A Matter of Perspective

Remember that endearing little children’s book, Too Much Noise, by Ann McGovern? The one with the old man who has a house that’s just way too noisy? His teakettle’s always whistling, his bed’s always creaking, and his floor is always squeaking. Apparently this noise really starts to get to old Mr. Peter, because he takes the time and energy to seek out the village’s wise man. He asks the wise man what on earth he should do. And the wise man tells him to get a cow. The old man’s a bit confused, but conceding to the elder’s knowledge, he goes and buys a cow and brings it into his house.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to help. It actually seems to worsen the noise levels, as now the mooing of a cow has been added to all the aforementioned noises. Baffled and a bit frustrated, the old man goes back to the wise man and complains that the remedy didn’t work. The wise man nods knowingly and then suggests that the man get a donkey. Old Peter complies, but again, he notices no improvement; in fact, it has worsened once again, with the donkey hee-hawing at all hours of the day.

Again he returns to the wise man, rather peeved. The wise man seems prepared for this and tells Peter to go get a sheep. The pattern continues until the old man is utterly and entirely fed up. He goes to the wise man one last time to tell him off, because he has followed the man’s letter to a T and yet his situation has only deteriorated. But this time, the wise man says something different. The wise man tells him to get rid of the sheep. Get rid of the donkey. Get rid of the cow. And all the other animals the man has accumulated. Old Peter quickly and gladly complies. To his astonishment, once the animals are gone, his house is quiet! The bed creaks quietly, the floor squeaks reassuringly, and the teakettle whistles warmly – perfect peace.

Oh the difference of perspective!

Hanoi is teaching me this perspective right now. It’s a very good analogy for the noise here. From unbelievably loud (and strange sounding) frogs croaking in the “pond” ten feet in front of my room, to the day-and-night honking traffic (I still don’t understand why cars want to have horns that sound like semis or trains!), to the sounds of construction (dump trucks dropping loads of gravel and the rhythmic bangings of hammers on metal at 7am), to the blasting late-night concerts a hundred or two yards away from my room), the noise levels here make any complaints I had at home seem utterly trivial.

And this lesson can be applied to many other senses here well. Smells, for example. The smell of warm, rotting garbage in the 100+ degree heat index and crazy humidity, the fumes from the choking gray exhaust of buses, the smell of sewage wafting from, well, many places, and the stink of body odor of 25 sweaty university freshman in the non-air conditioned classrooms make the occasional whiff of bad air or skunk stench passed along the highway at home seem like heaven.

I could continue with examples of some of the other senses. And I think the analogy applies well to conveniences and experiences, also (oh to have a car, clear and level sidewalks, and traffic that follows traffic laws!). But I think I’ve made my point.

I’m not writing these things to complain. I’m not bitter. (…Well, usually, anyway; as long as there’s no car bellowing its horn so loudly as I thread my way across a busy street that I jump out of my skin). I’m actually laughing right now. But I’m choosing the negative things to draw out the brilliant comparison explored in Ann McGovern’s little book.

These experiences make me truly excited for a summer at home. As one fellow REI staff member from Minnesota recently said, “living in Hanoi will really make you relish the time you spend back in Minnesota.” So. True. Really, truly, it’s hard to fully appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone. Gratefully, I get the chance to go back to it for a while, soon, and appreciate it more thoroughly.