International Life Lessons

I swore I would never ride a motorcycle after my friend’s concussion, but I was in Vietnam and that was the local transport. So in an effort to experience Vietnamese life, there I was, clinging white-knuckled to my guide. At one point, there were motorbikes coming at us from every direction and, as I looked to the right, I saw a bus coming towards us, about 15 feet away and with no intentions of stopping. I learned quickly to study the back of my driver's head when these intersections came up and trust the fact that they drive in these conditions every day. Thankfully, we soon reached the country and my muscles eased slightly passing the pagodas, Buddha statues, and market. Still a bit shaky from the wild ride, we arrived at the Buddhist monastery for lunch. What seemed like a relatively boring excursion (vegetarian food with non-English speaking nuns) quickly became my most memorable culinary experience yet. A round Buddhist nun with a shaved head directed us to our table, filled with family style delights. We all took what we felt like was a decent, respectful amount and began to eat. It was clearly not enough for the nun’s liking, as she scooped food from the central dishes and piled our plates high. Then, deciding we weren’t eating enough, she walked around and took our chopsticks from our hands to “spoon”-feed us. Even this rate of eating didn’t satisfy her. At this point, she didn’t even stop to put down my fellow traveler’s chopsticks to get mine. Instead, she just took chopsticks of the woman I had known only a week, picked up food from my plate, and fed me. Deciding we had finally eaten enough, we were shooed from the table onto bamboo mats that laid on the floor. We weren’t sure what to do until we got the universal hands to head sign telling us to take a lay down. Giggling like preschoolers at nap time, we all followed directions, expecting to not fall asleep. Well, that nun showed us, because 40 minutes later, she was waking us up and our guide was sharing it was time to hop back on the motorbikes. Unexpected lessons of trust were served up that day. Lessons that still bring a little chuckle back today.