If you decide, one day, to pack your bags and jump on a plane bound for some distant land you’ve only read about on blogs, or heard about from adventurous acquaintances, and your assumption is that your destination is, in effect, going to be your home for the foreseeable future, then, for the uninitiated, such a life-changing decision has evocations that span the entire gamut of human emotion.
Some are born travelers. Confident, outgoing, and with their life stowed in their backpack, they wander from country to country, absorbing, assimilating, taking pleasure in the abundance of the world’s offerings. They never look back. Others touch down, walk out into their new world and find the culture shock too great, the place too alien. They get homesick, miss their friends, family, language, culture, creature comforts, and make an about turn, booking the next flight home.
Some may just be looking for peace of mind, wanting to put the past behind them and live out the rest of their years in a foreign environment that they feel would be more conducive to their overall happiness. Some on one side of the coin want to do the humanitarian thing; those on the reverse are forced to relocate by war or political turmoil. Some are offered job opportunities that they feel they can’t pass up; others have been entrenched in dead-end careers that they want free from.
Romantic relationships often break down, but family and friendships seldom follow suit. You keep them for life. New families may or may not result from such adventures, but one thing beyond contestation is that new bonds are always forged, often solidified, and then never forgotten.
I’ve met and conversed with all of the above, and I’m in there somewhere, not a far cry from the going-nowhere-fast-in-their-current-job category. But then I started to study language and its acquisition, and have since been hooked. The prospect of exploring Asia – though initially daunting – also provided a fair amount of impetus. And though my exploration of Thailand and Thai culture wasn’t as comprehensive as I would’ve liked, I still feel I’ve taken a sizeable chunk of it with me that will stay forever.
So, moving on to the place that I’m going to be calling home for the foreseeable future; Vietnam, or more specifically, the somewhat unknown city of Bien Hoa. Teachers under the employ of ILA get paid more in cities like this owing to its relative isolation of ex-pat communities. Bien Hoa is an industrial city, two hours from the coast, and the only foreigners you’re likely to see are teachers, many of which seem …. perhaps not disgruntled, but neither brimming with enthusiasm. I wouldn’t say my co-workers are unfriendly, but all bar our Academic Manager seem to have their own agendas and don’t tend socialize with one other. The AM, a guy called Moe my dad’s age, is a barrel of laughs, and we get on like cream cheese and crackers. The other teachers are about as mixed a bunch as you could get: An African American guy who seems to be virtually mute; a pleasant, if a little introverted, South-African-Chinese woman; a Canadian fitness fanatic couple who want to run up mountains; a constantly complaining British guy soon to marry a Vietnamese girl and then get the hell out of dodge; a Spanish-American dude whose exuberance can be a bit overbearing; a very social, posh South-African bird who sounds like my gran with an accent; an aging New Zealander who seems to want a new lease of life; a Vietnamese-born American guy who I don’t know much about; and a very pleasant Russian girl with exceptional English who’s just started. A noteworthy point here is that given the aforementioned disparity of teachers in terms of ethnicity, Vietnam is certainly less xenophobic than Thailand, whose schools would rather employ a clueless, blonde-haired, blue-eyed backpacker from Khaosan Road, than a university educated black or Indian-looking guy. This gives me hope that anyone should have the opportunity to teach English in Southeast Asia irrespective of race or native tongue. Unfortunately, Thailand tends to stick to fossilized stereotypes, a narrow-minded view which ultimately stifles their country’s English language capability (now at 69th out of 70 countries) whilst its more forward thinking neighbours, like Vietnam, have raced past them and are at 27th in the rankings.
This particular branch has a massively high turnover and so I can empathise with the lets-not-make-a-huge-effort mentality that seems to pervade. I’ve talked about the palpable lack of gelling within the branch with Moe, who’s in complete agreement, and we managed to get a small group out for a beer and grub after work last weekend. The branch social event in a couple of weeks – a day trip to the beach – is, however, set for a paltry turnout on the part of the foreigners. Since it’s all paid for by the company, you get to chill out at the beach and have a good bonding session, I personally don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to jump onboard. Alas, it looks like it’ll just be myself and Moe representing the foreign workforce.
If I were to say I’ve got a good friend out here it would definitely be Moe, a guy twice my years but completely on the same wavelength – we’re both very clued up and professional in our jobs, and like to have a laugh doing them. He’s definitely more the wizened old mentor, and me the apprentice though. Does this mean I’m feeling a bit lonely out here? Not in the least. I spent my first week making peregrinations around the city, compiling mental blueprints, experiencing the culture face to face, meeting random locals and practicing my rudimentary Vietnamese. On my expeditions I came across many a billiard hall - the same places I sought out and began to first meet people in the Big Mango – though, unlike central Bangkok, I was probably the only Westerner ever seen in such establishments. In the first place I ventured into I was immediately greeted by the locals and offered a bash about on the baize. I soon found out I was playing the best guy in the place, who wanted a friendly 50,000 bet on each frame (about a quid fifty before you think I was being impetuous). I was a bit out of practice and he started taking some notes off me, but an hour later, when I’d come back and was ahead, we had a whole crowd of spectators laughing and cheering. It was a great atmosphere, and though no-one spoke English, and me only a little Vietnamese, we all had a barrel of laughs. This instantly confirmed to me what Moe had said during our first meeting a month ago – ‘you will get a lot of attention. In Bien Hoa, if you’re a Westerner, you get treated like a rock star.’ He wasn’t lying.
Going back to the branch, all the Vietnamese staff are extremely friendly and inviting. I’m crap at remembering Vietnamese names (and I should be better, especially since I’m trying to learn the language) and apparently I often don’t greet my TAs with the warm smiles and greetings that are expected. TAs are the teaching assistants, Vietnamese natives that support us in all our lessons. I need to make more of an effort.
That being said, I get on extremely well with one TA (not my own) with whom I meet twice a week for a teacher-student exchange - Nghi teaches me Vietnamese for an hour; I teach Nghi English (you see why their names can be problematic to remember; pronouncing them is half the battle). We went out for a meal at a fancy restaurant last week and she ordered half the menu, or rather, given that I was supposed to be practicing the functional restaurant language she’d been drilling into me for the few weeks previous, I was doing the ordering (and making a right pig’s ear of it). She took a bite of each dish before proclaiming she was full, thus leaving me, always averse to discarding good food, the insurmountable task of finishing up. Could barely move after that. It was delicious though, no doubt about it: a beef-noodle-veg hotpot which you cook yourself on a hob fixed into the table (a Vietnamese classic), a strange-looking Japanese-style pizza, a spicy Korean dish with these moreish rice roll things, some sushi, all washed down with some fruity beer. With stomach bursting (mine ayway), we reclined in a large lounge-cum-library upstairs on some cushions and digested. An upright acoustic hulked in the corner, shiny black. She cajoled me onto its stool. Not having played for a year, I was rusty as an old nail, but managed a few relatively error-free classics before she took over with a Vietnamese piece. All very romantic. She is extremely attractive and maybe something will bloom, though this is complete happenstance – I sent a group email out to all the TAs shortly after starting at the branch to see if anyone was up for a quid pro quo language exchange, and got a slew of responses, all in the affirmative. I picked one at random and now here we are.
The rest of the Vietnamese admin staff are a very welcoming bunch as well, and I often go out for lunch with them. The scheduler, a loquacious girl called Yen, phoned me to cover a sick teacher’s lesson, apologizing profusely for asking. I said no problem, and she thanked me equally as profusely. Contrast this to my last job at ECC Thailand, where, if you were lucky, you’d get a text the evening before bluntly stating that your eleven hour day on the morrow was in fact a twelve hour one, and a shitstorm would rain down upon thou, if, God forbid, refusal was your response.
On this note, I was extremely gladdened after hearing the news that an exodus followed my abrupt departure of that branch, and that the uncompromising and reprehensible woman who runs it has to explain herself to the head office. Apparently, she lied to all my private students, people who I’d spent long hours with over the course of nine months, and whom I lament not being able to say farewell to, saying that a family member had died and I’d had to return to England posthaste. I have nothing but loathing now for that company and the people who run it, and how they can have the affront to call themselves a College of English, an insult to other, decent companies out there (like ILA) who actually want to teach. It really is the McDonalds of English Language centres in Thailand, and I truly hope it crashes and burns. All my ex co-workers share the same sentiment.
Okay, rant over. Why dwell on the past anyway. Looking to the future, within a few days, I’ll have relocated from my hotel room to a capacious new apartment. Had a look at it the other day and it felt palatial compared to my last one. Your money goes a lot further out here. You can live a very comfortable lifestyle with a considerable amount of change left over for some healthy savings. I expect to put back at least 500USD a month, and will finally be able to gain some financial security.
So, relatively uneventful thus far; I’ve been getting stuck in with my work. I teach on a corporate contract during the week, a very lucrative gig at Bosch, teaching the Vietnamese apprentices to stand them in better stead for the years to come when they’ll have to communicate with the German management. Teaching adults at such a gigantic multi-national company will look awesome on my CV, and they’re a pleasure to teach – willing, hardworking, dedicated, fun. During the weekend at the branch it’s more kids and teenagers, which presents a different teaching environment, but I enjoy it just as much.
I like it here. Think I’ll stick around awhile.
And I’ve finally managed to get the hang of the chopsticks!