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.

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.

The money lenders of Moc Bai (Bavet) – Jumping the Border

Casinos are a wondrous thing. They spring up in the most desolate places and cater to all of mans vices. This is a tale of how my uncles make money. Moc Bai is located on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border. As Vietnam used to have quite strict gambling laws, and Cambodia didn’t, Vietnamese people would flock to the border to gamble. Asians love gambling.

Jumping the border

I entered Vietnam on a one entry Visa. To enter Cambodia and get to Moc Bai I would have to apply for a Cambodian Visa. To re enter Vietnam I would then have to re apply for another visa. Lacking the time involved to get the said visas and the money, I decided to jump the border. My uncle arranged the fiasco.

We all drove to the border. Me, my two uncles and cousin. As we got to the border, we parked up and I jumped out. Waiting for me was a motorcycle. I left all valuables with my uncle and jumped on. The motorcycle veered down a dirt road and pelted it, full throttle, through a field. We met up with a peasant who maintained a track made of sticks across a marsh and paid the toll. The motorcycle then drove to a hole in the wall of the great casino complex. Just before we entered, the man called ahead. He called the military to confirm that we could bend the rules. It took 20 minutes.

I would say that the journey was a fantastical experience, full of soldiers shooting at me, but it really wasn’t. The journey felt like racing around a dirt track. The scariest thing was being in a third world country without my passport – could they think I was trafficking drugs?

Money lending to the money lenders

My uncle wanted me to see Moc Bai. Where he made his money. It wasn’t through gambling, but rather lending money to the gamblers.

In Asia, gambling is in the blood. People would go to the casinos, spend all their money and then fret. If they played just a little longer, then surely they could at least recoup their losses casino. The classic gamblers psycosis.

Upon entering into that psycosis, they would turn to anyone and borrow money. This is where the money lenders step in. They’ll do a credit check. They’ll ask you what property you have. Then they’ll lend you inordinate amounts of money for silly amounts of interest. The interest can be calculated per day or per week.

If you win, then you’ll pay back the money lenders, take your profits and trundle home. If you lose then, you’re, fucked. They’ll literally follow you home and demand the money.

So where does my uncle fit into all this. He lends money to the money lenders. As a money lender, you’ll be charging interest rates unheard of in this country. As long as a money lender is able to keep his money working for him, then he can afford to borrow money. The rate for lending money to the money lenders of Moc Bai: 8%. 8% each fucking month. That’s 96% per annum.

Terms & Conditions

The minimum amount to lend is $10,000. Paid in cash. Interest is to be paid in cash per month. It is your responsibility to collect the interest. The interest will be paid each month until you need the principle back or I run away.

Just to recap

I lend $10 000 to you. Each month I have to go to Moc Bai and collect the interest of $800. This occurs indefinatly until I need the principle back. This is then paid back to me. If this works for 12 months then:

$10 000 + ($800 * 12) = $19 600

To put this into comparison, the you’d be lucky with 12% per annum on the US and UK stock markets.

The eighth wonder of the world
Compound Interest

1st Year: $10 000 + ($800 * 12) = $19 600
2nd Year: $19 600 + $18 816 = $38 416
3rd Year: $38 416 + $36 879.36 = $75295.36

By year three you’d turn $10 000 into $70 000.

Everything that sounds too good to be true, is.

I’m a cynical cunt. This can’t work. There are two possible outcomes:

• It’s an out and out scam. They run with your money.
• It’s a long scam. They wait till you have a ridiculous amount of money invested and run.

We can rule out the first option as my uncle has been doing this for over a year. He’s recouped his capital. The second option however, is a lot more plausable. My uncle has over $100 000 invested. He’s mitigated his risk somewhat in the fact that he’s lent to quite a few people. When they seem untrustworthy, he’ll ask for his principle back and reinvest it.

The other option

This can work indefinatly. As long as the money lenders can screw other people, then your money’s relatively safe.

Links

New World Casino

Christopher Leslie Evernden rapping in Macau.

Most people don’t know where or what the fuck Macau is. It’s an island; a former Portugese colony just off Hong Kong.

Most recently it’s become famous for being the largest gambling resort in the world. Yeah, larger than Los Vegas. A haven of drugs, whores and gambling.

Chris or “concept” as he now likes to be called, was booked in for a 2 month set at the Sands.

I know Chris looks mean, but I asked him and he said he was just posing.

Ayi looking really happy. I suppose you can’t tell but that’s a television screen behind her. It’s about 3 stories high with her picture on.

So Concept the rapper and his merry band set off to Macau. 6 people went in total:

• Eagle E – Manager
• Rachel – PR and Concepts girlfriend
• Ayi – A singer
• Christopher Leslie Evernden AKA CONCEPT – A Rapper
• A generic young blonde Spanish dancer
• Another generic young blonde Spanish dancer

I was pretty impressed when I got there. They’d been living in a 5 star hotel for 2 months. It’s actually a 4.5 star hotel, but still pretty fancy.

We took funny Asian pictures at the local mall and watched Ayi perform. Next on stage was a white guy from Liverpool singing Chinese. I’ll repeat that:

Liverpudlian in Macau singing Chinese? WTF.

And then it struck. He sounded good; really good, but then I had no clue what he was singing. In the same vein, Chris obviously sounded really good to an audience that couldn’t understand him. As much as I knock Chris down, he is actually pretty good.

They signed the Liverpudlian that sang in Chinese to their record label.

That night we got really drunk. Chris, Rachel and I went to Hong Kong. We got to the tourist area and ordered shot after shot. I introduced them to the continental way of drinking tequila. Orange and cinnamon instead of the Lemon and salt.

We drank so much so fast that the manager of that fine establishment bought us a round. An Irish car bomb. He grew up in London. We got his business card and then went to a fine club which he took us to.

Hong Kong is fun.

aside

Chris flew in on Oasis Hong Kong. He left on the midnight flight on the 9th. Oasis Hong Kong filed for bankruptcy on the 10th – Stranding thousands. Lucky fucker.

links

Concept the rapper – Listen?

Ayi the singer – listen?

Barry the Liverpudlian – list?!

Vietnam

In case you’re not a planespotter

CX – Cathey Pacific
BA – British Airways
HKG – Hong Kong
SGN – Saigon
LHR -London

I landed in Saigon last night. After hitting the hay for what seems like an eternity, I believe i’ve beaten the jet lag and am back to normal.

The trip here was quite uneventful. The BA25 flight was delayed by 1 hr at LHR, but the plane made up some time overnight so I was able to make that short connection in HKG. I asked the gentleman at checkin to seat me where he’d sit. He promptly chose a seat next to an empty one and told me in all likelihood I would have a spare seat next to me. He also said that he was pretty sure a cute girl would be sitting next to me.

I gave him the obligatory cheers mate, thumbs up salute and headed to the flight. He was right on both counts. I got an empty seat beside me and a cute girl next to me. The dilemma began. Do I start talking to said girl, as if I did, the odds were i’d be stuck between empty place and a 12hr flight with a dull wittering girl. I chose to chance it. Thankfully she was rather amiable and we had a nice congenial chat.

Her name was Regina, a daughter of those bygone colonial days of Hong Kong. British passport in hand; her family had obviously done well for themselves, able to send 2 children off to a boarding school in Bath and her off to a University in Geneva – studying hospitality?!.

What struck me was her well mannared groomed appearance and a lack of aspirations. The all too common characteristics of children sent to study in foreign lands. Her ideal job would be a receptionist in a 5 star hotel and onward to management; maybe even an events coordinator.

What happaned to being an; actress, singer, ballerina or writer. Where did the dreams go.

This theme of bumping into children of famalies who’d lived off of the fat of the land continued. The next flight was CX725 HKG – SGN. BA vs CX, CX wins hands down. Their staff are chosen on appearance first; I had 4 amazingly attractive girls scampering around daintily doing the odd chores; this was juxtaposed to the family friendly BA staff who had a lot of nous albeit not much grace.

I land in Vietnam. I’d only bought the tickets 10 days ago so didn’t have time to prepare. It hits me. I’m here in a dusty developing country, the taxi’s are all into bartering and the population are all seemingly out bartering everything from fried fish to lottery tickets.