Personal [Driving] Space

[Tim]

I actually don't notice too much difference in face-to-face personal space here--I'll have to ask my kids if they notice it and I'm just wearing my Asia-eyes to not notice.

However.

This morning I was biking back from the market (a pomelo, 5 kilos of rice, a bunch of bananas, and a roll of trash bags in my basket) and I noticed that my sense of personal space on the road has dramatically shifted and reduced in these last couple of weeks.

In the USA we "drive for the other guy."  My dad is pretty wise about defensive driving, and he told me to never assume that the other drivers were paying attention and 100% sober.  So back home I drive defensively, too, and have my eyes all over the road.  That doesn't really work here.

My sense of personal space is shrinking.  Now it really is limited to just what is 10 feet in front of my front wheel.  I don't try to anticipate what the honking taxis are doing or whether the old lady pushing the heavily-laden bicycle is going to suddenly decide to turn left into my path.  If she does, I'll stop or go around, but my sphere of active awareness is shrinking.  I still have peripheral awareness, for sure, but ... it's connected to the idea of "personal space" in some way.

If you are in the room with me, I'm aware of you, but only peripherally.  Until you enter my personal bubble and now I have to engage with you in some way.  Not that I don't like to engage with people, I'm just saying that while before you entered my personal space I was aware of you, now I'm AWARE of you.  I'm watching your face for intention, I'm calibrating my extended hand so that if you go for a hug and I go for a handshake I can retract it and pretend that I was going for a hug, too.  That sort of thing.  We're in each other's personal space, and we're aware of each other.

On the road, on my bike, I notice that my personal space is shrunken.  The guy zooming up with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other doesn't bug me.  He got his tire into the space first, so I give way.  I'm not really looking behind me.  The taxi is honking to let me know that he's there, and that's okay.  I'm still aware of lots of things, but I'm engaged with far fewer.  To enter my driving bubble you have to be a) in front of me and b) quite close.

I never knew until today that I could differentiate between awareness and engagement in regards to driving.  I just realized, though, that the traffic far away from me (25 feet) is not really my problem nowadays.  That's what allows me to plunge headlong into intersections (there are no stop signs in Viet Nam, to my knowledge) to turn left.  I am peripherally aware of the taxi and the oncoming 5 motorbikes, but they're not really in my personal space yet and I got my wheel in the intersection first.

That's it about personal driving space.  Just a reflection.

Did I tell you how absurd our garage is?  First of all, it's AWESOME to have a garage.  Most families bring their motorbikes, bicycles, and even cars (those that have one) into their first-floor living space.  Our garage is awesome because it's actually a garage.  But if there are 5 people in a Viet family, dad is going to have a motorbike and mom is either going to have a second one or she'll have a bike with a flat rack on the back tire.  So that's it.  The family of 5 is ready to go out whenever they need to on those two vehicles.  When the kid enters high school they might buy her a bicycle or an e-bike, but she has to be a certain age to drive a motorcycle.

In our garage we have 5 bicycles.  We are Hilarious.  The only other buildings with 5 bicycles parked inside ... are selling bicycles.  Nobody comes to our house who doesn't say "Whoa!  Five bicycles?  Why do you have so many bicycles?"  The answer "we have 5 people in our family" doesn't really answer their question.  The answer to their question is that we are not Viet.

Probably this week I'll get a motorbike.  For reals.

Shrimp with Viet friends.  Both Michael and his friend, Theo, are 12.

Waiting for a taxi after games and swimming at Red Beach.

Daniel riding.  Our house is on the right.  Teo's house has a silver car parked in front of it.

"Forget to Smile"??  Today I saw a girl wearing a Hello Kitty shirt with happy cartoon characters and the words "I'm not okay" in bold.  What does she think that means??