Recently, I was struck by how nobody really knows what’s going on.

I was thinking about someone I had interviewed for a magazine article. In an interview situation, the presumption is that the interviewee is either a person of public interest (e.g., a celebrity) or an expert of sorts—that’s why it’s worth writing down his/her words, and worth it for others to read them. The interviewer and interviewee thus play their appropriate roles. Reflecting on this interview later, while preparing my article, I was struck by a feeling that something was off about it. It dawned on me that I had taken the roles a bit too seriously and whenever the person I was interviewing waffled on something, I was uncomfortable. There was a look in his eyes when I asked him some questions that bothered me. After the interview was over, he asked me a few questions similar to those I had asked him. I knew it made sense and was an appropriate form of conversation, but the role reversal threw me off.

The look on my interviewer's face that had momentarily bothered me had a name: uncertainty.

He is, of course, human, and it can be scary to trust your words in the hands of someone else. But he also wasn’t really an expert on the questions I was asking him, which were essentially about his choice of lifestyle.

Nobody is an expert on the subject of how to live.

It’s easy to forget this from time to time. I’m constantly reading and listening to podcasts, and I find myself drawn to content with a philosophical bend, whether it’s Patti Smith talking about her new memoir on NPR or an essay about why bookstores matter on Salon.com. Those two were a valuable use of my time. The worst is when I get sucked into reading articles with titles like “How do I balance happiness and financial responsibility?” or “How to know what you should be doing with your life.”  All of these content creators made this stuff up out of their heads, just like I did when I sang a stupid impromptu song to Phil when he got home from work the other day.

We all live our lives mostly in our heads, after all.

Barack Obama makes up what he believes are ethical decisions on behalf of a nation, Rilke made up the letters he wrote to a young poet he didn’t know, and Joni Mitchell decided to mess with the tuning of her guitar and write some songs that she made up.

Nobody has all of the answers. But some are brave enough to venture putting something that they’ve made up out there into the world. And a few of these people are deemed worthy of listening to, either by the collective or by others with influence or power. This doesn’t mean that the rest of us should take what they've made up and turn it into a personal doctrine. That's just lazy. Their philosophies may be worth prescribing to. They may not.

Taking that further, even those closest to you don’t have the answers that you need—not your parents or your friends or your significant other or your boss or your siblings. They can venture something, but it’s up to each of us to define our own philosophies, whether it’s a mashup of things that we’ve read or heard or seen or something that only comes from within us.

I struggle with this. I like to talk through my problems and my life philosophy and consider all options. Maybe it’s why I like listening to this song, as a personal reminder. But, as cool as Jim James is, My Morning Jacket doesn’t have all of the answers either.

We can’t lean on anyone too hard. As my mom said to me once, it’s most important that you can live with yourself. It’s both scary and freeing to recognize that life is mostly about just doing your thing. Because we’re all moving through this world accompanied by our own thoughts, trying to figure it out each and every day.

One of the many books I’ve read since arriving in Vietnam is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I only had a vague idea what it was about, but figured it would be relevant to my new life, getting around on two wheels rather than four. I didn’t expect the amount of philosophical discourse, though that aspect of the book was actually most relevant to my situation at the time of my reading.

Phil says that in Vietnam you see more of people. Due to the climate, most restaurants and cafes are indoor-outdoor spaces year-round, so there always seem to be people out and about. Furthermore, most of us tuck ourselves into cars, shelter on wheels, to get from place to place in Michigan. Your fellow drivers are perceived as headlights, bumper stickers, and shiny paint colors—maybe floating heads and shoulders, if you’re driving slowly enough or care to notice. In Vietnam, you can see the footwear choices of the pair on your right and notice that the woman on your left has probably just gone to the market because she has a plastic bag full of tomatoes, peppers, and chives hanging from her bike handle.

It was only on our longer bike trip to Mỹ Sơn this past weekend that the road-tripping-on-two-wheels element of Robert Pirsig’s manifesto began to have meaning for me. Phil’s bike is functioning OK for his commute to and from school, but it needs to have a part replaced. My bike was recently repaired, thanks to the help of one of our building’s security men, so we deemed it the better choice for the trip. However, my bike is smaller, lighter, and likes to go about 50 km/h max. It’s the perfect bike for me to use in getting around town—I prefer to putz as I’m still getting used to traffic patterns here and the lightness makes it easy for me to move when it’s off—but is perhaps not entirely ideal for long road trips. Plus, Phil, the more experience driver, drove us there and he prefers to drive a bit faster than me. Luckily he’s patient.

We figured Mỹ Sơn would be a good first road trip for us because it’s not too far away from Da Nang—just over 50km—and we’d heard the route was fairly simple, including plenty of signs the closer you get to the landmark.

The first stretch was simple city driving. The only part that threw us for a loop was a series of speed bumps. Many roads in Da Nang have speed bump markings that are fakeouts, more decorative than anything. These speed bumps were no joke, and we hit them hard. My light bike may have gone airborne. As we landed, I slid forward into Phil, pushing him toward the handlebars. On flat road again, I picked myself up and readjusted backward. This is when I began to notice that a part of each of my butt cheeks was hanging off the edge of the seat. I was grateful once more that Phil and I are both petite (by American standards). It makes moving around Asia easier for the two of us.

We were warned about the portion of the trip spent on the highway. We were told that it’s bumpy and that it’s important for motorbikes to stay on the shoulder because quite a few trucks take this route—it’s better to stay completely out of their way to allow them to overtake you easily. We didn’t find it to be all that bad. In fact, the raised road allowed us to see beautiful sweeping landscapes full of rice paddies, water buffalo, and neighborhood pagodas. We drove over a couple of rivers and were level with the roofs of clusters of colorful three-story traditional Vietnamese homes. We didn’t talk much. Phil kept a steady pace. I began to feel, in my hips, the straddling position that I had to maintain as the passenger.

After the highway, it seemed we were really someplace new, deeper into the countryside. The air was thicker; we were making our way into the jungle. Tarps with rows of sesame rice crackers, called bánh tráng, were drying in the sun outside of homes. Road signs with generic city skylines told us we were entering a more densely populated area. As we were about to leave these areas, the same sign would be seen again, but this time with a big red slash through it. City. No City. It was at this point that I noticed how high my knees had to be to stay on the footrests.

When we arrived at Mỹ Sơn, I found it difficult to swing my leg up and over to get off the bike. My feet were tingling from sitting still and from the rumble of the engine. Phil and I did a series of stretches before walking to buy our entry tickets. I thought 1) That’s about how far my friend’s brother ran in Qatar earlier this month and 2) How the hell do people ride motorcycles thousands of miles across the United States? I felt simultaneously naive in overall life experiences and childishly proud that we had gotten ourselves out to this remote place all by ourselves. The tour buses that passed us on their way out made us feel even cooler. There may have been a high five or two.

The research that we had done said if you’re expecting Mỹ Sơn to be a mini Angkor, you’ll be disappointed. As someone who has previously visited Angkor, I found the comparison to be just about right as long as the word “mini” is given its appropriate consideration. We got there around lunch time and sat down for a snack of sliced Japanese sweet potato that we had cooked in our rice cooker a couple of days before. We sat on benches in front of the biggest series of ruins as a couple of workers took their midday nap in hammocks behind us. Our timing meant that most of the tour groups had left or had yet to arrive, and we didn’t have to share the place with too many other tourists. It helped us feel how truly in the middle of nowhere this place is.

It was at Mỹ Sơn that I was first able to imagine what it must have been like as an American fighting in the war, in that mysterious foreign terrain. My skin was damp with sweat. The air is simply different from the coast. I remembered my friend’s dad, who fought in the war, telling me that soldiers died of exposure when it got down to 70 degrees. I couldn’t comprehend that back home, but ambling through these ruins, I understood. That jungle air must be thick enough to drink through a straw in July or August.

The effects of the war on the structures made the phrase “Mỹ Sơn ruins” more accurate—decades-old bomb craters lay next to crumbling piles of rocks built by people who couldn’t fathom bombs, airplanes, or white skin that burns in the sun. Some of the craters were overgrown with grass or filled with water and plant life, lending a surreal, ironic beauty to the landscape. We wandered around for a while, taking some photos and marveling at the things these carved faces had seen—long years of nothing, of peace, punctured by a few brief moments of destructive chaos, attempts at restoration, and now faces from all over the world considering what it meant and now means.

Then we hopped back on our bike and made our way home, where we lied in bed and watched Parks and Recreation, laughing at jokes that we understood with perfect clarity, grounding us firmly back in our time and within our familiar culture. The rest of the day felt more and more like a storybook adventure as our tired muscles relaxed on the sheets we brought from home.

This will be my first Christmas without snow. OK, maybe it didn’t snow every Christmas that I spent in Michigan. It’s at least my first Christmas without a jacket and gloves.

And yes, I went to Florida to visit my grandparents for Christmas once, but that was bookended by snow, like the sunny daydreams that would take me away from my cubicle deep in the dark Founders brewery cellar, temporarily, making the darkness that much more cavernous upon my return to “reality”.

My point is, it’s a new feeling to walk, ride, and pedal through December in a tank top and shorts, exposed to the elements, rather than hibernating in puffy jackets and heated vehicles. Every day is more or less the same as far as the weather is concerned. Some days are sunnier than others, some windier. Sometimes it rains in the afternoon or while I sleep.

In August, it would get up to the high 90s during the day. Those were the days when the inevitability of sweat was a constant consideration in my clothing choices. Black or white work well. Gray does not. Loose fits are preferred to anything form fitting. Normal bras, with any amount of padding, soaked up my sweat like a sponge and caused pools to form in the touch of cleavage they inspired. Underwire was beyond irritating. I switched to wearing bralets or going braless most of the time. Thank goodness I’m small chested. I don’t know how women with big knockers swing it—or, more accurately, keep it in place—in the heat.

Gradually the highs have gone down to the mid- to high 80s. Mostly now, it’s pleasant. My apartment windows are open all day. We only turn on the A/C at night to rid our room of humidity and to block out noises from the street. We still store our sugary food items (chocolate, fruits) in the fridge to keep ants and fruit flies away. And, while I understand that excessive packaging is bad for the environment, it actually makes sense to wrap things in serving size bits here in Vietnam. No matter how tightly we roll our opened sleeves of Ritz crackers, they’ll go stale in a day or two.

I fear that I’ve already turned cold blooded. I put on a jacket and pants when the temperature dips down to 73, the thick skin of twenty-seven years of braving Michigan winters erased in mere months. But even that dip doesn’t happen often, and most of my pants and lightweight jackets remain in my closet, reminding me of warm weather clothing items I could have packed in their stead, sitting useless in my basement as I wash and wear the same tank tops over and over again.

“Winter is coming,” one of the Vietnamese women who works at the front desk of our apartment building, Trang, said to me yesterday.

I highly doubt she watches Game of Thrones, but it was so perfect. When is winter coming exactly?

“It doesn’t look like it today,” I said, referencing the blue skies. She giggled.

“It’s like autumn at home for you,” she suggested.

“This is like summer at home,” I responded.

Trang and the other woman, Chau, laughed heartily at the oddity of my statement. It was noon, maybe 85 degrees, and Trang was wearing a jacket. Her arms are always covered, even when she’s indoors. What would she do in subzero temperatures? Does she try to imagine it? How does one imagine the rawness of exposed skin when the wind whips, feeling it cut through your gloves and skin to the bones in every finger, knuckles throbbing? The quiet solitude of tromping through the woods on freshly fallen snow, the clarity of the stars in the winter sky? Or is it too ridiculous for her to fathom living in such a place?

Christmas music plays from time to time at the cafes here, and my initial reaction is to be disconcerted. My brows actually furrow. Then, I remember that it’s December. And the song is over, replaced by a cover of the Titanic theme song. Some resorts and restaurants have put out Christmas decorations, but they feel out of place to the point of depressing counterfeit—though I smiled at the workers outside the hotel on my street as they rebuilt a fake Christmas tree that had fallen over in the wind because I’m white and I’m supposed to be pleased by it, it's for people like me, so why not show some teeth, make them feel good for their effort.

The seasons don’t pass visibly around me, only through the changing date at the top of my journal pages. The plant life is the same. I don’t have to scrape off my car or add layers of clothing. The days are a bit shorter, but I’m close enough to the Equator that it’s ever so slight. It’s the strangest sense of false stasis, knowing that I’m moving around the sun on the same orb as my family in Michigan, but not seeing reflections of that celestial path on my little speck of the Earth’s crust.

I met with a financial adviser even before many of my friends knew I was going to quit my job and move abroad. I had worked hard for five years after graduating from college to save and to be financially independent. I didn't want that to go out the door just because I was taking a risk and going on an overseas adventure, without a job waiting for me. My financial adviser knew my entire situation and helped me find a debit card with his institution that reimburses me for all ATM fees, no matter what. This has been truly wonderful, not only in Vietnam but for traveling throughout SE Asia. However, when I asked about my retirement rollover funds that hadn't showed up in my account yet, I found out that my institution can't advise people who are living overseas, regardless of citizenship. They wouldn’t even answer my inquiry. I contacted my former employer, and my mom received a check from them in short order. She had to handle the deposit for me. Thankfully I had put her on my accounts. In fact, my adviser had recommended it. Sneaky, huh?

I was able to find a credit card meant for travelers without foreign transaction fees, though I find it funny that I was required to use an American address in connection with the account. So I used my parents' address.

Then I discovered that I couldn't stop my mail altogether, so I forwarded my mail to my parents, too.

I submitted a poem to an online publication today and was asked to include a mailing address on the form. I can’t think why. Yet I still dutifully typed in my parents’ address. You see, the mail system in Vietnam isn’t  the most reliable. The women at the front desk of our apartment recommended that the apartment phone number be listed beneath the address on all incoming mail, so the delivery guy could call them if he didn’t know where to deliver it. And even though this is a fully online publication that pays next to nothing (“token payment”), if my poem gets published and something is sent in the mail, maybe a free pen or a pin, I don’t want it to get lost.

I rent out my condo to cover my mortgage and the cost of my (cheap) rent here, as well as to continue to build equity. My mom collects the rent from my tenants and deposits it in my account monthly.

Financially, long-term expats seem to fall into some combination of the following three camps: 1) reliant on folks at home (me) 2) reliant on employers that are equipped for international financial dealings or 3) having more of a cash-based financial strategy. I don’t see myself moving into camp #2 anytime soon, and obviously #3 isn’t ideal for retirement saving or looking to move back to the States, particularly in a nation with a weak currency.

Despite my hard work over the last five years, and my attempts at preparedness, my financial independence has been stymied by living overseas. I'm lucky to have parents who are willing and able to take care of these things for me, but it sometimes feels like the financial equivalent of living in their basement.

Furthermore, many American-based organizations and institutions do what they can to get you to call a toll free number, having limited hours for live online chats and burying their email inquiry forms. Live chats functional only during business hours on the West Coast are the worst for my time zone—they essentially represent the hours during which I’m sleeping. Ironically, I found this customer service sinkhole when booking an international flight through a third party travel website. You’d think a company that I paid to get from one foreign country to another would have this one figured out.

Leaving the States for this long has helped me realize how navel-gazing Americans truly are, from media to business. The media spends so much time talking about what’s happening in America, or how international events affect US. And international customers simply aren’t considered in most customer service efforts.

I’ve toned down my American consumer mentality with Vietnamese retail and dining experiences. My experience would be ruined if I didn’t—I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. But I’m nonetheless indignant when American organizations don’t cater to me while I’m living abroad. I’m a paying customer—and I’m still paying taxes, after all!

What’s scarier than the unknown?
Whether it comes from outside or within
    today or tomorrow?

How can a place so different become normalized?

Unfamiliar accent marks blur into a patterned bokeh

ăâáắấàằầảẳẩãẵẫạặậđ₫êéếèềẻểẽễẹệíìỉĩịôơóốớòồờỏổởõỗỡọộợưúứùừủửũữụựýỳỷỹỵ

Foreign (native) language nothing more than a melodic soundtrack for
Repeated movements mapped in pencil, traced over again in ink
Neural pathways hardening

Glutton for the punishment of routine
Sacrifices made for ease


Must

resist

I continue to add to the second most depressing spreadsheet I’ve ever created. It’s called “VietnamJobResearch.xlsx” and I’m on row 131.

As promised in a previous blog post, it’s time for me to write about my job search experience here in Da Nang. The following highlight reel consists of some jobs to which I’ve formally applied and have been documented in my Excel file. Others were more informal, passing my name along and the like, and haven’t been documented until now. This list is not exhaustive and merely represents oddity or what I hope is entertainment value.

• Shortly after arriving, the CEO of the local hospitality school kindly met with me and gave me contact information for GMs at 11 different local resorts. I emailed all of them and heard back from five. I met with one in late August, who was excited about my experience and potential to help with the rebranding of a new set of hotels. Despite several meetings, including a tour of the facility, the project has stalled and I still haven’t heard back on next steps. Apparently, according to my friends, this is just the way things are in Vietnam. On the bright side, I got a free meal and some drinks out of it. The GM is a really nice guy. (Note: I’ve found that most marketing positions at resorts here are filled by Vietnamese nationals—it’s often the first line in the job posting’s qualifications list. I’ve been told that, mostly, this means the hiring company does not want to pay a Western wage to fill the role.)
  
• According to the local beer company contacts I’ve been able to find, all beer marketing in Vietnam is done in Ho Chi Minh City. Admittedly, I haven’t pursued this one with too much gusto. I’m not sure any other beer marketing would live up to the job I quit in order to come here.
  
• After foolishly taking stock in a glib article about how to make money while traveling, I spent a couple of hours creating an istockphoto profile and submitting photos for purchase. I may have a decent eye, but my camera is, and has always been, my iPhone. I check my account every once in a while, with an embarrassing tinge of hope that is soon replaced by self-deprecating laughter when I see the $0 balance.
  
• Not long after I arrived, a Vietnamese tea company posted on the Danang Hoi An Expats Facebook page looking for a blogger. A couple of my friends were nice enough to point it out to me, so I applied. When the Russian owner in Nha Trang saw my beverage industry experience, he asked if I would like to do some marketing for them, but to really focus on helping them break into the U.S. market by working with distributors and retailers. His English wasn’t very good, and our Skype connection sucked, but I could tell he was excited—because he said it, not because he spoke with emotion. He’s Russian. Anyway, I located their teas at a tourist gift shop and was shocked at how expensive they were, even by Western standards. I sent him a long follow up email with a list of questions and some parameters. He responded with an equally long email that addressed neither the questions nor the parameters and implied that he wanted me to work for commission only. My stomach was warning me against this one, and my head was asking “How will I know how much profit they’re making from 500 km away? What would keep them honest with the commission payments?” Vague stories of other expats being screwed over in business prospects rang in my ears. I told him I needed to have some sort of base pay, and suggested some alternatives. I never heard from him again.
  
• I’ve been halfway through completing freelance writing applications to realize that they pay in the ballpark of $4 for 1000 words. This is not an exaggeration. One application I submitted wanted writers to work for free—and I have four times the number of Facebook friends as they had fans on their page. I’m not bragging. The point is, that’s not writing for exposure, that’s wasting time, and I told them so in a snarky email. I couldn’t help myself.
  
• I’ve applied for 25 jobs with titles like “online editor” or “B2B proofreader (offsite)” or “email copywriter”, many for agencies that aren’t even named in the job posting. A solid handful of these applications were submitted during a particularly desperate two-day period.
  
• I’ve created profiles for two separate “marketplaces” that allow you to pick up work when it becomes available. When I sign into one, there’s nothing there at all, not even the test that I was supposed to take before being able to pick up assignments. And, despite some frustrated googling, I can’t remember the name of the other, and I forgot to put it on my spreadsheet.
  
• Helping a friend of a friend with marketing efforts for local golf courses. However this friend might have been confusing two different courses, and his friend might not need the help after all. No harm, no foul.
  
• A retail shop in Hoi An was looking for a Western manager three days a week. I met with the owner and visited the shop with a friend. Unfortunately, Hoi An is quite the commute, they haven’t had new clothing designs in months, and I’m not interested in retail experience. I would be able to meet lots of people from all over the world, but sitting in that shop all day had a depressing air to it. One friend said that, when she was approached to work for them, they offered her $5 an hour. She told me to accept it with the mindset that it was temporary. I decided to take my chances and leave that one be.
  
• Helping a local international school with their website and social media content. They hired an unpaid intern.
  

Some of these things may pull through yet, you never know. And I have so many people here looking out for me, it’s amazing, and I couldn’t be more grateful. But, still, it’s quite the list, eh?

So far, here’s what I’ve been paid to do since arriving in Vietnam:

• Presenting the first round of a marketing audit to an arts collective, with the potential for two more rounds of presentations
  
• Writing, digital marketing work, and social media consulting for my mom’s company, Artemis Strategy Group (some of which I’ve been doing in my free time for more than 3 years now)
  
• Writing a few property descriptions and some ad copy for Phil’s sister, Amy’s, real estate agency
  
• And writing my first-ever paid piece of editorial for Incomes Abroad, with more published pieces to come—hopefully, as the pay comes when the pieces run
  

I’ve been here for four months, and this doesn’t feel like near enough.

However, I’ve started this blog, have submitted some poetry and personal essays to literary journals (because why not?), am more than 30 pages into a screenplay (that may never turn into anything other than a file on my computer), and have read 9 full books, two halves (one that will become a whole, one that won’t) and a dozen or more short stories. I’ve spent many a morning in a cafe and afternoon on the beach (including a cool-off swim today because I was sweaty from sunbathing on November-freaking-19th, my fellow Michiganders!). I can’t speak as much Vietnamese as I’d like, and I’m still shaky on a motorbike, but there’s time.

Today, before my swim, over a lunch of $1.25 spring rolls, I met a small-in-stature, long-haired, quiet-talking Brit-turned-Kiwi who’s on his fourth trip driving up and down Vietnam on a motorbike. He told me this is his favorite place in the country.

I haven’t found a full-time job, it’s true. But, on the good days, I’m able to see that all of this, the whole damn thing, is worth so much more than a paycheck. Help remind me when I forget, OK?

We were told to be careful in Bangkok—watch out for scammers and keep your belongings close. Only ride in cabs with meters.

Bangkok was set to be one of the most popular tourist destinations in 2015 before the bombing in August. Obviously the scammers alone didn’t ruin the city’s reputation, and the customs line at BKK on Halloween night was full of people speaking all sorts of different languages, holding passports in various shades of red, green, and blue.

I struggle to point the finger at people trying to make some money off of those who have far superior spending power. Where do you draw the line between scamming and simple negotiation? It isn’t always clear. In Vietnam, I’m frequently “scammed” in the sense of having to pay more for something than a Vietnamese person would. There’s no getting around this, and I’ve come to accept it. In Bangkok, things were a bit more stark.

Following the directions provided by our hostel, we used the subway system in the airport to get closer to our destination, with the goal of picking up a cheap cab to carry us the rest of the way. The hostel’s website told us how much we should expect to pay. We got off the subway and walked down the street, encumbered by our bags. We were easy targets—countless cabbies shouted in our direction. Two in a row pulled up to us, then pulled away when we asked if they had a meter. One guy said yes, he had a meter, then when I showed him the address of our hostel on my phone, he drove away, almost taking my arm with him. We walked down the street a bit and found a man who seemed nice enough, with good English. We should have noticed that his meter started at 30 baht (a bit less than a dollar). The drive wasn’t far, and the meter racked up a bill of 250 baht. The hostel website said we should expect to pay 70-120 baht, based on traffic. Too late now. Phil took out the change he had received from buying the subway tickets at the station and passed over a 500 baht bill. The taxi driver called him out—it was a 50 baht bill. He had been given incorrect change at the official-seeming subway ticketing booth, in the airport.

We had a sour taste in our mouths.

But, our acting Thai grandmother replaced that taste with delicious, complex, spicy-sweet-salty flavors when she spoon-fed us, one after the other, on the streets of Bangkok’s Chinatown that night. We had ordered from the stand next to hers.

We were only in Bangkok for two nights, with one whole day sandwiched in between. We kept our to-do list short, and, as always happens, it was shortened by necessity as we went on.

Traveling from place-to-place takes some time in Bangkok. It’s a large city. (This was clear from the 49th floor of the Marriot, where we sipped $14 beverages. It was worth it.) So we spent a fair amount of time on the subway. That’s where I noticed how much makeup the young women were wearing, and how many seemed to be constantly applying more, then taking photos of themselves. It’s not such a big surprise that the Siam Paragon was the most Instagrammed place of 2013. An Australian man who was staying in our hostel and planning to move to Bangkok with his family in the months ahead told us the mall was worth a visit. He was right. We got lost in the basement food court, and there were Ferraris parked in display rooms on the second level—or was it the third? That place was gigantic. Commercialism was flaunted in Bangkok.

Phil remarked on the many groups of homosexual men and transgender Thai people we had passed—something we don’t see much of in Da Nang.

In Chiang Mai, it was explained to us that some of these are self-identified “ladyboys” or “katoeys”. We also noticed women who drew on traditionally male aesthetics—later research led me to the phrase “Thai tom” (as well as “dee”). Whereas gender identity seems to be quite clearly defined in my corner of Vietnam, gender fluidity seems to be a part of Thai culture and identity, or at least that of young, urban, progressive Thai people.

Chiang Mai itself is a hippy backpacker mecca, full of loose pants with wild prints, dreadlocks, murals down every soi, and 2pm garden beers. We found it to be a lovely place to visit, particularly for someone coming from a place with less Western influence—bookstores, English everywhere, Mexican food—but figured it would be difficult to live there with such a transitory population. And traffic was a mess. We may have sat through the longest traffic light of our lives at Nimmanhaemin Road. (Note: public transport is a contentious topic among expats.)

My favorite part of Chiang Mai was wondering through the sois (small streets, almost alleys) stumbling upon cute cafes, tiny shops, guest houses galore, acoustic music sets, and temples (called “wats”). Monks in orange and yellow robes dotted the streets, passing behind us while we withdrew money at an ATM. At one of the larger wats in the Old City, Wat Phra Singh, we peeked into a temple building to see a monk sitting crossed legged on a cushion and staring at his smartphone—was he scrolling through Facebook, or looking up the translation of an important religious text? We’ll never know.

My second favorite part was renting a motorbike and riding behind Phil as he drove up Doi Suthep, a national park, to the Wat near the mountain’s top. Motorbike travel is the way to go. We’re used to it in Vietnam, and it was great to have that freedom. We passed by people sitting on benches in covered truck-style red-painted taxis with the backs open, like those that carry migrant workers but a bit smaller and intended to be fancier, and felt smug with the cool air on our faces. It cost us about $7 to rent one for 24 hours.

The food was incredible—I have a newfound respect for the many colors and flavors of curry. Because food was such a pivotal piece of our trip, I can’t single it out as a favorite or least favorite part. Though Phil would tell you it was his favorite. And I don’t want to start writing about it because I’m no expert and it would open a floodgate. Overall, if you’re in Chiang Mai, you really should try khao soi (note: spelling varies) as all of the travel guides recommend, and you ought to make it to the food cart gatherings at the North and South Gates for some street food.

Lastly, while spending time with elephants was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to, and though I’m still glad we did it, I left feeling a bit disappointed. The Elephant Nature Park felt too businesslike for my taste. We were picked up in a branded van. On our way to the park, we watched a short informational video starring an Australian actor on a huge screen that came down automatically from the van’s ceiling, followed by a clip from a television show featuring the park. Most of the elephants that lived at the park were being rehabilitated, having stepped on land mines or been used for hard labor, and I appreciated that they had a safe place to live out their days. But we seemed to spend most our time waiting because, as our tour guide said, “Too many tourists, not enough elephants.” Our guesthouse owner, who was born in a village outside of Chiang Mai, said that the group isn’t bad, but it is a business, and that they have to send their ill and injured elephants to another hospital in the area. That is apparently the place to visit.

Like the dishes the country is known for, our trip to Thailand was a gift of contradictions in complex harmony—scammers and grandmothers, commerce and dreadlocks, ladyboys and monks, curry and coconut milk.

I love a lot of things about living in Vietnam: being near the ocean, how cheap everything is, cafe sua da, the food, changing my perspective, all of that stuff. But today, to distract myself from the itching, I’d like to talk about one thing that I hate about living in Vietnam, and that is the mosquitos.

There are two things that are important to note here. One is that there are also mosquitos in Michigan. But those mosquitos tend to only come out at dusk, and are only around during certain times of year. Mosquitos in Vietnam also have an affinity for dusk, and for the wetter weather. They didn’t strike during the heat of the day in the hot hot months when I first arrived, but they are ever present now that we’re into rainy season.

The second is that mosquitos love me. I am to mosquitos as a fine steak is to Ron Swanson or an expensive martini is to Lucille Bluth—a delicacy that, once tasted, becomes quickly devoured. They must seek out more. You don’t need bug spray if I’m near you, because all of the mosquitos in the area will bite me, leaving you unscathed. This has always been the case. But now I’m a deer lick in an overpopulated forest, and it’s simply uncool.

“Wear bug spray!” you shout at your screen.

If only it were so easy. After arriving in Da Nang, I found out that most expats brought their own bug spray from home, or had their visitors bring it to them. The only thing that exists here is an odd lotion that smells much too sweet to be effective.

While I was preparing for my move to Vietnam, I did some research on immunizations. My health insurance didn’t cover any of those that I needed, so I went to a place specializing in pricking overseas travelers, with a set rate for a consultation and supposed low costs for the shots themselves. I hate shots, but I love being prepared, and the latter won out.

The “immunization clinic” was in a large brick building full of suspect small businesses and little-known offices that I had driven by many times without ever noticing. After consulting the directory near the only front door that functioned, I walked down the dim hallway and into a sterile empty waiting room, a row of chairs lined up against a wall that was covered with a dated world map. I peeked around the corner to see an elderly woman sitting in a chair behind a desk. Her profile on the website had said she had done immunizations for corporate travelers earlier in her career. I ducked back around the corner. She said, “Come in,” as if I had knocked on the door to her house and she couldn’t be bothered to get up.

This woman provided me with a consultation that was intended to strike fear into my presumed-medically-and-geographically ignorant mind. Among other things, I was told never to go barefoot in Vietnam and not to eat the fruit or vegetables.

“But I’m going to move there. As in I plan to be there for a year or more,” I explained. Who can live without fruits and vegetables for that long? I like fruits and vegetables! “And I’ll be living near the beach.” Nobody wears shoes on the beach, lady.

“You can never be too careful,” she dismissed me callously. Every white-blue hair on her head was just where it should be. I didn’t find the result remotely pleasant.

In addition to stabbing uninsured people with needles, this woman also sold a variety of other goods, displayed prominently on her desk in the impermanent-but-deliberate vein of a Mary Kay saleswoman.

My lecturer then brought up malaria, turning the page in my immunization handbook—which came bundled with the depressing consultation, as a take home—to a map. Vietnam was highlighted as a place where malaria had struck.

Referencing the map, she said, “Would you like some malaria pills? I can write you a prescription.”

I looked closer and found a note about Vietnam that said some cities, including Da Nang, were safe from malaria. I pointed this out to her.

“Well I’ve never known a mosquito smart enough to distinguish city borders!” she exclaimed, clearly disgusted, though it wasn’t clear whether this disgust was with my flippancy or for being called out.

“Can I get a shot for malaria?” I asked.

“No. You have to take a pill every day. I have people come to me asking for more all the time.”

What was this, a narcotics dispensary? I had worked to get myself off of all prescribed medications and didn’t want to take a daily malaria pill if it wasn’t necessary.

“That’s OK,” I said.

“If you won’t take the pills, do you at least want some bug spray?” she asked, nodding toward one of her displays. Bottles of varying sizes proudly proclaimed the high % of DEET in their contents.

“DEET?” I asked. “As in the stuff that destroys earth’s atmosphere?”

Now the real-life Mrs. Medlock not only though I was stupid and unprepared but worse, I was a stupid, unprepared, tree-hugging hippy. And a hard sell.

“If you want to stay safe, this stuff is the best,” she sighed.

I passed, she pricked me a few times with vaccinations for other perilous diseases, and I was on my way.

If only I had listened and bought a bottle of DEET bug spray, I’d be wearing it every day until it was gone, walking around smelling like a chemistry lab but free of the leper-like bites that cover my ankles and feet and sometimes weird places like under my right eye. How did that one get through? The itch is constant, but not consistent. Some of the bites open and leak, and one even swelled up to a weird clear dome blister that I eventually had to pop after it didn’t go away on its own in an appropriate period of time (judged by me to be three days). That one might have been something other than a mosquito. I can send you a picture if you want to see it, but probably shouldn’t subject innocent eyes to that oddity.

“You need to develop an immunity,” joked a friend.

That is one shot I would be happy to sit through, and pay for, even if it came with a giant heap of condescension. But unfortunately it’s not on the menu. I am.

While waiting for the band to go on at Chiang Mai's North Gate Jazz Co-op, Phil and I ordered a pint of Sang Som (Thai rum) and wrote some poetry together. In the first poem, we each wrote a line or two (or more), then passed the pen. In the second, we limited ourselves to one word at a time, back and forth. They haven't been edited.

1.
North Gate Jazz Co-op
A piece of home abroad
    Or is it?
A taste of spice overseas
    Or are they borders?
Sounds of Chicago
Patterns, colors of the East
Lindsay Alexander and Fruteland Jackson would be proud
Following the guidance of strangers
Mom and grandma might not be so proud
“There’s an American in the room”
And a man with a loofah on his back
Ok, it’s just hair
Twenty people wait for music
Or maybe only two
Geckos cast thicker shadows than peeling paint
Saucer plates make for Sang Som carriers
A simpler solution than calculating change
Too bad outside drinks are not welcome
No calculator required
“Minimal” states her bag
Will it produce the desirable effect?
Tangled cords are a part of jazz
Chords
The cadence of preparation
Less harmony, more camaraderie
Though it’s loose now
And we wait
Still
Jimi Hendrix on the case
    Hanging
Buddha in the shrine
    On the floor
Look on
Anticipation is key
A minor key
Or major
Possible it’s pentatonic
Musicians arrive
Judgement passes
Will this, you be worth the wait?
If not, you’ll be the one getting drunk tonight.


2.
Five and that’s what it says
I heard four chords
Familiar like winter
When common folk
Or their kinfolk are not exposed
Only buried
These soundwaves guide them like gravity guides matter
No premeditation
Only physics
Sometimes they take less than what curiosity unfolds
Sometimes they make all the factors form a clear resolution
If we applaud when the time is a propo
Then we know we have met the end.

Despite solid effort, my professional work has been sparse since arriving in Vietnam, and it’s gotten me down more than once. (I’ll leave my extensive job search trials and tribulations for another post.) However, I’ve decided to take on a new perspective: that of a writer on a research mission. As you and I well know, writers often travel to remote locales to research settings for books they’re working on. I may not be writing a novel at this point, and I don’t have an agent or a contract or any financial backing whatsoever, but I’m working on this writer thing, so I figure I may as well dive in head first.

Because I’m not working a full-time job, I don’t have a schedule or agenda for most of my days. I set some goals and make vague plans. I can’t help it. But these plans are more along the lines of what coffee shop I plan to visit, if I ought to run or do yoga, do the laundry or go to the beach. Sounds pleasant, right? Some days it is. Other days it’s tough to feel a sense of purpose, enough of a reason to get out of bed. Hence my writer-on-a-mission mindset.

Back in my workin’ days, when strangers broached a conversation with me, whether in line at the grocery store or after a class at the gym, I was typical Midwest friendly but usually kept things as short as possible. I had things to do, places to go, bills to pay, a dog to walk! I couldn’t talk to random people all day long! I wasn’t being short, I told myself. Just efficient.

I’ve been in Da Nang for almost three months, and I still have to fight my initial impulse to dismiss strangers. My busyness excuse doesn’t hold true anymore—if it ever did—and it’s difficult to appear convincingly industrious while lying under a palm tree on the beach. Plus, talking to strangers in a foreign land is good for my research.

One day, while enjoying Flowers for Algernon in my bikini beneath a favorite palm tree of mine, a petite young Vietnamese man in jeans and a polo sat down right next to me on the sand. I pretended not to notice him, but that didn’t last long because he said hello to me with a big smile. I returned the greeting, and my eyes went back to my book.

“Where you from?” he asked.

This is the most common question Vietnamese folks ask me. It makes sense. I’m obviously not from here, and they must be fascinated by the increasing number of foreigners in their midst.

We talked for a few minutes. I found out that he’s an engineering student at the local university and is from northern Vietnam. He wrote his name in the sand for me. Ty. I noticed my finger was still holding my place in my book. Resolutely, I stuck my bookmark in its spot, and put on my cover-up. Ty isn’t taking English classes this term and said he wanted to keep his skills fresh by practicing on a foreigner. I was aware that the fact that I was wearing a bikini may have influenced his decision of which foreigner to practice on.

We ended up talking for 45 minutes, about his career goals, his roommate, how long it takes him to get home when he visits his family, different Vietnamese accents, what I was doing in town, how long I planned to be here, what we each planned to eat for dinner, and what tacos are exactly (like banh xeo, but not really, “same same but different”). He found it funny that I said “yup” and asked how to spell it. When I told him it was time for me to leave to get started on my taco dinner, he asked if he could get a picture with me.

The gainfully employed Sarah of a few months ago never would have given Ty the time of day. Self-employed/unemployed Sarah may have helped him learn something or made his day better. Perhaps he just wanted to look at my ass and show his friends a photo of him with a white girl. I don’t care either way. I got something out of the interaction. And I finished Flowers for Algernon another day.

Another time, a middle-aged Asian woman came up to me on the beach and asked me to help her with her camera. She seemed to have spotted me from afar. Perhaps reading from a Kindle made me look technologically inclined. She’s Vietnamese but has lived in Sydney for years and was traveling with a group of 14 through her native country. She planned to go visit her parents in Ho Chi Minh City the next day. She wasn’t able to take any more photos—as she showed me, her digital camera display was black when she was in camera mode. I’m no expert with cameras, but it was a Canon and I’ve had a couple of Canon digital cameras in the past. I told her maybe her memory card was full. She deleted a few  pictures without any concern for privacy while I looked over her shoulder. Admittedly, the pictures I saw were blurry and of things like taxis on the side of the road and her own lap. Nothing was lost in deleting them, and nothing was harmed in me seeing them, other than my already limited respect for her photography skills. She didn’t seem bothered. Then the display showed the beach in front of us. She successfully took a picture of the sea. She hit me—hard—on the upper arm and cried, “That’s it!” I fought back the reflex to rub the spot she had punched. Instead I smiled and wished her continued safe travels. She walked back to her group happily.

I also had a woman reminiscent of Mrs. Potato Head, in bathing suit and frightening gaudy makeup, blabber at me in what I believed to be Russian for a few minutes while I stared back, shrugging and responding with a lame, “English?”

I see my passing friend Hanh at a local cafe often. She’s a 39-year-old single mother and sells medical equipment. She and her pal offered to take me to Hue for a weekend trip. She said they like to drive their motorbikes fast. They laughed. She gave me her phone number, and I gave her mine. I said I’d check with my boyfriend to see if we had plans. I don’t plan to hop on her bike anytime soon—the prospect sounds terrifying—but we say hi and chat whenever we see each other.

Still, there are some strangers I prefer to ignore. There’s one old American guy in my neighborhood who seems to prey on the company of others, inviting himself to join paying customers at restaurants and ordering nothing but a glass of water. Tanned and wrinkly, with a white beard and bulging blue eyes, he wears the same outfit and giant backpack most days, rolls his own cigarettes, and is a self-described follower of the book of Leviticus. He could simply be lonely, but he gives me the heebie jeebies. I avoid eye contact whenever he’s in my general vicinity, preferring to observe his character from a safe distance.

I’m trying to be open, but it’s good to have headphones handy, just in case.