LOVE THIS!!!! XD

Thanks for your comment! These are issues we struggle with every day
in our host countries, and I’m glad that you brought them up– it’s
important to have this discussion.

With regard to our “Summer of Slavery”, I’m sure you would agree that
minimum wage provides an enormous chunk of America with a very poor
standard of living. Saving money at $8.50 per hour– one of the
highest min. wages in the country– we ate an bogglingly unhealthy
diet, largely bereft of fresh vegetables and completely lacking fruit.
Without cars and with the now-crippling cost of buses, we lived almost
entirely within the 12 square blocks of Seattle’s Lake City– known
for its high density of strip clubs and auto dealerships. Take full-
time production work and full-time employment at a demanding service
job, add in a poor diet, no entertainment, a failing marriage, and a
cramped and sweltering house– I would stand by “living Hell” any day.

I hope that it’s clear that we lived at poverty-level wages in Seattle
and used them to live well abroad. We certainly don’t intend to claim
that we were able to succeed at poverty level wages in Saigon. I think
our ambition is equal to the task (and we tend to believe that we can
succeed at anything), but it would be a foolish claim. What we are
trying to say is that a life of travel and adventure is within reach
for any American with ambition and good friends. I wish I could say
the same for any country, but that’s our privilege, and one that many
don’t realize. In truth, we lived incredibly well in Vietnam– life
was great! Enviable even, or so we hope.

The point, as we see it, is this: Trying to survive on minimum wage in
America is grueling. The work is hard, and thankless. The days are
long. You eat poorly, and celebrate a dollar-store Christmas. We’re
trying to demonstrate that there’s much more to life, and that it’s
accessible. We want the image of a departing plane to resound with
anyone, regardless of their means. All you need is determination and
friends that support you.

Thanks,

Rob

You say that the thesis of JS0 is that “a lifestyle of travel is possible on poverty-level wages.” However, this begs a few questions.

It is abundantly clear from the first few episodes that you all were living in the US making poverty level wages (not surprising, given that the minimum wage is below the poverty line of the vast majority of our country). I am not sure that calling work in service sector jobs for menial pay “a living Hell” is particularly fair, but that is another subject entirely.

However, I wonder, teaching English in Vietnam were you really living at a poverty level or making a poverty level wage? I would bet that you were making significantly more that most people in Vietnam. I have read that the per capita income of Vietnam is around $725 PER YEAR! You each made nearly three times that much, in less than a quarter of the time. Your earnings and moreover your expenses (meager as some of them seem) prove to me that you were not living a poverty level life in Vietnam.

Isn’t the point here not that “a lifestyle of travel is possible on poverty-level wages” but that you can take a summer working at US poverty level wages and parlay that into a nice 3 month vacation in a third world country like Vietnam? And frankly, what sort of victory is that? It seems to me to be none other than the stereotypical scenario where the bourgeoisie American is making a killing on the backs of the proletarian citizens of a third world country that is just barely reaching the globalized techno-industrial age.