What is freedom to me when I am brought up in two different cultures?
When I was young, I watched this one Vietnamese movie with my parents. It was one of those common drama films where it sets in the countryside. The plot would be more-or-less the same. They weren't exactly Disney or blockbuster action films that every other kid seemed to watch. In its own way, although cheesy and poorly acted, these films addressed social and class struggles. But these were the films that my parents and I unintentionally bonded over. After work, school, and dinner, we found ourselves asking, "What chapter are we on now?," propping in the designated disc, and in no time, hastily bundled on the couch.
We bought these DVD serial dramas in the Hong Kong Mall in Houston, a one-stop shopping mall for the Vietnamese in Texas, particularly in the East Coast. It was a 2-hour ritual drive from our hometown down south. We'd pack up our family car like pioneers of the 1800's embarking on a station wagon journey heading West. So much idled time of my childhood had been letting the Texas countryside whip past me as I treated car windows like TV screens. Rows of cornstalk, snowy cotton, tall dry grass, cattle with geese; they have all been ingrained subconsciously in my mind. Then also the smoking oil refineries, abandoned farmhouses, rusted grain silos, and towering power-lines, that look like humans, were all also part of this natural landscape.
At the age of 5, I remember myself twisting back, clenching onto the headrest of father's pick up truck, so frustrated that the moon followed me everywhere. At 10, I'd think of photosynthesis and categorize things that existed in countryside as either biotic and abiotic factors, then confused whether if corn and cotton rows were in fact alive, because the mass production of food made it look all the same. Nature is supposed to look kind of unruly, colorful, and chaotic, like the jungle, isn't it? Then at 15, I drove my very own truck. It was in four-wheeled steel boxes that I did a whole lot of thinking. And although it was a means of transport, it was also a vehicle to spend time with others. Without knowing it, like many others, I intrinsically grew into the car culture of America, loving long rides with company on the road, sensual midnight car rides that beg for tears, windy day of windows down with music blasting, speeding down country roads, and short cruises by the bay. Having a car is having the freedom of getting anywhere with a foot to the pedal. It's an American way of life.
There was this one particular Vietnamese DVD drama that stuck with me. An old lady had taken in an orphaned child. She had an alcoholic husband who didn't care for her. She also seemed to do most of the farm work and still found time to cook for her child and husband. At dinner times, under a dim bulb, she would scoop some fish from the pot and place it in the child's bowl of rice in silence. Then, she would smile with her crooked teeth, hiding away her tiredness; but somehow the child knew that the sticky white hair on her forehead, calloused hands, and wrinkled face told a different story. The child was brought to school and encouraged to do well. And in no time, the child grew up to be 18 years old. And as expected, like a majority of these dramas, the child would leave to the city in search of a job to bring money home to the family. And finally, because these dramas were cautionary tales, the child abandoned the family altogether in pursuit of money and a better life away from the poverty at home.
For this particular film, I was around 7. When the scene came up, I braced myself for the strings that tugged my heart. It was as expected. The child donned on a new black messenger bag and mounted a bike. The old woman wept on her doorsteps of her shed. And she ran towards the road as the child cycled away. At that point of the film, I put down the remote control silently, sat up, and walked towards the door. I went into my bedroom, shut it, and lied on my bed in the darkness. Then, I cried. I started to soak up my pillow and wonder why the child had to leave. I was in search for bigger answers. Why did he have to leave? Why do we need jobs? Why does life work like this? Then all of a sudden, in a click, my room lights blinded me. My mom had come in my room to check up on me. As soon as she saw me, she busted out laughing, roaring with ooh and haha's, wavering a finger at me. My secretive lamenting heart was exposed! My mother saw how upset and embarrassed I was and started to cheer me up. "It's okay. It's life. One day, we eventually have to leave one another." She sat on my bed and cried along too. In the other room, the movie continued playing. I already knew what happens. Why? Why? WHY?
Why Leave
It is a popular and general understanding that all stories have already been written, all films have already been made, and all lives have already been lived--just all are regurgitated in different ways. Every creation is unique. What bothers me is that people come to accept this notion without fully comprehending the complexity of each individuals' lives and story. I guess where I'm going with this is: the times have changed.
For children of refugees, it's hard to adjust and balance two cultures at once. In other words, by our parents, we are taught to be traditional and conservative, whereas in school, we are taught to strive for modernity, to "think outside the box." Ironically, it is our parents who trust the American government and push us to do better in school. And it is within these academic institutions that we are introduced to ideas, history, and a plethora of many things to one day maybe make a career out of. Home is the sidewalk, and school is the playground.
The best way I can think of right now to show the differences in the way I have been brought up is by showing a cartoon I saw the other day that was meant to cheer me up but instead made me feel like I was so at lost. The graphic shows 26 things to do to be happier. In petulance, I crossed out 8 of the 26 things that I felt that I was not encouraged to do. Note that these things were not explicitly discouraged but rather they were inherently ill-fitting for me, being that this is where the western vs. traditional cultures clash. Here is the graphic by Incidental Comic:
Here are the reasons why I crossed them out: 1) They say that growth starts when one is outside of their comfort zone. But at home among the necessities I have already in life, I am called to stay and be comfortable. 2) I have already done much exploring, granted by field trips and traveling. My greatest duty is to stay, help, and be close to my family. 3) My family is very work-oriented and don't have the desire nor interest in matters outside their house (like politics). They want to live the simple life. My voice and relentless thoughts end up feeling dampened. 4) I am not to question things and leave it up to God. 5) I must stick to the way things have been done. 6) For the Viets, especially my family, what is camping? It doesn't exist. 7) “Taking adventures are too leisurely.” 8) Simply, I can't sleep like this when my mind is going 1,000 mph. Overall, the idea of staying comfortable seems a little toxic. I am sure that things are not as they seem. I admit that I was severely down this day, because within the past few weeks, months, and years, I had enough of being told what to do.
Perhaps, it’s the way of looking at things.
It is funny to think that Asian refugee parents would never advocate to take the road less traveled by (as laid out by Robert Frost) when they themselves have done the very same thing by embarking on a dangerous journey to seek refuge in America by boat. I often ask myself, what happened to their vulnerability and courage? Why hide all that under a mask of silence, tough loves, and no "I love you's?"
If you're a teeny liberal like me, it is hard to educate our parents, not only because of a language barrier. But because without care, it is us who mistake ignorance with innocence. Our parents are not ignorant as we think they are, at least for mine. They are, in part, products of colonialism and injustice. I wish they were more educated, so I could talk to them in ways without feeling like they are the enemy. I wish they knew more about their past, because I am not sure what to tell people about where I came from. My parents generally don't wish to talk about the war and their childhood. They rarely questioned it. It seemed that I had to embrace that we are what we are in plain black and white, just as they did. But how could I accept this, when I have already lived freedom, insofar as being able to ask so many questions? Asking questions is already a privilege.
It truly is a privilege to know where you came from. That's why I started digging into my past. I scoured the library for articles, journals, and books on Vietnam history, colonialism, and the wars. There's so much I didn't and still don't know!
After centuries of recent wars, battles, and the effects of colonization (brought with religion and brain-washing; not that these two are synonymous but could be), we, children, err on the line of becoming so offended when they don't understand what we have to say. And it is a dangerous folly to disregard them as a whole when we have disagreements. The schism of whether they should or should not be comfortable should not be determined by us. If we want to challenge our parents, we have to do so with the utmost respect. And many of us, sadly, lose that respect. To get this respect, I encourage all of us to scour the internet for the few but reliable sources of our own history. We want change, but they've already experienced so much change.
It is not that they are resistant to change, but it is that they grew up as children with bombs dropping in their very front yards. They grew up alongside friendly neighbors to see them gone the very next day taken by napalm. My grandmother had days where she had very little rice to feed the family. And my mother used to bike to the city at the age of 10-14 to sell sugared water in Coca-Cola bottles on the side of the streets. My father fished from a very young age and built his own wooden boat by the age of 15, already consumed with work and the responsibility of providing for his family. And coming from a small shrimping town where many of our most of our parents are blue-collar workers (shrimpers, shrimp peelers, crabbers, crab gutters, fishers, fish cutters, and so on), I see that the Viet community continues to do the laborious sweat work they've been doing their entire lives. Then after work, they go to church in order to hold on to tradition and religion, because it's what they've known and found solace in after all these years and all their lives.
To respect their beliefs comes in many different forms and is a very hard thing to accept and follow-through, because it comes with many misunderstandings and cultural barriers. If love was like speaking, they love in their own language. It is my duty to love and be there for my family, but it is also my duty to bring about change to the world in any way I can. With the knowledge I have accumulated during my undergraduate years and beyond, my concern grows for the society I was brought up in and in far away lands of my ancestor's home.
Whose Bag, Whose Bike?
I have learned so much, so fast about the world these past 5 years, splitting myself in many different places, learning from different sectors, and seeing the raw hearts of people from different places and different cultures. And the people along the way have been so precious. So far as for strangers, they have been a student randomly picking up trash on UT campus, an artisan tea-maker in Amsterdam, a young patient in Dominican Republic, a freelance painter in the Louvre, a woman in a park in Lyon, a couple fishing in the Mediterranean, a handsome boy in London, and a loving Chinese family in Vietnam. I do notice that not many people could be able to do this or say this. I don’t know how else to weave these people in the story of our lives for them to be relevant, but know that they have certainly been impactful in mine. Each one of these strangers taught me something new and the power of having an open heart. Now it’s my job to spread this love and perspective as well and the best as I can.
Mom, I want to leave to experience all of this. Will you understand that this makes me happy? Will you be happy for me? I have had the conversation with my mom many times, and the ordeal is like trying to pull off a bandaid gently as possible. She doesn’t want me to leave. No mother ever wants their child to. She tells me, "Do what makes you happy, con, my little one." So here I am, it’s me with the bag and bike. I have the black messenger bag and my foot on the pedals of the bike. I am a lot free than I think I am.
End.
2 final notes: 1) As for now, this post is written a little more figuratively. COVID-19 has me all cooped up at home and rethinking over my life. 2) I encourage all Vietnamese-Americans to look into their past in anyway that you can. I find that it gives me comfort in knowing my identity and an understanding of my parents, family, and community.