Vietnam, where did you put me?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
Random Vietnam Photo
Hit my 3 week anniversary back in the US today. And am going through all the reverse culture shock moments I remember. I feel oddly unsettled by the quiet in the city, I am invading everyone elses personal space (instead of the vice versa in Vietnam), I am extremely overwhelmed with the availability of English language reading material (one of the main reasons I come back between countries), and of course, am starting to miss the folks I left behind in said country. There are so many more examples,but honestly, this can get dull fast!!
Every country ends up touching me, changing me and making me a slightly different person than before. This time its much more than my name change that stands out, to me anyway. There is a deep sense of being spoiled rotten. I am NOT saying that everything in Vietnam was amazingly wonderful. If that were true, you bet your ass I would not have left or would go straight back. What I am saying is that there were parts of my lifestyle that I really enjoyed that are somehow never going to be possible here back in the states. For example; we shall take the least personal example we can think of; MASSAGES. I started to get massages regularly in Vietnam to help speed up the digestive problems that I had. Acupuncture, Reiki, massages, etc. These were all in the same bag of bodily recovery. I probably would have gotten them even if I didnt have such problems, but this is why I started.
To get weekly, or 3 times a week massages in San Francisco would be somewhat of a financial miracle. My $5 hour foot massages in Hanoi are $10 per 10 minutes at the pedicurist. And its just not as good.
Then we move onto the mental stimulation at work. I loved, loved, loved the geekiness (pre-summer madness especially) at my school in Hanoi. The semantical fights that we got into as a whole were fuckin hilarious. The size of the teacher population was also nice because there was almost always someone in the teachers room when you had a burning linguistic survey or American English versus British English clarity moment in waiting.
And then there is the cost of living.
And the most embarassing of all is a bit of a taming of the shrew moment for me. I am, as expected, having “issues” (that one is for you Kexxxy) about being asked to follow rules. Walk on this side of the road, dont use your cell phone in my store, no tea in the classroom (oops), etc, etc. There is something really maddeningly sweet about knowing that you really can say or do nearly anything and NOT be told that you shouldnt. Or that there will be no one around organized enough to correct you, let alone punish you. Sigh. I knew this was going to happen. You wouldnt believe the (thank god, internal) hissy fits I have gone into over the paperwork that has been required to start working again. Anything time consuming that I dont want to do I want someone else to do. Anything.
The flip side is that I am for once applying for jobs that I never would have before, due this new sense of cockiness. Who knows if this will calm down and bring me back to my once amicable and humble self. For now I am somewhat of a high maintenance bitch, to be fair. Goddess, I so hope it isnt showing as much on the outside as I feel it on the inside.
Its also a good thing because, as suspected, my European students are much more harder to please in class than the Asian students I have taught in the past. I had a feeling that part of my classroom antics would not go over well. And for the most part all is ok, but there are moments when I know that I just cant fall back on certain things like I could in Vietnam. But then, I didnt know these back up moments before I taught there for a few months (or weeks?) either. So I suppose I will adjust. And it really is enjoyable to have a diverse group to teach.