Monthly Archives: September 2015

About 5 miles south of Ton Duc Thang (or a 100,000 dong taxi ride) is a place called Binh Xuyen. You eat there, but it’s not like any restaurant I’ve ever seen. It’s a collection of long bamboo pavilions going zig-zag over 5 acres, maybe more, with stocked fish ponds in between them. You canContinue reading “Exploring #4”

Saturday afternoon in Ho Chi MInh City We went into the city on a bus with our new friend George, who lives in the same faculty housing as we do, only #9 (we are #7). He is Thai, the son of teachers, has been in every South Asian country, got his Phd in English LanguageContinue reading “Exploring #3”

We got our questionnaires back. Here are the highlights. Take into consideration that there was translation from the English into Vietnamese and then back into English. Mai translated and put it all into an Excel sheet. Out of 65 students in my class there are 20 young men. The biggest group, 12, is from hereContinue reading “Who are our students?”

Adjuncts everywhere will recognize this: The office next to ours has a sign, Faculty Lounge, over the door. It’s a square room like ours with glass interior walls, a window looking outside, air conditioning and a dozen upholstered chairs around the walls. This is the office for adjuncts. It also serves as an ad hocContinue reading “Starting to Explore 2”

Starting to Explore 1 On September 2, which is Independence Day, we went into Ho Chi Minh City to what is called The War Remnants museum. The actual “remnants” are household items from My Lai: two woven fish baskets, a few trays, some other small things too modest to be remembered, or maybe I wasContinue reading “Starting to Explore 1”