Hue for the Holidays

This Thanksgiving was my first Thanksgiving away from home. Admittedly, I was a bit homesick at the beginning of the week. Around this time, I usually create a lesson around giving Thanks and a brief hystory around Native Americans and the colonization of the United States. Then, before we head out for our brief vacation, we reflec ton what we're thankful for, share it with each other, and make paper turkeys out of our hands and feet. In San Jose, I usually have potlucks with friends, where we share memories and food, and when I come home to L.A., I eat a giant meal with my small family of four, along with any other friends who may not be able to go home for the holidays. The rest of the week is spent reuniting with close friends from high school. There was a routine I was used to, and I tried to relive that routine as much as possible by scanning through past pictures throughout the week.

However, I picked myself out of the slump by choosing to share these activities with my students and friends. For my speaking students, I mixed test preparation and Thanksgiving by introducing the holiday to them, and I prompted them to talk about the Thanksgiving pictures they were comparing and contrasting -- some of which where Thanksgiving pictures from home:

With these pictures, they compared and contrasted using conjunctions "and" and "but." They definitely found it hard to recognize me with a can of whipped cream and a giant turkey in my face. We also went around and asked each other what we were thankful for by using "Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up." (Thank you, Kagan Win-Win!)

For my Friends of Hue students, I created an easier version of the lesson that focused more so on the progressive form of the verbs within the pictures, and they used their creativity to create stories about how they were connected. At the end, we made "ga tay" (Western chicken = turkey) using our "tay" (hands). I always love seeing how creative students get with art:

I also repeated the same lesson with Thanh, who I tutor privately, but scaffolded it to better fit his needs. While working with Thanh, other youth from the shelter was curious about what we were doing and they joined in with us.

Thereafter, I left the shelter to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends that I met through our ex-pat crew, which consists of Vietnamese and Foreigners alike since we all do similar work (teaching, NGO work). The food was AWESOME. Jared prepared a lot of dishes, while other brought their own. I was missing pumpkin pie, and Jared made a dish that was pretty much just as soon as it; it was sweet potatoes, yams (or taro), mixed with condensed milk and all other wonderful goodness. I could've died happy, but there was so much more good food to consume.

Omnivore and vegan options!

Chef Jared!

The picture where my hair didn't cover Jenelle's beautiful face.

The whole crew! (minus Vicky, who is taking the picture, and Taiki, who came a bit later)

Also, Thao (my friend from FFAV, not my sister) made "thach dua," which is coconut jelly. I used to eat thach dua in Hanoi every other day, and Thao knew that I would be one of her biggest fans. I gave her a great big hug before she could set the thach dua down. (I actually am still working on finishing the leftovers!)

Thank you, Thao!

The next day, since Nhuanh (my friend from the Bay Area, who is living in Hue now) and I had separate plans on Thanksgiving Day, we met up and ate her leftovers (and Thao's thach dua). Her food was so delicious! Especially her canh (soup)! But as a Viet-Am with high expectations for her cooking, she was quite disappointed with it. (Whatever, chi, you can cook for me any day.)

Chef Nhuanh!

Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving week. I got to celebrate with Vietnamese and Western friends alike, and I got to talk to some friends and family from back at home. I actually received an e-mail from my mom, telling me that she was at first relieved that she didn't have to cook such a big meal, but then eventually feeling sad about missing her two daughters this season. =( I wish I was home with her, too, but I will get to see her in January when she comes to visit for a month! =)

As we get deeper into the holiday season, I hope to remain as optimistic, and I believe I will. I've been staying put in Hue for the past couple weeks, and I have finally felt at home as I continue to get to closer to the friends who I consistently hang out with. I miss my family and friends at home, but I'm also creating a new home here in Hue, and I'm growing to love it.

Friends in Hue, and Friends of Hue

Life has a strange way of unraveling its plans for you.

Back in 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting two wonderful womyn, Minhchau and Chi Thien-Nhien. Minhchau had reached out to me to join a panel for a United Vietnamese Student Associations (UVSA) of Northern California event called "Black April," where I was to join other speakers to talk about my experience as a Vietnamese-American, specifically regarding the effect of the fall of Saigon / reunification of Vietnam on my family. On this panel was a womyn named Thien-Nhien. Thien-Nhien is the executive director of Friends of Hue, an NGO in Vietnam that was created as a relief-based organization for the flood victims of Thua Thien Hue and nearby areas, and has expanded to assist in other areas such as education and economic self-sufficiency. I didn't know much about the organization other than that, but I remember feeling absolutely honored about sharing the panel with Chi Thien-Nhien, as her words about her experiences and her work spoke to my soul.

Fast forward to September 2012: upon realizing I was going to be placed in Hue, I reached out to Chi Thien-Nhien via e-mail about volunteering for Friends of Hue. The same night, I attended a going-away party with some of my Hue friends, and lo and behold, I run into the beautiful Minhchau herself, literally fresh-off-the-plane from America. She informed me that she was going to work with Friends of Hue in micro-finance, and we talked about our lives since that event and, since I met a couple of other folks who also worked at FoH (Linh and Binh), we eventually came around to talking about connecting with Chi Thien-Nhien about me volunteering with Friends of Hue. Given our brief and meaningful encounters at progressive Vietnamese events in the Bay Area, and our coincidental work opportunities in Hue, we ended our conversation with the belief that the stars had aligned for us to be together in Hue. =)

Thinking about my obligations with the university, it does seem like I have a handful of things to organize along with planning and teaching lessons. However, whenever I think about why I want to teach with FoH or volunteer any other services, I think about my conversation with my dear friend, Andre. When I found out I got into Fulbright, I called a couple people -- one including my housemate, Andre. I told him about my dilemma -- I had two good choices on my hands: 1) continue my life in San Jose, seal the deal with teaching at a small school that aligned with my professional goals, train for a faster half-marathon and marathon time, and stick with a stable set of awesome friends and family, or 2) uproot my life for a year to rediscover myself, dig deeper for my roots, and teach English -- as I had once wanted for myself before I moved to San Jose. Although he tried to remain as impartial as possible, he left off our conversation with this message: That English is valued by many in Vietnam, and that it is inaccessible to those in rural provinces. If I wanted to be in a position to empower others, teaching in Vietnam would be the ideal position to be in. (I think we all know what decision I made given the conversation.)

Teaching in my university has indeed proved to me that my students have not had much exposure to the English language outside school, and as they all aspire to be in positions that require fluent English-speaking (tourism, hotel management, English teaching), I have felt a strong responsibility to them to do my best in breaking down the language. However, in the past couple months, I have felt the need to also take part in community work and be around youth -- as I once had been able to do while I was in the Bay Area. So I reconnected with my friends in FoH, particularly Chi Thien-Nhien and Linh -- who was super boss about setting up a meeting for me, and the staff set up my schedule for me to teach secondary school students in their shelter on Wednesdays, and tutor one student on Thursdays.

I just started this week, and I can already see that I have a lot of work to do, especially if I only meet with each set of students once a week. They all were able to tell me their name and age in English with ease, but once I asked each of them questions about themselves that went beyond that, they stared at me with wide-eyes and shut-lips. However, being as understanding of their context as possible, I responded with a smile and continued by asking scaffolded questions to further gauge their English comprehension and speaking. Binh informed me last night that they have trouble retaining English knowledge because they have no opportunities to practice it outside of class, and English teaching has been less consistent at the shelter due to lack of volunteers. Albeit the challenge, I hope I can teach English in ways that are meaningful and easy enough for them to retain. I aim to learn more about them, their values and their interests so I can tie my lessons to them -- as I have before with my 5th graders.

Sidenote: Speaking of my teaching experience, I realized I've been less strict when teaching. I don't know if it's because I feel I should treat my college students more like my peers (maybe that's why they ran all over me during midterms), or because I feel like I'm teaching my little brothers and sisters. Hanh, a womyn who works at the shelter and used to live there herself, warned me today that I shouldn't get too close because siblings can't teach siblings. Her check reminded me that there as some qualities I should retain when I teach, and that being in Vietnam should be no different. I can be friendly, but we can't be friends. Duly noted.

My (Overdue) Date with Hue

After coming back from my mini-vacation in the South, I realized that I have taken Hue for granted. Here I am, zooming off here and there, and I never really gave her a chance. Also, during the midterm exams, two of the questions were, “If I should go to one place in Hue, where should I go?” and “If I could try one Hue dish, what should I try?” These two main names kept popping up: Thien Mu Pagoda, and bun bo Hue. After having processed the signs, I took my own little Alchemist-like trip around the city by bike and went and stopped wherever my journal wanted to go. I kept my ears perked for the sounds of the city and my mind churning through figurative language to describe my experience in the right words. Every time I found a scenic place to stop, I would take out my journal (given to me by my CMs this past summer!) and pen and let the words flow.

Admittedly, it felt awkward at first. The words coming from the tip of the pen were so mechanical. I haven’t written in so long – it was as though my journal was trying to spit back out my poor attempt of capturing such a beautiful city through mediocre language. However, the more I absorbed myself in my surroundings and took the extra steps necessary to capture the perfect mental image, the more natural my writing felt. Interestingly enough, my words evolved from focusing on personification, to an ode to the city, to a love story between Hue and me. I guess I just needed to get over my fear of penning down horrible writing to just letting things come naturally. (Side Note: Any one in Hue interested in starting up a Poetry Club?)

One day, I’ll post the edited version of my poem here. For now, I will bask in the memory of the beauty I was able to absorb within the three short hours I spent with a beautiful city named Hue.

Saigon Oi!

While talking to my cousin Chi Dung today about my father's hystory in Saigon, I found myself tearing up ... Not that she was telling me a sad story -- in fact, she was telling me fun stories. She was telling me about how her, my father, and my uncle used to hang out while my dad and uncle were attending a university in Saigon. She told me how " quay " my dad was at that age, and how he took her out to fight with people. She told me how their minimal age difference -- even though she's technically considered his niece in Vietnam -- made it really easy for them to be close friends. I teared up because these were stories I wish I heard about growing up. Because I wish my father and her could still easily meet up. Because it took me 25 years and enhanced Vietnamese comprehension to learn this much about my family. Because I knew I have to learn more Vietnamese and have more opportunities to hang out with my relatives to learn more about my parents.

I lived so long not knowing much about my parents while I was in America. I could easily ask them about their roots and about what life was like back in Vietnam, but because of the war, I initially found it hard to ask in fear that asking would bring back sad memories. Another thing is that, because we grew up in isolation from other Vietnamese folks and relatives, and because there was such a huge language barrier, it was hard to learn about my family's hystory through relatives. I recall going to my friends ' house as a kid and learning about their family members easily because they all spoke English, and such was never the case in my own family.

Now that I'm in Vietnam, I feel like I've been working towards filling in this void, and every time I leave conversations with my cousins, my heart feels so much fuller, and my mind so much stronger from acquiring the skills of my mother tongue. This journey in Saigon began in Danang when I arrived Thursday morning to hang out with my cousin Khoai. Khoai is really my brother from another mother. We drove around all day, visited my uncle and aunt in Hoi An, exchanged stories, helped each other develop our language skills -- and I find myself using the same words I used with Khoai during my conversations with my cousins here in Saigon. Because I've been improving at such a fast rate, they feel more free to talk about different topics with me because they know I'll understand them to some extent. They even tell me every time I hang out with them that I've been speaking so well, even though I mistakenly use the wrong pronouns to refer to myself and them at times. (It's really hard to consistently refer to myself as "di" (aunt) when my "nephew" is a year older than me.)

My Saigon / Danang / Germany? family all came through for Bac Thanh and Co Phuong's wedding!

The traditional tea ceremony where the bride and groom have tea and pastries with the family.

Cousins (plus the new addition of Chi Ngoc, Co Phuong's daughter)

The womyn of the fam in front of the wedding banquet hall, where we were to consume hella food and beverages in celebration of such a wonderful union.

The men of the fam at our karaoke after-party. Chu Tam (not pictured) was very proud of me for matching the men in a nhauing match. Haha.

My "niece" Trang and her newborn son. So, I'm technically a grand-aunt now -- "ba di." Chi Dung gets a kick outta calling me that.

Another thing I've been grateful about regarding this trip is the chance I got know Bac Thanh. Growing up, I considered Bac Thanh a distant uncle because he lived in France, hence making it difficult to get to know him. However, he recently retired to Saigon and invited me to his wedding this past Friday. Knowing I rarely get to be part of much a momentous occasion on this side of the world, I flew down the day before and stayed with him for two days. During this trip, I have gotten to know him, his newly-wedded wife, and her daughter, Chi Ngoc, who is only older than me by one year -- and I immediately felt at home with them. They took care of me during my stay, and I have become really close with Chi Ngoc within the past couple days. I admit that I'm pretty sad to leave Saigon tomorrow, but at least I know that I'm only a short flight away from them.

Chi Ngoc took me to "Nga Hang Ngon" (literally "Delicious Restaurant") for brunch one morning. There, we bonded over Bun Thit Nuong -- yum!

Final dinner with fam -- Co Phuong, Bac Thanh, Chi Ngoc and her husband Anh Tung, and me