Hi everyone again,
so here we are, last friday we celebrated our first week in Hanoi, and things are getting better every day.
When I first read about Viet Nam and about the culture back home, I was surprised (to say the least) by the notion of the Vietnamese being very curious about just about everything, especially about what most Westners view as the most intimate details of one's life, such as age, whether one is married, why aren't they married, and so on...
It took me a week (I know, the neurons were busy studying japanese instead) to get a fairly clear picture of what is really going on. There are about 10 ways of saying hallo to someone in Viet Nam, this depends on the gender and the age of the person you're saying hello to in relation to yourself: not only that, these are all family relations: "em" as in you "little sister" or "anh" as you "little brother" and so on. They are generally curious, but most of all the most sociable and friendly people, because everything happens in and with the community....they need to know everything about you because you are part of that community and will (eventually/hopefully) be seen as part of the family.
We had the opportunity today to listen to a very famous and incredibly charismatic Vietnamese writer today, who summarised in one hour the entire Vietnamese history and the context we are about to get involved in. One point that struck me was how the new "open door policy" (open to foreign markets, etc) was indeed very good for the country's economy, but it is also starting to instill the Western Individualistic philosophy against the Asian Collectivistic "Never alone in your thinking"...a lot of food for thought, but I kinda get the feeling my neurons will go on strike soon, so goodbye, and thanks for your patience as always!