Today, in my alleyway shopping cart...

This morning, on the way home from the gym, riding into my alleyway, I picked up a bunch of bananas (20,000 VND, about $1), two mangoes (46,000 VND, about $2.30), two plain Vietnamese baguettes (6,000 VND, about 30 cents), and one "Bun Rieu" (a Vietnamese crab and vermicelli soup, 12,000 VND, about 60 cents)...

Meal on wheels

One of the great joys about living in Ho Chi Minh City is the facility of bringing home any kinds of foods and dishes. This city is like one mega drive-through structure, where you can pick up all kinds of meals and snacks from the comfort of your motorbike, while you are on your way to your destination. From fruit shakes, to sandwiches, to rice meals, to soups, to fried foods, the streets are your menu, and your motorbike is your browser.

Here is a lunch course I picked up on the way home through my alleyway one day.

First stop on the far end of the picture: my banh mi stall.... 12,000 VND ( 60 cents)

The "crab soup" lady outside my alleyway is popular amongst the teenagers, who come after school and sit on stools beside her stall and slurp on her glutinous soup or munch on chicken feet which she also sells... She works everyday from 3pm-8pm... And see those buckets in front of her stand? They are full of her soup, and she sells 3 whole buckets everyday!

One cup of crab soup costs 8,000 VND (about 40 cents)

Let's grab a bag of fresh sliced fruits... for about 50 cents...

... And fresh sugarcane juice for 5,000 apiece ( 25 cents)

... And clip the bags onto our motorbike in true Vietnamese fashion...

And Opa!!! A tasty filling lunch meal for about $1.50 per person!

My sister in true Vietnamese photo-posing style...

Fairy drawing from Oanh!

Here's a pretty fairy/heroine (?) drawing that one of my favorite students randomly made for me (although it was during classtime!!! grrr!). Her name is Oanh, and I've taught her in two Young Leaders courses so far. She is incredibly intelligent, inquisitive, mature, self-motivating, and I have no doubt she will become successful in whatever dreams she pursues in the future!

All Hail Helmets!!!

Riding a motorbike is an integral part of life for many locals in urban Vietnam, so having proper safety gear should be taken very seriously. Surprisingly, a mandatory helmet law was only introduced in Vietnam in late 2007. Before that, only a small proportion of all motorcyclists were wearing helmets. After the law was introduced, there was nearly a 100% turnaround in people wearing helmets, although they did so more for law compliance and avoiding fines, rather than safety reasons.

Sadly, Vietnam has one of the world`s highest rates in traffic fatality. In 2007, there were about 13,000 traffic-related deaths. More than half of those deaths were due to head injuries. Since the implementation of the helmet law, traffic deaths have reduced drastically. However, the reality is that traffic accidents still remain high. For the first 8 months of this year, there has been 422 traffic deaths in Ho Chi Minh City, or 6,128 traffic deaths nationwide.

Research shows that wearing helmets could reduce the risk of traffic deaths by 42% and of injuries by 69% in a crash. Therefore, purchasing a high-quality helmet is not only mandatory by law, but it is extremely vital.

We decided to upgrade our helmets the other day. Helmets are very easy to come by, but they range drastically in quality and in price. The lower-end helmets, which can be found on the streets, range from about 20,000 VND to 70,000 VND ($1-$3.50 USD), and it seems (to my eye) that most motorcyclists own these. Better quality helmets go from about 100,000-200,000 VND ($5-$10), to upwards of 300,000VND ($15) for high-quality all the way up to 800,000VND ($40) for superior quality and even reaching up to 2,000,000 VND at some specialty stores for extreme top-of-the-line fancy helmets ($100).

We stopped at a brightly-lit colorful tiny helmet store on the way home at night-time and opted for matching helmets with a pull-down visor. It cost 320,000 VND each (about $16). The visors are great not only for protecting ur eyes from dust and air particles, but as we found out, as a shield against hard rain pouring down on our faces, making it actually possible to see when we ride in rain!

Story lesson in class

In the Everybody Up series for the children's courses at my school, there are short story lessons included occasionally. These stories are really simple and short, but since it comprises the main lesson material for that particular class, we have to find different ways to make the most of it and to turn it into a whole class lesson.

I like to let the class interact with the story in different angles and through different stages in order to have the language become as naturalized as possible to the students. First, to get the students engaged with the story, we talk about the pictures and I ask questions to get students to observe and analyze them. For example, for the first picture of the story below, I could ask: "How many people are there?", "How many boys are there?", "How many girls are there?", "Where are they?", "What time is it?", etc. Very simple questions about the visuals... This also prepares the students mentally to be more receptive to the story.

Then I play the audio recording of the story and students follow along. After it is over, I do comprehension check with them by asking questions about the story. For example: "What time does the teacher want to meet?", "What do Mike and Danny want?", "What time do they arrive at the bus?", etc.

Next, for pronunciation practice, students will repeat after me as I read through the story, line by line, with exaggerated intonation. Students then answer some yes/no questions in their book. This gives them a chance to read the story more intensively and at their own pace and they can reflect and choose their answers. We take it up as a class.

And then, to force students to focus on language form more, I sketch the story on the board and blank out some key words from the dialogue. I ask volunteers to come fill in the blanks. Students are really eager to come up to the board and get to write on it. They are forced to become conscious of spelling and sentence form.

Lastly, we get volunteers to act out the story in front of the class. Each role is taken up, including the narration. The sketch on the board guides the actors in their presentation and dialogue. With the presentation, students get the practice and apply the language.

Here are some pictures and a video from several months ago of an Everybody Up 3 class during a story lesson.

Banh Mi Economics

 I've always wondered how much money these ubiquitous bánh mì vendors made on the streets. Bánh Mì is a traditional street sandwich served all over Vietnam, and it is a relic of the French colonial times, when a lot of French food traditions fused and merged with local Vietnamese cuisine. It incorporates a French derived baguette, pâté and mayonnaise, combined with Vietnamese meats, cucumbers, pickled carrots and daikon radish, cilantro and hot peppers. The world over, in regions where there are vast Vietnamese immigrant communities, bánh mì refers to the classic cold-cut meats variety, which includes sliced pork belly and Vietnamese sausage. But in Vietnam, bánh mì simply means 'bread', and one has to precise which kind of sandwich one would like, such as the cold-cut one (bánh mì thịt nguội), the one with grilled meat (bánh mì thịt nướng), or with meatball (bánh mì xíu mại), amongst others.

Bánh mì is extremely cheap, and typically sells between 12,000 VND to 20,000 VND on the streets (about 60 cents to 1 dollar). Foreigners may be turned off by the bare hands-handling by some vendors or the newspaper used to wrap the sandwich in, but one thing we cannot deny is how amazing it tastes and how it just hits the right spot for a filling snack craving. There is a trend though in making bánh mì more of an upscale snack as is evident in BMV chain (http://www.banhmiviet.net/), a fast-food type restaurant that sells all kinds of bánh mì and even delivers them (I am a huge fan, and I hate to admit I sometimes order delivery from them, even though they are just down the street from my house).


A bánh mì vendor I often go to is this lady who parks herself on the corner of an intersection leading to my alleyway and seems to be doing fine with her stand. People stop by her on their bikes and conveniently pick up a sandwich. I often pick up a sandwich on the way home going into my alleyway.


One day I finally lost all senses of discretion and started asking her about her dealings. She works everyday from about 2pm to around 9pm. She sells 100 sandwiches per day, and she said it with an air which showed that she did not struggle to meet the daily quota. I was puzzled by her small cart and asked her where all the breads were, and she told me that she had bread delivered to her cart in different rotations to help her stock up. She sells a sandwich for 12,000 VND.

So now, with all of these numbers in check, the fun part... If she sells 100 sandwiches a day and each costs 12,000 VND.... that's 1,200,000 VND in sales per day... so about $60.... And times that by 30 days..... WOWWWWZZERSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! You mean to tell me that she makes 36,000,000 VND per month!!?!! Which is about $1800???!!!! Whattt???? Did I calculate that right??? I did not factor in the cost of the ingredients but I don't assume it's too high. And I am not sure if she has any permit to set up her stand there every day... But in revenue alone, it is extremely high for one local individual, considering that the average monthly salary for a local person is $185!!!

Needless to say, after the eureka moment I had that day I made the calculation, I looked at bánh mì vendors with different eyes... One of "Wow, good for you!". Unless I have overlooked details or the cost of selling the sandwiches is a lot higher than I suspected, I'd say this ain't a bad job at all!