Full circle

"Sometimes you have to go halfway around the world to come full circle." - Lost in Translation

These last few days I've been feeling much like I did when I first arrived in Ben Tre. Overwhelmed, lonely, and confused. Entering into the month of May, I thought that my social calendar would start getting overloaded with people wanting to make the most of my dwindling days. Entering into my last week, I really thought that would happen. It has not. It feels remarkably similar to my first week here, back when I had nothing to do and a whole lot of time in my room and in my head. It's also similar in the number of somewhat invasive and bizarre visits I've been getting. I thought I had gotten better at being patient with culture clash, but maybe it was just everyone else getting better around me, because my fuse did not feel long at all. The worst thing about being in a face-saving culture is that feeling obligated to smile and be polite when that's not what you want only increases the internal desire to shout and make a big fuss.

I spent most of Saturday trying to finish the mountain of final reports required by both Fulbright and Ben Tre College. At some point in the afternoon, I got a phone call. A woman I don't know called me from Mr. Luan's phone, saying that she was his friend and that she wanted to come to my room to hang out with me. I told her I was too busy, and that tomorrow would be better. She understood, and agreed to meet me tomorrow. Before she hung up, though, I heard Mr. Luan asking her questions in Vietnamese and her relaying the replies I had given her during our conversation. Maybe ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Can you guess who it was? It was her and Mr. Luan. They wanted to come hang out in my room, and practically forced their way in when I opened the door. Then they looked around at my packing piles and realized that there was nowhere for them to sit. So, we all stood around awkwardly a few feet from the door. We re-discussed whether I was busy and to what extent, and after too long it was concluded that we would do something on Sunday. Mr. Luan had already invited me to do something Sunday several days ago, so our conversation in my room essentially yielded no net results.

The moment came on Sunday and I prepared myself by spending half an hour in corpse pose on my bed, trying to relax. Maybe it worked, because for the most part I managed to be in a pleasant mood. Mr. Luan, his family, Ngoc (the friend from the day before), Ms. My, and a man from the college all took me to visit a pagoda with a tree that is allegedly three hundred years old. Having seen the 150-year-old live oak at the Alamo, this three hundred year old tree looked more like an overgrown shrub. The nicest part about it was that it was the many butterflies that fluttered in and out of sight amidst its branches. When he wasn't taking candid pictures of me doing things like scratching mosquito bites, Mr. Luan summoned me here and there for posed photos by shouting "You! You! You!" until I turned around. I was encouraged to eat a starfruit that was so sour it literally burned the tip of my tongue. And then it was time for dinner. Dinner was good. We all ate more than we wanted to, and then we all went to have dessert.

Pretending to hold up the tree

On the way to dinner, I had an epiphany. In the early days, I had no patience for Mr. Luan. But, I always recognized that he was well meaning and I tried to train myself to have patience with him. This used to require having a voice in the back of my head reminding me to relax and give him a chance during most of the time we spent together. Eventually, this kind of worked. I no longer feel anxiety just at the thought of spending time with him. I have a lot more patience with the many things that are rude in my culture but insignificant in his. I am the guest here, after all, and my culture is the foreign one. I often wondered why he in particular got under my skin so much more than anyone else here. He is kind. He is energetic. He doesn't speak English very well but that's not his fault. Here's where the epiphany comes in. Working for Mr. Luan is like working for a puppy. Puppies are great, but most endearing puppy qualities are terrible management qualities, and being in a position where I am subject to his whims is what causes our problems.

This afternoon I was somewhere between asleep and awake watching tv when I heard some noises outside. I thought they were general outside noises, until I realized that it sounded like someone was saying my name, and that the tapping might be happening on my door. Before I could get up and get dressed, I realized that my door was being opened. A teacher stuck her head in the door and started shouting, asking whether I was inside. Of all the times my door has been impatiently knocked on, no one has ever just opened the door and come right in. I was taken aback. Then I was told that Mr. Luan wanted to take a photo of me and my bicycle with Ms. My. Why? Why now? As I mentioned at the start, because expressing irritation would only cause me to lose face, I resorted to passive-aggressively acting like I didn't understand all of Mr. Luan's pantomiming. It wasn't mature of me, but it's the only way I can feel like I have some control.

Luckily, my day didn't end there. I went out for dinner with Thuy, Trang's sister. I thought it was going to be the last time we saw each other, but by the end of the night we ended up deciding to see each other again on Friday. We had soup and then went out for drinks. I opened up to her about feeling sad that no one seems to want to take the time to say goodbye to me. I've been mulling it over in my head, what with all the free time I've had, trying to figure out why I've had so much free time. Are people worried that I'm busy? Do people not want to deal with saying goodbye? I know it's not that people don't care, but that doesn't mean I don't feel neglected. As close as I feel to Trang, sometimes it's hard for me to talk to her about my feelings or frustrations because I feel like she feels more responsible for them. With Thuy, I'm just talking to a friend.