Just Laugh With Me

Health

It has not been easy for my immune system at all. First few days were alright. I then had …digestion problems… for a bit. We went to Nha Trang and then I realized that I may have a potential allergy to shellfish (LOL it only took 22 years to figure that out). Turns out I break out only slightly, and only at night. Then again, my mind could be making this up. I refused to put on sunscreen and got burned too. The skin has almost all peeled off, but at least I got a bit darker. And THEN, I noticed a patch of what looks like freckles on my right arm. It’s been suggested that it’s an allergy to the water, or maybe even a reaction to chemicals here… May be a bit of a stretch (shoutout Diem). It’s okay though, cause my thoughts on it is: if everyone else can live here, so can I.

I’ve been hardcore sick for about a week now. Down with a throat infection that has me coughing up what seems like an unlimited supply of phlegm. I guess it’s fitting. I’m stubborn and refuse to wear masks while driving, and it was only a matter of time before all the dirt and smoke got into my lungs. All the second hand smoke here is a bitch too. Probably doesn’t help.

Health concerns have always been a problem here. I left this country at the age of 5, and I don’t think I was ever healthy before arriving in America. Asthma. Tuberculosis. Probably a multitude of other eating and breathing problems that kept my mom constantly busy at all times. We used to live behind a house that smoked things for business too. Not sure what they smoked, but it was definitely detrimental to a young toddler growing up in what were already insanely unsanitary conditions. My mom would tell me stories about the past; how she would feed me and then wait for about half an hour, which was around the time when I would start throwing up. She would clean me up and feed me again. Just like that. An endless cycle of feeding and barfing. She remembers the times when she would wake up to scare away the mice that had bitten my fingertips til they bled. She remembers the time when she cleaned up my cousins’ pee-stained pillow. How she washed and scrubbed it clean so that I could have a pillow of my own. And then how my aunt took the pillow back for her own kid after all that work. Life is a bitch. I’m sorry she has to remember those things. I’m glad I don’t.

A Day in the Life of

Life in Vietnam has a different feel. Time goes by slower here, and it’s not just a vacation feel. I would get up, feel like it’s been an entire day, and then realized it was like noon.

The day starts quite early here. People get up at like 5:30, 6ish, but I’ve been getting up at around 6:30. Breakfast is a must have, and generally doesn’t differ much from lunch food. The pace of work tends to be very relaxed around here, and then lunch is usually had at home. Naps are also expected, if not essential.

I think in terms of like, long-term, there are less worries. No mortgages to pay, no monthly bills other than maybe water and electricity. But no car insurance, phone insurance, etc. You spend what you have, and that’s pretty okay.

With that being said, it’s not like life here is easy by any means. Alongside the amazing smells of food, there is also cloaks of pollution, smoke and hazardous air all around. The restrooms are unsanitary, AC is a privilege, and mosquitoes come in swarms.  It takes a special kinda tenacity to live here.

I see everything that I love about Vietnam, but also everything I’ve rejected from this culture. Domesticity. Imagine all the chores you would do in a week -my aunt does all of those things within a day. Laundry is done daily because the machine takes small loads and requires hanging to air dry. Mopping, sweeping, grocery shopping (because refrigerators are small here and food doesn’t last near as long), cooking (because your husband expects homemade meals) and clean up are all done daily because it gets so dirty so fast here. It’s actually almost painful to see my aunt do all these things, like they’re expected of her. Like it’s her only job to serve. But how do you tell someone that they could have more? That their life doesn’t have to be a continuous string of on-going chores and tribulations sot that they could make the man of the house happy? Why would you upset an already content person? Drinking. Smoking. Both are considered forms of doing business here. Some of my uncles are sleeping off all the drinking at 7pm, and that sadly is just how things are here. Double standards – cause god forbid if a woman was to attempt to do “business”.

Wherever you go, there are tradeoffs of good and bad. These are just a few. But life goes on and who am I to say that life is suppose to work a certain way?

First Impressions

Every time I visit Vietnam, I feel closer to who I am. Riding on that moped, smelling the scrupulous scent of roast pork and slow cooked broth in the air as we breezed through the city, I fall in love with this country again. It strangely feels like home. Not so much that I want to live here, but I could. I could make it.

There’s a new understanding of the people in Saigon when I’m here. From sights of one person with a refrigerator on his moped, running deliveries, to families of four, scrunched up to all fit on a motorbike. The working class. The wake up at 6am to set up shop or to cook for lunchtime. The go home to make dinner and take care of your kids. There’s a type of endurance and hardness. A perseverance to live without things that we take for granted every day. Enclosed vehicles, for example. When it rains, a poncho is your best friend, and it is pretty much impossible to travel anywhere dry. Speaking of dry, no dryers. The realization of rain is usually quickly followed by scurrying feet up the stairs and out onto the balcony, frantically dragging in clothes that were hung up to dry.

Also, ice. How hard is it to have cubed ice ready to use? Usually, ice here is water filled into a large metal cup thing, placed in the freezer, and then used to make a pitcher of ice water. Sounds fine, right? Except that means communal pitcher of fluids all the time. That means if you want ice for your Coke, you have to break it up yourself. It involves a bag and a heavy hammer-like instrument. Not the most convenient of things, you can imagine.

Driving on that moped, you feel everything. Traffic is too bad for all of your senses to not be on guard. Maybe that’s why people here are so… connected to themselves. In the states, it’s so easy to block things out. Car and AC to hide from the sun, headphones to block out the noise, airtight buildings to block out heat, rain, or snow. You literally have to feel everything here.