I am leaving Vietnam
in June. In these days there are many unsettled decisions (Where will I work
next? What will I do? etc), I know only one thing with certainty that my
decision of departure won’t change. I already informed my manager at work that
I am not going to renew my contract after it expires on June 18th. I
sold my motorbike, I sold my dear bicycle, I sold my comfortable mattress,
study table, computer table so I am basically burning the bridges. School even
organized a party for me yesterday so if I don’t leave in June, they might ask
me to pay for the food and drinks J. My last day at work will be the first day of
the next semester. I will stay 2 more days after that to complete the financial
transactions with my landlord and the local bank and then on 21st of
June, early in the morning, I will leave Vietnam .
I came to Vietnam
on June 11th of 2006 in order to work at the school I am still
employed now. I spent total 1856 days in Vietnam
so far (The days I spent outside Vietnam
–Thailand , Turkey , India ,
Europe, Korea ,
HK, Malaysia etc…- are subtracted.). 1856 is not a special number. But wait,
hold your breath! If I leave on 21st June as I planned; total number
of the days I spent in Vietnam
will be 1889 days. For Math geeks, 1889 is a prime number and it can be
represented as sum of two squares, ie 17^2 + 40^2 = 1889. It is also hypotenuse
of a primitive Pythagorean triangle, ie 1889^2 = 1311^2 + 1360^2. And, hold
your chair now, don’t fall: It can divide 85^8 – 1. J I wouldn’t leave on an ordinary day, right?
Anyway, enough with Math. Back to memories…
At first, my plan was to work one year and then get back to Thailand
to continue from the point I left. However, the more I worked here, the more I
liked. As a person who is not much interested in research but more interested
in teaching, my current job was like an oasis. It gave me the opportunity to
develop courses, make changes, prepare new teaching materials and experiment
different types of assessment combinations. It also gave me sufficient amount
of free time to read and write. Although I had difficult times, especially when
I had to deal with people –instead of dealing with numbers only-, I enjoyed my
work here. It was a good working environment with truly friendly colleagues.
However, as no fun is permanent, this one also ends at one point.
When I inform people that I am leaving, their first reaction
is usually “Why?”. Without answering the first question, when I tell them that,
“I have been here for 6 years”, they suddenly look at my eyes and nod their
head as if I am absolutely right or it is my divine right to leave after
spending six years in Vietnam .
Sometimes I feel like these people pity me for the same reason that I stayed
here for 6 years. In fact, almost everyone adds without me asking “I think I am
not gonna stay here for more than 3 years, hmmm 4 maximum”. I have no intention
to offend my Vietnamese friends or the students whom I know are keen readers of
my blog. However, I should confess that if an expatriate stays in Vietnam long
long time, there can be three reasons that I can think of:
- S/he is Viet kieu so s/he feels attached to the land, to the people etc.
- S/he
is married to a Vietnamese national or someone has Vietnamese connection
and started to grow a family here. This is perfectly understandable. I
feel the same thing when I am in
- S/he
is desperate and the comfortable expat life here is enough for him/her.
S/he does not want to leave the heaven as s/he imagines anywhere else will
be worse than “being a foreigner in
When I make the above points, I try not to be judgmental. It
is more or less an objective observation of a writer or a teacher who taught
the same things 18 times that he had time to think of things nobody needs to
think.
So I am leaving because I don’t belong to any of the three
categories above. Six years in Vietnam
has taught me enough and now it is time to move on for new challenges. In fact,
I am taking the biggest challenge of my life so far and planning to return
home. I will come to this challenge point later.
My first writings in Vietnam
were the “Letters from Vietnam ”
series. They can still be found on my blog. In fact those letters were the
reason behind the inception of my blog. I didn’t have a blog before and started
it here in Vietnam
in order to easily post my writings and make people hear my voice. I wrote those letters as a person who is new
to Vietnam
but after 77th letter, I stopped as things did not seem new to me
any more. Then I wrote stories in which Vietnamese characters are involved or
Vietnamese streets, motorbikes, gangsters, ice sellers, workers participated one
by one to play their roles. A few of these stories are in English but majority
is written in Turkish.
As far as work is concerned, I believe I did a good job and
I do not leave an angry team mates or frustrated students behind. As far as
life is concerned, I think it has its own cycles of ups and downs. J is happy
to leave Vietnam
so I am happy to leave too. Things happen to teach us a better world so I had
my share. There is no need to give details here. As far as writing is
concerned, I published three books when I am here so I cannot complain about
writing either. As far as reading is concerned, I read good books, met new
writers like McEwan, Mistry, Roy ,
Adiga, Abe etc… As far as travel is concerned, I visited a lot of new cities
and met many people from all around the world. As far as studying is concerned, I have passed 6 very tough actuarial exams. As far as sports is concerned, I run hundreds of kilometers on the flat roads of Vietnam and also completed two half-marathons... So all was perfect then why am I
leaving?
I believe life is about leaving a point for another point
and keeping the spirit of seeking alive. These points could be persons, places,
jobs or sometimes even the houses… There is no destination in life; there is no
ultimate stopping point. Therefore, life is about being on the road and
learning along the journey. Every place is a chapter in a book and once you
finish the chapter; there is no need to look back and feel sad.
I am going to Turkey to work and live. I don’t
have a job yet. I am still applying whenever I see a job opening on internet
but so far I have not received a firm offer. Surely I will keep applying and
will end up working at somewhere after June 2012.
In 2010, I wrote this on a facebook status update: Turkey Turkey . Yes, I
lived in Turkey
for 23 years and I am a native Turkish but this doesn’t mean anything. I have
never been employed in Turkey
as a full-time employee. This wouldn’t be a problem if Turkey was
another foreign country because in that case I can adapt –I learn to adapt to
foreign countries by being in foreign countries-. Remembering the fish story***
from Bilge Karasu or the epic return of Odysseus, the uneasiness that
sometimes I feel seems universal. The sea fish can survive in the fresh water,
can adapt to air… But when it is thrown to the salt water again, … (read the
story at the end)
If it is my own country, the expectation from an employee
will be totally different. First of all I will be one of the 70 millions
Turkish people. I won’t look or speak differently; nothing will be special
about me. Secondly, I will be expected to know everything about Turkishness and
Turkish way of life. I won’t even have chance in many occasions that I have no
idea what they are talking about because I did not live here for the last 12
years. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, the distance which kept me as a
free thinker/doer for the last 12 years will diminish. Family members will
decide on things and I will be listening to their rumbles. The society will
have wide-open eyes on everything I do/write/say. Given the political problems
in Turkey ,
maybe I will have greater issues with the prosecutors who try to create
problems with people who write/say things that the government does not want to
see/hear…
From positive side, Istanbul
is a lively city with amazing features: history, art, culture, friends, sea,
wind, cats, brothers, nephews, nieces, food, close to Europe, close to Iran … I
definitely revisit many things/places about Istanbul and I want to taste everything again
as if everything is new to me. In addition, I want to write a novel which is
set in modern Istanbul .
For this, I need to walk in the streets, visit places where I will mention in
the story and do some research about the history of the city in old libraries.
This is enough for such a simple good bye message. My plan
was to write a few hundreds words of melancholy but the writer in me woke up
and made it to 2,000 words. Perhaps, I wrote this long because if I don’t write
I have to go back to marking assignments which is much more boring.
If you have read till this point, you must be a very patient
person…
Anyway, good bye Viet Nam . I will miss you, your
perfectly flat roads (good for running), your friendly people, your amazing
beaches, your afternoon rains, your inspirational bicycles and motorbikes, your
pirate DVDs, your free Wi-Fi cafes, your evening walks, your cheap Dalat wine,
your Tet holidays, your predictable weather, your tra da, your bun bo xao, your
parks, lakes, rivers… Above all, I will miss my students and my friends…
Ali – 19 May 2012
*** A tale I heard from Ali Poyrazoğlu: One day, a man catches a sea fish. He somehow loves the fish so much that he wants to keep it with him all the time. So he takes it home and put it in a container which is full of sea water. After a while, he gets bored of bringing sea water from the ocean everyday, so he tries the tap water. The fish gets scared at the beginning but later on gets used to the fresh water. After many days, the man wants to know if the fish can also get used to the air, same as it did to the fresh water –If you ask me the fish was either so stupid or loved the man more than he deserves which is actually same as stupidity sometimes.- The fish first struggles without the water, almost drowns but later on it gets used to the air as well. One day, the man wants to go to beach together with his fish. He puts the fish on top of a rock on the beach and goes to swim. Some children walking on the beach sees the fish and pities it. They think it is suffering for being away from the sea so trying to help it survive; they throw it to the sea. The man swims back to the shore crazily to save his friend but he cannot reach on time. Fish drowns in the ocean. (Bilge Karasu, TheGarden of Departed
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*** A tale I heard from Ali Poyrazoğlu: One day, a man catches a sea fish. He somehow loves the fish so much that he wants to keep it with him all the time. So he takes it home and put it in a container which is full of sea water. After a while, he gets bored of bringing sea water from the ocean everyday, so he tries the tap water. The fish gets scared at the beginning but later on gets used to the fresh water. After many days, the man wants to know if the fish can also get used to the air, same as it did to the fresh water –If you ask me the fish was either so stupid or loved the man more than he deserves which is actually same as stupidity sometimes.- The fish first struggles without the water, almost drowns but later on it gets used to the air as well. One day, the man wants to go to beach together with his fish. He puts the fish on top of a rock on the beach and goes to swim. Some children walking on the beach sees the fish and pities it. They think it is suffering for being away from the sea so trying to help it survive; they throw it to the sea. The man swims back to the shore crazily to save his friend but he cannot reach on time. Fish drowns in the ocean. (Bilge Karasu, The
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I hope you can keep adapting to things and survive in Istanbul. There is no ultimate destination in life, as you said. So you can survive there unless you think it's the ultimate destination/your home/your original place. This time you can make things new by bringing your wife with you when you want to see things differently. Changing from a 23-year-old Turkish to a married man already makes you look at every single thing in a different manner.
YanıtlaSilMerhaba Ali,
YanıtlaSilOn July 8, 1889, the last bare-knuckle boxing match was fought. In it John L Sullivan knocked out Jake Kilrain -- in 75 rounds; and on Dec. 24, Daniel Stover & William Hance patented a bicycle with the first back pedal brake. Are these mere facts or are they also symbolic? :-)
Cheers,
--Allan