The Debrief: Vietnam

For more blogs from Tran visit her page at: tranibanani.wordpress.com

Doing this Rose-Bud-Thorn style, because efficiency?

• Rose: Yay for the first post in March! Proud of myself for still updating this blog, and I’ve found to be really cathartic to be able to write when I want to, and to not feel pressured to write when I don’t want to.

• Thorn: The pollution in Hanoi was something I’ve never experienced similarly in my life, and I’d been looking forward to much clearer skies in Lac Village, but that didn’t happen. I know one day, I’ll get to experience a full night sky again.

• Rose: The food and the fruit — the thing that felt most like home in Houston was the food. It was like my mom’s cooking, or all of the local Viet restaurants in Houston. Even more so, all of the delicious new food and fruit I got to try, and I’ll hopefully be able to find in the US.

• Thorn: Leaving. I always say packing is the worst part about traveling. That’s a lie. It’s the leaving, especially if you’ve stayed long enough to make meaningful connections.

• Rose: Aside from my host family, the hardest people to leave are the volunteers and in-team country members who helped me with my Vietnamese, who showed me what it’s like to be a young adult in this country, who have made me realize that I am Vietnamese through and through, even if I was born in Southern Vietnam and even if I live in the United States. Thank you especially to Hoa, who held my hand the entire way down a thousand steps of stairs, and who spent an entire afternoon with me in some of the most beautiful parts of Hanoi.

Bud –> Rose: I came to Hanoi worried about how I would be perceived as a Vietnamese-American, particularly one who has familial background with Southern Vietnam during the war. Along with these worries, I came in with my own biases. I was wary of northerners, as well as the government and police. I didn’t know what the political climate is like in Vietnam, particularly between the North and the South. I still don’t really know. But I’ve realized that the people and families in the North had lived and suffered through the same war. They were still people, and they were still families. My host family is well-connected with the military. My host dad had served in the military. The land they live on was reserved for military families. They have health insurance for military families, and my host siblings had gone to a nursery school for military families. When I found out this information, I wondered how they perceived me as not only a Vietnamese-American, but as someone whose relatives had fled to the United States after the war. I found that much of these worries were unsubstantiated, because they took me into their home and fed me and treated me like a daughter. They have been nothing short of wonderfully kind and compassionate people. In class, we always discuss how historical and cultural context matters. But in these moments, I’ve realized that a lot of times, history doesn’t matter that much. It is the present that we live in, and it is the present in which we love one another.

• Rose: I’m always surprised by how nice people are here. We talk a lot in class about power dynamics and positionality, and I know it is a bit loaded to say that locals are genuinely nice to us, a group of foreign students. But from everyone in my host family, to the IHP Vietnam team, to our hosts in Lac Village, to taxi and motorbike drivers, to cafe and shopkeepers, I’ve encountered so many people here who are so kind and warm, who have gone out of their way to help me.

• Bud: I once mentioned early on in class that Vietnamese feminism is very different from American feminism. Even as I said that back then, I hadn’t fully understand the weight of the differences. Back home, American feminism was very explicit to me. There are lot of articles about it, a lot of discussion, a lot of movements. It was reproductive rights, and equal pay, and more representation. Vietnamese feminism is different. I still don’t really know what Vietnamese feminism is. But I do know that most of the time, it boils down to resilience. That is the view I have on Vietnamese feminism. Each and every Vietnamese female I know is resilient. We thrive among the communities that we build, the families that we hold together, and the society for which we lay the foundation.

• Rose: Ninh Binh – absolutely great day with a great tour guide and group of gals

• Bud: But every day, I realize more and more how much this trip is meant to be for me. I can continue enjoying his company, and I will continue to do so. I’ll look forward to coming home to him over the summer, if that will be a thing. But what matters more is that I am on this trip, in this program, with the people that I see each and every day. It matters more that I’m present with the people who are here with me and learn in the moments that are given to me here. Over the past month, I still feel like much of my head and my heart was stuck back home, and it was difficult for me to fully present where I am right now.

#Vietnam