Terry Fox Run 2011!

Last week, our school held a Terry Fox Run for kindergarten to grade 3.  We had the kids do one lap around the school property and they were rewarded with some popsicles at the end.

Two days later, we had the International Terry Fox Run in Ho Chi Minh City, held in Phu My Hung (our neighbourhood)!  In Canada, the Terry Fox Run is held on a specific date, but international runs can be held on any date that is convenient for the organizers.  Our school played a big part in organizing the run, so a lot of teachers and students came out on the weekend to show support.  The school donated money on behalf of every teacher and student participating in the run.

At the event, you could walk, bike, rollerblade, or run.  It was pretty hot out, and there were over 11,000 people participating from all over HCMC!  I walked the route with my friends, but it took a while because of the huge crowds.  It was pretty cool to see a Canadian tradition like the Terry Fox Run come to Vietnam!

A Vietnamese wedding

My Vietnamese co-teacher, Hong, got married out of town in August.  This month she had another reception to celebrate with her friends in Ho Chi Minh City.  This wedding was a western-style one, sort of similar to a wedding in North America.  It was held in a room at a wedding hall in the city.  The evening began with dancers in wedding dresses holding disco balls.  Then the bride and groom walked up the aisle to the stage, and there was a speech in Vietnamese.  They cut the wedding cake on stage, and poured some bright red drink into champagne glasses (dry ice was in effect here... much like the wedding I attended in Korea)!  After this, dinner was served.  It was mostly seafood, so I didn't eat much.  The bride and groom came around to all the tables and we did a toast.  In Vietnam, you say "mot, hai, ba, YO!" which means "one, two, three" and cheers!

I attended the evening with some of my co-workers.  Unlike weddings back home, which go to all hours of the night, most people started leaving at around 9pm.  Also, there was no dance floor so anyone who wanted to dance went up on stage with the band/random guests who wanted to sing karaoke.

It was a fun time, and interesting to see how the night unfolded!  I'm glad that I got an invitation to see what an American-style Vietnamese wedding was like!

I have a maid.

Am I lazy?  Messy?  Rich?

A bit of all those things, I must say.  While I would not be considered rich back home, I am definitely considered to be on the rich side in Vietnam.  Hey, I'm technically a millionaire here (too bad those millions aren't in Canadian dollars, though!) ...

Anyway, the other day a MAID visited the apartment.  I always told myself I would not get a maid here.  Lots of people do, since it's really cheap, but I felt weird about it.  After we heard of our friends getting one and being satisfied with the results, we thought we'd give it a try.  Our rental agent set us up with her cousin, who was looking for new clients.  She arrived promptly at 6:00, asked what she needed to clean, and then got to work!  She stayed for 2 hours and cleaned the bathrooms, kitchen, and also mopped the tile floors.

The grand total was... 40,000 x 2 hours = 80,000 VND.  That is equivalent to about $4 !!!  We gave her a tip also, but they are not expected in Vietnam.  It is crazy to think that someone in this country will clean your house for $2 an hour.  While I'm very happy with the service, I felt a bit uncomfortable having her in the apartment cleaning while I was just on the couch doing school work on my laptop.  I sort of felt like a rich snob!

I keep trying to tell myself that it was good to have called her because she is looking for clients and needs the money... but at the same time I wonder if I will ever get used to it.  In general, I feel uncomfortable in many situations in Vietnam where I am being served... restaurants, stores, at school dealing with the cleaning staff, etc.  I know that these workers are making very low wages, and that they probably know that I make a lot more money than they ever could.  I sometimes imagine what it would be like to be that waitress in the restaurant serving me my food, or the cleaning lady who scrubs my classroom every day.  I wonder what they think about us rich "foreigners" hiring maids, eating out all the time, and taking taxis everywhere.  I try to occupy my mind with other things, but I can't help but feeling almost guilty when being served by people here.  I rarely had these feelings in Korea because I knew that I wasn't making as much as the Korean staff members were, and that the general income of the population was higher than it is here.  Everyone I knew in Korea seemed to live in a highrise apartment, wear nice clothes, and have a fancy cell phone.  Here, that is not the case.  Living in a country like Vietnam really makes me realize how lucky I am to have the things that I do!

Happy Teachers' Day!

Last week it was Teacher Appreciation Day in Vietnam.  Our school was decorated with a huge banner and flowers in the main lobby.  Kids brought us gifts like it was Christmas.  I received chocolate, face wash, body scrub, lotion, perfume, fancy hair pin, a bracelet, and a beautiful lotus lantern lamp.  John got things like cuff links, flowers, chocolate, and a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant.  One of my friends got cold hard cash! 

In the afternoon there was a ceremony for the whole school.  All the teachers assembled in a circle and some high school students came to us each to hand out flowers.  I felt like I was at a rose ceremony on "The Bachelor."  They should have asked us "will you accept this rose?" ... ha ha!  We also got a gift certificate for a grocery store from the Vietnamese school owners.

Anyway, the funny thing was that when all the teachers were down in the rose circle, the kids were in the stands unsupervised.  I looked over and the little kids were going a bit crazy with their newfound freedom.  Oh well.  Happy Teachers' Day!!

Rain, rain, go away...

Last week there was a heavy rain at the end of the school day, and when we experience this type of weather things get a little chaotic around school.  Hallways flood.  Water comes in through the roof in parts of the hallway.  The stairs get super slippery.  Kids go crazy!  After dealing with the chaos at school, a group of us hopped in a cab to go back to our apartment complex.  The cab ended up at a standstill at the major intersection nearby the apartment.  The traffic lights must have gone out, but by the time they were working again, the intersection was one big mess of motorbikes, bicycles, cars, taxis, buses, and huge trucks.  Since people in Vietnam don't follow normal traffic rules (i.e. staying in lanes, driving the correct way up one way streets, following traffic signals), there was no simple solution.  Every driver seemed to just want to go whichever way they wanted to, without thinking about the fact that they were clogging the intersection and that NO ONE could move.

We all ended up getting out of the cab and walking the rest of the 10 minutes home.  I'm curious how long it took for all those drivers to figure out a civilized way to clear the intersection.  We could have been sitting there for hours!

When we finally reached the street near the apartment complex entrance, we found out it was flooded (not surprisingly).  Motorbikes were riding through and it actually looked like they were jetskis since we couldn't see their wheels due to the flooded road!  Water was then washing up onto the sidewalks.  We had to walk down a bunch of sidestreets to get home.  Crazy times!!

Lucky!

Luck is on my side again.  I left my cell phone in a taxi today and after my friends tried to call it several hours later, the driver answered and delivered it back to me.  Crazy!  Once again, my friend Andy saved the day by speaking Vietnamese to the driver, telling him where to bring the phone.  Even though I can get by day to day in normal situations without speaking Vietnamese, it's in times like these that I wish I could speak the language at least a little bit.  Right now, my vocabulary is limited to hello, thank you, and taxi directions!  I would like to take a Vietnamese language class for fun, but the language is pretty difficult to learn.  Even though Korean was difficult, a lot of things about the language made sense to me.  Vietnamese just seems so impossible to me since it's a tonal language.  If you say a word with the wrong tone, it can carry a different meaning than what you intended!

Anyway... I'm hoping that I never have to rely on a cab driver again to return my belongings!!  Twice this year has been enough for me, and I'm afraid that if this happens again, my luck might run out!

Enter if you dare...

I forgot to add one photo of John's award-winning door.  His class won the prize for best-decorated door in grade 3.  They won a certificate and 3 bags of popcorn for their efforts.

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