Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I haven't liked anything I've written lately.  I think it might have something to do with the books I've been reading.  Those authors are so much better than me it makes it hard to get motivated sometimes.  But as I stated in my very first post, most blogs don't get written in, and I refuse to fall into one of those.  The only way to get better at something is to practice.

We are fast approaching our one year anniversary of our move to Vietnam.  It's amazing to think about how much our lives have changed during that year.  It's amusing to think about the fear I had about moving here.  It's not like other countries are inhabited by aliens, but that's exactly how it felt. 

Here's an exerpt from an email I sent back to the home office in July:

And it IS hard to live out here.  Harder than I ever imagined.  It’s not just hard, it’s dangerous and it’s lonesome.  I really think [person living in Macau whose name has been removed] has it worse than me, mainly because she can’t drive.  She’s pretty limited in where she can go.  She lives on an island.  She needs a $500 visa to go to China, or she can take the ferry to Hong Kong.  HK is huge and confusing much like HCMC.  I think it just takes so much energy to go there and find something it’s not worth it after a while.  I can imagine that she feels isolated and alone a lot of the time.  We deal with it too.  It’s easier to do nothing than fight the world to do something that is a cheap imitation of home.

The video I put on YouTube is funny and crazy, but I do that every day.  People in the US say things like “you never know, you might get hit by a bus.”  Well living here, that is a very real possibility.  I doubt anyone there thinks “I could die today” every time he steps out of the house to drive to work.  I do.  I live with that every day.  What would happen to Reyna if I died going to the job site or got hit by a bus on my way to work?  Or worse, Reyna could die.  She has to drive more often and much farther to get to her jobs than I do.  Two weeks ago, I gave her a ride to work because her motorbike broke down.  On the way we saw an accident.  I’m going to guess that someone did get hit by a bus.  All that was left was a broken helmet, two flip-flops and a puddle of blood and brains in the street.  That is everyday life here.  I came less than an inch from being hit by a taxi last weekend.  I came less than a foot from being hit by a taxi in Macau. What are risks like that worth?  What if someone did die?

Then there’s a million little things.  When was the last time you got absolutely soaked to the bone?  That happens to us multiple times per week.  We have rain gear, but it doesn’t matter.  Just tonight, we drove through a driving rain storm to have dinner for Reyna’s birthday.  We sat at a super nice restaurant, soaked to the skin and pruned, ate and then a rain-soaked 20 minute ride home.  You spend more than half your life here wet, either sweating or getting rained on.  That doesn’t make anything easier.  Have you ever been stuck at the office because of rain?  It happens to me at least once a week.  We’re all just sitting around, sometimes for hours, waiting for it to stop raining enough to get home.  When is the last time you got sprayed in the face with water from a person passing you, or had a truck drive by and soak you with water from a puddle?  Living out here is HARD.

 We are looking for a new place to live.  After someone across the street  died and a band played without stopping for five days straight, we decided we need to move to a quieter neighborhood.  Getting a decent place to live is EXPENSIVE.  In four months I have looked at exactly one place that even comes close to meeting my standards as a home, or an escape.  Rent? $1500 a month, which is on the low end compared to what a lot of people pay.  I can’t afford it.  To add insult to injury, the guy showing the place told me that teachers from the international school live in the adjacent house.  Their benefits outstrip mine.  Depressing.

When I read that I can feel how sad I was.  I sent that email at 4:02am five days before my 35th birthday and three months after we moved.  Those first three months were incredibly rough.  A couple of those things didn't play out like I expected them to when I wrote that email, though.  Mainly, we were able to find a place to live that was both agreeable and affordable about 10 weeks after I wrote it.

I've spent time since then wondering if the constant comparing and contrasting between living here and living in the US is uniquely American.  Some people (non-American people) believe that it is.  I'm semi-inclined to believe them.  It is a uniquely American trait to believe that everyone on Earth thinks and wants the same things that Americans think and want.  Not everyone is suffering under the iron fist of communism like many American politicians would have you believe.  Not everyone looks across the ocean and says, "those guys have it made!"  That has been one of my biggest realizations from the last year.  It's better to spend time doing stuff than to think "If I had X, then I could do Y."  I spent a lot of time thinking that when I lived in America.  "If I had the Sports Package on DirectTV then I could watch Champion's League" springs to mind.

Being an American and reading that email makes me realize how much more persistent we are now than we were when we first moved.  In the US, if it's not in the couch cushions it's not worth looking for.  It's Spend-Ten-Minutes-Looking-For-The-Remote-Rather-Than-Walk-Up-And-Turn-On-The-Television Syndrom at it's best.  If you'd told me I would go an entire year and order less than two things on the Internets* eighteen months ago I would assume I died early in the year, yet here we are.  Where we once lamented what we were forced to live without, now it seems that we are focusing on what we gain by taking this opportunity.

*I'm choosing to not count Kindle e-books here.  You don't order them and wait for them to come in the mail.  I did buy an iPad online, but it got delivered to our office in the US and then a coworker brought it to me in his luggage.  So it took like a month to get to me**.  I'm not sure that counts either.  Other than that, nothing.

**Living here will definitely teach you lessons in delayed gratification.  I ordered my bicycle more than a month ago and it's still not here.  It's only coming from Singapore.

But our lives are still our lives.  We still have bad days, still have cranky moods, still feel lazy and don't feel like fighting the traffic to go to dinner.  But it's no different from when we lived in Vegas.  Sometimes we really wanted to go to Burger Bar, but the desire to hear each other speak was more important.  We still feel the same frustration when we need a certain ingredient for dinner and can't find it, but our endurance is much higher.  We are also better at shrugging and going without, and you know something, our lives aren't any less rich.  If anything it's forced us to adapt and overcome.  Not being able to find the exact bicycle is, in the grand scope of life, not that big a deal.  Getting on the bike and, you know, riding is what's important.  Of course that didn't stop me from spending entirely too much money on a fancy bike.

I've stopped making mental lists about what I plan to do and buy when I return to the US.  I've lived without them for a year, so they must not be that critical for happiness or survival.  What we need to live has been redefined and I'm happy with the outcome.  I chatted online with a friend of mine in Virginia earlier and he was telling me about all these great beers he's been trying lately.  He said he'd get me some and send them to me next time I'm back.  I thanked him and said, "don't worry about it."  He must think I've gone insane.  I love beer like it's a family member.  Or at least I did when there was more than two kinds around.  I don't actually require 347 kinds of beer to sit and enjoy one.  Isn't that strange?  I will admit, though, that a St. James Gate Brewery Guinness Draght would still hit the spot right about now.

Anyway.  I like this better than anything I've written in the last month and that's why I'm here.  I could go on, but I won't beat this horse any longer (today).  We'll talk again soon search engines.

Epilogue:  And as if on cue, my phone just rang.  It was Reyna calling to tell me that her bike broke down on the way to pick me up.  I could tell she's mildly exasperated, but her demeanor was more jokey than anything.  "Guess what?  I'm not going to be there in ten minutes because I'm walking my bike to the mechanic on the corner of Dien Bien Phu and Le Quoc Dinh.  I'll let you know what he says."  How many Americans can you think of that would respond like that?  I'll answer for you: NONE.  But that's a part of our lives now.  It's not a day ruining affair when the bike won't start anymore.  Our bikes break down, we pay $3 to get them fixed on the corner and then we get on with our day.  Isn't that novel?