((( Quang Ngai Update )))
Much love from Quang Ngai, Vietnam
Xin Chao!
I hope this email finds you feeling well and enjoying your summer.
Speaking of summer, it's pretty darn warm here in Quang Ngai, Vietnam ( as per usual almost everywhere in Vietnam ) with average temps in the mid to upper 90s most days and above average humidity to keep it nice and sticky. Fortunately, the rainy season has begun to show up in the late afternoons to cool things down with periods of heavy rain and refreshing breezes. To my advantage in battling the heat is my previous experience in Thailand back in 2016 when the temps there were off the charts with scorching temps the highest in recorded history. Talk about a proverbial punch in the face welcome to Southeast Asia! That shocking experience took about a week to adjust to, which set me up to have the tolerance necessary for whatever I've come up against here in Vietnam. Needless to say, the heat does not bother me at all. I love getting a big sweat on and showering several times a day! Seriously, it's not too bad for someone who could not deal with the summer heat of the San Fernando Valley growing up.
It's been a little over a month since my leaving the comfort and ease of Saigon and moving to Quang Ngai to live with Lien Anh. Not surprisingly, we had a bit of a Rocky Balboa start, but the egg shells have all but turned into a fine Burningman playa dust and we are quite comfortable living together and enjoying all the benefits associated with being able to spend every day together from sun up to sun down. My most significant adjustment has been sleeping. I've been on my own for well over a decade since my divorce and have had a bed to myself for all this time. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love sleeping with my sweet Lien Anh. However, it's taken a bit of time to get comfortable with having a very warm body next to my already warm body. Adding the extra heat and finding my place in the shared sleep space was a bit of a challenge. Now we are all good and have found our sweet spot that allows us both to get some solid sack time as well as long bouts of cuddling and such. Everything else for us has been pretty easy for the most part and I'm very happy that I chose to throw caution to the wind and follow my heart and soul. Just in the past couple days, I've felt yet another shift in our relationship that feels easier and more settled. She calls me her husband and in Vietnamese culture we are as much married as it gets aside from a formal ceremony and associated paperwork. Should we find ourselves in the States, we will get married in the simplest of ways, but there is no hurry for that as we are both good with what we have.
Lien Anh's day is pretty much filled with taking care of her sister Phuong's two daughters, Mia who is four and Morphle who just turned two. They are great kids, but a handful as you might imagine and Lien Anh, or Hi ( Auntie ) as she's referred to, is indispensable at supporting her sister and the girls absolutely adore her. This is basically her full time job since leaving Saigon after the first wave of the pandemic crushed her previously thriving tourism business. It was a huge blow to her to have to give up what she'd built over the previous three years and had such a passion for. But she has made the necessary adjustment and loves the simplicity of her life with the family and all the joy it brings. She manages to get plenty of down time when the girls are either napping, entertaining each other or out playing with their downstairs cousins or neighbor friends.
Almost every day we take the kids to the park, a children's indoor play place or the beach. All four of us on my motorbike seemed crazy and used to blow my mind when I first saw this in Thailand, but now it's just normal. It takes about thirty minutes to get to the beach and we are usually the only ones there in the morning. The ocean water is like a warm salt water bath. The waves are pretty flat now, but a month ago or so when I was visiting there were plenty of solid body surfing waves which I can do for many hours without any knowledge of time and space. Lien Anh and kids also love playing in the water and in the wet sand with their beach toys. Most people who see the four of us assume that we are a family and comment that the children look like us. We stopped telling people otherwise and now just enjoy the sweet smiles and conversation that ensues. Of course, that is all in Vietnamese and Lien Anh clues me in on what's being said as she lovingly does in all situations. No, I have no plans to learn the language. Some people would think that it's not very thoughtful of me to take this stance, but honestly, I like not knowing what everyone is saying and the lack of needing to get into a bunch of conversations. And when I do utter the few words I know, the locals are delighted and impressed. Mostly, I'm asked what my name is and where I'm from. Two very easy questions I can answer that seem to pacify everyone.
Most of my days begin and end with looking for ways to make money which has proven to be unsuccessful thus far since arriving in Quang Ngai. I've reworked my resume a few times and looked in every nook and cranny for some freelance or remote opportunities, but have come up short thus far and feel like I'm being ghosted. I'm hoping that my persistence pays off and I can land some freelance creative gigs here and there if not a full time remote position in Saigon as a Project Manager, Producer or Recruiter. I have to continue to remind myself that regardless of my extensive experience, background and skills, I am sixty years old and far less desirable than younger people coming out of universities and alike. However, Lien Anh and I are going to start giving online English language lessons to adults all around Vietnam as well as potentially start a raw vegan YouTube channel that we can make from our cute little kitchen. I really just need to find ways to make a bit of money each month till my birthday in 2024 ( eighteen months from now ) when I can take my early retirement.
Living here in Quang Ngai, my expenses are pretty low as I'm not paying for rent, parking and other expenses I had in Saigon. My overall living expenses amount to chipping in for groceries, utilities, gas for my motorbike and the family car as well as activities we do with the kids. That said, if you appreciate the Citizen44 with Mark Arinsberg podcast, my letters and regular photo updates, please feel free to offer your loving support in any amount you see fit. The US dollar goes a long way here in Vietnam so literally any amount at all is very helpful and deeply appreciated. $4.00 usd = 100,000 vnd which fills my motorbike with gas!
Thank you so much for your love and support!
*Click link below for FREE Quang Ngai, Vietnam Image Gallery. Help yourself to some hi-res images!
Click here to access FREE Quang Ngai Image Library
Just so you know, I definitely do not spend my entire day looking for work. That would be a horrible way to spend one's life and life is meant to be lived. Typically, Lien Anh and I get up around 5:30am and do meditation together on the roof of her sister's place with the early morning sun shining on our faces before it heats up. Then we go downstairs to her sister's kitchen and have some healthy juice consisting of chia seeds, apple cider vinegar, ginger, lime and water as a good start to the day followed by all kinds of fresh tropical fruit. The fruit here is plentiful, incredible and relatively inexpensive. We eat a ton of fruit every day including avocados, mangos, lyche, pineapple, bananas and mangosteen as well as a bunch of other fruits I do not know the names of. After filling our bellies with delicious, healthy fruit, I usually go for a nice long walk. Lately I've been walking along the train tracks and going over the railroad bridge over the river that connects to a small village a few miles away. There, I always find a warm, excited welcome and several interesting characters of all ages to photograph. I'm usually surrounded by children eager to play with me as they instinctively sense that I'm one of them and happy to engage with them in fun and silly ways. I will usually make a slight change to my daily route either on the way to my unknown destination or on the return trip.
I often find myself in off-the-grid places that even Lien Anh and her family are not aware of. I love the adventure of just heading in unfamiliar directions and going into areas where there is nothing but a foot path in some tall grass that leads me to some fun surprises. This walking and taking photographs has been such a great way to discover my new home territory, introduce myself to my community and get some solid, life saving exercise. I do this at least five days a week and it is the best thing I can do for myself physically, creatively and spiritually. It's incredible nourishment on every level. I highly recommend at least a forty-five minute walk every day that you can get out and do it. It's a game changer for sure and can take care of a lot of physical and emotional challenges. I can honestly say that walking has vastly improved the overall quality of my life on many levels.
Below is a link to a bunch of my favorite photos for you to check out and download for FREE for your personal use. Feel free to print them out and put them in a nice frame to hang on a wall that begs for some authentic images of Vietnamese life. I will be constantly updating this image gallery for you to select images from.
Click here to access Quang Ngai Image Library
My father turned 84 on July 19th and used this milestone birthday as the springboard to launching the next phase of his life through a significant move from his townhouse in Encino to over-fifty community housing in the Woodland Hills area of the San Fernando Valley. My sister successfully convinced him that now that our mother, his wife, has been gone for two years now, it would be good for him to get a fresh start and make his life a little easier in a place that offers a life that's more self-contained with all the amenities he would need to keep him fulfilled and satisfied till the end of his days. He's been there a couple of weeks now and seems to be loving his new place. On his first day there, he miraculously met the youngest ever Academy Award winning actress, Tatum O'Neil who was living there due to a debilitating illness. What a story to start off his new experience with! The facility is very new and currently has only a few dozen residents. There are a couple of restaurants on site that my father has tried out and has enjoyed as well as a shared art studio where he can do his drawing and painting should he decide to. There's even a dog walk on the grounds so my father can take his best friend, Gus for an effortless walk. I check in with him every couple of days and he seems to be doing just fine in his new digs. He said he's been eating a bit healthier and even lost a few pounds. Way to go Dad!
Click here to listen to The BIG Birthday Show with Chris Catchpole and my Father
My son Sam is back in Ashland, Oregon for a while after spending a few months in Houston, Texas in transition from his program to get his life back on track after a very challenging year and a half of dealing with substance abuse. He also managed to find his birth father and step sister who he's bonded with and is planning to take over her apartment in the next few months. He and I haven't spoken a whole bunch because he's busy living his life, but he has his own truck now thanks to his mother that he loves working on and even started a business doing power washing and yard work. Sam sounds really good and is excited about exploring all the options he now has at his fingertips. He wants to return to Texas, but will remain in Ashland for a month or two to hang out with his mother and birth mother. I'm so happy Sam was able to pull himself out of the depths of hell and receive the support he needed to get back to his sweet self.
Although he took a very difficult and dangerous path to self discovery, I feel that it was the right path for him to discover his true self and calling to be an incredible human being in service of others. When we spoke on the phone the other day, he told me that he took fifty dollars of his own money, bought a bunch of water and distributed it to people living on the streets in Ashland. I told him that this selfless act of love and compassion was the single most powerful thing he could do for his fellow human. Real superhero type stuff. He did not see it as that in his humble nature, but understood the significance of it after I explained how such an act of kindness it was that he initiated on his own. He is a born healer and friend to all humans. I'm excited to see where he goes from here.
My daughter Zoë ( Zozo ) is busy as an Oregon Beaver at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon with general school stuff and her sometimes overwhelming but satisfying job as a staff of the OSU Student Orientation Team. She loves her job and works very hard at it. This job has helped her in such incredible ways. Up until about a year ago or so, she was still very shy around people and did not go out of her way to connect with others. A true introvert with a leaning towards contempt for others based on the terrible things that people do to each other. Since starting her job on campus and taking some informative psychology classes, she has opened her mind and heart to allow more experiences to happen between her and her fellow human. It's so cool to witness this profound transformation and see her become fearless in how she approaches life. She's made some great friends through her job and is working diligently towards a career as either an educator for very young children or in the social services sector. Like her brother, she wants to serve her fellow human and be a positive force in the world. I've had the great fortune to have my sweet daja Zoë chat it up with me several times on my Citizen44 with Mark Arinsberg podcast and be the guest on my milestone 100th show.
You can listen to C44 Show #100 by clicking on this link
I think that covers most things for the time being. I will update you again as I accumulate some interesting experiences to share with you. Thanks so much for being in my very exciting and rewarding life. It would not be the same amazing adventure without you as part of it.
Much love from Quang Ngai, VietnamMark
Thank you so much for your love and support!
Check out my Photo Libraries and have fun downloading some cool images:
______________________________
Mark Arinsberg
Citizen44 with Mark Arinsberg
Creative Portfolio
mbarinsberg@gmail.com
+84 775790593
"This is, because that is." - Thich Nhat Hanh