“It is not our stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” – Dr. Hans Selye
Wow, mind-blowing. Trivial you’ll say. Except that becoming aware of that reaction and learn how to control it is not as simple as a stupid quote, as everyone’s probably experienced.
Sometimes stress turns us into short-sighted people, we can only see how busy we are, how difficult it is to control and deliver what our positions and status require. People have over-responsibilities, work a lot, are behind schedule by definition, don’t have time, feel the pressure. I know how short is the step between looking at what you are doing from a healthy and proper distance, and feeling like the future of the world lies in your hands. And being overwhelmed does not help to put things in perspective and stop sweating the small stuff. It’s a very common condition and I fully understand the feeling, even if my mood is totally different in this moment of my life. I am over-skilled for my job to be honest, it’s quite easy to deliver what people are expecting from me, and – more importantly- what I expect from myself, this round. It’s a transitional phase, I simply don’t care. Which puts me in the perfect condition for a pointless speculation.
And so, here is my gross generalization about Vietnamese mild temper and social interactions among strangers, in Vietnam.
Spending most of my time surrounded by the Vietnamese is such a thought-provoking condition, again. You know, the Zen masters. The poker-face professionals. They remind me of flight attendants sometimes. People who look cool as a cucumber whether they are involved in a car accident and it’s clearly not their fault, a client cancels a reservation the day before the departure, or it’s raining cats and dogs and they cannot leave the office for hours.
After one year spent here, I haven’t identified any trigger which would at least bother a Vietnamese. They never show the anger – which doesn’t mean they don’t feel it (maybe) – and look very sympathetic and agreeable: most of the times they appear to answer “yes” to any request. Which might be a polite way of reassuring you that they care and they are listening attentively, or maybe just a confirmation of what you were afraid of: “Yes, I am not getting anything of what you are saying, indeed”.
On the other side, someone told me that the Vietnamese are considered the only “Latin-Asian people”, meaning that there are a lot of characteristics and values that we share as populations: they are warm, energetic, industrious, friendly, tied to the family, they respect the elders, are easy-going, have a sense of humor and an easy smile. I find this definition extremely fitting actually: I really don’t think that these people are kind of “emotional resilient” or cold, on the contrary, many times I figured out that it was just a matter of face expression, gestures and tone of voice. Though this “neutral attitude” is quite unfamiliar for an Italian from the South, considering how expressive we are instead. Thinking about how comprehensive and meaningful is our body language, how our intonation expresses different shades of meaning, I am afraid that beyond the very limited vocabulary that we share, they get like 50% of whatever I intend to say, and vice versa.
Today my colleague dropped the iPhone, a few days after she had the screen fixed, and I was surprised to see her face once she picked it up and found it was broken again. Nothing. She was smiling, and she just said with a flat intonation “Aw, the screen is smashed”, without even mentioning the recent reparation.
A few months ago I have been to Nha Trang for a weekend on the beach, and I was so disappointed when a typhoon made landfall as soon as we got to our dream resort. I had been waiting for that weekend for months, to let the dry season begin, but in the end it turned into a nightmare: the storm was so ruthless and scary, the island was flooded, many trees felt down, we couldn’t access our open air toilet, we couldn’t take a dip and the sun didn’t show up for a second…I discussed with the staff arguing that they put us in danger and shouldn’t allow clients to get to the island with such an announced storm approaching, I wrote a bad review and all those stuff that angry clients are so good at doing. There were Vietnamese people on the island of course, and you know what they were doing while we were walking through the mud cursing and trying to get to the reception? They were lying on the beach under the rain, picking and eating the coconuts that came down with the storm, with kids playing around totally undisturbed.
During the monsoon season – and by the way, for the record, is there any dry season here? Any chance we are not wet for some reason, any time? – we got stuck at the office every other day while the city was completely flooded, motorbike was not safe for long distances (questionable for real Vietnamese…), traffic was totally congested, Grab taxi were too expensive and we basically just had to wait for the rain to stop or to get weaker at least.
You know, you have many things to do once you arrive home, you are tired after a day at work, impatient and nervous…and you know what some Vietnamese were doing while waiting at the entrance of our building? They were exercising, totally relaxed. I was too upset to join, but that moment was so eye-opening: why stressing out if we all cannot do anything but waiting?
There is something magical in this adaptation process, every time I feel like exploding, squeezed to the last drop, so miserable and overwhelmed, the epiphany happens, and a new unexplored way to cope with the circumstances helps me to sort it all out.
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Don’t stress out
I work as a travel consultant, which unfortunately results into dealing with Western tourists’ rudeness and pretentiousness. It happened many times that a client threaten to SUE me because of some minor changes within the agreed itinerary (I would be so curious to see which charges I should face…), e.g. a change in hotel accommodation, a domestic flight rescheduled, a different appointment with the driver or a different guide…every time I am struggling and pushing myself beyond my limit to keep the distance, and unfortunately not always succeeding.
My boss and co-workers, that are much more involved than me in the job, since they own the business and have their name on the reviews, never react or get defensive when attacked, even when people are really offensive and aggressive, complaints are totally unreasonable and come from very intolerant and ignorant persons. I’ve never seen them offended, they reply politely and try to find a solution (sometimes they don’t get the point and the solution can get the situation even worst, but this is another story…), and they never take it personally. And when they hang up the phone and drop the entitlement, you realize that it was for real: they don’t even release the tension, no curses, not a 4 letter word!
In this hectic city of 9 millions people where roads have no rules and no lanes (traffic accidents killed aprox 8.000 people per year in Vietnam), you witness many accidents going around, but surprisingly never see people fighting, arguing or yelling at each other. People fall, check and rearrange the cargo, if any (you can imagine when they are carrying fruits and veggies…) and hop back on the motorbike, smiling at each other, like nothing happened. Ok, might be because nobody owns an insurance or a driving license, so you’d better shake your hands and keep going, but it’s still impressive how this people are able to avoid any kind of confrontation, even when they would have a point.
And if over-reacting and freaking out require massive doses of energies and cause stress itself, we should all learn from these guys. Maybe practicing Tai Chi, studying the Confucianism or just by osmosis, I don’t know, but they just don’t seem to control themselves. It is something deeper: they ARE genuinely unflappable, as simple as that.
Hope I am absorbing and learning somehow to implement this “filter” and turn it on while coping with everyday crap as much as possible, I’ve put it under the file: “be more Vietnamese”.
Vietnam overload 