How the Election Looks from Vietnam

"Aren't you glad you're not here right now for this?" -- paraphrased from pretty much everyone I've talked to from home in the past month.

I am 8,100 miles away from home right now, but I might as well not be. Besides the fact that my social life is half digital thanks to Facebook and Instagram, even my real-world surroundings are buzzing with conversations about the election. On the official side, the American consulate in Saigon held an election results viewing party, which seemed to be well attended. (I slept in, and then went to the pool all day instead. My bad). But on the unofficial side, most of the small talk I've had with the locals has been about the election. Two weeks ago on my way home from work, my cab driver decided to campaign to me. He says "Hillary Clinton, number 1! Donald Trump, bad!" followed by him finding a paper cup somewhere in the front of his cab and violently throwing it (presumably the way he would throw Donald Trump were he present). The adult elementary-level students in my CELTA class would ask, "Trump or Clinton?" back in September, months before the actual voting.

In the lounge at work, teachers from all over the world are ready to share their opinions (generally the same opinion, though. Take a wild guess which candidate a bunch of liberal, well-traveled expatriates like). Lots of people are drawing comparisons between Trump's election and Brexit. I went out to a bar on Wednesday night, just about everyone was deep in conversation about the dire situation in the United States. Even my students on Wednesday, aged about 11-13 interrogated me, asking "do you like Donald Trump?"

Maybe I'm an idiot to be surprised at the shockwaves the American election has caused here. I've spent a great deal of time here adjusting my thinking to try to be less Western-centric, assuming that maybe my students don't know major Hollywood movies or American music, or even American food. But holy shit, suddenly everyone is desperately interested in what the hell is going on over in FattyFatFatMcDonaldsland, and I'm left trying to explain (with the shreds of my memories from AP government class, so very badly) how the electoral college works, and even how the branches of American government work.

So everyone at home, in case you were wondering, the world really is watching with a jumbo size of popcorn. I am probably just going to pretend that I am from Canada for a little while.