8 months ago, I left America for Vietnam without knowing if I’d be able to survive, to endure, to make as I had desired. It was an abstract concept: living abroad, playing house, being an artist, teaching English to overly disciplined and fatigued students. I had imagined doing such things and had twisted the possibility in and out of my mind for years until finally, I leapt. I crawled out of my American bubble, my cozy concept of home, into a mysterious Vietnamese land I eventually learned to love and also think of as home. My reasons for leaving the...