Old Friends and New Perspectives

About a month ago, Chris Horst, a friend from my college, sent me a message on Facebook commenting on the fact that I was in Hanoi and that he would be visiting Hanoi in about a month. I hadn't seen or heard from Chris since the summer of 2009.  He graduated a year before I did.  I didn't really know Chris until I went with him and a group of around 20 other Goshen College students to China for a semester. The next semester I would sometime come by his apartment to hang out and listen to vinyl records. When he left to teach English in South Korea and expected to probably never see him again.  We didn't keep in any kind of contact until about a month ago.

It was a pretty cool/random occurrence that I got to meet up with Chris on Monday. He called me from the backpacker's hostel where he was staying and I drove by on my motorbike and picked him up. My host family invited him for dinner and then later to go out for coffee.  I had a lot of fun playing "host".  Also, being with someone new to the country made me realize how much I had grown accustomed to Hanoi.  I realized how much better I am in driving in traffic, knowing my way around the city, and understanding Vietnamese than when I first came.  Being with Chris also allowed me to step back and state my thoughts of Vietnam and... compare it to China!  I've been trying not to compare Vietnam to China but Chris stated what I have been feeling constantly since I've got here: "It's like China but not..." Since Chris had gone to China together we could talk about the differences between China and Vietnam, China and South Korea, and Vietnam and South Korea.  I told Chris that South Korean television and pop music was very popular in Vietnam and he was not surprised.  When my younger host brother talked learned that Chris had lived in South Korea, he asked him about many South Korean pop stars.  Chris was very polite and I really think that he had a good time.  It's not every day that you go backpacking in a foreign country and end up eating in local's home. 

All in all it was a great time.  I've found out that I really like hosting people even if I'm hosting someone in my own hosts' home.