Different Cultures - Vietnam

I haven't had much exposure to Asian cultures with their reputation for mystery. I have certainly found that to be the case when analyzing Japanese companies. Beyond that I have almost zero exposure, but some friends of mine from Vietnam are changing that.
The first remarkable difference was their indifference to celebrating birthdays. In the US, it appears that our birthday celebrations are a focus on our specialness or uniqueness. It may be due to Christian heritage with a focus on Jesus's birthday. I don't know, but birthday cards, calls and gifts are a big deal. Apparently Vietnamese culture does not celebrate birthdays, but focuses instead on community events such as weddings and funerals. This seems to be representative of a deep difference in emphasis on the individual versus the group or collective.

The second remarkable difference is a different concern with cleanliness. When they arrive at my house, they take off their shoes (I have some Russian friends who do the same thing). This seems completely sensible to me as outdoor "stuff" is tracked through the house. But this code of cleanliness gets complicated when there is extensive backyard use. If I took off my shoes when I come in the front door, then when I go out the back door, I would either need to retrieve my shoes from the front to put on when I got to the back or buy two duplicate sets of shoes. It would also create a little clutter view with all my shoes on display the moment someone comes to the house. Not too pretty, but the cleanliness through the house is clearly higher. Another area in cleanliness was a surprise. They did not use my dishwasher because they "don't trust that dishwashers clean adequately." I had almost the opposite approach because the heat level is so high in a dishwasher.

The Mostly Pains and Occasional Pleasure of being Real

During the past year, I have paid attention to owning my feelings rather than simply skipping over them. This focus was brought on by some challenges in my sleep patterns and a subsequent reading of Bessel Van der Kolk's book "The Body Keeps The Score." His work indicates that childhood developmental trauma is responsible for physical and mental health issues later in life.

The book, a painful read, has many points of interest, but I was especially taken by the notion that in our attempts to please our parents (or authority figures) we often suppress our own feelings. In doing so, we may lose clarity internally, develop emotional blind spots and create unhealthy "ecosystems." However, I have learned that it is extremely difficult to be real about my feelings.

I initially viewed that the challenge would be not being angry or reactive, but that was not at all the issue. Instead, when I have gotten clarity about a specific bad feeling and shared it calmly, the response has been astonishingly similar to my own developmental experience. Instead of being addressed, the feeling is put aside. The result has been a disappointing (at least in the short term) narrowing of my friends.

But today I had the opposite experience. In a business context, I shared that I had felt inappropriately treated and readied myself for the multi-month norm of 1) I had it all wrong, 2) there was nothing going on and 3) there was nothing to fix. I also readied myself for a continued narrowing of my social sphere. Instead, I discovered something I didn't know existed - a supportive love and affirmation that has shifted my internal orientation. My social sphere has deepened and I have experienced a transformative support that calls on my best self.

It's true: honesty pays.

Stop and Smell the Roses

This morning I celebrated Labor Day with my daughter Brooke. While walking back from breakfast, she commented on the wonderful smell of the roses we just walked by. I paused and thought, "what a great day to 'stop and smell the roses' as Mac Davis used to sing." I turned around and smelled the roses, but smelled nothing.

I asked Brooke if she could smell them and she said yes even from where she stood (further away). I tried again and smelled nothing. I asked her what roses smelled like. She seemed surprised that I had no sense of their smell. My mother operated a florist shop, I was the delivery boy and had no recollection of a smell of those roses either. Until today, I truly thought that roses were chosen for their appearance! I have also been gardening ten rose bushes for years and harvesting their blossoms for vases in the house without any awareness of smell.

I googled the term and saw several scary articles about the onset of cancer or Parkinson's, but realized that I couldn't smell roses forty years ago, so health issues are not the driver. I searched further and found articles about the "sweet" smell of roses, but apparently that is simply not in my olfactory vocabulary. I might have to rephrase to "stop and smell the magnolias" (which has never been a problem).