Less Is More: What Vietnam Taught Me About Size
From time to time, I'm reminded of the age-old paradox that *less is more*. Or, to put it another way, big things come in small packages.
Sometimes this wisdom gets lost in the supersized, upgraded, XXL life that we Westerners have come to expect from the world around us.
King-size beds. Big Gulps. Ford F-350s. The list goes on and on.
It's what I call *Enoughism*.
Westerners, and Americans in particular, sometimes seem to suffer from an inability to know when to say when. To recognize when size matters and, more importantly, when it doesn't.
This blindness to value can creep into nearly every aspect of our lives. We're constantly assessing the worth of things around us, and one of the easiest ways to measure value is by size.
Bigger must be better, right?
One of the freedoms that comes with travel is the opportunity to see how other cultures approach life differently. In many places, size isn't necessarily the ultimate measure of value.
Take the humble banana, for example.
One of the first things I noticed when I traveled to Southeast Asia was the size of the bananas. They're small, wonderfully sweet, and just about the perfect size for a quick snack.
Now compare those to the traditional American banana. The ones we're accustomed to in the United States can sometimes be a full foot long.
Do we really need that much banana at one time? Is the banana-by-the-foot value proposition really a better deal?
Let's consider the humble cup of coffee.
In America, we have so many sizes of coffee that we've had to borrow Italian words just to keep up with our ever-expanding expectations.
Why settle for a small when you can have a tall? Not big enough? How about a grande? Still thirsty? Venti? Trenta?
At some point, you're not ordering a cup of coffee anymore. You're ordering a swimming pool with a lid.
But all this obsession with size seems to miss an important question.
**Is it actually better?**
Is it better to have 30 ounces of burnt, mediocre coffee rather than two ounces of something extraordinary? A foot of banana instead of a few inches of something fantastically sweet and fresh?
I submit to you that it is not.
When I first visited Vietnam and ordered a coffee at a local café, I scoffed at the miniature cup placed in front of me.
I remember being slightly amused at the notion that anyone could possibly be satisfied with such a minuscule serving of the morning beverage I enjoyed every day.
Naturally, I ordered two more.
You know, just to be on the safe side. I wanted to make sure I got enough caffeine to actually start my day.
What I hadn't yet learned was that Vietnamese coffee packs an extraordinary punch into a remarkably small cup.
By the time I left that café, I was practically vibrating.
It was a lesson I wouldn't soon forget.
That experience forced me to reconsider my own internal value calculator. The assumption that something needed to be big, preferably served in a bucket-sized container, to satisfy me was beginning to look a little ridiculous.
And Vietnam, as it turns out, is a particularly good place to reconsider your assumptions about size.
The country itself is relatively compact, a long, narrow strip of land stretching along the eastern edge of Southeast Asia. You can fly from north to south in just a few hours.
But what Vietnam lacks in geographical size, it more than makes up for in punch.
This is, after all, a country that gave the modern world one of its most dramatic David-and-Goliath stories during the American-led war. Whatever your perspective on that conflict, there's no denying the extraordinary determination of the Vietnamese people.
And that same intensity seems to find its way into just about everything.
Food. Karaoke. Fashion. Coffee. Street life.
Everything is turned up to eleven in Vietnam.
The colors, the sounds, the smells, the flavors. Nothing seems half-hearted or set to medium volume.
For someone who grew up in a country that invented Wonder Bread, the experience can be a little overwhelming.
But it's also incredibly liberating.
I've come to think that what Americans really crave isn't necessarily size. It's potency. It's intensity. It's the feeling of getting something meaningful out of an experience.
Perhaps our obsession with bigger portions, bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger everything is an attempt to find that full-octane version of life we suspect we're missing.
Maybe if the cup is big enough, or overflowing, we won't notice that what's inside has been diluted.
But traveling has taught me something.
What people really want isn't always more.
They want to *feel* more.
They want to taste their coffee. Taste their food. Experience their lives.
They want that flavorful contact with the world that gets lost when all we're offered is an endless flood of mediocrity.
Size is no substitute for concentration.
And sometimes, you have to go someplace small to learn what big really means.
From time to time, I'm reminded of the age-old paradox that *less is more*. Or, to put it another way, big things come in small packages.
Sometimes this wisdom gets lost in the supersized, upgraded, XXL life that we Westerners have come to expect from the world around us.
King-size beds. Big Gulps. Ford F-350s. The list goes on and on.
It's what I call *Enoughism*.
Westerners, and Americans in particular, sometimes seem to suffer from an inability to know when to say when. To recognize when size matters and, more importantly, when it doesn't.
This blindness to value can creep into nearly every aspect of our lives. We're constantly assessing the worth of things around us, and one of the easiest ways to measure value is by size.
Bigger must be better, right?
One of the freedoms that comes with travel is the opportunity to see how other cultures approach life differently. In many places, size isn't necessarily the ultimate measure of value.
Take the humble banana, for example.
One of the first things I noticed when I traveled to Southeast Asia was the size of the bananas. They're small, wonderfully sweet, and just about the perfect size for a quick snack.
Now compare those to the traditional American banana. The ones we're accustomed to in the United States can sometimes be a full foot long.
Do we really need that much banana at one time? Is the banana-by-the-foot value proposition really a better deal?
Let's consider the humble cup of coffee.
In America, we have so many sizes of coffee that we've had to borrow Italian words just to keep up with our ever-expanding expectations.
Why settle for a small when you can have a tall? Not big enough? How about a grande? Still thirsty? Venti? Trenta?
At some point, you're not ordering a cup of coffee anymore. You're ordering a swimming pool with a lid.
But all this obsession with size seems to miss an important question.
**Is it actually better?**
Is it better to have 30 ounces of burnt, mediocre coffee rather than two ounces of something extraordinary? A foot of banana instead of a few inches of something fantastically sweet and fresh?
I submit to you that it is not.
When I first visited Vietnam and ordered a coffee at a local café, I scoffed at the miniature cup placed in front of me.
I remember being slightly amused at the notion that anyone could possibly be satisfied with such a minuscule serving of the morning beverage I enjoyed every day.
Naturally, I ordered two more.
You know, just to be on the safe side. I wanted to make sure I got enough caffeine to actually start my day.
What I hadn't yet learned was that Vietnamese coffee packs an extraordinary punch into a remarkably small cup.
By the time I left that café, I was practically vibrating.
It was a lesson I wouldn't soon forget.
That experience forced me to reconsider my own internal value calculator. The assumption that something needed to be big, preferably served in a bucket-sized container, to satisfy me was beginning to look a little ridiculous.
And Vietnam, as it turns out, is a particularly good place to reconsider your assumptions about size.
The country itself is relatively compact, a long, narrow strip of land stretching along the eastern edge of Southeast Asia. You can fly from north to south in just a few hours.
But what Vietnam lacks in geographical size, it more than makes up for in punch.
This is, after all, a country that gave the modern world one of its most dramatic David-and-Goliath stories during the American-led war. Whatever your perspective on that conflict, there's no denying the extraordinary determination of the Vietnamese people.
And that same intensity seems to find its way into just about everything.
Food. Karaoke. Fashion. Coffee. Street life.
Everything is turned up to eleven in Vietnam.
The colors, the sounds, the smells, the flavors. Nothing seems half-hearted or set to medium volume.
For someone who grew up in a country that invented Wonder Bread, the experience can be a little overwhelming.
But it's also incredibly liberating.
I've come to think that what Americans really crave isn't necessarily size. It's potency. It's intensity. It's the feeling of getting something meaningful out of an experience.
Perhaps our obsession with bigger portions, bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger everything is an attempt to find that full-octane version of life we suspect we're missing.
Maybe if the cup is big enough, or overflowing, we won't notice that what's inside has been diluted.
But traveling has taught me something.
What people really want isn't always more.
They want to *feel* more.
They want to taste their coffee. Taste their food. Experience their lives.
They want that flavorful contact with the world that gets lost when all we're offered is an endless flood of mediocrity.
Size is no substitute for concentration.
And sometimes, you have to go someplace small to learn what big really means.
