Someday my prince will come...

By this point in the year, it's easy for me (or probably any of the other Vietnam ETAs) to say that our students may possibly be the sappiest hopeless romantics we have ever met.

In fact, this CNN Valentine's Day article even lists Vietnamese people as the 10th most romantic nationality in the entire world!

My female students constantly refer to their future boyfriends as "my prince," and they love to describe rainy days, picnics, and walks through the snow as "very romantic." They are always willing to top one another with stories of the most ridiculous, absurd, over-the-top declaration of love that they have received, and there are even entire cities in Vietnam dedicated to romance (Editor's note: while Da Lat is rumored to be the "City of Romance," I did not manage to "find my prince" while I was there, as my students predicted I would. Huh... not so romantic after all, I suppose...) ! In Vietnam, romance abounds.

Which is why it should have been no surprise (yet it still was) when I offered three choices of movies to watch in class yesterday: Toy Story, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid (all complete with both English and Vietnamese sub-titles). Any guesses as to which one won by a landslide? If you guessed the one with a princess who falls in love with a prince and lives happily ever in a castle by the sea (where her sea-friends and sea-family can conveniently come visit and gaze adoringly and approvingly at her in her matrimonial bliss), you would be correct.

When the movie was finished, we did some basic comprehension and discussion activities. The first question I asked was "So what happened in this movie? What was the movie about?" Naturally, I was hoping for some plot points to put on the board and to discuss. Instead, I received several answers of "A prince and a princess fall in love, but their love faces difficulties that they overcome together!" and "Love overcomes all obstacles!" and "They lived happily ever after!" Okayyyyyyy.....

Eventually I elicited some more factual, literal plot points ("A mermaid is fascinated by humans but her father disapproves" and "The mermaid has a beautiful singing voice which she trades to become a human" and "The witch tries to destroy the love between the prince and the princess"), but I couldn't help leading the discussion back to the idea of hopeless, over-the-top romance.

In girl-friendly (and anti-Disney) youth empowerment movements of the past generation, it seems like female youth in the USA are taught to, above all else, be themselves. We're advised not to change ourselves for a boy or to dumb down our best qualities. Viewing The Little Mermaid through this lens, I've always found it a bit deplorable that Ariel trades her voice, one of her most beautiful qualities, as a way to get closer to the man she loves. What's more, she still reaches a happy ending and wins the man she loves, despite having "sold her soul to the devil" (or, in her case, selling her voice to Ursula, the evil octopus witch). Maybe I've taken too many Pitzer classes about critical theory, I think even many non-Pitzer females of my generation share my thoughts on the dubious morals of this story.

However, it was totally eye-opening that my students did not share these cynical, critical, liberal-biased thoughts! When I asked them if they would trade their best quality for love, almost every single person raised their hand and emphatically said that yes, they absolutely would if it meant that they could fall in love like Ariel did. Fascinating stuff there, and I wonder if these differences reflect any greater cultural values or beliefs?