The following was an assignment here in Hanoi for one of my grad classes:
Bryant Meredith
Reflective Journal: Entry 3, “Free Write About 1st Week In Hanoi.”
August 4, 2008
It’s very difficult to qualify in writing what one experiences in a culture plunge such as this. I use that phrase for lack of better description. Cliché references such as cross-cultural experience and international experience are both annoying and inadequate. Here’s a word picture:
Imagine standing at the edge of a creek. You’re at the bottom of a wide valley between two large peaks that converge somewhere in the distance. It’s a summer day, and the valley is filled with warmth and life. Staring at the creek, you visually follow its course up the valley and see it emerge from underneath a glacier that has descended from the mountain and is kissing the edge of the valley. You’ve been hiking all day and are hot and tired and the creek looks so inviting. You can see smooth pebbles lying at the bottom of pristine water, and it’s so easy to imagine how wonderful they’d feel on your feet while refreshing water cascades over your tired shoulders.
Unable to take it any longer, you drop your heavy pack and strip. Feeling a little vulnerable you quickly jump in… Breathless, in pain, unable to speak or scream you quickly scramble for the edge. Water cold as fresh snow slaps you in the face. Suddenly you realize your mistake - the glacier sourced this water, and as inviting as it looked it would always be numbingly freezing. Once at the shore you realize that some of the shock has worn off. It slowly becomes easier and easier to enjoy the water, yet you eventually will have to return to the shore for warmth and a recharge if you want to continue to enjoy the creek.
That is a real experience that somewhat compares to my initial impressions of S.E. Asia. I’m thinking back to my first trip to Phnom Penh in 2002. Being here in Hanoi reminds me of that initial impression and shock I experienced. There are things here that are simply no longer unfamiliar and shocking, and then there are things that will always continue to surprise and “slap me in the face” like a cold shower or like jumping into the glacier creek. Many naïve presumptions and wistful expectations were soon dashed to pieces during my first week in Phnom Penh that year, much like the hiker jumping into the inviting creek in the valley.
I expected Asia to be far more rural and less modern. Part of me expected a quainter Asia like I had seen in movies. I expected to be bathing at a well or in a river and sleeping in a bamboo hut (actually I did sleep in a bamboo house for awhile) and communing with workers in the rice fields. Imagine my surprise when, on the night-time drive from the airport in Phnom Penh, I saw billboards advertising Ovaltine, and asphalted streets with painted lines, and ice cream shops, and neon signs on cell phone shops. When I reached the house of the Khmer family with whom I stayed, I was floored to see semi-normal beds and a western toilet and tiled floors and chairs and a sofa.
Despite these similar conveniences I also encountered the cold-water slap through things like constant, unabated heat, “dirty” surfaces and environments, filthy smells, bad meals with no recourse to familiar food (there was not a selection of Western food in P.P. back then), and annoying Asian habits 24/7 for which I was not prepared. I lived with a Khmer family, and they were not terribly concerned with the fact that I was American and might do things a little different, leading to some very awkward moments.
My first week in Hanoi has certainly been a catalyst for a flood of memory. The sights and smells of S.E. Asia are intoxicating. I often say this when asked what the place is like. “It’s intoxicating!” I tell them. Usually this elicits weird responses and facial expressions, but that’s the truth about my impression. S.E. Asia invokes emotions that, in me, feel guttural and deep and lusty and alive and powerful, as though I’m here for a purpose and here doing what I was meant to do. Life here feels like life ought to feel, not like the packaged and commercialized theme park ride that we call Life in America. Rather it feels like you might actually have to exert some effort and take some risks and live on the edge a little…. Alive for the first time… Living life at last…
Bryant Meredith
Reflective Journal: Entry 3, “Free Write About 1st Week In Hanoi.”
August 4, 2008
It’s very difficult to qualify in writing what one experiences in a culture plunge such as this. I use that phrase for lack of better description. Cliché references such as cross-cultural experience and international experience are both annoying and inadequate. Here’s a word picture:
Imagine standing at the edge of a creek. You’re at the bottom of a wide valley between two large peaks that converge somewhere in the distance. It’s a summer day, and the valley is filled with warmth and life. Staring at the creek, you visually follow its course up the valley and see it emerge from underneath a glacier that has descended from the mountain and is kissing the edge of the valley. You’ve been hiking all day and are hot and tired and the creek looks so inviting. You can see smooth pebbles lying at the bottom of pristine water, and it’s so easy to imagine how wonderful they’d feel on your feet while refreshing water cascades over your tired shoulders.
Unable to take it any longer, you drop your heavy pack and strip. Feeling a little vulnerable you quickly jump in… Breathless, in pain, unable to speak or scream you quickly scramble for the edge. Water cold as fresh snow slaps you in the face. Suddenly you realize your mistake - the glacier sourced this water, and as inviting as it looked it would always be numbingly freezing. Once at the shore you realize that some of the shock has worn off. It slowly becomes easier and easier to enjoy the water, yet you eventually will have to return to the shore for warmth and a recharge if you want to continue to enjoy the creek.
That is a real experience that somewhat compares to my initial impressions of S.E. Asia. I’m thinking back to my first trip to Phnom Penh in 2002. Being here in Hanoi reminds me of that initial impression and shock I experienced. There are things here that are simply no longer unfamiliar and shocking, and then there are things that will always continue to surprise and “slap me in the face” like a cold shower or like jumping into the glacier creek. Many naïve presumptions and wistful expectations were soon dashed to pieces during my first week in Phnom Penh that year, much like the hiker jumping into the inviting creek in the valley.
I expected Asia to be far more rural and less modern. Part of me expected a quainter Asia like I had seen in movies. I expected to be bathing at a well or in a river and sleeping in a bamboo hut (actually I did sleep in a bamboo house for awhile) and communing with workers in the rice fields. Imagine my surprise when, on the night-time drive from the airport in Phnom Penh, I saw billboards advertising Ovaltine, and asphalted streets with painted lines, and ice cream shops, and neon signs on cell phone shops. When I reached the house of the Khmer family with whom I stayed, I was floored to see semi-normal beds and a western toilet and tiled floors and chairs and a sofa.
Despite these similar conveniences I also encountered the cold-water slap through things like constant, unabated heat, “dirty” surfaces and environments, filthy smells, bad meals with no recourse to familiar food (there was not a selection of Western food in P.P. back then), and annoying Asian habits 24/7 for which I was not prepared. I lived with a Khmer family, and they were not terribly concerned with the fact that I was American and might do things a little different, leading to some very awkward moments.
My first week in Hanoi has certainly been a catalyst for a flood of memory. The sights and smells of S.E. Asia are intoxicating. I often say this when asked what the place is like. “It’s intoxicating!” I tell them. Usually this elicits weird responses and facial expressions, but that’s the truth about my impression. S.E. Asia invokes emotions that, in me, feel guttural and deep and lusty and alive and powerful, as though I’m here for a purpose and here doing what I was meant to do. Life here feels like life ought to feel, not like the packaged and commercialized theme park ride that we call Life in America. Rather it feels like you might actually have to exert some effort and take some risks and live on the edge a little…. Alive for the first time… Living life at last…
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