World Cultures Vietnam

Specially printed in color, and accessible with stunning back-lit color images, this “single” recounts the adventures of Jackie Chase in Vietnam.

This story continues, “Layers of fish netting, ropes, clothing rags, and a shoe with the sole missing trapped my feet as I tried to exit the boat. Clumps of tall grass made a great handhold for me as I inched onto shore. Bent over and almost crawling, I found the wooden walkway meeting the house. The sign language of the girl, hands wildly flailing, signaled her desire for me to keep moving forward. Words like, “Okay, okay,” along with her fake smiles did not assure me that I had the correct address for my invitation. Her departure back to Vinn Long, without any contact with this family, might spell trouble for me. The frenzy of that crucial moment of my uncertainty vanished like a cloud’s shadow in sunlight as a girl in a blue dress suddenly appeared on the shore and held her hands out to greet me. One of the love/hate relationships with travel that keeps me going, but might detour others from similar travels, comes in the form of language barriers. For instance, if I ask a question of a native, and she nods her head, that does not mean she understood anything I said to her.”