Xuan Phu Goes Green (My Kids Can’t Really Sing…)

So, yesterday was this special, traditional holiday called “The Day of the Green Doors.”  There was incredible energy all day and not to mention green doors everywhere in Vietnam.

My buddy Tu, the ribbon dancer.

The doorkeepers.

Vien's kind of a bully...

Thanh Nho looking cool

my head. oh. no. my head.

This holiday is just CraAaAzZY

"Bricks In a Crack"

look at that taggin.

Hau's take over.

So, now that your mind is intimately involved with the color green, I can make a segue to the actual green holiday we all know, St. Patrick’s Day.  It happened a few weeks ago and well, whenever an American “holiday” comes up, I always plan to use it in my classes somehow.  It works well in the curriculum.  It’s sure to break up those weeks of grammar/vocab lessons, and also sometimes I really think my kids forget that I’m not from Vietnam… so they work as reminders for them too (When I’m explaining, I’ll always say “in MY country…” over and over, until I see something crank and click in their heads. Then, they’ll tilt their heads to the side and you know they’re thinking, “Oh. Teacher Hy’s not just some weird Vietnamese local.  I forgot.  Anywho, my favorite Pokemon today is…”)

On St. Patrick’s Day, we pinched each other ruthlessly, but nobody ever followed the rules… they didn’t understand they had to wear green first to be able to pinch others.  It actually got kind of dangerous and nerve-wrecking.  I started thinking, “What if today is just the start of this?  What if they continue seeking me out and pinching me forever?!  What if I’m never ever able to let my guard down ever again, and then I explode one day when a leaf falls on my shoulder?!”  I think one of the many images that came to mind was a giant aquarium tank of giant Japanese spider crabs that got loose in the shelter…

(Finally, I can now cite this awesome picture... just pretend that kid is one of mine or something.)

To continue my extremely important story that I’ve already gone too long and far with, the crabs then evolved into half-human/half-crabs, started pinching business proposals in their pinch-striped suits, and closed deals by pinching each other firmly and confidently.  Okay, I’m done.

I also explained the legend of the leprechaun to all my classes, you know- about how they were known to be intoxicated, but were still somehow able to run a shoe-making business, or how they’re appointed guardians of old, Danish gold.  My oldest class was laughing hysterically, while my youngest class kind of just listened in awe.  I told them it was okay to laugh, but they still wouldn’t crack a smile… they just didn’t get the irony of my story-telling…  So at that point, I started panicking and decided I needed to evacuate and turn to plan X^3 to get them to laugh, so I showed them several pictures of green-spray-painted poodles.  Then, I threw a pie up in the air, did a little jig and ended with my ta-da! stance a second before the pie landed on top of my head.

The three young ones.

Any other noteworthy holiday coverage?
—Oh, well last month on Valentine’s Day, I just remembered that I did a differences/similarities exercise with my oldest class and they wrote on the board: “Vietnamese people date before they kiss… Americans kiss before they date.”
—And earlier this month, on March 8th, was International Women’s Day… a holiday I’ve never heard of until I got here.  All the girls made each other flowers bouquets all day, while all the boys cooked lunch and dinner that day… they’re quite entertaining eaters, these two.

In other news, I’ve been keeping busy with my community fellowship project. It’s progressing slowly, since I can’t really do much yet while the kids are still in school… but, that just gives me lots of time to prepare properly.  I’m currently trying to find and learn songs on the keyboard that I think my kids could sing (for Xuan Phu Shelter’s first children’s choir.)  My kids also had a lot of interest in the dance classes, so I’ve recently been daydreaming a lot about my Aerobic Funk Dance Class in college.  That “class” would be perfect to start sometime soon, since I just have to spontaneously do awesome moves and whip them into shape while blaring sweet beats.  The actual dance classes, where we would learn specific routines to songs, will happen later.  I can’t be “distracting the kids from their school” with sweet dance moves constantly running through their heads… that would just be cruel.  I’ve also got an entrepreneur, Truong, who’s taking a lot of dance classes right now… and I’m thinking about recruiting him as my co-teacher for this summer.  I’m getting really excited for this project to unfold.  My kids are antsy too.

See?! Ecstatic.

After these past few weeks, I’ve starting to realize that I took music classes in U.S. schools for granted.  I haven’t thought about my music classes in elementary/middle school in so long… but all I can remember are great, great memories.  It seems like we’ve always had chorus or some sort of group singing music practice as early as pre-k (at least in my entire Catholic schools experience.)  I mean, I’m just assuming, but I’m pretty sure everyone my age learned Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” in school at some point.  Maybe even with accompanying recorders?

Maybe this is biased to say, but I always thought everyone knew the basics of singing… you know, about how music notes works and how it’s related to our voices making different, high and low pitches.  Or about beats! And tempos!  And how each song has their own tempo (number of counts in each measure) and by knowing that, it could help us have the right rhythm.

…But, it’s just not the case here with my kids. haha.  I love them to death, but singing or keeping beat sure isn’t their strongest suit.  They love the concept of singing and music, but I guess their music classes in school just didn’t do much for them.  It must be hella boring actually, (my theory is that they make music classes extra boring and infrequent so that musicianship can become a dying trade…!), which is sad because I think almost everyone really enjoyed music class in grade school (feel free to comment memories.)

What other subject hardly has any homework, introduces you to The War of the Worlds radio drama (which by the way, you should listen to that again sometime soon.), and is a safe haven to learn the art of square dance?!  I mean… you all learned… how to… square dance… right?  Because, I’m… uhh… me either! Haha! See, I, uhh, almost gotcha there! Well yeah, duh of course! C’mon, I was obviously kidding…. I’m like the master of kidding… The kid-master 3000… that’s like what they, uhh, used to call me back home…yeah…

oh, Nhi.

…The other day, I decided to bring my keyboard into my youngest class and teach them a couple English songs, simple ones like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”  There were about… one and a half students who could sing on key, which seemed a little lower than usual (McSingerton, Singy.  “Statistics On On/Off Key Abilities Of Every Single Elementary Classroom.” Survey. 6 June 2006.)  None of them kept with the same tempo… some zipped through the whole song before others even finished the first two lines.

I thought, “Hey… well, whenever kids would sing off key in chorus classes, the teacher would use the piano to help them get back on key.  It helps a lot when we hear the music so we know how to match up our voices to it.”  But, nope.  They had no idea how to do that.  And then I thought, “Well… to help them with the tempo, I’ll just play and sing along so they can follow me and know when to say the words.”  Nope.  They all just sang at whatever rhythm they found conveniently located at the 7-11 around the corner.  At least they all recognized how terrible they sounded and would make really funny, “…heheh…?” half-smiles after each attempt.  Whenever I’d say, “Okay… that was good!  …A lot better!” they would look at me like, “Come on.  Are you trying to kid us?  We all know that we sound like some styrofoam-box-squeak banshees.”  And yes, that is a commonly-used phrase here in Vietnam.  Styrofoam-box-squeak banshees.

It seems like I’ve got quite a lot of work cut out for me here for my chorus.  I’m gonna try a bunch of different methods to get them more excited about singing and perhaps even more “musically inclined.”  Let’s pray things work out.  Either that or pray one kid decides to step it up, and we always and only feature her every concert, while everyone else is only allowed to lip-sync and snap fingers.  Is that some sort of common scenario in Disney Channel specials?

oh, Duc.

In more hopeful news, I’ve actually been really enjoying my keyboard this year.  For those of you who don’t know, I quit playing piano in high school after 12 years of lessons.  A lot of it had to do with overwhelming pressure from my parents/home environment.  At that age, if you’re pushed too far into something, it’s only natural that you’ll want to push back and do the exact opposite (good thing for a future parent to remember/also really worthwhile to listen to: This American Life’s latest show titled “Didn’t Ask To Be Born.” I found it for you here: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/209.mp3)  So, I kind of learned to hate the piano for a while.  Every time I would play, it just reminded me of being forced to play for guests, or being forced to practice, or pretending to sleep in while my crazy piano teacher was at my doorstep Saturday morning at 8 a.m., incessantly ringing the doorbell.

I only started embracing my talents again when I was in college, but by that time I just didn’t have enough time for the hobby.  So, this year is the first year in a while that I have excessive free time to pursue any/all old hobbies without feeling forced to do anything.  This seems to be the opposite experience for mainland Vietnamese students.  Their parents don’t want them to be good at sports or music or art because they think it’ll take away from their precious studying time… how come 1st Generation Asian-American parents are so much more CUTTHROAT? I could probably come up with reasons why right now… but eh, I’m over it.

So yeah, I’ve been willingly and non-stressfully playing the piano, usually with a fan in front of me while I play just to further emphasize the “freedom” of my piano playing.  I’m feeling quite happy.  I just downloaded the sheet music for “Christmas Time Is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas, and have been playing it almost every day.  Oh, what a song for my year in Vietnam.

oh, Da.

The other day we had a small party for the March birthdays, and of course singing was heavily involved.  They always want me to sing a song, and luckily I had just bought some awesome Vietnamese book of favorite English songs.  Let me just name some of the songs I have acquired sheet music for because of this book…
“Back for Good” by Take That
“Dreaming Of You” by Selena
“Everything I Do, I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams
“Unbreak My Heart” by Toni Braxton
“Hero” by Mariah Carey
“How Deep Is Your Love” by The Bee Gees
“Tears In Heaven” by Eric Clapton

But, as always, with ironically awesome comes the insanely awful.
“All That I Need” by Boyzone
“All Out Of Love” by Air Supply
“You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins
“Graduation” by Vitamin C
“Before the Dawn” by Judas Priest
“That’s Why (You Go Away)” by Michael Learns To Rock

Yes.  Believe it or not, I have sheet music for all of these jams… and they also come with side-by-side Vietnamese translations/idiom explanations/vocabulary emphasis!  Lessons plan jams in a book.

Anyways, I picked “Yesterday Once More” by the Carpenters to sing at the party, since I knew all the kids would join in at the “Sha La La La La” part.  I was just thinking about how it’s kind of fun to be picky about typing out lyrics with the exact amount of la’s, ah’s or oo’s.

Much like the "oo's" the headmother, Co Nhung, is doing here.

drama queens.

drama kings.

Thuy and Loan Em

Phuong, Ech, and Sa

Minh Thanh's a goof.

Two new staff, Co Hoa and Chi Anh (Update: Co Hoa left already. haha.)

Life would be very difficult without our knock-off goldfish.

After the singing part of the party was over, (if you’ve forgotten, please review chapter 3: “Shelter Party Etiquette and Immutable Schedule”) we followed what was expected of us, and we DONCED (danced.)

Here are some of my security-camera angled photos of them dancing:

Why does it always start with Truong and Duc?

Duc does this "move" where he pelvic thrusts towards the ground.

Another battle... what else is new?

The girls battle with their "follow Nhi's moves" choreography.

Wait, how have I never realized how awesome the term "battle" is? I kinda wanna start using it all the time.

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of posting pictures of my kids dancing and battling, even though they all kind of look like each other (definitely that room’s damn lighting’s fault).  But, the pictures don’t do justice to how entertaining it actually is in real life.  It seems that their love for hip hop dancing has only grown very similarly to that grow-dinosaur that’s in our little pond right now…  This grows UP TO 600% by the way, and hold on- I’ll help pick up your dropped jaw for you in a second.

Super confusing photos = always awesome.

After some of my English classes, I’ve been showing them snippets of America’s Best Dance Crew, since I’ve also been into that show recently after hearing Quest Crew was on it/going to win it (the crew that my Asian Culture Club brought to Ithaca last year!)  Yes, Quest Crew now has a cult of young Vietnamese grade-school children worshiping them here.  Sometimes, I think some of my kids just aren’t listening to anything I say in class and are just saying, “Quest Crew. Quest Crew. Quest Crew.” over and over in their heads, and I can only break them out of this mind-loop by showing them a dance clip at the end of class.  Every other word that comes out of Phap’s mouth is “Ka-west-KaRoo.”  This is terribly confusing when he reads his physics homework out loud in Vietnamese.
…Which reminds me, the other day he took advantage of my internet once again, and signed onto Yahoo Messenger the moment I left my room.  When I got back, he told me he knew Akira Phan’s screen name and wanted to message him (A famous Vietnamese singer among teens).  It was adorably naive.  You could tell he was  nervous and thinking a lot, and he said, “Hmm… I don’t actually know what to say to a singer…”  Then, when I pretended not to look, he started typing and later I glanced/read, “Hi Akira.  My name is Phap.  I really, really like your music.”  Then, he waited a couple minutes waiting for a friendly, celebrity response, but then Akira.Phan@yahoo.com signed off and his dreams were crushed mercilessly.

Since all I’m missing from this post now are the fine arts, here’s some photos of my kids playing with a colored chalk and 3-d glasses kit I brought from the States.  My favorite one is the last.

yeeaaa, check out those h-core English skillz.

...so what's up with kids and their love of pamphlets?

He didn't believe me.

Neither did he.

...You probably won't either, since this experiment obviously failed.

4th generation Cyclops?

This reminds me of NKOTB, which reminds me of how I made my kids like "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" this past month.

…

Sorry!

I’m not done.

I have to do it.

Speaking of NKOTB…

I wanted to show you these boyband haircut pictures.

Thank God their crew of hair-stylists came a half hour before their big comeback performance on Live with Regis and Kelly…

…sorry to interrupt my own NKOTB reference, but does anyone remember how crazy Kathie Lee’ Gifford’s voice was?  I kinda wish I laughed at it more those days I was sick and stayed home from school.

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~ by Hy Huynh on March 27, 2009.