Why OneVietnam? – Confessions of a Viet Kieu

I know it seems inconsequential, but to not know where you’re from and not understand the culture that has a huge part in making you who you are – you feel a disconnect, a little bit like you don’t understand yourself.

By on July 25, 2010 • Topics: Current Affairs,OneVietnam Buzz

I’m a passionate writer – give me something I love and I’ll write you a novel.  Ask me to write about anything else and it’ll be like pulling teeth for me to even compose a sentence.  I can say without question that this article is the easiest one I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing.

I live and die by quotes, no matter how trivial they may seem.  You’ll understand what I mean by trivial when I tell you the phrase that inspired this whole article comes from the movie “Hitch.”

“You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.”

Someone recently asked me, “Why OneVietnam, why now?”  Let’s just say that I’m the kind of flustered person that — when asked these types of questions — fall into a state of awkwardness: I stutter, fidget, get slightly red in the face and on occasions, you might just see a drop of sweat stream down my face.  Not this time.  This time, the answer flowed out of me in a way that surprised even me.

Why now?  It’s not something we think about often, but I truly believe that we stand at a pretty monumental time.  In this moment, we have a combination of groups that won’t be together for long.  There are our parents and grandparents who grew up in Vietnam, surrounded by the culture that people my age struggle to understand.  There are people like me, who came here at a young age, grasping on to that part of us as we try to not forget.  And then there were people who weren’t born in Vietnam, who never got to experience first hand the country that defines them.

I look at my grandparents, and as much as it hurts to think about, I know they won’t be around for much longer.  They’re the people where the Vietnamese culture is prominent — the people I look at when I struggle to understand why certain things are the way they are.  The  first hand experience of their generation is something that can’t ever be replaced, when it’s gone – it’s gone.  There have been more times than I can remember where I find myself wishing that there wasn’t a language barrier between us so that I could talk to them, so that they could explain to me the importance of things like a dam hoi or tell me about their lives in Vietnam while they still can.

I never thought it was important to know where I came from; the past is the past, right?  Maybe not so much.  While working on a project for OneVietnam a few months ago, I was faced with a shocking revelation.  While looking through pictures of Vietnam, I was shocked when I realized that I couldn’t even recognize my own country.  I know it seems inconsequential, but to not know where you’re from and not understand the culture that has a huge part in making you who you are – you feel a disconnect, a little bit like you don’t understand yourself.

So why OneVietnam?  The knowledge is there, experiences abound, but barriers come in all form. I truly believe that each person on this network can act as a bridge for someone else and help connect them to whatever it is they’re looking for – whatever it is they’re trying to understand. We’re Vietnamese.  We see that every day when we look in the mirror — and while your nationality doesn’t define you, your culture connects you.

The Author:

Lana graduated from the University of California, Davis in June 2009 with a degree in Economics and is now pursuing her CFA Charter. She is currently working with OneVietnam Network doing Business Development and Marketing.

  • http://www.FoamDesignCenter.com Joe Tran

    Hi Lana,

    You brought up the most important issue of all Vietnamese Parents. We have 4 young kids ourself growning up in America. We try to bring them back to Vietnam once in awhile to let them know where their parents came from. The last trip is last month Dec. 2010, we were in Vietnam for 1 month on a vacation trip. For the first time in my life, I could look out into the sea and Mui Ne Resort and tell my 13 years old son that “You see that circle thing out there floating on water, its call “Cai Thung” where your great grand father and I used to go fishing back when I was 9 years old. We wanted our kids to know what its like to be a Vietnamese, so we took all of them on a mission trip to donate rice and goodies to a Ruin Temple in Nha Trang because of the flood. The flood was so back that it knock down almost half of the temple. We went to visit the ederly center where you have a combination of mental patients, and ederly without home living together. Then we went to see an orphanage, where its started by a young budha lady with couple childs and grew to about 60 kids. She got 3 ederly in their 70′s try to help her run the whole orphanage. Out of those 60 kids, only 5 of them are normal. Most of the other kids are mental challange. Only if they get the right amount of mental care, they would grow up to be OK. Our baby girl age 20 months old go around and help pick up candle wrapple for the other kids, its an amazing thing to see a little baby do. After the trip, I ask my 13 year old if we are doing the right thing by donating a little money to buy rice and gifts for those unfortunate folks. He said yes, it may me feel really happy that he is a true Vietnamese boy even if he is born in USA. By the way our kids are 20 months, 9, 10, and 13 years of age. We do this donation trip everytime we come to Vietnam and we put a Smile on many faces for 1 day.

  • Pingback: Letters to VTP: Can Social Networking Help Preserve Vietnamese Culture? | Vietnam Talking Points

  • Lucas

    Interesting view point though I struggle to understand “it seems we cannot look to Vietnam for the cultural values we want to preserve.” You must first define “culture” then find where it is. Cultural values are preserved in Việt Nam! Therefore you *can* find them there. Perhaps you looked in the wrong place. To start it’s not Vietnam but Việt Nam.