A few bad apples

Today was one of my first completely unbooked days in Ha Tinh in what felt like ages!

This is definitely of my own choosing - I realize that I have made a point to be physically present in Ha Tinh as little as possible. After some really lonely and depressing sick weekends in January and early February, I came to the disheartening conclusion that Ha Tinh just may not be able to offer me the sense of community I had hoped for. This is to no fault of any one person, but so many people are so, so, so busy. Phone calls go unreturned, invitations get put off, and commitments are ignored completely, and I'm left to my own lonely devices. Reading the blogs of other Fulbrighters, I get so insanely jealous to read that one Fulbrighter has a close enough relationship with her host to make a point to honor her on Mothers' Day, or that one Fulbrighter has become so integrated into her host's family to the point that her and her host's daughter are now buds.

This second semester, I've spent almost every second of my free time in Hanoi to escape the total isolation that I feel here. And I don't regret this at all. In Ha Tinh, I was longing for community and a place where I felt loved and welcomed and appreciated in my free time, not just at the times when I'm working. In Hanoi, I've been able to create that sense of community and have made some wonderful friends in the process. Sure, my experience as a Fulbright ETA isn't what I had hoped with regards to building a life here at my host university, but I certainly can't complain about the life that I have built away from the university!

But, on days like today, I realize what I've been missing out on. I had no classes or meetings or trains to Hanoi to catch, and I had the entire day to do whatever I wanted. It has been a million degrees for the past month or so, so hiding away in my (mildly) air conditioned room is usually my choice for free time. Today I decided to go to the beach.

I made the motorbike trip there almost entirely successfully. About 5 km from the beach, I got a flat tire which brought back memories of the unfortunate flat tire incident with MJ on the way to the beach. We had to wait for what seemed like hours for the bike to be repaired, and by the time we got to the beach, the good weather had gone away! Luckily, the situation was not nearly as dire this time! What happened was that a patch that a mechanic had previously put on the tubing in my back tire had overheated and melted off, leaving the initial hole exposed once again.

So, now we know that the melting point for poorly-administed patches on tire tubing is about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

I stopped at a mechanic who repatched the tubing, and 20,000VND later, I was on my way.

The beach was absolutely spectacular. I think that I must have only been to the beach during the "off-season" when all the stores, restaurants, and souvenir stands are packed away, and everything feels a bit desolate and depressing, but today was definitely the "on-season," and the beach seemed so festive and lively! The weather was perfect, the ocean was bathwater-hot, and the beach was moderately empty.

I was in heaven, lounging on my rented chair (20,000VND for one day's use), reading my Kindle, and minding my own business, when young people's shouts started drifting towards me. Ugh- school must have just let out, and all the teenagers are here to frolic now. There goes my peace and quiet.


If only that could have been the worst of it.

A few minutes later, I was jolted out of my pleasant reading by someone standing about a foot away from my lounge chair, shouting at me. "Hello! Hello! Hello!" I looked up, and standing by my feet was a teenage boy with a cell phone camera, taking pictures of me reading in my bathing suit. I was livid.


I gave him the Allie-glare for a minute or so, hoping that it would frighten him and force him to scatter. No luck. He just kept snapping photos of me glaring. Then I started yelling "Go away! Go away!" and gesturing for him to leave me alone. No luck. It finally took me getting out of the chair and making a motion to grab his cell phone (I would have had no qualms with throwing it into the ocean) for him to run away like a pathetic, frightened animal. He ran back to his friends who were laughing hysterically and loudly, and I saw him show them the pictures on his phone.

I felt completely violated. It's one thing to be walking down the street and receive shouts of "Hello!" and pointed fingers and loud whispers of "Foreigner! Foreigner!" Whether or not I like even those gestures (I don't - trust me!), I think they're part of what I signed up for in being here. But I did not sign up to have my sense of personal space and bodily privacy violated. This was just too much for me to handle, especially hanging only a few weeks on the coattails of that sleeper train incident with the disgusting man who woke me to tell me I was beautiful.

I had been having a great day just lounging and relaxing, and these disgusting teenage boys totally took that peace away from me. Incidents like this make me feel so much hatred and anger towards the whole population here, which I realize isn't fair. But I also want to send out a public service announcement to the whole country that "Foreigners are people too! It is completely inappropriate to treat them any differently, with regards to respect, than you would your own sisters, mothers, aunts, or grandmothers!"

I realize that development is a really slow process, and I realize that Vietnam is a developing country, one in the midst of all of these westernizing changes - exposure to westerners being only one of many. However, at times like these, I wish it could just develop quickly - in a heartbeat, if possible! - so that people will become accustomed to foreigners and just leave us alone to lay on the beach in peace, or to sleep on a sleeper train in peace, or to go to the grocery store in peace. I realize my presence is novel and exciting and makes people act differently than they would act to said sisters, mothers, aunts, or grandmothers, BUT I hate being on the receiving end of this treatment. I can only imagine wistfully that 20 or 50 years from now, Vietnam will have developed into a more western-friendly country, one where it's perfectly normal to see a white person walking down the street, just as perfectly normal as it might be for us to see a Vietnamese person walking down the street in the US.

In any case, the day was not entirely lost to these teenage boys. Around 4:30 I left the beach and stopped at the beach-side restaurant that (graciously) always allows me to park my motorbike. I ordered a huge coconut and drank what seemed like endless amounts of coconut juice, and then they persuaded me to stay and order dinner. Okay, if you twist my arm...

I ordered my favorite dish of tuna stewed with tomatoes and green onions, and was 100% satisfied with it!

On the drive home - one of my favorite geographical parts of Ha Tinh, I realized! - I stopped at a few of my favorite scenic outlooks to take some photos.

This weekend will be my last weekend of travel. I am going with MJ to Hue, a city about 300 km south of me, that served as Vietnam's imperial capital in the 1800s. After a few days in Hue, MJ will return with me to Ha Tinh where we will hopefully enjoy lots of banh muot and uninterrupted time on the beach!