Multiple Selves- Being a Foreigner

Yesterday, "Chi, ... di cho mua ...(Your shoes are old, why not go to market to buy?)" my Vietnamese colleague A watched my shoes and said. "K, o Dai Loan(No, th shoes are from Taiwan)." I replied. She kept going smilingly, "xx Vietnam dep dep!" ''K co ranh,'' I said. ''Em oto .. chi..(I can take you to the market by bike it's quicker!),'' she responded excitedly.

Today, I did notice my shoes, which surface is quite scuffed but its elegant blackness and shape still exists...looked like a fabulous grunge plus artistic Italian styles instead. I think I live and perform differently in the world being alone and with Vietnamese colleagues caused of the appreciation gap and language barriers. Similarly, some different selves appear and are satisfied in the hometown but not Vietnam since the life are uncommon mostly:
For example, in Vietnam, the topics are usually around the very simple life, like eating and working. I cannot dress skirts and visit endless exhibitions the art museums in Dalat at all.
I cannot read many Chinese books and usually have to speak English or poor Vietnamese or
simplified Chinese to Vietnamese colleagues...

Middle, Mi and Do

47:32, that's the length of the film Annie Hall I have watched within the two weeks, and it's just in the middle.

There are so many things in the middle: English novels, translation works, both vowels and consonents of a new language, a blog I keep reading for months, travel in Dalat, preparation for the next destination, further thinking for anchoring career for aesthetics and insights...

When one of my friends visited me today, I was very busy on working and then we had a coffee hurrily in the break at noon. I told her: "Look! How low the standard of quality I'm living is." Yeah, my personal time become valuable much than before. These days when I have to corporate with two Vietnamese workers for specific projects, I get up before 7:00 am, have breakfast, read my favorite book for a short time, then start to think of the daily tasks and working procedure for them. It takes some time but they depend on my assigns. It's like I am caring for two children and have to be responsible for preparation, otherwise, evrything would be in a mess.

We Are All The Same

After knowing my condition facing the language difficulties with my Vietnamese coworkers, today I had better performances in learning more VN words and adjusting myself.

In the very early morning, when the working just began and A and me had our first problem for communication as before. In the very second, I knew I was going to feel impatient and anxious (she expressed similar and active ways earlier than me by keep talking quick VN words.) Because of the awareness, I didn't have so much emotion instead. We had C for translation again.

Later, when she said ''Finished working.'' in Vietnamese word, I told her to write down. Even I understood the current sentence, I'd like to learn more. However, she wrote ''You are beautiful.'' in VN words and laughed. Then I asked her to do a task, I demonstrated for her and asked her how to express in their language. Not all the day had such enough time to practice more.

The Easiest Way to Be a Nut

If you want to try something wild, or if you want to know how many potentials in your personalities, why not try to work with foreigners, who cannot commuicate with you and often make misunderstandings?

Well, the post will be looked like a very long complaint, rather, you could consider it's a foreign worker's observational journal about the language barriers. Enjoy the writing and always welcome to correct my poor Vietnamese words since my coworkers cannot do that mostly!

***
After working, I couldn't help but thinking about the sentences I failed to express to the two young Vietnamese coworkers and the language desires always fire fierecely on working and become faint after that! I am tired to get involved and get through the working phrases in a tired day.
And the next day often feel tired to hear those unfamilar VN words, then all of them make me more tired too!

The things I wanted to convey like: (I have to say sometimes it's even uneasy to express in Chinese or in English quickly.)

Creativity from Our Origin

''Ok, mom, let me start to report my life in Vietnam. The beginning is an introduction, then three paragraphs with thesis statements. The end will be a conclusion.'' That's a way I think I should tell my mom (in my imagination), when she worries about my career.

This morning, I just thought the chatting with my mom yesterday and I found three questions seem her major concerns since I have worked in Vietnam:

1. Mom: ''What have you learned in Vietnam? Why your Vietnamese is so poor? You stayed there more than one year!''
Me: "You know because....and now my VN words are much better than before. I am keeping learning..."
Mom: ''Are you?'' ......

2. Mom: ''Haven't you thought to continue study to get a PhD degree...?'' (notice the expression here is not ''Do you...?'' or ''Have you...?'')
Me: ''I think working experience is very important, and maybe I can get a scholarship beacuse of that(I was surprised I said like this, do I really want to spend years to study further?)'' Ok, very well. Mom, should I told you I may like to study Buddhism or xx in Burma or some unexpected countries, something like that?

100000 Why

Working with Vietnamese, who have language difficulties with me, is like a Taiwanese book title: 100000 Whys!

Ok, perfect...I knew the young lady, my new Vietnamese coworker's next question was coming soon. Was it just a report for typing? How came so many questions???

That's why my working were disturbed a couple times and I couldn't concentrate at all.
Meanwhile, I knew it's hard for her to work continually with the confusion even they were looked unimportant or unhurry.
She just ought to do: typed the data instead of questioning it in the tight schedule!
I was going to lose my temper but I didn't.
Sighed and confused as well!

And when I wondered to know some details in her working procedure,
she always answers too much.
If we just need a cucumber, do we need to take all of the food from a refrigerator???

Jungles

After finished a report, which made me tired, I awaked instead.

Seeking of such a perfect report is not me
and I love my imperfectness
which are full of energies about creation and interpretation.

Today, I also felt a special friend again and I didn't resist.
My passion were so painful in the craziness
Who knows will memories be disappear and
Who believe we once had our stories?

Less is moreLess is more(?)

It's not a flag named in braveness
but where we have lived.
We try our best to go through the moist jungles......

Everything will be all right.

Being A Connoisseur for Early Beginning

Thinking of packing books always represents preparing to go bcak Taiwan.
I have no definate answer for which is better - working or just traveling in Vietnam.
What kind of memories I will think?
What career anchors I have developed?

The list of one-month basic learning plan is:
* Charles Handy- Myself and other More Important Matters (review for vocabularies)
* CT- S (marvelous, in practice)
* ABC-Sustainable Cities (Australia radio)

How will I contribute to these fields:
* Language / Literature
* Fine Arts/ Aesthetics
* Human / Psychology / Philosophy
by writing, reading, studying...and traveling...

A Lakebed Party - Life is Too Short

The autumn leaves represented
as they should be- elegant shapes, colours, and poses......
I was glad that I could sit near the lovely tree closely
at noon.

I gazed the Xuan Huong Lake
It's the first time I looked at her so much since the water was pulled out
Few people were walking on the lakebed; they were small as ants
The grasses were still there even the bed was looked dry
Maybe the image of the shining lake always exists as a comparison
I didn't feel disgust as before and just looked at the scene
It's like we seldom to see the essence of one thing
We lose in the surface (as the dreamy beauty of the lake) easily
and haven't thought that what's the most basic existence (but how?)

So we keep dancing and being drunk
we escape the awaking time
and never ask ourself to think deeper...?!
Yes, should we think so much
since life is too short...?!

Robert Frost - An Old Man's Winter Night

A day when was crammed with uncease works and physical tiredness
was suitable for a short poem, which could be read at least from beginning to the end
unlike many projects I have been doing still in the betweeen

While I can read Chinese in paragraph in one second, one word or phrase is still the unit for reading English. However, why not read a poem just slowly?
Slowly and don't worry what's next.
Concentrating on one of favorite hobbies is happiness.

It's a poem talking about an old man was scard by the sound of night either from outdoors or a cellar in a ''creaking'' room. He sat alone with a lamp, not really quiet. Then he paid attention on an ''late-arising moon.'' Since the moon brought him comfort, the old man developed a relation with the house:

For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept.

He did the only thing he could do well. The jolting log in the stove even didn't bother him.

Sleeping is peaceful for an aged person.
The perception is enlargen in the solitary.
What an old man suffers.....

Robert Frost - The Tuft of Flowers

It's the third poem from Robert Frost I read in the two days
Slowly read over round and round to access his expression in the natural scene with labour.

In the poem, he followed a guy doing mown to turn the grass
The sound of tools whispered far away.
He felt lonely, but it's not related to be together or not.
Then, from a butterfly's guide, he found his connection with the man even both of them worked alone
since the man kept a tuft of flowers by a brook.

The image of flowers existed actually in a route of the ''bewildered'' butterfy before that
but they were dry on the fround.
It made no sound but led his eyesight to the flowers, the only one left in the lawn.
After the night with memories of ''yesterday's delight,'' these flowers surprised him in the dawn.
His solitary was gone. And he found the closeness with the man even they didn't work together.

Stories In Dalat

One photo was shoot as walking hurrily last week. I thought that was one of most important pics I have taken for a long time. For one week, I only had 10 mins for breakfast. For two weeks, I experienced serious working tiredness. For three weeks, I was sick and sleepless. For more than four weeks, I have had a feeling that I lost a special friend......

Everything made me so tired in Dalat these months. But now I have picked the tender feeling in the small town. What a story, which was told, maybe comes with tears and smiles meantime... always vivid and moving in the memories...

Me, A Foreigner

As the school time, sat in front of table as in cram schools
It seems that I am still a teen but that's a serious meeting
among dozens of Vietnamese managers!

Oh, I am a foreigner, a real foreigner!
Oh, I haven't thought that I sat among other foreigners too so that when I wanted to speak to a woman next to me but I found my words were locked
the nature of talking my mother tongue many in one second
was stopped by the awareness
the time of delivering tiny paper talking some silly secrects in school time ends
as just yesterday
the whisper is also gone.

It's tired to listen to Chinese and followed Vietnamese translation for two hours
Every Vietnamese managers must be tired too.
They worked about 12 hours today!

ShashaRara

A mashroom is an umbrella for a fairy
Flied above a white cloud
The breeze kissed the fresh face of grass
To the endless green mountain
We sing songs for love
An old character play in an icy stage
Fire dances on the truth
A clock goes rebellious on Dali's painting and he didn't turn his head back
We say hello to the Beatles in a day between Sunday and Monday
The globe find the shadows of the dialogue between sun and moon
We sit under an Asian tree
Read an European poem
Not a house we live but imagination
Not a freedom we get but philosophy
We don't know we know we don't know
How the world works
Those unimportant things are always paid attention
We try to discover and explore
For plaing the of languages
We see the beauty but still try to define what's wrong
inside and outside
Not the rain dries us but forgiveness
To see further and purer
things, that not yet are understood
Will well will and well now

The Third Bus

I had to trasfer bus in a foreign city today.

I knew it took time to take bus in such hurry moment so I asked a Vietnam woman did their bus go to my destination. She said no. Then I left. But she called me later and asked me again where I wanted to go. Since she couldn't understand my pronounciation. I repeated several times.
And then I found the first bus passed away in the back of us. I missed the first bus because of the enthusiastic woman.

Then I kept walking further and waiting to the coming of the second bus.
I waited for a while and thanked to the cloudy day.
then one of my coworker called me.
It's hard to hear his sound by the road so I moved.
When I finished talking just for one minute and back to the road, and found the second bus left too surprisingly.
I ran a bit for chasing it but it's too late!

Gratitude Behind the Challenge

Incredibly, I survived!!
The same road by the pine forests, I was smiling when we went back Dalat,
compared to the blue in the morning.

In fact, I cried this morning for personal reason and the hard working task but I wept my tears secretly.
I just couldn't bear my affection to the suffering anymore!
They were so pure I have exposed to these days I don't know why.
The sunshine shined on me so directly and warmly and I only wanted it to dry my tears.

The sorrow was much larger than my existence...

***
It's not in every second but I actually thought I will leave the job as soon as possible within the three days. However, now I think I may appreciate all these things one day.

I have been going to the farms for three days and most of time it's extreme hot and I had to walk for 6 hours a day.
Sometimes it's hurry and very tired.
And I have to do some jobs at night such as today!
Burnt out and still need to get up early tomorrow morning.

Before Leaving Dalat

I watched a scene in Dalat tonight, and I felt I am preparing to say goodbye to the town.
It's one of lovely scenes where I remember how lovely it was once be.
The lights were colourful and the lake there was elegant and romantic.
I sighed and it's a little earlier for me.

On a coffee place, I told a memeber, who belongs to a group.
''If I leave Vietnam, I will miss your group very much."
He asked me when I will leave.
I told him what I am thinking and
at the pause I was almost crying.
Then he showed me some traveling photos he shot today and some are really funny.
He said nothing but I think he is really a good guy.
I am lucky to make some friends here.
It's the first time I thought I will not see them agiain one day Really!

Don't We Live in a Kind of Argentina?

The breeze was the same; the light from the house far away was the same,
I was walking very slowly on the bricked street, and I had to admit that:
even they are nice, I cannot go back to the beginning, when everything was once fresh and interesting for me.
I thought: ''if it's a relationship, how could we light up the light again and feel good?''

Walked up to the clean and wide road in front of Ngoc Lan Hotel, the little roses smiled but I just passed by hurriedly. And the logo of Mobiphone with blue and red was once colorful but it couldn't take my eyes anymore.
The street scenes are not so charming as before,
and they are not nostalgic ones under the familiar wind odor in every seasons in my hometown.
Well...I get used of them, many things, in Dalat.
I am not tired of them, I just know them much more than short stayed travellers.

A Touching Gift : Fall in Love

Knowing why people want to learn Vietnamese words is always interesting.
'I think I fell in love with Vietnam.' the guy said smilingly and seriously.
It must be one of most romantic words I have heard recently, I thought.

That made me start to think the experience I once fell in love.
Some are keep going...
At 10 years old, I fell in love with writing.
At 12 years old, I fell in love with the Western Arts.
At ? years old, I fell in love with literature.
At 22 years old, I fell in love with aesthetics.
...
Now, just fell in love with a new language, it almost happened in the first 'hearing.'
It needs time to make love matures by care and sincerity.
Isn't love a faith?