So for the most part, I have been focusing on the positive aspects over here in Vietnam. But there are some negative aspects of working over here, and ignoring those aspects while only ranting about the positive aspects here would give you a very skewed picture of my time over here. Vietnam is a wonderful place, and working here is fantastic, but there are also challenges, so here are a couple of said challenges.
1.
Dealing with Vietnamese bureaucracy is difficult at times. For the most part, this is not in relation to teaching. My classes have remained on time and on schedule and on curriculum this entire month. However, as a Fulbright ETA I am also expected to contribute to the college in "other" ways which are entirely defined by me and the college. For instance, I have helped to translate or write a few articles and grant proposals from the college, and I may end up working with the Young Creative Group on bird conservation in Ben Tre. Both these projects are fun and diverting, and they help to keep me busy, so in and of itself I have no problem with doing this work.
The problem is there is a pattern here of people expecting a lot from me and not telling me very much. Either one of these is annoying, but the combination of both is frankly enough to drive me over the edge sometimes. So, my boss at the Office of International Relations will send me an email saying he wants a given paper corrected. I do not know what it is for, I do not know when he wants it by, I don't know exactly what meaning he is trying to convey, who he is trying to send it to, or really honestly anything. When i ask him for clarification, his answers manage to be both vague in terms of information and shockingly urgent.
You try to remain patient and calm, but when everyone is running around very fast and telling you different things to do and that you have to do this AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, it's a little frustrating. Especially considering that often, you get no warning as to what you are expected to do until you are asked to do it.
People also magically manage to make these requests when I am at my most stressed with teaching as well, and they drop by during my one block of free time to ask me if I can do something extra for them. No. No I can't. I haven't slept well, I'm trying to plan two lessons for tomorrow and one for today and you just let me know fifteen minutes ago that you would be dropping by, and now you try and drop an extra two hours of work on me that has to be done RIGHT NOW? Nope. Not happening. I'll get to it later. Now leave me alone.
I'm trying to be patient, and it's the sort of thing that on a good day I just smile about, add to my inbox and work on when i have a little time. But on a bad day, having someone just show up and add another headache to my growing list, all with the demand that I do it right away...that does not put me in a good mood.
People here are so appreciative of my help, and the students are all really happy to see me. When I'm able to contribute my ideas to other departments or to help in other areas, people in those departments are invariably grateful for my unique contribution, and that does feel great. It is also great to feel needed and wanted in this college, and the fact that people want me to do a lot of things is very flattering. However, the scheduling is on occasion a bit of an issue.
2.
Living in a rural area is really different from an urban environment. As an example, let me illustrate
the typical day in Vietnam: I stumble out of bed at a "ridiculously late" hour by Vietnamese standards, at 7:00 am. On the days when I go to the gym early in the morning, I haul my exhausted carcass out of bed at 5:30 am, only to find the entire city awake and buzzing with life.
When I try to explain to my friends here that my ideal day at Chicago started at 10:00 am, they stare at me and laugh in disbelief. Similarly, when I explain that I used to stay up until 2:00 am, the general reaction is sheer incredulity.
I went drinking with Mr. Hoang last night, and I got back to the school at 11:00 pm. Back in Chicago, getting back at 11:00 pm on a Friday meant it was a quiet night, a night where everyone decided to take it easy. Here? By 11:00 pm the entire city is shut down. Everything is closed, nobody is on the street, and the guard at the college had to be roused to open the gates for this ridiculously hard partying American.
What I'm struggling with here is not so much the lack of a drinking/going-out culture (in my opinion, as awesome as drinking is, if you find yourself needing alcohol to function or have fun its time to stop) as the lack of a recognizable crew to go out, hang out, have fun with.
By a crew I mean a group of friends who can be reliably pulled together to socialize at any given time. In Chicago I had the SigEp crew, the ultimate frisbee crew and the theater crew. In Hanoi I had the Fulbright ETAs.
I have several very good friends over here: Mr. Hoang, Mr. Vu, Mr. Bao Duy, Mr. Tung, Mr. Tuan among the teachers, and Kim, Truc, Truc, and Quyen among the students, to name just a few. Here, my friends don't necessarily hang out with each other that much, so while I have friends, I don't have a crew.
Hopefully this will change as I spend more time with my students, and Mr. Vu comes back from Ho Chi Minh City and he drinks a lot with Mr. Hoang, so hopefully I can join that group. It should be noted that my escapades on the weekend have also probably hampered my ability to bond with my fellow teachers and students from Ben Tre. Mr. Hoang chided me gently about always going to Ho Chi Minh City on the weekend, and he is right. It is hard to form bonds with people here when I'm gone for the weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to do more stuff around Ben Tre in the future.
For me, traveling and especially living abroad are exercises in being alone. You remove yourself from your social groups, go several thousand miles away from your nearest friends. Your social groups and comfort zones are now on the other side of the world, and you get to truly discover yourself in an unknown environment where there are no easy outs. No one has any preconceptions of you as an individual, nobody knows who you are, and it is up to you and you alone to make it through this strange world.
It has been a positive experience for me overall. I have made some great friends over here, people who have welcomed me into their homes and into their lives without a second's hesitation. I have adapted to the culture over here in ways that surprise me, and deliberately kept parts of American culture in ways that also surprise me.
I also feel very connected to my friends back home who try to stay in contact with me. I'm telling you right now, that time you randomly gchatted me or responded to my chat request in the middle of the night means a lot to me. Close friends who continue to try and stay in contact with me over here are worth their weight in gold. The people who follow my blog, email me to ask me how I'm doing, send me packages...I appreciate them a lot.
I have also had more time to myself, more time for me to process who I am and how I think about the world. I've been able to read and write more than I have in the past, and even this blog has proven to be much more challenging and rewarding than I had initially planned. It's a big, scary world, and when you're alone in it the world can seem like a truly daunting place.
But then you shrug, smile, kick back your feet in your hammock and relax, because this is Vietnam, life is short and while living in another country can seem like "sink or swim," most of the time its more about floating along and coasting on the waves wherever they take you.
Have a good weekend y'all,
Jefferson
1.
Dealing with Vietnamese bureaucracy is difficult at times. For the most part, this is not in relation to teaching. My classes have remained on time and on schedule and on curriculum this entire month. However, as a Fulbright ETA I am also expected to contribute to the college in "other" ways which are entirely defined by me and the college. For instance, I have helped to translate or write a few articles and grant proposals from the college, and I may end up working with the Young Creative Group on bird conservation in Ben Tre. Both these projects are fun and diverting, and they help to keep me busy, so in and of itself I have no problem with doing this work.
The problem is there is a pattern here of people expecting a lot from me and not telling me very much. Either one of these is annoying, but the combination of both is frankly enough to drive me over the edge sometimes. So, my boss at the Office of International Relations will send me an email saying he wants a given paper corrected. I do not know what it is for, I do not know when he wants it by, I don't know exactly what meaning he is trying to convey, who he is trying to send it to, or really honestly anything. When i ask him for clarification, his answers manage to be both vague in terms of information and shockingly urgent.
You try to remain patient and calm, but when everyone is running around very fast and telling you different things to do and that you have to do this AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, it's a little frustrating. Especially considering that often, you get no warning as to what you are expected to do until you are asked to do it.
People also magically manage to make these requests when I am at my most stressed with teaching as well, and they drop by during my one block of free time to ask me if I can do something extra for them. No. No I can't. I haven't slept well, I'm trying to plan two lessons for tomorrow and one for today and you just let me know fifteen minutes ago that you would be dropping by, and now you try and drop an extra two hours of work on me that has to be done RIGHT NOW? Nope. Not happening. I'll get to it later. Now leave me alone.
I'm trying to be patient, and it's the sort of thing that on a good day I just smile about, add to my inbox and work on when i have a little time. But on a bad day, having someone just show up and add another headache to my growing list, all with the demand that I do it right away...that does not put me in a good mood.
People here are so appreciative of my help, and the students are all really happy to see me. When I'm able to contribute my ideas to other departments or to help in other areas, people in those departments are invariably grateful for my unique contribution, and that does feel great. It is also great to feel needed and wanted in this college, and the fact that people want me to do a lot of things is very flattering. However, the scheduling is on occasion a bit of an issue.
2.
Living in a rural area is really different from an urban environment. As an example, let me illustrate
the typical day in Vietnam: I stumble out of bed at a "ridiculously late" hour by Vietnamese standards, at 7:00 am. On the days when I go to the gym early in the morning, I haul my exhausted carcass out of bed at 5:30 am, only to find the entire city awake and buzzing with life.
When I try to explain to my friends here that my ideal day at Chicago started at 10:00 am, they stare at me and laugh in disbelief. Similarly, when I explain that I used to stay up until 2:00 am, the general reaction is sheer incredulity.
I went drinking with Mr. Hoang last night, and I got back to the school at 11:00 pm. Back in Chicago, getting back at 11:00 pm on a Friday meant it was a quiet night, a night where everyone decided to take it easy. Here? By 11:00 pm the entire city is shut down. Everything is closed, nobody is on the street, and the guard at the college had to be roused to open the gates for this ridiculously hard partying American.
What I'm struggling with here is not so much the lack of a drinking/going-out culture (in my opinion, as awesome as drinking is, if you find yourself needing alcohol to function or have fun its time to stop) as the lack of a recognizable crew to go out, hang out, have fun with.
By a crew I mean a group of friends who can be reliably pulled together to socialize at any given time. In Chicago I had the SigEp crew, the ultimate frisbee crew and the theater crew. In Hanoi I had the Fulbright ETAs.
I have several very good friends over here: Mr. Hoang, Mr. Vu, Mr. Bao Duy, Mr. Tung, Mr. Tuan among the teachers, and Kim, Truc, Truc, and Quyen among the students, to name just a few. Here, my friends don't necessarily hang out with each other that much, so while I have friends, I don't have a crew.
Hopefully this will change as I spend more time with my students, and Mr. Vu comes back from Ho Chi Minh City and he drinks a lot with Mr. Hoang, so hopefully I can join that group. It should be noted that my escapades on the weekend have also probably hampered my ability to bond with my fellow teachers and students from Ben Tre. Mr. Hoang chided me gently about always going to Ho Chi Minh City on the weekend, and he is right. It is hard to form bonds with people here when I'm gone for the weekend, so hopefully I'll be able to do more stuff around Ben Tre in the future.
For me, traveling and especially living abroad are exercises in being alone. You remove yourself from your social groups, go several thousand miles away from your nearest friends. Your social groups and comfort zones are now on the other side of the world, and you get to truly discover yourself in an unknown environment where there are no easy outs. No one has any preconceptions of you as an individual, nobody knows who you are, and it is up to you and you alone to make it through this strange world.
It has been a positive experience for me overall. I have made some great friends over here, people who have welcomed me into their homes and into their lives without a second's hesitation. I have adapted to the culture over here in ways that surprise me, and deliberately kept parts of American culture in ways that also surprise me.
I also feel very connected to my friends back home who try to stay in contact with me. I'm telling you right now, that time you randomly gchatted me or responded to my chat request in the middle of the night means a lot to me. Close friends who continue to try and stay in contact with me over here are worth their weight in gold. The people who follow my blog, email me to ask me how I'm doing, send me packages...I appreciate them a lot.
I have also had more time to myself, more time for me to process who I am and how I think about the world. I've been able to read and write more than I have in the past, and even this blog has proven to be much more challenging and rewarding than I had initially planned. It's a big, scary world, and when you're alone in it the world can seem like a truly daunting place.
But then you shrug, smile, kick back your feet in your hammock and relax, because this is Vietnam, life is short and while living in another country can seem like "sink or swim," most of the time its more about floating along and coasting on the waves wherever they take you.
Have a good weekend y'all,
Jefferson
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