New Ends, New Beginnings

It’s been a long time.  It tends to get a little harder to write about the job when things are going downhill.  I’ve now reached level ground, and I’m coasting.  I have a smile on my face.  Sometimes it’s not about where you end up, but about how much you enjoyed the ride.  I’ve just spent four months working in the most surreal job environment that I wouldn’t ever be able to dream up this story.  Most businesses are built on premises of making money or maximizing efficiency.  As I’ve come to find out, I came to Vietnam to help a very rich woman feel wafts of grandeur in her attempt to self entertain by opening a very expensive chiropractic clinic.  But I also found love, friendship, loyalty, and camaraderie across cultural boundaries, and there is no greater reward.

I’ve left the job in Hanoi, and am taking some time to sit in my bungalow on the beach for a few weeks/months in some other country in Asia.  I will be writing my story, which I fear may end up being part comedy . . . and that’s fantastic!  It may not be over for me in Vietnam, but if it is, it still may not be over for me working in Asia.  I will choose my next opportunity with great care.  I will post stories to my blog as I go if they are appropriate to my safety in going back to Vietnam.  If the time ever comes when I decide that I’m never going back to Vietnam, I will either post all stories, or just write a book.  As I said in blog number 1, I was excited as anyone to see how it all turned out, and I know I’ve got a page turner brewing.  Stay tuned!

Minced Pies for Eyes

This morning I had two tickets to Bangkok.  This is a sign of poor planning, but for once in my life I don’t really care.  For the past five days, I’ve been marooned on Koh Tao, the furthest island you can get out to by regular passenger ferry off the east coast of Thailand.  

Here are the feelings about traveling that I’ve gathered up on this trip.  It’s not about the places you go; it’s about the people you meet.  Traveling has become such a cliche that it seems most people tick off destinations just for their social resume.  Let’s see how many countries we can squeeze into three weeks.  Every time I go somewhere new, I wonder how I’m going to be absorbed by the place.  I have the understanding that, sure, there’s a good show to be seen as represented by the paragraphs in the travel guidebooks, and for many people that’s all that gets premiered.  No behind the scenes.  No figuring it out on their own.  That’s pretty sad.

Koh Tao is one of the premiere diving destinations in the world.  It’s a quiet, peaceful little island, with only a handful of streets to walk.  I stayed in a seedy little motel on the fourth floor, dorm style, with shared bathroom facilities.  Us fourth floor kids formed a bit of a club, and spent a fair amount of time shooting the shit sitting in the open breezeway outside our rooms.  I learned cockney from Gary . . . fridge freezer for geezer, apples and pears for stairs, having a bubble bath for laugh.  Jantzen taught me about youthful abandon.  Cat reminded us to live from the heart.  Traveling is about giving something up to make room for “the new.”  There’s only so much room in each of us, so please don’t forget to do your spring cleaning.

As I’ve come to find out, it’s a pretty big chore to get “off” these islands.  I knew I was leaving on the fifth of February, but I didn’t exactly check my departure time from the airport.  It takes three hours to get to the Surat Thani Airport from Koh Samui by ferry and bus.  You can imagine how my heart sank when I realized I was supposed to fly out at 8:45 am and I was absolutely set on spending one last night on Koh Samui.  I self convinced that there was some magical high speed ferry that left at 5 am.  Then I grabbed Kaz and hauled him over for his first trip to Koh Samui after living on Koh Tao for five months.

After walking down the gangplank, a taxi driver asked us, “Where to?”  “No idea!” We examined the map and picked the closest town.  It was still a twenty minute drive, and I felt my escape plan slipping away.  We got dropped off on your typical crap tourist beach street, no different from Phuket or Myrtle Beach.  Gross.  Take me back to Koh Tao.  I found the most lovely Israeli travel agent and explained my predicament.    She’s been living on the island for 8 years, just reading books, watching the ocean, and perfecting her seven languages.  She feared for my safety in carrying out the Surat Thani trip, because it would mean leaving Koh Samui that night and finding accommodations in the middle of nowhere with not a white person in sight.  And that is how I ended up spending a small fortune to fly from Koh Samui to Bangkok this morning to make my connection to Hanoi.  It was one last night to carve my name in the sand and watch the ocean cleanse the palette for the next barrage of FOBs (fresh off the boat).  I wish I could have seen it 30 years ago before it became another Any Town tourist destination.  As my taxi to the airport pulled off the main drag at 5 am, I saw my fair share of young white men stumbling out of clubs with the music still booming, pretty little thai girls shortly in tow.

This is Nowhere

I am perched on a ledge on the fourth floor, watching the coconut trees sway in the breeze and marveling at how the ocean fades into clouds.  I arrived on Koh Tao (Turtle Island), Thailand, yesterday at 2:30 in the PM.  I left Vietnam with 30 minutes to spare on my Visa. What a long trip for such a short distance! I clocked three hours at the Hanoi airport, having been warned that traffic would be a mess (it wasn’t), and seven hours at the Bangkok airport.  Here I had my first Starbucks peppermint mocha in over 3 months.  It was disappointing, not because it didn’t taste like itself, but because I guess I’m over it.  


The boat ride from the coast to Koh Samui was uneventful, and I slept.  The high speed catamaran ferry ride to Koh Tao might have been one of the worst things that ever happened to me.  I was set up near the bow because I wanted to keep an eye on my backpack, or more importantly, my laptop within.  With about 200 people on board, I would say twenty percent of them threw up.  It was a circus with the attendants running around with plastic bags: “Pass this that way QUICK!”  I did okay until the last third of the trip.  My eyes made their way from my designated set focal points; pink stripe, green bag, and America’s Best Dance Crew on TV.  I took deep breaths.  I burped.  I made a plan to snatch my neighbor’s plastic bag.  Over and over, my mantra, ‘you’re a fisherman’s daughter, you’re a fisherman’s daughter, you’re a fisherman’s daughter, don’t you dare,’ rang in my head.  As the boat slammed down into the waves, I caught sight of mountainous green coastline rolling into the ocean, and then feared I’d imagined it.  And then I was here.  


I found Kaz smoking a cigarette outside his hotel, met his little brother Jantzen, and have since collected some Danes and a bloke from East London who sounds the same as the green street hooligans.  A nice crew of people.  As I sat having my coffee this morning, I imagined that all I need in this world is an Astrolite adjusting table, some index cards that say, “Chiropractor $10 xxx-xxx-xxxx I’ll come to you,” and an island paradise setting.

TEAM

Jason has arrived!  Tu-Tu and I took a car to the airport to pick him up last week.  Tu-Tu’s name is actually just Tu, but I drew a picture on the board of a ballerina with a tutu the first day, and pointed at him.  It suits him.  The big question of the day at work that morning had been whether or not the clinic girls were going to find Jason attractive.  The boss declared, “Jason will be competition for Tu.”  “Really?” I thought.  Tu is about 5’2”, he blinks a lot and wears glasses, and he is very very timid.  “Because Tu can speak Vietnamese and Jason can’t!” she cried.  Hmmm.  Yessssss, exactly.  No comment.

So we all pile into the taxi and get going, and Tu whips around from the front seat and says, “Jason!  You will be my rival!”   The funniest part about it is that Jason didn’t even hear him.  HA!

Having someone around to go through this experience with me has made all the difference in slugging through these slow first days.  We run out to the street for snacks, such as roadside shish-kebobs, bang mi samiches, or danishes and coffee.  We see a few patients.  Then maybe we go back to the massage section and have a couple of people work out the knots for 20 minutes.  Sometimes we can’t believe how much of a dream job this is.  But there is definitely a down side:

The concrete God’s honest truth that people hold here is that health comes in the form of a pill.  I can tell someone that it’s going to take at least 6-10 adjustments before they start to ‘feel’ results.  It never fails that on about the third visit for the tough cases, my translator looks at me with pained eyes and says, “Still no change.”  Educate all you want to, but it’s like talking to a brick wall.  They will nod at everything you say, but we’ve heard rumors that go a little like this:  “I went to that chiropractic clinic, and it’s no good.”  “Why?”  “They don’t even give you any pills.”

What does this lead to?  The boss does not want to lose prestige in the community, so we have to work with Vietnamese patient psychology.  We’ve got glucosamine and fish oil pills, so I feel okay about recommending that.  But now it’s looking like the ‘pain pills’ pharmacy is about to get stocked up.  These people do not care about innate intelligence and living at 100%.  They just want to get out of pain.  So here is what I’m dealing with:  

“Big problem.  Many patients dropped out of care.  We must make them believe.  They have no trust.”

“OK, then we need to educate them more.”

(We made a video with subtitles because it was taking too long to explain on an individual basis.)

“They are too lazy to read subtitles on the video, I think you better tell them.”

“OK, I will take the time to explain chiropractic to them then.”

“Vietnamese don’t like to be ‘told’ anything.  It makes them feel like you think they are stupid.”  

“So we need to educate them so that they will trust us, but they won’t absorb the video and I can’t tell them anything because it makes them feel like I’m talking down to them?”

“Yes.”

Luckily for me, the highest ranking official that we’ve seen has become quite taken with me.  On his first visit, he made it clear to my translator that he would much rather see a man.  He did not look at me when I talked to him, and just stared at the floor.  He said his problems were his discs at C3, C4, and C5, and I had better not try to tell him otherwise.  He demanded a discount, and said if his xray didn’t look any different in two weeks, he wanted his money back.  By the time I palpated his spine, I already could not stand this man.  

On the next visit, he came through the doors a different man.  He smiled brightly, and told me if I really got him better, he would buy me some Bun Cha (a noodle and beef dish).  He said he slept through the night without having to take a sleeping pill, and his appetite doubled.  He declared that he would come every day.  By the fifth visit, he offered me a floor of his house to live for free.  He now brings a new patient in every few days.

So these are just the tidbits about the early days at the clinic.  I only have one good translator, and she works the morning shift.  Tutu translates in the afternoon.  I don’t know how he came up with the word ‘fatigue,’ but he now uses it to tell me when patients feel tired in their neck, and it rhymes with spaghetti:  “She tell me she feel faggedy in hers nesk.”  Jason and I hope that he never figures out the proper pronunciation.

Sick Day

I took my first sick day today.  I’m not sure that I actually have “quote-on-quote” sick days, but I woke up this morning and decided it wasn’t going to happen.  The coughing at night is getting ridiculous.  Kaz left for a two day trip to Halong Bay this morning, so I figured it was a good time to visit the International Medical Clinic and clean the house.  First of all, I haven’t been adjusted in about 75 days, and that alone can run down a body.  I usually like to be adjusted at least once a week.  I am highly anticipating my adjustment next week when the dudes get here.  The thing about Winter in Vietnam is that it’s really not that cold; but there’s something very cold about it.  It doesn’t feel much different than September or October in Seattle.  So maybe I dress tougher than I can handle, especially when jumping on a motorcycle with wet hair at 8:45 am every day.  I bring my own helmet, which has a windshield visor, and this I love.  There is nothing like trying to blink something out of your eye for the last three miles of a motorcycle trip.  But I see that a lot of people are wearing their face masks.  This is something you never see in America, unless you happen to pass my mom mowing her yard on her John Deer.   The masks come in all sorts of prints and patterns, and now that I think about it, so do the helmets.  The ride to work is a moto fashion show.  I guess I just don’t really believe that they keep out the pollutants.  In rush hour, there is enough exhaust in the air to outdo garage suicide.   So maybe I’ll start wearing one. 

At the clinic they give me an intake form and I head to the only open seat.  The lady next to me immediately stops her conversation and faces me, looking from me to my form.  I pull the form in real close to my body, which over emphasizes my “upside down left hander” writing style.  She slowly leans back until she is even with me and cranes her eyes to see what I’m writing.  I set my pen down and I sarcastically turn my head to look at her.  She stares at me.  I stare at her.  Chicken.  I win.  She turns back to her friends, and I know what she is saying.  Left handers are like mutant life forms here.  I am used to every single patient exclaiming to my translator that I am writing with my left hand (in Vietnamese).  It’s really funny, because 80% of my “white” friends here are left handed.  My conclusion?  A.  Left handers are more adventurous.  B.  Vietnamese are not allowed to grip the pen with the left hand from an early age.  But who knows.

The doctor tells me that my throat is inflamed and he wants to test for strep and influenza.  The nurse comes at me with two very long q-tips, and apologizes in advance.  First she sticks it down my throat and swishes it around until I am gagging and tears are starting to pour out of my eyes.  Then she says she’s REALLY sorry, and basically sticks this q-tip up my nose until I’m sure it’s touching my brain.  As she’s telling me to relax, I’m struggling out of her reach like a squirming two year old.  I’m even squealing, “Nooooooo!”  That has got to be the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me.  Blood and guts stuff makes me really queazy.  So when she says, “Don’t blow your nose too hard, you might blow blood,” something happens to me.  I know this feeling; like I’m about to faint.  She tells me to go wait in the waiting room, and I barely make it to a chair.  I slump over the side of it, and I can feel my whole body starting to get really hot.  I’m struggling with my jacket with my head lolled to one side.  Breathe breathe breathe.  Things start to return to normal.  The doctor comes back.  The tests are negative.  I have a cold.  And it only cost me a hundred and fifty U.S. bucks.

I probably cleaned my apartment for a solid five hours today.  It gets dusty fast!  I rearranged all my furniture (what little I have), and did loads of laundry.  I hooked myself up with a heater to dry the things I need to use immediately.  Otherwise they could hang out for days and never make any progress to dryness.  I started to weigh the pros and cons of going out to eat at around 4:30 pm.  Pros: It’s fast, cheap, and delicious.  Cons: It’s pretty cold outside, and if I can’t find the eat spot five blocks away that my friends are always raving about, I will have to continue on to my favorite spot about a mile away.  After looking sheepishly into my tiny fridge, I put on a hoodie and a jacket and set off.  Instead of walking all the way around the very large block to the next main road, I decided to go through the heart of it.  There are narrow dark alleys with tall homes and shops which wind haphazardly into nooks, crannies, dips, and turns.  I run through here quite often on my way to see friends in the neighborhood, but it struck me tonight how freaked out I would have been to take this walk upon arriving in Hanoi.  I literally chuckled to myself as I came around a corner and saw a man standing next to his motorcycle wearing black gloves with his mask covering his face and his black hat pulled down to his eyes.  Tell me that wouldn’t freak you out in the states!  But again, masks are commonplace.   So I jauntily continued on and successfully found the Bun Cha place.  They serve me Bun Cha at work about once a week on my revolving street food menu.  The chopsticks don't taper and are not even the same length.  I expertly squeeze some lime juice on them and wipe them off with a napkin.  Here is what the view from my seat looked like:

Here’s the dish at work:

When I got home I watched one episode of Summer Heights High that I’ve been downloading today on iTunes.  I haven’t turned on the TV but once in my apartment, but I have spent a small fortune on iTunes.  Home shows keep me sane and remind me of the people I loved watching them with.

Lastly, in the events of the day, I had quite a few bill collectors come to the door.  They can tell if you’re home from how the lock hangs.  Here are my bills:

One huge water jug (like the old cascade clear deliveries): $1.75

Water bill (showers and laundry): Also $1.75

Internet and Cable Bill: $4.00

Electricity: $3.00

Can’t really complain about that!  

My Holly Jolly

I woke up on Christmas morning and smiled.  I took one of those deep breaths where you feel the winds of relaxation rush from the happy pit of your belly.  One simple reason: a much needed day off to be spent with friends.  The staff at work pooled their money and bought me a gift the day before.  I was questioned intently about what I wanted.  I really didn’t want anything, and I especially did not want to break their banks.  “A scarf?” my friend pleaded with me.  “Ok, yes, a scarf would be fantastic.”  So the next day a group of excited kids with sparkling eyes shuffled like little robots into my adjusting room.  “Merry Christmas!” they shouted, and presented me with a gift wrapped in paper covered in christmas trees and santas.  They all looked so proud.  My boss followed them in.  “I am so surprised!” she said.  “I didn’t tell them to do this, they did it by themselves.  You know they are very poor.”  My little angels.  I opened my scarf, which turned out to be a beautiful flowing red knitted poncho.  Ouch.  My heart.  I was speechless.  I can’t wait to come up with something really great to get them all for their New Year next month.  My boss got me the best mattress in Vietnam.  I’ve been sleeping on thin squishy foam.  Last night was a dream.  There were nights in Vietnam when my mom and I slept on box springs where every position comes with a jab.  I am in deep appreciation.  

So I get out of bed on Christmas morning, and I get ready to go.  I have to be at my friends’ house in 20 minutes.  Then the doorbell rings.  Ka chunk, ka chunk, I turn the lock in the door and anticipate a possible bill collector (they just show up, I’m not in any financial trouble).  So there’s Kaz, fresh off the airplane from Thailand.  I met Kaz in my parent’s kitchen.  His aunt worked with my dad on the Starbound in the Bering Sea of Alaska.  At the time he walked in the front door, said, “Hey.  Kaz.”  I said, “No, I’m Cass.”  “He said, “No, I’m Kaz.”   Ahhh.  Kaz has to renew his Thai visa.  I was expecting him the day before, but then he didn’t have a visa to enter this country, and told me he would have to sit in Bangkok for two days.  Kaz just turned 21.  He’s got on those moon boot skater shoes, fluorescent swim trunks, a tank top covered by a flannel, and a shark tooth necklace.    He can’t believe how cold it is here.  He made it all the way to my door by himself; a true christmas miracle in this country of backward streets and labyrinths.  “Just in time for Christmas brunch.  Come on.”

So we did brunch at a high end restaurant with seven americans, one auzzie, and one brit-auzzie.  We were quite a group.  The vietnamese santa came and gave us candy, and we stayed for four hours and finished off the night bar hopping.  Now I’ve got a little brother to watch out for for two weeks while he’s here in Vietnam.  That’s what I like about encounters across the world.  You see your friend from kindergarten in your home town, and it’s all, “Hey, great to see you.”  Someone you met for the smallest moment in time becomes like family when you are far away.

We had coffee, beer, wine, and spiced red wine TO CHOOSE FROM (endless glass)  So we just got one of each, most of us : )

Shhhhh

I don't expect this blog to be particularly interesting, but because I've made a personal commitment to keep writing, I hope something decent will come out.  Sometimes you get so tired, you don't care one way or the other . . . . and that's how I'm feeling right now.  I'm at the point where I just want to make bullets of my daily activities, just to feed those who have an interest.  So here's what's going on:  I've hired three men DC's to come over, and they should all be over in January.  I feel like they will only make a good thing better.  It's one thing to chat with the staff in broken english all day, and it's another to share the experience with people who are right there with you with the same goals and background.  The clinic opened to the general public yesterday, and I am the only doctor.  At first I was feeling a bit bombarded . . . maybe we should have talked about how to schedule to not make me feel like I constantly had five people waiting for me?  Today was much better.  The goal is SLOW and STRONG.   I can only give so many new patients my best efforts every day to spark the good word about chiropractic . . .  That point is now understood amongst management, and I don't actually mind that I have to work everyday until another chiropractor hops the pacific pond.

How are the attitudes of the general public?  I am doing my best to spread the word that chiropractic is for everyone, not just aches and pains.  I had a woman yesterday come in to ask about her husbands back pain, and I learned they were trying to have a baby.  Well!  Don't mind if I tell you how chiropractic might help with that!  It would be a very exciting feat!  One of my docs from Canada wrote me today to tell me that he met a vietnamese family in Edmonton who had heard about our clinic.  Well well well.  Awesome.  The funny thing about the culture which is so different, is that they will not feel happy with you as a doctor if you do not give them a pill to take.  The clinic currently has an empty pharmacy, to be stocked with pain meds, water pillows, vitamins & supplements, and various other supplies.  I can't in good conscious tell them to take anything.  So in usual form, I tell them, if you feel like you have to, then I'm not stopping you.  I clearly have to conform to an expectation, and then draw them in another direction.  It will be a task.  I usually answer questions with, "No one wants to take pain pills, so . . . "  Then they just look at me.  My translator takes an extra step without my consent, explaining that in America, the general attitude is to avoid pain pills, but that's not how we feel in VN.   They chuckle at me.  Education is key, and once I have some muscle behind me (other docs) I'll have more time to get the big idea across.

When I left America, I wondered how little ole me would fare with my chiropractor co-workers who would most likely have more than my two years of experience in the field.  Now I'm here, running the whole shebang, and I got to choose who I wanted to work with.  I've set up the entire protocol of this huge place (a fifteen million dollar building), with three body guards, two cleaning ladies, two x ray techs, a night watchman, 8 receptionists, and 20 physiotherapy/massage grads.  I didn't hatch the idea, but I've had a big part in bringing it together.  In a way, it's what I had planned from the second I saw the ad.  But how it happened can only be part of the secret.