Week three - Odds and ends

I am now well into my third week here in Vietnam, and I thought I would post a few things under this category. Nothing terribly deep but some things which strike me as interesting.

Bicycling in Can Tho. In past posts, Kris and I have referred to the numerous bicycles here that are used by residents of all ages to get around. It is second only to the motorbike, it seems, as the major means of transportation. As you might imagine, the great majority of these bikes are relatively simple affairs, something like I used to ride growing up on the farm. No angst here about whether a person should buy a trail bike, a mountain bike, or a road bike. And not much worry about which of the zillion models within each of these categories from which to choose.

You might imagine, then, my surprise on Sunday morning, out for my early morning run, when out of the dimness of the early dawn hours emerged what could easily have passed for the Bombay Bicycle Club coming at me, with riders dressed in the typical road gear and riding some impressive road bikes, with turn-downed handlebars and the whole bit. Most have been about 25 - 30 of them in a pack riding together. A neat sight.

The Mobile Businessman. We have also talked about the numerous people here who seem to operate their own small businesses, doing what they can to get by with their small carts cluttering the sidewalks and providing welcome access to their own version of "fast food, ready meals for motorbikers and bicyclists on their way to work or school or wherever.

Last Saturday, I went with Chris Wheeler and some of his colleagues from CTU to visit the Research Station about an hour south of Can Tho, where some of their schools and their kids were selling vegetables grown from their school gardens, and where some adults were selling vegetables and fish to learn to raise through the community development project. On the side of the driveway, I noticed this man with a motorbike and food cart all in one. I thought I had seen a lot of variations of what they motorbike can be and is used for here, but this was a first. If business is not so good on this block, you just motor on down a ways to see if it is any better there!

By the way, in the pic the building in the left background is a new dormitory they intend to use for CTU faculty who come out to the station to teach, etc. It is also used for other purposes, such as on this occasion when it is housing a group of students and faculty from a university in Indiana on a three-week study tour! We met several of them and talked briefly with them while we were there. On the far right is a former community school, made mostly of bamboo, in which kids were attending class. The government has now taken over the school and it is used as part of their primary schooling in the area. Yet, another dimensions of a study of contrasts here.

Reflections on my adjustment here. Before this experience, the idea of "culture shock" and the intercultural adaptation processes reflected in the literature were just concepts or ideas. The first week, while Kris was still here and we were busy planning and implementing the workshop, I felt on a pretty even keel. But after she left I was on my own for several days, and I went through a series of emotions and feelings that surprised even me. At times, I felt that if there would have been an easy way to catch a quick ride home, I would have been on it! It is hard to describe this feeling, a kind of deep longing and feeling quite alone.

As time has passed, however, these feelings have subsided and now I feel reasonably comfortable being here. There are moments, however, like yesterday afternoon, when I still sense these feelings hovering around the edges of consciousness. All of this brings home the work some of us have been doing on emotions and cross-cultural experiences. From a Jungian point of view, we ask, "What are these emotions and feelings asking me to pay attention to in myself? What aspects of myself are they, in their own way, revealing to me?"

But wait, I said this would be nothing too deep, so I will stop there. And no, I am not going to answer those questions here!