L - Legends - #AtoZChallenge - "Just the Tip"

It had been a journey of many leagues. Magni had been traveling on foot for over a week. Almost halfway to his destination, he knew the end was in sight. He had caught a ride a few times on farmers' carts, but most people were not very trusting of people they did not know. That trust had only decreased since he left the land of his own realm, but he had not met any violence.

Magni had enough coin to buy food when he could find it, but little extra for accommodation. He had slept in stables, under trees, and under a bridge once during a storm. A few days ago, a washerwoman had taken pity on him and allowed him into her family's home for the night, but he knew he could not expect this to be common.

Tonight, trudging along the road as the sun was going down, Magni took notice of the increase in foot and horse traffic. This always meant he was coming close to a town or village. His spirits rose in hopes of being able to find a hot meal before finding a place to lay his head. He inquired of a passerby who informed him there was a tavern further up the road.

Magni looked forward to a hot soup or maybe some roasted boar. He decided he would even splurge on a flagon of ale or mulled wine. It was a nice night. After a full belly, any tree would do for shelter. He picked up the pace to get his hot meal.

Within an hour he came across the tavern. The paint was peeling on the sign above the door, but it could still be read. The Broken Traveler had a depiction of a man sleeping under several sets of watchful eyes. Magni was not sure if that logo was meant to be comforting to strangers, but it implied they were welcomed. He made his way inside and was surprised at the number of people spread about the room. This was a popular place for a tavern on the edge of town.

There were about a dozen tables in the middle that could have seated six people comfortably, but comfort didn't seem to be a concern here. There were ten to fifteen people crowded around each of the tables. More if you counted the girls in men's laps. The beer was flowing, conversation was lively, and the songs were cheerful. The place seemed friendly enough. Magni found an empty seat at one of the smaller tables near a wall as a cheer went up from one of the big tables.

Across the table from him sat a man who seemed to be having a quiet conversation with his drink. He only raised his head enough to take another sip and went right back to muttering into his cup. Magni offered a greeting, but the man gave little more than a nod as he continued to concentrate on his beverage.

Magni managed to flag down a serving girl and learned the cook had made his specialty tonight, a hearty stew that he only makes twice a year. She told him everyone was here for the stew. Magni asked for the stew and an ale. He leaned against the wall and stretched his arms above his head. It felt good to sit down. He wanted to stretch out his legs, but there were too many people milling about. It would have been rude to take up too much space.

Magni heard a loud cheer go up across the room. Several people moved to a small table on the other side of the tavern and patted the back of one of the men seated there. The serving woman from earlier pushed through the crowd and set a large beer before the man. The crowd cheered again as the man held up his new drink. Magni didn't know what everyone was celebrating, but was happy to get to be in the middle of it. This was a very lively crowd.

Magni's stew and ale arrived and he quickly realized how hungry he was. He downed the ale quickly and asked the server for another before she got away.

He tasted the stew and was immediately pleased with his decision. It was delicious. It had onions, garlic, and hard-boiled quails eggs with chucks of bitter gourd. The broth was spiced perfectly. He lifted the stew to take a long sip right from the bowl. He loved it.

A loud cheer erupted from the table next to him and so many people came crowding around, the bowl was almost knocked from his grasp. He saw a man seated being slapped on the back and people rubbing his head and he smiled from ear to ear. The serving girl showed up with Magni's ale and quickly apologized to Magni as she handed the beer to the happy man. She quickly ran off and was back a moment later with another for Magni.

Magni gulped down some of his ale and asked the man sharing his table what everyone was so happy about. The man didn't look up, but said "Lucky. Lucky man" to his cup. Magni shrugged his shoulders and popped an egg from the stew into his mouth.

He kept eating and enjoying the revelry around him. He soon ordered a third drink and was feeling very good.

The bowl was almost empty, so Magni raised it to his lips and used his spoon to shovel what was left into his mouth. He had over-filled his mouth and was having trouble chewing without dropping food back out. He was slowly getting it down when he felt something hard against the top of his mouth. Still chewing and moving things around, the hard part found its way to his teeth. It was too hard to chew. He managed to swallow everything but the hard piece and spit it out.

It was the top portion of one of the bitter gourds. It even had part of the stem still on it and was about the size of a large coin. He was looking at it as he washed out his mouth with another drink of ale.

Suddenly, the quiet man at the table with him burst out. "Lucky. Stew lucky. Lucky man!"

The crowds turned and looked at him with excitement in their eyes. He flashed a bewildered smile. People started rushing toward him and cheering. He tossed the chunk of gourd on the floor and cheerfully asked "What?"

The crowd stopped and looked at the chunk on the floor. A few people gasped and pointed. The man at his table, still looking into his glass started chattering, "no no no no no no no."

The serving woman showed up with a huge smile and a beer for Magni that he hadn't ordered and looked at the people staring at him. "What's going on?"

The closest man, red in face, shouted, "He threw down the tip. Just threw it on the dirty floor." The crowd nodded their agreement as they moved closer. Magni could sense the change in the crowd as they closed in. Several were throwing insults and comments at him.

"Do you think you're better than us?"
"Who turns down good luck?"
"Who are you to throw us to the dirt?"
"This town doesn't need your kind."

The serving woman leaned in close and yelled over the noise of the crowd. "You need to leave now."

"I haven't paid yet."

She answered quickly, "Just go if you know what's good for you."

Magni got up and slowly forced his way through the angry crowd. They hurled insults at him and a few spit in his face. He feared for his safety and had no idea why. As he approached the exit, he was pushed from behind and fell out the door. 

Half the tavern followed him out and continued shouting at him. He hurried to get away from these people, but several chased him down and blocked his path.

"You're a bad omen. You're not going into our town."

Magni tried to object. "But I'm headed south. I have to go that way."

One of the men pulled out a dagger. "Find another way."

Magni turned back up the path he had just traveled from and started back. Half a dozen men followed to be sure he was leaving town before they returned to the tavern.

He knew he would probably lose a day cutting through the woods to avoid the town when he turned south again, but he didn't understand why.

Magni smiled as he walked, "Well, at least I ate for free."

---

 

All this month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. A new post will go up every day (except Sundays) using a letter of the alphabet as the starting off point. My theme for the month is literary genres. I am writing in a different genre of flash fiction each day. Today's letter is L for Legend.

Fortune Cookie #15 - Diversity

I dove into my collection of fortune cookies this morning and came out with this gem.

A diversity of friends is a
credit to your flexible nature.

My immediate thought was that this is one of those rare fortunes that is actually accurate. I DO have a very diverse group of friends. But on further reflection, I realized that this diversity was actually forced on me.

I haven't lived in America for 4 years. In fact, my Facebook Memories this morning had a video of me showing off our empty apartment in Indianapolis hours before leaving it for the first time. We left our home four years ago today.

Since then, we have lived in China for 20 months and have now been in Vietnam for over two years. And we have a wide diversity of friends.

Countries our friends are from:

Australia

Thailand

South Africa

Jamaica

Peru

England

Taiwan

Vietnam

Mexico

New Zealand

France

Romania

Ireland

Russia

China 

South Korea

Canada

Malaysia

Singapore

I am sure there are a few I haven't thought of, but these are the people we associate with. And with so many different cultures over the years, a level of flexibility is necessary. However, I have to acknowledge that it wasn't our flexibility that gave us such a diverse friend group. It was our circumstances.

When you live the expat life, you meet a lot of other people doing the same. Yes, we get to know many of the locals, but we also meet up with and get to know the people who are "foreigners" here. Wherever they may be from.

When I lived in Indianapolis, I guess I had a diversity of friends. I met a lot of people through my job at Amazon and had friends from all walks of life. People of various colors, creeds, religions, and countries. There I had friends from six different African nations. Immigrants from Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal, Namibia, Egypt, and Ghana. However, once again, I met these people because of my job. I guess it does require some flexibility in order for us to form friendships, but work gets the credit for putting us together.

I grew up in an all-white, Polish Catholic community. A very small town.

I don't write this to make it sound like it was a racist place. Many small towns across America are the result of settlers from a couple hundred years ago settling there. The town I lived in and a few of the surrounding towns were heavily comprised of people with Polish ancestry. In fact, a few of the old-timers still spoke Polish. A few towns over was a town of heavy German ancestry. That's where you could go to buy the best sausages. You still can. There was another town that was heavily French. These cultural distinctions are still evident today despite it being many generations since the towns were founded by people emigrating from those countries.

However, being all European settlements meant basically all white residents. Growing up, this was my group of friends.

Can you say DRUNKEN REDNECKS?

There are a few of my old crowd missing from that picture, but you can trust me when I say they would just be more of the same. The only diversity among our group was when we decided to spring for Stag beer instead of our usual cheap Milwaukee's Best.

I am not saying anything bad about these guys. They were (and still are) some of the best friends I ever had. And as for the lack of diversity, it wasn't because of a deficiency of flexibility or racism. It was because of proximity and geography. Most of us had no real interactions with Asians, Latinos, or African-Americans until we turned sixteen and had to get jobs in the bigger city where there was work.

Other cultures just weren't around. There were Polish people and the few of us who weren't. Even if we had a black friend from the city, it's not like they would have wanted to come hang out in our redneck haven anyway. And I can't say I would blame them.

I am not trying to claim there was no racism in my small town. There was, but I have to admit that I was probably blind to most of it since it didn't affect me and, other than the occasional after-school special, I'd never been challenged to even think about it.

I remember going off to college when I was about 30 and loving the fact that I had a neighbor family from Myanmar. Across the hall were three roommates from three African nations. All men who had left their families behind to get an American education and would then return home. I have never had this kind of proximity with the outer-world before.

So, thank you to the cookie for having so much faith in my flexible nature, but location must be given its credit also. I am sure that if I had never left Scheller, IL, I still wouldn't really have international friends or friends of different colors other than people I might meet at work.

 I am so grateful for the intercultural experiences I am having now and wouldn't trade them for anything.

End of Summer

All this week, my Facebook Memories have been reminding me that Red and I left the States three years ago this week. It has been fun seeing our adventures of navigating our new life in Beijing flashing across my screen each morning.

This was a big day for me.

In only five years of marriage, Red and I have changed jobs over a dozen times, visited nine different countries and lived in three of them. When we moved to Vietnam, we didn't even have jobs lined up. We just hopped on a plane confident that "we'll figure it out when we get there."

Even watching us from far, people should pretty easily be able to observe that neither Red nor I are scared of change. We definitely have things that concern us, but walking into the unknown is not one of them. And when you choose to live in another culture, that is a valuable quality to possess. An adventure into the unknown is thrown at us almost every time we step out of our house. It takes a long time to learn all the intricacies of another culture. We have learned that we must be extremely flexible and just go along with almost any mystery, confusion or change that is thrown at us.

I am experiencing a bit of change in my home right now. Summer has come to an end. As a teacher, this carries special significance. All the kids are headed back to school. However, this affects me in a different way than traditional teachers.

In this part of the world, kids go to school for much longer hours than in Western countries. And for most of these kids, even when they are not in school, they are still taking supplementary classes, extra lessons, tutoring appointments, advanced skills training, and many more things. 

When I was teaching in the classroom in Beijing, on Monday mornings I would often ask the students what they did over the weekend. I eventually stopped asking that question because the answer was always the same.

"On Saturday, I had an English class, a math class, and piano lesson. Then after lunch, I had another math class, a swimming class, and a calligraphy class. Then I did homework until I went to bed. On Sunday, I got up early to do homework until my school placement tutor came at ten. Then after lunch, I had my piano recital, Chinese class, and culture class."

These kids also have similar stories about what they do after school each day. It is almost always more classes and doing homework. I feel so sorry for them. The classes and stress never stop. It is work work work all the time.

Now, I am one of the teachers that many of these kids meet with after school and on weekends. I no longer work in the school system. I provide them with part of their supplemental English education. I spend months getting to know the kids and their learning patterns, how to get them to respond, how to draw them out and how to best teach them. Every lesson is individualized for that student. And a couple of times a year, it all changes.

Because I am an extra teacher in their already cramped schedule, things could change at any time. If a parent decides their kid needs to take another math class, they have to find a way to fit it into their schedule. So, occasionally, one of my students disappears. Although, I never know why. It could be a scheduling conflict or they feel like they have met the objective they were trying to achieve through classes with me. It could be because they don't like my style and sought out another teacher. Either way, I am never told. They just disappear one day. It's sometimes sad when a student I have really grown to enjoy falls off my schedule. There is never even an opportunity to say goodbye.

This month is one of the times when things really get shaken up. I may not be a school teacher, but the school schedule does affect me. I can only teach classes in the evenings and on the weekends because that is when the kids are free to take extra classes. And this month all the kids returned to school from their summer break. This means, their summer schedule has been disrupted and everything has to be redone to accommodate the new school year. New classes and teachers mean new challenges that must be met by their extra classes. This means every family re-assesses their educational needs. So, even though I do not work in a school, the lives of every one of my students are in transition. This means massive rescheduling happens. 

Almost overnight, half of my students are gone and replaced with new ones. I get new students all the time, but it is generally one here and there. In the fall, I get a bunch at once. And the ones I have grown to love over the last year are just gone with no notice. No one ever says, "This will be our last class together." They just disappear.

I know regular school teachers get new students every year, but on the last day of school each year, they know their students are moving on. They can say goodbye and are mentally prepared for it. When I get a new student, I don't know if they will be a part of my life for the next three weeks or the next three years. And I won't know until they disappear. It sucks.

Some kids, I am happy to see fall off my schedule, but there a few I genuinely miss and want to be able to follow up and see where their lives take them. But I'm getting used to it. I love my job and would not want to do anything else.

Well, if I have to work.

---

Today's post was inspired by the writing prompt, "It was the end of summer."

Jumbo Prawns, Buffalo & Beer

Last month, Red and I discovered that we would not be able to renew the lease in our house. Our landlords told us they loved us and would like us to stay, but the rent would be going up 25% because of the pool being built.

Now, we would have never taken advantage of that pool, but other tenants might and would be willing to pay for it. So, we opted to move out and find another place. The next day, we found a beautiful home in a very quiet neighborhood. We have been here a month now and absolutely love it.

Large open floor plan

Huge skylight in the dining area

 

Creepy painting over television

We love this house.

We are the same distance from the market as before, but now we are on the other side. We live on a tiny side street, so there is ZERO traffic. This means there is no noise from cars. Just the occasional motorbike. It is so quiet here.

An extra perk we did not expect is our new landlords who live right next door to us. Mom and Dad. We have no idea what their names are, but that is how they asked to be addressed. Neither speaks a word of English, but they just may be the most accommodating people on the planet.

Many times, in the evening, one of them has brought over a silver tray filled with food they made. We never recognize the contents and they can't speak English, so we never know what we are eating. But we do know, it is amazing every time.

Last week, we were invited to their house for a party. We did not know what to expect with this, but we knew there would be food. That's usually all it takes to get me somewhere.

We walked in to find about 40 people (all Vietnamese, we were the only foreigners) already seated at tables piled with food. There were a few more dishes to be brought out and the feasting would begin. We were shown to a table and sat down. None of the people at the table spoke any English, but (despite being guests themselves) immediately set glasses in front of us and filled them with beer.

Noodle dishes, vegetables, fish cake, big plate of squid.
I love the food here.

Soon the invisible cue to start happened and everyone dug in. Except for the old woman sitting next to Red. This woman served everything on the table directly to Red's plate. She pointed out the different sauces to use with which food and then watched as Red sampled each bite. Sometimes Red would try to put something to her lips and the woman would stop her, sprinkle some multi-colored powder on the food and then gesture to eat it. It was fun to watch.

As the food on the plates began to be sucked down my gullet disappear, more food was brought out.

This was the good stuff. Fried prawns, baby water buffalo, duck.
Pork, whole crab, more squid.
We have the meats.

It was great. I stuffed myself and then drank way too much because every local wanted to come over and share a toast with the Americans. And there were a lot of toasts.

I had a glass of beer with every individual here.

As the crowd started to disperse, we got to talk with the landlord's daughter. She speaks decent English. She explained what this party was for.

When we first moved to Vietnam, we learned that there is little significance put on birthdays. In fact, most of the people of the older generations don't even know when their birthdays are or what their actual age is. However, the anniversary of someone's death is commemmorated. This party was to honor the deaths of our landlord's grandparents. This party happens every year.

She informed us that her parents host three "death day" parties annually. This one was the smallest of the three. The big one, to honor our landlord's parents, usually has over 200 people in attendance. Since they died more recently, more people knew them. Thus, the higher numbers.

I better get to work building my alcohol tolerance.

We Call Them Melons In America

A few days ago, I was practicing my typical morning routine of sitting on the toilet with my phone catching up on the news. In the middle of reading the latest on Black Ariel and the Blue Bell Ice Cream Licker, I got a message from my wife.

I immediately knew who she was talking about. We've been dealing with this guy for the last few days. Right next door to us, a construction crew has been putting up a new building and we share a gate with that property. So, we cross paths with the workers daily. Every now and then, one of them comes to us to use our electricity or inform us of excess noise that day or the shutting off of our water. It is always a difficult conversation since we do not speak the local language and have to do everything through inadequate translation apps.

However, this particular guy is especially "friendly." He frequently wanders over to make small talk when he sees me outside. This usually involves lots of hand gestures and pointing at the construction site with a big smile. I never know what he is trying to convey, but it seems like it is not pertinent information. Just friendly banter. Until he stepped up his game a few days ago.

He sat on our porch one day, so I grabbed a Pepsi and my phone and went to join him. I like to be friendly most of the time. Through our translation apps, we tried to talk to each other. After a couple of minutes, he asked to borrow my motorcycle. I made an excuse about how we were about to leave so it wouldn't be available. So, he asked to use it at lunch the next day. As I was telling him no, I started closing up the house so Red and I could leave. He then asked me how I secure my doors when I leave.

What kind of creepy question is that?

This made me nervous because he basically lives right next to us until the house is built. They always know when we are coming and going. And now he wants to know how well I lock my doors.

Due to my inability to effectively communicate all we can really do is try to be aware.

Not being able to communicate has been a common theme in my life. When I lived in Puerto Rico twenty years ago, I saw a sign on a counter that said CUIDADO: CALIENTE.

This sign made no sense to me. CITY: HOT
What?

I leaned closer to contemplate the meaning and it occurred to me as soon as my arms contacted the metal counter. Cuidado does not mean 'city.' It means 'CAUTION.'

The Spanish word for 'city' is ciudad. They may look similar, but the meaning is quite different.

As I rubbed the aloe on my forearms, I knew I would never forget those words again.

Living in Beijing, I almost did not get my work permit due to a communication error. I was asked to send off for my official Master's Degree for the paperwork that had to be filed. They told me that it must be sealed when we turn it into authorities. I did as they asked and it arrived two weeks later. I handed the envelope to my boss and she immediately ripped it open. I yelled, "NO! It has to still be sealed when we give it to them." She gave me a confused look as I sat and put my face in my hands. I had dropped a significant amount of money to get this and have it specially shipped. She had just ruined it.

She looked the degree over and asked, "Where is the seal?"

After a frustrating back-and-forth, I learned when they told me it must be sealed, what they meant was it must have the official State of Illinois International Authentication Seal. This seal is what proves to foreign governments that this is an official document.

She thought she had communicated clearly and I thought that I had understood. We were both wrong.

I have hundreds of stories like this, but let's come back to the present.

That 'creepy little dude' is now talking to my wife when I am not present and chooses to comment on her 'grapes.' If you have met my wife then you are probably aware that she is quite gifted in the area under her shirt. And in a culture that is known for not possessing those assets, it is even more apparent. But that does not mean he needs to be commenting on her grapes.

I head downstairs to confront this man and in my head I am running how I should play this. Should I be firm or gentle? Should I confront him in front of the other workers (to help keep him on their side of the wall) or take him to the side in private? I don't want to create too big of an incident. We do have to live among these people and we are the foreigners.

We may be the foreigners here but this cannot be allowed to happen?

I get downstairs to discover that is has escalated to the point that another worker is now involved and talking to my wife in the doorway. I start to step in to put an end to this harassment and I hear her telling the new man (who speaks a little English), he said: "Chau grapes are very big." Everyone (including my wife) laughed.

What is happening?

It turns out the 'creepy little dude' was wanting to plug into our electricity because the work site was having some work done and would be without power for a few hours. He wasn't being inappropriate at all. The Google Translate app just sucks when dealing with Vietnamese.

I even learned the reason he was asking about how I secured my doors a few days earlier was because our water pump was being replaced. When he discovered we were leaving for the evening, he was wondering how they were going to test the pressure once the new one was installed. There was no ill intent. We just don't have the ability to fully communicate. The extra speculation and guesswork about intent was misguided…again.

I have been putting off receiving official language instruction, but I believe it may be time to change my stance.

X - Expats

Today I'm not writing about a specific person. This is a group of people who mostly don't even know each other, but they have influenced my thinking immensely.

The Expat Community

Expat is short for expatriate. It simply means 'a person who lives outside their home country'.

When you choose to live outside your home country, you meet a lot of other people who have done the same thing. There is also a special bond that is formed almost immediately upon meeting these people. After all, you have several things in common.

• You are both foreigners in a strange land.
• You are both familiar with the struggles of maintaining legal status.
• You have each struggled to find where to buy items.
• You both struggle to understand not only the language but the strange events happening around you.
• You share a common language. (Without this part the bond is rather difficult.)
• You are both looking for friends.

When over 99% of all the people you meet don't speak your language, making new friends is difficult. So when you hear your language being spoken in the marketplace, it catches your attention. Crossing paths with someone who you can actually communicate with is a big deal. However, there are some drawbacks to this.

Just speaking the same language or being from the same country is not enough for a friendship. There are people I have attached myself to just because they are someone I can talk to outside my home. Within a few days of meeting them, I realized that is probably the only reason I maintained this relationship.

When you are in your own country surrounded by people who speak your language, you have choices in who you hang out with. You form a group of friends you enjoy spending time with. Once you step out of that scenario, you take what you can get. Sometimes you realize very quickly that if you were actually back in the States, there is no way you would be friends with this person. I am not saying anything bad about these people. They are just not my preferred crowd if I have a choice.

However, there is another group that really gets under my skin. In every country I have been in, there is always a group of people who just love to trash the country they are living in. The favorite pastime of many of the expats I have met is complaining about how stupid, uncivilized, unorganized, rude, or dirty the locals are.

I just don't get it.

Sure. I see things now and then that I think could be done a different way. However, I have that view based on the way I am used to doing something. That rarely means that it is actually the way it should be done. It is just the way I grew up doing it. Plus, different parts of the world are in different stages of development, with different cultural systems, different histories, different resources, and many other things. Things are going to be different sometimes out of necessity. And I have many examples of times where I have learned that the "new" way I see something done ends up being far superior to what I grew up doing.

However, my biggest complaint with this attitude is not the unwillingness to recognize the resourcefulness of the locals. It is the overall negative attitude.

Especially since that person chose to live here.

I have listened to literally hundreds of people over the years drone on and on about how much better things are in their home country (Australia, England, Germany, America, etc.) than they are at the place we are sitting. My response is always the same. "Then go home."

There are hardships involved with living overseas. I will never pretend that there are not. However, it is a choice to decide if they are worth it or not. And if a person does not think they are worth it, I have no problem with that. Everyone has their own preferences. But if they think it is not worth it, then leave. Go to a place that is more to your liking. Why choose to be miserable?

A few months ago, my wife made a remark about how much we loved our life here. The woman she was with turned up her nose. "You actually like it here. Why?" Red gave her a list of things we love about this place. The woman retorted with her complaints about the place. However, she had been here less than six months and had already found a job in another country. She was moving on.

I had no problem with that. Go where you are happier. Plus, I didn't really like her anyway, so I had no problem with her moving on.

However, some people will never be happy or satisfied anywhere. The perpetual complainers, the eternal pessimists, and the grumblers will always find something to be unhappy about. And their greatest satisfaction in life seems to be finding others who will help them reinforce their negative outlook on everything. I've learned to watch for them and avoid them. Those people are poison.

Slowly, I have gathered a few people (mostly Aussies) here in Hội An, Vietnam who love living here. These people not only enjoy life (as I like to do) but help each other. We trade secrets on where to find key items, the great restaurants, and coffee shops, tips on how to ship things, travel, get service, etc.

Whether traveling the world or sitting in your hometown, there are healthy and unhealthy people to associate with. It is well worth the extra time to weed out the bad ones and find your tribe.

---

This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

S - Salon (not affiliated w/ beauty)

For the two years I lived in Beijing, my main job was working in one of the government schools. However, I had half a dozen side jobs and one of them was the easiest money I ever made.

On Thursday nights, I took a bus to an adult language center in Shuangjing 双井 and got paid to sit and talk to people. This is called an English salon.

Now, if you know me, then you know talking is one of my favorite activities. I've had lots of practice. And I'm really good at it. In fact, I can talk for hours without even having anything to say. It's just second nature to me.

All I had to do was show up at 7 p.m. as their class was letting out and talk to the students. The students were all adults who were studying English. They could all speak English but were far from fluent. My presence was to give them an opportunity to converse with a native English speaker. The school supplied me with drinks and paid me to sit there for two hours and just talk about…whatever.

Since these were not guided lessons, the conversations could take any direction and since I was the obvious foreigner most of the time we discussed the differences in our countries. And there are a lot.

Once we got to know each other and got past the initial talk of food differences and what I did for a living, it got interesting. I went in every week knowing that we were going to talk a lot about politics, guns, and drugs. Other topics were covered as well, but these were the top three.

Now, when I say politics, I mean American politics. Political discourse does not happen in China. Not only is it a taboo topic, but it is very easy to get yourself into a lot of trouble for expressing the wrong opinion to the wrong person. It is safer to just keep your mouth shut. However, it is perfectly safe to talk about the politics of other countries and they always had questions about things they had seen in their heavily filtered news. After doing my best to explain the things they read (to the best of my understanding) and correct the mountains of misinformation they had about things, it sometimes moved to almost being an American civics class. I told them about federal law versus state, city, county, and municipal. We talked about how taxes work. I taught them about the election process. And they always had questions about why I could talk so freely about this stuff. They were fascinated by the idea that a person could insult a public official or even the president right to his face without penalty.

They asked me questions about the American "gun culture". In the year that I attended this class, I only met one student there who had ever even seen a gun in person. The idea that I grew up with guns in my house petrified them. I got the impression that they would be terrified to even be in the same room with one. Despite their fear, they had a lot of questions and sometimes it got technical. After I had done my best to explain the varying philosophies on gun ownership and control, it often moved into gun laws. This always got confusing because it was hard to get them to understand that each state has its own laws. This structure does not exist in China. One guy had heard about "concealed carry" and did not understand why a person who had this special license had to be careful about what part of the country he was in. What is legal in Indiana could get you in a lot of trouble in Illinois. He never stopped asking questions about how that could be.

They had just as many questions and lots of bad information about drugs in America. Drugs do exist in China, but they are locked down pretty tight. And the penalties for violating drug-related laws are severe. Of the people in that class, only two even knew a person who had done drugs. It is not something that is out in the open. However, because of American television, they all believe that in America drugs are everywhere. They are flowing freely at every party. High schoolers trade them in the hallways like baseball cards. Every businessman has a stash in his desk drawer and every public restroom is filled with people lined up to snort cocaine off the sink counter. Once again, I spent weeks just trying my best to explain reality.

These are three big examples, but there were many other topics covered and they were all complicated by the vast differences between our cultures, values, and way of thinking. We talked about parental responsibilities, employer expectations, property ownership, use of free time, educational philosophy, celebrity culture and many more. Every new topic showed me how little they actually knew about us. And also, how little I actually knew about them.

Spending time in a country can help you start figuring out the rules and see how things work. However, it takes a lot more time to start tapping into the reasons things are done the way they are. Everyone has heard of cultural practices from other countries:

• In Vietnam, do not point with one finger. Use your whole hand.
• In China, emptying your plate suggests that the host did not serve enough food. They will be offended.
• In Kenya, you should empty your plate. Leaving any food behind suggests that you did not enjoy the meal.
• In many Muslim countries, you should not use your left hand for eating. That hand is "unclean" since it is for taking care of bathroom hygiene.
• In India, always refuse your host's first offer for a snack or drink. You will be asked again.
• In South Korea, stay very quiet on public transportation. Noisiness is considered to be very rude.

To prosper in one of these countries, just learning the rules will only get you so far. With time (and intentional effort), you will begin to understand the reasons behind these practices. That knowledge can lead to helping a person understand a lot more about what they see around them. Understanding the mindset of people takes time and it involves a lot. Hundreds or even thousands of years of practice, literature, history, weather, politics, entertainment, war, famine, prosperity, diet, and many other things helped to shape the culture and no practice has a "simple" explanation about the why.

I talked to these people every week for over a year and there were many things that I didn't understand even after they explained them. Many times. This is because it takes more than an explanation to understand some things. Our backgrounds and worldviews are so radically different that we are not connecting on the underlying thought process that goes hundreds of layers deep. 

This experience showed me just how different people are and how ongoing communication is essential to understanding each other. Really understanding takes time. Seeing it in such large-scale differences made me realize this is a common problem everywhere and not just inter-culturally. Problems of not understanding where someone is coming from happens at work and even within the same household.

I learned a lot from those people, but my biggest lesson was not about the things they told me. It was about the need to be more understanding of people. We need to spend more time listening. Anytime we are struggling to be understood, we need to be sure we are also struggling to try to understand.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

J - Joe

Before leaving the States, I lived in Indianapolis for a few years. My first job in that city was working in one of the city schools. I worked in the "Severely Disabled Special Education" classroom. Many of the students in that classroom were non-verbal. Some were in wheelchairs. A few were not even capable of taking care of personal hygiene issues. There were autistic children, one with Down Syndrome, one that was blind, non-verbal and unable to care for himself. Several other ailments existed in this classroom as well. Each student had their own combination of challenges to face.

Of all the students in that class, there were three that were capable of having a normal conversation. One of them is who I am writing about today. His name is Joe.

Joe was a 12-year-old African American student with some sort of high-functioning autism and some other cognitive issues.  A person actually could talk to Joe for a few minutes and (other than a bit of a speech impediment) not realize he had any issues.

Joe could not read and I doubt he ever will be able to. He could not even recognize letters. Joe's mental state was probably as advanced as it is ever going to be. There are specialized schools who may have been able to be more help, but Joe came from a poor inner-city family and a public school day-care setting was the best he was ever going to get.

Whatever setbacks he had facing him, Joe was a notoriously happy kid. And he was one of my favorites in the class. I know a teacher is not supposed to have favorites, but we do. And Joe seemed to adore me. He was at my side constantly. He would get a bit moody when one of the other teaching assistants had to do something with him so I could work with another student.

Joe is one of those kids that I really wanted to take under my wing and be of more assistance to but teacher-student relationships can be tricky so it is better to just not get involved. However, when I left that school to go work in an actual autism center, I got Joe's information. If I was no longer his teacher, I could be of more help.

On the last day of school, I drove to his house to go introduce myself to his mother and explain my intentions. Joe and I just wanted to occasionally hang out. Go catch a movie, play video games, whatever. However, getting to his house was an eye-opening experience. Seventeen people lived in this tiny, filthy house. Most of them were kids. There were holes all the way through the walls and I could tell immediately upon meeting Joe's mother that she had a severe substance abuse problem.

She didn't question anything I said and told me I could take Joe any time to do anything. I didn't consider that to be good parenting, but I was sure that was far from the biggest problem in that house.

For the next year, I picked Joe up about every other week and we went to do something. We went to see the latest Fast & Furious movie in the theater. We went back to my house to play XBOX. We went and played catch in the park. He never cared what we did. He just loved having someone who paid attention to him. And I enjoyed knowing that I was taking him to do things that he never got to do.

Joe never asked for anything. He was always happy to do whatever I had in mind. However, once I said, "What would you like to eat tonight?" He told me he wanted a steak. He had a steak once and loved it. So, we went to Applebee's.

As soon as we stepped inside, he said, "I don't like this place." I was surprised.

"Have you been here before?"

He said, "There's just too many white people."

Here's a picture of me.
In case you can't tell, I'm pretty white.

I asked, "You don't like white people?"

"No. All that money. They think they're better than everybody else."

I got down low and said, "Joe, look at me. I am white."

Joe stepped back and looked me up and down. He then laughed and waved me away. "You're not white. You're pretty cool."

That was intended as a compliment, so I took it that way.

He did agree to eat there and was thrilled that we got a black waitress. We sat and ate steak and fat baked potatoes while he told me all the reasons he hates white people. It was an interesting dinner.

I stayed in touch with one of the other aides from Joe's classroom and she knew that I saw Joe now and then. She would occasionally call me to tell me about things Joe needed. Maybe Joe did not have a winter coat or his shoes were falling apart or he needed a haircut. I would try to get these things for him or find someone who could.

Getting involved in Joe's life was an eye-opening experience. I always knew I had it better than most people, but seeing it face-to-face is different than hearing about it. However, I didn't do it to be a big help to him. Yes, I know I helped, but my original intention was actually for myself also.

When I moved to Indianapolis, my youngest had just turned 18 and she did not come with me. I was without my kids for the first time in over twenty years and I missed having kids to do stuff with. That may sound immature, but it's part of who I am. Today, I live in Vietnam and despite the language barrier, I try to engage with the kids in my neighborhood. I just love it.

That experience with Joe introduced me to how other people live and struggle. Conversations with him and some people in his family really opened my eyes to how blinded we are by our own circumstances and experiences when we observe the world. There are realities that they could not see due to their life experience and the same is true of me. It is difficult to see outside our beliefs, prejudices, customs, culture, and traditions.

I don't know what Joe got from me other than a few fun days, but I know I learned a lot from him.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

Expressive Elocution

I spent almost two years in Beijing working in a public school teaching English to third, fourth, and fifth graders. I have lots of stories from this experience, but my biggest challenge was trying to promote creative thinking.

I'm not going to get into a lot of detail here, but the Chinese educational philosophy is radically different than American philosophy. One of the areas this is most apparent is in creativity. Chinese schools typically teach their students to learn facts, memorize, and then state them. They will spend hours hammering words over and over again.

Many times upon entering class some excited student would want to perform for me a monologue he had delivered at some competition over the weekend. He would then launch into a speech or recite a poem in perfectly executed English. Afterward, I would ask him about the content of the words he just said and he typically had no opinion and didn't even know what he had said. He had memorized a bunch of sounds and regurgitated them for the judges.

I had no intention of producing English-sounding robots. I wanted to help my students effectively communicate in English.

The problem with communication in this type of environment is that it requires independent thought. This was a foreign concept to the students and it took months to break them free. In the beginning, if I asked the class a question, no one would answer unless there was already a pre-programmed response.

If I showed a picture of a boy walking a dog and asked them what they saw, a few might volunteer that they saw a dog or a boy. The more adventurous ones might even point out that it was a sunny day. However, if I asked where the boy and dog were going, silence fell over the room. I would try to elaborate. Tell me a story. A boy and his dog are out for a walk. Are they going to the park? Are they going to the beach? Is that actually his dog or is it someone else's? I would get nothing because there was not a 'correct' answer that had already been taught to them. They honestly had no idea what was expected of them.

To answer those questions would require some imagination. It would require using the words they already had in their heads and creating a unique sentence formulated on their own. That was not the way they had been taught to learn. They had only been taught to read the script and keep saying it until you pronounced it correctly.

I soon changed my strategy by presenting them with the words I wanted them to use. I used words they already knew but asked them to produce a few sentences using the words I provided.

I had this screen up in the classroom and asked for sentences. It was brutal. No one seemed to understand what I wanted. The few who timidly agreed to give it a shot would say things like, "I have many homework." or "My teacher is tall." or "We had cheese for dinner."

OK. We are getting closer. Can anyone use more than just one word? I have six words here? I called on one of my more outgoing students and prayed he might push this a little further. He stood and stared at the board for a long time. After what seemed like an eternity, he whispered: "I have math homework."

This may be a very simple sentence, but I had been at this for weeks. I exploded with excitement. I jumped and cheered so loud, I scared a couple of students in the front row. I ran over, picked the kid up and introduced him to the class as a genius. HE USED TWO OF THE WORDS IN ONE SENTENCE!

I put him down, told him how great he did and I saw the light bulb go off. He looked at me at said "Teacher, can I do THREE?"

Yes! Give it a try.

"I want to play, but I have math homework."

This time the class joined me in cheering for him. They understood what had just happened and a couple of hands shot up. "TEACHER TEACHER! I can do four."

Let me hear it.

"My Math teacher told me not to sleep. Do homework."

YES! You got it! Good job!

More and more hands flew up as kids decided they wanted to give it a shot. "I can do ALL words" was yelled from the back. I quieted the class and he marched to the front to stare at the screen. He didn't have his story yet, but he had decided he could do it.

He thought for a bit and started slowly. "My math teacher gave me homework so I could not play. After dinner, I went to sleep."

HE USED EVERY WORD!!! YAY!!!

I put him on my shoulders and we ran around to high five everyone in class. After the celebration, I flipped to a new slide with six new words and the students actually fought over who would get to make a new sentence first. It became their new favorite game to see who could come up with the silliest story. We were soon even able to switch back to the default pictures. Look at the picture and tell me a story. And once these kids creative sides were released, they went nuts with it. We were soon able to recycle the word slides and start making new sentences.

A month later I had turned my classes into improv groups. I would bring kids up and give them scenarios on slips of paper they had to improvise. They did a mock radio show, gave out awards for silly talents in class, pretended to work in restaurants and convenience stores, and made up silly songs. The purpose was not to be funny (although that happened a lot). It was to create their own independent thoughts rather than just read a script out of a book. Although, the class auditors (officials who observed my classes) never understood what I was doing.

This is where we got to eventually, but first, it was months of just staring at students who were waiting for me to tell them what to say. I was so happy to get past that stage.

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The words in blue print were the ten words created by a random word generator. I had to incorporate them all into this post. Just a little challenge I added for myself.

Let the Right Ones In

The United States has a big problem that has been around for a long time. This topic dominates much of the political discourse not only on television but in bars, restaurants, hair salons and coffee shops around the country.

IMMIGRATION

The immigration crisis is such an issue that every political candidate as far back as I can remember has been expected to have a clearly defined immigration platform. It's right up there in importance with the economy, education reform, and favorite sexual deviance.

Whatever your stance on how immigration reform should be handled, I think most of us can agree that not EVERY single person who wants to come into our country should just be allowed to do so. There has to be some sort of screening process. And I have some suggestions on how to choose who can stay and who has to be sent back.

Before I explain my system, let me explain some of my criteria for how my system works. No one will ever be rejected because of their country of origin. Name the dirtiest, nastiest, most evil-minded country you can think of. I will not be suggesting this country for you. Your own personal brand of racism must be used for this answer. Believe it or not, there are probably a few decent people even from that cesspool of depraved humanity.

They will also not be selected to stay or be rejected based upon their career, education, spoken language, favorite Fraggle, gender, sexual orientation, movie collection, religion, talent, or opinion of the Kardashians. And nothing about their appearance will have any effect on the decision made except for two things: people who wear socks with sandals and anyone sporting a fanny pack. We don't need any more of those people. They will be pulled directly from the line before even making it to the processing interview.

There is just no excuse for this.

Once in front of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, their native language will be determined immediately. If they already speak English as their first language, then there are a few extra rules applied to them immediately. These people will be given a short text to read out loud. This text contains keywords which must be pronounced correctly for the arriving immigrant to be given further consideration.

• library - both Rs must be clearly heard
• nuclear - correct pronunciation is (noo-klee-er), not (noo-kyuh-ler) nucular
• supposedly - this should not have to be said, but there is no B in this word

If English is not their first language and they make it all the way through screening, their case will be reviewed after one year. By then, proper pronunciation of these words should be achieved. Accent is not an issue. Proper letter placement is.

Immigration processing takes a long time. At some point, the applicants for entry will need to eat. They will be provided with a full hot meal in a cafeteria. This meal is just as important to the screening process as the interview. All applicants for entry will be carefully observed while dining. Any individual who does understand the concept of queuing (waiting in line for your turn), will be immediately removed and denied entry. Much of life in America is waiting in line (restaurants, banks, the DMV, etc.) and thinking they can jump to the front causes stress for everyone. The practice or non-practice of this custom in their own country is of no consequence. They are out. Even demanding the attention of a cafeteria employee while that employee is working with another customer will get them removed.

While eating their meal, immigrants will be observed for basic table manners. Some may need to be given a pamphlet to help them understand what may be different from their own country, but there are certain practices that will elicit immediate removal and denial of their application.

• Biting down on their fork and pulling it through their teeth. The sound is worse than nails on a chalkboard. We can't let more people into the country who are doing this.
• Anyone who appears to be personally offended by someone else's choice of food.
• Anyone dining with children who do not keep their spawn at the table with them (not running around),  reasonably quiet, and not a nuisance to other people.
• Leaving an unnecessary mess behind at your table. Even if you have children. Children are a little messier but after you leave it should not look like a macaroni orgy exploded at the table.

Kids can be messy. However, leaving the table like this for someone 
else to clean up, should get people (including citizens) deported.

To promote harmony within our borders, these criteria are necessary. These rules will not be defined before they eat. They are not based on a person's culture, but on their respect for their fellow man.

This test of respect for other people is extended to bathroom practices also. A restroom attendant will be stationed outside of each restroom. After an applicant leaves the restroom, the attendant will go in for inspection. He will be looking for one thing. If there is any sign of feces outside of the toilet bowl, their application for entry is pulled. Whatever gross practice a person may have for not being able to accomplish the simple task of crapping is none of our concern. However, we are greatly concerned that you just left that nastiness there for some other person to take care of. Get out.

GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!
AND DON'T EVER TRY TO COME BACK!

During processing, each person applying for entry will be given a stipend and sent into a small store to pick up a list of things. Twenty random applicants will be in the store at a time to not only observe their shopping practices but their interaction with each other. Immigration officers will be watching on closed-circuit television for certain "immediate disqualification" practices. The following will have them removed from consideration from entry into our great country:

• Unnecessarily blocking an aisle with your cart. The aisle has room for two carts to pass. No reason to leave it in the middle.
• Blocking someone's path through a crowded aisle when they can clearly see that the person is trying to get through.
• Any instance of picking up an item and later placing it on a random shelf in the wrong place. An applicant who changes their mind about a product would be expected to return it to its original location.

As with the restaurant test, these infractions that disqualify a person will not be explained to them ahead of time. This scenario was designed to observe their respect for other people. Every culture has polite and rude people. And the concept of what is considered rude is vastly different around the globe. However, being a nuisance or a burden to other people says something about the offender's character. No one should have to be told that preventing other people from getting through is unacceptable. It should just be the natural way a person thinks. Letting these people in would only increase the number of inconsiderate people in our country who also believe it is acceptable to just leave their shopping cart anywhere in the parking lot.

Another test happens at the desk of the interviewing officer. Once the interview process has begun, any applicant who chooses to answer a text, check Facebook, post a selfie, take a phone call, tweet or do anything with their phone other than check the time will be escorted back to their side of the border.

One of the great things about America is the fact that we are a nation full of immigrants. There is no typical way that an American looks. We have people from all over the world and those people bring the customs of their country here with them. This makes for a rich and diverse cross-section of people and practices. This massive conglomeration of beliefs and practices only works when we respect each other and treat other people the way we would like to be treated.

The behavior guidelines stated in the preceding paragraphs are intended to give ICE officials the tools needed to weed out the inconsiderate jackasses before they enter into our country. Cross-cultural interactions already have enough confusions and misunderstandings. There's no need to add self-centered carelessness into the mix as well. We already have enough people here like that.

In fact, give it a few years, and I strongly suggest we start cracking down on and revoking the citizenship of the pricks who are already here doing this stuff now.

Give me a chance. I'll clean this stuff up.

Fortune Cookie #12 - Ghost Month

Red and I have moved into a new house in Hoi An, Vietnam and are still unpacking. Yesterday, I came across one of my old writing prompts.

When we still lived in America, I would save my fortune cookie fortunes to write about them later. Apparently, they have been following us around the world.

FYI: Fortune cookies do not exist in China. 

Here are the posts I have done in the past based on my fortune cookies:

1 - Lesson in Patience - My favorite one
2 - Fortune Cookie #2 - I got lazy with the title on this one
3 - New Experiences Aren't Always Good
4 - Fruitless Argument
5 - Mayan Apocalyptic Debacle
6 - Confidence Isn't Enough
7 - Opportunity Knocks
8 - Let's Get To It
9 - Whistling in the Dark
10 - Adventure is Where You Find It
11 - Chinese Beauracracy

 I pulled the first one off the top and here's what I have to work with today:

Keep an eye on national affairs

As an expat in a foreign country, this is an interesting one. Should I be keeping an eye on the national affairs of my home country (America) or the country I live in (Vietnam). Or a careful eye on both since our countries have quite a complicated (and fairly recent) combined history.

It didn't take long after moving to China to discover that keeping up with American news was more difficult from outside the country. The news I did read had a much different perspective since it wasn't generated in America and I had to make more of an effort to stay on top of it. Plus, when you are not actually there, the constantly changing political climate quickly begins to sound like white noise. I'm just not interested anymore. I've decided that if we ever move back to America, we will just have to get caught up when we get there.

As for the national affairs in this country (Vietnam), I still rarely know what is going on. I hear something every now and then that I feel the need to look up, but so often it is about issues and events that I have no knowledge about. It takes time to understand the people and the culture. I grew more and more interested in what was happening around China the longer I was there, but it took a little while to get a feel for how things work. The better I understood, the more interested I was to read the news and stay up to date.

However, I know that I do need to pay more attention. Yesterday (August 31), I learned that tomorrow (September 2) is National Day here. National Day commemorates President Hồ Chí Minh reading the Declarations of independence of Vietnam at Ba Đình Square in Hanoi on September 2, 1945. It's considered to be the day that the Vietnamese officially declared their independence from French Colonization.

This is a major, major holiday here and it would have gotten by me if I hadn't seen a random post on a Facebook forum mentioning internet quality this weekend. I should probably be up on that kind of stuff.

A couple of weeks ago, Red and I were walking into town to get something to eat and all the businesses had pulled tables out on the sidewalks. They had incense and fake money burning on the tables. Some people were burning cloth. They all had various food items diced up and spread around the fires they had built. The smoke was very thick in the streets and made the already treacherous traffic/pedestrian situation even more difficult to navigate.

Last night, the streets of Hoi An, Vietnam were filled with smoke from businesses burning paper on the street. It was so annoying.

Today, I learned that this weekend is the Ghost Festival. Now, it's really cool.

What a difference perspective makes.

— Minor Character (@brettminor) August 25, 2018

I had no idea what was going on until I got home and learned that we are in the middle of Hungry Ghost Month. It is the time of the year when Taoists and Buddhists believe that the realms of Heaven and Hell are open to the realm of the living. It is believed the dead will come to visit the living during this time and it is the time of year when the living can help to alleviate the suffering of their dead ancestors.

A local making offerings to the ghosts

It's a time to pay respect to your deceased ancestors, but there are also supposed dangers associated with this month. Thanh Nien News provided a list of things you are not supposed to do during the entire month:

1. Don’t hang the washing at night since some ghosts may notice it and borrow your clothes for a while. When they return them, they will leave a miasma which is likely to cause the next wearer a bad flu, headache or an even worse illness. Tip: A tumble-dryer will help you skip the hanging part. Modernity could save the day.
2. Never shout out another person’s name at midnight because ghosts will remember the name and later trick the person into following them. Tip: If you hate someone, such as your ex-spouse, invite them to hang out until late and shout their name at Zero Hour, hopefully thus consigning them to hell.
3. “A leg hair manages three evil entities,” claims an old saying. Dear female readers, you should never wax a limb during these days. Your leg hair will protect you from evil and all other spirits. Thankfully, bikini waxing or underarm waxing is okay during the month.
4. Never steal even a single cookie or small guava from the offerings tray before it is offered to the spirits. They could extract fierce revenge for eating their offerings on the sly.
5. Do not take any photos of people at night, especially in dark places, unless you want to have an unsolicited companion standing beside them in the printed image.
6. If you plan to celebrate your wedding this month, you could do worse than postpone it to next lunar month unless you are the kind who’d love to be available again soon after getting married. The Ghost Month is associated with bad luck in daily life, including married life.
7. Don’t wear clothes with skull and bones images because the ghosts could mistake you for one of their own and take you back with them after their short visit to earth.
8. Don’t pick up any currency bills you see on the street during the month. It could be money offered to the ghosts, who will come after you later to claim it back.
9. Don’t buy white clothes or have white suits made during this month. White clothes are for funerals.
10. If you are sick and hospitalized (maybe because you committed some of the "don’ts" above), be sure to keep the light on in your room at night. Otherwise, a wandering spirit from a nearby mortuary might, seeking out its favorite darkness, call on you.

So, staying up on national affairs isn't just abut being aware of the current political association. More awareness could keep us from getting dragged into the realm of the dead. I believe this is the most ominous fourtune I have ever received.