a slimmer, healthier stature, that is in all but his plush personas. He can be seen zipping to and fro atop his suggestively merry motorbike dropping off Christmas cargo throughout the city. One can only guess what’s inhabiting these precious packages, but chances are it ends with the suffix “emon.”
I had the pristine privilege of riding next to one these decorated delivery boys last Monday, on my 3 speed super cycle that would make any eight year old quake with envy. As most of my general knowledge comes from movie trilogies staring Tim Allen, I was fully aware of the awe-inspiring opportunity that was trailing alongside me. All I had to do was cause him some fatal accident and swipe his business card, a series of actions that would allow me to usurp his yuletide notoriety. However, as soon as this rabid realization began its sweet repose in my mind, I was soon flooded with a wave of sweet recollections of everyone’s favorite wonderboy, JTT. And before I could again raise my head above the water from that rushing river, swiftly flowing down from all things Allen, my ticket to that jolliest of jobs had since left me far behind, pedaling aimlessly.
Well, despite the failure of this seasonally sadistic exploit, I, like my fellow American teachers, was in fact able to spread some Christmas cheer by hosting a few holiday blowouts here at the guesthouse. Beforehand, to prepare, I watched all four House Party films, taking meticulous notes on how to have a truly enjoyable celebration at one’s place of residence. Unfortunately though, contrary to commonly held conceptions, there isn’t much of a thriving hip-hop scene here in Hot-Noi. However, with our powers combined, five ordinary English teachers were able to supply a series of parties that would rival any Gatsby get-together.
The site of these Super Sweet 2000’s was our rooftop, overlooking the busy street of Chua Long. Enough blinking lights were strung throughout this sky scraping structure to give Pottersville a run for its money, sans all those sketchy jitterbug dance joints. However, we did clear off some space for the Charleston, just in case any attendants were afflicted with such aspirations. Then, to further enhance the future festivities, snacks were baked, a process that is nearly nonexistent in Nam. Since you can’t fry or boil a cookie, these morsels were placed in our tiny toaster oven one small, but brimming, batch at a time.
When the students arrived to partake of the party pleasures, they seemed consistently surprised by the amply festive ambience of the place. As some type of gift seems to be the customary commodity for guests, in the individual or collective sense, the refreshment tables filled quickly with local edibles that accentuated the atmosphere. The most popular of these were bulging bags of crustacean flavored crunchies. I’m pretty sure that if you deep fried air, and then smeared it with a healthy helping of prawn residue, you’d have the culinary equivalent of these oceanic delights. But honestly, despite everything about them, they are tasty.
The activities, mostly themed in accordance with the holiday at hand, ranged from Christmas carols to the telling of the Christmas story to simply hanging out. I can’t overemphasize the celebrated slot that singing occupies in Vietnamese culture. As such, most people here have quite impressive pipes. In regards to the party, this ingrained affection rewarded the songs with the favored place on each night’s roster. However, in addition to these varied vehicles of Christmas spirit, some important misconceptions were also mended. That is to say that it’s not the baby Jesus baby who plunges down chimneys and that popular seasonal salutation isn’t “Very Christmas,” but you are close.
I had the pristine privilege of riding next to one these decorated delivery boys last Monday, on my 3 speed super cycle that would make any eight year old quake with envy. As most of my general knowledge comes from movie trilogies staring Tim Allen, I was fully aware of the awe-inspiring opportunity that was trailing alongside me. All I had to do was cause him some fatal accident and swipe his business card, a series of actions that would allow me to usurp his yuletide notoriety. However, as soon as this rabid realization began its sweet repose in my mind, I was soon flooded with a wave of sweet recollections of everyone’s favorite wonderboy, JTT. And before I could again raise my head above the water from that rushing river, swiftly flowing down from all things Allen, my ticket to that jolliest of jobs had since left me far behind, pedaling aimlessly.
Well, despite the failure of this seasonally sadistic exploit, I, like my fellow American teachers, was in fact able to spread some Christmas cheer by hosting a few holiday blowouts here at the guesthouse. Beforehand, to prepare, I watched all four House Party films, taking meticulous notes on how to have a truly enjoyable celebration at one’s place of residence. Unfortunately though, contrary to commonly held conceptions, there isn’t much of a thriving hip-hop scene here in Hot-Noi. However, with our powers combined, five ordinary English teachers were able to supply a series of parties that would rival any Gatsby get-together.
The site of these Super Sweet 2000’s was our rooftop, overlooking the busy street of Chua Long. Enough blinking lights were strung throughout this sky scraping structure to give Pottersville a run for its money, sans all those sketchy jitterbug dance joints. However, we did clear off some space for the Charleston, just in case any attendants were afflicted with such aspirations. Then, to further enhance the future festivities, snacks were baked, a process that is nearly nonexistent in Nam. Since you can’t fry or boil a cookie, these morsels were placed in our tiny toaster oven one small, but brimming, batch at a time.
When the students arrived to partake of the party pleasures, they seemed consistently surprised by the amply festive ambience of the place. As some type of gift seems to be the customary commodity for guests, in the individual or collective sense, the refreshment tables filled quickly with local edibles that accentuated the atmosphere. The most popular of these were bulging bags of crustacean flavored crunchies. I’m pretty sure that if you deep fried air, and then smeared it with a healthy helping of prawn residue, you’d have the culinary equivalent of these oceanic delights. But honestly, despite everything about them, they are tasty.
The activities, mostly themed in accordance with the holiday at hand, ranged from Christmas carols to the telling of the Christmas story to simply hanging out. I can’t overemphasize the celebrated slot that singing occupies in Vietnamese culture. As such, most people here have quite impressive pipes. In regards to the party, this ingrained affection rewarded the songs with the favored place on each night’s roster. However, in addition to these varied vehicles of Christmas spirit, some important misconceptions were also mended. That is to say that it’s not the baby Jesus baby who plunges down chimneys and that popular seasonal salutation isn’t “Very Christmas,” but you are close.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
You taught me language; and my profit on't is, I know how to buy Oreos from across the street"
During my junior year of high school, each day, I was able to attend a freeing forty-minute fast from the mundane matters cluttering the life of your token 16 year old.
What will Carson Daly ever do after TRL? Doesn’t matter.
What’s the Morgan-Freeman-like (and thus wiser) choice, truth or dare? Doesn’t matter.
Would “Battlefield Earth” be a good theme for prom? Absolutely, but still, for the time being, it doesn’t matter.
This adolescent oasis, amidst a just-post-pubescent desert, was Spanish class.
Upon my maiden voyage into this port of strange new words, I was allowed to choose a new name, and with it came a new identity. I was, for that short daily docking, Julio, and, as such, all those cares bound with that old vessel were scraped off like barnacles. In this harbor, I became the perfect mix of Enrique Iglesias and Optimus Prime.
Almost immediately this portable persona was privy to a vast vocabulary of fairly foreign terms. That is when I realized the greatest tool of Spanish lexical liberation: the suffix “o”. Suddenly, car became carro. August became agosto. I felt like Snoop Dogg or Ned Flanders, with my very own “izzle” and “ino”. It was if Julio had uncovered the Rosetta Stone deep within the dunes of dandruff and bleach that capped the landscape of my gel encrusted cranium.
However, here in Asia, as I struggle to grasp Vietnamese, these Miracle Worker type moments are solely a thing of the past. I have since forfeited the know-how of that seductive Hispanic Autobot, and, in its stead, have taken on the role of an American Caliban. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I hobble out of my dark dormitory dwelling and learn at the feet of my own personal, and very patient, Prospero, who asks only the penance of a small cup of tea which has been gathered from my fourth floor island. That is to say that one of my students from the institute has been kind of enough to tutor me twice weekly in this new tongue.
Not surprisingly, Vietnamese is pretty far removed from English. If you charted them on one of those family pedigrees they would have roughly the same relation as Ted and Tina Turner. As such, the acquisition of this language is quite the complicated process and its sounds and structures must sometimes sit for a while, neatly stacked on some mental shelf, before they ferment into expressible fluid phrases. However, when they do, and the person across from you, receiving a spurt of decreasingly awkward auditory input, understands the sentiment of your statement, it’s a great feeling. It might not be Helen Keller at the water pump, but it’s close.
Perhaps, from a native English speaking perspective, the most difficult source of dissonance encountered when deciphering Vietnamese, is the set of tones that distinguish each and every word. The language is comprised of short words, all measuring about one syllable in length, but each of these is assigned one of six tonal identities: a level pitch, a rising pitch, a lowering pitch, a lowering pitch followed by a rising pitch, a quick breathless stop, and one that seems to stretch the word into two broken syllables over a down and up pitch procession. For example, if you say “cho” with a level pitch, it’s an infinitive/verb meaning “to give.” However, if your voice rises, it becomes “dog”. When observing communication, this choral characteristic is a wonderful thing, as each exchange sounds rather songish. It almost makes you anticipate snapping and knife fights around each corner. On the other hand, when you’re given the mic, it’s easy to feel like Bob Dylan preparing to perform “Chorus of the Bells.”
Still, the country of Vietnam has to be the best classroom for Vietnamese. That is unless Muzzy decides to start distributing language learning laser discs of this nation’s mother tongue. Until then though, this is the place to be. But, believe it or not, when you’re an English teacher living a few mere meters from the university grounds, most of your conversational companions tend to push for exchanges that will provide them with English experience. However, whenever I’m craving an unhealthy and prefabricated American commodity, I can always wade through the steady current of motorbike traffic to the open air vendor across the street from the guesthouse, and there, I have the privilege of practicing 15 different ways to ask for a Coca-Cola.
What will Carson Daly ever do after TRL? Doesn’t matter.
What’s the Morgan-Freeman-like (and thus wiser) choice, truth or dare? Doesn’t matter.
Would “Battlefield Earth” be a good theme for prom? Absolutely, but still, for the time being, it doesn’t matter.
This adolescent oasis, amidst a just-post-pubescent desert, was Spanish class.
Upon my maiden voyage into this port of strange new words, I was allowed to choose a new name, and with it came a new identity. I was, for that short daily docking, Julio, and, as such, all those cares bound with that old vessel were scraped off like barnacles. In this harbor, I became the perfect mix of Enrique Iglesias and Optimus Prime.
Almost immediately this portable persona was privy to a vast vocabulary of fairly foreign terms. That is when I realized the greatest tool of Spanish lexical liberation: the suffix “o”. Suddenly, car became carro. August became agosto. I felt like Snoop Dogg or Ned Flanders, with my very own “izzle” and “ino”. It was if Julio had uncovered the Rosetta Stone deep within the dunes of dandruff and bleach that capped the landscape of my gel encrusted cranium.
However, here in Asia, as I struggle to grasp Vietnamese, these Miracle Worker type moments are solely a thing of the past. I have since forfeited the know-how of that seductive Hispanic Autobot, and, in its stead, have taken on the role of an American Caliban. Every Tuesday and Thursday, I hobble out of my dark dormitory dwelling and learn at the feet of my own personal, and very patient, Prospero, who asks only the penance of a small cup of tea which has been gathered from my fourth floor island. That is to say that one of my students from the institute has been kind of enough to tutor me twice weekly in this new tongue.
Not surprisingly, Vietnamese is pretty far removed from English. If you charted them on one of those family pedigrees they would have roughly the same relation as Ted and Tina Turner. As such, the acquisition of this language is quite the complicated process and its sounds and structures must sometimes sit for a while, neatly stacked on some mental shelf, before they ferment into expressible fluid phrases. However, when they do, and the person across from you, receiving a spurt of decreasingly awkward auditory input, understands the sentiment of your statement, it’s a great feeling. It might not be Helen Keller at the water pump, but it’s close.
Perhaps, from a native English speaking perspective, the most difficult source of dissonance encountered when deciphering Vietnamese, is the set of tones that distinguish each and every word. The language is comprised of short words, all measuring about one syllable in length, but each of these is assigned one of six tonal identities: a level pitch, a rising pitch, a lowering pitch, a lowering pitch followed by a rising pitch, a quick breathless stop, and one that seems to stretch the word into two broken syllables over a down and up pitch procession. For example, if you say “cho” with a level pitch, it’s an infinitive/verb meaning “to give.” However, if your voice rises, it becomes “dog”. When observing communication, this choral characteristic is a wonderful thing, as each exchange sounds rather songish. It almost makes you anticipate snapping and knife fights around each corner. On the other hand, when you’re given the mic, it’s easy to feel like Bob Dylan preparing to perform “Chorus of the Bells.”
Still, the country of Vietnam has to be the best classroom for Vietnamese. That is unless Muzzy decides to start distributing language learning laser discs of this nation’s mother tongue. Until then though, this is the place to be. But, believe it or not, when you’re an English teacher living a few mere meters from the university grounds, most of your conversational companions tend to push for exchanges that will provide them with English experience. However, whenever I’m craving an unhealthy and prefabricated American commodity, I can always wade through the steady current of motorbike traffic to the open air vendor across the street from the guesthouse, and there, I have the privilege of practicing 15 different ways to ask for a Coca-Cola.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
All anyone's listening for are the mistakes.
“You both look very great.”
This was the congratulatory commendation that slowly freed itself from my over-enunciating lips with a much too rigid rhythm. It was addressed to the young couple currently commencing their matrimony in the large and ardently adorned banquet hall. Their attire was surprisingly Western. One was draped in a flowing white wedding dress and the other in a stylish black tuxedo. They could easily have been extras in “Baby Geniuses 3: All Grown Up and Intelligently Getting Married To Each Other in Standard American Wedding Garb.” That is when Hollywood wises up and actually decides to make this surefire blockbuster.
(Confession: I originally had that as Baby Geniuses 2, but when I checked my sources, I found that a sequel had already been made. So instead, I offer up this suggestion as the long awaited finale of, quite possibly, the most import cinema trilogy ever created.)
“You both look very great.”
I’m not really sure why these five words seemed like good choices to string together into some short expression of meaning, but I am fairly positive that this awkward acknowledgement was a strong strategy in drawing even more curiosity to the lone whitey at the wedding. It was as if George Lucas took a break from writing unnatural sci-fi romances to airmail me a line of stiff comic book banter.
Still, I have a defense.
Being in a country that displays differing proficiencies of your native tongue, you never quite know how any one English comment will be received by your listening audience. As such, I usually tend to err on the side of the rudimentary. In the best instances, it facilitates friendly conversation. In the worst, it can be construed as condescending. In the mildly unfortunate, it takes the above form, showcasing a less than vivacious vernacular that barely rivals that of Jodi Foster wandering the woods as Nell. However, a charming Liam Neeson, tirelessly dedicating himself to some small verbal victory, is nowhere to be found. Instead, all I have is a large man sporting a greasy ponytail and a pair of big-and-tall potato sack pajamas. He goes by the name by the Qui-Gon Jinn and has to call his mom every three hours or so.
Given this broad constituency and the inevitable brevity of this celebratory exchange, perhaps the safest statement would have been something from my small, but always growing, Vietnamese vocabulary. However, I was invited, along with an entire class of international relations majors, to this festive affair by one of my students, who was the younger sister of the groom. In turn, as a response to that irrationally insecure need to valiantly validate myself amidst unfamiliar situations, I felt additional pressure to qualify my position as an English teacher. In the end though, I cracked and all I managed to do was reserve a seat with R.L Stine at the kids’ table. But with such intentions, it serves me right.
I later found out that both members of this newly formed union had quite impressive English abilities. The bride in particular had just returned from a two-year stint at a university in New York, bringing back with her a newly awarded masters degree. In light of such accomplishments, maybe I could have stepped up the word choice a bit, shedding my Boo-Radley-like swagger. Maybe I could have used an adverb, or even a compound sentence.
This was the congratulatory commendation that slowly freed itself from my over-enunciating lips with a much too rigid rhythm. It was addressed to the young couple currently commencing their matrimony in the large and ardently adorned banquet hall. Their attire was surprisingly Western. One was draped in a flowing white wedding dress and the other in a stylish black tuxedo. They could easily have been extras in “Baby Geniuses 3: All Grown Up and Intelligently Getting Married To Each Other in Standard American Wedding Garb.” That is when Hollywood wises up and actually decides to make this surefire blockbuster.
(Confession: I originally had that as Baby Geniuses 2, but when I checked my sources, I found that a sequel had already been made. So instead, I offer up this suggestion as the long awaited finale of, quite possibly, the most import cinema trilogy ever created.)
“You both look very great.”
I’m not really sure why these five words seemed like good choices to string together into some short expression of meaning, but I am fairly positive that this awkward acknowledgement was a strong strategy in drawing even more curiosity to the lone whitey at the wedding. It was as if George Lucas took a break from writing unnatural sci-fi romances to airmail me a line of stiff comic book banter.
Still, I have a defense.
Being in a country that displays differing proficiencies of your native tongue, you never quite know how any one English comment will be received by your listening audience. As such, I usually tend to err on the side of the rudimentary. In the best instances, it facilitates friendly conversation. In the worst, it can be construed as condescending. In the mildly unfortunate, it takes the above form, showcasing a less than vivacious vernacular that barely rivals that of Jodi Foster wandering the woods as Nell. However, a charming Liam Neeson, tirelessly dedicating himself to some small verbal victory, is nowhere to be found. Instead, all I have is a large man sporting a greasy ponytail and a pair of big-and-tall potato sack pajamas. He goes by the name by the Qui-Gon Jinn and has to call his mom every three hours or so.
Given this broad constituency and the inevitable brevity of this celebratory exchange, perhaps the safest statement would have been something from my small, but always growing, Vietnamese vocabulary. However, I was invited, along with an entire class of international relations majors, to this festive affair by one of my students, who was the younger sister of the groom. In turn, as a response to that irrationally insecure need to valiantly validate myself amidst unfamiliar situations, I felt additional pressure to qualify my position as an English teacher. In the end though, I cracked and all I managed to do was reserve a seat with R.L Stine at the kids’ table. But with such intentions, it serves me right.
I later found out that both members of this newly formed union had quite impressive English abilities. The bride in particular had just returned from a two-year stint at a university in New York, bringing back with her a newly awarded masters degree. In light of such accomplishments, maybe I could have stepped up the word choice a bit, shedding my Boo-Radley-like swagger. Maybe I could have used an adverb, or even a compound sentence.
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