vietnam: understanding life in a third world country.

hey, y'all.  it's about 12:30pm here in can tho, vietnam and 1:30am back home.  just taking a break from walking around and i decided to do a post.

my sojourn to vietnam has been a swell one so far.  i've actually been able to eat a lot of the food here without worry, and i haven't had an episode of the shits... not yet, anyway [apologies for the rather disturbing image].  i've been enjoying all the delicious, exotic fruits that i can't find in the US!  nomnomnom!

being in vietnam gave me a profoundly eye-opening experience.  after spending a few days here, i realized [once again since 2000] that the citizens of vietnam [most of them, anyhow] are very unfortunate and have quite a difficult time getting by financially.  it saddens me to see 5-year old kids begging passerbys to buy their lottery tickets, women walking around trying to sell fruits and desserts, and teenage girls offering happy endings to dirty perverts after a massage.  i instantly feel a tinge of remorse when i decline to buy anything they offer.  i am, afterall, much more fortunate in many aspects than they are.  what's worse is seeing people who have medical problems who don't have enough money to get the help they need.

yesterday, my cousin was celebrating his 19th birthday.  we went out to eat and drink and apparently some of his friends didn't help dish out money to help him pay for the bill.  we were planning to go to a karaoke bar after eating, but he didn't have enough money to pay for it.  his mother [my aunt] suggested we go to her house to hang out instead.  of course, my cousin was pretty disappointed, i suppose, from the fact that his friends are cheap and that he couldn't afford to do karaoke.  tru and i stepped in and offered to pay for the room and drinks [it wasn't much at all - about $30 USD for plenty of drinks and a private karaoke room] and that made him a happy camper.  i felt awesome that i could make his birthday celebration a better one; he was all smiles by the end of the night. :)

my parents always tell my brothers and me that we are privileged to live in america, the land of opportunities.  they said, "you have no idea what a rough childhood is like."  they gave me the whole generic story - "we walked miles to go here and there", "we didn't have the luxury of so and so" etc.  i don't come from an extremely wealthy family but am able to afford/attend college and attain a very respectable profession.  families in vietnam must have a lot of money to be able to send their kids to college, and those families are rare to find in vietnam.  in vietnam, its either you're poor or you're rich, and like america, the rich get richer and the poor remain poor; there aren't many cindarella stories here.

realization: my brothers and i are lucky... very lucky.  thank you mom and dad for a more comfortable lifestyle and the opportunity for success!