5 Minutes of Enchantment

I’m not particularly in love with Hanoi as a place. Now let me qualify. There are some very dear people here that I would be quite sad to never see again. I feel like I’ve learned, and continue to learn, incredible amounts through experiencing life here. And there really are things about it I enjoy – Vietnamese food being a huge part of that.

But the city itself, with its traffic jams, polluted air, congested sidewalks, and smelly, well, smells, doesn’t hold a particularly fond place in my heart. I can’t say I missed it while home this summer.

Tonight I went jogging. It was dark. About 7:30pm. I was running around a small, man-made lake in a park about ten minutes from my house. There were a few other people (50? 75?) out enjoying the park as well: couples cuddling on benches under trees, families with young children riding scooters, friends exercising. Skirting the edges inside the park fence stood various beverage and ice cream stands lit up by colored lights. There was even a ball pit for children (think McDonald’s “playplace” plastic ball area), new since I last ran two days ago. Outside the park fence was a lively, night street-food scene. Hundreds of people eating and drinking at the mini plastic tables and chairs. Even with an earbud in my left ear I could hear the din of conversation and clink of dishes. A breeze was coming off the “lake.” I could see the partial moon hanging in the edge of the sky and reflecting off the ripples.

Tonight, for 5 minutes, I was enchanted with Hanoi. There was a bit of a swelling in my chest – a sweetness mixed with longing and love. Like a moment from a Disney movie or fairytale, with a dusting of magical sparkle. The constant flow of people out and about everywhere all the time give it a buzz of excitement I just haven’t experienced anywhere else. I caught a glimpse of Hanoi’s character – part of what distinguishes it from the U.S. and even its southern counterpart, Saigon.

No, this wasn’t some life changing event. I occasionally experience these nostalgic pangs (for lack of a better way of describing them) at home in the U.S. when I catch a glimpse of the painful beauty of life or when I visit a childhood haunt and replay idyllic memories in my mind’s eye. Soon something jars me back to reality and the idealism’s gone. But the fact that I even now have enough history in and knowledge of Hanoi for this to begin to happen here, in this city, is exciting to me. A first.

 Hopefully not a last.

Resettling

I've basically gotten unpacked and settled in to the new room and house I'll be living in this year. I've also learned to navigate the maze of alleys that lead to it (and am able to show taxi/xe om drivers where to go!). Working on memorizing all the street names around here. Figured out how to get a bus to work and how to walk there if I have 45 minutes to kill.

There're a few bonuses to living here.

1) There's a market literally right outside the door. When I open the door and step out, I have to be careful not to step on the longans being sold on my doorstep. Should make getting fresh produce convenient and convince me to practice my market Vietnamese more frequently.

2) There's a small park about a 10-minutes walk away where I can go running. In the morning it's filled with literally hundreds of Vietnamese doing morning exercises and you have to constantly dodge or squeeze between walkers/joggers on the path in order to actually run. But it's a place! Song Hong half marathon here I come!

3) I have awesome housemates. One's an American teacher who worked at the same university as me last year. The other is sweet Chilean woman. Both have lived in Vietnam for years, so in addition to being awesome, they're also great culture and language resources. However, I do feel like the baby of the house, being significantly younger and having been here for less time than either of them. :)

Here's a couple pictures of my room. Hopefully some neighborhood pics to come soon.

Smattering of Thoughts on Gratitude

I woke up this morning* (*Monday 8/19, posting postponed due to rather uncooperative internet) at 4:30 – thanks jetlag - to a cockroach on the kitchen floor and ants swarming the kitchen counter. Now I’m sitting here writing this while waiting for the slow internet to work to send an email. I’ve been trying for the last half hour.

Kind of ready to turn around and go back home. The ease. The convenience.

Then I remembered a story the Speaker at the Fellowship I attend told yesterday. He had a group of Nigerians visiting, staying in his home. He asked them what, overall, they best liked about Vietnam. Their answer? The more stable internet connection and electricity! Ha. Oh, perspective!

Gratitude’s been on my mind a lot lately (for the whole past year, too). Funny how that was also the topic discussed at Fellowship yesterday. The Speaker shared another story that illustrates my mindset most days pretty well. Imagine a beggar on the street. A person walks by, has compassion, and gives him some money. The next day, he does the same. This continues for an entire week. The next week, the same person walks by but is preoccupied and doesn’t notice the beggar. The beggar yells out, “Hey, where’s my money!?”

Yup, this is my daily sense of self-entitlement. I’m used to enjoying lots of good things. Things I don’t deserve. At first I might be grateful, but pretty soon I forget that I’m not actually owed them. And when they’re no longer there, I get defensive and crabby.

I also read an interesting article this morning about Vietnam which shares some of the same topical themes: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Talk-Around-Town/226333/are-we-content-or-oblivious.htmlutm_source=Family+Newsletter+August%2C+2012&utm_campaign=Google+Analytics&utm_medium=email

The article discusses Vietnam’s 2^nd place status in the 2012 Happy Planet Index, and the author questions whether this actually stems from oblivion or contentment. My follow up question is, “Is oblivion always a bad thing?” Obviously it can be, but sometimes I wonder if a little more oblivion as to what we don’t have wouldn’t help us “well to do” countries out sometimes. Seems like the 80 year old woman from Hanoi, Nguyen Thi Vinh, has the right idea when she said, "You could not imagine how miserable life was decades ago. I could not enjoy a single peaceful night or even a meal without rushing off to a bomb shelter. We now have nice food to eat, good clothes to put on and don't have to see our family members or friends killed. What else could we ask for?"

Actually, that sounds a lot more like gratitude to me than oblivion. Contentment stemming from gratitude. How closely those two things are connected!

I do have to wonder about the demographics of the thousand Vietnamese people interviewed, though. At least in my limited experience here, I feel the younger generation is overall less content than the older with their given status. 

And now I'm off to navigate the bus system for the first time since being back. We'll see if I can keep these thoughts on gratitude an its connection with contentment in mind as I do so!

Let's Celebrate!

This past week I've had about three different blogposts running around in my mind, but due to the craziness of visits with friends, gift shopping, goodbyes, and packing I just haven't had time to get them down on paper (or computer screen, as the case may be). Now, however, I'm sitting in the Korean airport for the next 4 hours, enjoying Caribou Coffee for the first time in 9 months, and hoping to finally sift through some of these thoughts.

So first up: celebrations. The Vietnamese way of celebrating things kind of clashes with my cultural upbringing and personal preferences. Celebrations tend to be loud, with loud music, flowery speech, and strange games. And they definitely wouldn't be complete without someone singing a song...or 2 or 3. If gifts are given, they're often, well, not exactly what I would pick out for myself, shall we say - involving squirrel key chains, or pink plush pig cell phone holders (I didn't know it was a cellphone holder until about 2 months after I received the gift), or glittery photo albums with a large teddy bear on the front, or a foot tall statue of a Vietnamese woman in traditional garb. You get the idea. Additionally, as far as interpersonal interaction goes during a celebration, you won't really find small clusters of conversation happening in groups of 2's, 3's, or 4's. The group stays a group and talks as a group - which sometimes involves yelling so you can be heard.

These characteristics pretty much hold true regardless of the size or location of the celebration. I've seen them played out on the "small" scale in my classrooms of 25. Imagine my surprise one day last Fall when I unsuspectingly walked into class to find it was Women's Day; the students had brought a gift, decorated the classroom, and prepared a song to sing, as well as games with small prizes for each girl. And of course, whenever they give a gift, they ask you to sing a song. I usually find a way to get out of the singing, hopefully fairly graciously, but I have ended up singing "You are my Sunshine" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" several times this year.



What made me think of the topic of celebrations more this week was a much larger scale celebration. On Monday, the International Standards Program hosted its student-led good bye "prom." It involved 2 student emcees, complete with formal attire and costume changes half-way through, a fashion show showcasing class t-shirts, many songs and dances by students, and even a song/dance performance by many of the teachers. Of course the music is so loud you think you're going to go deaf and wish you'd remembered the ear plugs that you always tell yourself not to forget the next time you go to a similar event...and yet somehow always forget.

And yet. I. Had. Fun.

Wait, what? Did that just come out of my mouth? Granted, I was in the audience the vast majority of the time - I only had to flood the stage once during the final song when my students literally came and pulled me up (along with many other teachers). But the night really got me thinking about some of the positive aspects of this cultural difference.

First of all, the Vietnamese really know how to have a good time! I mean, come on, think about Northwestern's graduation ceremony, compared with the one described above. They know how to stir things up and thoroughly enjoy themselves.  More power to them!

Secondly, something Sarah has pointed out in the past, there's a lot more humility or a lot less self-awareness here, at least when it comes to singing or performing in front of groups of people. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps because they grow up with it being such a normal part of life. Perhaps because the individual isn't singled out as much. Perhaps there're other explanations. But many are willing to just jump in and have a good time...even on stage in front of 600 people when they can't hold a tune. You just don't see that in the U.S., and I admire their ability to do that.  

Finally, I appreciate how they really take the time and energy to mark these occasions, these stepping stones in life. Much better to have an over-the-top celebration than to not celebrate enough! It really brings a sense of closure and commemorates the end of a year. Talk about going out with a bang!

I can't say these cultural practice are ones that I'll choose to take back with me to the states and implement in my own life. I'm sorry, but me and karaoke still just don't get along. But I'm beginning to see some of the possible reasons and good that come out of these cultural differences that were initially (and often continue to be) overwhelming.  

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.

Check These Out

So I'm going to take the easy way out on this blogpost, simply giving you some other links to follow of awesome writing others have done about experiences, life, and perspectives in Vietnam. Why bother rewriting what's already been said well by others?

1. One More Scribe - Sarah recently blogged about a trip we took to the middle/south of Vietnam, gosh, about 9 weeks ago, already. http://onemorescribe.wordpress.com/author/onemorescribe/

2. The City that Never Sleeps In - the writer of this blog comes from Australia and has lived in Vietnam several years. Her blog is hilarious and witty, and often captures the anomolies of life here in Vietnam. Her writing puts into words/pictures many of the things I've noticed about life here in Vietnam...or warns me of things I haven't yet experienced. ;) I'm invariably laughing after reading her entries. http://www.thecitythatneversleepsin.com/

3. REI - Vietnam Blog. Great posts by other REI Vietnam resident staff, including information about a new cafe one family recently opened, and a great post titled "Hiccups in the Year of the Dragon," talking about expectations, adjustments, and goals during transition here in Vietnam.   http://reivietnam.org/blog

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is one of Vietnam's most renowned locations, and it finds itself listed among UNESCO's World Heritage sites. It's apparently also been a film location of a James Bond movie scene. Even though it's only a 3.5 hour bus ride from Hanoi, I hadn't made it there this year until last Thursday. With Sarah, a couple of Vietnamese friends, and a Singaporian acquaintance, we took a very long day-trip to visit. The early morning started off with a four hour bus ride, and then continued on a two-decker wooden boat where we saw this:

As you can see, it's a bay scattered with thousands of these karst islands. (I recently learned that a karst mountain/island is a large piece of limestone jutting upward out of the earth.) At the beginning of the tour, our guide told us that we would get to see the largest of the fishing villages. What I didn't realize is that the fishing villages are villages made up of boats and rafts (see below). One boathouse was even the designated school. Can you imagine growing up here?

Brings a whole new meaning to the words "mini-mart" and "concession stand." (I can't decide which is the better comparison).

There are a number of caves that have formed inside these karst structures over the years and we got to take a whirlwind tour of the largest. Of course, it woulda been boring with just white lights. Gotta have the color so that, amidst all the incredible formations, you don't forget you're in Vietnam.




 Then we had a 20 minute kayaking adventure. Nga's first time ever! Well, mine too, for that matter, I guess. We weren't the most coordinated but we manged to get around without crashing into anything.

And of course, it wouldn't be Vietnam if there weren't construction going on somewhere nearby. Check out the guy IN the tube and ON the type welding.

After about four hours on the boat, we arrived back at the dock, loaded onto a bus, and survived the four hour trip home again, exhausted. Good but full day.