Undecided

Discussion group at the Sunday English Speaking Club

I have been here in HCMC for a week and have barely made an attempt at finding a teaching job. When I was planning this trip teaching seemed to be a fine idea but now that I am here in Asia with so much unexplored territory at hand I am having doubts about anchoring myself to one city. I will take a few more days and send out a few feelers to see what happens. If a job turns up then I will follow that course. If not I am mapping out a slow trek to the north of Vietnam. This is a long narrow country and to go from south to north will take a few weeks.

"What is he doing the rest of the time?", you may be wondering. This is a huge city of over 8 million and I enjoy wandering the neighborhoods, stopping in at the rare temples for a little quiet meditation and the ubiquitous markets for a sensory onslaught. I leisurely explore the museums and I stop at cafes for a coffee or beer. In every place there are Vietnamese people anxious to speak with a foreigner and I sometimes enjoy the almost celebrity status.

Yesterday I went to the English Speaking Club at the suggestion of a Vietnamese friend who thought that I might get some job leads there. There were over 100 people; young children, students and older adults; who meet on Sunday afternoons because they enjoy speaking English. I only saw one other westerner (as we are called) so I was quite a sensation. The recommended discussion of the day was "movies" and after about an hour of chat in small groups a formal program began. There were games like identifying theme songs from movies and guessing the title of movies from verbal clues. Of course the movies were English and I was surprised at the knowledge of these Anglophiles.