A blistering rush runs through my mind and body as I break the seal- as I do something new for the first time. Vietnam is just a roller coaster of firsts and I am going to keep riding until I’m kicked off for closing.
I’m a soul who rarely gets embarrassed, and so its hard to put me outside of my comfort zone- and that is initially why I signed up for Vietnam, I wanted to truly challenge myself with something I knew (or thought) I would heavily struggle with.
I’m just a boy, at the ripe age of 19, who decided to go to Asia, for the first time, with no friends, no knowledge or strong interest in the food or culture, and new knowledge of allergies to all kinds of seafood (including shellfish.)
In background knowledge: I am in Vietnam, traveling from North to South with 25 other students from my University to study business and the economy of Vietnam. It is a cultural study led by two advisors from my school and a travel guide.
My knees shook as I stumbled around the streets of Hanoi for the first time. My body shook with ache feeling I had made a regretful decision, and my mind pounded with the knowledge that there was absolutely no turning back now. I was a minority in a city that didn’t seem to have anything familiar to my home. The driving and streets were in no way an organized process nor did they follow any sort of structure. Even the sidewalk wasn’t sacred ground, people drove on it as well. Rising in the corners of the streets were unfamiliar smells, unwanted grabbing and questioning and overall utter confusion and dismay. But as I began to breath and remind myself why I was there, a slight net of peace went over me.
I’ve always saw study abroad as an escape to go and travel fascinating places, party all the time, and have very little cares about the real world. Though, it soon became clear that Vietnam was not on my plate to be a party, I was placed here to educate myself. To see how other cultures function, and to see what its like to live in the majority of the world’s income and setting, rather than being a privileged white male in America. To put on a man’s shoes and walk his path for a day you could say.
There is so much more to say and so much to come, such as the time in which I traveled to beautiful Buddhist temples and land marks and really found myself and peace until I discovered that I had taken too long and was soon enough to be only with me, myself, and I (in the middle of no where Vietnam, with no access of communication to anyone else.) Or the time I saw Ho Chi Minh’s dead body. Or, not to mention my new appreciation for every working man and my constant lookout for the topics of my paper, such as prostitution, woman’s rights and gay’s rights. But that is all to come in dear sweet and soon time. This was to stand as an introduction to an…eclectic and memorable journey that is ‘that time I went to Nam.’
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