"Good Morning, Vietnam!" (Part Two - Ha Long Bay)

After booking our four day stay in Hanoi, we went into research mode and Chris proposed a boat trip through the bay. Loving boat trips, I was game. The three and half hour journey by mini bus was well worth it. Our guide for the day was a 24 year old guy from North Vietnam called Huan. Along the way he was on hand to inform us of Vietnamese history, traditions and customs but I would still have a chance to sit back and listen to my iPod whilst taking in the views as the bus navigated through some of the most beautiful landscapes I've seen, none more so that the fertile rice fields that Vietnam is most famous for.

Before I knew it, we were all sat aboard our boat, The White Dragon and we were on our way to the bay. The bay itself boasts an impressive 1,969 islands as well as some floating islands that are called 'villages'. We stopped at one of these villages and were encouraged by Huan to hire a bamboo boat from the locals for 100,000 Dong (about £3) each. And on the strength of his advice we all agreed to hire the boat, this proved to be the best decision we made all day.

Donning our luminous orange life jackets, Chris, Jess, Steph, Koenraad and I climbed into our little bamboo boat that came complete with a local tour guide, who as it happened would also serve as our captain and crew. We were taken amongst the floating islands that make up the village. We were given an insight into how the Ha Long Bay locals lived, shown their school, a restaurant and even a local shop. The school was particularly interesting as it was quite small, our guide told us it had two classrooms and a little office. I am not sure what ages study there but I think she added that the older kids have to get a boat to the mainland to attend high school.

A Playground You Can Swim In: The school for the children of the village

A particular highlight for me was seeing a girl, perhaps 16, paddle up alongside us, her boat filled with a vast array of fruits and vegetables. A few words in Vietnamese from our guide and she was handed a big juicy orange in exchange for a few Dong. The girl then rowed away, presumably to look for other customers, a day in the life of the water green grocer.

One of Her Five: Our captain buys a snack from the local green grocer

Once back on board The White Dragon we sailed by two rocks known as the 'Fighting Cocks', a name given due to the slight resemblance they have to a pair of fighting cocks squaring up to one another. It is said to be a national symbol used by Vietnam in much of their tourist promotions. I'd have preferred to have sailed a little closer by to get a good photo but for whatever reason the Captain decided there were more interesting things to show us.

Bamboo Boat: The five of us sat in the middle of the village, Ha Long Bay

If that was indeed the case, then he was spot on because our next stop was to be the Heavenly Caves. Actually from looking at the brochure of the tour in our hotel, I was quite excited to see the caves. With some good photo opportunities, Chris, a die-hard Celtic fan, and I (a long time disgruntled Aston Villa fan) decided to wear our team's colours with the idea of sending the photos to our respective clubs to include in their 'fans from around the world' posts that often pop up on the official website and/or facebook page. Sadly, despite us sending the photograph to them, they were not as enthused as us because we didn't make the cut, not sure about Chris but I think I narrowly missed out to a chap called Steve, who'd had a lovely day out in Tamworth...

Colours: Wearing our shirts with pride

Huan told us that the particular cave we were standing in had been discovered in 1993 by a fisherman, who'd stumbled across it whilst chasing a monkey up some rocks... Bizarre, I know. Anyway, this cave is considered the most beautiful of all the heavenly caves. It was extremely impressive to be fair, quite breathtaking and although it might sound a little tacky, it was filled with hundreds of coloured lights which in my opinion only served to add to the cave's enchanting natural beauty.

Heavens Above: A picture from inside the Heavenly Caves, beautiful

We headed back to our boat, and soon enough we were on the minibus back to Hanoi. It was a great day out and an experience that I am glad I had the opportunity to enjoy. Its easy to see why Ha Long Bay is recognised as one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites and considered by many travel experts to be one of the seven natural wonders of the world, it really was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Huan and Only: Stood with our tour guide Huan, on our way back to Hanoi

To be continued...

"Good Morning, Vietnam!" (Part One - Hanoi)

Ever since I arrived in China, there have been a few places I have wanted to visit. Not just cities in China but other Asian countries also, close to the top of the list was Vietnam. Luckily for me, my closest friends in China, Chris and Jess also wanted to go. With a few weeks off from school for winter, we booked a two week trip, Hanoi would be our first stop.

We headed for our hotel 'The Splendid Jupiter' located in Hanoi's Old Quarter. The drive, though at night, gave us our first taste of the city that would play host to us for four nights. The thing that struck me most was the European feel the place has to it, having done a little research into Hanoi prior to our visit. I was aware that Hanoi had served as the capital of the French Indochina between 1902 and 1954 (though the French had in fact been in Vietnam since 1800's), so I'd expected some influence to be noticeable but this had not prepared me for what I actually saw. I could have been in a car travelling through some French town that night. The other thing that stood out was the use of mopeds. It would appear to be the preferred mode of transport in Vietnam.

The following morning, we headed to the lake known as Hoan Kiem after breakfast and walked around it in its entirety, stopping occasionally to take a few snaps before taking a few minutes to explore an old temple which had been built atop a small island in the middle of the lake. We had to cross a beautiful red wooden bridge to access the island, paying a small amount of Vietnamese dong for entry. As it turned out, my travel buddies and I had stumbled upon of all things, a Chinese temple. Inside the temple we learned the story of a large turtle known as 'Cu Rua' which translates to 'Great Grandfather Turtle'. Some experts believe the turtle to be around 700 years old and the last of its kind. Perhaps we'd stumbled across the Asian equivalent of Loch Ness?

When we returned to the hotel, a member staff known as Mr. Tom offered to exchange money for us, as Vietnamese Dong is a closed currency, which basically meant that we could not obtain any prior to our entry into the country, we'd been using what little we'd exchanged at the airport until now so we decided to hand over our Chinese Renminbi (RMB) to a guy we could only assume was indeed an employee of the hotel and not some chancer who'd knocked up an official looking name tag and donned a suit ready to scam some unsuspecting travellers. I gave him 3000RMB, which is the equivalent of about £300 before he left us at reception and hopped onto a moped and sped off. Thankfully, he returned a few minutes later carrying millions of Dong. He counted it out in front of us, with me being the proud owner of of 9,000,000 Dong. Finally, after all these years, I was a millionaire! Unfortunately I was in a place where beer cost a few thousand. Needless to say, I wasn't going to be rolling in it for long!

A few hours later, Chris, Jess and I found ourselves in a bar of all places. We sampled a few of the local beers - Bia Ha Noi, Bia Saigon and Biere Larue. Before too long, dusk was upon us and Chris decided to take a walk up to the hotel to see if our friends Steph and Koenraad, who would also be spending a few days in Hanoi, had checked in yet. Within 20 minutes he'd returned with our two friends in tow, and as you might expect, they were in need of refreshment. Steph ordered a round of beers and shots, I don't actually remember much of the night after that.

The Gang: Steph, Jess, Chris, Koenraad and Me having one or two local beers

Our second full day began with a shopping trip, though of course there were more beers to be had too. But of course, no trip away would be complete without me being scammed out of money by some local (you have all forgotten about the Tea Scam I fell victim to when I first arrived in Beijing, right?). Jess, Steph and I were all chatting whilst Chris and Koenraad looked on from further up the road, a street seller approached the girls and I, carrying her bags of pineapple. She handed me her, hmm well actually I am not sure what you would call it, it kind of looks like a stick that has a tipping scales on either end, well anyway she handed me that thing. She then proceeded to force her little hat on my head and pointed at Jess's camera. Jess took a few pictures before I passed these props to her and returned the favour of taking a photo or two. Once we handed it all back to the woman, I kind of felt obliged to buy a small bag of pineapple from her, big mistake, and in a flurry of numbers, pointing and broken English she was soon away with 250,000 Dong before I could even calculate the exchange rate in my head. That's right 250,000 Dong, that's about £7.50, funny how I can work it out now! This should be the part of the story that goes on to insist that it was indeed the juiciest and tastiest pineapple that had ever passed my lips, alas my bad luck didn't end with my pockets hurting, no in fact my tongue hurt too as it swelled and began to bleed a little, I forced myself to eat it though whilst assuring all my friends that it was worth every penny.

Scammed: Moments before losing 250,000 Dong to a wily old fruit seller

My tongue and appetite did recover enough to enjoy a lovely evening of local cuisine at a cracking little restaurant called 'Quan An Ngon'. The food was delightful and a lot cheaper than the local pineapples. We had seafood spring rolls, Vietnamese sausage with chilli sauce, crispy pancakes, deep fried noodles and of course the local dish, Bun Cha.

Local Dish: Bun Cha - Grilled pork in a soup, vegetables and noodles

The following day we went to Ha Long Bay, which was one of the most beautiful places I visited in Vietnam. It obviously deserves its on blog post, so keep an eye out for that...

The day after Ha Long Bay was to be our last in Hanoi, and our final day with Steph and Koenraad before they headed off to Ho Chi Minh City and we took our train down to Da Nang. Like all the previous days, it started with a cracking breakfast of egg, bacon and toast followed by chocolate covered pancakes and washed down with a Vietnamese coffee. With our breakfasts digesting, we prepared for yet another day of adventure only to be informed by Ha, a member of staff at the hotel, that the Single Pillar Pagoda and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum were closed for the Vietnamese New Year. So we changed our plan slightly, checking out before heading back to the Hoan Kiem lake, firstly to show Steph and Koenraad but secondly to fly by the Water Puppet Theatre for tickets, huh? what? Yep, believe your eyes, its true, this band of twenty-somethings would be taking in a spot of water puppetry! After booking our tickets to the 2pm show, we made our way to another tourist spot, whilst trying to contain our excitement.

One other place of interest that we'd been made aware of in Hanoi was an old jail that had opened its doors to tourists, known as Hoa Lo Prison or Maison Centrale as we preferred to call it. The prison has a lot of history, built in the 1880's by the French it was originally used to hold political prisoners, who underwent torture and in some cases, execution. When the French left Vietnam in the mid-1950's, the prison was used by the Vietnamese as an "educational" centre. It would later be used to house American prisoners of war during the war. Most notably, senator John McCain, then a pilot in the American Navy, spent some time there. It was a fascinating and eerie place to be but with one eye on the clock, we soon had to leave for our show.

Maison Centrale: Known as Hanoi Hilton by American POWs, sounds kinda cosy...

Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre is arguably the world's most famous water puppet theatre. And it was certainly more impressive than any I'd visited in my many years as a water puppet enthusiast. All jokes aside, it was actually me who'd put forward the idea of watching a water puppet show, as I'd read that it was a big part of Vietnamese culture and as the show was only twenty minutes long, it seemed like as nice a way as any to end our time together in Hanoi.

The show itself was pleasant, although the narration was in Vietnamese, we did manage to get the gist of what was going on. The show was split into fourteen traditional tales and famous folklore, our favourite was simply known as 'The fox chases the ducks' according to the free programme, I don't feel compelled to outline what the story was about as I'm sure you can work it out for yourself.

My New Hobby: Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, Hanoi

We had a final beer or three outside a cafe located opposite a catholic church. Saying our farewells to Steph and Koenraad, not at all emotional as we knew we'd all be getting drunk together in Beijing again soon enough. Chris, Jess and I finished our beers then made our way to the hotel to grab our bags but not without a quick photo with Mr Tom and Ha before walking over to the train station to catch our overnight train down to Da Nang for what would be just over a week of sea and sun.

Friendly Hotel Staff: A photo of us with Mr Tom and Ha of the Splendid Jupiter

To be continued... 

Tales From The Classroom 5

Its that time again, with the end of a semester comes yet another 'Tales from the classroom' and in this, the 5th instalment, you can expect to read all about the goings on in my lessons during my fourth semester in the classroom.

You may remember from the last 'tales from the classroom' that I taught Grade 5 for the second half of the school year after teaching Grade 3 in the first half. Well, Grade 5 (now Grade 6) would no longer have 'foreign teacher classes' due to a busier schedule for them in a year that sees them under more pressure as they prepare to move onto Middle School. As I was going to lose my students, I made a request to my boss to place me back as the Grade 3 (now Grade 4) teacher, to which she agreed. I was delighted as I would again have the opportunity to work with some of my old favourite students.

Classroom fun with some of my Grade 4 students

The first class of the semester is supposed to be an introduction class, in which you are encouraged to teach the kids about who you are and where you come from. Upon walking into each of the 14 classes for that first time, I was delighted to learn that they all remembered me and was welcomed on almost every occasion with big cheers and chants of my name, what a great feeling it was but to be honest, I was truly humbled by it all.

Anyway, as the kids already knew me, I chose not to do an introduction class about myself but instead ask them what they could remember about me. In one class, a kid put their hand up and said "are you from England or America?" to which I answered "England". He was taken aback, and shook his head, "I don't think so" he announced, "I am" I assured him. But he still shook his head, "Nah, I think you are too cool to be English, I think you're American!" I am still not sure if that was meant as a slight to America or England!

Kids really do say the funniest things, almost every day in the classroom something will be said that makes you chuckle, more often than not, you have to hold the laughter in. One thing that did make me laugh was during a lesson I did on the United Kingdom. Now I am sure China is not alone in this, but almost every time you see the Union Jack, it is often attributed to England and as such I took it upon myself teach all the classes about which countries make up the UK. This caused whole spread confusion but one student commented "I think England owns Scotland, like China owns Hong Kong". I had to chuckle to myself and as the bell went I sprinted to meet my fellow teachers, one of which being Scottish, for lunch and proceeded to retell the story, needless to say that she didn't find his comment half as amusing as I did!

One of my favourite students this semester was a girl in my intensive class called Bella. The intensive classes are very small, usually 6-12 students but they will spend four hours a week with their foreign teacher which probably doesn't sound all that much but when you consider we spend 16-18 hours a week teaching, four hours is a pretty sizeable period of time. So back to my favourite student, Bella. I have been amazed at what a great sense of humour she has, very much like a Westerner, whoa is that racist? Actually, I don't think it is, Chinese people have a different sense of humour to us. The Chinese appear to me to enjoy slapstick humour mostly and this is most evident, as you might expect, in children. Bella however loves wordplay in English.

I think Bella might actually be a young comic genius. Several times she had me in stitches and on some occasions I was just shocked at how creative and witty she is. For example, I am sure you are familiar with the old joke - 'Why was the number six scared? Because seven ate (eight) nine'. Well in one class she actually stumbled upon this joke all by herself, almost as if she was inventing it for the first time. She was counting and said "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight... ate? eat? eating? seven is eating nine?" it was extraordinary to see as she simply shrugged it off and just carried on with what she was saying. As well as wordplay, she is a big fan of accents, which is surprising and I am not sure I have come across any other kids who do this but she likes to adopt a very posh English accent whilst reading amongst other silly voices.

My favourite student Bella, she may not look it but this girl is a comic genius

As well as Bella, there was another child in the Intensive class, who left an impression on me. In the first lesson, I was introduced to each of the students and told their names. One boy was called Peter, a name I was aware of and one I'd said many times, up until this moment however I have never doubted my ability to pronounce it. Now I admit, and I have written in previous blog posts that I will often change a name slightly for comedic effect, Dina becomes Dinner, Jacky becomes Jacket, Bob becomes Blob and James becomes Trousers, that sort of thing and as you can probably have guessed Peter would become Pizza. But these jokes are only reserved for children who I have built a good rapport with, certainly not something I'd use in the first class. So imagine my horror when every time I said 'Peter', all the kids (except Peter) started to laugh and chant "Pizza! Pizza!" this went on for a few classes and he did cry a couple of times, telling me that I was saying his name wrong, to which I of course asked for the correct pronunciation, being informed that apparently I'd been saying this name wrong all these years and its actually 'Pete Ar' almost like a pirate might say it... I adapted my terrible English way of saying this popular English name and instead tried to say it the correct way.

Three or four lessons into the semester, my Teaching Assistant told me prior to the class one day that Pete Ar's mother had complained saying I was calling her son 'Pizza'. I did everything I could to ensure I called him Pete Ar for the next two hours and when the bell went for home time, I led the students out to the main gate where their parents wait for them. I was stood chatting with the other teachers, and next thing I know there's a tap on my shoulder, I turned round to see the Teaching Assistant, Pete Ar and who I could only assume (at this point) was his Mum. "This is Pete Ar's Mum (I bloody knew it), she doesn't speak English. She told me that you called Pete Ar - 'Pizza' at least three times today." I couldn't believe it, "No I didn't" was the best reply I could muster in my total disbelief. "Can you say his name please, so she can hear?" the Teaching Assistant asked me, I was starting to feel as though I was on trial. "Peter" I said, reverting back to my original pronunciation that had served me so well for 20 plus years. "And again?" so I repeated, there was an exchange in Chinese between the disgruntled mother and my assistant, who then turned back to me to say, "His mother says it sounds like you're saying Pizza". I assured them all that I wasn't, one of the other teachers even leaned it to explain that this is how English people say the name and it sounds different to how an American or even a Chinese teacher might say it. I can only assume that Peter's previous English Language teachers were from somewhere other than the UK. Anyway, long story short, he's called John now.

While I am talking about names, I also learned during this semester that a boy I thought was called 'Gelanter' actually went by the name 'Green Lantern'. An original name no doubt, but a pain to write on the board especially given his classmates were called Sam, Amy, Jane, Tony and Eric.

Green Lantern - a Grade 2 student by day, superhero by night

One final thing I wanted to share with you, whilst working on the topic 'Days and Dates', I set a homework asking students to create their own calendar, they could choose any month in 2014 and fill in some important dates such as 'Christmas Day', 'New Year's Eve', 'Mum's Birthday' etc. One student picked the month of December. The following week when he handed in his home-made calendar, I noticed he had all the dates you might expect in December marked but also on the 1st December he had put World Aids Day, I found it encouraging to learn that this 8 year old Chinese boy is so concerned with the Aids pandemic, who knows maybe he will seek out a career in medical research, he certainly has the potential, smart kid.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

It might not be Hollywood but I can lay claim to starring in a Chinese movie! OK, so I am overstating my role in what should be my big screen debut, I was merely an extra in a low budget film but it did star two famous Chinese actors! So how did I end up appearing in this soon to be Oscar nominated flick? Please read on...

During the summer of 2013, having returned to China for my third stint, I was broke and searching the Beijinger.com, which is Beijing's answer to Gumtree, which in turn is England's answer to Craigslist. Anyway, these searches were proving to be anything but fruitful and despite checking every day, I was coming up with nothing. But throw enough mud at a wall... One day, my friend Jess received a call regarding an email she had sent containing our head-shots to a casting agent after seeing their classified ad, which sought after 'Foreign people to appear in a Chinese movie'. They were keen for us to come along the following day to work as background artists on the set of that movie.

'We' should have been three, unfortunately the timing of the filming coincided with Jess's boyfriend Chris's birthday weekend and as you might imagine Chris hadn't quite recovered enough from the gallons of alcohol he had consumed. He opted to stay home and relax opposed to standing on a set for 9 hours, he probably made the right call.

It was an early start, with Jess and I grabbing the subway at 5.30am, meeting our contact Moli at 6.15am outside the Military Museum, Beijing. Actually, Moli's opening question was one the most intriguing I have known as a way of introduction, "do you have any black friends?" she asked. We assumed that she possibly needing more people of different ethnicity for the movie and it wasn't just an unusually unique way to greet people that she'd developed.

When Jess had spoken to Moli the day before, she was informed that the scene being filmed that day was set in an airport. We were to dress as we would for a flight and bring luggage. I wore a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and khaki cargo shorts with flip flops and my backpack, which I'd filled with two pillows to give it a more realistic shape.

So Moli led us to the set, which was located in the Beijing Art Museum. After a short wait for the other extras to arrive, we were separated into two lines - boys and girls. They explained that they would be selecting a handful of us to change into costumes of customs officers, NYPD police officers and SWAT members. They picked mainly big guys, a group of athletic Italians and a group of Russians accounted for most of the police officers. The two guys tasked with casting the roles, walked up and down the line inspecting us as if we were soldiers stood to attention on a parade square. One of the two pointed at me, no less than three times and every time his friend simply shook his head, that made me feel good about myself.

In hindsight being overlooked for one of the cool costumed roles, was probably a good thing, as I got to stand and chat to Jess whenever we weren't filming. At first, it was a lot of fun and quite exciting. But when you have done the same scene twenty-odd times, the novelty of being a film star wears off!

So, like I said, we knew we were going to be on an airport looking set. After the bullshit 'who looks tough enough to be a NYPD cop' selection process, we were led through to a large room, little did I know at this point that I would be spending the next nine hours there. As we caught glimpse of the set, I became eager to start background artisting my socks off! It looked exactly like the customs and immigration services that you'd expect to see at any international airport. Though on closer inspection everything was a little flimsy and obviously it was a set and I hadn't stepped through a portal into a real airport! The set was plastered with logos for JFK Airport and a big 'Welcome to New York' sign! No points for guessing which city this scene would be based in!

My friend Jess, acting her little socks off

I may have missed out on being a cop, but I was about to be given my chance to shine. A woman, started to pick out people to be at the front of the set for when the filming started. All the best looking people were chosen, plus me, not sure why but I wasn't going to complain about getting to stand around with lots of hot chicks and cool dudes. I was given direction. "Walk through the scanner, and collect your bag from the conveyor belt, please". This was it, my big scene, I was going to walk through that scanner and collect my bag like no-one had ever walked through a scanner and collected a bag before. I was gonna show all the losers behind me how it was done, steal the scene and probably end up being asked to do a few lines... So I walked through, went to grab my bag and then.... "Cut!", 'Ah come on! What happened? Who messed it up? It wasn't me, I walked through the scanner with style, I acted my arse off as I went to pick that bag up', I thought to myself as I was pushed back into my original position by a member of the crew.

After about twenty takes of that, they moved the set around and were ready to film the next part, though this time, I wasn't at the front, but why? What had I done? Maybe my acting was too good? Maybe I should play it a little bit cooler? Yeah, that's it, just relax... Wait? I am at the back with all the losers, what's going on? Don't they know who I am?

A view of the set from just behind the crew and the cameras

One particular scene was filmed more times than any other, this was because of a group of girls that kept laughing, amateurs. In this scene, we were informed that someone would shout 'bomb' and we all had to scream and hit the floor, Jess and I did such a good job of this that one of the Director's assistants moved us closer to the front, citing how good we were doing. Who's laughing now NYPD boys? Anyway, each time we all hit the floor, it would go silent soon after until this bunch of cretins starting to giggle, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the room, particularly the Director.

The highlight of the day for me was when we saw about ten Chinese people in blonde and auburn wigs rolled out to provide further background artistry, I can only assume that the casting agency had failed to supply enough genuine Western people. It was hilarious, imagine it, ten sort of confused looking Chinese people with ridiculous Bon Jovi-esque wigs being forced to make up the numbers!

The shooting went on for about nine hours in total, probably the longest working day I have ever endured. I was aching so much from standing around and also crouching during some scenes (as directed, not just for the fun of it).

After all that, we went to collect our pay for the day, the girl in charge of payments, asked me to sign on the dotted line before handing me the cash, "Who shall I make it out to?" I asked, "Sorry?" she replied, "Its okay, I'll just sign my name for you" I winked at her, "Yeah it's for our records" she claimed, "Of course it is" I said, winking again and then strutting away down the corridor with the 400RMB (about £40) earnings in my pocket.

A star is born? My big screen debut, on the set of 'Old Boys'

I am yet to be approached by Martin Scorsese or James Cameron, but that's probably because they are unaware of my debut on the silver screen, mind you, I am not sure when it will be premiering myself! All I do know is that it called 'Old Boys' and it is a feature length remake of a popular internet short starring the Chopsticks Brothers - I know that sounds like they might be the Chuckle Brothers of China but apparently they are critically acclaimed actors who write and sing too! Anyway, I will keep you posted on the film's release!

In all seriousness though, both Jess and I agreed to discovering a new level of respect for people who work in the film industry, I think Jess put it perfectly - "Even the crappiest film you've ever seen, someone has worked really hard on that".