Little pieces of Saigon

ME

I'm feeling pleasantly upbeat tonight, after almost three weeks of internally moaning to myself about being here. Just ain't my city, ultimately, although I do really think that me and Saigon can learn to get on once I adjust to the heat and learn to ignore the pollution. It doesn't help that I'm living in a hotel room and have to wait another month for a full paycheck to be able to afford a deposit for a better place. Oh well. Serves me right for living on a dream so long in Asia and Europe this summer, surviving off of human kindness and my credit card. Wouldn't change a thing about it. Anyway it seems that the little things, this week at least, are paying off. A gig to go to tomorrow (on a school night!!) and a muso to meet that wants to put a band together (it might go nowhere, but it could go somewhere...), a nice day at work... good music in my ears as always (listening to lots of Beatles and Lennon at the moment). A papaya for breakfast. I thought it was high time I wrote about some of the things, little and big, that are making my world what it is at the moment...

MY 'HOOD

I live on a small side street off of Bui Vien, which is Saigon's answer to Khao San road in Bangkok. It's actually pretty quiet, and has no chickens on it as far as the eye can see - I overheard a work mate's conversation about getting woken every morning at 4am by his neighbour's roosters, and I don't envy him... Every morning at 7.30 I walk out, grab my shoes from the rack downstairs and wait for my local 'xe om' driver (motorbike taxi) to finish his smoke (as if the pollution ain't enough, right??) and whisk me off to work, expertly weaving through the traffic, driving on the footpath against the flow on a one way street if need be - it's just what you do here... I keep meaning to take some photos of all the beautiful high heeled women riding to work every morning, but I'm not that balanced yet - don't want to stop traffic by making an ass of myself and falling... We fly by various parks with their early morning jazzercise classes and locals with their limbs flying on the free-for-all cross training machines that line the precious green spaces, until he drops me at the door of 41 Duong Nguyen Thi Minh Khai about ten minutes later (luckily I live pretty close to my work).

THE OFFICE

I never thought I'd be working in an office again, but I suppose it's just like a really big teacher's work room, with little cubicles and photocopiers and the like. It's not bad at all really, and we get free lunch (of questionable quality) every day - mine usually consists of some fake meat substitute with rice, only slightly wilted greens and this kind of clear soup thing in a sealed plastic bag which I'm still not sure what to do with - I just mix it in with my rice and hope none of the Viets are looking strangely at me... where I sit I am surrounded by them and they are sweet, always smiling and doing their best to include us in their celebrations - offering us their gelatinous desserts coated in coffee flavoured jelly (weird...) or plasticky rice paper to chew before the yellow lunch trays are delivered. Everyone eats at their cubicles (the kitchen is tiny) before the Vietnamese in the room drop their heads onto their desks for an hour or so and take their accustomed siesta. I usually try to attempt a walk in a park nearby but just end up sweating and that's never a good look for a teacher...

SCHOOLIN' IT

All the teachers work in various schools across town and I'm lucky enough to be limited to two, one of which is designed for gifted children. We either climb in the company minibus or get taxied to the door, although most of the people I work with have joined the motorbike squad and make their own way there. As far as teaching goes, it's really so cruisy - every afternoon (and three mornings a week) I teach a 2 1/2 hour class to 11 or 12 year olds, all with English names. I have no idea where they got them but I do wonder, teaching two boys called 'Messy', one 'Strawberry' and one 'Harry Potter'. Seriously!!! If I'm lucky my classroom will have air conditioning, but sadly, not a whiteboard in sight - it's chalk all the way baby... my hands feel disgusting by the end of 2 1/2 hours.

The kids are mostly really well behaved although I'm still learning to get used to the sheer amount of surrounding noise - as I teach, various gongs are being hit for classes to have their breaks at different times, and teachers are speaking through loud speakers, and drills are going off... I found out today that I could ask for a microphone if I wanted to, and as crazy as it may sound, I'm considering doing it - it's just really hard to be heard over the cacophony. I've noticed that the kids I teach are really good at rote learning, and can read whole pages aloud without understanding a bit of them, so I'm constantly stopping to explain this or that. Thinking for themselves seems to be a problem, which is worrying considering the schools will be putting them through Cambridge English exams eventually.. oh well! We do the best we can... They call me 'Miss Sharon' mostly, or 'teeee-cher!' and I'm hoping to have the same classes until the end of the school year in May. The best thing is that I never have to take work home with me - the scheduled hours are plenty, especially considering I never teach two classes in a row - I don't know if anybody does?

THE AFTERWARDS

To be honest, the afterwards is still what I'm figuring it out at the moment - after working all day I'm either exhausted or unsure of where to go in this fumy city so I usually head back to my hotel warren. I miss walking, actually! Not really something I want to do much here... but I know there are places that do yoga classes and the like, I just need to muster the energy to find them. I can honestly say that this is the most physically alone I have felt in my life, in a city of 6 million people! But it's not necessarily a bad thing - its just the beginning of a new phase. And everything changes so quickly - ridiculously quickly - that it's useless to feel any kind of up or down, really... things transform in an instant. What's the point of labelling onesself as being lonely or unhappy - or ecstatic and over the moon for that matter? More and more these days, I'm discovering equilibrium, and being content to be on the outskirts for a short while. George Bernard Shaw once said "Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness" and I've always admired that quote - right now, what must be done for me is get outta debt, and any fun I might have I'm going to see as an added bonus. Simultaneously in my ears as I write, a folk singer named Peter Mulvey is singing "It's just your tender blindspot, and from that tender blindspot you will grooowww..." Perfectly put I think - for there is a time for everything - to be broke, to be rolling in it, to be partying, to be monk-like, to sleep, to dream... and I am happy, or rather, content with this strange period of my life, which will probably change the minute I walk out of this internet cafe. Bring it on, I say - life, and whatever it holds...