No.638
Reversed cultural shock is surreal. The old way of life dies hard.
Japan teaches me to wait patiently. And I applied that the moment I landed in Vietnam, at the Airport Custom. It took me 1,5 hours staying in a line that wasn't even a line 😂 So everyone was pushing into 3 lines instead of 1 single straight line and I was already confused which is the "real" line and ended up just staying ... in (whatever) line it could be. By the time I reached the top row, it was like my line was actually branched out from a second line that went parallel with the first line?! 😭
It was funny the police standing there just complained "you guys not gonna get home till the end of the day if like that yo!" then went chitchatting with the female officer in front of us. Shouldn't he take a bit of responsibility monitoring who should go which and re-organize the line(s) for efficiency? It's "All Passengers" line that includes foreign tourists too after all.
By the time it passed 2PM something (while I landed around 12:45AM...) I finally got back my "Vietnamese" self a bit and pushed to my turn instead of waiting further. Furthermore, at the "Nothing to declare" line it happened again. 'That's it' I resolved, I cut in the line of people with massive numbers of luggages and just slipped out towards the final gate, since I only carried one freaking backpack (!) it was just ridiculous if I was gonna wait for another few hours to get through the line of these people. And it was not even a line! No one knew where the line was and just stood around everywhere 😂
On the bright side, my mood is pretty chilled. I could have been like the old self who would complain and feel negative about my country already. However, I got it through and enjoyed chitchatting with my taxi driver about his kids and how he raised them in Vietnam and in the "new Age" where kids have technology, abundance in food and entertainment, confidence in self-expression, unlike our generations (the taxi driver is the 80s kid and I am the 90s kid). It's crazy about the fast economic transition in Vietnam, which has created a totally different mindsets between the 80s, the 90s and the 2000s. I met at least three 98s kids and I couldn't possibly digest the overt confidence they have about themselves. Being in-between the 80s and 90s era, I carried with me this inferior complexity, the humiliation, the modesty. These are seen even more strongly in older generations, and it took me a while to build up the self, an ego boost, some confidence. But Vietnamese kids from 94 onwards? Oh dear, they are probably seeing themselves the rulers of the worlds, and they do have more privileges and advantages to be able to reach spotlights quicker.
I started writing this around the time in Dai Lai. Being with parents there generated my old way of life. I made myself aware that I was acting out a "Vietnamese daughter," a role I must play while in Vietnam and with parents. And pray, I've made it through 😉 without screwing up my mental wellbeing too much I believe.
Honestly speaking, it was still a struggle sometimes. It is true that the Western education and its way of life prioritise freedom of individual pursuits and things that sound quite selfish while the community-oriented Asian tradition teaches the opposite, the selfless way of life and all; and yes, in the end we all live in a community, as part of the community; and right, look at the West, with all neo-liberalism, individualism and postmodern lifestyles that lead to community disintegration, individualised diseases; BUT seriously, that traditional community way of life IS hard on women. I honestly do not understand why, after already paying all visits to the dead and the live of my extended family during Tet Holiday when I was home, I STILL had to do it again this time, the second time going back home. Does it mean if I go back 3 times a year, I need to do the whole ancestral visits 3 times?! So I have been planning to go home only ONCE per year after learning the lesson 😅
I remember reading the book "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" by Jung Chang and finding my grandma, my mother and myself in the author's grandma, mother and herself (though very, very distantly related 🤣). Positively speaking, Vietnam is the super less extreme version of China but still, lots of similarity and familiarity can be felt. Recently I also finished "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and wow, it echoes the "suffering" way of life (to live is to suffer) pretty much the same! No wonder why Russia, as represented by a group of blue-eyed and white-skin type of people, chose communism in the past; I mean, how come it has never transited to Democracy? I reckon what Russia is is geopolitically correct as Russia has such a long border with Asia compared to Europe, America and Australia. It "is" Asia a.k.a. the Oriental, not the West.
Back to the micro-level of life 😇 I recently read a Facebook Story of someone who is currently pregnant and she said something like she wanted to prepare for herself and her baby over the "sacrifice and guilt" way of life generation after generation has been through. Her sister is said to be absolutely talented with a full scholarship to study abroad in America then later married another Vietnamese fellow and they have now settled down in the USA with two kids I believe. She herself just finished her PhD in America, marrying and now having her first baby with another Vietnamese fellow. So these two ladies have already been quite... advanced, modern, less traditional and so on, like more of the "West" than the "Oriental" I guess and yet, like the Vietnamese women, the sacrifice, the guilt, the heroine, all are, probably, in them.
Without an extensive education and the influence of the Western way of life, I would have been exactly a version of my Mother, which I don't like. I wasn't kind to my Mother, blaming her for how I was, but I am learning better and better now that it wasn't entirely her fault. She was the product of the society she has lived in. And that society was once harsh on women, harsh on her. With self-awareness, I was able to return home for cultural reconciliation and probably reconstruction 🥹 being / doing something different from what I used to in the past, so that I do continue loving where I am from and my family while still, having my own self.
I have been encountering the Vietnamese around the world: the Viet Kieu who still hates Vietnam for its communism, the Viet Kieu who has no idea about Vietnam and wonders what if the Americans won Vietnam War, the Viet Kieu who said the local Vietnamese are stupid, the Viet Kieu who loves 'returning' to Vietnam but could not utter a word of Vietnamese, etc. It occurs to me that it takes education, culture, and extensive history / geopolitics knowledge to be a Vietnamese. And we don't know who we are until we know our history.
"The Myth of Normal" by Maté is the defining book in supporting my personal journey to navigate all kinds of roles I once have: as a Vietnamese girl, as a (once) local Vietnamese, as a (now) Vietnamese overseas, as a daughter, a younger sister, as an Asian woman, as a friend, as an Asian person (among Western communities), as a worker, as an Asian girlfriend, as an educated person, as an educated Vietnamese girl, and so on, on top of the authentic self. I am truly grateful that I am able to reach this point 🥹 that I know who I AM.
I am finishing this blog when there are 3 days left before leaving home for the other home. And I think Life has been pretty great! Because I am internally happier than I was, for I have found myself 😊
AMEN 🙏