My Vietnam Experience

These days, seems like all I’m doing is wiping the sweat off my face till the next shower, reapplying mosquito repellent, and then starting the whole thing over again.

This, obviously and thankfully, is a huge inaccuracy, but I’ve recently been thinking about the topic of everyday life, and what mine is comprised of. It's fun to consider how typical parts of my routine here are so different from my past-and-near-future American life:

Bike Accidents
Having my foot run over by a car, falling off my bike while riding over some train tracks, crashing into Laura and falling off again, having half my big toenail rip when a guy on a motorbike pulls out of an alley and into my path without looking...this is just part of my life, as much as filling up the tank in my car was at home. I recently visited a website to check current gas prices at home, and now I'm wondering whether I’d rather have buying gas or sustaining minor injuries as part of my weekly transportation regime.

Interrupted Sleep
Another part of everyday life is waking up in the middle of the night, usually at 3 a.m. Most nights I wake myself up coughing, and many times when this happens I end up creeping downstairs for a drink or a snack to coat and soothe my throat (I know, not exactly healthy eating. Oprah Winfrey is haunting my conscience, because I keep thinking of how, in her intense dieting days, she refused to go to bed within 2 hours of eating.) If I don’t wake myself up halfway through the night, the neighbor’s rooster usually takes it upon himself to make sure I don’t fall out of routine.

Smiling & Nodding
I've never done so much smiling and nodding in my life as I do here when I don't understand but want to proceed from the moment. Whenever Co Non, who helps Co Ha with cooking and cleaning, is here, I do a lot of smiling and nodding. She's one of various people I know who like to speak to me as if I'm a native, without modifying speed or pronounciation or word choice to accommodate my limitations. I always wonder if she seriously thinks I understand. I get a kick out of it though. I keep thinking of 2 characters from the movie "Love Actually": a Portuguese woman and an English man who continue to speak to each other in their respective native languages, even though neither knows what the other is saying.

Repeated phrases
Every day when I come down to breakfast Co Ha says "Gooood morning!" and then tells me a) that she is tired, or b) that she has a headache. Every time I leave the house when Son is there, he says, "Wish you would be joyful!" Recently, every day Thu Giang plays this terrible game where she says very fast: "Who-hate-me-put-hand-down! See? Everyone hand down, everyone hate me."
Every day someone in my family says “Oh my goodness! Only one month left!” They’ve been saying this since there were 2 months left and we’re still not at the one-month mark. General talk of our limited remaining time together has been going on since about month six. I guess it could be worse; I could be getting up in the morning to someone saying, "You're STILL here?? Wow, this is really dragging on!"

Lychees (A chef getting ready to cut up some lychees for me? I don't know...)
For about a month now lychees have been another part of my everyday life. They're only 25 cents a kilogram, so Co Ha keeps buying them, but I'm the only one who eats them really. Many Vietnamese people limit their lychee intake, because they are considered a "hot food", meaning they are a food that makes you hot. I, on the other hand, am eating about a kilo a day, which is 2.2 pounds. Co Ha keeps telling me they’re good for your brain, so I figure by the end of lychee season I should be a fluent Vietnamese speaker, if not a genius. Or would genius come before fluency in Vietnamese? I’ll have to get back to you at the end of lychee season.


I’ve found I love to use my Vietnamese in playing cards. Lately we’ve been playing this simple card game at home that takes more luck than lychees, and I love it, because it’s one place I don’t feel the language barrier. Sure, there is speaking going on, but really it’s confined to things like: “two of clubs” “can’t go” and “deal.” So all it takes is a few rounds of hearing my playing partners saying these things before I too am dropping these phrases like a native. A few MORE rounds and I’m even capable of woefully declaring myself the loser!

Last night I was sitting on a bed with Thu Giang and aunt Co Oanh, playing cards, when Son came home from studying. I was peripherally aware of his presence, but none of us looked up, since we were in the middle of a game. So Son the Drama Queen collapses against the doorway, lets out a long sigh/moan and declares “I’m SOoooo tired!” We may have looked up from the game, but none of us really responded, so he came over, flung himself across the bed, and again: “I’m SOOOOooo tired!” (Dear Katie King: I don't even know if you read this blog from Swaziland, but if so, I hope you are now remembering a certain incident from my visit to EMU sophomore year, and I hope you are now laughing in spite of whatever African parasites are currently reigning in your body). Co Oanh called him lazy and told me “All Son does is sleeps. And all Thu Giang does is eats.”
“And all Renee does is take showers” said Thu Giang.
“That’s because all Renee does is sweats” I said.

Oh, this everyday life. Soon to be nothing more than a memory from way over on the other side of the world...