The Slower Life

I’m prolonging my stay in the countryside. Even though life here isn’t as exciting as in Saigon, I’ve become comfortable in My Tho. Every day, I wake up around 4 am to the sound of roosters crowing. You can hear all the roosters in the area crowing at that time and while at first I found it a charming a reminder that I am far away from home, it has become a nuisance in a way that familiarity can get under your skin. At 5am, the provincial radio blares “news” (ahem, ahem) from large speakers so loud that falling back to sleep is not an option. By that time, everyone is awake and you can hear farmers and motorbikes all getting ready for the day’s work. I usually go on my morning run with my cousin at this time, on dirt paths that take me along the rice fields and where I can see the haze of the morning sun reflect off of the water from the rice fields. After, I have a big breakfast—hot soymilk (freshly made, of course) and a bowl of noodles, finished off with coconut juice drunk straight from a coconut. I spend the rest of my day exploring the area, either going into the city center of My Tho or taking walks around the back roads of the country. Once it gets too hot (from 1 to 4pm), I come back to lounge around to read, write, and eat fresh fruit (mostly eat). Around 5ish, the provincial radio blares once again and I go on another run against a backdrop of orangey redness of the setting sun. My day usually ends around 8, when I retreat to bed like an old person.

It’s certainly a stark contrast from my life in Berkeley. There, I didn’t have the time to lounge all day or even read for pleasure, something I love to do but haven’t done in so long that I can’t even remember the last non-school related book I’ve read. I usually slept really late—the last two weeks of school at 5 am—and depending on the amount of work I had, I wouldn’t even sleep at all. Of course, I don’t miss that at all. I remember those stressful nights, so resentful at all the work and myself for having no time to appreciate the last days of my college life. But now that I’m in Vietnam, I have all the time I want and more. There are moments in the day when I do feel a bit restless, but for the most part, I’ve come to embrace this ‘slower’ life. It’s been a good lesson for me. I have the tendency to walk too fast, eat too fast, to do everything fast. Maybe that’s why I’m such a mess sometimes because I always do everything as if I’m in a rush when there really is no need to rush at all. I find myself noticing things more, taking in the details of my surroundings than I did before. Having time to write, to read, to talk to my family—it was all really needed to feel content but was too busy to recognize. Now that I have it, I don’t want to let it go, in fear that I will lose this sense of calm I have developed during my stay here. Hopefully, I am able to maintain this state of mind once I leave for Saigon in a few days.