Homesickness

Lately I have really been trying to think about why I am here in Vietnam. I thought that I knew what I was here for, but events that have occurred since my arrival have made me begin questioning, though not doubting, myself and my purpose. Somehow I am feeling like my presence here is less and less valid, and I’m starting to feel like more of a foreigner. I can’t understand or communicate the way I want to with most people so its making it hard to develop the kinds of connections I was hoping I’d be able to make. I am tired of feeling like a foreign tourist and being treated like one, but I cannot think of a way out of it. I’m trying to get more connected to the community by volunteering, and I think I’m starting to get close to some of the kids, but the teacher we work with has managed to make me feel welcome in the classroom but very very unwelcome in the organization and in Vietnam in general. And the visible poverty here is just crazy. My father, who has been traveling for work for years, warned me about how the poverty in “developing” countries can be so intensely shocking and it has been, wit the feelings growing greater every day. I know that this should make me feel more grateful for what I have, but instead I have just been feeling increasingly guilty for the sometimes petty things I worry about at home. And even the things I worry about that are not-so-petty like how to find work, get money and eat, and what will happen with my family seem to pale in comparison to the problems that people who live under the poverty line face daily. I’m walking around Hanoi thinking, “wow this is a wonderful city, what shall I do next?”, while I’m passing many people who are wondering what they can do to sustain their families. I’ve never really had to confront this side of humanity so blatantly before. I think one of Irene's friend's comments encompasses this feeling saying that in America we try to hide the bad and only show the beautiful, and that it is the opposite in Vietnam where the beautiful is kept hidden in private; and while this may not be applicable in every case, I feel this is generally true. While there are homeless and very poor people in America, this is a completely different story.
I came here thinking that this experience could expand my horizons and make me a more worldly person (which again makes me feel guilty for coming all the way here for such reasons), but the globalization class I am taking is constantly targeting my home culture. This makes me very angry and defensive, even though I know that some of it is true. Writing my midterm essay for that class made me realize that what people are angry about is the spread of American consumerism, which is heavily ingrained in American culture but is not all of it, so it is very difficult to be in a class where your culture is targeted daily. And its even more infuriating when this idea came from the very reader I was supplied with in order to write that paper, but I am still faced with direct confrontations from the TA.
And on a more sensitive note, I knew before I came here that all the Vietnamese-American students would probably have more of a personal connection with this trip and their experiences, which I am completely fine with, but I feel that some think less of people who are here for less emotional purposes. Even though I know many of them are struggling with their own experiences here as well. Hopefully this is just a passing whim, but occasionally I get feelings of…inferiority, which are just amplified by the fact that everything here is new to me and I can’t understand words/signs/jokes/mannerisms/etc.
As a result of all this I’ve started to feel a little homesick. Not exactly wanting to return home, but a want to feel more comfortable just living.