Posted by Sigismund on February 20, 2010, at 6:45:16
In reply to Re: Dealing with negativity » Sigismund, posted by Dinah on February 17, 2010, at 9:12:31
We went first to Hanoi and now we are in Dalat, in the southern highlands, not so far north of Saigon.
Of course the whole idea of having to construct an English lesson fills me with fear, and yet I think I can be good at having the right ear to tell me how to help someone learn English.
I can't recall a more physically beautiful people than the Vietnamese. Their language is pretty difficult being tonal.
I keep feeling ashamed about being of European extraction, but having said that I can also say this....
I had a conversation with a university student in Hanoi and we naturally talked about the war.
She said (at various times) that it was very painful for a parent to lose 8 out of 10 children and that people of that generation sometimes do not like westerners (no trouble with that) and I wondered whether they were happy about the way 'socialism with Vietnamese characteristics' was panning out with all of the new investment.
She showed me a Chinese bank note with Mao on it. 'He was Ho's best friend'.
I mentioned the greater help from the USSR.
And said (carrying on an earlier theme about Confucian values) that he was not a good ruler and mentioned The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolution and the 50M dead (or whatever it is).
She said with a smile
'I don't think so.'
And I got this really awful feeling about the density of history, about all the peoples and the different way they see things, and I went to bed for the afternoon.
poster:Sigismund
thread:937048
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100128/msgs/937449.html