In Vietnam, They're Thankful For Teachers

The pay in America may be significantly better, but here in Vietnam we have Teacher's Day.  It's a big holiday here.  My students sent me emails, text messages, and one even gave me a present in celebration of Teacher's Day.  On the eve of Teacher's day the department of Foreign Languages had a ceremony for us where the students presented us with gifts and preformed for us.  They mostly did song and dance routine to Vietnamese style hip hop.  One group of students preformed a new twist on a traditional play in Vietnam.  It was all in Vietnamese so I understood none of it.  I think the highlight of the evening for me was some of the more traditional dancing they did.  There was one called the Peacock Dance.  There is a picture below.  Whenever they have these events they always ask the teachers to offer some performance, usually they want us to sing.  Some of my colleagues sung a religious song.  I volunteered to read a poem, I chose "The road not taken" by Robert Frost.  The following day the department took us all out for lunch.  The way these lunches usually run is that since I'm one of two Americans who drink, I have to sit with the male Vietnamese faculty and drink many, many toasts with them.