Theory to practice - Is this what they mean by culture shock?
This morning I moved from my hotel room to the campus guest housing on CTU Campus 1 in which I will be staying for the next four weeks. Lap described it as “on the other side of the city.” It is in the opposite direction from Campus 2 but probably no farther from Campus 2 than our hotel was, based on the taxi fare that it took to get me here. But when I arrived on Campus 1 this morning my unit was not ready and so I roamed the nearby neighborhood for six hours, including a pleasant stay in a park, lunch, and an hour of work in an Internet site across the street from the guest housing.
As I roamed the streets this afternoon, I felt more of the “culture shock” syndrome others have described for intercultural experiences. For the entire time I walked up and down the street, I did not see another Westerner until this afternoon when they came to help me move into my unit in the guest house. None of the shops resembled anything at all like we might have in the United States. Even needing to go the bathroom was shaping up as a mini-crisis, until I ran into one of the workshop participants on his bicycle and he invited me for a coffee at a local shop.
We had a great talk, mostly about his educational experiences. He is completing a PhD through a university in Vietnam (I wasn’t able to understand which one) and we talked a lot about what his program was like – apparently much different that what is available in most institutions in the United States. He was also having internet installed this afternoon in his home, something not a lot of people here have. His description reminded me of waiting for the cable guy. Some things are, indeed, universal!
But I was struck by what felt at first so few options for myself. After about three hours, I decided I needed to have lunch, but where to eat proved another challenge. And when I did find a restaurant that seemed like it would have a menu, everything was in Vietnamese, of course, and none of the wait staff spoke English. But they recruited one of their customers, who was apparently also a friend, to help me order and I managed to obtain some delicious shrimp soup and some kind of noodle dish, along with 1½ bottles of Tiger beer.
During my lunch I also decided I was going to brave an Internet café, but found Internet access in the post office just across the street from the guest house. Apparently, I will be able to use these computers to place calls back home. For the fun of it, because it was the middle of the night back home (I had thought about calling my wife but decided that would be mean, at 3:30 in the morning), I placed a call to my office and was pleased to hear my voice on the voice mail system. Gotta love this technology!
My place here in guest housing is pretty spartan, but probably far better than the way most people in the Delta live. I am rooming with a Vietnamese American Fullbright Fellow, whom I have not seen or met. In Unit 6 is a young American who has been here for 18 months already, making my stay seem like a weekend visit. He is on some kind of program from Princeton that provides support for international experiences. He has a bachelors degree and has been teaching English at CTU. From the brief visit I had with him, it sounds like he is planning to apply to med school when he returns to the states. He apparently bought himself a motorbike and gets around on that. He didn’t get a license to drive it but doesn’t seem overly concerned about it.
Stay tuned for the working through phase!
As I roamed the streets this afternoon, I felt more of the “culture shock” syndrome others have described for intercultural experiences. For the entire time I walked up and down the street, I did not see another Westerner until this afternoon when they came to help me move into my unit in the guest house. None of the shops resembled anything at all like we might have in the United States. Even needing to go the bathroom was shaping up as a mini-crisis, until I ran into one of the workshop participants on his bicycle and he invited me for a coffee at a local shop.
We had a great talk, mostly about his educational experiences. He is completing a PhD through a university in Vietnam (I wasn’t able to understand which one) and we talked a lot about what his program was like – apparently much different that what is available in most institutions in the United States. He was also having internet installed this afternoon in his home, something not a lot of people here have. His description reminded me of waiting for the cable guy. Some things are, indeed, universal!
But I was struck by what felt at first so few options for myself. After about three hours, I decided I needed to have lunch, but where to eat proved another challenge. And when I did find a restaurant that seemed like it would have a menu, everything was in Vietnamese, of course, and none of the wait staff spoke English. But they recruited one of their customers, who was apparently also a friend, to help me order and I managed to obtain some delicious shrimp soup and some kind of noodle dish, along with 1½ bottles of Tiger beer.
During my lunch I also decided I was going to brave an Internet café, but found Internet access in the post office just across the street from the guest house. Apparently, I will be able to use these computers to place calls back home. For the fun of it, because it was the middle of the night back home (I had thought about calling my wife but decided that would be mean, at 3:30 in the morning), I placed a call to my office and was pleased to hear my voice on the voice mail system. Gotta love this technology!
My place here in guest housing is pretty spartan, but probably far better than the way most people in the Delta live. I am rooming with a Vietnamese American Fullbright Fellow, whom I have not seen or met. In Unit 6 is a young American who has been here for 18 months already, making my stay seem like a weekend visit. He is on some kind of program from Princeton that provides support for international experiences. He has a bachelors degree and has been teaching English at CTU. From the brief visit I had with him, it sounds like he is planning to apply to med school when he returns to the states. He apparently bought himself a motorbike and gets around on that. He didn’t get a license to drive it but doesn’t seem overly concerned about it.
Stay tuned for the working through phase!
posted by John at 3:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home