Fried owl - you want noise with that?
Almost every night I choose a Saigon street vendor or cafe to surprise
me with their wares. Occasionally I eat alone, but more often than not
I choose to share the meal with a local teacher friend or two. We share
teaching stories and I gather information on what I am eating along
with learning occasional Vietnamese survival phrases.
I love these wind-down times after work. The hours from 10-midnight are
hectic no matter what day of the week, and there is so much human
street traffic to observe. These interactions also have their amusing
moments.
A couple of days ago I thought I was about to experience "fried owl". Fortunately, it turns out that this was "fried dough", but the lack of rules governing the use of "ough" in the English language resulted in the use of the wrong version. This combined with the southern Vietnamese method of pronouncing words beginning with "d" as if they began with a "y" and you start to understand why I was so concerned at eating such a shy, beautiful and probably rare bird. Anyway, it was delicious and cost less than a dollar, as did the beer that came with it. The noise at many of these street cafes is tremendous.
I've attached two sound bites from last week. In the first you can hear the trucks shattering the night air with their air horns, used to warn dangerously blase bikers that a truck does not stop or turn on a dime.
The second demonstrates some typical table talk.
Neither showcases the permanent cacophony of bike horns as they emulate the sonar technique of whales and dolphins to find their way through insanely dense traffic. In teaching news, I received yet another class to add to my growing collection. I'm just about on 20 hours now, so my first objective is about to be hit. I want about 25 a week to be totally comfortable with my income.
I was at a training course for new VUS teachers today, where I discovered that I am much further advanced in my teaching abilities than the rest of them. That was a real confidence booster. The HR Manager was presenting one of the topics, and when he was done he mentioned that VAS (the Australian arm of VUS) would like me to teach IT at their campus - just up the road from my current one. I'll find out more tomorrow, and am very excited about that prospect. Hope you're checking out the Flickr photos that I post occasionally. I'll write blog updates every now and then explaining what's going on in each of the sets.
Until next time...
A couple of days ago I thought I was about to experience "fried owl". Fortunately, it turns out that this was "fried dough", but the lack of rules governing the use of "ough" in the English language resulted in the use of the wrong version. This combined with the southern Vietnamese method of pronouncing words beginning with "d" as if they began with a "y" and you start to understand why I was so concerned at eating such a shy, beautiful and probably rare bird. Anyway, it was delicious and cost less than a dollar, as did the beer that came with it. The noise at many of these street cafes is tremendous.
I've attached two sound bites from last week. In the first you can hear the trucks shattering the night air with their air horns, used to warn dangerously blase bikers that a truck does not stop or turn on a dime.
The second demonstrates some typical table talk.
Neither showcases the permanent cacophony of bike horns as they emulate the sonar technique of whales and dolphins to find their way through insanely dense traffic. In teaching news, I received yet another class to add to my growing collection. I'm just about on 20 hours now, so my first objective is about to be hit. I want about 25 a week to be totally comfortable with my income.
I was at a training course for new VUS teachers today, where I discovered that I am much further advanced in my teaching abilities than the rest of them. That was a real confidence booster. The HR Manager was presenting one of the topics, and when he was done he mentioned that VAS (the Australian arm of VUS) would like me to teach IT at their campus - just up the road from my current one. I'll find out more tomorrow, and am very excited about that prospect. Hope you're checking out the Flickr photos that I post occasionally. I'll write blog updates every now and then explaining what's going on in each of the sets.
Until next time...
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