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 US were varied and muddled for there was no clear sense of what would come (though there rarely ever is). I wandered away from my country to play outside its perimeters, to explore the world differently, to learn. Perhaps this is why I stopped writing about my experiences there so consistently. Each day was unique, so much so, it became nearly impossible for me to think of capturing its space and personalities in words. I simply wanted to be there.
Rather than putting together a summation of my entire journey to Vietnam, I have written about my last few days there, my return home, and the subsequent culture shock I endured.
The remaining gaps have been left for both memory and imagination for this is inexorably part of the creative and experiential process.
June 1, 2009
“What do you want to do? It’s your last night in Vietnam.”
Your last night in Vietnam echoed until a decision had been made.
“Well, I’d like a bowl of My Quang.” (A dish I consumed 5 times a week, native to Danang, includes the following: rice noodles, saffron broth, seasonal vegetables, cilantro, mint, lettuce, onions, shallots, garlic, chili, lime, peanuts, rice chips and whatever meat or fake meat you prefer.) ”I’d like to sit by the ocean, maybe eat some crab tamarind, drink a beer, or maybe go up to the Green Bamboo rooftop for a glass of Dalat wine. Karaoke? I still have to pack, but I think I’ll be up all night so it doesn’t matter.”
After I photographed the delicious color before me, a bowl of My Quang was slurped down at the vegetarian restaurant we frequented - owned by a disgruntled matriarch. I also shot the blaring pink sign I usually sought after teaching late night disobedient classes, and Steve sitting before me, looking forlorn in a plastic white chair.
It was exceedingly difficult not to project in these moments, not to think of the what ifs and could have beens. Would it be my last bowl of My Quang there for a while, or would I be back within a few months? Would Steve be alright without me? Would I be alright without him? In my twangy Vietnamese, I told the owner I’d see her again soon, despite the fact that I knew I wouldn’t.
I fail when it comes to saying goodbye. Moments die, people die, relationships die, but at the same time they sprout back into life. This was my mantra in my last few weeks in Vietnam. These were the thoughts that ultimately kept me present despite the sadness and unknowns looming around me.
Later, Mrs. Lac came over, picked up my shoes, the shoes I had made in Hoian (The appearance of these particular shoes I can only describe in this way - character shoes made for a poor Ukrainian aspiring actress by her equally poor cobbler father.) slipped them on her tiny swollen feet, and marched up and down the garage between two giant stacks of mattresses in tears, begging me to stay.
“Mrs. Lac miss Felicity vetty bad. Mrs. Lac love Felicity. She friend. Like Daughter. Mrs. Lac no go Felicity.”
“I know. I know. It’s hard, but I’ll come visit you. Don’t worry Mrs Lac. Don’t worry.”
She asked me for the shoes, which were three inches too big for her, and instead I offered her another, smaller pair, given to me by one of my students for Teacher’s day (The shoes were too narrow, though my student insisted after forcing them onto my suffocating feet, they fit perfectly well). Her face lit up, she tried the shoes on and continued to prance between the mattresses.
“Mrs Lac can wear to wedding!”
“Yes!” I concurred, glad to have taken her mind off me leaving.
As I was stuffing possessions into my limited luggage, she presented an array of gifts to me.
“For you family. For tea. Teapot. For you mother. See? Danang!”
Along with a miniature teapot, She handed me a decorative plate with Danang City painted on its surface. Though I had no intention of keeping such items, I thanked her profusely and secretly wished she would go back to her own house. These last moments were heightened and dreary. Steve kept me company while I packed and unpacked my bags seven times, until they didn’t feel as though I was carrying around a grandmother corpse. We drank beer to keep our nerves down and we sank our teeth into fried sweet bread for nostalgic purposes.
Mrs. Lac peered in the door from the hallway and unearthed yet another gift.
“This is for Pho, Mrs. Lac’s son. He need shoe and medicine. I tell him you come to Portland. He live there. Pho live Portland. You bring to Pho for gift from Mrs. Lac. Help me please.”
“Of course.” I said without considering its girth. The package was approximately half the size of my luggage.
So, after taking out another lump of stuff, I fit the package into my suitcase, zipped it up, and examined my mostly empty room. I had written, moved, sung, loved, danced, listened, devoured, fought, hid, cleansed, and renewed myself within the room, and at that moment I felt like I had never been inside its walls before. It had let me go as I had let it go, and once again, we were strangers.
June 2, 2008
After a painfully teary departure from Steve and Danang, I floated into the mouth of an airplane and climbed back in time, to the west.
On the first leg of my flight, in the seat in front of me, a Vietnamese mother and her child vomited profusely into bags. They vomited and chatted, vomited and giggled as though they hadn’t retched acid from their stomachs, but a billion dong, or feathers tickling their feet. I thought of my own puking experiences and how I abhorred doing such a thing, the faces I might have made, the consequential sobbing.
Lack of drama and stresslessness over things like puking and seemingly detrimental motorbike accidents was the most striking disparity between Vietnam and America. And why? Why do the Vietnamese not allow the world to wring their brows with woe? What is it about the culture that permits 3 hours lunch breaks and napping?
The answers to this question are, coming from me, a response to what I experienced there, rather than a fully researched study of Vietnamese culture. I lived as an American in a place quite the opposite of what I was used to, so most of my opinions are associative:
-Communistic idealism invokes a sense of duty to community, family, and government.
-Rather than fighting for status and money, people work to survive and everyone has a job (even if that job is a menial as selling lottery tickets or shining shoes). In all three cities I visited in Vietnam, I never once saw a homeless person, and the beggars I did see were either elderly woman or handicapped men.
-The family unit in Vietnam is perhaps the most valued aspect of the culture. You are your family. It is very uncommon for people to live far away from their families. Although there is suffering involved in many of the families (I have had students when explaining “character” admit to having very angry and abusive fathers) for the most part, it seems the Vietnamese take pride in their family and work to support each and every member.
-Ritual is incorporated into every aspect of life.
A few hours later…
As I sat in the Tapai airport amongst transients and air condition hum, I pondered the months and how they shaped that very moment. What did I learn? I checked my reaction to things such as magazines and fancy clothing items that were unavailable to me in Danang. I looked curiously and secretly longed for them, objects I had been living without, but craved much like a recovering addict craves a long lost fix.
My culture, my country (though I try to refrain from possessing such a thing) has shaped me unhealthfully. I have to fight quintessentially American wants and needs every day of my life. I have to abandon status and goods and material desire in order to see clearly and absorb my surroundings with wakeful eyes.
I suppose another reason I left America (and why I continue to leave) was to learn how to pay attention by minimizing distractions. In paying attention, I have begun to understand, but only in minutia, of what this life is.
20 hours and one week later
I landed in a Seattle version of America, a city I don’t know well, a city where the coffee and culture are supposed to be incomparable. The coffee tasted watery compared to the Vietnamese version and the only tongue I could hear in direct peripheries was English. I had found comfort in not knowing what people around me were saying in Vietnam. My brain struggled to comprehend it’s own language, but refused it at the same time.
In the first few days back to the US, the culture shock was overwhelming. Crowds of white people going about their day, talking on cell phones, reading newspapers, driving in cars - the same list of activities people do in any city in the world - consumed my thoughts and filled me with anxiety. Suddenly, a heft of societal pressures and obligations I have never fully succumbed to as a 31 year old American woman, landed on my shoulders. Was I supposed to be driving a hybrid car, working a job with benefits and 401 K, indulging in too-rich food, sipping on frothy overpriced coffee drinks, buying lots of crap I didn’t need?
My body and mind didn’t fully understand where they were or who they were supposed to be. Decisions began to pile up ontop of me. What am I going to do? How am I going to survive? (One night, for 2 hours, as I was lying awake, I thought of all the things that could go wrong here in America. I thought of being homeless and destitute, a crazy old lady perched on the sidewalk sipping her last gulp of water.)
Now
I am eased by the fact that societal/cultural pressures don’t have to be part of survival in America, or rather, that my ideas of survival have changed here in America. The pressure is there, floating around, but my brain isn’t succumbing to it. My brain says “Fuck you pressure!” and its soon obliterated by three cheerleaders with deadly pom poms.
I do believe simplicity and the freedoms in simplicity can be attained anywhere in the world.
Thanks to Vietnam, this mantra is much more practicable.
WOW Felicity....I have been home for 2 weeks now and you were able to put to words sooo many of my feelings and similiar experiences. I had also grown accustom to not knowing what people were saying around me and felt uneasy about hearing and understanding what people were saying upon my return home. I also noticed myself staring at people thinking how different they were......these people look and act like me!! Very surreal to be back in a place that hasn't seemed to change while I had an incredible year of personal growth and cultural stimulation!!!
Miss you and our lives in Da Nang!
Heart,
A Man Da
PS - thank you for writing this:-)
Posted by: Amanda | 07/20/2009 at 10:01 AM