Reflections

It's almost eleven months to the day that I've been here in good ol' HCMC.

One residual effect of working in Mental Health for so long is the occasional sense that it's time to establish some personal goals. This probably would happen regardless of my professional background, but I give it credit all the same. 

The last few months have seen an almost hedonistic enjoyment of life, the kind that is satisfying in the short-term but isn't really propelling you to new heights of existence in the long run. Like everything else, it can become meaningless once you stop working at it.

The life of an expat in this country can be a blissfully ignorant one. Foreigners are largely kept away from the goings-on of daily life--there seems to be a built-in expectation that you don't care about these things, you're just here to work and get your money and then go home. But no man is an island, so you go out, you find little expat-pockets to hang out and get comfortable in. After nearly a year, your initial curiosity goes into hibernation--maybe you got lazy, or just plain tired from the extra effort put in to trying understand a new and chaotic place. After a while, it can start to congeal into a real malaise. 

I've been trying to tap into some sort of community involvement work to keep me busy in my spare time. That's nice, and it's constructive, but even that sort of keeps you at arm's length. The language barrier doesn't help. A lot of people doing volunteer or charity projects don't have the time or the money to learn English, so asking questions and learning more about their projects can be a hard thing to accomplish. Not to mention the fact that most of them are dumbstruck a white person turned up, willingly, to begin with. 

Goal #1: Keep with the community projects, however painfully awkward they can be at first.

I can recognize a variety of terms in written Vietnamese, but still have alot of trouble with listening, and I can't speak to save my life. It doesn't help that many people here just don't expect you to know Vietnamese, so when you try to say something, they have no idea what you're trying to say. All I can really say with good tonal pronunciation are numbers, and even that gets a wide-eyed response: "You speak Vietnamese?" Or a much more complicated answer involving language I can't hope to comprehend.

Trying to say anything other than numbers or common pleasantries brings more misses than hits. Example: the street that I used to live on was Cong Quynh. This is pronounced something like Kawm Gwin. Whenever I got into a taxi, I would say Kawm Gwin. Blank stare. Kawm gwin. Kawm gwin? Kawm? gwin. Kawm gwin! Finally, I'd have to get out a piece of paper or something and just write out the damn thing, to which the taxi driver would reply, Ah! Kawm gwin! 

It was like a bad Abbott and Costello routine (I don't know! That's what I said! Third base!). Maybe once, I got someone to understand me, and that was either because I had a moment of greatness, or the driver was the odd think-outside-the-box type, the kind that could infer probable phrases limited to a taxicab setting--he could at least guess that I meant a street, and not something nonsensical like My hovercraft is full of eels.

Goal #2: Renew effort to learn/use rudimentary Vietnamese.

My first few months in Saigon were devoted almost entirely to mastering my job and figuring out which street I was on. After that, I set to developing a social network. At first, I simply could not believe the characters that wandered in and out of my life every day. Now, of course, I am from a small town, spent most of my formative years in the country, am Midwestern, and have a track record working in a sort of sheltered, do-gooder community, but I'm no bumpkin. I've experienced some pretty intense things, the number of which has tripled since coming here.

The Vietnamese, or any other Asian non-American person, have been the least of my problems, socially. This country loves foreigners, even foreigners who come from a country that carpet-bombed the shit out of their countryside a generation ago. Of course there's crime and theft and corruption and drugs and prostitutes, but have you ever heard of a place called Las Vegas? All of that exists there too, only with more guns.

My point, and I am building to one, is expats here are nuts. Absolutely bonkers. This can be a good thing and bad thing. The good thing: There's never a dull moment. Never. There's always some character who's up to something, and whether it's good or ill-natured, it is rarely not hilarious. The bad thing: There's never a dull moment, even when you want one. There's always some character who's up to something, and it could be something you in no way want to associate yourself with.

There was a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to connect socially with anyone who wasn't acutely mentally ill. So, like any analytical being who uses experience to form applicable logic, I worked out two theories regarding people who live abroad: 1) They're crazy to begin with, and they've finally found a place that's accepted them; and 2) Spending a lot of time alone with fickle social connections in a place where the rules of polite society as you know them do not apply along with a lingual/cultural barrier that prohibits understanding of the nuances of personality allows you to take some liberties. But, what are you, a saint? You never take just some liberties. You take every liberty.

Imagine if you could get away with saying all those awful things that run through your head and indulge every fleeting and questionable impulse just because no one would be there to shun, shame, or humiliate you for being an idiot. You've lost the anchor, the grounding social concept that keeps the id in check. This is why you have all manner of gross old men running around thinking they're Casanova and avoiding the basic foundations of human decency. And I don't mean that in some sheltered puritanical way, either. I mean it in a way that's able to confirm the evolution of men from apes.

But I digress--My point is not to rant about gross old men in Saigon (as fun as that was)--I'm more concerned with this "loss of anchor" theory. I am ridiculously privileged here. I have a maid. This is a bewildering concept, so bewildering that I actually tidy up my room before the maid comes, thinking that it will somehow reinforce my reputation as a good person by doing so. What can I say? I was taught personal responsibility at a young age, and of course I'm not perfect, but the only people who've ever cleaned up after me were my parents. So this is an intimate sort of relationship. I've got a pile of underwear in the corner, what will she think of me?

I'm not the sort of self-congratulatory douchebag to say "Well, I am giving this person a job, good for me!" Especially considering what you pay for people to handle piles of your dirty laundry (Hint: it's nothing). But I won't lie, having that attitude from time to time does help mitigate the built-in guilt complex.

But again. The point is, cleaning up after yourself, cooking, working, buying household supplies, scheduling routine dental appointments and health check-ups, and generally being a level-headed and decent human being, this is what constitutes the world of an adult. This is what grounds you in everyday life. Take away these things and you're just a giant helpless child who somehow got a hold of some money to pay people to be your parents for you. Without the requisite unconditional love or concern for your overall well-being. In other words, these are not people who will drive you to the hospital if your appendix bursts. 

I do practically none of the above things, except the health stuff, because, duh. But I can't even tell you the last time I swept the floor or washed the dishes or cooked a meal that was not cereal in milk or hot water added to a bowl of instant noodles. By the way, our electric water jug makes the water hot. I literally haven't even microwave-boiled a bowl of water. It's a real blow to my well-crafted self-sufficiency. I mean, if the apocalypse happened tomorrow, I'd have a can of halved pears, some banana chips, a couple of beers and some orange juice to go on. Oh, and some ketchup and chili sauce packets (presumably, for the pears). I used to be to much more responsible for myself.

Goal #3: Do everyday normal stuff that you enjoy, just because you enjoy it. 

Sure, I don't have to cook, but I'd like to.