The other day I bit into a banana and the inside was orange. It was the first time I've felt surprised in a long time, which made me realize that I've gotten used to Saigon. All the things that were once weird or out of the ordinary have become everyday, ordinary things to me.
Even things that don't happen that often don't surprise me. For instance, last Monday the power went off at school for more than four hours. This has never happened while at school. It's happened at home, but never for that long. So, I was annoyed, but surprised? Not even close. (My usually lively kids were sluggish, listless and petulant due to the suffocating heat. Suffice it to say, we were all miserable. We ended up making paper fans in class.)
I'm glad to feel so comfortable here that I've mostly forgotten I'm in a foreign place. Of course, I am still aware of the many differences between here and home, but I rarely think about them anymore. This must mean I've found a happy medium, right? I've moved beyond the "everything sucks" phase and have come out the other side unscathed. I must admit that I'm sad to be so far out of the "honeymoon" phase, but I'm definitely happy to be in a more steady space. The highs are no longer as high, but the lows aren't so low either, which is nice.
I suspect having found a middle ground is due in large part to settling into a routine. I have the same schedule, for the most part, every week: I work from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, at the elementary school, have Saturdays off, and have the same three classes on Sundays. Occasionally, I substitute week nights. It's true that I work too much, but other than that things are good. The only weird thing is that everything seems so normal...
Happily, there are still out of the ordinary days, too. One such day was the Friday before last. My whole school went on a field trip to see a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. It was so cool!
The school booked a private viewing, so we had the whole theater to ourselves. When the curtains opened and soft lights lit a red temple with a pool of gray water in front of it, I had no idea what to expect. Off to the sides of the stage sat the musicians and voice actors, who began with a song as dragons popped out of the water and danced around the pool.The show was in Vietnamese, of course, but I understood the story to be about a folk festival in a small town. Each scene was made up of different characters in the town, including a quarreling husband and wife, mating birds, water-spitting dragons AND fire-spitting dragons, a boat race, dancing maidens, and several other animated characters. Every part of it was energetic and fun: the voice actors were funny, the music was beautiful, the lights were colorful, water was sprayed onto the audience, and the characters ranged from jubilant to wry. The kids loved it. The teachers loved it. I loved it. All in all, it was a joyful experience and I wouldn't mind going again.
(Pictures to come soon.)
Even things that don't happen that often don't surprise me. For instance, last Monday the power went off at school for more than four hours. This has never happened while at school. It's happened at home, but never for that long. So, I was annoyed, but surprised? Not even close. (My usually lively kids were sluggish, listless and petulant due to the suffocating heat. Suffice it to say, we were all miserable. We ended up making paper fans in class.)
I'm glad to feel so comfortable here that I've mostly forgotten I'm in a foreign place. Of course, I am still aware of the many differences between here and home, but I rarely think about them anymore. This must mean I've found a happy medium, right? I've moved beyond the "everything sucks" phase and have come out the other side unscathed. I must admit that I'm sad to be so far out of the "honeymoon" phase, but I'm definitely happy to be in a more steady space. The highs are no longer as high, but the lows aren't so low either, which is nice.
I suspect having found a middle ground is due in large part to settling into a routine. I have the same schedule, for the most part, every week: I work from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, at the elementary school, have Saturdays off, and have the same three classes on Sundays. Occasionally, I substitute week nights. It's true that I work too much, but other than that things are good. The only weird thing is that everything seems so normal...
Happily, there are still out of the ordinary days, too. One such day was the Friday before last. My whole school went on a field trip to see a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. It was so cool!
The school booked a private viewing, so we had the whole theater to ourselves. When the curtains opened and soft lights lit a red temple with a pool of gray water in front of it, I had no idea what to expect. Off to the sides of the stage sat the musicians and voice actors, who began with a song as dragons popped out of the water and danced around the pool.The show was in Vietnamese, of course, but I understood the story to be about a folk festival in a small town. Each scene was made up of different characters in the town, including a quarreling husband and wife, mating birds, water-spitting dragons AND fire-spitting dragons, a boat race, dancing maidens, and several other animated characters. Every part of it was energetic and fun: the voice actors were funny, the music was beautiful, the lights were colorful, water was sprayed onto the audience, and the characters ranged from jubilant to wry. The kids loved it. The teachers loved it. I loved it. All in all, it was a joyful experience and I wouldn't mind going again.
(Pictures to come soon.)
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