journal article for class (one frustrating moment in southeast asia)...

On Friday afternoon the ELI team went to the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology. All-around, it was a wonderful cultural and learning experience. However, there was one situation in which I became rather frustrated. Let me fully explain: the museum is made up in two parts. The first part is an indoor exhibit focusing on the various ethnic groups comprising Southeast Asia. The second is an outdoor walkabout showing interested tourists and locals how these various ethnic minorities live. The museum is home to rebuilt huts, developed dwellings (i.e. community centers), and villages. The incident in question happened at one of the aforementioned community center buildings.

The community center was about four stories high after accounting for the fact that it was about two stories off the ground. In other words, in order to get into this particular dwelling one had to climb about ten feet via wooden logs that had been notched out with foot holds. Once up the logs, there was a common area, or what we might call a deck, where people milled about waiting to take off their shoes before entering the structure. On the far end of the deck, opposite the “stairs,” was a small door.

After climbing the stairs myself, I made my way across the “deck” to the entrance of the community hut. I slipped off my sandals, and began to enter the lodging as an Asian woman was slowly making her way out. I kid you not, she stopped in the doorway, sat down—blocking the way completely—and began to, turtle like, put on her socks: first sock, a break, second sock, and then—apparently strained from the socks—it was time for a breather. She looked about. She soaked up some sun. She allowed the humidity to wash over her like a warm shower. Then, ready for the shoes, she began to put on one shoe followed by the other. But wait! Not to be rushed, she languidly went back to the first shoe and, taking her time, began to lace and tie her sneakers; this, painfully, followed by the second. Then, as if it could not be anymore torturous, she put elbows to knees and took in the scene. Like she was on her own back porch! Mind you, I was literally two feet away from her this whole time waiting to get inside this ancient structure of minor ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. We were ten feet in the air waiting on a porch, and I was getting really, really hot. MOVE already!!!

Finally, she moved. I entered. And I had a good story to tell.

If you had not already noticed, while this woman was sitting down enjoying the day, I just stood there. Like the big goofy American I am. Who knows? Maybe she was just messing with me, but I have a hankering to believe that what I should have done is, politely, yet uncomfortably, walked past her. I assume in her mind my walking past her would not have been an invasion of privacy, for either of us, but to me it would have seemed awkwardly close. Next time I’ll just move on past.