Service Learning: Individual...and other thoughts

I'm so sad that this is my last blog. Well, ok, here goes...

I think what this whole semester at XM has been about getting to know these kids as individuals…trying to help each kid feel special, trying to leave them with something. I guess that’s really a major part of our yearbook project—giving each kid their own page as a way to help them feel special and express themself. And over the semester my perception of these kids has changed from a large group of children to a group of individual kids with unique personalities, interests, and ideas. Even speaking different languages and coming from different countries I’ve come to find myself connecting with most of the kids at XM on a really deep and genuine level.

And I’ve seen many of the kids’ good and bad sides. It’s not uncommon for me to find some of the kids who I’ve really connected with hitting or messing with another kid. Given that the kids are basically on their own at XM, a real hierarchy develops where older kids harass younger kids, and those kids harass the kids who are younger than them. There’s this whole power dynamic that I don’t really feel any power to change do to the limited time that I have with the kids. And, of course, I don’t even know enough Vietnamese right now to really talk about these issues in depth with them. I really don’t see how the heads of XM could change this either without hiring more help, because the kids really have almost no supervision. Basically, I think it’s really hard to know how to help and protect individual kids when the greater system that they are a part of at home has little supervision and forces them into a situation where they really need to stand up for themselves and act more aggressive in order to not be victimized (as much). This is a challenge that I don’t feel I can really address in the time I have left at XM except in the letter to the heads of the org. And even then, I’m not sure how helpful or appriopriate it would be…

I think it would be most useful for me, for the rest of this last blog, to just write freely and process my experience. I feel really sad that this is my last week at Xa Me…I’ve grown so attached to so many of the kids, and it’s been really touching to get a little closer with certain kids each time I’ve been at XM…for example connecting over liking the same music with Thiệu every once in a while. He always gives me this little smile which is so sweet! And a lot of the time I can just see this need the children have for parental figures in the way that they act around us. For example, Kiều, who’s 8 years old, loves hugs and being cradled in my arms like a baby. I know that sometimes she and her sister go to stay with their grandmother, but I’ve never heard about either of their parents, so I think they might be two kids at the orphanage who really don’t have living parents. Anways, in the way she acts around me I’m really reminded of the needs that a lot of these kids have which are not being met at XM. I think it also must be really hard for the children to be around the woman who cooks for the kids when she’s with her kids, because it of course rubs what they don’t have in their faces.

I really want to continue to have a role in the lives of the kids I’ve connected with at XM over this past semester. If everything goes according to plan, I want to take Vietnamese for my last two quarters at UCLA, return to Vietnam, and one day be able to have more in-depth conversations with these kids. This is a real goal of mine.

It’s hard, because in the past part of me has often felt a little relieved to eventually be leaving XM. It is often so crazy and so stressful that I can’t imagine volunteering there for an unlimited amount of time. Sometimes I worry that coming back to Hanoi and volunteering there alone would be too much for me. But I think I really just have to focus on what’s in front of me in my life instead of looking too far ahead. I can’t predict the future, and I just have to take things one step at a time.

Taking UCHANU with me

Looking back, it seems like so long ago that I was sitting on that last flight to Vietnam from Seoul, trying to figure out how to deal with the creepy guy next to me, exhausted, and so excited for this experience. I really didn't know what to expect, but I was just really excited to experience life in a new place and learn more about other people, myself, and the world. These four months have been filled with real challenges (trying to find my place in the EAP group, trying to find ways to communicate with people despite language barriers, eating a lot of new food that I wasn't familiar with, facing people looking at me like an outsider every day, negotiating and communicating when working in groups, trying to figure out what's culturally appropriate to do and say...) and real joys and successes (improving my Vietnamese to the point where I can joke around with people and bargain well, getting closer with HANU students, new non-HANU Vietnamese friends, and new EAP friends, learning to forgive myself when I make mistakes, really feeling a connection to Vietnam that makes me want to come back...).
Beyond the life lessons I have learned and will take with me from this trip, here are some ways that I can stay connected to UCHANU and Vietnam:
-continue taking Vietnamese at UCLA if possible
-look into scholarship and jobs opportunities in Vietnam that I could do after I graduate
-stay in touch with my new friends on skype and facebook with all my new friends, and in person with the UC students
-look back on pictures, blog entries, and journal entries from my trip
-really reflect, as I get ready to leave, on what this experience has meant to me and what I have learned.

Ultimately, I know that things always change when you go back to your home country, but I hope that doing the above things will help me maintain a lifelong connection to Vietnam.

Service Learning: Interest

Being receptive to the Xa Mẹ kids' interest is something we've struggled with during the course of this semester. Earlier on in the semester, we tried to keep a really organized schedule at XM--making detailed plans of English lessons and activities for every day we were there. Things started to change a little when the kids started losing interest in the English lessons. Less and less children would participate, and we eventually made the decision to stop doing the lessons basically because this would mean that we were focusing our attention on a few kids rather than spreading our attention and efforts out over as many kids as possible. Our plan was to help the kids learn English when they asked for it--either for their homework or their own interest. After we discontinued the English lessons, we brought in some magazines and encouraged the kids to cut out things they liked and didn't like and write about the collages they made. They kids were really into making collages with the magazines, and we continued bringing them in on and off for a couple weeks. The kids have also been pretty receptive to our profile project--all but a few kids put time into their pages.
Ultimately, this semester I've definitely learned the importance of being receptive to the interest level of the people you are trying to help. There is no use planning an English lesson that no one wants to be at--it's just not going to be effective. Basically I've found that you need to maintain a balance planning something that will interest and engage the kids and planning out your time and effort in a way that will end up having the biggest and most positive impact. Another challenge is planning activities that will interest the most kids. This is really hard because of the big age range of the children--6 to 18 years old. Some activities interest more kids than others. For example, it's usually the younger kids who want to play games like duck duck goose and elbow tag. Our interactions with the older kids are usually limited to homework help, talking, and watching TV together. At XM we usually spread out, so it's often the case that one of us will be helping a kids with their homework, another will be watching TV with them, and another might be playing cards with some kids upstairs. One challenge that comes with us spreading out and participating in the interests of the different kids is that is can be more difficult for us to communicate with each other during our time at XM. Ultimately, though, this has been a really effective way of trying to be accessible to as many kids as possible.
Finally, I think it's really significant that we show the kids our own interest and love for them. It's important to remember that almost all of these kids are living away from their parents and families. At night, there are really no adults giving them any attention or showing much interest in them. When we talk to the kids and ask them about themselves, we show them that we care and that they matter. Even just showing up shows the kids that we care. I think that this is really something Xa Mẹ is missing in terms of how the children are taken care of. Who are the people there to help the kids develop positive self esteem and a feeling of worth when they are at home?
Ultimately, I've really learned the importance of tuning in to the interest level of the people you are trying to help while making it clear that you care about them, are interested, and want to be there. Essentially, it takes both sides of a volunteer project to be engaged to have a real positive impact.

UCHANU: group work

With UCHANU and Service Learning, I've had a lot of experience with group work this semester.
UCHANU:
I feel like our project team (Fantastic Năm) has worked really smoothly as a group this semester. This has in large part been because our personalities mesh well and we all have the same goals--to put geniune effort into our work and to learn something. One thing that has really helped us work together has been our division of labor and organization. We have pretty much always had the same process, so it goes really smoothly: for each interview, one person transcribes it (Phương or Khương), one person translates it into English (Katie or Vĩ), and one person does final edits to make sure everything sounds good and makes sense. Also, I have the role of sending out emails about due dates, etc. when appropriate.

Service Learning:
One consistent challenge for the Xa Mẹ team has been issues relating to language. Me, Kristine, John, and Thuy Linh (who joined our group part-way through the semester) all have different levels of Vietnamese ability, and we have been working on effectively dealing with this challenge all semester. A major issue earlier in the semester was Kristine feeling overwhelmed about the role she was put in as the most fluent Vietnamese speaker--we just depended on her too much to do too much. I received feedback from both John and Kristine that I should try to handle situations on my own more, instead of always looking to them for translation help. Kristine in particular has really pushed me to push myself in terms of taking the initiative to learn what I need to know and to communicate on my own. Over the course of the semester, as my Vietnamese has improved, this has become a lot easier. I now ask John and Kristine for help pretty rarely, and communicate with the kids and deal with problems on my own whenever possible. This situation has pushed me to think more creatively about how to communicate, and has given me a lot of motivation to improve my Vietnamese. The communication issue is always a challenge, and I think we've worked really hard together to give feedback and work on finding a good balance over the course of the semester. It's been a long process--not something that was "solved" after one conversation or meeting. Our discussions about issues relating to communication have really helped me to understand how important really listening to group members and valuing their thoughts and feelings is. Even though we've faced a lot of challenges and things have not always gone smoothly, I really appreciate having this opportunity to develop group work skills.

Reflecting on myself:
Because I have a personality where I like to be in control and tend to feel strongly about doing things a certain way, my main challenge in working in a group is to step back, listen to other people's ideas, and compromise. I really feel like I have gotten a lot better at doing this this semester. The fact that my Vietnamese is so limited has put me in a more following and conceding role than I would have felt comfortable with in the past. But, this has definitely been a good thing because the situation has really forced me to allow other people to take control more and have more leadership in different situations. I have found that, of course, my ideas are not always the best ones, and that I'm not always right. It has definitely been healthy to get used to doing things the way other people prefer and seeing what happens.
I also think it's been really useful to think about what my strengths are and how I can be useful in a group, especially when speaking Vietnamese is so important in both of my group situations. I've learned that when you put thought into it, there's almost always a way to divide up work to make things easier for everyone as a whole. It's also really important that everyone has a voice and that a group continues to communicate and negotiate until everyone feels as comfortable as possible with their roles and what's expected of them.

UCHANU: the bus

I take the bus a lot here--at least 6 times per week--and there are a few things that have really caught my attention.
First of all, you have to run to get on the bus--even if you're standing right in front of the door. If you don't, there's a good chance it will leave without you. Over the last few months I've seen several people get caught in the doors of the bus. Also, you have to rush to get out of the bus before the doors close, and I have definitely missed my stop before because I was too slow in elbowing and pushing my way past people to make sure I got out. From what I've heard, it seems that the reason for this is that bus drivers have a monetary incentive to get through their route faster than is possible to do so if they waited longer at stops.
Another thing that really strikes me about Hanoi buses is the safety features. Almost all of the safety information is in English, but some is in Vietnamese. Even more confusingly, some is in English that appears to be translated imperfectly from another language. Also, while one of the stickers says to break the window with a hammer in an emergency, I've never seen a hammer anywhere on the bus...Noticing all these things really makes me want to learn more about 1) how the bus system is managed, and 2) where the buses are produced and how safety precautions are managed (if at all). I'm sure that the answers to these questions would show some interesting things about the development and management of public transit in Vietnam. To be honest, it's just surprising and frustrating to me that the government can organize and clean up so much for the 1000 year celebration, yet buses don't even have stickers with important safety information in Vietnamese. It seems to me that here, in contrast to more "developed" countries like the U.S., everyone knows that you really have to be alert and watch out for yourself all the time--when driving, walking, eating, etc. You can't assume that laws and regulations ("the man"?) will protect and take care of you.
However, there's one thing I really love about the buses in Hanoi, which is that the passengers are usually really nice. People will often strike up conversations with me, and one time a girl went way out of her way to help me when I was lost. Just the other day a guy offered me his seat, and when I politely said I was fine, he gestured to my huge (heavy) backpack and insisted that I take his seat. I recognize that I'm probably getting special treatment as a foreigner, but it's still nice to have these friendly interactions with people.
Ultimately, I really want to learn more about the bus system in Vietnam. Hopefully my Vietnamese will eventually be good enough to allow me to pursue the answers to my questions and learn more about this topic.

Service Learning: Society

I think the notion of society is really important in regards to our work with the kids at Xa Mẹ. (Excluding the children of the woman who cooks), it seems that all of the children at the orphanage come from very poor backgrounds. I don't know of any of the children who are orphans in the traditional sense, in that both of their parents have died. Anyways, in a country in which family is so important (in political, cultural, and social terms), I often wonder how the children's living situation affects their lives. Do they get teased in school? Is it hard for them to respond to questions about their parents and families?
I also often think about the place in society that the children will inhabit in the future. There are some children I'm really not too worried about at the moment. They listen, do their homework, and seem to be doing well in school. This past week several of the children were working really hard on class projects for teacher's day. For multiple days they were carefully drawing and coloring posters for the occasion. I imagine these kids continuing to do well in school, and hopefully ending up in college. There are other kids who seem to be struggling--they get really aggressive with other children, and I don't see them doing homework as often. I'm not sure where they will be in 20 years, and I'm not sure what resources (if any) the organization provides them with to make sure that they succeed.
It's also challenging for me to think about how I--as someone who is not a member of Vietnamese society--can really help these kids in the long term when I'm only here for a few months and barely speak the language. I can't really help them with their homework, I can't listen to their stories like Jon, Thuy Linh and Kristine can, they can't really ask me for advice...so I've pretty much come to the conclusion that they best way I am capable of helping them is by just being there and working hard to think about and plan ways that we can be most effective as the XM team.
Going off topic, I've found that even more than other group projects I've been involved in, this service learning experience has showed me how important it is to listen, compromise, and work well with other people in order to achieve a goal. This has been especially true since I have depended on Kristine, Thuy Linh and John so much in terms of translating and actually taking the lead in implementing stuff that we do. I have also really tried to step up my efforts to handle challenging situations and communicate with the kids on my own whenever possible. As my Vietnamese has improved, this has gotten much easier. I hope that I will continue to feel that I can do more on my own and be more effective in the next few weeks that we have with the kids.

UCHANU: milk, Saigon, vacuum cleaners, dancing, Holland...I swear this relates to our class!

So we're in Saigon. And a group of us find ourselves exploring this crazy "Dutch Lady" commercial fair where various activities were set up relating to milk, Holland, and the Dutch Lady company. It was frankly really bizarre--with an area where people could put on Dutch lady costumes, a game where kids "milked" cardboard cows, and stands where you could insert your face into Dutch related scenes. And I guess the Dutch Lady company is somehow associated with the Phillips corporation. So we're walking around and happen upon a bizarre scene where a bunch of young people in costumes are dancing onstage with Phillips vacuum cleaners. And not just any dancing--there was some serious choreography going on here. At some point they ask for volunteers for something, and, of course, as probably the only white person raising my hand, I end up on stage. And find myself learning ridiculous choreography, performing onstage to roaring crowd of around 150 people, and winning an apron. So, obviously, this was a memorable experience....
Apparently the people onstage were encouraging people to have fun while vacuuming (with a Phillips vacuum cleaner of course!). And this whole fair seemed to be oriented towards developing in people warm and fuzzy feelings for these corporations and their products. Brand familiarity and loyalty. Anways, I'm not sure what this experience says about Saigon (or my judgement...), but it seems like there's got to be something about this place that would attract this kind of event. I mean, I really can't see this happening in the States. It just seems so blatantly corporate and commercial--just really over the top. Why did the Dutch Lady corporation choose to have this promotional event here?
I wonder how people at the fair responded to it? I mean, it looked like everyone was having a really great time. I mean, we were having a really great time! So, who knows what effect this fair had on everyone.
Will there soon be similar events in Hanoi? Are there already similar events here? Are these (expensive!) promotional events actually paying off for companies? I'm curious about the answers to these questions.

Service Learning: Self and Identity

I has been so wonderful to experience and get to know the unique personalities of the kids at Xa Mẹ. Each week I feel like I get closer with a lot of the kids. For example, it's so nice to see a kid who was once ambivalent about my presence give me a huge, excited smile and enthusiastic wave everytime we arrive at XM. It's really hard for me to think about us having to leave in a few weeks.
Anyways, one of our main goals has been to help the children express themselves and feel good about who they are as individuals. One way that we are implementing this is through our profile project. (Almost) all of the children have had their pictures taken, and the plan has been for them to write about themselves on a piece of paper with their picture on it. The final pages will be compiled as part of our yearbook that we will give each kid at the end of the program.
Today we brought in pictures of the children, taped them on white sheets of paper, and told the kids to write about themselves and/or draw pictures. This was definitely our most successful activity yet. A good chunk of the kids participated (12), and the kids really seemed to enjoy having their own individual pictures and expressing themselves through their pages. I found it interesting when I saw one boy drawing on a girl's page. He didn't seem to be doing it in a mischievious way--it was more like he was just adding details to his own. Jon told him to stop, but this observation really stuck with me. Many times in the past I have also seen kids drawing on and taking each other's papers and turning them into paper airplanes if we weren't paying close enough attention. This observation made me think that maybe the children really don't have that much personal property or much of a feeling of having ownership over things in their lives. It is also possible that I have been witnessing some aspect of a more "collective" culture in contrast to the generally more "individualistic" cultural norm that I'm used to in the United States. Maybe this kind of thing is common among children everywhere in Vietnam?...
But, anyways, as I have mentioned in the past, I think that the personal property and space that the children have in the orphanage is really limited. I don't know of any other activities the children are regularly able to do where they are encouraged to think about who they are and express themselves creatively. The fact that so many children participated (even older kids who usually don't participate!), and that they seemed to really enjoy working on their profile pages, makes me feel that our activity was successful. I think this activity was really aimed at valuing each kid as an individual with a unique identity and perspective that we care about, and I hope that the kids felt this. It was also nice to notice today that the children still use the individual folders we gave them. Those folders are another way for the children to feel a sense of ownership and individuality within a very communal space.
Overall, I hope that our work is helping the kids to have a positive sense of self, and to feel good about expressing their unique identity.

UCHANU: factory visits....

This past Saturday we had the opportunity to visit two factories--the Hanosimex textile and clothing factory, and the Yamaha motorbike factory.
After viewing a promotional, informational slideshow and hearing someone talk about Hanosimex, we headed over to our first production room where cotton was being turned into thread. It was really crazy to be in a huge room with lots of machines going, and to see a process that is necessary to make all of our clothes. However, after a while the loudness of the room and the, I don't know how to descibe it, cottony (?) air really started to get to me. I just wanted to get out of there. And this was after like 20 minutes. I felt concerned about the hearing of the workers, since no one was wearing earplugs and the noise was really deafening. I just can't imagine having to work in that environment for 8 hours...After leaving this room, we headed over to the production rooms where clothes are made from the textiles. This environment seemed a lot more pleasant to work in (comparatively, of course), as there was music playing, and the workers looked relatively relaxed. I even noticed one woman listening to music on her cell phone while working.
The Yamaha factory was also really interesting to see. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures. However, I slyly managed to sneak a few...Anyways, I thought it was interesting to really see assembly lines for the first time in my life. We got to see pretty much the entire process of making motorbikes! I noticed the potential for injury with working on the assembly line, since it was common to see people having to lift large parts. I wonder if it is common for workers to suffer back problems, repetitive motion injury, etc. One thing that was really noticeable at Yamaha was that everyone on the assembly line (in the final giant room we visited) was male. This definitely contrasted with the sewing room at Hanosimex, which was almost entirely female.
Anyways, this experience definitely left me with some questions:
-why do some factories have better working conditions and follow regulations better than others?
-seriously...why would someone want to work in that thread production room if they could make the same amount of money or more farming?
-how do the workers at these factories feel about their jobs and their futures?

I hope that I can go back to one of these factories one day, talk to people, and get a better sense of the possible answers to these questions...

Service Learning: Acceptance and Tolerance

First of all, I am so grateful that, for the most part, the children really seem to accept and tolerate our presence in their home twice a week. Personally, I appreciate how accomodating the children try to be in terms of my limited Vietnamese language abilities. It is always nice to see how hard children try to communicate things to me so that I will understand them!

In terms of our acceptance and tolerance regarding the children, I think of the serious behavioral issues that have been an issue recently at the orphanage. One boy in particular (about 13 years old)—who I’ll refer to as “H” has been physically victimizing other children consistently when we’ve been at Xa Mẹ the last several times. This past Thursday, his play fighting with another boy quickly escalated to him scratching the boy’s neck so hard that it bled, and the other boy ended up crying. I was present when the rough-housing began, and told the boys to stop several times while physically trying to pull them away from each other. However, H resisted my efforts and continued fight-wrestling with the other boy. When the other boy was crying, I tried to communicate to H that this was not ok, and he responded by pointing to the place on his hand where the other boy had bit him. I really wish I could have communicate at the time what I wanted to say, which was that neither of the boys should have done these things.

A previous week, seemingly out of nowhere, H slapped one of the youngest boys in the face, causing him to start sobbing. We responded that time with Thuy Linh trying to talk to him about what happened. He wasn’t willing to talk, but she sat near him for at least 15 or 20 minutes. This past time, Kristine talked to him after the incident. She said that he seemed to genuinely feel bad about what happened. John, Kristine, and I talked briefly about trying to have a plan of action for dealing with this issue (this child, and others, consistently picking on other children) during the time that we have left volunteering at Xa Mẹ. We will discuss this issue further when we meet next. My idea for how to deal with it is to make sure to give H, and other children who display these behaviors, positive attention before the problematic behaviors start. I was thinking that maybe each day we could have a Vietnamese-speaking volunteer be responsible for making a special effort to talk to and hang out with these particular kids, to really give them attention before they get it for negative reasons.

The issue I just mentioned relates to tolerance and acceptance in that we should accept all of the children, and not ignore or shun anyone because of their behavior. We need to be warm and caring to everyone. But we can’t tolerate behavior that hurts other children and makes them feel insecure or unsafe “on our watch”. Unfortunately, we can’t always be there when these things happen, but we should at least do the best we can to respond consistently whenever these kinds of problems arise. Especially given the fact that these children are not living with their parents, and may have abandonment issues, we should be really sensitive to children seeming to have low self-esteem, or to be expressing their pain and frustration in destructive ways.

UCHANU: leaving Vietnam for two hours

Craving French toast, Sharon and I took the bus over to Joma Cafe--a restaurant/cafe catering to a foreign crowd in the Old Quarter. After walking inside, I literally felt like I had just stepped out of Hanoi and into LA or San Francisco. We ordered the mango French toast and headed upstairs, where I continued to be amazed by the lack of anything reminding me of Vietnam. There weren't any Vietnamese customers when we came in, and it was very surreal to be sitting in leather chairs and studying in this environment. The food was amazing, though really expensive for Vietnam--64.000đ for the French toast. Interestingly, the structure of the building really cut us off from the outside, as there was a big gate in front of the cafe, and several floors with big walls and relatively small windows. The only real sign that we were in Hanoi was the dim sound of honking coming in through the walls. Even though it was comfortable and the food was good, this experience was definitely disturbing to me. There was no Vietnamese influence on the food or space--the whole thing was basically a carbon copy of a western cafe/breakfast place. It specifically disturbed me when I noticed a title on the back of a French guy's newspaper--something like "Flood leaves 30 dead or missing." This sight just reminded me of how the people eating at this restaurant have the privilege to distance themselves from negative aspects of the "real" Vietnam and the struggles that everyday Vietnamese people have to face. It almost seems like "real" Vietnamese people are intentially excluded from this space which seems to exist solely to provide a familiar escape for westerners.
However, overall Sharon and I definitely enjoyed the experience. To be honest, it was nice to escape the noise and pollution of crowded Hanoi streets, and to eat familiar foods we missed. It was nice to study in a comfortable leather chair, and to enjoy the aesthetically pleasing and relaxing atmosphere of the cafe. And I like French toast! So, ultimately I was both pleased and disturbed by this experience. If anyone reads this, I'd appreciate your comments/ideas about this cafe and experience.

Service Learning: Challenges with Inclusion

The issues of inclusion and exclusion have become especially apparent recently at Xa Mẹ. We have always been concerned about trying to build relationships and have a positive impact on all of the children. This has been particularly difficult to do with the older children, most of whom almost always choose not to participate in our lessons or activities. Of course, we can’t blame them, since means doing what the younger kids are doing—something that’s not that appealing to older teenagers. Our plan for dealing with this issue was to have John and Kristine (and now Thuy Linh) take the time to reach out to the older children and talk to them. We also made plans to develop and career/higher education workship that would be especially relevant to the older kids. Recently, however, inclusion has become even more of an issue. About two weeks ago we decided to split the kids into two groups for English lessons—the older kids (somewhat more advanced) and the younger kids (beginners). This plan turned into Thuy Linh and I teaching the more advanced kids, and Kristine and John teaching the beginners on Thursdays, and Kristine and I teaching the more advanced kids, and John teaching the younger kids on Tuesdays, when Thuy Linh can’t join us.
This worked out well the first day. Thuy Linh and I ended up teaching a group of about six boys (several girls did homework at a table in the back of the room), and they had their notebooks out and were relatively attentive and responsive. However, things became more challenging as fewer kids have wanted to participate in the more advanced class. Also, more of the more advanced children have wanted to do English homework rather than participate in the lesson during this time. One day I found myself working one-on-one with one child on the English lesson that was planned for the day, while Thuy Linh helped one or two children with their homework. Obviously, it may not be the best use of our time to plan English lessons if only one or two children are participating each time. This past Tuesday, I found myself struggling to review the English lesson with two kids on my own while Thuy Linh had her hands full with helping multiple kids at once with their English homework (this situation was not helped by the fact that I forgot my dictionaries that day). I would say that I hit my low point at Xa Mẹ on this day. My English lesson didn't go very well (I was having trouble teaching without my dicitonaries or a translator) and I just felt really useless. I should mention that this was totally not any of the other volunteers' fault, and none of these issues were communicated at the time. I plan to bring up these issues when we meet tomorrow morning.
From the perspective of working with the older kids, it now seems that our original plan of teaching planned English lessons is not as effective as we originally hoped, and many of the children are not even included in the teaching that is going on. If less and less children want to participate in one of our main activities—learning English—then we are clearly not having an inclusive enough impact during our time at the orphanage. Since Kristine and I were in Sapa this weekend, we haven't had a real chance to communicate as a group since Thursday, and, as I mentioned, we are meeting tomorrow. It will definitely be important to check in and seriously discuss how we plan to deal with these challenges and adjust our overall plan in the future. It may end up having a more inclusive impact to focus more on games, homework help, meaningful activities, and individually reaching out than on English.
More broadly, I definitely feel that it is important to remember that the kids who are choosing to not participate may be the ones who could benefit the most from our presence. I think that this is a issue that extends beyond Xa Mẹ to classrooms and afterschool programs all over the world. I think it's really important that we set aside time and energy to devote to the kids who could potentially be "slipping through the cracks" during our volunteer time. We can't slack off about really working hard to come up with some creative strategies to effectively help and involve as many children as possible. It's our responsibility as volunteers to try to be inclusive in this way.
I definitely look forward to trying to work through some of these issues when our group meets up tomorrow.

UCHANU: Cultural and International Exchange

The last few days have been filled with a lot of interesting intercultural and international exchanges. Now, of course, every day I experience here is filled with these exchanges, BUT I think they were particularly striking to me the last few days. On Sunday we all experienced the last day of the 1000 Years of Hanoi Thang Long celebration. Some of us were excited to see the festivities, and others were just happy that the week long event—and associated traffic, bus problems, etc.—was over. On Sunday, I found myself, and Khương’s relatives and friends, watching the Thang Long parade on TV. I was struck by the organization and control of the people involved, and the repetition of group after group of people marching. At one point, I jokingly pointed to the screen and said it was boring. I then randomly found myself thinking about the San Francisco Gay Pride and deciding that it would be interesting to at least show Khương some clips from past parades on youtube (which I learned today is pronounced “youtubee” here). What followed was the somewhat strange experience of watching pride parade participants dancing, wearing crazy costumes, and holding signs about who they are and what they stand for while hearing the “Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh” song in the background and comparing the two parades and the parts of the world where they took place. First of all, it was crazy to be showing someone something totally different from anything they’d ever seen before, and to see their reactions to the experience. It’s still crazy to me how the internet can expose people to so many things going on all over the world. Secondly, it was interesting to talk about somewhat broader cultural differences (generalizations) that the comparisons inspired.
Also, this experience, plus others, such as showing Khương some Austin Powers clips, reminded me that I am not just being affected by my experience here, but my presence here is affecting other people as well. It's interesting to think that I am in some ways representing America to the people I come in contact with here. This is funny to me, because I always think about all the cultural, political, and ideological differences in America. I know that I have to remember that Vietnam is a much more diverse place than I will ever really be able to understand during my time here. Instead of making generalizations, I want to make an even greater effort to keep my eyes open to the diversity in lifestyles, beliefs, power, perspectives, etc. that is all around me.

Service Learning: Organizational Structure

A recent experience gave me some unique insights into how things are run at Xa Mẹ. When we arrived at XM on Monday of last week, we were surprised to see that the kids were acting much differently from the way that they usually do. They were really quiet, didn’t smile that much, seemed a little tense and didn’t seem that excited when we arrived. We soon realized that the older woman who co-runs the orphanage, “Bà,” was there. She informed us that the children were going to start having lessons during the time that we volunteer, and that we would have to reschedule our Monday hours. It was really striking to experience a completely different atmosphere in the space—to see the children so somber and controlled, especially since they are often somewhat wild when we are working with them. This experience suggested to me that Bà, and possibly the older man who also runs the orphanage, are really strict with the children. This, along with the fact that the children are not allowed to go outside, emphasized to me the ways in which the children are extremely controlled at the orphanage. It also made me reflect on the fact that it is possible to control the children more effectively, and that we need continue to talk about and reflect on how we as volunteers can structure our interactions with the children in the best way possible.
Actually, it seems that the children are simultaneously unusually controlled and unusually free at Xa Mẹ. I think the structure of the organization supports this, in that the man and woman at the top, who co-run XM, are very cautious and controlled about what the children can do and who they can interact with, but the other people involved in the children’s lives, such as the woman who cooks for them, exert much more limited control. If the structure of the organization, in terms of people who regularly interact with the children, consists of very controlling people at the top, and a very “laissez-faire” person at the bottom (the woman who cooks for them), then this creates a situation where the children have both some extreme limitations in their lives, but also have a degree of “extreme freedom.” Additionally, the fact that some of the children do sneak out shows this structural issue in action, since the children are probably largely motivated to sneak out by the fact that they have such limited freedom, and are able to sneak out because of the lack of complete control that the organization actually has over them.
Other than what I’ve mentioned, we know relatively little about how the organization is run, and have almost no contact with the people who run the organization. Our interactions with the heads of the organization actually also reflect this aspect of extreme control and lack of oversight in that they were very concerned about who we were before we became involved, and listed a lot of rules, but don't check in with us at all in terms of what we do with the children every week. We essentially met the people who run the organization and then were given a pretty free reign. In response to this situation, I do think it would be a good idea to update the XM leadership regularly on what we are doing with the children, and what our plans and goals are. In this way we can document our volunteer work for them while also proving our commitment and how seriously we take our work. This may ultimate increase their trust in us, and help persuade them to let us to do more with the children, such as going on a field trip or having a picnic outside on our last day. Ultimately, I hope to make a more active effort to learn more about the organizational structure and how things are run at Xa Mẹ, and to continue to pay attention to the ways in which we can most effectively control and structure our time and interactions at the orphanage.

UCHANU: Rice Harvesting!

This past Sunday my UCHANU pals and I had the opportunity to harvest rice in a village near Hanoi. We woke up early, filed into two buses, and made our way over to the village, where we found that we were actually going to be harvesting in a super muddy field rather than a dry one. After toiling for about two hours, we finished up helping a farmer put our rice into a thresher, washed off in a lake, and walked over to the house for lunch. After lunch, we talked to locals in an effort to learn about changes and jobs in the village. We found that the job categorizations on our sheet (who is poor, medium, and rich) were not considered very accurate by the people we talked to. For example, there were comments that construction workers were not necessarily poor, and that bankers were the rich people. This probably reflects the variation that exists among different villages, as well as our small interview sample size.
Ultimately, I learned a lot from this experience. I feel like it really takes getting down and dirty with tough physical jobs to truly appreciate the work that so many people in Vietnam do. This experience humbled me and reminded me of all the skills I have not developed. I hope that I will have the opportunity to talk to more farmers and learn about the work that they do. Ideally, it would be awesome to try out the skills required for a few jobs while I’m here. For example, learning how to do what rat catchers, phỏ sellers, traditional cake makers, etc. do. Dirty jobs Vietnam! I plan to make a concerted effort to talk to people with different jobs (ideally with the help of someone more proficient in Vietnamese) and see if they might be willing to teach me some new skills.

Service Learning: Public, Private, and Physical Space

Despite the fact that the Xa Mẹ’s building has several floors, space is an issue in several ways. First of all, the children don’t seem to have any “private” space—the girls and boys sleep in separate rooms and share large beds (which is the norm in Vietnam). Also, we are somewhat limited in terms of the kinds of activities we can implement in the the available space. This is mainly an issue when it comes to physical activities, such as playing games with the children. We recognize that the kids have tons of pent up energy to release, and love playing active games, but the main space we use is somewhat small for running around. We try minimize the children’s risk of injury while still allowing them to run around and have fun. For example, instead of having running relay races, we had “crab walking” relay races, where everyone had to essentially crawl upsidown on their hands and feet.
But going back to the issue of personal space…while my instinctive feeling is that children should have some private space at home, I recognize that my perception is totally influenced by my cultural background. Growing up, I always had my own room, and most of my friends did, too. I think it was always emphasized to me that having privacy and private possessions was normal and important. Given that there is much more shared space at home in Vietnam (i.e. many homes consist of one or two large rooms), I shouldn’t automatically assume that the children at Xa Mẹ are experiencing any significant negative effects from only having shared space at home. In fact, I think this spacial arrangement is probably beneficial to the children in many ways, for example: by helping children learn how to share and get along with others, by providing the children with a familial atmosphere, and by helping the children become closer with each other. I could also have an incorrect perception of the salient personal spaces that the children do have at the orphanage. For example, it could be the case that the children always sleep in the same place on the beds, and therefore feel a sense of personal ownership in this way.
Beyond these questions, it is interesting to notice the ways that we and the children interact with the spaces of Xa Mẹ. The children are officially not allowed to leave the building. However, sometimes the older children sneak out. In this way they seem to be forging an independent identity (part of growing up) and resisting the authority of the people who run the orphanage. Also, I’ve noticed that children move around the different parts of Xa Mẹ a lot. A child might watch TV for a little while, then come check out what we are doing in the main room, and then might head upstairs. In this way, the spatial arrangement of the building provides the children with a relatively large degree of freedom, even though they are theoretically stuck inside. Additionally, the large space and lack of an adult presence means that the children have a lot of autonomy and independence while not having a lot of privacy and personal space. I wonder how the children interact with the space differently during the day, when the head of the organization is in the building. I also wonder how they engage in the space when John, Kristine, and I are not there. In the future, I plan to pay more attention to how the children interact with the space at Xa Mẹ, and to think of ways that we can maximize the effectiveness of our time with the children within the space available to us.

UCHANU: Central Trip Experience...

Our trip to Central Việt Nam was absolutely amazing. While I had lots of really memorable and awesome experiences, one that really stuck with me was of going for a bike ride with Sharon in Huế and meeting some really nice women along the way. Having been bombarded with a really tourist-centered environment near our hotel, it was really nice to ride our bikes into the more rural areas, where it was much different. A lot of the areas seemed relatively untouched by "development", with (comparatively) no foreigners around, and, to be honest, it was nice to feel like we were experiencing a more "authentic" part of Huế. Craving some trà dá (iced tea), we stopped at a little shop/cafe that seemed promising. We ended up enjoying tall glasses of ice water with the really sweet woman who owned the trà dá place. Ultimately, while I bought a water bottle from her in the end, she wouldn't let us pay for the water with ice. This experience was really meaningful to me because we were able to communicate with her a lot using the Vietnamese that we knew, and our interactions felt really genuine, warm, and equal. This was a nice contrast to all the tourist-centered interactions I felt like I was having with local people during most of the Central trip. I think especially of our stay at an ethnic minority village where the women danced and sang for us, as tourists who were paying to be their and watch them "performing their culture". That experience of them kind of putting their culture on display in exchange for our money definitely made me feel uncomfortable, and made me feel that we were not meeting on equal terms...So, I really liked the feeling of me and Sharon's interactions with this woman. It was also really nice to be able to communicate so much without the help of peers with greater Vietnamese fluency.
After finishing our water, we continued riding, and eventually stopped at a cool tomb. We noticed a woman collecting fire wood, chatting with her a little bit...and she actually asked us to eat with her! So we sat down with her, and she shared her cookies and tea with us, even offering us rice and meat, which we politely refused. While we weren't able to communicate as much with this woman, it was still really nice to be able to interact in a spontaneous and genuine way with a local person. I really appreciated her generosity and warmth with us.
Ultimately, these experiences really reinforced my knowledge that I get the most out of experiences when I am directly engaging with the country and people (through bike riding or striking up a conversation with locals), rather than indirectly trying to communicate through other people, or just following what other people are doing. I really hope that tourism and "development" will not extinguish too much of the things that make Central Việt Nam so wonderful and unique. I really wish that tourism-related development could just stop where it is now...and I hope that I can visit the woman at the same trà dá shop when I return to Việt Nam in the future...

Service Learning: Ethics

I will first talk about experiences and thoughts that are on my mind before discussing the topic of ethics...
A major issue me and my groupmates have struggled with is what we are going to leave behind for the children at Xa Mẹ. Trying to think of creative ways to help the children learn English, on Monday of the week before last we brought in an outline of a human body drawn out on a large piece of paper along with markers. Our plan was to ask the children which body parts went where, and then to let them draw the body parts and the English and Vietnamese words on the poster. However, while the children started out drawing body parts on the figure, they soon began drawing all over the poster more freely, in a way that didn't follow our plan. Also, it was difficult to implement our more structured plan of having asking the children what went where, since they just started drawing on the poster immediately. From this experience, we learned that: the children love drawing, and it is difficult to implement structured lessons/activities with the children (ie we need to think really creatively about how and to what extent we can and should structure learning and teaching). After filling the poster, the kids ended up drawing freely with the markers on paper that I had. Later that night, Kristine, John, and I talked about how we felt that the children being able to express themselves (ie through drawing) is important and can help improve their self-confidence. We also decided that it would be a good idea to have time and materials for the children to draw with every time we come. The next day, we brought the markers again, let the children draw, and helped some children with their homework. Some children expressed interest in having us teach them English, which we decided to start doing in a more planned way when we came back.
We are still struggling with trying to figure out the ideal amount of structure that should go into our time with the children. While we want to help the children learn as much useful information and skills during our time here, we also recognize that it is difficult set up a relatively controlled learning environment. Because several children did express interest in learning English, we decided that we will try to teach English basics in the most effective and useful way possible. This will require a certain amount of structure, but we think that it will also require a lot of creativity to think about how we can make the activities and lessons as interactive and fun as possible. This way, we hope that the children will actually enjoy learning and remember what we teach them. We also want to think about focusing on information and skills that will actually be useful for the children to know. We are trying to be as flexible and creative as possible, in order to have the biggest positive impact on the kids that we can.
Today, we plan to start out our "real" English lessons with the alphabet and letter sounds. We are bringing in a big poster with the letters of the alphabet, as well as small pieces of paper with English words and pictures, which the children have to match with the letters. We are going to have to see how today goes before really knowing what to plan next, since every service learning day is pretty unpredictable...We may decided to focus more on letter sounds tomorrow, or may move on to basic phrases.

In terms of ethics, I feel that our responsibilities are to:
1. Have a net positive impact on the kids
Our main concern regarding having a negative impact is that the children will get really attached to us, and then we will in a sense traumatize them by leaving in December. Every time we come, I think that we all feel that the attachment between the children and us grows. It's really important to all of us that we are not only leaving the children behind with memories of just hanging out and having fun with us. We ideally want to leave the children with greater self-confidence, and knowledge and skills that will stay with them and help them after we leave. Hopefully we can integrate teaching English with helping the children express themselves and feel capable and proud of who they are.
We also decided that it would be really nice to leave the children with a kind of yearbook that would include pages on what we learned and did, along with pictures and personal letters from me, Kristine, and John. We also intend to start talking about the fact that when we are leaving about three weeks before our last day (they already know that we are leaving, but we want to remind them). We hope that these efforts will make our departure less abrupt and will remind the children of how much we care about them.
2. Following through and being dependable
I think that a major way that we can make sure that we leave the children with a net positive impact is by really being dependable and following through. While we can't control the fact that we have to leave, we can control what we do while we are here. I'm sure that a lot of the children have experience a good deal of insecurity in their lives, and may have problems trusting people. We should be positive role models to the children who provide them with a sense of security and consistency in their lives, rather than taking away from this.

Ultimately, a lot of ethical issues go into working with children in an orphanage. Given that these children don't have the strong adult presence in their lives that most children have, I think that they are more effected by our presence than the average child would be. It's a big responsibility and challenge to maximize the children's benefit from our presence, especially since we are going to be working with them for a very limited time. I really hope that we live up to this challenge, and plan to do everything I can to make it happen.

Poverty and "Development"

After eating lunch with Katie and Khương at a cơm place, we (actually Khương) "interviewed" a man who was sitting at our table. He looked about 50, and seemed very open about answering our two questions about poverty:
1)How do they distinguish between being 'poor' and 'not poor'?; and
2)In the last ten years, has the gap between rich and poor increased or decreased? What specific signs have led them to this decision? Do they think that the current gap is too little, about right, too large? What will happen to the gap in the next ten years?

Interestingly, the man talked about poverty in larger economic terms--ie what makes a country poor or not poor--rather than in more individual terms--ie what makes a person or a family poor. It is possible that he talked about poverty in this way because it may be talked about in more national terms in media and general public discourse. He said that the gap between the rich and poor has gotten bigger, and he linked this to the capitalistic economy and urbanization. The fact that he referenced a "capitalistic" economic system made me wonder about the current "face" of communism in Vietnam. What do the words "communism" and "communist" (in Vietnamese) mean here?

Considering perceptions of poverty, I wonder how people thought about what it means to be poor in the past. Also, thinking back to comments I've heard from many people about how they want a better life (ie a higher paying/less difficult job) for themselves than their parents had, or they want a better life for their children, I wonder if everyone can achieve this. If every cow killer doesn't want their child to be a cow killer (hypothetical situation based on an interview my group did), then who will kill cows in the future? It's hard for me to not think about the US, where a lot of jobs like this are filled by undocumented immigrants who are easily exploited by their employers. I wonder who will be killing cows in 2050...will giant meat processing plants replace family butchering businesses? Who would be working in them?

Anyway...I hope to learn more about poverty and upward mobility in Vietnam during my time here.

Service Learning: Relationships

It has been really interesting observing the children’s relationships with each other and the adults they come into contact with at Xa Mẹ. There appears to be a sigificant lack of adult involvement during the children’s evenings at the orphanage, and I had one really heartbreaking experience which highlighted this for me when I came to Xa Mẹ on my own this past Tuesday. After getting in a fight with another child, one boy (about 11 or 12 years old) was standing and crying to himself, apparently trying to handle his pain and control his emotions on his own. He did not reach out for or seem to expect comfort from anyone. I rubbed his shoulder and back in an effort to comfort him, but it he didn’t respond to it. I ultimately decided to try to play a game with him to help him feel better, so I sat down near him and introduced the children to a hand clapping game that involves counting and increasing speed. While he didn’t want to participate at first, he did watch, and after a while he was laughing along and even wanted to participate in the game himself. While it ended positively in a sense, his experience really helped me understand how much the children need to go through on their own. It was very painful for me to watch this boy crying to himself in this way, because I wished that he felt that he had someone to go to for comfort. I feel that this situation is the result of the children pretty much being on their own during the evening. Although I know that his age probably has something to do with his efforts to control his emotions when around his peers and a relatively unfamiliar adult, the fact that he does not seem to have consistent adult sources of comfort in his own home really saddened me.
While it is difficult to know how things are when we aren’t around, I have observed no especially warm interactions between the children and the woman who makes them dinner and (I assume) stays with them over-night.
On a different note, although I was a little nervous beforehand, I definitely appreciated having the opportunity to volunteer at Xa Mẹ on my own this past Tuesday. I found that, even though my Vietnamese language skills are extremely limited, I was able to communicate everything that had to be communicated (why Kristine and John couldn’t be there, how I felt about playing the games the children suggested, signaling children to stop fighting, and the fact that I wanted to comfort an upset child) on my own. I feel that this experience helped me to be more independent and confident when interacting with the children because I could not rely on someone else to help me communicate or lead activities. I am really proud that I was able to teach the children 2 or 3 new games, as well as the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” and lead them in stretching exercises after we ran around playing games. I feel that I got closer to children that I hadn’t been as close to before Tuesday. For example, the youngest boy chose to be my partner in playing elbow tag and interacted more with me than he had before. It was nice to know that cultural and linguistic barriers did not get in the way of the children and I becoming closer and developing our relationships further. I hope that my continued efforts at learning Vietnamese will help me develop relationships with the children even more. In the future, I hope to continue to try to communicate and solve problems on my own whenever possible, even when I could rely on Kristine and John for help. I think that this will help me be fully present during interactions and will help me develop both my language skills and my relationships with the children.

Interviews

I feel really lucky that Fantastic Năm has already been able to do several interviews. This past weekend Khương, Katie, and I traveled to Hải Phòng and were able to do three interviews. Phuong was able to do two interviews a week ago, although we are only going to use one. In Hải Phòng we interviewed a cow killer, a rat catcher, and a traditional cake maker. All of these people are in Khương’s family, and we were really lucky that the interviewees were generally open, and that we were able to record all of the interviews. We were even able to get video of a cow being slaughtered (although I’m not sure if anyone will want to watch this…). The interviews ranged in duration from about 15 minutes to 25 minutes. While it seemed to me that they went well, and that we got a lot of good information, I really just have to wait for the translations to be completed to know more details about what was said. My inability to understand the interviews was definitely frustrating for me. I just really wished that I knew what was being said (especially when everyone was cracking up), and could contribute questions while we talked to our interviewees. I also really wish that I could be more involved in the process as a whole, and feel I bad that the bulk of the translation work has to fall on my groupmates. I realized that I should really step it up more in terms of doing what I can do—taking pictures and video, researching the jobs, thinking of good questions, and making sure that the final translations are really strong. I hope to collaberate well with my groupmates for the rest of the course of this project, and to try to focus on my strengths rather than my limitations.

Service Learning: First Week at Xa Mẹ Orphanage

My first week volunteering at Xa Mẹ was challenging, intense, thought-provoking, and emotional. The children are great, and many of them are very affectionate and outgoing with John, Kristine, and myself. I found myself reflecting on what my goals are for the next few months I will spend with these children, and worrying that my presence could ultimately do more harm than good. This worry stems from my concern that the children will become really attached to us (of course we will be really attached to them, too!) and then really hurt when we leave. The fact that several of the children are particularly warm and trusting with us makes me worried that these children who really crave parental figures and parental love will be hurt by this temporary volunteer situation. I talked to my mom about my concerns, and her view was that I should not try to be somewhat distant with the children or limit how close we become because the experience of being loved by us and developing relationships with us is really important and positive, even if we cannot stay forever. While I appreciate her insights, I feel that I still need to reflect on the issue of becoming close with the children and then having to leave, because this is a particularly sensitive issue when it comes to orphans.

Additionally, my lack of Vietnamese language skills has brought a lot of challenges to my volunteer experience. Even though I have done my best to communicate as well as I can (through non-verbal communication, bringing dictionaries, and using the Vietnamese that I know), I still feel that I miss out on so much that is going on and also am unable to really talk to the children and find out more about their stories and who they are. While my language limitations are extremely frustrating for me in this particular situation, they have made me even more motivated to really step up my efforts to learn Vietnamese. To me now, learning as much Vietnamese as I can seems like a necessity rather than a somewhat optional exercise. I know that working really hard to improve my Vietnamese will affect my experience at Xa Mẹ in a really significant way, and I look forward to both finding new ways to communicate with the children using what I know and to being able to speak Vietnamese with the children more.

Bắc Linh Đàm: mapping a public space in Hanoi

On Tuesday Fantastic Năm motorbiked over to Bắc Linh Đàm to do our second mapping project--this time on a "new"/"modern" public space. The area was pretty spread out, and had a beautiful lake and lots of apartment buildings. We found ourselves mapping out the space on motorbikes most of the time, and at times we actually added to the map while riding past the locations. Given the layout of the area, it would have been a really miserable experience if we had tried to map out the area on foot. The way we made our way around this space definitely affected our experience. I think it made us (ok, at least me) feel a little lazier in general to be using the motorbikes...walking short distances started to feel like a major hassle, and I don't think I felt as intimate a connection to the space as I had at Hồ Linh Quan. We definitely didn't interact with people as much as we had at our previous mapping location, and I do feel that the layout of the area contributed to this somewhat.
Some descriptive words: impersonal, big, spread out, new...
Ultimately, I would not want to live here. I didn't like the fact that a motorbike was pretty much required to get around this area, and the fact that I didn't feel a very strong sense of community. Ultimately, I don't feel much interest in returning to this area, unless it is to visit Phuong, who lives 5 minutes away!

Hồ Linh Quan: mapping a public space in Hanoi

Mapping out Hồ Linh Quan with my groupmates was a really interesting experience. After getting off the bus, we walked for a really long time through narrow, winding streets. During this long walk, I enjoyed talking to Phuong and getting to know more about her grandfather. We ultimately arrived in Hồ Linh Quan, which is right next to a lake, and began mapping out where local residents would go to do different things (such as "play badminton" and "get a knife sharpened"). Overall, aspects of this space made me feel: like I was seeing a real, un-touristy part of Hanoi; appreciative of the warmth and helpfulness of the people; happy because of the personal feel, children playing, and friendly women enjoying a badminton game; and uncomfortable because of the traffic and intense pollution (especially from tons of burning votive paper). One of my favorite parts of this experience was getting cold drinks at a tiny hole in the wall cafe after we were done mapping. I felt like this activity really showed me how well are group works together, and made me excited to continue working together on Project Kiếm Ăn (an interview project on people's experiences with their jobs in Vietnam).
Descriptive words: real, friendly, personal, unpleasant, small, big, intriguing, old...
Ultimately, I do not think that I would want to live here. Coming from a big city with lots to do, I just think I would be pretty bored living in this area. It would probably be kind of annoying to have to walk through those winding streets to get home (if I was out of the area), and I think I would just feel pretty claustrophobic. Also, the pollution and smoke was really memorably unpleasant (although I know that the smoke would only be around for the spiritual time once a year). Ultimately, I really enjoyed this experience, and would like to visit Hồ Linh Quan again, but wouldn't want to live here.

Gig interview

I found the Gig interview of the man who works in a chicken processing plant particularly interesting and meaningful. I really appreciated how this interview in particular showed the human side of a very low status job, and gave voice to an undocumented worker who was being exploited. I would say that this interview in particular reminded me that all people have something to say, and that it's not only people with a lot of education who can eloquently discuss their experiences in relation to broader social and political issues. I learned not only the details of this kind of job, but also the ways that the experience of one person always relate to much bigger issues, such as worker rights, immigration policy, systems of economic exploitation, etc. It also shows how the official "story" or rules (ie people aren't technically supposed to hire undocumented workers in the US) don't necessarily mirror reality, and that's why it's important to investigate what's really going on by talking to everyday people.
In general, I appreciate how Gig gives voice to people working in all kinds of jobs and provides readers the opportunity to hear from people who they otherwise would probably never talk to. I feel like this interview specifically shows how books like Gig can lead to change by educating readers about situations which are not usually talked about. I hope that Project Kiếm ăn will give voice to people whose experiences and views are not really out there, and will lead to positive change in some way.

Life Story

Gerard asked us to write a blog entry with our life story, so here goes:

I was born in San Francisco, California on March 18th, 1989 to a psychologist (mom) and wood worker (dad). A month before I turned 3, my little brother, Noah, was born. I started attending a really small, progressive elementary school called Live Oak when I was 5, and stayed at this school through 8th grade. A few days before I turned 9, my father died from a rare motor-neuron disease. Needless to say, this was incredibly hard on my family and his illness and death were a really significant part of my childhood. I still think about my father a lot and wish that he was here...
I graduated from Live Oak in 2003 and entered a really huge high school called Lowell. While there, I joined the school's swim team and began swimming competitively year-round. Joining the city's best public school swim team (the girl's varsity team had been undefeated city champions since it began) with no competitive swimming experience was really hard. However, I stuck with it and developed a lot as a person, had amazing experiences, and made some amazing lifelong friends. While in high school, I also taught a cooking class to homeless children living at a transitional housing facility in the city. This was an amazing experience that really contributed to my interest in child development and working to help children who have experienced hardship and trauma. I have continued to pursue these interests at UCLA through my Applied Developmental Psychology minor, interning at an infant-toddler center, and tutoring children from the Watts Housing Projects (which are famous for gang violence). At UCLA I am majoring in Anthropology. I love how this major has taught me new ways of looking at the world and has made me a more open-minded and thoughtful person. Also, after my first year at UCLA I spent a month in Tanzania (East Africa) teaching HIV/AIDS education, teaching English to street children, and helping out at an orphanage. This was an amazing and life-changing experience. Additionally, I joined the UCLA ultimate frisbee team, and have enjoyed developing my frisbee skillz, traveling for tournaments, and making new friends on the team.
In terms of general aspects of my life, I am really close with my family and love how we are all really relaxed and goofy around each other. I love how my mom will laugh at me and my brother's Dave Chappelle impersonations and it is not uncommon to hear sentences begin with "dude, mom" at my house. My family means the world to me and I feel so lucky for everything I have in my life.

Things I want to achieve during my semester in Vietnam:
-connect with Vietnamese people of all ages (kids, college students, older people...)
-become as fluent in Vietnamese as possible (and hopefully be able to haggle successfully by the end of the trip)
-make lasting friendships with EAP and HANU classmates
-gain a greater understanding of Vietnamese history and culture
-play ultimate frisbee/introduce ultimate to VN if people don't already play it!
-be able to stand intense heat and humidity
-learn and experience things that make me question my own beliefs and values
-give back through volunteering
-fall in love with VN and not want to leave

Smoke

Tonight we had kind of a crazy experience. We had been planning to see Inception in Thanh Xuan quarter, and were hanging out in the really fancy mall the theater was in before the show. This mall was crazy—really really fancy and definitely Western-looking. Interestingly, I later learned that it was built by the Russian mafia... Anyway, all of a sudden the lights went out. Me and the students I was with kind of looked around and then eventually started walking towards the exit of the building. When we got out, we noticed that there was tons of black smoke billowing out from the side of the huge building. Over the course of the next hour or so, we watched as the smoke continued to fill the street, some people left the mall but others were still going up the elevators, and people were crossing and walking on the bridge connecting the mall building with the mall building across the street. It seemed very strange to me that: 1) no fire alarm went off, 2) people were not reacting as if this was a big deal, 3) no one took responsibility to direct people anywhere, 4) no police officers or fire fighters showed up…in fact, I saw a security guard just kind of strolling in the opposite direction of the smoke, acting no differently from anyone else. I later talked to Gerard (the EAP liason for our program and our core class professor), and he told me that these things may have related to a different sense of responsibility, this being the first time that a huge building had a fire, or that it could be that it wasn’t as serious as it seemed, because Hanoi does have a fire dept which theoretically should have arrived to deal with the situation. This was definitely a disturbing experience which made me think about what happens when there is rapid development and all the systems aren't in place to deal with safety issues, among other things. Here was this huge and fancy building without clear emergency protocol or working fire alarms.

Anyway, I will definitely keep reflecting on this experience, and I look forward to seeing how it relates to new experiences I encounter and knowledge I gain about Vietnam.

The Beginning...

I am sitting in Seattle International Airport waiting to complete the second and longest leg of my journey to Vietnam...In about an hour I will take off for Seoul (11 hours) and will then fly from Seoul to Hanoi (4 hours), arriving at 10pm on August 9th. I already kind of feel like I'm in Korea, since everything in this airport is announced in both Korean and English...
On a different note, I already made a new friend on the plane from San Francisco to Seattle--a woman from India who just completed her PhD and is going to be starting work at Amazon soon. I guess it's a good thing I'm exercising my friend-making abilities before I arrive in Hanoi, since I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people really soon!
Next stop: Korea!