Home Thoughts from Abroad

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3 weeks ago

The sound of silence

Hanoi is never quiet. By the time I wake, the motorbikes have already begun their long argument with the morning, the street sellers are calling, and somewhere below a neighbour is doing something loud and cheerful with a hammer. I have lived here almost ten years now, and I love it. The noise is the sound of a city utterly, gloriously alive.

And yet, if you asked me what I miss most about home, I would not say the sunshine. I live in more sun than I know what to do with. I would say the silence.

Not silence exactly 鈥� the gulls would have something to say about that 鈥� but the particular hush of our house in Wales, the one that faces the beach. The sea doing its slow work in the background. A quiet so complete it is almost deafening 鈥� the kind you can hear yourself think in. I did not know, when I lived inside it, that I would one day stand in a hot Hanoi morning and ache for it.

Robert Browning wrote his Home-Thoughts, from Abroad while sitting in the Italian sun, longing not for somewhere grander but for the ordinary, drizzly English spring he had left behind. I understand him rather better now than I did at school. Home, it turns out, is rarely the postcard. It is the small, unglamorous, particular thing that happens to be yours.

For me it is the Lake District every year 鈥� usually, it must be said, in the rain. We go all the same. There is a certain British genius for enjoying a holiday while being quietly soaked through, and I would not swap those grey, dripping walks for all the blue skies in Asia.

Because here is the thing I have slowly come to understand, sitting this far from it all: I do not really miss the places. I miss the people who are in them. The beach in Wales matters because of who is in the house. The Lake District matters because of who is walking beside me, complaining fondly about the weather. The silence I long for is really the quiet of being among my grandchildren 鈥� a peace that has nothing to do with how loud the room is.

That, I think, is what no one tells you about living abroad. You imagine you are leaving a place. You are not. You are leaving a set of people, and carrying the shape of them with you wherever you go.

So where is home now, after all these years? The honest answer is that I belong a little to both and entirely to neither. Hanoi is my life. Wales is my heart. And I have made a sort of peace with being a man with his feet in one country and his memory in another.

If you are reading this somewhere in Vietnam, far from wherever your own silence lives, I suspect you know exactly what I mean.

More next month.

Brian Harrison Spence

Financial Advisor to the Hanoi Expat Community

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bhspence Member

23POSTS

2 weeks ago

@Aidan in HCMC

Thank you 鈥� genuinely. It's a fine thing to write something quiet and have it actually land with someone, so I'm grateful.

Those two quotes belong together, don't they? Adeney names the cost of the life we've chosen 鈥� the heart left partly elsewhere 鈥� and Komisar names the trap inside it: spending the years not doing what we want, on the bet we can buy the freedom back later. After a career spent among expats and their finances, I've come to think the second is the one that quietly does the most damage. The richness is worth the price Adeney describes. Komisar's risk is the one I'd spare people if I could.

Thank you for reading, and for adding to it.

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jayrozzetti23 Serial expat

849POSTS

2 weeks ago

Just some random thoughts from my perspective (not to be taken too seriously):

I spent a month in Ha Noi around 20 years ago, didn't like it, ended up back in HCMC, a place I've never liked, so eventually I went back to Wiang Chan (Vientiane) Laos for four years. That eventually got too busy so I came back to Vung Tau for a number of years. Since then I have lived in several smaller cities and avoided any large metropolitan areas as much as possible. Thus, I don't worry about noise much these days.

Being focused on the present moment, I also don't spend much time reminiscing. When I do think about the past, I mostly feel a sense of overwhelming gratitude for all the blessings I've received throughout the years. That's about as sentimental, emotional and introspective as I get.

For me, being an expat means not having a fixed home so that the option of going somewhere else is always available, so the question of "where is home?" doesn't really come up.

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OceanBeach92107 VIP Member

7625POSTS

2 weeks ago

Just some random thoughts from my perspective (not to be taken too seriously):
I spent a month in Ha Noi around 20 years ago, didn't like it, ended up back in HCMC, a place I've never liked, so eventually I went back to Wiang Chan (Vientiane) Laos for four years. That eventually got too busy so I came back to Vung Tau for a number of years. Since then I have lived in several smaller cities and avoided any large metropolitan areas as much as possible. Thus, I don't worry about noise much these days.
Being focused on the present moment, I also don't spend much time reminiscing. When I do think about the past, I mostly feel a sense of overwhelming gratitude for all the blessings I've received throughout the years. That's about as sentimental, emotional and introspective as I get.

For me, being an expat means not having a fixed home so that the option of going somewhere else is always available, so the question of "where is home?" doesn't really come up. - @jayrozzetti23

For a while I thought Cambodia was going to be permanent for you.

What a great twist of fate that you met a wonderful Vietnamese woman in Laos, who years later became your Delta Bride 馃槉

TMI? 馃 (can delete)

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bhspence Member

23POSTS

2 weeks ago

@jayrozzetti23

A different road to mine, and I rather envy the peace in it 鈥� though I suspect your gratitude and my longing are the same feeling facing opposite ways. Good of you to write.

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The Vietnam expat guide

Comprehensive and free

Read it now

jayrozzetti23 Serial expat

849POSTS

2 weeks ago

For a while I thought Cambodia was going to be permanent for you.

- @OceanBeach92107

My most recent experience in Cambodia was an interesting experiment made tolerable by living in Kampot/Kep rather than the capital or Siem Reap, etc.; however, two years was enough to grow weary and conclude that the edgy third world vibe of Kampuchea has not yet softened.

The 6-month or one-year retirement visa is very convenient, and some of the western, Thai (prepared by Thais) and Indian food beats the victuals available in Vietnam. Other than that, in my opinion, it can't really compete with the neighbors. Of course, there are many expats who will say that they "love it".

Anywayz, we'll eventually be moving on from the delta someday.

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