Virtual-Doug

This and That

One of the customs I disliked the most in Việt Nam was having to take my shoes off when I entered a home.  It was a pain.  Strangely, it is one custom I seem to have retained here in America.  The only explanation I can think of is that in Việt Nam the floors are invariably tile, while most floors in America are carpeted.  Maybe it was just that tile floors were hard on my old bare feet, but carpet is comfortable.  Of course, I wear sandals in the summer heat, but will switch to shoes when colder weather arrives.  Shoes are more of a hassle to take off than sandals, so the Asian custom may pass.

While living in Huê, my friend Cu reinvigorated an old love of photography.  Some of my best memories of Huê are those of throwing a leg over our motorbikes and heading for the countryside to take pictures.  Since returning to America, photography has been my outlet.  I have always been a person who loves to learn – and there is much to learn about digital photography.  Just as in Việt Nam, when I leave the house, my camera is almost always with me.  I post some of my pictures at www.pbase.com/doug_young. 

My mother is a time sponge.  I spend of lot of time planning to do something with her, or doing something with her.  Sure, she lives in her own home, but nonetheless it takes time being with her.  As an example, she called me at 8:30 AM. She wanted me to come over and fix her clock.  Okay – no problem.  A bit later I walk over, and she tells me what she needs fixing.  It ain’t the clock.  She opens the closet to tell me that she can’t figure out how to turn off “that thing.”  It took me about five minutes to figure out she wanted the front porch light switched off.  I returned at 11:30 to bring her over for lunch, and took her home again at 2PM.  Later, I brought her her mail and chatted awhile.  No complaints – but at the end of the day, when I wonder why I’m tired and haven’t accomplished anything, I look back and realize I have accomplished a lot – I’ve kept a relationship going.

The Mystery Guest Blogger came up with a thought the other day.  If we were a traditional Vietnamese family with all generations living under the same roof, we would not be taking care of Mom - - our three granddaughters would be doing that. They would have grown up with their great grandmother – and loved her.

Many of my Vietnamese friends email me, trying to confirm a suspicion they have that the MGB and I will return soon.  I must have said something out of line before we left because that is a prevalent thought.  However, we simply do not know when we’ll return.  We want very much to go back with some work in mind.  One idea is to assist older teachers like ourselves.  It is harder for old-timers to adjust than twenty-somethings, and we mean to help get used to the very different way of life.

So - - this is retirement, eh?  My days seem just as long as ever.  But it sure beats going in to the office!

Making It: Redux

In the posting directly below about newspaper sellers, a comment was left by one of my friends in Huê, Việt Nam.  Tuân’s question is so good, I thought readers would be better served with another posting rather than trusting folks to go back and read comments.  He asks:  Is there any shoeshine or lottery ticket seller working on the streets in the big cities in the US?

In most of the decent sized cities in Việt Nam,  shoe shine boys proliferate.  Most of them are either homeless or from very poor families who cannot afford to send their kids to school.  If a western tourist, or a prosperous looking Vietnamese sits down to eat a meal at an outdoors place, they can usually expect to be approached by a shoe shine boy.  If you are a westerner, expect to hear “Where you from?”  I got to know one of them – his name is Lọc. 

There are no shoe shine kids in America.  Most cities have some sort of law prohibiting people from “panhandling” (meaning begging for money) on the streets, or from selling something without a license.  The very few shoe shiners you see are at fixed locations such as airports and fancy hotels.  They are always adults.

America has laws that prevent children under the age of 14 from working.  (There are exceptions.)  If a kid is out on the street trying to sell something, the police would pick him up quickly.

The lottery - - many states have lotteries, but the tickets for lotteries are sold in stores.   In Việt Nam, the tickets are sold by poor people who walk the streets trying to sell tickets to whomever they see.  Americans, of course, make the process complicated by having to use big computer systems to track everything, whereas the Vietnamese just sell tickets, then announce the winners over the television and at the various redemption centers around the city.  Again – there are no poor people selling lottery tickets in America.

One more thing to take into account:  in America, everything is air conditioned.  That means there are fewer opportunities for street people to sell anything. For instance, even if it was legal for a child to shine shoes in America, there are few places where potential customers eat outside, or drink coffee outside, and shop outside.  Selling newspapers is one of the few things that can be done on the streets, and that’s only because people in their air conditioned cars have to stop at traffic lights.

Of course that would never work in Việt Nam – nobody pays any attention to traffic lights there.

Making It

They don’t make a career doing this.  They sell newspapers on the street corner to survive.  The heat of a south Texas summer is vicious, but they work anyway – simply because they must.  Of course, there are no insurance packages – no employee discounts – no benefits.  They work as independent contractors, recruited from the homeless shelters and the Salvation Army.  None stay on the job very long – they move on to what they hope will be greener pastures.

(As always, be sure to click on each photo to see a larger version.)

He’d been doing this for only a few days, but already he had visions of making more money in Washington, DC.  Of course, he had never been to Washington, but he had heard there was lots of money in Washington.  Maybe there is, but the recently arrived illegal alien from Mexico had no way of verifying information, so he drifted on within a few days. Having no education and speaking virtually no English, the odds are stacked against him.

He speaks no English, has no skills, and has a handicap. Selling papers may be the only work that can be found.  But I noticed a toothy grin when I asked him if it was okay to take a photo.  He told me he’d been selling papers for four months and that he was able to eat and put a roof over his head – something he was unable to do in Mexico.

Not all are from Mexico.  After laughingly asking why I would want to take pictures of a “crazy woman”, she told me she’d come to South Texas from Pennsylvania with her father, but that “you live longer if you live up north.”  Selling newspapers pays her few bills, and her easy way of talking earns her a few extra tips.  I watched her work for awhile, but when I started to leave, she insisted I bring her a print of one of the photos.  I thought this one mirrored her chatty personality – and I hope she gets some small enjoyment from seeing herself at work.

And yes – I paid her $1.00 for a 50 cent newspaper.

The Mom Report

Its been a month since I last posted on this topic – a month of her trying to accustom herself to living in her new home, and a month of us learning about the new Mom.

Memory loss seems so simple.  After all, if a person can’t remember her son’s name, or her birthday party, that’s not a big deal.  A simple reminder should suffice to help the mind restore the lost memory.  But, we have learned that it’s not that simple. 

Not that simple at all. 

It gets complicated when she deals with a topic, then processes it, and understands.  But - - tomorrow, she not only has forgotten the particulars, but she has forgotten that she processed the topic.  She may know where to get her mail, but she cannot remember which box it’s in.  Nor does she remember she needs a key.

Social mixing is another perplexing subject.  She often expresses her loneliness and wants to chat. Okay – I can chat.  However, another time she may simply say she is just fine all alone.  But most times, she is quite happy when I visit her to just talk and listen.  Her memory loss is usually short term –memories of the distant past are incredible.  She loves to go through her “little books” (diaries) and talk of events in 1935 – and she can do that with amazing detail.

This too is a journey.  A journey for us.  We have no idea what God wants us to learn with this new journey, but I’ve learned to be patient.

In the meantime, I shall try to be a good son.

Re-Entry

Call it a “camp retreat” – the kind of get-together where people sit around the campfire and sing.  In a way, that’s what the Mystery Guest Blogger and I did last weekend.

There was a purpose, however.  It was a meeting to equip those of us who had just returned from teaching in Asia with the tools needed to readjust back into our own society.

To which the Gentle Reader is saying “Are you nuts?  What’s there to readjust to?  This is America, the best and richest country in the world.  Yer gonna tell me you miss Việt Nam?”

In a word, yes.

Some examples:  I rode a 100cc Honda motorbike during the past nine months.  I filled it up for 30,000 to 40,000 Vietnamese đông (between $1.80 and $2.50) every two weeks.  It is a bit exasperating for the newly returned to see that the idiot driving a Hummer doesn’t seem to understand he is part of the cause of gas being so expensive.

In this picture,  the MGB and I are both wearing ponchos.  Rainy weather?  Put a poncho on, and expect your feet to get wet.  Get back home to America and watch as people almost drive into the Wal-Mart to avoid getting wet – as if they might shrink.

I also left friends in Việt Nam. Good friends.  It was kinda kewl when Tuân came over and asked the MGB (he called her Mom) for some hot chocolate.  I miss running around the countryside with my friend Mr. Cu, the photographer. I miss my students.

Okay okay – I’ll stop whining.

But, things changed while we were gone.  When we left, our church met in a store front – now it has its own building.  (Yes – we saw it last summer.)  New people have moved in, and some have left.  A friend’s business closed.  My mother has memory loss.

And with all the change, we have nobody to talk to. That’s right – nobody to talk to about what we did for 1 ½ years.  People don’t ask because they don’t know enough about what we did or about living in another culture to ask a question.  So once the conversation starts with a perfunctory “How was Việt Nam?”, the topic soon reverts to the scores of last week’s football game or the latest baby in church.

Think about it – if you’re a man, would you talk to a woman about giving birth?  You have no idea what to ask or say, so men don’t talk to women about giving birth.  With no commonality, folks just don’t get into a conversation about our time in Việt Nam.

So we don’t talk about it.  At least that was the response until last weekend when we learned we need to be proactive.  We won’t keep it all inside.

We’re home – happy to be home – and we are going to share our experiences.

To my many veteran friends:  You may be surprised to know that the MGB and I found much of our experience not unlike coming back 36 years ago.  (For those of you who don’t know, we met in Việt Nam in 1969 – she was a nurse and I was a grunt.)  No – we weren’t in combat this time, but the same inability to talk about our experiences, and the sense of leaving behind the folks you deeply care about are very similar.

Absence

I'll be in California for a few days learning how to cope with reverse culture shock.

See you in awhile.

Situation: Complex

Gentle Readers – I seldom  write about me.  Most of the time I observe and write, but I seldom observe me.  This is an exception.

This morning, I was sifting through the myriad digital photos the Mystery Guest Blogger and I took in Việt Nam.  I came across this one:  it was taken the day before we left.  The MGB and Trang are sitting on Vọng Cảnh, a peaceful hill overlooking the Perfume River.

Trang is a special person.  She is not just one of my former students – she is a bright, ambitious young lady whom I grew to admire.  She and the MGB bonded tightly.  I was so proud of the work Trang did on her research paper – and have shown her finished paper to folks back here in America.  We still swap emails, and occasionally IM when we happen to be online at the same time.

The reason the MGB and I went to Việt Nam was to build relationships.  Frankly, before living there, I’m not sure I knew what the truly meant.  I was to find out that relationships are the absolute foundation of Việt Nam’s society.  That’s how things are done. In Việt Nam, there is no such thing as a separate professional life, nor a family life, nor a sex life, nor a spiritual life – they are all one in the same.  If you develop a strong relationship with someone, you are brought into the entirety of that person’s life. It is the norm to ask details of someone’s life.

Back in December, I posted an entry about Relationships.  (Read the comments too, especially the one about the book “Bowling Alone”.)  A Canadian librarian spent six months in Viet Nam, and Mark observed the tight nature of relationships – read Social Gatherings  , including the link to Mark’s blog  and the comments.  Westerners, especially Americans, are very superficial in their relationships, and move in and out of “friendships” easily.  For the Vietnamese, a friendship is something that endures for life.

America struggles with its loneliness – and you might read today’s story on the topic from the Associated Press.  It too mentions “Bowling Alone.”

Yes – I am missing Viet Nam, or more particularly, the relationships I had there – the ones I worked so hard at developing.   I miss the intensity of working hard to get to know people.  So tonight, I did something about that.  I went over to Mom’s – and we just chatted for two hours.

Its all about relationships.

Love One Another

They’re good kids.  They’re the kids older people love to complain about, saying they’re too selfish and too shallow.  But here they were, sleeping on the floor of a church in Texas for a week, trooping over into Mexico each day to help children who will never have what they have.  They were missionaries, if only for a week,

They went to see orphans.  Reynosa, Mexico,  is a large city on the border with America where many poor Mexicans come to find jobs in one of the maquiladora factories  in the area.  For those who can’t hack it, the children suffer.

Some of the orphanages in the city are run by Catholic nuns.  They receive no help from the government and subsist on the largesse of others.  When our group arrived, they were met by a church group from Illinois/Missouri who were painting the interior.  Help comes from many places.

The missionaries-for-a-week brought shoes – shoes given by well-to-do families of San Antonio.  It was a time when young adults bonded with younger kids – a time when the young adults found out about how others live in this world.  Don’t misunderstand – this was not a tough time.  This was a time of laughter and fun.  It was a learning time.

The other orphanage was run by the government.  More boxes of donated toys and clothes were delivered.  Most of the  young missionaries headed towards the nursery, while the leaders arranged to deliver stuffed toys and crosses to the older kids.  The young orphans created an atmosphere of both joy and concern.  There was a set of three-day old twins who had just arrived.  Its tough to hold a new life in your hands and ponder what lies in the future for one born with no family in a land of little opportunity.

Sometimes the excitement and commotion is a bit difficult to handle.  Strangers had come into her home, and this little one’s insecurity brought tears.  Off to one side, some words of comfort and love.  Nearby, another little girl got some help with her new shoes.

As I watched all this, I wondered what lay ahead for all involved.  Life will be hard for the orphans.  For the ones in the government orphanage, they will have to fend for themselves once they turn fourteen.  Those from the Catholic orphanages will probably do better as they were raised in a more nurturing environment and can stay there as long as they wish.

It’s the young missionaries I am more curious about.  They have choices.  They are well educated, and come from middle-class homes.  I wonder how many will make the choice of serving themselves.

– or, after this, of serving others.