The Long Road

If there's one word I feel after coming back from Viet-Nam, it's this: Retarded. Okay, not really. More like "guilty". Cost of living, and all prices in general, are dirt cheap there. Meals for 30 cents, custom tailored shirts for 10$, prescription glasses for 25$, full service hair cuts for 1$. Everything is super cheap. I feel utterly silly coming back here to Canada and spending 2$ on a coffee, 8$ on a sub, 40$ on shirts that don't quite fit as well. It's just senseless, I'm never going to buy anything here again that I can just fly over to developing countries and buy for a tenth of the price. Getting 2 pairs of glasses for under 50$, 2 suits, 3 pants, and 3 shirts all tailor made for under 250$ basically saves me enough money to justify the plane ticket.

And this is where the Guilt part comes in. I have family there and they're not exactly leading the high-life. There's a reason why we came to Canada, after all, and it wasn't for the snow nor the skinny white girls. One of my aunt makes about 125$ per month, which even figuring in the difference in purchasing power does not seem like enough to live comfortably with 2 kids. And here I am budgetting myself 100$ per week for eating out and drinking. If I manage to curb my enthusiasm a little bit and send just 100$ her way each month, I could almost DOUBLE her monthly income and make a huge difference in her quality of life. I've never sent money back home before though, and now I can't help but think back to all the times I had disposable income and spent it on ridiculous shit instead of helping out family.

The problem is there's LOTS of family. My mom has 7 siblings, and 7 nephews/nieces. I can't exactly just send money to my favourite aunt without everyone else finding out and feeling left out. And sending money to everyone is just well out of my income bracket. I've come up with a plan though, set a couple of things in motion and if this all works out, it will be the greatest thing I've ever done.

Replies: 11 comments

You also can't discount the huge environmental cost that flying has. There's basically no worse way to travel in terms of raw carbon. 7.31 tonnes for a return flight to Hanoi, which is above average for a person's entire year according to Zerofootprint. When you add driving and living in a house that burns gas for heating -- well, it's pretty bad.

Posted by Joe @ 10/09/2007 08:28 PM EST

well, the plane's flying there whether I'm on it or not. We're better off with me filling and seat and amortizing the environmental cost over one more person than Air Canada having less seats filled up.

Posted by Long @ 10/10/2007 12:46 AM EST

Not if Air Canada decides that there's sufficient demand to start a (e.g.) second flight -- or decides there's not enough demand, and discontinues a flight.

Posted by Joe @ 10/10/2007 08:30 AM EST

Yes but viet-nam's booming economy ensures that business travellers and tourists will keep the number of flights growing to a point where my choice won't matter.

Posted by Rayne @ 10/10/2007 11:34 AM EST

Gosh, somebody better let Al Gore know so he can adjust his flights accordingly. But for some reason I just don't picture him in a rowboat over the Atlantic ;)

Posted by Mike @ 10/10/2007 02:56 PM EST

Funny how this topic just jumped ship...I might as well state that my SOHU stock went up $3 today.

Posted by dAN @ 10/10/2007 10:55 PM EST

Yeh, Joe's a bit zealous about the environment lately.

Posted by Long @ 10/11/2007 12:51 PM EST

Yeah, I got religion. (And no, it's not Al Gore.)

Posted by Joe @ 10/11/2007 09:11 PM EST

Religious blindness. There are many other areas to focus on before pointing the finger at a round-trip flight to Viet-Nam. Just consider the "wasteful" training exercises the military undergoes daily, or the impact of a single space shuttle flight (and let's not even discuss corporations). Of course, it's easy for a "Joe" to muddy the script, he does not bear the burden of a long distance family in Asia. Trust me, Thai considered an Ark, but think of the trees.

Posted by dAN @ 10/15/2007 10:01 PM EST

Ahem. The space shuttle uses hydrogen and oxygen as its fuel -- its byproduct is, well, water.

Posted by Joe @ 10/16/2007 12:15 PM EST

Sure, the main engines use cryogenic propulsion, but don't forget to account for the 2.3 million pounds of solid propellant released by the launch boosters (free chlorine being of main concern).

Posted by dAN @ 10/16/2007 03:02 PM EST