We've been thrown into a new environment that leaves it impossible to blend in. We usually like attention, as you've seen from our past youtube videos, but this is an entirely different level of scrutiny.
We would like to believe the stares we have received are not the result of the excessive amount of sweat on our bodies or our poor navigation through a sea of mopeds. We've convinced ourselves this attention is complimentary, even if it is followed by laughter and pointing.
For example, this morning we marched ourselves to the local internet cafe and confidently ordered our "Cafe Saigon", as heads turned and jaws dropped. Keeping in mind this is something that we will have to get used to, we sat down and started to return emails when suddenly we felt a looming presence in front of us.
Sensing this presence, we looked up to find a middle-aged Vietnamese woman looking between the two of us unashamedly. Thinking that these glances would be short lived, we went back to our work. Literally, two minutes later, the woman had not broken her stare, not satisfied with what was before her. We attempted other tactics to encourage her to look elsewhere, such as nervously laughing and staring back.
Nothing worked. Minutes later she returned to her table, which proceeded to turn their eyes this way as well.
We were too nervous to get a picture of her while staring, though we had plenty of time.
She was currently staring at us when we took this picture.
So what did we learn from this experience? We've been targeting the wrong demographic...it's obvious our youtube videos would be more widely accepted here.
You should have mooned her
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