balance

A few weeks ago I would have bludgeoned the following thoughts of out my mind: I like Vietnam. I am having a good time. I am learning a lot. About myself, about the world.


A few weeks ago my homesickness was clouding my whole outlook on everything. I had a very negative attitude, as a sort of "defense" against what was frustrating and challenging me. Yet that was only making it worse (silly brain). Luckily I've come to face the fact that this experience is a good one (which grows on me by the day) and although there are many challenges, there are so many more gifts. At this point I miss silly things: pancakes, my bed, clean bathroom facilites... which I will have again soon enough.

Vietnamese awesomeness:
banh xeo (vietnamese savory pancake)

the fact that my mattress has "good time" written all over it

LITTLE MUNCHKIN CHILDREN that may find their way into my suitcase

I've come to find that although life here seems on the surface utterly chaotic, it's actually rhythmic, even harmonious: all the parts work together, like one big organism. Motorbikes practically choke you as you attempt to cross the street, yet as you make your way one by one they swerve out of your way, like water going around a rock. Trash is everywhere, yet is (usually) picked up by trusty street workers, who even sort the recyclables.... more on this later

halfway through

Today I noticed I am halfway through my time in Vietnam. I also realized that this corresponds with the amount of toenail which has grown since I left the US:


I wonder if I will be able to clip off the last sliver of blue the night before I return home.

surprise performances and "when is your wedding?"

Sunday: Woke up for 8 am and went to Hanoi Open University, the place Alaina and I will be interning at. There we attended the ALOHA (English Club) women’s day celebration. Apparently whenever Vietnamese get together, they sing. And so do their guests. So being the guests of honor we were informed minutes before the start of the presentation that we were required to get up and perform some songs. All eyes on us and not having any choice in the matter Alaina and I got up and sang the chorus to the “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King, “Under The Sea” from The Little Mermaid and “Oops! I Did It Again” by Britney Spears. I’m not sure if they thought it was funny or just pathetic, but they laughed and clapped when we were finished. Then the whole 2.5 hour program proceeded, with 2-3 songs performed between each woman day feature. Twice we got up to answer the same questions, but asked in different forms, like “How do you feel about women’s day?” or “how do you feel about a day dedicated to woman?”.

Monday: Today I attended my first Vietnamese class in Hanoi, where we practiced talking about our future wedding and husbands. No joke. The teacher kept asking us— for an hour— when will you get a boyfriend? (I don’t know) Why don’t you have a boyfriend? (I don’t know) When will you have your wedding? (After I have a boyfriend) What will he be like? Handsome, rich or intelligent? (Ummm…)
Later for the VNLC course all of us went to the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum.
Afterwards Cathy, Brittany, Kelly and I went to “Olympia Gym” to sign up so that we could work out on occasion. We walked in and although it was dirty and old (what isn’t, though?) it was also hilarious. Huge muscle men posters plastered the walls and techno music blasted from the floor above. The first floor seemed to be the men’s muscle building floor, and the second was the cardio/aerobic class are, which was all women. Working out in… bikinis? Yes, bikinis. Even leopard print ones. They were also all doing outdated calisthenics. We climbed to the last floor to find some actual treadmills and one elliptical machine— and a woman wearing all spandex and a marble-colored thong leotard over it. Fabulous!

men with long nails, girls peeing in front of stores.

I was sick, as I wrote, and ended up having to go to the hospital, It was a cultural experience, though, that may have made up for the others (don’t get me wrong, I would have definitely preferred not to have gone). Ruby insisted that I go, so we hopped onto her motorbike and headed over. Beforehand she warned me that they might try to make me buy medicines I don’t need and we might have to pay bribes to see the doctor—we didn’t have to pay a bribe, as far as I understood, but we did convince them to see me because I was from a group of American students, two of whom are interning at the hospital. Thankfully I got a bed in the back of some waiting room/office area, away from the real emergency room. Like any hospital the emergency room was filled with emergency cases, but unlike in America (or any hospitals I’ve been to there) everything was out in the open, with blood and pain and everything. So I was thus thankful to be in my own little corner. After I saw the doctor and he examined my stomach, they drew a little blood and put me on an IV. There was a serious lack of communication. The nurses didn’t know how to work the IV because for both the flow was incredibly slow and a few hours later the doctor would check it, tsk tsk the nurses and turn it much faster, so that it would run down in an hour instead of twenty four. At one point a few hours into the experience the nurse came in and told me she needed to take a liter of blood, and naturally I was like why the f do they need a liter of blood, they already took blood twice. But somehow that got forgotten and then the nurse came in with a mysterious white pill which when asked she didn’t know the purpose for and went to ask the doctor. Finally I was let out after getting my blood results back, which said I had normal results but may have a minor infection in my stomach or intestines. They gave me a prescription for antibiotics, as I assumed they would, and I went on my sick but merry way back to the dorm where I watched Pride and Prejudice for the second time and fell asleep. The next day, Friday, I continued having stomach pains and occasional dizziness but was able to go to photo class by Hoan Kiem lake to take pictures of the “urban ghosts.” Saturday I still had mild stomach pains after eating but I had an appetite and rewarded it with a delicious burrito. Thankfully I am feeling much better and hope to be able to finally start getting into some sort of normal routine in the upcoming week, which I was unable to start while sick.


Now that we’ve been touring all around Vietnam (Saigon, Mekong Delta, Central Region, Hanoi) there are some behaviors I’ve seen take place in all parts of the country that I find to be interesting, and some disgusting. First off is the one I noticed right off the bat: the woman who covers herself from head to toe, most commonly with special socks, pants, shirts/jackets, gloves, face mask and sometimes head scarf, so as to remain pale. This is of course interesting to an American girl who grew up with the image of tan skin as beautiful, and who until just recently was somewhat insecure of her very white skin. I also find the dynamic between men and women interesting— I tend to only see couples at the parks, where they can hide in the shadows and make out. I’ve also seen men with long nails (which I find rather disgusting) and was informed that this is a sign of class in that you don’t have to do manual labor and thus your nails can be long. It’s so weird to have a male waiter who will lean up against the wall and pass the time by cleaning and picking at his nails. The last thing I have seen, which at times can be shocking, are people openly peeing in the streets. I find this just gross, because then people step in it and track it everywhere at it also just adds even more smell to the place. But also, how can the Vietnamese, who seem so conservative about showing cleavage and about male/female relations, just openly pull down their pants to pee? In the middle of the day, in the middle of a busy street, in front of a store!? I’ve seen grown office men, little naked boys, semi-clothed teenage girls, but not adult women thus far. I may faint when I see that.

thoughts at 9:22 on a saturday morning

Sometimes I want to fall asleep and wake up on the other side. Am I allowed to complain for a second? Or vent, I should say? Will I allow myself to be ok with complaining?

I am so tired of not being able to breath because of dust and pollution. Of walking down the street and having no space to walk between parked and oncoming motorbikes. Of stepping in god-knows-what on the street... or even taking in an initially unsuspecting breath of air, then come to realize it's a lung-stabbing, choking cloud of urine fumes. Of being stared at, even laughed at, wherever I go. Of having food poisoning. Of being dirty. Of questioning everything I eat. Of not understanding what people are saying, and them not understanding me. Of not seeing the sun or any kind of natural scene. Even the trees look sad and sickly here: they live off motorbike exhaust and smog light. How could they be happy?

Like I said at the beginning: sometimes... but the status quo has been most times... I just want to wake up 2 weeks before I get to return home, so that I could get on with enjoying what Vietnam has to offer and get on with it. Sometimes I find myself incredibly jealous of friends who are in Europe or Australia because I honestly feel like it would be a vacation compared to this. But then again, I chose Vietnam because I wanted a challenge and because I knew it would be completely foreign. And I got what I signed up for.

I realize I can't keep having this attitude and still be able to enjoy the experience. It has to let up at some point. Mostly, I am having a hard time getting used to the area I live in. But I do have to give myself a break, I've been lying sick in my bed for the past five days, and since we only got to Hanoi two days before that I haven't even had an adequate chance to acquaint myself with the place. I think the things I will like are going on the trips to Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa-- we get to hike while on both trips and we'll be in the countryside, thank goodness, and I really want to go kayaking while in Ha Long Bay!! That would be so great. Going to Cambodia will also be good, I really want to see Angkor Wat. I have also no had the chance yet to even fall into a routine here, since I was sick and had to miss class for a few days. A schedule would be very nice. And my internship-- I'm a university professor (!) at Hanoi Open University, teaching English to freshmen. Haha. So yeah... I just want to be in a schedule and on those trips... and NOT having food poisoning.

I miss fall so much right now. What I would give for a bagel with cream cheese and a hike up Mt. A with my mum and sib, and sunshine, turned leaves and a crisp breeze. And a cozy sweater.

But when else am I going to be in Vietnam? According to Leslie I have a long life ahead of me, and thus many falls to come, so I need not worry... I will be back soon enough, in the fluffy snow and boots and a thick jacket...

Comic relief:

some serious and/or comic relief

Some lessons learned for today:

1. Do what I want to do. Not what I think I should do.
... (keep promises)

2. Make a decision and stick with it. Stop over thinking it and changing your mind. All the time.

3. Don't care so much about what others think about you.

4. Do not stand on slanted sidewalk barriers.

5. (added 10/18) do not trust vietnamese hair stylists

some thanks i thinked

My belly is full of wine, pizza and water. After a small piece fell off, my laptop has started to send little shock waves of electricity into my upper thighs as I sit and type. There's soft lighting; CNN is on, reporting Obama's nobel peace prize win. To my left, there are unfinished postcards. To my right, there is a half-packed suitcase, clothes strewn atop, surrounded by various gifts for people back home which I have accumulated along the 10 day Central Vietnam trip. I am sitting on starchly-linened hotel bed, cross-legged, typing a new blog entry.

On my way home from DMZ bar (don't worry Dad, with 2 guys and 10 girls) I became stalked by two rather stickly little girls, probably around the age of ten. They handed me a hastily written, pre-prepared note in English about how they need money to go to school and get this by selling cards, which became apparent when a stack was shoved into my face. I don't usually buy things from kids on the street because the money doesn't necessarily go towards what they claim or to them in the first place. It may just go to some thug. Anyhow, I was slightly tipsy and feeling more than slightly emotional, so I tugged out 30,000 dong from my bra (classy, right?) and bought a card. They then, seeing that I had some cash to burn and seemed... easily persuadable, started chanting "cookies, cookies!!" and tugged me into the conveniently located convenience store right beside us. And what did I do? I bought them two boxes of cookies. And went back to the hotel and cried.

What I wonder most while on this term abroad is, how did I get so lucky to be born to my parents? To be born in the US? To go to college? To come to expect certain rights and ways of life? To be loved? Why me?

---------------

That was last night, now this is the morning. I am completely freaking out on the inside because I can't find my notebook with ALL of my journals in it. FUCK. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY it is on the bus... If not, there goes my grade. Great.

In an attempt to push those thoughts to a far, out-of-reach corner of my mind, I will now relate some thoughts I've been having over the past couple of weeks.

Basically, I miss home. I miss the home I used to have... and I miss my home that I still have... my family. The funny thing is that back in the US, before going abroad, I was completely certain that I wanted to leave the country. For good. I was also a little tired of my family (sorry, family). That seems silly thinking about it now, but I really wanted to find my place, and I was certain it wasn't in America. I was also afraid of living a meaningless life, and at the time, to me, a meaningful life meant traveling. I would often complain to friends and family about how I felt so trapped and bored, that I needed to be "doing things with my life." Which to me at that time meant living abroad. And now that I'm doing just that, living in Vietnam, I've come to find that I complain about "needing structure, a daily routine, something to hold onto."

What I've come to realize is, traveling is fun (amazing actually) but I'm definitely not the trail-blazing, foreign-country inhabiting Ex-Pat I had come to invision myself becoming. I'm a dreamer, yes, but I'm also a homebody, and there's nothing wrong with that. What I'm also trying to say is, I am so sick and tired of living in every other time frame except the one I'm currently inhabiting.

My thoughts are really scattered right now... I'm gonna take a break.

I haven't written for weeks... and I really need to clip my toenails.

I have been on cultural overload the past few weeks and have thus neglected the whole blog thing. Sometimes I experience so many new things in one day that I have such a brain fart, I go straight to bed. And apparently ignore clipping my nails as well. But here are some highlights from my journal that I'm required to keep for my culture course, and I promise to actually write from now on:

Maggie and I had the chance to go to an orphanage with Lana and her friend Erin. I’m not quite sure how Lana knows Erin, but she is an artist currently on a Fulbright scholarship. Her parents live here (she is half Vietnamese) but she grew up in the states. (Chicago if I remember correctly). She has a clover tattoo on her arm that says “Made in Vietnam”. Anyhow, we woke up early, walked with Lana to the bus station, waited for Erin, and took the bus to I don’t know where. We got off at one indoor market so that Maggie could buy a face mask, Lana and Erin could buy chè for the nurses, and we also all got some ca phe sua (vietnamese CRACK) (just kidding, means "coffee with milk (sweetened condensed milk)). This market was very Vietnamese—no tourists in sight— which was refreshing, although especially smelly and dirty. It was really cool, I got lots of sludge on my shoes (no more flip flops at markets). Afterwards we walked around the corner and found ourselves at the orphanage. At first they weren’t going to allow us to enter because there had been an outbreak of the H1N1 virus amongst the kids, and they were afraid that either we would bring in a new strain or that we might catch it too. But they allowed us in after some debate (naturally all in Vietnamese Maggie and I could not understand). From what I understood, this orphanage is specific to kids abandoned because they have a mental or physical illness or disability. We got to play with some of the older kids (meaning maybe around 4) with Downs Syndrome. They were really cute, and Maggie and I soon had a few of them stepping and piling themselves on us. One in particular kept sitting in my lap, I tried to ask him his name but he would respond in undistinguishable Vietnamese, or would just make noises. After 15 minutes the nurse came back and said that we had to leave because they were still afraid that we would bring or catch the virus—there were a few kids in the hospital with it. So we left, unfortunately. It would have been nice to spend more time with them. The experience affected me in weird ways. With situations like this I put up a guard and seem immune to feeling, when really the feeling is just buried deeper inside. I felt saddened, naturally. I wondered what the kids would do when they grew older. I also wondered if these families who abandoned these children had a little bit more money in their pockets, then maybe they would have spared their children and would have been able to take care of them.

One thing that is has been especially hard is that I can never blend in or slip between the cracks for even a second. When I walk down the street I create a stir; it's like a rock being thrown into a pond. I create lots and lots of ripples. Enough with the analogies: basically, people stare. Sometimes I stare back, in good humor. But after a while it gets very tiring because I cannot ever blend in. I am always being watched. Not only that but I'm thus constantly the target for street vendors, they call miss miss one dollar, one dollar... And it's even worse when we're all in one big group, like we are so often.

I have recently noticed from the road trip up central Vietnam is how much trash there is, everywhere. It was one thing in Saigon-- trash was everywhere, but that is somewhat expected in a huge, overcrowded city. But for the last few days we've been snailing up towards Hanoi and there's been no change in litter. We just crossed a bridge where the water was littered with full trash bags and where the whole river bank was full of discarded waste. Anywhere you look, too, there is litter. Including around people’s houses. I realize this could be from a serious lack of organized waste removal but one would think that people who often live so close to and in sync with the earth would want to take care of it, especially within the confines of their own land. This may be a completely incorrect observation, but I feel like this may have something to do with their development. If you think about it, back in the day, one didn’t really have to worry about where they put their waste because it tended to be natural and from the earth anyways. You could toss it anywhere because it could return to where it came, eventually disappearing. But now that we have all of this manufactured synthetic crap like packaging and plastic bags and other such things, when they are thrown on the ground, they stay. And accumulate. So people who to this day still live very close to the earth, say as farmers, and who are starting to, within the last few decades, enjoy the luxury of prepackaged and synthetic goods, are not necessarily worried about their affect on the environment. I could be wrong, though. The Vietnamese may simply have an entirely different attitude towards their environment that I have not yet begun to understand. I’ve seen that typically their trash is burnt, but you can’t really burn some of the trash that is created… burning is also horrible for the environment.