Photo Exhibition: Phu Quoc, Island of Magical Wonders

Last month, on a whim decision, I made a weekend trip to Phú Quốc Island to join a friend that was spending a week there relaxing before she made her move out of Vietnam. I hadn't expected much of Phú Quốc, reputed among friends and locals as a popular island getaway not too far from the city, loved for its long stretches of beach and pearl factories. So I quickly ran a search of things that we could do in Phu Quoc, and packed my bags, and after a 40 minute flight to the island's newly renovated airport, I met my friend on her rented motorbike outside at the parking lot not knowing what was in store for us as she drove us through the fresh ocean air towards town.

Phú Quốc Island is the largest island in Vietnam, and it has a reputation of containing some of the best beaches in the country. Situated in the Gulf of Thailand, it is roughly 45 km west from Ha Tien at the southernmost tip of Vietnam, and 15 km south of the coast of Cambodia. The 574 km² island predates the times of French missionary work in Vietnam, and has housed Emperor Gia Long in hiding, the Chinese colonial army during the time of Mao Zedong's revolution, as well as Viet Cong prisoners captured by the South Vietnamese Republic during the war. Inhabited by a local population of roughly 80,000, the island is known for its production of fish sauce, one of the best in Vietnam, as well as black pepper, one of the best in the world. The island is also known for its unique breed of dogs, the Phú Quốc dogs, characterized by a ridge down their backs and ferocious hunters by nature, but domesticated by the locals through the centuries, resulting in tame, sweet dogs that literally abound the whole island. Phú Quốc has long been the center of contentious territorial claim disputes between Cambodia and Vietnam, and although today the dispute is not officially settled, the island can only be reached from Vietnam.

With our guesthouse stationed in Dương Đông, the island's main town in the middle of the west coast, my friend and I decided to do a road-trip on our bike, up the breadth of the island to our destination of choice, Gành Dầu, a small beach town at the northwest tip of the island, where we would be able to see the Cambodian coast across the ocean. It turned out that the search for this destination would characterize our whole weekend trip, as we found ourselves swallowed in by the island's beguiling virgin forest (established as a national park) which took us on a captivating adventure swirling around never-ending red dirt paths to different tucked local secrets. After several hours of getting lost in the beautiful dense untouched forest the first day, it took us a second attempt the next day to finally get to our destination of choice. On the second attempt, we had initially missed a street and gone on to the northeast corner of the island to a town called
Bãi Thơm, where we would experience the most magical moment of our trip. We drove down a small path through the woods towards the coast, where we found ourselves on the property of a humble charming wooden hut house. As we started taking pictures of the coast scenery, some colorful creatures started popping out of the previously lifeless-seeming house, curious at us. Shy at first, this cute family of children soon warmed up to us, amused by our foreign-ness, and soon our encounter culminated in a heartwarmingly enjoyable game where the children copied all of my moves as well as sound effects. When it was time to leave, the kids cheerfully said goodbye to us then filed up the path to the street like mini-adults setting off to do some work! All alone! The mother was inside the house and kept yelling at the kids to keep manners in front of the visitors, and shyfully refused our offer to send her the wonderful photos of her children which we showed to the whole family gazing on excitedly. When we were back on the road, my friend and I were just completely stupefied at the incredible moment we had just had, feeling like it was all just a dream as we resumed our road-trip to the north. 

The trip was one of my most memorable because we happened upon so many hidden local gems and experienced such beautiful and authentic human moments. I got to know Phú Quốc as a dazzling island blending astonishing natural wonders with beautiful, humble and happy inhabitants propped up all throughout. When we rode back from the north towards town down the west coast of the island, we saw some of the most beautiful, wild and fresh beaches I have ever seen. In fact, I have just found out during the research for this post that that very beach I speak of, Bai Dai Beach, had been ranked by CNN to be in the top 100 best beaches in the world (#93); in 2008, ABC News had also voted Phú Quốc's beaches to be "The Most Cleanest and Beautiful Beach in the World" (according to some sources online which I couldn't verify). In any case, Phú Quốc island will always linger in my memories as that special place where such beautiful wild nature was interwoven with the romantic narrative of the local inhabitants.


I leave you with a selection of photos from the trip, which I chose on the basis of photography as well as the moments that captured me. All photos were taken by me, except obviously for the ones where I appeared in, which was taken by my friend, or the ones where we both appeared in, which was self-timed and positioned for automatic shots. 

Goodbye class photo: Y6-D1311E

Yet another teenager class has finished!

This young leaders teenager class was the epitome of a teenager class: crazy, loud, head-wracking, patience-testing, headache-inducing, and reducing-my-being-to-a-piece-of-stale-meat-by-the-end-of-the-day ! Yet, despite them making me wanna pull my hair out and yell many times during class (which I'm glad I don't take the habit of doing otherwise I'd be bald by now), I still love them and I do have to admit that their craziness makes me laugh or entertains me. After all, I used to be a crazy teenager myself, and I can vastly relate to some of the kids' clowning antics.

To be fair, the craziness can be narrowed down to a small group of boys, whom I dub the "trio-gang". Unsurprisingly, they are also the ones that I remember the most from this class. This gang consists of its clear de facto leader, Huy, a dubstep breakdancer boy who was always clad in admittingly cool teenager gear complete with oversized trainers with rocket wings on them, and who always vied for attention and made his voice heard at any moment imaginable, although I'm not going to lie, he is a good natural performer and entertainer. In fact, he was the only student who made my system of "if you speak in Vietnamese, you have to give an impromptu presentation in front of the class for 1 minute to a random topic of my choice" backfire, in that he would purposefully speak in Vietnamese so that he could get in trouble and pay the punishment, since he loved attention and getting in front of the class... So with time, I had to individualize a system specific for him wherein if he spoke in Vietnamese, he would get the punishment, but if he wanted to retain the punishment (that is, give a speech) he had to behave after that, otherwise I'd take the punishment away from him. Haha! Huy was also the only kid in class who would respond to a question in a way like this:

(After the students talk in pairs about each other's weekends)
Teacher - Huy, can you tell us what your friend did in the weekend?
Huy -  Yes, at 1 am, he slept. And at 2 am, he slept. And at 3 am, he was still sleeping, and at 4 am, he was still sleeping......
etc...

Sigh.... On the other hand, he still had an impact on the whole class as his absence was always greatly felt on days he wasn't there, lending over to a comparatively uncomfortable unenthusiastic energy-less atmosphere. At the end of the day, you always appreciate the class clown and they are always one of the most memorable and charming students in teachers' careers.

His sidekick is Quang, a mature and sweet guy full of affect, always ready to put his rowdier mate in check. He makes my heart melt when one of the other guys make an offensive joke or misbehave in a way that could be interpreted as disrespectful to the teacher, and he scolds at them and tells them not to be like that. He is also a lady's man, always sensitive to girls- in fact one of the speeches he gave was about how he had a sad weekend because he lost the trust of his best female friend and he would do anything to earn it back. Awww *heart breaks.... He was always the only kid who would extend to me a sincere goodbye at the end of class, and on our very last day, he thanked me for being a good teacher and hoped to see me again. Awwwww *heart shatters into pieces...

I will also remember the cute nerd of the class, Gia Bao, a young enthusiastic boy who always took so much care in all of the class activities we did! His care in the lessons and games motivate me to keep providing good lessons in times when I think it is hopeless in such a crazy class! In many competitive games, every time his pair-team would win a round, he and his partner, in perfect nerd fashion, would high-five each other in the air very excitedly and cheer, while nobody else would care much about winning. They are so cute! Also, consistent with the prototypical nerd, he would never fail to put up his hand and point out to me when somebody had cheated or when somebody had spoken Vietnamese or made an error in their response. Haha.......


Without further ado, here are our goodbye photos!!

Vietnamese cooking made easy!

Don't know how to cook your favorite Vietnamese dish? Or don't have time to run around the supermarket to gather all the necessary ingredients for a dish? Or just want an easy, lazy way to make good Vietnamese food? Well, worry not, because in Vietnamese supermarkets, many meals come bundled in packages of complete ingredients that you need for a dish, or are pre-marinaded themselves and just require you to put it on the stove! Here is the supermarket near my home, Co-opMart.

The ingredients to make canh chua (sour tamarind soup)

To make lẩu nấm (mushroom hotpot)

Fish pre-marinaded for your convenience!

Meat-stuffed tofu, meat-stuffed bittermelon, meat-stuffed tomatoes, processed fish, wow!

Yup, the Vietnamese famous Cá kho tộ (fish caramelized in clay-pot), complete in its own claypot that you cook directly in!

Fish sauce

Okay, let's get cooking!

 

 

Goodbye class photo: ICP1-D1303J

Thus comes the ending of another great adult pre-intermediate class... This class was ever-so-memorable... The group was enthusiastic, bright, and loved to have fun! I got to create a lot of cognitively-stimulating games and activities in this class, as the students welcomed great challenge and competition. Among the students who stood out was Tien, one of the youngest students, still in high school, yet one of the most inquisitive and positive students. Striving to master his craft in English, he never shied from asking me how to pronounce different words, as well as the meaning of any word he didn't have a full grasp on. He was always the first, and sometimes the only, student to get excited and want to partake in games I had planned for the class; one time, after having finished a long challenging group game that utilized a lot of brain power and grammar reflection, I asked the class if they were up for another game which I had planned for the remainder of class, which involved rolling a big die and creating correct grammatical sentences in a race; he was the only one with a big smile on his face, looking around the class, and urging everyone to give this game a go, while the rest of the class looked tired and dismayed at the thought of another brain-squeezing game. Vu is another avid learner, always keeping his eyes on me even when I felt like the whole class was warped in its own world of socializing and gossiping with friends; he always volunteered incredibly smart answers, and he always got all of the difficult questions which nobody else could answer. Nhi's big wide smile always reminds the teacher how energy makes a huge difference in a classroomt; she also always surprised me with her elaborate and amusing answers at open-ended questions. Finally, Vu was a charming and graceful woman, who, although was hesitant at quick-paced physical games such as dashing for the flag in the middle of the floor, always offered insightful responses and comforted me with her kind motherly smile.

This class was so delightful that I decided that a little classroom goodbye party was a must. On our last day, we ordered in some delicious Korean Fried Chicken and had ourselves some great Vietnamese-style on-the-floor chow-down fun.