It’s difficult to reflect on living in a city like Soc Trang while you are actually there. So when someone asks: “What’s it like living there?”, the only response I can think of is “ok”. So now that I am back in Australia on a 2 ½ week holiday I will try and come up with a more informative reply.
Life in Soc Trang can be summed up as exciting, boring, entertaining, frustrating, fun and difficult.
The most difficult aspects of living in such a bustling but alien city are the language and cultural barriers. Not many people speak English in Soc Trang and mine and Dan’s Vietnamese language skills are very basic. Not being able to communicate with some of the people we work with, with our neighbours or with people we meet in the daily course of our lives is tough. Not being able to read road signs or shop signs or understand what is being broadcast over the public loudspeakers is also a challenge. Because we can’t speak the language we have to rely a lot on other people to translate for us, meaning we are almost like children, depending on someone else to explain things to us, to organise something for us and to sort things out for us when something goes wrong. But we get by, we try and do the simple things (like shopping or bike repairs) by ourselves. We have learnt that, with enough pointing and nodding, and by employing our drawing skills, we can usually get what we need. For work matters, and even for personal matters, the English-speaking Vietnamese staff in our office are always willing to help – they are a god-send.
Cultural differences, however, are not so easily glossed over. The rural areas in Vietnam, including Soc Trang, are very hierarchical and patriarchal. This impacts both our work and our social life. The Vietnamese system of government is very complex and, for work to be approved, there are many layers of bureaucracy that it must go through. Which means that things do not happen very quickly. At all. This can be very frustrating, especially now when we are approaching the last six months of our volunteer contract. All we can do in response to this is to keep on pushing on and be organised enough so that, when a piece of work is finally approved, we are ready to implement it straight away.
The patriarchal nature of rural Vietnam is something that, as a Western woman, I find tricky to negotiate. As a Western woman, I am pretty much forgiven any transgression against society’s expectations of appropriate womanly behaviour. However, as an outsider trying to live in and fit into Soc Trang society, I do not want to make too many mistakes! For example, women in Vietnam do not drink alcohol. If they do drink alcohol they are seen as ‘bad’ (i.e. disreputable) women. So while I do not want to go out drinking every week and earn a bad reputation, I also do not want to stay at home all the time while Dan goes out drinking with the men.
As for life in Soc Trang being boring, well, sometimes it is. There aren’t many sources of entertainment for non-Vietnamese people other than eating and drinking. There are even less things to do when the power goes out (which it does regularly). Sometimes our weekends in Soc Trang drag by. So we have to entertain ourselves as best we can. Our typical weekends in Soc Trang include working on Saturday morning, having long lunches and coffee breaks, going out for motorbike rides in the country and having dinner at restaurants which serve beer. It’s entertaining enough, but not something we want to do every weekend – which is why we often take weekend excursions to other areas in the Mekong Delta.
The only other real difficulties we face in living in Soc Trang are the noise and the traffic. I have complained about those in other posts often enough – I think you are familiar with my views on them by now!
So that brings me to the brighter side of life in Soc Trang. The people in Soc Trang are generally very friendly. We have made friends with Vietnamese people who do speak English, with Vietnamese people who speak a little English and with Vietnamese people who speak no English at all. Everywhere we go we hear people calling out to us “hello, hello!” When we go out to dinner we are often approached by total strangers who want to test their English on us or, more likely, want to drink beer with us. Because we are foreign we are often given a rock-star status which we really do not deserve at all!
Volunteering in Soc Trang has also meant that we have met a lot of other Westerners who are working, living, volunteering and/or studying in Vietnam. Meeting these people has, for me, been a real eye-opener, it is amazing and really inspiring to hear the stories about the good work some people are doing here.
Another benefit of life in Vietnam is that we have the perfect opportunity to travel through Vietnam and through Southeast Asia. This year alone we have been all through the Mekong Delta, all around Ho Chi Minh City and its surrounds and we have travelled to Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia. We are also planning on travelling through mid and North Vietnam and to Laos. None of this would have been possible if we weren’t based in Vietnam.
In regards to our work, while it can be frustrating, it is also rewarding. At the moment we are doing a lot of work on environmental education. We are trying to get teachers to teach their students about climate change and the importance of mangroves. We have produced a climate change teachers’ manual and climate change and mangrove flyers and we have organised a biodiversity drawing competition. We are also going to prepare posters, street signs and logos and hold a travelling environmental roadshow. It is good to know that the work we are doing in Soc Trang will help raise environmental awareness and may even lead to a change in peoples’ behaviour.
As you already know, I love food. So the food of Vietnam is definitely a highlight of life in Soc Trang. The fact that the food is very fresh and ridiculously cheap is also a positive! We eat out nearly every night, we eat a lot of seafood and so far we have avoided some of the more out-there menu options, such as dog, cat and bat. We often eat lunch at a vegetarian place which does amazing things with tofu. I never knew that tofu could have so many different textures and be prepared in so many different ways! I’ll have to learn to cook tofu like that one day, but I might give the fermented tofu a miss.
Finally, the shopping in Vietnam is cheap and great! While Soc Trang doesn’t have many nice shops, Ho Chi Minh City has thousands! I’ve already bought home two quilts from Vietnam Quilts (one for me, one for my sister) and I still have a big long list of things I would like to buy, including shoes, bamboo bowls, ceramic plates and mugs, cushion covers, a leather bag and lots of clothes. I’m also planning on going to Hoi Anh just so I can get a trench coat and some work clothes tailor made. Vietnam – a shoppers’ paradise!
So that about sums up my thoughts of life in Soc Trang, Vietnam. Doubtless I’ll come up with more opinions later but I think this post is already long enough. Congratulations if you have read this far! The only question that remains now is: “Am I looking forward to going back?” To which I can confidently say: “Yes”. Dan is still in Vietnam, so of course I am looking forward to seeing him again, I’m also looking forward to seeing what the next six months will bring. New jobs to do, new people to meet, new places to see and much more seafood to eat!
I've been told this blog needs more photos of me and Dan - so here's a very rare photo - one where I am actually smiling. This was taken in HCMC. I think the reason that I was smiling is that the drink in front of me was a very large and very tasty mojito.
