A might bit disconcerting for this region of Asia I've grown quite fond of. 

Study: SE Asia will be hit hard by climate change

Depending on who you are and what country you're from, you might say I'm experiencing some health-fallout as a result of the weather.  Something I've shared with students of mine in a blog I have with them is the puzzle of how people are said to feel sick "because of the weather."  I started feeling sick once the weather started getting a little muggy and rainy, with lingering overcast, and a mixture of either misting or rain. 

Well, if you looked at the weather now in Ha Noi, it looks like the Summer is starting early.  In Fahrenheit, you can say it's been in the 90s here.  The humidity, though not bad, is making its arrival, too.  The dampness that used to be just mugginess from the rain is turning into sticky humidity.  Despite that change in weather, I'm still a bit sick.  Not too bad, but whatever germ I've got has been tenacious enough to let me know it's not going down without a fight. 

Saying all that, I can't help but quietly wonder, how on earth do we get sick?  "Germs, viruses, bacteria."  I know, but how those?  Sure, I jest some when I hear, "Oh, because of changes in the weather," but where do these sicknesses come from?  A story of a longer story, I'm sure, but I hope that thought keeps me a little more humble when I hear things that I otherwise might find a little amusing. 

Anyway.  Back to my sniffling and sneezing. 

Since I've been here last year, most evenings have students practicing a form of martial arts.  I'm not sure if it's tae kwon do or a type of Vietnamese martial arts, but they're pretty diligent in meeting up.  I can't say I've lingered enough to watch, as it's mostly just kicking and punching air, with a mix of practicing take-downs, but I have noticed they've got a little more . . . rockin' recently. 

Namely, there'll be some Vietnamese version of the type of music you'd expect to hear from Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon.  Well, maybe not EXACTLY LIKE The Last Dragon, but you get my point.  For some reason, that's the only thing I can think of to compare it with.  Nothing gets you in the spirit like you're in your own action movie, I guess. 

If you looked at the scene outside my room, it'd pretty much look like there never was a foot of standing water outside one week ago.  The skies are relatively clear, though cloudy.  The temperature is nice and cool.  The ground even looks not as dirty. 

I've been hoping for healing and restoration to come city-wide, though.  Right now, I know that'll take more time.  There are still places seriously flooded—making those areas unimaginable at the peak of the flood—and reports of around 20 dead in Ha Noi, including that number making 60 dead in the region. 

This has been on my heart and thoughts for awhile.  I feel at a place now where I can get a little less preoccupied and not feel too bad about being able to do that.  Still, there will remain students and colleagues well affected by this. 

Moving forward with on-going reflection . . .

Thankfully, my room didn't flood again after a night of on-and-off rain (though it now smells a bit dank; more cleaning once the water comes back on), and the standing water has subsided a lot since then.  However, that was not the case for other parts in and around Ha Noi.  No pictures, as this would have been too high-risk for my liking. 

I left my room a little before 9 this morning, waded through the standing water that wasn't as expansive compared to yesterday, and found the main road not as bad, as well.  After I realized I still couldn't get a new stamp on my bus pass for the month of November due to the bus depot still being flooded, I got on a bus heading west. 

I never did reach my destination to visit fellow foreigners, the Pingels.  I traveled for close to two hours going to and retreating from the neighboring district where they lived.  The flooding was extensive.  The bus (#26) totally rerouted itself and completely avoided any proximity of where I needed to go.  Instead (and even ironically), they chose routes that seemed the most unseasonable to take, which makes me wonder what the truly bad areas must have been like. 

Several times carving a path through a wall of water, motorbikes and small cars sputtering and nearly seizing up.  Many people huddling under overhangs, at the whim of any passing bus.  A young woman retched a few times in a small plastic back at the continual lurching of the bus, eventually being given a seat to ease her stomach.  No one on the bus seemed to really know where we were going to stop:  all we knew was the targeted region.  I'd also heard of fellow foreign teachers stuck on a train just outside Ha Noi while trying to make it into the city, but the train was unable to traverse the flood waters.  Not to mention students of mine whose homes flooded. 

A lot of people have it worse than I do.  While my room smells dank, it's dry now, and I can clean it later.  While I don't have water, others still have water on the floor of their homes.  I need to be thankful, and continue to ask for His mercy on those who can manage less with the power of His creation. 

The raining continues. 

I haven't celebrated Halloween in years, and honestly haven't missed it, either.  Still, it seemed like I "celebrated" something today, even though there are aspects of which I'd gladly do without. 

It all began in the morning.  I woke up, got out of bed, turned on the water boiler, and got into the shower.  I did my normal routine there, and, after I got out and got on my teaching clothes, I looked at the wall clock:  2:35.  Something within me lurched, and then I looked at my watch:  2:35.  And my cell phone:  2:35.  I got up a whole three hours early.  With that, I returned to bed. 

I wake up again, it's slightly brighter outside, and I check my cell phone:  6:58.  Considering my class is at 7:30 and I usually leave around 7:15, this is a problem.  This time I PHYSICALLY lurch out of bed and scoot into the bathroom. 

There's a pool of water in back.  It'd been raining since I first woke accidentally, and apparently it'd rained a lot since then.  No worries.  I think it's a little funny, then run my head under the shower faucet to fix my messed up hair, and I head for the door. 

It apparently rained A LOT.  It's a pond outside, and the water is lapping at the step-up you need to take to get on-level with the foreign teacher guest house.  I dash to the back of my room and open the back door to find water on the porch floor, as there's also more of the pond around the back of the guest house. 

I respond to all of this innocently, still thinking it's all "a little funny," and head out to my class, treading through the water that's halfway up my shins at the courtyard, and close to my knees on the road.  I meet old and new students, we laugh about the weather, have class, and take pictures.  I head back to my room. 

It's rained more than I thought.  Everywhere the water is at least to my knees, cars and motorbikes are seriously struggling through, and students are amused with themselves as they negotiate the water.  I breach the courtyard in front of the foreign teacher guest house, and kick through the water as I draw closer to the building. 

The water has cleared the step-up.  I see it entered under the doorways of nearby rooms, and I rush to my room.  Opening the door, I find it's not the worst, but it's not good.  About a half a centimeter of water from front to back.  What was in the front of the room and light has since drifted to the back. 

Here are the list of "casualties": 

• the beanbag chair I never used
• two floor mats
• my guitar tuner
• (possibly) my voltage converter (unless it's just a fuse)
• old Vietnamese flash cards
• several broken down boxes I had underneath my bed
• whatever I laid my wet objects on temporarily

The next couple of hours were spent eating a big lunch in anticipation of the day ahead, sweeping out the existing water, managing damage control, and trekking out to the flooded major street in search of a new mop.  My room is now as clean as I can be given what it was, and is relatively back to normal.  I also feel clean, considering all I waded through on that city street (no pictures, as I wanted to play it safe). 

Here's what I probably washed off my lower-legs from my trek along the street:

• oil
• trash
• urine and other "matter"
• dirt
• pond scum
• debris from used coal heaters
• you name it

However, though the water level has subsided, it continues to rain outside.  Let's just say I've been continually asking for His mercy on His creation, and that He spare all of us affected by this from further trials.  Something I should be persistent about anyway,  and realize I've been a bit slack about lately. 

This afternoon I went to the typical photocopy place I go to and did the normal, uncomplicated habit of getting copies.  There'd been a new kid working there (I say "kid" because he can't be any older than 12), and we've been having some communication problems.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but it's got me thinking about what I should do with me studying Vietnamese. 

Strangely enough, the problems are from either the number 10 or intervals of 10.  First was him saying 10 in Vietnamese and showing 10 fingers at the same time.  Since he didn't have a reason to expect a foreigner to understand Vietnamese, that was nothing new.  Then, today, his learning curb was challenged when I said "22" (hai muoi hai/hai mươi hai).  Not a hard number to pronounce, given it's all flat-toned, but he thought I was trying to give a fancy way of saying "24" by saying "2 x 12."  If I wanted that, I'd just say "hai tu/hai tư" and be done with it, but this is all the magical game of perception:  he just thought I didn't know to drop the falling tone with 12 (muoi hai/mười hai) when numbers reached 20 or higher. 

Still, perception or not, I realized "I should probably get some kind of plan with studying Vietnamese pretty soon," but I'm at a bit of a standstill. 

Until then, me and the photocopy kid may soon be resorting to elaborate games of charades, even though we'll both actually be speaking the same language. 

Well . . . crap.  Maybe this is to be expected, maybe not, but my return to "teaching" here seems to be in the fashion that greets life as a foreign teacher. 

First, I need to say for background that all of my specialized, higher-level English classes were taught in the afternoon throughout last year.  That was the assumed period of the day for this semester, so that's when I took the periods to occur this year.  Little did I know they were actually in the morning.  Who knew this?  Apparently everyone did, student and teacher alike. 

I bring that up here because this morning, as I was casually drinking coffee and getting ready to make photocopies for the class I was intending to teach this afternoon, I send a text message to the monitor of that class to see if she got my e-mail that included the syllabus.  After a couple of texts later, she says she'll send it in the afternoon, and that will be for class next week.  "But we have class this afternoon," I think.  Low and behold, after a few phone calls, no, we do not. 

So . . . yeah.  I'm not happy about this, but I'm not COMPLETELY surprised by it, either.  On now my fifth year as "the foreigner," I know that's life as a foreign teacher, and I understand how it's very easy to get left out or to have others assume "oh he knows" or "somebody already told him, I'm sure."  Still, though, for the first week??? 

It's like you get psyched up and ready to get rolling, only to find it's for nothing. 

I've finally accepted the "I'm back" mentality, as I'm finally seeing myself mentally prepared for the coming year.  It didn't really involve anything during training time the week before, but simply admitting I'm ready.  Most of it was setting aside work and year-old lessons to be looked at and readied, and *GASP* benefiting from my time reading a grammar reference book.  I could've gagged as that dawned on me. 

Still, and maybe I shouldn't be too shocked by this, I've found myself accepting this will be my last year.  Not overseas, but very likely my last year in Viet Nam.  I've not been greeted by the desperation that can be called "intentionality."  A mere quiet, subtle realization sinking in.  Even the reality of an eventual year in the US afterwards began to feel more real.  I haven't started impatiently longing towards that, but the dots seemed to connect today. 

I've generally been a slow learner, haven't I?  Or maybe that's just the speed I process stuff. 

I woke up this morning at around 7 AM.  I opened my eyes, and slowly looked around, greeted by the unexpected feeling of dismay.  "Am I really here?  How did I get back to Viet Nam?  To Ha Noi?"  Thoughts like that drifted in and out of my head as I lied there, not entirely grasping how I was back in a country for what is now my fourth year, my fifth in Asia.  It wasn't the sparkling sense of estrangement:  just dismay.  "How did I get back here?" 

Perhaps this Summer moved by very quickly, or maybe I've spent so much time out of my own mind that I hadn't deeply considered what it'd feel like to return.  I think my acceptance of it got mingled with a quiet sense of fate.  "This is what I'll do."  I don't feel like this is simply an obligation I'm fulfilling or resigning myself to, but it's just become . . . casual, maybe?  "I'm here.  Okay.  Move on." 

I don't know.  Before I left the US, I got the sense "this is going to be a different year, even a difficult one."  Maybe, maybe not.  Just have to wait and see, I guess. 

In unrelated news, I returned to find the not totally unexpected mildew, but also mysterious looking pellets inside some areas of my wardrobe.  There was also a lot around the corners of a painting I'd stored in there that I don't know how to clean off.  Now, I'm pretty sure it's not a rat because nothing was utterly decimated and there was not gnawed through portion of the wardrobe:  the pellets simply there there.  When I took out the playing cards I usually incorporate into my classes, the much older set of cards seemed to have been eaten away/broken down along the sides.  I'm not sure if this is a type of mold or bacteria, but a little weird nonetheless. 

get over it!  You chose to live there.  All that to say Ha Noi is getting hot, but the biggest thing is the humidity.  The most technical term I can think of to describe the feeling is "icky."  Even with doors closed and the A/C on, the humidity persists, so it's kind of like your skin just accepts a certain level of salt content from the sweat and eventually stops causing trouble.  What that means, of course, is feelings of nastiness, and a strong desire to get washed. 

I'm sure you really wanted to know about that. 

At around 9 AM I heard what sounded like a large humidifier outside.  Given I was having some time for reflection, I didn't think much else of it, though it seemed to travel about the premises for awhile.  Come sometime later, I went out to do my laundry and noticed a peculiar site outside.  Several cockroaches were on their back, some were twitching and some were still.  I unlock the door to the common room leading into the laundry room, and see a similar site inside, as well as inside the laundry room.  As I've only ever had one cockroach siting in my room this school year (of which I'm very thankful that's the only one of account), this was a little bizarre.  Sure enough, walking around campus, it's peppered with still or twitching cockroaches. 

As effective as whatever they sprayed was, I can't help but wonder the physical effects it has on people. 

In Ha Noi there is a supermarket, and in that supermarket there are a lot of things to buy.  That store is called Big C, and it's probably been in Ha Noi for a few years (it's never been very important for me to do any sort of research on the store), so enough time to inform the residents of Ha Noi about the many things that can be bought there.  I go there maybe once a week, usually just to visit their bakery for some bread that tastes like bread, and maybe a baked good that tastes like . . . something.  I experiment, let's say. 

Since before I first went to the store, there'd generally always been communicated a sense of pandemonium about being there.  This is especially true on the weekends, but is still the case on the weekdays.  I'm unsure what it is about the store, but it's like the people who frequent there are mesmerized by the vastness of what's available.  Like taking a kid to Toys-R-Us, people go from region to region, shelf to shelf, picking up some things, setting them back down, and maybe even putting them in their cart.  Then they move onto another part of the story, find something they like more, and put what they picked up someplace else in that other area, whether it should go there or not.  This cycle continues on in this fashion up to the cashier's desk, where whole piles of stuff might be cast aside because they don't want it or can't afford it.  Maybe this happens to a certain degree in the US, but at Big C it's rampant. 

It would seem to make sense to add things up, make a grocery list, and know what you really need.  Instead, It's sort of like people go to Big C for the experience of plentitude, to have because maybe they can.  On the darker side of this, it's led to wastefulness or stealing.  Though maybe this is allowed, I see people who have baguettes or bags of other stuff eating away at the bread or popping open bags.  I'm unsure whether they actually pay for these things, or even notify the cashier, because I've seen sections of baguettes strewn about on distant shelves throughout the store.  Other times, I walk by areas and come by food packages people have opened up, removed some food, and left it there, now good for nothing.  I came across a bar of chocolate and a box of cookies a week ago that someone had done that very thing.  Honestly, the first thought I had was "they're acting like rats" because of how rats here snitch food whenever they can.  On other times, I've noticed food that very obviously needed to be refrigerated out in the open, spoiling, like yogurt (originally a set of four with one missing), and even some fish out front beside a closed cash register.  Is it so hard to return things to where you got them? 

I've tried to understand or rationalize the choices that lead up to this.  A part of me wonders if some people who live here are simply so hungry that they resort to what ultimately amounts to stealing or wasting food.  Another part of me wonders whether it's simply that fact of people not knowing what to do when they see so much, and not being responsible with how they handle it.  A smaller thought I haven't entertained as much is maybe people just don't care and don't feel a reason to take into consideration what they're doing.  What I am pretty sure of is the supermarket has to be losing money.  With so much food being wasted at such a scale that there's evidence everywhere--and before the eyes of people working--it seems impossible to consider profits being made. 

Then again, the possibility remains about whether the store managers themselves are actively doing anything about this.  I can only imagine this has been the way the store has operated since it opened, and, given it's been in Ha Noi for probably a few years now, the level of acceptable behavior has been set.  Given how so much money is finding its way into the country with the divide been rich and poor taking leaps and bounds, maybe I shouldn't be surprised . . .

"Hello Cheese!" the young man said as I stepped out of the cafeteria this evening.  I'd met him just the other night as he was trying to get me to express my apparently-latent emotions about a friend of mine (there are none beyond friendship), and now he has granted me the title of a food high in calcium.  I suppose I might feel better if he elevated me to the level of a strategic board game unlike checkers. 

I'd generally always been some sort of a fixture at the student cafeteria because of my "cooking deficiency," let's say.  I've been able to meet some folks I normally wouldn't meet, but usually it's basically just sit-and-eat.  While I know students of mine will eat there at different times, seeing them is often hit-and-miss, which means most of my conversations are fairly random and seldom planned.  So, aside from students and friends, that leaves me with people mistaking me for a hunk of cheddar, and some just a hunk. 

Yes, the cafeteria serving ladies have come to call me handsome.  They don't quite think I know what they're talking about--given I typically don't refer to myself that way, so my spoken Vietnamese becomes even more garbled and beyond their comprehension--but I do.  It started a few days ago when I heard a slightly older woman who puts rice on the plates chide the younger serving lady, "There's your lover!"  I don't quite remember such an arrangement being made with my consent, but, according to the cafeteria serving lady gossip column, I am now a young cafeteria serving lady's lover. 

So, now I am given amused looks and grins by this slightly older lady who calls me "tall and handsome," and the younger one becomes bashful.  And me?  I continue to eat my dau phu, rau chit, and rau cai, with some variation there, soaking up as much of the "ignorant foreigner" stereotype as I can so to go about my business. 

Tonight I was included in some celebrations for International Women's Day with first-year students from one of my speaking classes.  Not atypically, it involved karaoke, and I was astounded to see the mix of English songs.  The ones I sang/attempted were "New World Man" by Rush (really unexpected, so I had to try it, though Geddy Lee sings a bit high in places), "Fields of Gold" by Sting, "Danny Boy" though it wasn't like the recent one Johnny Cash did, and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police (though some lyrics definitely didn't apply, there are very few occasions where I feel like I should tell people that).  Here were the other songs I was impressed to see and noted down as potential choices.  They're not the usual karaoke fare:

• "Roxanne" by The Police
• "Daughter" by Pearl Jam
• "Peaches" by The Presidents of the United States of America
• "Africa" by Toto
• "Baby, Now That I Found You" as sung by Alison Krauss and Union Station
• "Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police
• "Closer to the Heart" by Rush (I was very close to singing that)
• "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police
• "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" by Sting
• "Red Sector A" by Rush
• "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M.
• "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton
• "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
• "Owner of a Lonely Heart" by Yes
• "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young

Ah, yes . . . It was a rich night for English karaoke songs in Ha Noi. 

There are a few semi-constructive things I could be doing, but I figure I'll send a few photos from the past month instead. 

I can't say I'm too surprised to find that my first week back is a reinitiation of the curious quirks of scheduling and such.  It's definitely not at the level of grandeur as with Da Lat and having a different schedule every week (same classes, but different teaching times and classrooms).  Either way, it's kind of nice to know I'm officially back. 

I had a class assigned periods 1-3 and another for periods 3-5, so I optimistically thought, "Ah, those are probably in the morning and afternoon, because there's an obvious schedule conflict there."  Low and behold, I now learn they're actually both in the afternoon, and there is in fact a conflict.  That means the first class will need to be moved by the following week, and we'll just have a two period class tomorrow, taking the missed period onto the following week's class. 

Better I find this out now then tomorrow morning, after I would have woken up at 5 AM and strolled over to the classroom building at 7 AM, looking for a nonexistent class.  No cup of coffee would have overcome such misery . . . well, except for maybe another cup.  Joking, of course. 

"Welcome back," as it were!

Ugh . . . This is just a simple passing note to let any who would read this that I'm back in Viet Nam.  There's nothing deeply reflective or meditative--I'm simply tired.  I'll probably post something a little more as a heads-up on what I've learned about the future, but not know. 

Until then, happy lunar new year, and here's a touching photo to let you know I'm well. 

I'd been able to look back a little bit, almost at the past few posts or so that I'd written, and realize they're sort of oddities alongside the view of the season we're moving out of now (depending on where to put the 12 days of Christmas onto January 6th).  They'd been inward and reflective, not entirely wrong for Christmas, but not an overt showcase or pageant of "Christmas." 

So, that brings to these immediate days after Christmas.  Has Christmas bared up the image of the nativity, or are there stronger connotations of the Saturnalia event that originally cradled the date of the 25th?  Oddly enough, it seems to be a return to those latter roots, albeit the nativity is what we can datelessly celebrate.  Still, I've felt like the 23rd to the 25th have been three Christmases encircling this holiday for me, and they might be worth sharing. 

Christmas Eve Eve evening involved my being included on an outing planned by students.  It was to begin at the cathedral in downtown Ha Noi, and conclude with karaoke.  We weren't singing karaoke there, but we probably could have gotten away with it given the circus surrounding the cathedral.  It was bustling with people selling balloons, food like cotton candy, and miscellaneous Christmas-like things to be photographed while the cathedral doors remained firmly shut.  At first I was a little bothered by the doors being closed, but I wonder if that was more of a response to what happened outside the building and became a sentiment adopted over time.  If the doors were open, all we'd need then are some money changers and some doves, and I'd have kept my eyes open for a Figure gripping a whip, ready to pounce.  This is something where I realize the way we project the meaning of Christmas to other countries can be reflected in how they view the holiday. 

Then there was singing, a motorbike ride along dark roads, night, and the next day:  Christmas Eve.  The 24th was probably of the more ordinary of days.  I had an afternoon class related to Christmas, and then would return some things to another class right after that.  What put a bit of a damper on things was the good fortune of receiving a long-awaited package from my grandparents, but having to pay a "customs fee."  I hadn't paid one for the past three packages, and now I had to do it.  All the same, I eventually got the package, and stored away the goodies.  After class came 4 PM, and I rode with a xe om I trust named Dung to the Hilton Hotel to practice the music for a Christmas Eve service held there with the international fellowship.  Such was good and still, though that changed the pace we'd practiced for the songs.  As I didn't have my camera, no pictures. 

Then there was more singing, a 150k dong taxi ride later (ggrrrrr), night, and the next day:  Christmas.  I woke up knowing it was "Christmas day," yet I wasn't wholly moved by the experience.  The morning still seemed so subtle and quiet to me, feeling like it was and wasn't Christmas at the same time.  My inner-Grinch wasn't peeking out, but it just felt . . . unusual.  The morning was curious enough for a man of my personality, where about 30 students came over for a simple time to sing songs, attempt a "White Christmas"/"Dirty Santa" (whatever you want to call it), then conclude with a reading of the Christmas story in English and Vietnamese. 

Come the late afternoon and into the evening, a get together with other foreign teachers remained quiet and peaceable, although I'll admit within I felt quieter than usual then.  I'm not sure why, but it's one of those experiences I have time and again of words being more unusual than silence.  It's a sentiment I've tried to learn from lately:  beholding the holy.  Though unplanned of me, it felt appropriate given the event remembered on the day. 

In that light, would I call this Christmas good or bad?  Probably neither.  How does one treat a holiday qualitatively?  Mine was defined by differences, leaving simply the meaning of the day at the end of it, which is where that puts me now. 

I guess I'm getting somewhat prepared with Christmas being this Tuesday.  Earlier today I was out and got a few things that could pass as decorations, though I'm a bit limited with that I can hang, given my walls are concrete and just aren't very forgiving to nails.  So, one side of my room has lights hanging off whatever is available to hang off, and the other wall . . . well, it's barren.  I've tried to get permission to nail in a big painting I was given by a student here for the past month, and I don't get the impression the foreign guest house care-takers (is the best way I can describe their job) are necessarily bending over backwards for a nail.  All the same, it's something for Christmas! 

It's been a little unusual having things grind to a halt in different ways this Christmas.  Maybe that's prompted further with what typically goes on during Christmas:  spending time with people.  Christmas definitely isn't just a social event, but it's good to share it folks.  Planned get togethers are okay in their own way, yet I've missed the spontaneous visits I used to experience in general in Da Lat.  Is it busyness, or lack of availability on either end?  I don't get the impression I've presented myself as some fortified wall, so I'll assume gentler reasons for that and see if there are ways I can be more intentional next term. 

Yeah, it's a semester's end, and everyone's a little out of it.  Posted in advance, I hope your Christmas is a merry one. 

On a side-note:  I'm a little surprised/disappointed that the Aliens VS. Predator movie is coming out on Christmas day.  Kind of drives home to me how the day's meaning isn't remembered like it should be.  I'll admit I've sent some Hellboy 2 e-cards to people as my own reaction to Santa being given first billing on Christmas, but aliens on Christmas day???