As a sequel, I want to add that the people of Vietnam are very industrious.
The morning after the monsoon, a large number of people were out cutting up trees which had fallen down (to sell as firewood), shoveling mud from in front of their houses and on the street, bailing water from around their houses and the police and fire department were out with their rigs spraying the mud off the downtown streets (were most of the tourists live and never venture out of).
People don’t waste any time worrying about what they had lost; they get busy and start cleaning up things and putting things back into order.
The monsoon wasn’t anything unusual from the Vietnamese point of view. It’s much more unusual to us Westerners because our governments have spent huge amounts of money to prevent flooding, etc. We Westerners don’t experience much natural adversity in the course of our lives. Of course, if you live on the coast line you may have more experiences with hurricanes (called monsoons in Asia).
Asians are generally more “fatalistic”, i.e. they accept what happens and move on. Also more “stoic”, i.e. don’t show emotional responses.
Within three days, only some of the deeper mud remained on the Chi Lang street and in several more days it had been shoveled away to use in the fields because Mai said it was rich dirt, good for growing crops.
Life goes on here — just another occurrance in one’s life.