The Grind of Vietnam | Vietnam

"There will be days that Vietnam just grinds on you."- my boss

I stomped around my kitchen/living room yelling about all the things that were bothering me and that had been building up over the past two months. I pointed at things, slammed cabinet doors, and almost cried. Why? Because sometimes Vietnam just grinds on you.

I find it hard to talk about how you truly feel when you are traveling/living abroad. People expect it to be perfect or they read a blog or two and assume they know how you feel. But most of the time I don't even know how I feel. I can go days without truly processing what's going on around me. Which isn't good because it can come out in explosions like the one I had after visiting a museum. I really do like Vietnam. Some days I get soaked on the motorbike on the way home and I smile because it's so ridiculous and perfect and Vietnamese. But I'm going to be honest, there are some things that just piss me off. 

I'm tired of being ripped off in Vietnam. Yes, I experience racism. No, it does not look like it does in America or other countries. It looks like Vietnam racism. James has been refused service at a restaurant because he wasn't Vietnamese. We get charged for more at the market because we're white. We get charged to park our bike when every other Vietnamese person parks and walks away but we are the ones who get flagged down. Sure it's only the equivalent of $0.20 but I don't appreciate being taken advantage of because they assume I'm a tourist and truthfully I don't have the Vietnamese vocabulary to argue with them. 

Which leads me to discuss the waste of time it is to learn Vietnamese. Learning basics is extremely helpful and even just learning 1-10 has helped me tremendously. However, I am never going to use Vietnamese again after I leave Vietnam. The language is extremely tonal and each sound can change the word. (Say water and then say it in a funny accent. In English we understand, right? In Vietnam you would have just said water and go to hell).  I can't read, write, or speak Vietnamese. Most Vietnamese people speak little English as well. I've watched James order coffee countless times and say coffee black and iced in Vietnamese and they pretend to not understand or take the time to understand someone who is learning. People literally turn away from me as soon as they see me walk into a store because they know I speak English and they do not. Not being able to communicate with most people is difficult. It prevents you from making friends, telling people off, sending a wrong order back, or asking for shaving cream at the market. This language is isolating. 

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The lack of communication has led to basically no new friends. I've made friends form my CELTA class and from my job but not many people other than that. Finding friends as a couple is hard because most people are single here or knew people before they came. We don't go out much and live in a less touristy area so we're left with little in the way of friend options. Making friends in a new city is a lot harder than I thought. It can easily get very lonely and you want nothing more than to make meaningful relationships but how do you even do that? Especially when 98% of the population doesn't speak your language.

And to conclude my meltdown in the kitchen I flung open our kitchen cabinet that houses our pantry items and I yelled and pointed at the few things we have on the shelves and yelled about the things we did not have. We don't have an oven so baking/roasting anything is out of the question. Most products like oats, flour, peanut butter, pasta, chia seeds, and more "staple goods" are expensive. Our cabinet consists of very pricey olive oil, sunflower oil, soy sauce, a bag of rice, 50% off peanut butter, and a few spices. There's nothing that's easy to whip up and there surely aren't any snacks. Which I must say is good for my body but a snack every now and then would be nice. I was mainly tired of olive oil being "so freaking expensive" that I don't even want to cook with it because I want to savor it. I slammed the cabinet back because talking just about food could last for days. 

At the end of my very calm explanation of my feelings and experiences, I realized I hadn't even thought what I was going to do about anything. I had only been thinking about not getting my 2,000 ($0.10) back from the parking lady which started this whole thing. I want to say I'll use it to grow and accept that this will be and is hard. But I also fear that I know myself well and that I'll just use it as an excuse to complain more and crave the things that make me feel comfortable (like peanut butter, a car, and some cheap olive oil). I came here to not be comfortable. Instead of associating these experiences with a chance for growth I've been associating them with anger, discomfort, and frustration. Which has led me to horde a pile of angry emotions towards Vietnam. But that's my own fault. It's now up to me how I'm going to view my experiences. I won't love Vietnam or my life every single moment of every day. But I'm begging myself to use it to become better, smarter, wiser, more open, more cultured, and happier. Vietnam, you sometimes suck. But sometimes you're also exactly what I need. Even if I don't want to admit it.