Culture Shock in Vietnam

Vietnam is such a beautiful country. If you ever get a chance to visit, take it. Here are a few things that caught us off guard on our trip:

Traffic
Whenever I talk about Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), I am disappointed in my inability to convey how dangerous it is to walk around in the city. It seems as though words cannot adequately describe how terrified Thien and I were of the scooters, but I will try once again here. There are no traffic laws and crossing the street is like playing the expert level of Frogger, only with real physical stakes. When one walks in a crowd, he looks for and moves toward empty space and does his best not to bump into other people- this is basically how people drive there. And being a passenger on one of these scooters is just as terrifying as walking among them. While bracing for the ignition, I must have let out an audible whimper because Thien's uncle kindly reminded me to "be courage" before we drove off to Christmas mass. Trust me, the danger is real and there no insurance information exchanged when accidents happen. Stay within the safety of four-wheeled vehicles; I'll leave it at that.

What can a motorbike fit?
-  A family: dad, mom, 2-3 kids
-  A dining room table for 4 plus its chairs
-  Enough ice bags as big as those large yard trash bags. I saw 5. Ice for days!!
-  7 larges parcels
My point is that the possibilities are endless! It's like seeing who is the best at Tetris with their motorbike. Of course there is a weight and size limit on those motorbikes but rarely is it ever obeyed. I had a conversation with one of my aunts about this. She owns a shoe factory and delivers shoes to the street vendors at those night markets you see. She knows which streets to avoid when stacking 5+ giant boxes filled with shoes on her motorbike. She's gotten many tickets for them, but sometimes it's worth to get a ticket instead of making another trip. With the traffic in Saigon, I understood her point.

Nose picking
Everybody does it- probably because of the pollution.

Getting low
For some reason, most of the food handling and consumption happens low to the ground. Stools that I have only seen in the context of helping little girls who are too short reach the toilet seat are the dominant dining furniture of choice. You get over the squatting pretty quickly- and for good reason- the food that arrives shortly after is likely to be some of the best you've ever had in your life. VietNOMS.

Street Wires
It's a bird's nest of wires - a really big bird's nest of messy entangled wires. It's as if no wires were ever removed but only piled on. It's everywhere on every tower. The mess is real and it bothers no one. While at my aunt's house, we lost power for a few hours. They say it happens often but more frequently in the summer. Could you imagine searching for the correct wires that caused the brown out? Or the map of which wires on the electrical pole?