Nhớ Nguồn

An immaculate sheet of paper, cut, folded, creased, crumpled, can become the most delicate of flowers and the lightest of cranes. The essence of its beauty, then, is that the paper is even greater for having endured its ruinous transformation. 

"Within the first nine months of 2015, zero cases of corruption were found in this city!" "...but we're not saying that corruption doesn't exist, just that none of our inspectors caught anyone." Are you kidding me? Thank you for the freaking clarification, Ms. Nga.

Take it away, Mr. Crosby!

“Hồi trước em đi ngoài đường, thấy ông cụ kia không có chân bán bông ráy tai, nên em mua ủng hộ ông. Rồi em quay đi được một chút thì có người giật đồ của ông, tự nhiên em thấy ông cụ đứng dậy rượt thằng ăn trộm. Thế là em đứng giữa đường khóc. Xong rồi còn về gọi điện thoại kể cho bạn em nghe, vừa kể vừa khóc.” "One time, I saw an old man without legs selling cotton buds on the street so I bought some to support him. After I had turned away awhile, somebody robbed him. Suddenly, he stood up and ran after the thug. I just stood there crying in the middle of the street. I even called my friends, telling them what happened in tears."

There is something to be said of Hieroglyphics. A single image has the power to convey words, reveal emotions, evoke cultural understanding,  They can say so much. And sometimes just enough.

"Lots of jobs are hard, but with teachers, it's like, 'Wow, I'm hurting kids because I'm as bad as I am.' You have these exaggerated thoughts like, 'Well, what if I break my leg? I'd get three weeks off.' " Elden's worst day of her first fall in the classroom happened in late October. Her students were acting up, so she assigned them a long list of math problems even though she knew homework shouldn't be given as a punishment. Later she realized it was Halloween and that she had most likely only ruined the night for the kids who would do the homework — the ones who had been behaving anyway. It was the last straw: She broke down crying in her car.

...but outward, in the same direction. 

“We don't feel like, in adulthood, we can demand very much of our friends. It's unfair, they've got other stuff going on. So we stop expecting as much, which to me is kind of a sad thing, that we walk away from that.”

....and what better way to start again than with a quote and fuzzy feelings. “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind." -Henry R. Luce, in collaboration with Archibald MacLeish

I've been 26 years old for 3.5 weeks now, and I think I'm just now starting to feel...something. There's something familiar about realizing and reflecting on the fact that you've passed the divide between your seminal 20th year and the looming 30th. What should I have accomplished by then? Where am I supposed to be? Am I even on the right track? Wherever I end up, at least I'll have some cool stories to tell. I'll tell them that one summer, in my mid-twenties, I ran off to Japan to volunteer at a world scout camp, walked through the torii gates at the Fumini Inari shrine, scaled Mt. Fuji with my little brother, hunted for watches in Tokyo's Ginza district, attended the wedding of the first person in my generation to get hitched, prepared to welcome the newest member of the family, got PADI certified, found love by the San Luis Obispo creek, had my life threatened in Marrakech, walked along the walls Hollywood used to show a dragon burning people alive, fol...

Yesterday, my time here in Vietnam officially became one year longer than I originally intended. Friends, family, work, my students, a sense of duty...all played their part in this. In between the time since my last arrival anniversary, much and more has happened. I took a trip to Da Nang, the Philippines, Hawaii, home, Phu Quoc, and Nha Trang. I survived another full year of teaching at the government schools. I got promoted to Senior Teacher. I ran a marathon and even signed up for another. I made new friends, and said goodbye to others.  And now, there's still more to come. I've been promoted again, this time to work as a part of the academic development team at the head office. I'll also concurrently test the new program I help develop in the classroom through a special pilot course. In a way, doing all this feels like what I could've done had I followed my peers' footsteps more closely in college.  The promotion is as scary as it is exciting, though. C...

"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." -Donald D. Quinn

...but not without despondency. It's something I want to change, but I can't...because it's complicated.

An important lesson for today: it's one thing to bet on a horse; it's another to train the rider. Middle/high school coaches definitely don't have it easy, but least they don't have to support two schools at the same time. Another thing: I'm going to seriously reconsider supporting anymore schools with anymore of their extracurricular activities. Too much work, not enough gratitude.

I've been teaching for a good amount of time, and the students still surprise me. This is a picture of class 6/1. I told them to bring clothes in for a fashion show, and without any reminders for an entire week, the kids were prepared. The student in the middle even went through the trouble of constructing an entire robot suit! I could almost dedicate an entire post to all the funny and weird things I've seen in Vietnam. Here are a group of construction workers on lunch break outside the gym I go to. I had the chance to visit one of those restaurants where you eat in the dark here. I think I was most amazed by how long we were at the restaurant. What with the pre-dinner "game," the seating preparation, and the very slow eating, we ended up spending almost two hours here!  On a final note, I've discovered a new hobby/interest: art! I should mention one thing about these pictures: they were both drawn on my phone using my finger, not a pencil o...

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”  It did get me far and I was surprised. Thank you, Mr. Tyson. Tuan Nguyen (Mr.)   Senior Teacher ILA Go Vap, Ho Chi Minh City Tel:  +84 8 3985 0368  – Ext. 1666 Website:  www.ilavietnam.com

Replace "Japanese" with basically any other Asian language/ethnicity.

Paradise Falls wouldn't even hold a candle to this place.

I like reading Vice as much as the next 20-something year old male, but I often have to take a moment to breathe after finishing their articles. They write a lot about things like government corruption, illicit drugs, and the black market for underage sex slaves. That's why I was glad to find a far more lighthearted, if not still eye-opening, piece the other day.  The article that hit me was about a reporter's experience in Vietnam. Click the picture to read about the new White Man's Burden. The article hit home because I realized the reporter's experience was not solely "white," but was one experienced by Westerners in general. Those feelings aren't completely unfounded. My grandma's pastime is reminding me about Viet girls who have taken advantage of Viet guys for their money, and I suspect that at least one must be true. Still, one must be as careful with prudent foresight as one must be with indiscriminate trust. Maybe that's commo...

People ask why I prefer teaching at the public schools. Here's one way to show you why:

...don't know when I'll be back again. My long vacation came and went, and now it's time to finish what I started in Vietnam. The end of my journey here is coming to an end, and I plan to make the most out of what's left. Five months to go and plenty of memories to make. Before we get there, allow me to recap. Excuse the potato quality, but screen shots are rarely pretty. The first thing I did after leaving Vietnam was head to Hawai'i for the Honolulu Marathon. After completing the race, I now know why they call Hawai't the "Rainbow State." No, it's not because there is a large gay community, it's because you truly can see rainbows all the time. But for there to be rainbows, there has to be rain, and there was a lot of rain that day. I tried stand up paddle boarding for the first time at the beach behind our house. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of standing up for me... After coming back from Hawai'i, Uy flew hom...