My first day of class was within my first twenty-four hours in the country. I arrived in Hanoi three days late because of bad weather in NS and lost a few days in transit. I was unable to properly prepare for my class, let alone adjust to my new surroundings! But like so many things in life, I was thrown into this situation unexpectedly and had to make the best of it.
I got the job before leaving Canada and was hoping that I was getting everything that I was promised. It took a lot of blind faith to come to Vietnam on the promise that a job was available in a school I knew nothing about, in a city I've never been. As luck would have it, everything worked out and I was fortunate to get exactly what I was promised.
My new job was teaching English in a banking academy in Hanoi, aptly named "Academy of Banking, Hanoi." I came to teach supper intermediate English to university students in an intensive four-year English program. This program teaches business students everything they need to know to begin a career in banking but entirely in English with mostly native English teachers. They will also have the opportunity to travel to England during the fourth year of the course to study business in the University of Sunderland, earning a degree from the world renowned university. The students that I am currently teaching are in the first year of this program and are only studying English. And that works for me because I'm an English teacher, DEFINITELY NOT a business teacher!
The first year of the program is focussed only on improving their English fluency so they should be able to understand the lectures in the following years. The classes are five days a week, two hours a day and lots of homework. The goal for the first year is that students are supposed to become fluent in English by the end of the year. Notice how I said, "should be" and "supposed to." Many of the students are not at the appropriate English level and should not have been allowed to enroll in the program, but money talks. Are you kidding? In a communist country? Money is everything! There are other students who are in the class solely because their parents want them to be there. Mom and Dad don't mind sponsoring their son or daughter so long as they get the diploma, albeit if they take an extra year or two. Students that don't care and parents that care even less: such is the dilemma for any teacher I suppose.
I started working on the 5th of January at the beginning of the second term. I get a few more months to mold these students into well oiled English speaking machines. I'll be seeing most of them on a daily basis and hope to develop a personal relationship with them to better understand the Vietnamese way of thinking and to see the values of this new society. I'll also take valuable class time to ask questions about Vietnam and get them to help me with my Vietnamese pronunciation. I know that they are looking at me to do the same: to copy my Western way of thinking and acting. I just hope they don't pick up my East Hants accent.
"Good Morning Vietnam!"
"Well, I made it!" said the over tired, forty something Canadian next to me. I then realized that it was my own reflection in the window and I wondered how I aged twenty years from that thirty-six hour trip. As I achingly got up from my seat and shuffled down the aisle I realized that if I keep making that flight, it would eventually kill me.
Talking about going to Vietnam and arriving in Hanoi's international airport are two totally different things. I walked off the plane and into the terminal and still couldn't believe that I made it. I had to remind myself over and over that this will be my home for a year and that it's not any city in Canada. Seeing how the temperature was twenty-four degrees and rising (in early January) I easily reconciled that this was not any city in Canada.
After collecting my bags and leaving the airport, I walked through the doors and entered Vietnam. I was immediately hit with the sights, sounds and smells of Hanoi: the busy streets packed with motor bikes and small cars, the incessant sound honking horns and the pollution that was entering my lungs. I took it all in for a few minutes. The overwhelming scene of people I don't know, speaking a language I can't understand, doing things in a culture I couldn't begin to imagine:
"Ahh, yeah!" I said with a grin, "this, is Asia!"
I quickly got an airport taxi to take me to the hotel my school had put me in for my first few days. My first impressions of my new home were seen from the back of that taxi. Regardless of my tiredness, I was eagerly gawking out the window and imagining the experiences that I was soon to have.
I got a real eyeful of Hanoi on my trip to my hotel. I saw things that were weird, scary, confusing, amazing, fantastic and wonderful. A view of REAL Asia, away from the overpriced, ridiculous tourist traps and all of the five star hotels and resorts. I got to take a glimpse down the back alleys and into the lives of those who are living their everyday lives and meet them eye to eye on their own level, their own turf. This has always been the thrill of traveling around Asia; to go beyond boundaries of the tourist areas and to go past where the guide books end.
I was full of excitement and wonder and ready to embrace all that Vietnam has to offer. I was ready to dive into the culture, the food and the women! Hanoi was my party and I just arrived fashionably late, the timing and the situation couldn't have been better. I dropped my bags off at the hotel and got my second wind. I was ready to hit up the town but, as it turned out, I was hit with the reality that I had work in the morning.
Talking about going to Vietnam and arriving in Hanoi's international airport are two totally different things. I walked off the plane and into the terminal and still couldn't believe that I made it. I had to remind myself over and over that this will be my home for a year and that it's not any city in Canada. Seeing how the temperature was twenty-four degrees and rising (in early January) I easily reconciled that this was not any city in Canada.
After collecting my bags and leaving the airport, I walked through the doors and entered Vietnam. I was immediately hit with the sights, sounds and smells of Hanoi: the busy streets packed with motor bikes and small cars, the incessant sound honking horns and the pollution that was entering my lungs. I took it all in for a few minutes. The overwhelming scene of people I don't know, speaking a language I can't understand, doing things in a culture I couldn't begin to imagine:
"Ahh, yeah!" I said with a grin, "this, is Asia!"
I quickly got an airport taxi to take me to the hotel my school had put me in for my first few days. My first impressions of my new home were seen from the back of that taxi. Regardless of my tiredness, I was eagerly gawking out the window and imagining the experiences that I was soon to have.
I got a real eyeful of Hanoi on my trip to my hotel. I saw things that were weird, scary, confusing, amazing, fantastic and wonderful. A view of REAL Asia, away from the overpriced, ridiculous tourist traps and all of the five star hotels and resorts. I got to take a glimpse down the back alleys and into the lives of those who are living their everyday lives and meet them eye to eye on their own level, their own turf. This has always been the thrill of traveling around Asia; to go beyond boundaries of the tourist areas and to go past where the guide books end.
I was full of excitement and wonder and ready to embrace all that Vietnam has to offer. I was ready to dive into the culture, the food and the women! Hanoi was my party and I just arrived fashionably late, the timing and the situation couldn't have been better. I dropped my bags off at the hotel and got my second wind. I was ready to hit up the town but, as it turned out, I was hit with the reality that I had work in the morning.
Halifax to Hanoi
If I could sum up my flights to Vietnam in one word... is "terribledisastrousity" a word? No? Can I hyphenate "Hell on Earth"? Well, you get the idea.
I remember when I used to curse the four hour flight from Halifax to Toronto. It doesn't seem so bad compared to my thirty-six hour journey that brought me to this country. Three separate flights in four different countries (Halifax-New York-Seoul-Hanoi) makes for one tired boy.
My first flight was harmless enough, it took an hour and a half with no problems taking off or landing. Although the customs guard in NY gave me a hard time.
"WhyareyoutravelingtoNewYork? HowlongwillyoubeintheUS?" she barked, without even looking up from my passport.
I told her that I was traveling to Vietnam to teach English and after a short discussion about her friend who is doing the same in South Korea, she stamped my passport and gave me a smile, "Have a great flight!" she said cheerfully. I walked away thinking that life would be much easier if everyone took a few minutes to relax, and then I remembered that I had eight hours until my next flight and was stuck in JFK airport. Plenty of time to relax!
I tried to keep busy for the next eight hours but spent most of my time thinking. I thought about all of the conversations that I had with people about teaching ESL. They always want to know why I decided to leave Nova Scotia and go halfway across the world to teach English. They always tell me that the idea is so strange to them that they could never see themselves doing it. And that's exactly what I thought before moving to Asia the first time.
I recall often telling my friends "I have no interest in moving to Asia. I'm happy here, so why would I leave?" I have been a devoted Nova Scotian all of my life and a proud son of Halifax for five years, yet I hadn't seen the world apart from Canada and the US. The thirst to see the world and explore couldn't be quenched from the waters of the Atlantic. I needed to see the Pacific from the other side, to hike on top of the Great Wall, to see the ancient palaces of faraway Asian countries and to learn how to properly eat with chopsticks. The only problem was that these things take a lot of time and money. Being an ESL teacher has given me both the time and money necessary to explore Asia. Traveling Asia has been the best experience of my life. However, traveling to Asia has been the opposite.
My flight from New York to Seoul was not new for me and definitely not soulful. It was a sixteen hour flight with a sleep deprived mind and it was only the halfway point of my trip! If anything would question my decision to go to Vietnam it'd be this flight. Still, the old mantra keeps circling in my head: "no pain, no gain!" If I keep doing it, there must be some reason for doing it, I'm not masochistic.
Arriving back in Seoul's Incheon airport was eerily familiar but distant at the same time. This wasn't my home anymore, just a stopover on my way to my next adventure. It's difficult to make your home and then leave it to make a new home somewhere else. That's exactly what I was doing on my last flight from Seoul to Hanoi. I carried the same two large suitcases back home to Canada and now I'm doing the same to go "home" to Vietnam. I wonder, will the quotations ever go away? Will Vietnam feel like home to me? Can I ever go home again? Before I could answer these questions, my plane touched down in Hanoi.
I remember when I used to curse the four hour flight from Halifax to Toronto. It doesn't seem so bad compared to my thirty-six hour journey that brought me to this country. Three separate flights in four different countries (Halifax-New York-Seoul-Hanoi) makes for one tired boy.
My first flight was harmless enough, it took an hour and a half with no problems taking off or landing. Although the customs guard in NY gave me a hard time.
"WhyareyoutravelingtoNewYork? HowlongwillyoubeintheUS?" she barked, without even looking up from my passport.
I told her that I was traveling to Vietnam to teach English and after a short discussion about her friend who is doing the same in South Korea, she stamped my passport and gave me a smile, "Have a great flight!" she said cheerfully. I walked away thinking that life would be much easier if everyone took a few minutes to relax, and then I remembered that I had eight hours until my next flight and was stuck in JFK airport. Plenty of time to relax!
I tried to keep busy for the next eight hours but spent most of my time thinking. I thought about all of the conversations that I had with people about teaching ESL. They always want to know why I decided to leave Nova Scotia and go halfway across the world to teach English. They always tell me that the idea is so strange to them that they could never see themselves doing it. And that's exactly what I thought before moving to Asia the first time.
I recall often telling my friends "I have no interest in moving to Asia. I'm happy here, so why would I leave?" I have been a devoted Nova Scotian all of my life and a proud son of Halifax for five years, yet I hadn't seen the world apart from Canada and the US. The thirst to see the world and explore couldn't be quenched from the waters of the Atlantic. I needed to see the Pacific from the other side, to hike on top of the Great Wall, to see the ancient palaces of faraway Asian countries and to learn how to properly eat with chopsticks. The only problem was that these things take a lot of time and money. Being an ESL teacher has given me both the time and money necessary to explore Asia. Traveling Asia has been the best experience of my life. However, traveling to Asia has been the opposite.
My flight from New York to Seoul was not new for me and definitely not soulful. It was a sixteen hour flight with a sleep deprived mind and it was only the halfway point of my trip! If anything would question my decision to go to Vietnam it'd be this flight. Still, the old mantra keeps circling in my head: "no pain, no gain!" If I keep doing it, there must be some reason for doing it, I'm not masochistic.
Arriving back in Seoul's Incheon airport was eerily familiar but distant at the same time. This wasn't my home anymore, just a stopover on my way to my next adventure. It's difficult to make your home and then leave it to make a new home somewhere else. That's exactly what I was doing on my last flight from Seoul to Hanoi. I carried the same two large suitcases back home to Canada and now I'm doing the same to go "home" to Vietnam. I wonder, will the quotations ever go away? Will Vietnam feel like home to me? Can I ever go home again? Before I could answer these questions, my plane touched down in Hanoi.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
