Enjoying experiences, good and bad

I don’t remember what time it was, but at some point in the night, I woke up in a panic. I looked around the room and saw I was by a balcony looking out over a busy alley. I could hear the muffled sound of a scooter going past.

I didn’t know where I was.

I tried to breathe. I sat up. I looked around for a second and remembered.

I was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

It wasn’t just that I was in Southeast Asia, 8,286 miles from my home and my partner in Duluth, Minnesota, that threw me. It was that I had slept in four beds since I came here just over a week ago. What’s more, even before that, my partner, Heather-Marie, and I had been nomads for weeks after we closed up the tinyhouse at the farm where we had been living.

I had a restless few hours before the sun came up. I woke knowing it was time to get settled in and establish a routine as I prepare for a year of living and working in Vietnam as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching journalism at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. 

One of the things I hope to do during my time here is stop and write a weekly reflection. This is hard to do because each day has felt like an explosion of experiences, consuming all of my senses. Perhaps that will diminish some as I spend more time here. (Perhaps it won’t.)

My goal is to keep these posts short so I am not daunted by the prospect of writing them. To be true to that goal, with this post I’m going to simply try to summarize where I’ve been and some of the seeds of ideas that I want to explore further.

I arrived in Vietnam late on Monday, September 2 after 24 hours of travel. My first stop was Hanoi where I would take part in an orientation program put on by the U.S. Embassy. This was the first and perhaps only chance for all of the Fulbright Scholars in Vietnam this year to get together. Of the group, I am the only one who is spending the entire academic year in Vietnam.

After two days of hearing from various experts from the U.S. State Department, we boarded a bus and headed an hour and a half outside of Hanoi to Ninh Binh where we stayed at a plush resort. We were told that the next morning we’d go for a bike ride and then a boat ride. I grudgingly set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.

It was worth it. 

With the sun just coming up and the air sticky but cooler, we left the resort and rode along the edges of rice paddies before cycling through a quiet village. We headed toward some nearby peaks, riding up and onto a long dyke. We stopped at the top and looked around.

What we didn’t realize (or at least what I didn’t realize) was that we were about to go on a boat ride at the Trang An Landscape Complex, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We rowed through wetlands that in the spring are filled with storks and other birds and moved up alongside dramatic limestone rock formations called karsts.

Each day has been almost overwhelming. I scrawl notes in my journal and take far too many pictures.

Of course, as is often the case, the best part of travel is the people you meet. With my camera and cell phone in hand, I have wandered the streets of Hanoi and now Ho Chi Minh City, observing daily life and snapping pictures.

I had been told before I came here that Vietnam is a welcoming culture. I have lost count of the acts of kindness I’ve experienced. I catch people staring at me — a 6’4″ white man — and I look at them and nod and smile. I am almost always greeted by a warm smile and nod in return.

I have wondered whether everyone is treated the way I am here. I suspect my race and gender bring with it a fair amount of privilege. One of my fellow Fulbright Scholars was born in Vietnam but grew up in the United States. She said she faces real challenges in navigating the culture. Another Fulbright Scholar told me that being a single, older woman in this culture comes with its own set of complexities.

On one of my last days in Hanoi, I had breakfast with another Fulbright Scholar and the woman who is our key contact in the program through the U.S. Embassy. A native of Hanoi, she is just a few years young than me. She described what it was like as a child in Hanoi to hide in the basement seeking shelter from the bombing from U.S. aircraft. Today, she works for the U.S. government, helping Fulbright Scholars navigate life in Vietnam.

She said that when Fulbright Scholars come to Vietnam and bring with them a sense of entitlement (she was much more subtle in how she described this), things do not go well for them. 

Her advice to us has remained consistent: Be humble and be patient.

I remembered something she said to me as we were riding through the countryside early that morning in Ninh Binh: “Enjoy your experiences in Vietnam — even the bad ones. They help you appreciate the good ones even more.”