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63 A Gift from My Students My students, Minh and Hoa, sit across from me in the little restaurant on Sandy Boulevard, where Minh works weekends. It is evening, after our last class at the community college, and I am their guest. They confer quietly in Vietnamese, suggest a salad of papaya and shrimp, or Canh Chua Ga—chicken soup with tomatoes and pineapple. “It is very good,” says Minh. I smile while they press me to select several things— seafood with lemon grass, grilled beef with crushed peanuts, noodles and rice. “In our country,” says Hoa, “we celebrate national Teacher’s Day. Teachers are given a day off and their pupils come to their houses to thank them.” 64 I imagine the streets alive with students marching in groups, laden with small gifts of food, books, sheaves of paper trimmed in gold leaf, poems they have written. Everywhere in that mild country the learners are laughing and talking, standing shyly and excitedly at their teachers’ doors. Lovely scholars, you are earnest and study hard. You do not despise the ones who tutor you. No one has told you how utterly expendable I am. But tonight we celebrate, tell stories, savor the sweet and sour. ...

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