FOOLISHLY, BLISSFULLY STRANDED IN VIETNAM
FOOLISHLY, BLISSFULLY STRANDED IN VIETNAM
What happens after the aircraft and your life come to a complete stop? You start over in a far-away land. When the Great Recession obliterated our jobs and savings, my husband, son, and I sold everything and went to live in Vietnam—a place I knew we could live cheaply, earn some fast money teaching English, and eat crazy-delicious cuisine.
We planned to stay a year and get back on our feet. However, financial disasters on both sides of the ocean kept us there much, much longer. In fact, we were stranded.
Our Vietnamese neighbors, a few of whom spoke English, were easy-going, humorous, and generous beyond their meager means. Their warmth and helpfulness made us feel at home, unlike anywhere we’d ever been. And we’d been to some 40 countries.
I had more moments of euphoria than I'd had in my entire life. Every day I'd throw open the doors and want to run down the street, leaping and yelling, “I can't believe I get to live here!” I wanted to grab people off their bikes and hug everyone. At the beginning, I thought my joy was just a honeymoon phase, the excitement of doing something new. Or maybe it was relief that, at least for now, I could more comfortably pull the plug on fears about my job loss from a dying industry (newspapers) and my recession-obliterated 401k account.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself when our neighbors helped me to see more clearly what I’d been missing—a sense of community and the ability to live a more simple life—joyfully—and remain in the present.
Then there were the usual developing-nation annoyances: poor roads, power outages, appliances that rarely worked, sewer backups, flooded alleys, and really lousy pizza.
Having gained the confidences of neighbors, they opened up with heartrending, but redemptive stories about their adversity, especially after the “American War.”
Many tourists to Vietnam say the people are some of the world’s friendliest. It is my hope that my story of living with the Vietnamese will help shine a new spotlight on the country in a way that war stories and history books haven’t.
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So Happiness to Meet You
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