Closer To It

   Happy Thanksgiving!   I am thankful for understanding family and friends who do not get fed up when they have to wait so long for a blog entry. I know, I know.  Four months!  It’s inexcusable.  But I can add that constant activity and more than one week where computer issues kept us off the Internet add to my delinquency.  I am sure that our life feels more like we actually live here and I feel less the need to update people.  I feel reflective today, as we head to our friends the Perkins to celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday because we worked on the actual day.

          We have had a good fall.  The girls are happy in EC4 and first grade.  Maeve is reading under the covers with a flashlight at night, -a lovely step in her learning life to be an independent reader and enjoy it – and Sophie is so happy to be busy with other kids and a great Aussie teacher all day long.

 

Sophie and Maeve at our school's Christmas Art Bazaar in November.  Clay Christmas sculptures at the Bazaar.

           It was the Moon festival that marked the “Oh my gosh we have lived here for a year.” moment for me.  Charles was actually gone in Taiwan for the first of his courses towards becoming certified to teach.  The festival celebrates the full moon, a harvest moon, and a time that represents the end of the harvest when parents were able to spend some time with their children.  Children get lanterns and there are shows and entertainment. 

            Charles had a great course in Taiwan with a fellow South Carolinian professor (now at the University of Pennsylvania) that impressed him.  He is headed back in February with many of the same classmates.  We survived for ten days without Dad (Really, in our life, the equivalent of Mom leaving for 10 days) and he brought back fantastic Asian chia pets. Maeve's cool Asian Chia Pet  (a hedgehog)

            I have enjoyed being back in the 5^th grade. We are now a community of learners and I feel like all of my very hard work in establishing trust and routines has really paid off.  They are lovely.  Chatty, but lovely.  On Vietnamese Teachers Day, many brought very personal presents that made me feel appreciated and special.  It is a good place to be.  I am missing the idea of looping with them another year, like I did at the Center.  Almost half way through the year marks the point at which I feel like things are running smoothly.  Hmmm…

            Mr. Viet is my fantastic classroom assistant.  I have enjoyed not only having his help all of the time in the classroom, but also getting to know someone who is Vietnamese.  His perspectives are unique and important to me.  One day when I was working on a piece in my writers’ notebook that I wanted to share with kids to illustrate how to generate ideas fro writing, I wrote about the “way, way back” seat in my families’ 1972 Vista Cruiser.  Knowing that my students would have no context whatsoever for the way, way back of a Vista Cruiser, I googled a pic.  “Wow,” he said, “you must have been very, very rich.” He explained that his parents were lucky to be alive in 1972 and close to starving.  “Yes,” I smiled, “we were rich beyond our dreams”.

Mr. Viet and Pentominoes

            Halloween was fun, both at school and with the other faculty families.  At school, our kids made up all of the games for a Halloween Carnival on our floor and we had a parade.  Another faculty family hosted a Halloween party and we visited the other faculty in the neighborhood and the staged stations where people waited for us.  It really felt like Halloween in an American neighborhood.  Fun and familiar. (OK some of the treats were a little unusual and no one had to worry about mom making you wear your coat over your costume…) 

  Fantastic ESL Teacher Jo in Her Mountie Costume.  

 Sweet Student Manning Her Halloween Carnival Booth

 Bad Hippy All That Was in My Closet Costume.  My Fifth Grade Colleagues Jen, the Mountie, and Shane, the Vietnamese Cleaning Lady (Nice Pants!)

 Halloween Shenanigans

            In November, we hit the ground running.  I went to a fantastic 5 day Literacy Coaching Asia Institute at Hong Kong International School.  Really, it was some of the best professional development I have had in some time, certainly since I left the wonderful folks at the Center for Inquiry.  It was inspiring and challenging to work with many of the Literacy coaches in Asia.  And one of the best parts is I will have a chance to come back together with most members of the institute next year. It feels like just right work for me right now, as I think about looking towards working with teachers more than being in the classroom.  Maybe not next year, but the following, I will actively seek a position that will allow me to.

 Wan Chai Hong Kong Street Market

   Wan Chai Street Scene

      I paid a heavy baggage fee on my return– no surprise to me after the taxi driver said, “Help me!” as he tried to get my suitcase out of the trunk.  Hong Kong is truly a shopper’s paradise.  Most dangerous was the good English Bookstore where I spent hours browsing, and a new find, Muji, a Japanese store that reminds me of a cross between Conrans and I don’t know what.  I could have dropped thousands.

            It was so chilly that I had to buy a fleece and I didn’t take it off the whole time I was there.  Flying to Hong Kong, going from third world to first, from 90 degrees to 50, was an interesting experience.  The nonstop energy of Hong Kong could be absolutely exhausting, I would imagine.  I really enjoyed a couple of “city” dinners all by myself, people watching.   It was a treat in my life where I am always surrounded by people. 

            There are times when I forget that I live in a foreign land. But those times are often punctured by a sight or sound that reminds me in no uncertain terms that I live in Vietnam.

            One morning on a walk to school I saw a funeral car which looks more like a parade float with open sides.  The casket was is in the middle and family members sat on the sides, their feet dangling over, throwing paper money off of the car to represent the riches and good wishes sent with their loved one to the afterlife.  In the front of the truck cab was a large framed picture of a young woman.  Grief, and tears, and mourning were right there, for all to see, for all to know and take in.  It wasn’t a private, discreet, and quiet funeral.  It was loud and right there in the middle of an early morning street.

  Vietnamese Funeral Car

            I have heard people talk about how westerners are “reserved” and I now wonder about that in new ways.  We would never parade though town mourning our loved ones.  Doctors in offices would never joke or talk to you about life in the hallway between visiting patients, or chat with another doctor about a condition within earshot of patients. 

            Another afternoon, I saw a crowd gaping at an accident scene near our apartment. A man was on the ground not moving, and no one was doing anything to help him.  A sweeper came by and lifted up his arm by the hand to sweep underneath him.  Grisly reality right in front of me…

            It strikes me that in Vietnam, people stand closer to the terrible things that happen in life and they don’t try to hide them.  Mourning includes wails for all to hear.  Death doesn’t get whisked away or covered up in fear of others seeing.  It strikes me that in Vietnam they are closer to the realities of living, without the trappings and formalities that my life has always known. They are closer to it - the grisly, elated, never boring, tumultuous trip that is life.