Long's birthday

On the occasion of TET, the Vietnamese New Year and  their spiritual holiday, and Teachers Day in November, those of us who teach Long in Year 4 have been given a gift basket from his family. Yesterday Long arrived into my classroom with a slice of birthday cake and asked if I wanted to come to their room to celebrate his birthday. I went along at the end of my lesson.  I only saw the top tier of the birthday cake, a sponge cake with a diameter of approx 30 cms and other party food like chocolate biscuits, wafers and small bags of crisps. The bottom tier of the cake which I believe was enormous, Long had taken down to the guards and maintenance staff at the school, and the school administration staff. On the tables were many paper plates with slices of cake from  the smaller tier. What really caught my eye was that huge bouquet of flowers, orchid, roses and more orchids. I went back after school to take a photo of Long with his flowers. His Mum arrived to take photos, and asked for a photo including his teacher Claire, and one of his friends.

From all of this I learnt heaps. The Vietnamese always write their names in reverse order to Westerners. Long’s surname is Khanh. If he had a middle name it would be….. in the middle. The Vietnamese are very generous about birthdays and cakes, from the point of view they often send along a cake towards the end of the day to be shared with the whole class. So there is none of the one upmanship, teasing taunting about birthday parties and who is coming or not coming. The children do have parties, but the whole class gets to participate with the cake.   The birthday child then cuts additional slices of cake and these are delivered around the school to teachers, admin staff etc. The who is often at the discretion of the child. I sometimes get cake if the children leave my lesson early to go back to their classrooms for cake.  These people have a very caring and sharing nature.  Long’s parents I suspect are reasonably weathly, as are many of the local Vietnamese children at our school. Mrs Khang is not a flashy person, just a another loving Mum who cares about her child. And Long………….. hes a nice student in the class, quiet with a sense of humour, focused, but still has fun, and a caring person.  Yesterday I saw a Vietnamese family being  Vietnamese .