Many an American, perhaps unhappy with life in the U.S., or just bored, has pondered what it would be like to leave the country and start anew elsewhere. Would it be exciting? Liberating? Strange?
For most Americans this is just a passing daydream, but Karin Esterhammer actually did it. In 2008, she and her husband Robin, plus their 8-year-old son, abruptly left their Los Angeles home and moved to Vietnam.
In her enjoyable book "So Happiness to Meet You," Esterhammer describes the difficulties, surprises and comical moments that followed.
Esterhammer had just been laid off from her job and her husband's small business was sputtering, so they decided that a year in low-cost Vietnam, with Robin paid to teach English, could help them right their floundering financial ship. It didn't work out quite that smoothly — for a while, they wondered if they would ever be able to return to the U.S. — but their shaky financial state makes this a better book.
Rather than sheltering away in a high-end neighborhood surrounded other ex-patriates and waited on by servants, Esterhammer and her family take up residence in a "regular" Vietnamese neighborhood. They soon find they must padlock their door to keep neighbors from wandering into their house and snooping around. They learn to deal with frequent power outages and floods, and the sounds of karaoke being sung at all times of the day and night.
But there are plusses too. Esterhammer comes to form close bonds with her neighbors, gets to plenty of practice speaking Vietnamese, and learns to cook local foods.
Looking around at her neighborhood, she also gains an appreciation for enjoying life with little money.
"The Vietnamese are philosophical about struggle: Don't look back, tomorrow will be better," she notes.
I loved how open Esterhammer is in telling the story, even when it comes to her family's personal lives. She describes getting breast implants removed in a Vietnamese hospital, and her shock when the woman she is sharing a recovery room with crawls into bed with her.
When Robin loses most of his teaching jobs, she observes some of his classes and soon discovers why: He is a terrible teacher.
"The lessons were not just sleep-inducing, but PhD-dissertation-on-potting-soil sleep-inducing."
She knocks her husband for sleeping long hours and not being much help around the house. I was kind of expecting the book to end with a divorce (spoiler alert: It does not).
Esterhammer's encounters with a group of ex-patriate wives in a group she dubs the "Ladies who Lunch Because They're Bored" are painfully comical. (Said one of the wives: "I have no interest in learning about Vietnamese culture.")
Esterhammer's family returned to California two and a half years after they arrived, but she came away with a love for her adopted homeland.
"If you ever get the chance to become stranded in a foreign country with no money to get home, I recommend Vietnam."
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