Another Book Project in Ho Chi Minh City

The muscles of my legs are sore and flaming, but I keep riding fast uphill, up and over the bridge from District 7 into District 4, and then on to District 1 to meet my friend Claudio. He's a Chilean physician who moved to Vietnam years ago, and had a part in helping the government here institute some programs for public health and for dietary guidelines that will lead to better health outcomes in Vietnam. We met about seven weeks ago, during Yom Kippur, talking during the breaks in the service and working to tease out information from each other in a way that leads to growth and new ideas. Today is no different.

He suggested we meet at Highland Coffee, behind the Opera House, but then remembered I'm not much for coffee. But with my diet there's really no perfect place, and I look at the menu online beforehand, confirming that the lemonade they offer will be a good choice to shore up any urgent needs. I am running late because of this, though. Earlier, I stop in the department office, room B002, right after my Vietnamese language class. I say hi to my friends there. I brought my laptop with me to class so that I can check emails afterwards. This morning, the internet isn't working in my room, and it's probably a good thing. The hour or so I spent with the homework assignment would have been wasted online checking emails, but I really have to find out whether we are still on for today.

The internet goes out sometimes, but it is usually not for long. This morning I spend the hour doing more homework than is usually assigned, and head for class a few minutes late. We spend the most delightful two hours learning topics that arise during the lesson. The best is how verbs are coupled in Vietnamese. If a person wants to say that they intend to see something, they have to use both the words (look) and (see), giving the implication of intent. For just a chance seeing, one would use the word (see) alone. And the same is true for many verbs in Vietnamese. The progression of meaning shows intent. It's hard not to be pleased with the results of the class. I feel I am the slowest one here, and because of that I am motivated to work harder. I have a good many teachers in that class. Most are mothers, taking two hours away from the day with their children—or with their empty nest—to learn a language that their family will need for the five-or-so years that they are here for business, usually. They are fun, bright, full of hope and laughter, and definitely more advanced than I. The class I took beforehand is a one-month intensive. Nearly everyone else here was in the regular two-month course, and up until about today, it shows. I finally feel like I'm in the class, understanding enough of what is being discussed to feel a part of. But I will leave in a week for a physics-of-life workshop in Sydney, Australia, and will have to start the class all over. I will have to drop this class to make time for the trip and another—flying directly from Sydney to Singapore for a second workshop on mathematics that I hope to use for incorporating a variety of ethical perspectives into AI frameworks. That is the task I've set out for myself. It will be a challenge.

But today I finish my Vietnamese language class, and am sad that there is only one more week for me. I head to my department office for the internet there, and send a note to Claudio saying that I will be on my way. He hasn't written to cancel, and that makes me happy to know. I wonder what we will discuss as I head to the little store on campus, between the canteen and the swimming pool. I buy three things: a bag of cut jicama, a bag of cut mango, and a small bag of peanuts. I head up to my room in the dormitory via the stairs. It's been a decision to use the stairs whenever possible that lodged itself in my intention two days ago. November 20th is Teacher's Day in Vietnam, and there are celebrations that are elaborate and touching that span the country. Vietnam loves its teachers. On Sunday, I go to the market and nearly forget my plan to buy an orchid for my teacher for Monday, but remember while I am in line and head back to the plants section. There are no more orchids, and I settle on a fern with tiny leaves that is pretty. My fellow students at the elevator on Monday are sad. They had not known that Monday is Teacher's Day, since the date is specific to Vietnam. But I know because I am also a teacher here, and for the week prior, and also the start of this one, there have been various activities to lend joy and appreciation to this profession. In a country that values the stability that comes from family, the teacher—acting in loco parentis across many levels of society—is accorded a very high degree of respect. And so, on the previous week's Monday, I dress in a sports uniform and meet my friends (from my department) near the stadium. We enter together and find the sign saying our faculty name, and line up behind the wonderful student whose arm must be sore from the half hour of the ceremony that we are convened for, but she does it with a smile, similar to mine and those of my fellow lecturers and professors. The speeches are in Vietnamese, but I can't help but be pleased. The opening ceremony ends, and back I go to my work. I won't participate in many events that week. There are several football (soccer) matches that day for faculty to play in, but my department is too small to field a team. The same is true for the swimming and tennis competitions. Of the two competitions that we do participate in, I attend only one. The fishing contest on Saturday goes against my vegan frame, and I am off aways doing yoga at the time of the event. There is a river that runs through campus, and even today the fish there seem abundant and happy. I was pleased not to attend.

But then the following Monday comes around, actually Teacher's Day, and I decide to run in the footrace, despite the plantar fasciitis that I picked up six months previous from walking around Mexico City for far too many hours. How can one resist walking through a city that has nearly two hundred museums? But I am still paying the price. The yoga is helping, but my right foot is still in pain. Nonetheless, I arrive at a quarter to seven to the office and start stretching. Ms. Hien tells me that the time of the race is seven thirty, so not to worry as we are the only two there. She is our union representative as well as our department secretary, and she'd led us in the opening ceremonies' lineup. Later that day she'll hand me my Teacher's Day bonus. It is 267,000 Vietnamese dong, about $10. I'm very pleased! It is unexpected, and enough for a meal or two and then some. But first, even before the race, there is a ritual ceremony. Ms. Hien spends some amount of time explaining to me in pantomime (me) and Vietnamese (her) that before the race we will light incense.

At about seven o'clock we four—Ms. Hien, myself, Ms. That (a very sweet department intern), and Ms. Vinh (a very bright hardworking lecturer)—walk 100 meters over to the front of the A building. We line up, along with Mr. Triet, and wait our turn to place a stick of lit incense at the base of the huge bronze bust of Ton Duc Thang looking peacefully down at us. The sculptor has made his eyes seem so loving. It is my turn and I do my part in worshipping the statue, and then head over for the picture. It is a quick event, and then most people head off to their work. A few of us walk over to the starting area of the race, where the incense ceremony has just been, and stretch and dance to the funky music that is blaring, as we wait a few minutes for other folks who'd wanted to change to return in suitable running attire. Many things in Vietnam start a casual few minutes later than they are scheduled for.

The race begins and I head forward quickly, and am among the front pack. No one is running all that quickly, but I start to get winded and pull back after a time. I finish around twelfth, and the experience convinces me to do more to get my heart in shape. I decide that from then on, I will take the stairs when I can. This will be no small feat, since my dormitory room is on the twelfth floor of the building, and typically I go down and up three times per day. That should do the trick.

Teacher's Day rounds itself off nicely, with a talent show that would put Eurovision to shame. Hundreds of dollars have been spent on costumes, and the songs and dance routines are really fun. They go overboard. One performance has dozens of dancers in green dresses topped with flower-petal hats, so that the metaphor of the learning garden really does come to life. Another entertainment is the winner of last week's talent show, "TDT's Got Talent," a group of students performing martial arts with distinction. The highlight are flying kicks to break boards while the practitioners are blindfolded. I can see why they won the talent show. After the speeches, martial arts, songs, and dance, I head over to the gymnasium. It has been repurposed as a dining hall very nicely, and forty tables are set up and stacked with food, beer, desserts and many other things. People file in and sit with their departments, and proceed to spend the next several hours visiting and carrying on happily. My friend John, a scholar here from England, remarks how good the food is, and how so unlike any other academic celebration. It is just a down-home fun event.

I think of Teacher's Day as I'm riding my bicycle over the first bridge heading from District 7 to District 4 on Wednesday. I'm running a little late because of the food I ate in my dorm room, the jicama, mango and peanuts. My legs are sore from the run two days earlier. My foot hurts a little as well. But I am trying to make up time. I head over the first bridge easily and then the second and third. I take a route I haven't taken before, hoping it will be faster than the one I'm used to which is less direct. I head past the construction zone where the country's first subway will be. I wonder whether it is such a good idea to take a new route when I'm late, but I have earlier looked on Google Maps and can't resist. I'm very pleased to see the Opera House ahead of me. It's a French Colonial domed edifice with a distinctive frieze, and I dismount from my bicycle to walk next to the construction area, conscious that my hurry is not the hurry of those around me. A few minutes later I am at the coffee shop, and spot my friend Claudio. We talk about the Olympics and whether my silly idea for Vietnam bidding for 2032 or 2036 will make sense. I come up with the argument that contracts signed today to build the infrastructure will be cheaper than something signed in 20 years, and that the country as a whole will be unified in support of such a wonderful leap forward. Sports are popular here, and I don't see the kind of crushing poverty that I imagine is common in Rio. And the country really is unified. We both laugh a lot, and the conversation turns to my work, and then to his lunch visit with the Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, who came for the APEC summit. He was happy to have the chance to meet her, but surprised that there was not more time to talk with her. He was seated next to a researcher and businessman who is setting up a project to study new strains of quinoa being grown here in Vietnam. Claudio considered it a useful endeavor. Like my father, his interests lie in dietary supports to health, and quinoa may be helpful. I imagine that there are more collaborations that can happen between South American and Asian countries, and this gives me hope. We talk more of the challenges to sustainability and ecological health, and I try very hard to lend a note of hope, despite the growing fear that seems to be taking hold—that the opportunities to prevent catastrophe are behind us.

I grasp onto the notion that one thing yet remains. Even though the ideologies of the right and left have their adherents and detractors, there hasn't yet been a strong, sustained political movement that incorporates nonviolence as a mainstream. I think it would be something to get behind. The weaknesses of the left are tied in with coercion, and if the violence or threat of violence is removed, there are new possibilities. We talk about our schedules and when we can meet again for coffee (or lemonade). I leave feeling happy, and with another book project on my ever-growing list.