Nhớ Nguồn

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...