This topic is quite sensitive and controversial, and made me think a lot recently. About my unaware sense of superiority maybe, or in other words, that certainty that you will be “recognized” for your popular (?) home country. And on the other side, about my ability to mingle and to adapt to a new situation of which – on the contrary – I have always prided myself on.
This post will probably sound ridiculous and lamer one sentence after another to expat people, but this is the perspective of somebody living overseas for the first time, still trying to fit in this unplanned life. This is my personal path, full of all those clichés that I am glad everybody on my way has already gone through. These are my days of amazement and wonder, good for them if they are already over this, and sometimes don’t even remember how it feels.
Then, luckily, I have a blog to naively admit that I am missing biscuits by a specific brand for breakfast, that going home just once or twice per year to see my relatives and my friends is a terrifying perspective that I don’t think will change, and that I am still not used to this weather. I am going through my very first tropical seasons, I just found out what does “moldy March” mean, how is it when nothing ever dries, your bed and your clothes are always clammy, and you feel like sweaty after a gym session trying to fall asleep. When there is no way to tame the frizz and have your hair in a decent shape. How the heat peak feels like in June, and how ruthless is the monsoon rain in July. This is the first time that I have to point things while shopping, that I wear a pollution mask, and I have to make sure that I wrote down the address properly before taking a taxi. That I don’t have coins but dozens of worthless banknotes in my wallet, that I don’t have a bidet in my bathroom, but I have a huge apartment which – ironically – took more time and futile decorations than ever to make homey. That I am surrounded by people who sometimes don’t even know where Italy is, and have never heard of my home town. I mean, if I say “Napoli”, how come that they don’t reply straight away “pizza, mafia, Pulcinella, Vesuvio, Sorrento, Capri” or whatever? If I say “Colosseum”, how can they really not visualize the place?
It does happen here, and I am just wondering why I took for granted that they should know about that. How many places, dishes, historical events, as crucial and magnificent as what we have in Europe, I completely ignore about Asia?
Here in Hanoi, for the first time in my life, I am experiencing the feeling of being outnumbered. The black sheep, the only one “different”. It is not like when you were a teenager and you suffered from not being accepted into the group. Or at work in your home country, when you could deal with people of 10 different nationalities in one day, and you were happy with the international environment of your company. It is not even like when you go on holiday, and luckily sometimes happens that you are the only one from your country. Or when you are the dissenting voice about a song or a trend that everybody loves but you hate.
Since I am spending most of my time in a 100% Vietnamese environment at work, it happens many times that I feel completely left out, misunderstood and somehow “disturbing”. Don’t get me wrong, they are not doing anything to make me feel like that. Quite the opposite, they took me in, trying to find any possible topic or joke to involve me in their discussions, despite the language is an evident barrier to go beyond the small talk. But I am just not like them, as I am just not like master expats who have been living overseas for decades.
You bring a can of tuna to the office for lunch, and maybe if you pulled out of your bag a dead man cut into pieces you would make less waves. They have never seen it. It’s so weird what you are eating, that they could stare at you all through lunch, asking any possible question about the mysterious food: what is it? Where did you take it? How much is it? How often do you have it for lunch in Italy? Do they sell it in the expat district in Hanoi? Isn’t it too light together with a salad as a main for lunch? Why don’t you eat rice and pork instead? And on top of that, you are eating it with a fork that you brought from home, which makes the scene even more peculiar and hilarious. They use to eat fruit with salt, and they don’t expect you to refuse to season it. They go nap on the sofa after lunch, while I usually go out for a stroll, weather permitting. And they are concerned that I am not carrying the umbrella to cover from the sun, as actually I am not that scared of getting tanned eventually. I am exposed to a stream of indistinct sounds all day long, as they speak in Vietnamese in the office of course. And putting myself in their shoes, why should they all bother to switch to another language for just one person?
This doesn’t mean that we don’t have our conversations, mainly focused on me and my unusual behaviors of course.
Vietnamese people love gossip and are very curious, sometimes in an awkward way, having in mind Western social norms, needless to say. It would never happen at home that somebody asks how much you weigh. But for them, this is just a personal question to get closer to you and show they care, especially when you look skinny or overweight. Which are exactly the most inconvenient cases to ask such a question for us. They naively ask you about your husband’s salary, or why your boyfriend is not your husband, and you still don’t have kids at 33 yo. And how much you or your husband’s company is paying for your apartment rental.
Even my body shape doesn’t go unnoticed. I have been told all my life that I am thin, but I can wear an XL here, with long sleeves still too short, and I cannot fit in Vietnamese socks for women. If I enter a local women’s clothing shop, usually sales girls are impressed with my size, and every morning I take the elevator with 10 Vietnamese, I feel very uncomfortable with it actually.
All in all, this reversal of perspective is largely the funniest, most inspiring, enlightening and challenging aspect of this experience. Re-consider things that you took for granted your whole life, learn how to feel comfortable with a distinctiveness which is showing up as such for the first time, and sometimes you were unaware of.
I don’t want to sound dramatic, I am not suffering, nor I am pissed off at people or bothered by being misunderstood. Of course it happens sometimes. Both with expats and local people. But I am not feeling isolated and miserable in a desperate need for acceptance. Our background is different, I am fine with that, I gained my self-confidence, I am able to appreciate other people way of living, and to re-consider mine as well. I just need to learn how to continue to benefit from a sense of belonging to something that is still there, but it’s so far away that sometimes I feel like I’ve been put on another planet. I am just afraid that I am shutting myself off here somehow, not being able to make the most of this diversity all the way. Acting just like the Vietnamese expat version of me, since nobody would understand otherwise.
Vietnam overload 