Heads up

My friend Ella is petite and Chinese. When we travelled to North Vietnam Ella made a comment about how she enjoyed that part of North Vietnam because she didn’t feel short, she was at least the same height as most of the Vietnamese. Here in Ho Chi Minh the Vietnamese people appear in general to be slightly taller. However there are some exceptions. In this case I am an exception, taller by well over a head, and of course “blonde”
The Vietnamese education authority have decided that the students at our school who identify themselves as Vietnamese need to have more Vietnamese language lessons. In a normal week all students have Vietnamese culture specialist lessons twice a week. As an extra all those students who identify as Vietnamese must attend Vietnamese language lessons twice a week also but after school. Now the authority have decreed that the students must attend an additional lesson before school. So three times a week between 7:30 and 8:00 am a lovely elderly lady, Ms Hat, comes into my classroom to teach Vietnamese language. When I say elderly the poor woman is probably the same age as I am, they just seem to have had a harder life or the aging process is more severe in Vietnam. Ms Hat only speaks Vietnamese and my Vietnamese is fairly limited, however we struggle along. Lots of smiling, lots of handshakes, lots of gesturing, lots of Vietnamese, lots of words lost in translation on both sides. And Ms Hat is so short, coming to below my shoulders. Even when I sit I am taller, definitely a head of the crowd.