Notes on Class. Notes from Class.

I’m entering week four of my program this week (week four, wow!), and I wanted to put down what will probably be a lot of thoughts from the past three weeks. I’ve been filled with ideas of what to write on here, but lacking motivation. Or rather, overwhelmed with ideas and not sure where to start. I had planned on writing this long essay on my relationship to my sexuality in Vietnam for Pride last week, but I never got around to it. And then I was disappointed in myself for not writing that essay, and I’ve been blocked up with that. I feel like writing now, and I’m not going to let shame shut down that urge.

So here we go. It’s Sunday night. I’m eating xôi mặn and about to start a peach-flavored bottle of Soju. It might get wild. There will almost certainly be typos because I expect to be at least buzzed by the time I get around to editing. Apologies in advance.

Class are…interesting…that’s about the only word I can say when people ask me how things are going. In some ways, that’s what I wanted. I am doing a Vietnamese studies program in Vietnam because I value experiential learning just as much (or more?) than hard academic research. For me, every single interaction in class is an experience in Vietnamese culture, and the lessons I learn from those interactions are invaluable to me.

My notes from class are funny because it’s about 70% class content, 30% class observation. I note what teachers show up on time, who uses the microphone, who uses a PowerPoint, who spends all class reading the PowerPoint at us, who stands behind the desk all class, who walks around, who asks the students questions, who lectures for the whole period, what pronouns the teachers use with us, notes on their accents. I don’t actually take very many notes on my classmates, but I do spend a lot of time observing them, too.

One of these days, I’ll actually sit down and write about what classes I’m taking this semester and what we are learning, but that’s not what I want to write about now. This post is some observations from class and my reactions to events in class. There’s some life stuff at the end too.

One of the things I wrote in my notes from week two is “In an academic setting, I feel my most American.” That’s going to be a theme throughout this. I am the only American and the only Westerner in my cohort. This is not my first experience as a student in Asia. I studied two semesters in Taiwan for my gap year. I took two semesters of courses in China as well on two separate occasions. I am relatively used to the way teachers educate in societies heavily influenced by Confucianism, but at the same time I still feel very very American in class.

It feels like some of the teachers barely acknowledge because they just lecture the whole time. At the end of one class I literally wrote. “This man has talked almost nonstop for 3hr15 minutes. It’s honestly impressive.” I am not surprised by this (see above about studying in Taiwan and China), but I’m still not used to it, and honestly I don’t like it. I am trying to maintain relative…objectivity (?)…in thinking about my classes. I’m trying not to judge the teaching style. I’m trying not to frame experiences like that as “American education is the best” (I’ve had bad teachers in the US, trust me). Yes, I’m impressed by this teacher’s knowledge. I’m impressed by his stamina. But after sitting in a 3+ hour lecture with no breaks where the teacher barely checks if we are following it’s hard not to start questioning the effectiveness of the teaching style.

Some of the teachers are excellent and their teaching style really suits what I am used to and expect in a class. One class has a ton of student-teacher interaction, and it is probably my favorite course for that very reason. I do wish there was more student-student interaction, but that seems to not happen in any class.

But honestly, none of the teachers or classes matches my expectations of what an MA course is supposed to look like in terms of reading. We have been given A LOT of books by our teachers, but we just get told to reach when we can and do our best. We sometimes get told a class before what we’ll be talking about, but it’s honestly almost no reading. I’m still working with how I’m going to handle this, because being given 5 pdfs of books and told to “read what you can” means that I just won’t read. I feel too overwhelmed. Don’t know where to start. Want to discuss the books but there isn’t a space in class to do this.

In terms of our reading/class content, I did not expect how much we would be talking about Western theorists. I did not have a very theory-heavy undergrad education, but I guess I imagined in a Vietnamese Studies program we would mainly be reading works from Vietnamese scholars. That is not the case at all. We do some discussion of work by Vietnamese scholars in the courses directly related to Vietnam, but in all of our theory classes, we basically only talk about Western scholars. One of our teachers literally said that “only developed countries can develop theories” (!!!!).

The Western influence on Vietnamese studies is fascinating to me, because like…on one hand I want to be like, hey, shouldn’t we be like, not relying on all Western theories (read as: a Western lens) to research Vietnam….but also like, these are local Vietnamese professors with PhDs who are teaching us all these Western-originated theories of culture/social-science research….so by me questioning their perspective, I’m also applying my ideals as an American onto them, Vietnamese locals, which is….not right either? (ßthis is a pretty common thought loop I get stuck on).

The department suggested we provide water to the teachers, which was told indirectly to me. I think as lớp trưởng I probably am supposed to organize this. When I was told that the department suggested we provide water to the teachers by another student, I responded something to the effect of, “This is a Masters program and the teachers are adults. I think they can get their own water.” I understand student-teacher relationships function differently here, and I do think it’s a kind gesture to get the teachers a drink, but we also have six classes and I’m not taking on the responsibility of getting water six times a week, especially when the teachers all bring water anyway.

A small thing, but the norm here seems to be not to leave the classroom until the teacher does, and some of the teachers are so slow at packing up. All of us students are standing around waiting; the teacher is putting their laptop in their bag as slow as possible. Almost every class.

Something I’m very interested in classes is the narrative we get about Vietnam, and I realized pretty early on that I might have learned different things about Vietnam and its land, but these classes are not necessarily the time to talk about it. In one class, we talked about the expansion of Vietnam from north to south, and it included some content I found…interesting…and I did actually ask a question, but I am being very careful how I phrase my questions and also accepting that my intention must be to understand a narrative. I found the answer actually really interesting, and I learned a lot about what type of questions I want to ask in class.

I find almost all the teachers pretty inappropriate from the perspective of American academia. This is not a value judgment on if they are actually inappropriate or not, but most of them say stuff that leaves me thinking, “wow, this would not be okay in a US university.” I’m going to write out some examples and explain how I reacted (internally) because there are readers that might not default to how I think. I found most of these funny from a “wow this is wild you can say this,” point of view. For me, they range from “eh, that seems mild” to “omg, I can’t believe that happened.”

Some examples

A teacher brought in a children’s book (it was a really beautiful book, by the way) and said to us that we could all buy it when we had kids.

I get that there’s an assumption here that you will have kids. I actually think that assumption exists in a lot of places in the US too, but you can’t say it to people!

One teacher was giving an example of a hypothesis and said, “My hypothesis is that Brendan is rich. Here are my reasons. He is white. He is skinny. He is tall.”

In an American context, you cannot just single people out like that based on race or weight or height. I’m used to this kind of open conversation around the body (and money) here, so I’m like, ah whatever, it’s nbd, but I cannot imagine how uncomfortable someone else might feel!

One of the teachers was talking about the Vietnam War, and about a minute into her talk went, “Oh yeah, Brendan is American.”

I don’t feel uncomfortable when talking about the Vietnam War (<- this is what my professors have been calling it in Vietnamese as well). I think it’s important to talk about it, but just the sudden acknowledgement of the sole American in the room was funny to me.

On a similar note, we were talking about French colonialism in another class, and the teacher kept gesturing directly at me when she said “Westernization.” I swear this is the stuff of sitcoms. I have a similar interaction that happens with this group I cycle with where this older Vietnamese man always greets me by saying “Bonjour.” I’m not even French, but I guess I’m serving French realness these days.

The teachers are assigning us research topics. The teacher picked the one Japanese student in class to research Phan Bội Châu. If you don’t know who PBC is, he was a Vietnamese scholar who was involved in a movement to go to Japan to learn in the early 20th century. A student laughed at the teacher’s choice and mentioned that it was perfect for the Japanese student.

I just couldn’t help sitting there and think…is this perfect? Doesn’t it seem a little migroagrressiony to pick the Japan-themed thing for the Japanese student? I was assigned a Catholic from the mid-1800s, and it made me think, was I given this person because the teacher thinks I’m Christian? Ew!

One of the teachers used the word người màu đỏ (person-red) for indigenous people in the US (!!!).

I was honestly pretty shocked at this one. I’ve heard this word before, but like…never in an academic context. The use of “red” in the context of indigenous people in the US is just not something people say in the US. I thought about asking the teacher why she chose that word or if there was another word, but I didn’t. Similar to the thought loop from above, I struggle with how to approach things I find offensive without pushing my ideals onto someone. Still working on how to navigate this situation.

There have been things I was shocked about in a different way where I was surprised how open the teachers were. This week one of our teachers (who is older) shared how she thinks male-male love is normal and not a big deal. Another teacher shared openly with us that she wrote a research paper that she was supposed to share at a domestic conference, but she was called by an organizer and asked not to present because the topic was sensitive at the time. The teachers have been pretty open with us about what topics we can research. Their general attitude is that we can technically research anything we want, even sensitive topics, but we’ll have to craft an angle that makes it accepted by the officials at the university.

I honestly think my teachers probably find me annoying, because I refuse to generalize about America in the way they want. They keep asking me questions about America, like “how do Americans like to be buried” or “how would Americans resolve an argument.” I almost always respond “Can you please define American before I answer?” I get that this is obnoxious, but from my experience (omg, I’m about to generalize when I just said I don’t like to generalize, I see the irony here, my friends) when Vietnamese people talk to me about the US, they are almost always talking about white, middle class America. Người Mỹ (American) and Người nước ngoài (foreigner) oftentimes feel like synonyms for white people to me, and that just seems like an erasure of identity and complexity through language that I don’t want to participate in. I feel iffy on the way my teachers use người Việt to mean người Kinh as well, honestly, but at this stage I only feel comfortable saying “iffy” because I don’t know enough about this issue or how ethnic minorities feel about this language choice.

One thing I miss from classes in the US is unpacking class after class. It happened in a lot of my classes in undgerad, but I’m thinking particularly about this intro to Anthropology class I took where after one of my best friends from uni would just talk about all the wild things people said. Because my classes here end late at night, I don’t really talk to my classmates at night, but I do wonder, am I alone in thinking our professors are sometimes unhinged, or are other people feeling this way and not talking about it? I need to get coffee with a few of my classmates and see what the vibe is.

On general unhingedness, I’ve decided I’m allowed one unhinged comment per class, because if I stay quiet and don’t release some of my internal reactions, they will build up.

One of my unhinged comments this week went like this. The teacher was giving a love triangle as an example of…something….I don’t really remember…but his proof that the love triangle was a problem was basically three people can’t love each other to which I responded, “Xã hội hiện đại mà, thầy. Ba người cũng vui mà.” (Modern society, teacher. Three people is fun too). Another unhinged comment was when our teacher asked a student to draw a map on the board. As the student was getting up, the teacher mentioned, “This student is a really great writer,” to which I responded, “vẽ thì sao” basically, “well how does she draw?”

The teachers seem to generally ignore these comments.

The teachers are so accommodating to us Vietnamese as a second language speakers. I honestly think too accommodating. One of the foreign students in class last week got asked a few questions and each time answered “I understand, but I don’t know how to respond.” I appreciate his honesty, but at the same time, I would think the teacher would push back on that and really try to extract at least something. Especially because like, when we graduate we will be representatives of the quality of this program, and if you’re just passing students through makes the program look bad (is this just how Americans think?). I can’t even imagine a US professor being that accommodating to an ESL student. I mean, US professors should be more accommodating to second language speakers if the students need more support. I feel like the teachers being so accommodating here is representative of a general phenomenon where people have very low expectations for Vietnamese learners.

In terms of class content, I’m still a little iffy about what is happening and what the teachers even expect of us. As you can see from how much I wrote above, I feel very engaged with the classes themselves. I leave class with my brain buzzing with thoughts and observations. I’ve actually been having a really hard time unwinding at night because classes finish around 8:45, and I am just so mentally active after class I need a while before I can sleep.

I’ve also noticed a huge shift in my own relationship to school. The first week, I found myself falling into my old patterns of undergrad. Except for that one semester senior year where I spent every ounce of sunlight I could sitting outside reading, I let school consume me. I was on an incredibly generous scholarship and never worked during the school year, so I spent so much time and energy on my classes. I wanted my teachers to think I was smart. I wanted my classmates to think I was smart. When I wasn’t in class, I was reliving classes. I was having imaginary arguments with my advisor or classmates. I would remember moments when I got the answer wrong and relive that shame. School was my identity and when it wasn’t going well (in my head), I wasn’t doing well (which is wild because I’ve never done poorly at school, I just thought I was doing poorly by some imaginary standard I’d set up for myself).

It was very unhealthy.

Prior to this program, I was working a job I wasn’t very excited about, so I gained some great skills to separate work and life. I trained myself not to think about work when outside of work by telling myself, “you aren’t getting paid to think about work right now, so you don’t have to.” My coworkers were fine, but I saw them as coworkers only and didn’t care what they thought about me.

It’s been a bit of a shock being back in school. I find myself trying to nest back into those old cranial grooves of obsessing over class performance and what teachers think about me. Fortunately, a big shift that happened when I was twenty-six was I started to learn to value myself and my time, and I stopped caring as much about what people think about it. I’m actively resisting obsessing over class conversations that didn’t go how I wanted them to. I want my teachers to like me, but if they don’t, does it really matter? I don’t think so as long as I pass.

I’ve also crafted a really nice life outside of school here. I cycle and make art with people and write and coffee-shop hop and swim and wander. I’m so glad I’ve lived here before the program started because there’s so much I can do outside of school. School is a part of my identity but it’s a fragment of who I am, and that feels much healthier for me. I’m still working out how to balance life and school, but it’s only the first semester, so I’m (trying) not to be so hard on myself about figuring it out right away.

My soju is finished. I just ate a piece of cake from the freezer, too. It feels good putting all these thoughts down, especially right before bed. They’re out of my head now and in the world. And with that knowledge, I can go to sleep (but not before drinking a ton of water because I have class tomorrow and don’t want to be hungover).