The above title comes from a sentence structure our Vietnamese teacher was trying to teach us. She boldly left the second clause bank and laughed at us as we tried to fill it with things like hot, loud, and greasy (one of our classmates has a weird sense of humor). By far the most accurate way we ended the sentences was "difficult to explain."
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| Like this man sitting, unconcernedly, next to hazardous materials...in the middle of a market selling food. |
I'm probably tempting fate here, but I've found culture shock tends to hit really hard at about the 5/6 month mark when everything you found unique and wacky about the country becomes unique, wacky and despised. We definitely went through this period. Notice the last month or two of silence? But we've been here a little over nine months now and we feel a bit more stable (sometimes). I'm sure there is a metaphor in there related to (re)birth, but I haven't found it. What we have found is a very predictable rhythm to our lives. A predictable rhythm that revolves around our jobs; but, as the school year wraps up, the rhythm is becoming less of a driving march and something more meandering and tangential.
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| ...and the cat, a lot of our life revolves around the cat |
Speaking of meandering and tangential, this introduction is in part, our long way to apologize for the lack of updates on the blog. There are things that happen at least 3 or 4 times a week that cause us to wonder aloud "what is our life here?" (motor bikes driven on sidewalks, the worst karaoke we've ever heard - more than once we've mistaken it for animals screaming
, the shop keepers that are either asleep in their stores or walking around shirtless, the fact that we can afford drinks on rooftops). However, they rarely seem large enough to warrant a post. Which brings up a weird issue with most communication: no matter the medium, it always goes through a process of curation.
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| Case in point, shirtless breakfast man who made us this tasty treat: |
In a lot of ways our lives are similar to what they would be in the US. We have a similar schedule, habits and preoccupations. We have some of the same frustrations we did at home - administrators who never seem to understand
teaching (bonus...here they are also super sexist), traffic, crowds and panic attacks when we have to go to the
mall. And the same (mundane) joys - evening walks, weird cat pictures,
cooking and, more recently, running. We don't post about these or the average weeks - the minor heartaches and headaches, or the days where we are content.
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| Evidence of contentment and the fact we can enjoy rooftop drinks. |
Even today's post is motivated by an attempt to catch you up on our last few breaks which have been - in an effort to save up for a trip this summer - staycations. (Sidenote: we didn't know this was a word that apparently everyone in the world uses, but we love it as it immediately legitimizes our laziness and lack of planning with a catchy label). Over spring break we used the time to explore district five (the old Chinese section of town) and most recently, we booked a "staycation" package at a hotel downtown. Both were great in really different ways and, as Vietnam is difficult to explain, here are the pictures.
