Purple Plaid

David's shirt is unruffled at the waist.  The front looks about as it would on any other day and on any other man, yet the back reveals the rounded bottom which usually remains hidden. It had been cold enough in the past few months to force one to remain tucked in throughout the day, but the temperatures had been eventually creeping towards spring. And spring turns to summer in no time, a season in Hanoi as unforgiving as any found in Asia (ask John McCain). David's forehead was getting sticky, and he had to roll up the sleeves on his purple plaid, revealing more sweat on the little black hairs his forearms.

He'd been developing a nice little coffee addiction during the frigid winter, so his walk to the classroom was with adequate pep, and the stale heat of the hallway made him want to rush quicker into his classroom.
The painted metal class door with sporadic scratches from children's fingernails has a small square window. The students were already waiting inside, the bell not having rung yet. He made it a habit everyday to watch them through the little square window just before stepping in the classroom. More than half the kids were still groggy from their mandatory post-lunch nap.

David pushes open the door. The sleepier kids remain sleepy, but the more alert ones turn around to say hello. One homunculus with waist-length pigtails and wiry granny glasses  roams the center hall of the class, holding a pack of trading cards featuring English Premiere League footballers. Hands full, she points at her entering teacher.

"Mr. David! What?" she says with a booming voice which belies her size, age, and gender. She's looking squarely at his shirt from about three meters away.

David, holding a stack of books and some papers, looks down at his chest. He looks back at MM (we'll call her Mighty Mouse). Her stare could melt marbles, and it forces him to look back down at his chest again to see if he missed something the first time.

"That shirt! It makes you look Vietnamese!" Mighty Mouse wrinkles her forehead and sticks out her tongue, as if she had just bitten into a cockroach hiding inside her grapefruit.

David looks down at his shirt and tugs on it with this left index finger and thumb. It looks a little different than it did in his mirror this morning.

"Today's shirt was a really bad choice," Mighty Mouse says as she walks by David, giving his right sleeve a tug as she crosses. Half the class is still in another world, but a few of the other students hear Mighty Mouse's critique. They turn to examine his outfit from top to bottom.  A couple of them suppress frowns, and one stuck out his hand, spread his fingers, shook it and did the universal gesture for "Eh, you know, so so."

His girlfriend had left the shirt for him as a gift in absentia, a little present in lieu of her presence. David wore the shirt because he liked it. He could take comfort in the fact that their silence in his one hundred or so previous classes meant tacit approval of his wardrobe choices, yet the rejection of his and Zoe's joint fashion statement had him searching the class for looks of approval.

He never heard "Vietnamese" used as a synonym for 'poor fashion choice' before. He had never been aware that his 10-year old students were assessing his wardrobe on a daily basis.

David makes his way up to the front of the class. The bell rings. He lays the stack of books and papers on the desk. The students, as is routine, take out their necessary materials, and as they do so, David tucks in the back of his shirt. He also redoes the front. Running his hands through his hair, he notices a few more beads of sweat on his forehead than before. He then pats his hands down the front of the shirt, as if it would actually straighten out the slight wrinkles he had just noticed.

At their desks, the students look up at him with unguarded smiles. David smiles back.