I should probably say (before this blog gets blocked!) that the previous post was more a reflection of my experiences of Women's Day in Italy than Vietnam. That nightmare weekend near Paestum...
Life is actually going pretty well here at the moment. Work is getting more interesting with level testing and teaching the TKT course starting this week - I'm very excited about that!
And the days off - when not spent going into school to plan aforementioned TKT course or just slobbing round the house because it's too hot to do anything - have involved open air swimming pools, hour long massages and sitting reading in coffee shops...It's really not such a bad life.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
International Women's Day
Current status: Accepting flowers from students through gritted teeth, and muttering ‘Don’t get me started’ as people shout ‘Happy International Women’s Day’ to each other across the staffroom, before asking each other what the hell it is, why don’t men have one, and – the real killer – why is it international? Ask Pip a stupid question and you will get a very sarcastic answer…
It's not about hating men, it's about justice - for everyone. So, for God’s sake – no, for the sake of both sexes – stop simpering and get angry!
After enduring two years of the Italian Festa della Donna, I had, perhaps naively, entertained hopes that here in Vietnam, if it was marked, it would be a rather more political affair. Vietnam is, after all, still a nominally communist country, and communism has historic ties to the date. The 8th March 1917 was deliberately chosen as the start of that year of revolutions in Russia because of the demonstrations due to take place to mark Women’s Day. OK, different countries, different regimes and nearly 100 hundred years of water under that bridge, but you see my point?
So I was a little disappointed last week when my students described something very similar to the Italian version. A sickly sort of middle ground between Mothers’ Day and Valentine’s Day, but with (to my admittedly jaundiced mind) a darker undercurrent. Give the Little Lady some flowers and chocolate, pat her on the head, tell her she’s bella, and turn a determinedly blind eye to the lump in the middle of the carpet from all the crap you’ve just swept under it.
We may lack an awareness of the day in Britain and the States, but at least when it is marked it tends to be with the sense of anger and righteous indignation that it really deserves – that equal pay has still not been fully achieved, that political representation is still not truly representative, and that rape is a weapon of war. For a far better argument than I can give here, take a look at Mariella Frostrup’s article in The Observer last weekend [Feminism's Global Challenge]. Tell me, please, how giving flowers, or granting a day’s free admission to Graeco-Roman ruins really contributes anything to redressing those imbalances?
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
Midnight. The air is filled with the sound of church bells, the boom and sparkle of distant fireworks and a smell of incense heavier than I have ever known outside a temple, let alone out in the open air. Over beyond the lake, the upper half of the Cantavil building has suddenly been covered in twinkling red and green lights. And from the neighbouring balcony, Quy shouts ‘Happy New Year’ to me, as we hang over the railings to watch the people milling down in the street, setting light to fake money, mirroring as they do so the candles, incense sticks and offerings being burnt in neighbours’ courtyards.
Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, (2011, the year of the cat) has begun.
In the early evening I’d been for a walk around the neighbourhood, exploring a bit more. I was surprised by how many people there were still around, and how many shops and street market stalls were still open. As I walked in what I thought might be the direction of the swimming pool Steve and Louise go to, I found myself in a narrow street overflowing with scooters, people, chickens alive and dead, and huge assortments of vegetables spilling across the road. Saigon (or this bit of it at least) certainly wasn’t the Tet holiday ghost town that staffroom rumour had claimed it would be. I should know by now to take such claims with a pinch of salt. Most of them are spread by people who have never actually hung around long enough to find out what a place is like during a holiday season.
In fact I was roused from my torpor and encouraged to go out for a walk, by the sound of drumming getting nearer. Investigation (hanging over the balcony) revealed a small procession of young men dressed in red wheeling a cart with a tin drum on it, accompanying two figures in traditional costume (also red) who were dancing and skipping from house to house, banging on doors, waiting to be invited in. They were slowly gathering a crowd of excited children round them too. Despite spending a lot of today trawling the Internet for information, I can’t seem to find out who these characters are meant to be. Are they the Kitchen Gods returning? (Just before Tet the Kitchen God leaves the household and returns to heaven to report on the family to the Jade Emperor). Or are they something else? Are they delivering Lucky Money or demanding it? I remember seeing a similar figure during the Chinese New Year procession in London, but I can’t remember what he was called. Please let me know…
I did video this little procession but the file was too big and it would’ve taken until next Lunar New Year to upload. I will try to copy a still from it instead.
In the meantime, and stepping back a further twenty-four hours in time, you might care to cast your eyes upon some of the 89 (yes, I know, I overdid it again, but even that is down from the original 140 odd) photos I took while wandering around the city centre on Tuesday afternoon. Not only do we have lights equal to or even better than Christmas, but the city is a mass of flowers. One of my neighbours at the other end of the corridor has a big pot of chrysanths outside their door. There are flower festivals in several parks and squares, and in the park by Backpackerville there is a flower market, selling everything from bonsai to chrysanthemums and sunflowers. This has also meant the frequent sight of people riding past with fruit trees tied to the backs of their scooters.
Tet is seen as the official start of spring, with bamboos, kumquats and other trees sold on the side of the road by people up from the country who sleep out with their stock. These are decorated with red and gold decorations (a bit like Christmas Trees) and Lucky Money red envelopes, along with their own yellow blossoms, orange fruit and so on.
As a bit of a marketing gimmick last week, the school gave all students a pack of Lucky Money envelopes. The students affected humorous disappointment that they were just packs of envelopes, and did not, in fact, contain any Lucky Money!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
making learning fun
Love this video I just stumbled across on a teaching blog (Teaching Village)
Blog to accompany Tet photos opposite probably later in the week.
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