My Very Own Vietnamese Family

I am officially living with my host family! I was correct, it is a completely different experience of Viet Nam. It is good, but overwhelming. The first few nights (I moved in Thursday) I had no idea what to do with myself. Do I sit downstairs with nothing to do or pretend like I am doing things in my room? Do I let people talk to me in the little English that they know or do I keep asking what things are in Vietnamese and try to talk in that? Do I turn on the AC or not? Do I put that sauce with the chicken or the vegetable? Am I allowed to say I’m full or do I need to let the house helper (Co Hue, aka live-in cook, cleaner and child care provider) continue putting food in my bowl for me to eat? How early is too early to go to bed? Which of the 7 keys they gave me do I use on any of the 4 locks that exist between my entering and exiting the house? Which rooms do I wear which shoes in (bathroom shoes, stair shoes, outside shoes, etc)? So many new things! It’s intimating being plopped into a family setting with no idea what my role is and little means through which to communicate any possible expectations. So, I just go with it and hope that I’m not offending anybody.

The house is really nice. The thing about host families is that they need to be wealthy enough to afford having you and to have space for you. So I live in a fairly new development right across from a nice park with tennis courts, benches, jazzercise classes in the evening, and 6am badminton games. I already utilized the tennis courts yesterday in my attempts to master the sport! For some reason I am determined to be able to play tennis decently. I also fully intend to get in on this jazzercise class, the women are so intense about it! I can only imagine it is a great workout! Maybe I’ll wait until I have a little more Vietnamese before inviting myself to join...

Besides the house helper there are 4 family members, Co Sa (mom), Chu Hung (dad), Ming (12 year old son) and Vang (6 year old daughter, Vang is her nickname. It is the word for yellow but supposedly also means something along the lines of “little puppy”). The parents are very nice. Sometimes I feel awkward around them, but mostly just because none of us know what to say to each other. I really like the boy, he knows the most English of anyone and talks to me the most.

The little girl is the most interesting. She doesn’t talk much, to me at least. But I have noticed that she places herself around me a lot. She will sit in my room even when nothing is happening. I know she knows a good amount of English, but she won’t talk to me in it or respond to things I say. The only way of communicating I have found so far is to bring out my handy little Pocket Vietnamese dictionary and to pick random words to try to say. She laughs at my attempts, but then helps me. One night we just sat on my bed practicing words, making faces at each other and laughing together for quite a while. The parents said something yesterday about how when she gets home the first thing she does is check if I am home. So I gather that she likes me. I’m sure I’ll slowly get more words out of her.

I think I am starting to enter the beginning of the challenging part of this living in another culture for a year thing. The question, what am I doing here, seems to keep running across my mind. I’m working? I’m learning Vietnamese? I’m on a fabulous adventure to discover new things about the world and myself? I’m purposely torturing myself by moving so far away from comforting things and friends that I love? I guess it’s probably E. All of the Above.

(This picture isn't great, but the two adults on the left side are my parents, then the girl in front is Vang and the boy in the back by me is Minh)