Modern Viet Kieu [p.7]

Landon: I’m starting to see Vietnamese losing the unity of their nuclear family. Now both parents are going to work. Luxury products are available and people want to buy. In the U.S. there are too many latchkey kids on Ritalin. Here students still respect teachers and parents and understand the value of education.

Laurence: I like that they’re more collective and attached to their elders. But I pity the woman who isn’t allowed to get married because she has to take care of her mother. She just accepts it as her fate and criticizes us for our freedom. Maybe she’s only 32, and she’s an old maid not allowed out of the house after 10pm. That’s unfair.

Van Linh: Here no one in your family is left alone or in need. In France there’s only my mom, grandma, stepfather, and brother. In Viet Nam the family is all-encompassing. I missed that growing up, and would like to have that in the future. I also like the mix of modernity and traditional values. Like a businesswoman in a suit going into a pagoda to worship. Or women going to the market in pajamas without thinking about it.

Linda: The West is very materialistic, and it looks like Sai Gon will become like that. It’s happening fast. I have the image of the banh mi lady pushing her cart, and am afraid she’ll disappear. The countryside is still so different.

Loc: I like the focus on family and values. Family ties are stronger here. My parents raised me like that.

In Viet Nam the emphasis on success is high. America is more about freedom and being happy. Here you are driven to succeed, earn money and start a family. There are some advantages to that, especially the focus on education, which helps kids come out ahead. I’ll teach Vietnamese to my children. It is the key to their past and their heritage. But other than that I will only retain the nuclear family values. A close-knit family provides a great support network.

Growing up, I was taught all the conservative Asian values. Living in Viet Nam has shed a whole different light on my culture. We learned the pure values, but now I’ve seen how they are applied and the contradictions that result. Face and reputation are important, so in public everyone wants to appear more honorable than the next person. But in private it’s a different story. While a woman must remain obedient and chaste, men go out drinking and chase women. And although no one will talk about sex, all you have to do is look at the size of their family to know what’s going on. The Vietnamese population didn’t surpass 80 million by abstaining from sex.

Tho: Vietnamese people always talk about their traditional culture. But you can only find it outside the city. Just like in the French countryside, the people are self-sufficient and have a simpler life. Happiness is dependent on minimizing your needs. If you don’t know about something you don’t need it.

Voughn: I’m finding out that I possess a firmer grip on Vietnamese cultural values than my local friends, who are dying to break away from tradition. Our household, despite being in Australia, was steeped in customs that have virtually been forgotten in a rapidly modernizing Viet Nam. My Dad is very Confucian and into respecting the ancestors and traditional etiquette. If I have kids, I hope they’ll be respectful, honest and dignified no matter what cultural environment they absorb. But with all due respect, most of the values I’ve discovered in Viet Nam are not ones [with which] I’d raise a child.

Our generation of Viet Kieu is lucky because we have a chance to build a bridge of understanding between Vietnamese here and those who have chosen to stay in their adopted countries. To foster understanding and healing.

Sadly, in Sai Gon people are trying so hard to Westernize, and in doing so they’re losing a sense of themselves as Vietnamese. Why knock everything down? Development is good, but you have to preserve history too. It’s sad to see Vietnamese denying their Asian heritage and natural features for plastic counterparts.

My parents painted a rosy picture of Viet Nam, and I thought it would be like all the songs my parents listened to. Women were tame, meek and mild, and men were gallant. People got on like a house on fire. They stayed faithful to each other and married for life. Youngsters respected elders, and were pure. But I was proven rather wrong. We all have misconceptions of countries we never knew.