steven.vu

EIA | Teaching English abroad.

This all happaned in 2006.

I’d been teaching English for a month or so by myself. It was good fun. Houssam and I had always tried to teach together, but something or other always got in the way.

He called me one day to say that Paul was looking for an extra person. I shot off a couple of emails, called a few people and we were both booked in. One week in Frascati, Italy; the other in Tulln, Austria. Frascati was 30 minutes from Rome, Tuln was 30 minutes from Vienna. lovely.

That’s Houssam above. He’s half Indian and half Arab I think. I’m Yellow. They’d paid for English teachers to travel from England to their respective countries. Instead, they got two wide eyed 19 year old chumps who’d just left school and didn’t even look like they could speak English.

The day I left, my ear got infected. It looked disgusting. I felt dirty.

Teaching:

English teachers are an odd bunch. I’ve met ex strippers, ex actors, ex actresses, ex witches and plain alcoholics. The rest are usually a little insane. To live your life hopscotching from one place to another at a moments notice without being paid much usually does that to you. I was paid roughly £130~ plus 270~ Euros subsistence(which was tax free) a week.

Frascati:

I couldn’t believe our luck. Frascati is a small holiday town next to Rome where the rich like to head off during the weekends. The town was on a hill that overlooked Rome and Vineyards. We were put up in a grand hotel at the top of the hill. This was the view from my window.

The teaching was your bog standard affair. Italian children are notoriuosly bad at learning languages. They’re therefore loud and obnoxious. The day’s are spent on crowd control. The teacher I was paired with, struggled a little. I just sat back and laughed at the mayhem. Being a young teacher; only 19 at the time, the children love you. They adored me more than Houssam. I think he was a little jealous.

The teaching set up was 2 classes of 15 children. Teach each class for 3 hours a day for 5 days. I actually enjoyed the early starts. School ended at midday. Now, i’m not a fan of drinking midday, but Houssam was adament. He had decided he was all things Russians. We cracked open the Vodka and chased it down with apple juice. I believe we even had pickles.

At the end of the week, we had to conduct a play for all the parents to watch. My play was the bestest. I believe it was a re adaptation of pinocchio. There wasn’t much talking involved.

On the last night two of the teachers shacked up. Another teacher told us how she was kept up all night by something sounding like a squeling pig. The male teacher involved in said copulation, suggested he was already married to a peruvian he’d just met, but that she’d understand. Teachers.

Tulln:

My pair teacher was Houssam. I was dreading it.

The children were amiable. They all loved Houssam. I was jealous. We took it in turns to turn the children against each other. If I recall correctly, Houssam walked into the room and the children started chanting “Jafner”, “Jafner”. I then walked into his room and was greeted by a full length chalk drawing of me with various armaments. He’d created a whole lesson on armaments and guerilla terrorism, with me as the effigy.

When the children are uncreative, which they were this week, you have to veer them towards a play. I usually veer them towards a blood bath. The children just run around and shoot each other.

Houssam did the oldest trick in the book, a fashion show.

What the idiot didn’t do though, was check their outfits. On the day, his children were all dressed in skimpy tops and bikini’s. They were ELEVEN. (You might be able to see some flesh behind me)

I laughed so hard. Houssam wasn’t amused. I looked at the other teachers we were teaching with. They shook their heads in disbelief.

The teachers were a little crazy. One of them used to be a witch, she also used to be a fundamental christian. Another was a staunch vegan. We were invited out for a meal one time. I bought the veal and watched her squirm as I ate in the most unceremonious fashion.

Will Varley | you cease to amaze me.

A couple of people have mentioned that Will Varley, master of the guitar, is in a new advert. He’s extolling the virtues of University; a little ironic seeing as he’s shunned university for the limelight. It’s airing on an endless loop.

This is what he usually looks like:

http://www.willvarley.com/

Myspace

dots on heat

I wrote this last year but forgot to press publish. Dear oh dear.

My mother’s sister is rebuilding the family house. A two story building with a width of 8.60m and built with a European facade. This house isn’t built to European standards however, as this morning shows. I awoke to news that 2 builders had fallen off the second floor. We got there and the site was a tip, 13 men and women were living, sleeping, eating and building in the same space.

The two builders were balancing on two planks when they fell. Luckily they fell onto the neighbours house, whereby the ramshack tin metal roof gave way and they landed on the bed. Unlucky but lucky as the Vietnamese say.

I’m living with my brother in law at the moment. They have over 100m2 in the burbs of Saigon. The tax is over $90k a year for the land alone. The house has 20 odd rooms and a batch of servents. It’s pretty comfortable. They have about 6 apparently house trained dogs which they twat over the head with a stick when mayhem erupts. I’m a little weary having not had any rabies shots nor insurance. I would say I didn’t buy insurance because I don’t believe in gambling but I went to a Casino yesterday.

One of the dogs, the prize of the brood is a dalmation. An adorable girl that is obviously the envy of all the other dogs. She’s allowed in the house. Anyway, she’s on heat so they decide to take her for an “interview”. She’s bleeding all over the taxi and it gets rather messy. When we get to another in laws house, she’s transferred onto a motorbike. She’s balancing for her dear life as we make our way to the meeting point. The dog is brought upstairs whereby a much larger male dalmation has his way with her. We watch rather tentively as he does his thing. Our dog is left there overnight just to make sure. Total cost, a fiver.

That was 2 days ago.

Yesterday

After having a good night sleep, we decide to head to the border of Cambodia. As Vietnam is a modern communist country there’s a dichotomy of different streams of ideologies. Gambling is prohibited in Vietnam so everyone jumps the border on the weekend to gamble in Cambodia. My in law has business over there, he’s loaned over $100k to the various Casinos on the border. We decide to go over there to collect the interest.

I don’t have a Visa for Cambodia and my Visa for Vietnam is a single entry only Visa. I therefore can’t enter Cambodia and then re enter Vietnam. We decide the most sensible thing to do is for them to go over and for me to hitch a ride on the back of a bike and cross the border through a forest. It seems odd that previously the only time i’d ever been in a foreign country without a passport was also Cambodia.

The trip is a nice dirt track around the border patrol, paying off various peasants, police and border guards along the way.

The stabber of Vinh

We arrived in Vinh; mother, her friend, her children and I. Something was immediately suspicious. Vinh is a shitty city in the middle of Vietnam, it’s small dusty and close to the border with Cambodia. Everyone is poor. We pull up to a large house. A mansion.

At the front of the house was a large bar and restaurant decked out with expensive furniture. The same was true for the hotel next door. A mid sized hotel which was nicely furnished. The problem with it all was, it was deserted. The bar and restaurant was closed, the hotel was closed. It was as if someone with more money than sense thought it would be a good idea one summer to open up a bar and a hotel, only to get bored by the whole thing.

When we got into the house proper, everything was ornate. There were two of those china vases that were 2m high adorning the entrance and lots of shiny swords adorning the walls. I flicked on the 52 inch TV and watched BBC World rather nervously in the living room.

I quizzed my mother as to why we were there. She said it was because her friend had to visit someone. That night I overheard a few people speaking. My mother’s friend couldn’t visit. There were problems with the paper work. The prison wouldn’t allow it at such short notice.

The prison. I confronted mother and she came out with it. Her friend was to meet the stabber of Vinh; The stabber of Vinh?

The story goes like this:

The stabber of Vinh was part of a triad, based in Vinh. In Vietnamese we don’t use the word triad, it translates closer to the “black society”. Anyway, the black society traffics Heroin from Cambodia into Vietnam. With Vinh being situated in the centre of Vietnam, and its transport links to Hanoi and Saigon, it made perfect sense for the trade. So this gentleman imported Heroin. One day, he got into an argument with his “brother,” and stabbed him, hence, the name “The stabber of Vinh”. Fearing prosecution he fled to England.

Once he got to England, under a fake name, he set to work doing what all Vietnamese people without legal status do. He started growing weed. Weed houses.

The authorities have been pretty good at closing down weed houses. They use infrared cameras attached to helicopters and track houses with a lil too much infrared leaking out of them. This was how he was caught. Once in prison, the stabber of Vinh came up with a master plan. Seek asylum. The fool tried to convince the British authorities that he was in fact the stabber of Vinh. He couldn’t be sent back to Vietnam or else he’d be executed.

The British authorities at first didn’t believe him. Why on earth would you admit to being a murderer. The stabber of Vinh was rather persuasive though, proudly producing newspaper clippings of him and the event. He was promptly sent back to Vietnam. The extradition was a big thing. The story goes that 9 police cars flanked the car he was in, fearing the black society would attack. My mother knew him, because she was hired to act as a translator for the extradition.

That’s the aside. So here I was, sitting in the house of the head of the black society. She was a Cambodian woman who spoke perfect Vietnamese. She drove a brand new BMW as her pride and joy, a lovely Lexus was getting some work done. As she drove us around she would stop at green lights and go at red lights. Seriously. She was high on Ice. Ice being the aka of crystal meth in Asia.

The next day I was sitting in the house. Within the next hour I saw about 15 people enter the house. They all entered rooms and vanished from sight. 2 hours later everyone emerged. They all looked a lil spaced out.

We ate grilled Goat’s breast and drank Goat’s breast vodka. That isn’t just a funky name. The lurid drink is white in colour and does indeed contain Goat’s breast.

As we were leaving, the woman gave my mother a black block. She said it was a chinese medicine made out of tigers in Cambodia. Really expensive and very much against the WWF. I was so happy to get back to Saigon.

In Saigon, my mother’s friend introduced me to a pretty girl. She was the daughter of one of those unsavory men we met in Vinh. She had studied the hotel industry in Geneva while her father sold vast sums of heroin. The vacant hotel next door may have been hers. She tipified the sweet girl next door and was pretty. She only wore dresses. I caught her stealing a few glances at me.

Dim Sum Sundays | let’s catch up.

I’m addicted to dim sum. Little parcels of grease. Tasty. Every Sunday, Chris, Rachel and I head down to Soho. We park up at Haymarket and walk down to London Jade Garden Restuarant. If you know your Soho, it’s next to 1997 (With a portrait of Mao and his buddies hanging up) and Crispy duck.

We get a lil 10% discount and are ushered past the line to get into the restuarant. Rachel’s uncle owns the place. We feel special. Some how, every week they bump into people they know.

I particularly like the part where Chris comes up with a new masterplan to conquer the world. This week it was to get sponsorship to travel the world and make a reality TV show. Last week it was winning a poker tournament. So on and so forth.

After stuffing ourselves silly with food we head over to a local arcade and jackpot a machine. It pays for our dim sum. We’ve jackpotted it 9 times and failed 2 times. Not bad seeing as the jackpot is £50. The two pictures above were taken on seperate occassions.

It’s such a mundane thing to do, but I love it. It’s something to look forward to each week.

Our lovely office. Work has become a lil too much. We can’t cope on our own.

It’s Frith next to the plant and Chloe on the wooden desk. They’re working on tiny Asus EeePCs. <geek>I went up to the good ol’ TCR and bought them a couple of days after they were launched. Mine’s running Ubuntu 8.04.1 while Graham’s just got his stock Xandros Linux.</geek>

They’re lovely girls, although Chloe is trouble. I promise you we’ve cleaned up. It’s spotless now.

I find it really bizzarre how we have an office atmosphere now. We even have company nights out.

One Saturday we noticed two heavy cast iron radiators outside the school we’re at. The caretaker said we could have them. I got a teacher to drive them somewhere so we could flog them. Any takers?

My two favourite drinks. A double G & T and a double espresso. I ended the night with 7 G&T’s, 2 double espressos.

I have a soft spot for girls with piercings and tattoos. She was cute. http://suicidegirls.com/ . Go on, you mite like it.

Scamming No Limit Texas Holdem | Grosvenor Casino

I’ve been to quite a few Casino resorts; Macau and Mocbai. Between them i’ve visited half a dozen casinos.

Yesterday I actually played in one. Chris Leslie Evernden aka “Concept” the rapper, had a clever little scheme that was sure to make money. Off we went; Rachel, Chris, Graham and I in his mini. We put some gangsta rap on and went posing down to Edgeware Road.

The scam was this; 4 people play on the same table. We all play like tight assholes, only playing pairs and premium hands. It’s not really a scam – just tedious. It’s all legit, but the fact that you can make money is dubious to say the least.

We went to the Grosvenor Casino on Edgeware Rd. It’s one of the safest places to stay if an all out terrorist attack happened to hit London. Registering was easy enough and off we went.

Each of us converted £25 into chips and sat down at the table. We got down to business.

In three hours of play, we played a dozen hands. Fucking boring.

I hit with a pair of kings in my pocket and the flop went down. Two aggressive players played it out and forced me to go all in. I won the hand doubling my chips to £53. Next was Graham. He got queens in his pocket. Everyone folded before he could eek any money out. He then played a little loose and got to about £40 in chips. Rachel was the luckiest. She hit pocket tens. The flop came down. She’d made three of a kind 10s. Everyone on the table went in except Chris, Graham and I. The pot got to about £90 and she cleaned up.

About 2 hours into the game it was like this;

• Rachel – £90
• Me – £50
• Graham – £40
• Chris – £15

Not bad. This could work.

Now here’s the bad point. The casino makes its money on a rake per half hour. Every half hour we each had to pay £3. In total we stayed for 3 hours, so the total the Casino raped off us was £72.

That’s a lot of money considering we only bought in £100 in total.

As the night wore on, the rakes and blinds killed us. By the last hour, I was down to £20. Chris was down to £5 and Graham was down to £20. Rachel luckily cashed out.

I decided I couldn’t play like this. It was 1.30am and I thought fuck it. I went all in. Chris went all in. An even tighter arsed player, hit pocket aces. I couldn’t have given a shit.

We ended the night with:

• Graham – £10
• Me – £0
• Rachel – £80
• Chris – £0

We lost £10 between us for 3 hours work. If i’d have had more discipline, we’d have been £10 up.

Moral of the story:

I have no doubt that if the play was more refined, we’d have been able to double our money. Is it really worth it though? To play poker so tight that it doesn’t become fun. If we’d all have stuck to a dead end job for 3 hours, we’d have made £60 guaranteed, rather than some pot luck dream.

I’ll go to the Casino again, but with the intention of having fun.