“What are you doing here?”

It’s a question a lot of Vietnamese people probably want to ask me (or actually are asking me and I just can’t understand it) as they see me, a twenty-two year old white American female, browsing casually through the grocery store or studying for my LSAT in a cafe.  Listening to music, sweating profusely in the heat. And alone. Always, always alone.

Tonight, my new coworker “Pierre,” a French guy masquerading as an American so he can teach English as a native speaker, invited “Curly,” my other coworker, to come with him to check out some local real estate and then grab dinner. I overheard this conversation and decided to invite myself. Figured it’d be nice to get to know my coworkers, and they are certainly a strange pair.

Pierre recently divorced his second wife.  He gave her everything and cut off contact with her and his “psychotic” eleven year old child.  They have no idea where he is now.  He used to own four restaurants, and has been teaching English in Southeast Asia for about five months now. He wears a fuck ton of perfume and has been known to sunbathe in a black speedo at all hours of the day. Makes pedophile jokes, claims to have been a teenage model. I kind of like the guy.

Curly, on the other hand, has never married, although he did purpose to a Vietnamese woman he met in Saigon when he was “younger.” She kept the ring. He learned to speak Vietnamese by getting manicures in the greater Boston area. Why? So he could sell houses to Vietnamese people and get rich.  He has visited Vietnam about five times. This time around, he’s been here for eight months.  He looks like Big Bird from Seasame Street, and tells lots of PG jokes that are endearing yet not funny at all. He speaks almost fluent Vietnamese, and works as a volunteer at the language center because he does not want to work a lot of hours, and his main focus here is to improve his Vietnamese anyway.

Tonight, when I was hanging out with them at dinner, Pierre asked me the very question that has been hounding me ever since I unboarded the plane–no wait, ever since I left the womb: “What are you doing here?”

I took a sip of my Heineken (served over ice, per usual), and told him the truth “…….UHMMMM DURRR I’M FINDING MYSELF!!”

Just kidding. What I actually told him was my whole backstory situation. Korea, resume, applying to law schools in North Carolina, having a long distance lover, the works.

Annd as it turns out, two single, unlucky-in-love middle-aged men love telling sweet innocent twenty-two year old Nicoles how to live their lives. That it’s never going to work out their long distance boyfriends. That they should walk the Earth alone. And that, even if they did get married, it would all end in shambles.

Uhm, I’d like another Heineken, please?

Yes, my approach to life in Quinhon is certainly different from theirs at this time. I see my time here as a sort of incubation.  When I’m not working, I’m spending literally all my free time either foraging for food, studying for the LSAT, or missing my boyfriend. It’s a life of self discipline and self denial. No comfort, no fun, and no intimacy all for what?

Uhm, durr I’m finding myself!!!!! I’m finding out that stress will follow you wherever you go, and that you need to do battle with it. I’m finding out that friendship in all its forms is precious, valuable, and as necessary as food to the soul.  I’m finding out that I can, in fact, survive without coffee, cheese, tampons, ice cream, fresh salads, a cell phone, clean bathrooms, craft beer, two blankets on my bed, or the opportunity to converse fluently in my native tongue. I’m finding out that positive enforcement in the classroom is the only type of enforcement there should be, and that young children love violence and minor chords more than most things, but that’s okay.  I’m finding out how that when you love someone 7,000 miles away, sometimes it hurts you so bad that your heart implodes, and that people will laugh at your pain. And I’m finding out that everyone has an idea about how your life should be, you should always listen yet never, ever let it change what’s in your heart.