Not Quite Local Yet

Ho Chi Min City Day 3

Day three can be an odd in-between day. It is still too soon to feel acclimatised, but things are starting to become familiar and you begin to form a rhythm. At least, that is how it works on holiday. It feels different when you are moving to another country for work.

Instead of breakfast, I had an online briefing with a manager. Breakfast was included with my stay, so I asked if I could take something simple to my room. Ideally fruit and bread. That was not really an option. They would only prepare something if they assembled it themselves. What arrived was a “Western breakfast”.

This turned out to mean potato wedges, a strange little cake, yoghurt, a banana, bacon, sausages (one burnt to a cinder, the other almost raw), something that looked like Billy Bear ham, and a sandwich filled with more of the same.

It was not just that it was unappealing. It highlighted several layers of assumption. There was the language barrier, but also the assumption that Westerners want a Western breakfast, and then the assumption of what a Western breakfast actually is. Potato wedges for breakfast felt particularly odd. As uncomfortable as it is to admit, I threw it away. Very early on, you learn that familiar labels do not guarantee familiar food, and that sometimes the simplest request is the hardest thing to communicate.

After the meeting, I wanted to feel productive, so I went to Viettel to sort out my phone, which in turn would unlock the bank situation. On the way, I passed a very authentic market.

The produce looked colourful and versatile, and I recognised almost everything. As a chef, it was especially interesting to see that there was both much more than you would find at home and also less. No avocados in sight. But it was scorching hot. The meat was unchilled, the fish was laid very close to the ground, and flies hovered around both.

I simply did not want to buy anything. There is also the quiet awareness that when you stand out and look like you have money to burn, you cannot really expect not to be taken advantage of. That might mean being charged a higher price or being loaded with more produce than you need, especially when you are only staying in a hotel for a few days. It is probably something most people learn to navigate with practice, but I cannot help wondering if I ever will.

There may be something to be said for building up tolerance. Perhaps my hygiene standards are so strict that my immune system struggles with anything less. Whether that is sustainable, I do not know. I also do not know if I will change.

The phone shop itself was a disaster. Nothing got resolved, which meant the bank issue stayed unresolved too. These things are not catastrophic and they are fixable for a small cost, but they can be the tipping point. They make you question what you are doing. This is where you have to stay grounded and rational.

In my case, my family were seven hours behind and asleep. If I had a meltdown, no one was around to talk sense into me, so I had to do it myself. It was tempting to have a coffee to try to fix the feeling and power through. That is exactly what I did, forgetting how different the coffee is here. The headache started to build soon after.

The rain arrived suddenly and heavily, of course just as I was heading out to get food. Within minutes the streets were ankle-deep. It would have been fine, except I thought I had timed food perfectly before my training that afternoon. As I dashed through the rain, instantly soaked, a man put his umbrella over both of us without hesitation and walked me to a shop where I could buy my own. It was a small kindness, but at that point it genuinely felt like it was saving my life.

By the time I finally found somewhere to eat, I was starving and short on time, which is how I ended up at a restaurant recommended by the recruiter handling my employment.

She meant well, but it turned out to be a tourist trap. The dish was bún bò riêu in name only. There was no tomato flavour, no crab, rubbery tubes of meat, odd cuts with gristle, unexpected textures, and a sheen of unsavoury oil. Hunger had made me less discerning, and it showed.

This is something worth knowing early on. If you want to try things and really experience the food, you have to accept that you will eat things you hate. Textures can be hard to get through. Pastes, meatballs, rubberiness, gristle, strange crunchy bits. It can be a roller coaster, and sometimes the experience includes pushing through something you would rather not be eating at all.

After lunch, I went back to the hotel and used the pool. I needed to reset before heading out again. The earlier panic about timing was unwarranted, as I always leave about an hour of leeway. I am, admittedly, a bit of a drama queen.

The language centre was much farther from my hotel than I had anticipated. Choosing where to stay before arriving had been difficult, partly because centre locations are not revealed until you are already in the country. It is something to be aware of, in the sense that you cannot control that aspect and you simply have to roll with the uncertainty. To be fair, Grab rides are so cheap that it does not really matter.

I observed two classes, one in person and one online. By then, the migraine was fully developing, but the classes mattered. They gave me my first clear insight into the fact that I am going to enjoy teaching. I loved the children immediately, and that feeling cut through everything else.

I also learned that I would very much be thrown in at the deep end. The two lessons I observed could not have been handled more differently. One teacher followed the lesson plan to the letter, while the other taught freestyle and ignored rules like only using English in the classroom. I also found out that this was my only training, and that I now had a few free days in Ho Chi Minh City to fill.

I went back to the hotel afterwards, still dealing with a migraine. I visited the rooftop pool again, just to dip my feet in and appreciate the view. Finally, I cooked myself dinner, which more thaThis is clean, in order, complete, and faithful to what you wanted to say.

Day 3

Day three can be an odd in-between day. It is still too soon to feel acclimatised, but things are starting to become familiar and you begin to form a rhythm. At least, that is how it works on holiday. It feels different when you are moving to another country for work.

Instead of breakfast, I had an online briefing with a manager. Breakfast was included with my stay, so I asked if I could take something simple to my room. Ideally fruit and bread. That was not really an option. They would only prepare something if they assembled it themselves. What arrived was a “Western breakfast”.

This turned out to mean potato wedges, a strange little cake, yoghurt, a banana, bacon, sausages (one burnt to a cinder, the other almost raw), something that looked like Billy Bear ham, and a sandwich filled with more of the same.

It was not just that it was unappealing. It highlighted several layers of assumption. There was the language barrier, but also the assumption that Westerners want a Western breakfast, and then the assumption of what a Western breakfast actually is. Potato wedges for breakfast felt particularly odd. As uncomfortable as it is to admit, I threw it away. Very early on, you learn that familiar labels do not guarantee familiar food, and that sometimes the simplest request is the hardest thing to communicate.

After the meeting, I wanted to feel productive, so I went to Viettel to sort out my phone, which in turn would unlock the bank situation. On the way, I passed a very authentic market. The produce looked colourful and versatile, and I recognised almost everything. As a chef, it was especially interesting to see that there was both much more than you would find at home and also less. No avocados in sight. But it was scorching hot. The meat was unchilled, the fish was laid very close to the ground, and flies hovered around both.

I simply did not want to buy anything. There is also the quiet awareness that when you stand out and look like you have money to burn, you cannot really expect not to be taken advantage of. That might mean being charged a higher price or being loaded with more produce than you need, especially when you are only staying in a hotel for a few days. It is probably something most people learn to navigate with practice, but I cannot help wondering if I ever will.

There may be something to be said for building up tolerance. Perhaps my hygiene standards are so strict that my immune system struggles with anything less. Whether that is sustainable, I do not know. I also do not know if I will change.

The phone shop itself was a disaster. Nothing got resolved, which meant the bank issue stayed unresolved too. These things are not catastrophic and they are fixable for a small cost, but they can be the tipping point. They make you question what you are doing. This is where you have to stay grounded and rational.

In my case, my family were seven hours behind and asleep. If I had a meltdown, no one was around to talk sense into me, so I had to do it myself. It was tempting to have a coffee to try to fix the feeling and power through. That is exactly what I did, forgetting how different the coffee is here. The headache started to build soon after.

The rain arrived suddenly and heavily, of course just as I was heading out to get food. Within minutes the streets were ankle-deep. It would have been fine, except I thought I had timed food perfectly before my training that afternoon. As I dashed through the rain, instantly soaked, a man put his umbrella over both of us without hesitation and walked me to a shop where I could buy my own. It was a small kindness, but at that point it genuinely felt like it was saving my life.

By the time I finally found somewhere to eat, I was starving and short on time, which is how I ended up at a restaurant recommended by the recruiter handling my employment. She meant well, but it turned out to be a tourist trap. The dish was bún bò riêu in name only. There was no tomato flavour, no crab, rubbery tubes of meat, odd cuts with gristle, unexpected textures, and a sheen of unsavoury oil. Hunger had made me less discerning, and it showed.

This is something worth knowing early on. If you want to try things and really experience the food, you have to accept that you will eat things you hate. Textures can be hard to get through. Pastes, meatballs, rubberiness, gristle, strange crunchy bits. It can be a roller coaster, and sometimes the experience includes pushing

through something you would rather not be eating at all.

After lunch, I went back to the hotel and used the pool. I needed to reset before heading out again. The earlier panic about timing was unwarranted, as I always leave about an hour of leeway. I am, admittedly, a bit of a drama queen.

The language centre was much farther from my hotel than I had anticipated. Choosing where to stay before arriving had been difficult, partly because centre locations are not revealed until you are already in the country. It is something to be aware of, in the sense that you cannot control that aspect and you simply have to roll with the uncertainty. To be fair, Grab rides are so cheap that it does not really matter.

I observed two classes, one in person and one online. By then, the migraine was fully developing, but the classes mattered. They gave me my first clear insight into the fact that I am going to enjoy teaching. I loved the children immediately, and that feeling cut through everything else.

I also learned that I would very much be thrown in at the deep end. The two lessons I observed could not have been handled more differently. One teacher followed the lesson plan to the letter, while the other taught freestyle and ignored rules like only using English in the classroom. I also found out that this was my only training, and that I now had a few free days in Ho Chi Minh City to fill.

I went back to the hotel afterwards, still dealing with a migraine. I visited the rooftop pool again, just to dip my feet in and appreciate the view. Finally, I cooked myself dinner, which more than made up for the travesty that had been lunch. Knowing I could always rely on one good meal a day made it easier to take risks again the next day.n made up for the travesty that had been lunch. Knowing I could always rely on one good meal a day made it easier to take risks again the next day.