Love is not a universal language

This blog title sounds pretty pessimistic, no? I think so, but let's not get all pouncy and hear what I have to say... I guess for me, coming to Viet Nam I expected a certain amount of culture shock, and these past couple of days I've been starting to really re-evaluate what the idea of love is and where it even comes from. It all started in history class (I think.) one day when Jeremy talked about the idea of love and marriage and that our dominant perceptions of what love is essentially western ideals. (Sorry Jeremy don't want to twist your words, but it was something along these lines...) And this really got me thinking...

After this I had an interesting talk with Thay about my paper topic for history class, which happens to be prostitution. He told me some interesting stories that intensely boggled my mind. The popularity of prostitution or even extra marital sex is such a normalized part of Vietnamese culture. Having a dish on the side isn't so taboo here. So does that mean these men love their women any less? Or vice versa? or what are even these ideas of love that I have that I'm imposing on my own view of what a relationship or what a marriage should be. When it comes down to it, how can you measure love, or what love is when as you travel and go to different areas, the ideas of love changes. Even within the same country, as you move to other geographical locations and environments are constantly changing. The rules of love are different and quite possibly how much you love becomes immeasurable and irrelative.

Ai-yah, o.O I don't even know what I'm saying anymore... haha, I guess I'm just learning love just might not be a universal language.