It’s my third time back in Vietnam and things have changed in the four year gap since I last visited. By the looks of it, helmets for scooters are now mandatory; old school J-walking gets you a ticket; there are more cars than ever as failing corporations try to salvage their remaining investments in developing countries, resulting in increased congestion in a country heavily designed with French infrastructure; Xe xích lô’s are now considered antiquities instead of classic transportation; buildings are being being torn down and rebuilt into sleek, modern buildings catering to Western tourists; foreign letterings and shops are becoming more prevalent, from 日本語 to Français to 한국어/조선말 and unsurprisingly, English.
At the same time, things haven’t changed so much. Street vendors flood the streets with offerings from nước mía to cơm tấm; the streets are as amazingly chaotic as they ever were; the monsoon season is as brutally rapid and transient as before; people are still going about their lives per usual. In lieu of everything that has happened, everyone is living about their business regardless.
Of all the things possible, this third trip reestablishes why I’ll never be fully accepted in either Eastern or Western culture by default of my own heritage and environment that I grew up in.
My Vietnamese is rubbish – comparatively so. Listening and reading skills have improved and writing abilities are slowly inching upwards, but otherwise I tend to grunt tacit responses to questions, and by all means I know it’s bejeweled with a terrible accent. And it’s not my Vietnamese that makes me stand out – it’s my physical appearance too. I’m taller, stronger built, and my clothes are distinctly different than what the locals wear.
But I’m Vietnamese too, a foreigner from abroad that shares the same ethnic roots with everyone here. This sets me completely aside from all other visitors and tourists who are distinctly non-Vietnamese (Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, the lot). I’m something else, a mixture of person fortunate enough to travel and someone who stems from the same bloodline of everyone here; I’m a amalgam of Eastern and Western hemispheres, a product of the Fall of Saigon in 1975, a somebody who’ll continuously bounce back and forth between two distinctly different cultures for the rest of my life.
Is it a curse or a blessing? I’m more inclined to believe the latter, but realistically it’s a broth of both. Simultaneously I’ll be blessed to understand both schools of thought and cursed to never fully fit into either. It’s not a bad or good thing – it’s just reality. And who am I to blame my birthright for this condition?
I live up to it – hell I embrace it. This is my life, and I’m grateful for it.
It means that I’m lucky enough to be born into a life filled with endless support and love from family and friends; that I can empathize and sympathize with people from both culture hemispheres; that I have the sensitivity for culture humility and respecting differences; that I’m able to appreciate and learn from both Eastern and Western realms of thought, and perhaps have a distinct outlook unique to conventional ideas.
It also means I’m unlucky to constantly experience misunderstandings, prejudices and self-mediated racism between both hemispheres; that regardless of my capabilities I’ll still be shunned in some form or a way either for my mispronunciation, my skin color, my background, my name or so on; that I’ll have a harder time finding a sense of community that doesn’t relinquish my own idiosyncrasies and feelings regarding my own heritage and upbringing.
This is reality. It’s neither hot nor cold, good nor bad, happy nor sad – it’s pretty boringly lukewarm, in fact. But probably the best part of it all?
I get to appreciate both the deliciousness of a breakfast croissant and a lunchtime bowl of steaming phở. So time to get on with life and love it for all its lukewarm brothiness – and I plan to live up to it well.