Learning Tieng Viet

Anyone who has ever tried to explain the English language to a non-native speaker knows what a frustrating experience it can be. The grammar is confusing, there are a ton of irregular verbs, the spelling makes no sense and the pronunciation is a nightmare.

BUT, at least, even if your pronunciation isn't perfect, you can still be understood fairly well. The sheer volume of accents present in English attests to that.

Vietnamese is not like that. Very vowel and consonant has to come out exactly right or the words is different or unintelligible. It's terribly frustrating, though rewarding in its own way.

What A Country!

The complete Woody Allen ouvre for $10. I wonder why people are always badmouthing media pirates.

Crossing the Line Into Parody (Literally)

I was out grocery shopping the other day when I heard a vaguely familiar song come over the intercom. It sounded kind of like Madonna's 'Like a Virgin', but I something about it was off; it was man singing, instead of her. There were some odd sound effects in the background, almost like a saw. Then I realized the lyrics were wrong too. And finally, when it reached the chorus, it wasn't 'Like a Virgin' but 'Like a Surgeon', the parody by Weird Al Yankovic.

I don't think I've ever heard a Weird Al Yankovic parody played as background music before. Do they just not know it's a parody because it's in English? Do they not care because it has the same music?

Obviously this isn't too important. Just a small nugget of culture shock.

Colonel Ho? Uncle Sanders?

One of the most popular, and fast-growing chains in HCMC is Kentucky Fried Chicken, or 'Ga Ran Kentucky', as the locals have it:



I have it on good authority that KFC is also tremendously popular in China. Actually, some years ago I remember reading a short story entitled "When Tiger Fighter met Cowboy Chicken", about a young Chinese worker at a fast-food restaurant who struggles with the desire to move on up in the world while at the same time discovering that corporate tyranny wasn't all that different from Communist tyranny.

In Vietnam, however, I suspect that KFC has a different appeal altogether:



Coincidence? I think not! Pollo to the People!

Most Surreal Moment in Teaching (Number 1)

Today in my General English 2 class I reached the dizzying heights of Chapter 8. subject: heroes. I asked my students who their hero was, and received the rather depressing answer that they didn't have heroes, not even Ho Chi Minh. To brighten things up a bit I gave them a short handout on Paul Robeson, which explained both his singing career and his struggles as a Communist in Cold War-era America. One of the students raised his hand and asked "Teacher, what is a Communist?".

Talk about shipping coal to Newcastle. I drew the hammer and sickle on the board, and that seemed to work. But you never can tell...