Luke Becomes a Millionaire

A Resort Near Our House

 Consider this: the pool you see above is the main attraction at the little resort five minutes from our house. The fee for using the pool is 50,000 VND, which is roughly $2.50 US. When you arrive in Vietnam you find yourself suddenly handing out thousands- even millions- of VND. One million VND is approximately $50 US. I was in Vietnam for less than a day before I became a millionaire.

Me and My Assistant/Team Teacher at a
Resort Outside of Town

     Birdy and I can go out to lunch and spend less than $5 (100,000 VND) on the meal and drinks. When we escape in the evenings to have ice-cream, we dish out about 30 cents (6000 VND) per scoop. The numeric value of the currency is ridiculously different. The cost of living here is significantly reduced, but so is the pay. Fancy technology like phones and computers costs about the same here as it does in the U.S., but most food is far cheaper. Any type of alcohol (other than beer) can be three or four times as expensive here. It's tricky managing your money here because it's so different. If I were making here what I made in the U.S. last year, we could live really fancy!  

The Sky is Incredibly Blue

     Adapting to the cultural differences has been fairly easy. Making sense of Vietnamese quirks, however, has not. They only eat at meals, and these happen fairly early and only three times a day. No snacking. They say, "Yes, yes!" to everything, even when they don't mean it or don't understand or mean, "No!" They eat out of tiny bowls, with every food item on a separate dish on the table. They don't serve themselves and then eat- they use their chopsticks to pick and eat off of the various dishes on the table. They don't cross their fingers for good luck- because that actually symbolizes a vagina- and they don't take pictures with odd numbers of people in them because it's bad luck.

     For all their habits they are impressively forgiving. They'll let you be your foreign self and forgive your mistakes because you don't know any better. They will, however, judge you based on your appearance just as harshly as people do in the U.S., if not more so. They own only two or three shirts/pants- a ridiculously nice set and then a work set and then a pair of pajamas. After work they wander around town in their pajamas. There's a lot I can't make sense of. It's like the culture's high expectations are fighting the need for comfort. Also, they pick their noses whenever they want to. In the middle of class, during a meeting... and they stare right at you while they do it. Yay, sharing!

A Beautiful Buddhist Pagoda
(the complex sprawls up a mountainside)

     Most of the people we work with live outside of town. My assistant and some of the other teachers have taken us out and about a couple of times, which is always enjoyable. Basic communication is so tricky, though, that I haven't felt much desire to spend time with people outside of work. I need to start learning Vietnamese so I can understand them at least as well as they understand me. 

     The past two weeks we've been busy with teacher training and getting the school prepared for classes to start. School officially begins August 20th, but we won't begin the English program until the 29th. The project is extremely complex, navigating cultural boundaries and sensitivities while starting up a brand new school with brand new teachers, brand new methodologies and teaching approaches unheard of in Vietnam. They don't even know how to get their classes to line up. They've simply never done it before! Everyone is watching us, waiting to see if we succeed. There's a lot of fear and doubt. Good thing there's nowhere to go but up!

At the Beach
(I prefer the beach to the pool, but it can get somewhat crowded)