The second road trip to Sapa.....

I KNOW I haven't really kept this blog up at all......and I WILL get back to what has been going on with life in Hai Phong, but I thought I'd throw in a fotojournal of my road trip to Sapa before we get down to serious writing.........

Life in Hai Phong has had it's ups and down since the most recent posting in February. Tam and I welcomed our son, Minh Tuan, into this world on February 14th, 2012.  This wonderful event was followed by The Hunger Months.......lemme explain.....

Since I had quit/been canned from my first teaching job in Hai Phong in April 2009 (I handed in my resignation letter - THEN they canned me), I had then entered into a venture opening and operating a small English Language school with my (soon-to-be) wife.  We didn't see eye-to-eye about HOW PRECISELY the school should be operated, and she bought out my interest in the school after several months!

SINCE THEN (October 2009), I had been doing freelance English teaching.  It's good.......it DID (and DOES) have its fun moments, but it's NOT terribly easy.....NOR is it for everybody.  But between October 2009 and February 2012......yeah.....it's been allright!

What had begun to occur in the English as a Second Language scene in Hai Phong in the early part of this year was the The Hai Phong Department of Education and Training (think - "Board of Education") had taken Government revenue and had doled it out to each of the Public Schools as a bloc grant.  Each school was THEN SUPPOSED TO go out and hunt down a Tay ("Westerner") English Teacher from a native English-speaking nation (New Zealand, Australia, The U.S.A., Ireland, The U.K., Canada and South Africa) to teach English at their school.

GREAT!!

Weeeeellll.......not so great.....

A whopping TWO OR THREE of these schools actually DID run out and grab a Tay English teacher  THEMSELVES - the REST, in the time-honoured Vietnamese tradition, went out and made side-deals with the huge private English Language learning centres to PROVIDE the Public School with Tay English teachers (basically making these large private English Language learning centres de facto employment agencies, if you will).

OOOOOOOH-KAY!  Soooo......what's the problem??

There's a few!  First off, a few of these Public Schools USED to contract with ME for teaching English....but THAT isn't even the largest issue at play here!  Basically what happens is that the Public School and the large private English Language learning centre cut their side-deal, the private English Language learning centre BILLS HIGH, the administrators of the Public School get THEIR kickback, and BOTH parties ensure that the "Board of Education" gets taken care of!  EVERYBODY WINS......'cept for the Tay teachers and the students.......

Uhhhh......again - WHAT'S the problem?

Problem being, a lot of these Tay teachers aren't exactly gems (though SOME of them are serious and experienced E.S.L. professionals).  Most don't last one year, and, for the majority of them, this is their first gig.  In addition to the continuity and inexperience factors, a lot of these guys don't have the University degrees and/or Certification required, and SOME of them start out at 200,000 Dong per classroom hour (now THAT'S a hell of a motivator right there).

AT FIRST, this didn't particularly affect me, as I gave up Public School gigs (as teaching in a classroom over-stuffed with 50 students and a Teaching Assistant who was busy texting on her cell phone, all in a building that was constructed around the same time as Uncle Ho's birth [and possessed ALL of the amenities and luxuries of that time period] really lost its appeal to me, so I stopped accepting Public School clients).....but later on, it would prove to really suck!

GREAT!  So WHY are you bothering writing about it, then, if you stopped accepting Public School clients??

Because this entire new procedure started cutting in to my regular client-class and private tutor bases! 

Problem being, the student's parents, in blissful ignorance, felt that, as long as they had a TAY (ANY Tay) teaching English in their son or daughter's Public School....well, hell!!  That's good enough!!!!  GREAT!!  WHO NEEDS to spend extra money now sending them to better-quality English instructors like Mrs. Tam or Mr. E???  SUB-STANDARD teaching materials???  BAH!!  Who gives a fuck??  As long as little Ba or little Hoa has a Tay at the front of the classroom......then all is good!  :-)  

Thus began The Hunger Months....it was a very rough go getting clients.....but we survived.

SUDDENLY, in May, Public School ended, and clients THEN started kicking down our doors.  Students, parents, college kids, businesses, corporations, adults, whatever!!!

It got to the point of absurdity. We had tried to pawn off some of the new client overflow on trusted friends of ours, but when THEY started becoming overwhelmed, we HAD to take 'em (create goodwill and that kinda shite)!!

It was about July when I began pulling out my hair and, due to overwork and stress, declared that I am gonna take a coupla weeks off in late August/early September and just piss off and recover and vege somewhere.......

WAS gonna go to China, but after I threw a hissy-fit at The Chinese Embassy over the severe bullshit I had to go through trying to obtain a visa, I decided to head back to Sapa.

(The first trip is written in this blog around the end of September, 2010)

Sooooooooooo.......hopped on the skooter on August 27th, rode a stretch of 175 miles (something I will NEVER do again in Vietnam, given the amount of dirt, grime, diesel exhaust, sand, insects, and Christ knows WHAT else that has PERMANENTLY lodged itself into my poures) from Hai Phong to a town called Yen Bai.  Not much really interesting in Yen Bai.....just more of a place to crash!  Nothing really of ANY interest on the ride at all, save for some cool wood sculptures just outside of Viet Tri......

More tomorrow - 150 miles to Sapa!

-E-