The Journey to Nam

It took us a while to settle on Vietnam as the next destination after falling completely in love with Chiang Mai, but after the 2nd year of teaching English at our respective schools, we hopped on a plane and headed to Ho Chi Minh City. We'd heard rumours of good salaries, beautiful weather & high quality of life; all true, as it would turn out!

The history of Vietnam is complicated and although the locals are welcoming to most nationalities, there is a huge cultural divide that translates in cross-cultural communication in this country. As a South African, I get the usual "Why aren't you black?" to which I still have no adequate response (I usually just giggle nervously, unsure how to communicate my feelings of shame at the sheer audacity in my being white).

Da Nang's been really good to us. There have been so many times that I've thought 'I should blog about this' or 'I should write about that!'. Of course, the lifestyle we've chosen affords us the ability to see simple beauties everywhere we go. Chiang Mai was sweet and comforting, with it's charming ruins and magnificent temples, whereas Da Nang is vibrant with energy, buzzing with activity & brimming with beauty.

Full disclosure: we experienced (and still do) a significant culture shock leaving The Land of Smiles and landing in Vietnam. If you know about the stark difference in these 2 cultures, you'll get me. Vietnamese people are hard. They have been through the works, and those that survived are tough little people. One of the first things we noticed about Vietnamese women is how able and willing they are to do absolutely any work whatsoever. Vietnamese men are a bit harder to work out as they all seem to sit around with their shirts rolled up above their bellies drinking tea & Larue beer all day.

Almost daily, there's a new thing to be learnt about the Vietnamese people. It's becomes good practice to put yourselves in their shoes & try to understand why they are doing something (differently to how you might do it) before dismissing their behavior as madness. Most of it still seems mad to us, to be honest, but we're trying okay.

A few interesting ones:

• It's actually not a good thing to be polite to your friends in the Vietnamese culture. It's believed that minding your ps & qs, greeting each other & saying please and thank you foster formality, so one should not be "too respectful" among friends and colleagues. It's common for conversations to start right at "Where are you going?" or "What do you want?" and end abruptly. 
• Vietnamese people do not mind noise very much. The locals speak very loudly and emphatically among themselves, and it's easy to mistake a conversation for an argument or a couple shouting across the road to each other for anything other than talking.  (I'm so interested in why some nationalities have norms so different to the ones I was raised with... things like eating with your mouth closed, not spitting or burping in public, non-violent communication...)
• It's believed that playing basketball & swimming lengths makes you taller. (This might actually be scientifically accurate because A) I'm not a scientist, so can't disprove it & B) my brother is hella tall and he's a swimmer.) I've interviewed many a student who has confided in me his wishes to become a basketball player simply to get taller. For me, my brain goes: 1. Am tall, 2. Can play basketball., not the other way around.
• Which brings me to the different thought patterns I've observed in the East. The typical South East Asian way of thinking is collectivist, and their communication tends to be indirect. Communal cultures are wonderful things, posing many a challenge for us outsiders (a topic for another day).. As Jung stated: "The West believes “in doing” while the East in “impassive being". 

A huge lesson I've learnt in Asia: Do less, feel more.