How a daughter of a shrimper plans to navigate her fear of failure
It’s equally exciting and excruciatingly painful knowing that I can do so much more for my people. I am a descendant of generations of fishermen and shrimpers. Oral tradition has it that the Vu’s were honorable men. My father would tell me about the great voyages that my uncles, great-uncles, and grandpa embarked on in Vietnam and the Gulf—catching a skull in the net, surviving a whirlpool, being swept up at sea stranded for days. After so many legendary ancestors, what can I, a hesitant girl, do to get on their level?
Lots of times, customers come into my family’s supply shop and order a green napthenate net dip for their battered shrimp nets. This coat is for the nylon net so that it can withstand abrasion from dragging sea currents, rocky sea creatures, and blasts of sand from being whished across the sea floor. As much as fishermen dread rocky things, I dread failure. I don’t want my ropes to fray. I’m passionate and ambitious, and I don’t want to let down others.
When I was young, I started off my education shakily. I was never in Gifted and Talented so I was not familiar with the smart kids until way half through my junior high year. I had to go to after school tutorials constantly to prep for the Reading TAKS test because I had failed the one before. I went to after school detentions for cheating with other kids in Mrs. Kurtz’s writing class in middle school, because I was struggling to keep up. I was this typical Asian girl who just didn’t want to talk in school, so it was hard to get help.
I discovered my creativity in eighth grade. My science teacher, Mrs. Adkins told the class to make a biome. No requirements, no instructions were given. “Less work!” cried the students. I viewed this differently. More work! I picked the biome I knew most about—the marine—and researched more about it. I came home, ravaged the cupboard, my family’s marine supply shop, and my Grandma’s garage to find spongy materials, blue things, anything I could use. I worked extensively; people would think that I was putting together a rocket. In the end, I was the only one to come to school with a serious, butt-kicking biome project. I hurt my neck from holding my head too high that day. I saw the glint of pride in Mrs. Adkin’s eyes, I understood that she wanted the only limiting factor to be our imagination and drive, and I loved that.
Sometimes, I would rather be a Rapunzel in my room. My passion for the arts have been largely expressed in the way I consume time playing and practicing the violin, guitar, singing, painting, sketching, and learning video and photo editing. I enjoy solitude. Because I learned that being smart is the way to go, I put myself into advanced classes for the last year in junior high and for the rest of high school—I even enrolled in several dual credit courses. If it wasn’t the work that kept me alive, it was because of the creativity I had and bursts of excitement I would get with a new idea at 3 a.m. for a project in class or for my church. When I feel low, I turn to art and let myself fall and splatter on acrylic canvases. Then, of course, I continue studying.
I want to do so much more. My dream job is to become a well-known storyteller. With impactful messages, humans can relate and empathize with others in the face of adversity and navigate through this maze which we call life. I dream moving an audience to tears and my name rolling in the credits. There are so many people besides myself that are waiting to be ignited by the flames of understanding and sparks of inspiration. An Asian girl like me can indeed pursue a career in media. Hopefully, one day, kids will look up a Wiki article about me and know that one day I was just like them.
People say that the ocean is a beautiful, magnificent thing and God’s most treasured creation. Some say that it’s a dangerous oblivion that people fall into…sharp objects and creatures lurk in those spontaneous waters. Using art as an advantage to guide myself through storms of struggle in this cinema business, I can throw myself out there and be afraid not of greatness.