Impressions, Curiosities, and Other Such Details

Here are some of those pesky details I neglected to share before:

Saigon (or HCMC) is a city full of movement and noise. The street I live off of is one of the main roads that connects several districts and there is absolutely no time of day where it's not overflowing with motobikes and other vehicles. Crossing the street is an exercise in living dangerously. Thankfully, I've mastered this hazard. The trick: look both ways at once--even if it's a one way street--and don't hesitate.

Traffic here is the worst I've ever seen and that includes both Chicago and Portland at rush hour. The reason it's so awful, however, is because there don't seem to be any rules of the road. Motos pull out onto streets without looking, turn left at stoplights, drive on the sidewalk, turn around in the middle of busy streets, cut through dense rows of traffic, and generally don't think about their safety or anyone else's. They do all of these things at speed, too. Everything about getting around in this city is dangerous. There's no space on sidewalks to walk because that's where people park their motos and if there is space, people drive on it. And then actual taxis are so slow because they're swarmed by motos and can't maneuver as easily, so if you take one, you're in danger of spending quite a bit of money. The people who ride their bikes--mostly school children--are the bravest of all. The thought of riding a bike on Saigon's streets terrifies me. They're so slow--I'd never be able to get out of the way of some idiot swerving into the road.
My older brother's friend who lives here has kindly offered to teach me to ride a moto. I've only had one lesson so far and I'm not that bad. However, I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to actually drive with other vehicles on the road. I definitely need more practice. Right now I'm sticking to moto taxis to get around.

As you can imagine, all this traffic makes for a cacophony of noise. People use their horns about every 30 seconds telling people that they're passing them, which they do haphazardly between encroaching buses, cars, buildings and walls of motos. (I'm surprised every day that more people don't get into serious accidents by the way people drive here.) I went to the opera house a couple of weeks ago to see a classical music concert. The building is located in the heart of downtown district 1 and throughout the performance I could hear the traffic zooming and honking by.

Then there are the fruit vendors who push their carts, yelling in high-pitched, nasal voices the name of what fruit they're selling. One woman goes down the alley I live in several times a day. I don't know what she's selling but her voice sounds like a whining, yowling cat.

Also, there seems to be construction going on everywhere, in every part of the city, at all times of the day. People start their days early here because of the heat, so a typical day for me starts to the sounds of hammers, drills, saws and other noisy, noisy tools.

Saigon is a growing city and I expect it will have drastically changed by the time I leave. The frightening part, however, is that the divide between the rich and the poor continues to widen as well. There doesn't seem to be a middle class at all here. The rapid expansion of the city has made some people very wealthy while making the poor even poorer. Within that divide, there is also the peculiar propensity for laziness and ambition. I don't know how, but they seem to be two sides of the same coin. One of my coworkers the other day compared poverty here to the chicken and the egg. Are Vietnamese people so poor because they're lazy, or are they lazy because they're poor?--meaning, there's no point in working hard if you're not going to see an equal return. I'm not really sure. On the one hand, capitalism is rampant here. Everybody has a job, everybody wants a job, and they all want money--lots of it. Sometimes everything here seems to be about money--making it and having it. Yet, the moto taxi drivers are always asleep on their bikes (I wish I had a picture!) and the security guards who watch parked motos take turns napping. None of them read a book or do a crossword. They either sit and talk all day or they nap. I'm not judging--I'd probably nap as well if I was allowed to doing that job. It must be incredibly boring. However, I know that in the States, if you napped every day at regular intervals while at work, you'd be fired in a heartbeat.

These are just my impressions so far. I'm still puzzling things out and I don't meant to say every Vietnamese person is the same. For all I know, these things could be particular to Saigon. I don't know.

What I do know, is that everyone I've encountered has been friendly and welcoming. Whenever I talk with a Vietnamese person they are always curious about me. Though sometimes their frankness is a bit startling. In Vietnam, some of the first questions you're asked are how old you are and if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend. People here are very preoccupied by boy/girl relationships, which is strange seeing as young people don't really date until they're in college. Also, it's okay here to comment on someone's bad appearance if it's in the past. Meaning, it's common to say something to the affect of "Before you were fat but you look great today." A Vietnamese friend told me that people here let things stay in the past and focus more on the present. So to say that to someone is not at all offensive because it doesn't matter that you used to be fat; today you aren't and that's what matters. I kind of like this way of thinking, even if I don't really want people to tell me I looked ugly the day before. Haha.

Appearances here mean a lot, too. All the men always wear button-up shirts and slacks, while the women dress very nicely and wear high heels with everything. Or flip flops. Everybody here wears flip flops all the time, even to most jobs. But then, women wearing their pajamas out and about is acceptable, too. Granted, their pajamas always match and are well-fitted, but still, it's weird. It's also common for men to take off their shirts when it gets too hot. And, as far as I can tell, everybody picks their nose.

I told one of my TAs at my language school the other day that should looked nice. She was wearing a fitted black skirt and a black blouse with heels. She told me that she liked black because it's slimming and she is fat. I literally did a double-take. Her frankness shocked me, but she also seemed to be embarrassed by it. And she's not fat. She may have bigger bones than most of the skinny, twig women here, but she's very, very far from being fat. In fact, she's slim and very nicely shaped.

I'm still getting used to varying appearances here--what's acceptable and what isn't. You might all be shocked to know that I wear slacks and cardigans with cute, black flats every day. The change from t-shirts and jeans wasn't really that weird for me, but I've actually discovered a lot about what I can do and do comfortably since I've been here.

Apparently, I sing. I know. This is madness, but I do. For little kids, that is.

I also have more patience than I--or anyone else, probably--thought possible. I think I might actually like teaching kids more than adults... Or well, at least more than teenagers. Haha.

I can also be clever and crafty under pressure. Yesterday, I wanted to print some Halloween coloring pages for one of my classes but the internet was down at my school. Instead of panicking, I sat down and drew my own. They were by no means brilliant drawings, but I managed a decent Pac Man ghost, a vampire, a witch, and quite a cute pumpkin. Needless to say, I was proud of myself. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I am Queen of the Metis. (If you get this, you are truly a wonder and I love you.)

But I've also discovered that it's easier for me to feel lonely than I thought. And that I'm a workaholic. (It must be genetic. Hello Dad, Mom, Steve, Shannon...) And that sometimes my antisocial tendencies bother people.

Oh well. As I say, life is a process and I am working through it.