Monday, June 12, 2006

Pho Bo for the city streets
Pho Bo for the hip hop beats
Pho Bo, oh I do believe,
Pho Bo is all we need...

... my students were very impressed with my Vietnamese version of Blue's "classic" - One Love.
Pho Bo is beef noodle soup and for many Vietnamese it is literally all the need. They were also the only people over ten to ever have been impressed with the fact that I have actually met, and been kissed by, members of Blue (at 14 and I didn't want it even then, honest). This was my way of leaving a lasting impression of just how cool a teacher I was.

My last week of teaching is over and while I didn't exactly go out on a musical high (witness "My heart will go on" at karaoke with my students and the macarena out clubbing with the other teachers), it was a high. I spent most of the week throwing sweets at my students, receiving presents (a hankerchief and a 16 greatest love songs cd, anyone?) and gorging myself on six course ice cream meals.

We also got into the routine of being shown off to students parents: take off shoes, go in, smile and say "ciao ba ba" which we think means hello dad, sit down, eat a bit of what is offered, pose for a photo and voila - out in ten.

But when I rolled my bicycle back into the university for the last time, told my class they could leave, and walked down the street alone, I cried.

But I don't regret a minute of it.