Discipline

Something I forgot to mention in a post last week: the way they discipline children in school. There's no corporal punishment - I've never seen them hit a kid - but they like to make them stand facing a corner for long period of time if they're bad. I've seen a girl who was forced to stand facing the window for a whole class period, balancing on one leg with her arms stuck out, because she talked too much. The individual teachers do the disciplining - the principal isn't involved in it.

I'm sitting in a cafe right now near the school, using their wifi on my lunch break. All cafes have simple things like lemon juice or orange juice - orange juice is generally around 25,000 dong a glass, or about $1.50, which compared to the $17 glasses of orange juice we got in Italy, seems pretty damn cheap. They always have tea, and you can order it hot, cold, and with or without milk. They use condensed milk, which they pour into the cup first, and then add the water and tea bag. It makes it really syrupy and sweet - lovely. Same with coffee. Lipton has a complete monopoly - your choices are always to order Lipton tea or Dilmah tea. The brand is synonymous with the kind of tea.

This afternoon, I was going to go buy some bootlegs but now apparently I've been roped into hanging out with Mrs. Binh's son. Okay then. I like him, and I don't mind spending time with him, but I hate when people decide what I'm going to do for me, especially when I already have my own plans. So I'll have to go tomorrow morning, and I guess try to pack tonight. The worst part is I can't even communicate to her that I want to go to buy gifts for my friends today, and tomorrow I won't have much time, because she has such a hard time understanding. People here want to give, give, give but it gets stressful trying to handle everything they're giving you.