I had lived my life in a context which moved linearly from modern to postmodern, from capitalism to late capitalism. But the villages of Vietnam breathed a new context - one where all the eras condensed into one and coexists as a single environment, intermingled and overlapping. 

Children who learnt from Western television to flip their middle finger at strangers, do so while standing on a mud wall, unaware of the gesture’s meaning. Motorbikes whizzed through rice fields and Disney t-shirts hung on clothing racks fashioned out of tree branches. Bushes grew into walls and wrapped around Karaoke signs. And as this unfamiliar entanglement of the natural and built environment stretched in every direction around me for what felt like an endless distance, it had the effect of rendering this ‘third world’ lifestyle somehow utopian. 

I felt a kind of unconventional beauty in this world. I think it was the smell of peace and everyday tranquility after a history of suffering, resistance and resilience. I realised that for me, this revealed a utopia closer to my heart than anything promised by politicians of the West. Yet, for the villagers who saw me, a tourist that flew across half the globe, I represented their utopia. And it made me wonder if utopia is a perpetual loop, always existing, yet always on the other side of where we stand.