In Saigon, Vietnam, I attended a French kindergarten named Croix Rouge which literally translates to Red Cross. The teachers, both French and Vietnamese taught in French. But mainly we played. I don’t really remember much of my kindergarten year, I’m assuming because it was not memorable, neither positive or negative.

I do however, recall my first-grade experience in Vietnam as clear as day itself. Children had to take an entrance exam to enter elementary school. And apparently, I was as bright as an old penny. My mother was coerced into hiring a special tutor for me, and not incoincidentally, it turned out to be my first-grade teacher. Private lessons were held at her second-floor little apartment, to supplement her teaching salary.

When I said we played in the French kindergarten, I am saying I did little kid stuff. Perhaps I played tag or with dolls. Maybe I colored? Probably sang some silly songs. I don’t remember it being a stressful time.

That all changed significantly in the first grade. The reality of real school for me was frightening, abasing, and demoralizing. The very first day of class set the horrific tone for the upcoming term.

My illiterate nanny was to take me to my first day of school. All students were required to have identity cards, with their passport-sized photo attached to it. I remember we were running late that morning. And as we dashed out the door, she remembered the ID card. She found the card but the photos were not attached yet. She ran around the house in search for glue, but finally ran into the kitchen, with me following closely behind. She opened the rice pot and scooped out a fingerful of cold rice, which she smeared onto the back of the photo. Tada! Glue! She hammered on my face’s likeness with her fist to ensure a seal.   

My mother sent me to my first day of school, armed with the requisite cahiers notebooks, my yellow, zippered pencil pouch with pencils and quill pens, and my little plastic ink pot, which always leaked black ink over everything. My nanny and I caught a cyclo to the school. There she dropped me off, no hugs, no kisses, no waves, no pictures, just go.

In class, on the VERY first day, we were told to get out a textbook and take turns reading out loud. I DID NOT KNOW HOW TO READ. I guess playing tag and dolls does not automatically instill reading skills into your head at age 5. So when it was my turn, I stood at my desk, and stood. I kept standing silently, disgraced before the whole class. I couldn’t figure out how all the other girls knew how to read!

I also did not know how to write. Sure, I knew how to spell my name but these other girls in the class were writing whole essays in cursive with the quill pen and ink.

There were no recesses or bathroom breaks at my all-girl school. And of course, it was widely rumored that the school was haunted because it had once been a hospital where many people died. To go to the bathroom, you had to raise your hand and beg for permission. You would then tear some sheets of paper out of one of your notebooks and slink quietly out of the class. But my malevolent teacher denied me the opportunity to relieve myself. So I kept sitting at my desk until I quietly wet myself. And I stayed that way the rest of the day.

My nanny met me at the gate of the school that afternoon. She was already sitting on a cyclo. When she found I was wet, she scolded me loudly, so everyone around us could hear. She made me take my underwear off, right there on the footpad of the cyclo. And furiously hiked up my dress so everyone could see my bare bottom. I rode home, sitting on the plastic covers of my notebooks.

That was Day One.

On Tuesdays, we had Vietnamese lessons, since it was a French school. That teacher was a young Vietnamese man. He gave us all kinds of assignments, apparently, of which I was unaware of. One by one, we were called to stand to his right as he sat at the big wooden desk facing the class. The other girls were reciting from memory full chapters of SOMETHING. I didn’t know what the heck was going on. When I was called, I stood next to his desk, with my hands clasped behind my back, silent. And stood and stood until he cussed me out and screamed at me to go back to my seat after he rapped my knuckles with his green plastic ruler. The rulers we had in Vietnam had 4 sides to them, not flat as in America, so the edges really hurt on my knuckles.

That was Day Two.

So Day Three comes around, and guess what? I have my first tutoring session. I walk up the stairs to a well-lit little apartment that even has a balcony. I am told to sit at the small table. I sit and sit and finally my teacher comes out. She is barefoot. She has a silky short-sleeved pajama set on. She is no longer polite or nun-like. She barks at me to start reading from the textbook. I stumble as best as I can through the jumble of unfamiliar letters. I am doing a terrible job. She swoops her hands across the table and pushes all my books and notebooks crashing off the little table. She grabs one of my wrists and says, “How can you even read with hair like that? You can’t even see! No wonder you’re so dumb!” She drags me onto the balcony and magically produces a pair of scissors and goes to town on my bangs. My China Chop hairdo now looks more like Insane Jane’s style but hey, at least I’m no longer so dumb.

She looks at my fingernails and scolds me that they are filthy, like a whore’s nails. She rants about me being nothing but a slut. She takes out some nail clippers and starts whacking off my nails but cuts too close to my nail bed on some fingers so they start to bleed. 

When my mother comes to collect me that evening, the teacher is all sweet and pious. She even drapes her hands casually on my shoulders as she tells my mother how much I have improved. My mother hands her some money and thanks her.