First Impressions

My first few days in Viet Nam have been extremely hot and sweaty, a bit terrifying and chaotic, yet extremely exciting and interesting. With my first step into this small communist country, I knew that things were drastically different.  We're not in Kansas anymore.

The first thing I noticed was the heat and humidity.  I've never sweated so much in my entire life.  I think since the first moment I stepped off the plane until now, I have not stopped sweating.  I hope that as I spend more time here I will acclimate to the climate.  But for now, one of the best parts of the day is when I take a nice cool shower.

The second thing I noticed when I walked out of the airport into the streets of Ha Noi was the abundance of motorcycles.  Being more affordable and compact, motorcycles are very popular in Viet Nam.  Almost every single person in the cities has a motorcycle.  Women in tight dresses and high heels ride motorcycles to work, 16 year old boys ride motorcycles to school, 3 0r 4 friends ride motorcycles together home from school.  It is not uncommon to see a small child squished between his parents on the back of a motorcycle, or a baby held in his mother's arms whilst the father drives the motorcycle.  And the traffic here in Ha Noi is hectic.  Cars drive on the wrong side of the road desperate to reach their destination.  Motorcyclists drive on the sidewalk to avoid the gridlock of other motorcycles and cars.  People walk down the middle of the road, for reasons I  cannot understand when there is a perfectly good side walk.  Attempting to cross the road is an absolute nightmare.  Word of advice to those willing to take the risk: the motorbikes will move around to avoid you.  The cars, however, do not stop.

The third and last difference that was immediately apparent to me is the language barrier.  It is easy to communicate with young people, as all students are taught English in school.  However, I was not taught Vietnamese in school since the age of  If a Vietnamese person knows any English at all, he is mostly likely to know the words, "money" and "taxi".  Since my Vietnamese is, at the moment, limited to the words hello, thank you, and excuse me, it is a bit hard to talk with the locals.  Vietnamese is also a tonal language, which basically means that there are SIX different ways to say every vowel.  And the accent can change the meaning of the word dramatically.  There are also noises in Vietnamese that we do not make in english, which makes the pronunciation very difficult. Just a quick example: last night, whilst sitting with my host family, I attempted to say the word "school" in vietnamese.  However, my pronunciation must have been a little bit off, because I ended up saying the word "naked" instead.  My host mother and sister got a good laugh out of that.

So these are just a few little things that really struck me about Viet Nam when I first arrived.  I will have more, in depth blogs coming along soon!