Author Archives: helenaworthen

I gave the sixth and last session of my Cross-Cultural Leadership classes on October 14. My final exam was one question, basically “What did you learn in this class?” It’s a take-home, due next Tuesday the 20th. Here’s the exam itself: Name and explain three things that you learned in this class How did youContinue reading “Final Exam: What did you learn?”

Today, October 16, is Women’s Day celebrated by the TDTU union. The way they celebrate it is with a food contest. Every department competes by bringing food.   You cook it at home and bring it in with your serving dishes and take it to the gym, where tables are set up in a U-shape. ThenContinue reading “Food”

Vinh took me and Joe shopping for ao dais to wear at her wedding in Hue later this month. The picture below shows just a small piece of the beading and embroidery on one of the ao dais that Vinh’s mum is going to wear. I like that green; I asked Vinh if it wasContinue reading “Shopping for an Ao Dai”

   Coffee making equipment  I wrote 40 multiple choice questions which were to be divided into two tests each with 20 questions. I had to also provide the answers. The answers had to be from either the readings, the handouts, or my power point slides. The two tests with answers would then go to theContinue reading “Gave my Midterm in Cross-Cultural Leadership Yesterday Afternoon”

Night train from HCMC to Nha Trang Dinner Wednesday night Sept 30th with Shawn Shieh, pronounced “shay,” who is the Director of Development and Operations of the China Labor Bulletin, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/, a regular online publication coming out of Hong Kong that covers labor in China. His background is working with civil society organizations in China,Continue reading “High Rise and just plain highs”

What is it like to be an adjunct (part time) English teacher in higher ed in Vietnam? Jessica, (her English name) came by our office at Ton Duc Thang University this afternoon. I had sent her an email asking permission to write down some information about her working conditions and she offered to drop inContinue reading “Working as an adjunct in Vietnam”

If you are receiving this as an email from me, you won’t see the button that allows you to comment or follow. You have to go to the website (helenaworthen.wordpress.com) and sign up there. Then you’ll see a hot link line at the top of each of my posts that says, “Leave a Comment.” YouContinue reading “How to Comment”

I get blank stares when I tell students that the situation in the US is not all it’s cracked up to be. Saying that our Gini index is 41 compared to Vietnam’s 35 (down from 39 a few years ago) doesn’t do the trick, nor does the fact that one in 100 people in theContinue reading “Another Way to Think about Vietnam Compared to the US”

Getting out of town was a really good idea. Bottom line: Nghia invited us to his house for lunch on Sunday. His house is a really beautiful place. His mom is lovely. His little sister is lovely. His grandparents, ages 94 and 92, are worth a book in themselves. I have a photo of hisContinue reading “Phan Thiet with Nghia”

Joe’s class on a Monday, when the girls wear the ao dai uniforms I was beginning to get cabin fever, combined with mid-term tunnel syndrome, which is when you’re halfway through the semester and can’t tell if your students are learning anything. The idea is that you’re swimming down a tunnel and have come tooContinue reading “Mid-semester tunnel syndrome”