VietBlog

The students and faculty for Social Work in Vietnam have travelled thousands of miles to make it meet our colleagues in Southeast Asia. And you thought Jet lag was bad by flying to California…

More from our faculty leader Neal Newfield:

Tomorrow is today in Vietnam. Phone a friend at 1:00 PM Friday and they will be answering the phone on Saturday at 12:00 AM in Vietnam. You might be working on a project and you want a response from a colleague, but then you realize it is night and they won?t be available and get nothing.

That’s because it may be a workday for you but it is already the weekend for them. If this does not diddle with your head, add flying hours and hours on a plane and you have an amazingly disorienting experience.

Being packed in economy class the plane just adds to your disorientation.

When you travel to Vietnam (or anywhere in Asia) you spend a whole day traveling to your destination, but lose a whole second day because of the time change. (Don?t fear you will gain the day back when you return.) Flying back from Vietnam you will sail through the air for 25 hours only to arrive in the U.S. the same day you left.

Going either East or West your body is not in synchronization with your mind. Landing in Vietnam around midnight you body may feel like it is 11:00 AM, which is the East Coast time.

Skipping through time with few cues you gain an appreciation for what it feels like to be on an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital, a complete loss of orientation to time and place.

This is your initiation into the ?travelers club?. It is best to take the disorientation and cramped travel space philosophically. One hundred years ago it would have cost month on a tall sailing ship and perhaps the harrowing experience of storms at sea to visit Vietnam.

Now the cost is a day of discomfort for weeks of wonderment.

But travel is an adventure. Admiral Byrd said it best, ?Adventure is hardship contemplated at leisure.?

—Neal Newfield

More links on Jet lag:

How to avoid Jet Lag

Apparently there is a remedy (disclaimer: we do not endorse the use of any particular treatment for Jet lag): No-Jet-Lag

More links on time differences:

The time in Vietnam is approxiamately 11 hours ahead (normally 12 without daylight savings time.)

Here’s a US Navy map of the world time zones.