A Mixed World

Cecilia Tran
cxt1054@utarlg.uta.edu

"In your heart, you can hear it now. Its the song your spirit has been singing the moment of your birth. If the monks were right and nothing happens without cause, then the gift of suffering is to bring us closer to God, to teach us to be strong when we are weak, to be brave when we are afraid, to be wise in the mist of confusion, and to let go at that which we can no longer hold....lasting victory is one in the heart, not on this land or that," says Le Ly Hayslip from the movie Heaven and Earth. I¹ve grown up within a mixed culture throughout my life, always wondering what I¹m missing about my country and is there something I¹m missing about America. My fears are that I¹m going to lose my own Vietnamese culture. I'm afraid that slowly it will die from my soul as I am more and more entranced by the American culture.

I came over here when I was only three so I don¹t quite remember much about my own country. I don¹t even know what my grandparents look like at all. There were many times that I wanted to give up on my own culture. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? I never once asked my parents about Vietnam. I knew that I was part Vietnamese, but I felt like I was an "American all the way." I felt confused alot of times because I didn¹t know whether or not Vietnam was still a part of me. I was scared to face my own fears of Vietnam. My parents always seemed to want to scare me more than anything else about Vietnam. They would always talk about how bad it was for them in Vietnam. Thats why they brought us over here. I grew up telling myself that would I never go back to Vietnam no matter what happens. I didn't want to go back there to see people suffer. I didn't want to go back there to see people fight over food. If I ever wanted a memory of Vietnam, I want it to be atleast a pleasant memory.

I've lived my whole life learning little by little the significant of the Vietnamese culture. Growing up in a family of six, I was the only girl and being the only girl meant that I had to take care of everything. For the Vietnamese, women did all the housework. That was how people looked at women. Sure, if you go back to Vietnam, you will see women in the streets trying to make a living by selling meat or something but that was necessary for them in order for them to keep their family alive. According to the Vietnamese, once a woman hits 16 or 17, they are expected to be married already. In alot of cases, you sometimes don't get to choose who you want to marry. Your parents decide for you. And if you are lucky, your spouse will turn out to be the one that you were meant to be with. If not, then you will have to suffer. No one will help you. It was as though you were destined to be that way.

I grew up with a Vienamese skin, tongue, and mind, but I was not all Vietnamese. Atleast I didn't want to be all Vietnamese. Vietnamese parents tend to want for their children not to lose any of their own ethnicity. Thats probably why my parents put me into Sunday School. I was taught to read and write Vietnamese at a very young age. Speaking in Vietnamese did not come natural to me. I had so much trouble speaking in Vietnamese. I can remember alot of times speaking both in Vietnamese and American to my parents just to get my point across. It was really hard for me to speak to my parents because I felt as though I was getting really use to English. Imagine what my grandparents in Vietnam would think when I talk to them like that?

At one point, I just wanted to forget about my culture altogether. I didn¹t want to speak in Vietnamese. I wanted to live the American way. I loved America, I loved the food, the people, the places. Vietnam could not be compared to America in any way, in my mind. The only thing that I looked forward to was the Chinese New Years. For those of you who don¹t know what this is, it is like an American New Years except we get MONEY. I guess you can see why we love this holiday so much. But money is not the single special thing about this day. "Tet" is a time when all the family members get together and share a new beginning. I learned this only after I was old enough to realize what I was missing about Vietnam.

I had always admired the America people. I loved their parents more than I loved my own parents. All I really remember growing up was that my parents would not let me do anything. All the other children had Barbie Dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids. What did I have? "Nothing," I would always say to myself. Toys were never needed. My parents always emphasized alot on school. There was never time to play. Actually, there was no time to play. They dwelled and dwelled into my mind that life is very complicated and that if you ever want to succeed, you need to go to school and make A's. "Vietnam is poor, you can¹t waste anything, kids fight for food, there was never enough of anything to go around." Over here, we eat half of a chocolate bar and throw the rest away. We take advantage of everything we have. I felt like I was going to go crazy. I didn't want to hear how bad Vietnam was all the time.

I've thought alot about everything they have taught me. Some of the things they say make me think, yet it is so hard for me to live in such a mixed world. There were times when I wanted to yell at my parents but according to my culture, that was a very bad thing and I wasn¹t allowed to do things like that . Besides, I didn¹t have the heart to yell at them or to even tell them how I was feeling. I couldn¹t understand why my little friends could go out and play everyday after schoool and I had to stay home and study, study, study. I always wanted my parents to be more Americanized. I hated my culture!

As I grew up, I've learned that my culture plays an important role in my life. I¹ve learned that I am gifted because I have alot of knowledge that others don¹t have. I¹ve seen movies and pictures of Vietnam and it breaks my heart that I had bad thoughts about Vietnam like I did in the past. It is such a beautiful place, full of mystic and wonder. Sure, there might be alot of diseases and stuff that go around but atleast Vietnam is suffering altogether as a whole and no one is ever alone.

To me, "nothing happens without a cause." It was fate that brought me and my family to America safely. It was God who kept my family going and it was God that helped my family prosper and grow day by day. I know now why my parents stressed so much on education. I understand now why I had to sacrifice so much at a young age. As a whole, I feel that I am a much stronger person because I have both Vietnamese and American knowledge. I have abilities to strive and grow in a world where I wasn¹t born. I also have the ability to strive and grow in a world I didn¹t know existed. Vietnam is now a part of me more than ever. I'm beginning to understand the significant of these two worlds that I share. "When we resist our fate, we suffer, when we accept it, we are happy...we have time in abundance, an eternity to repeat our mistakes....but we need only once to correct our mistakes and at last hear the song of enlightment with which we can break the chain of vengence....forever."

Works Cited

Cao, Lau, and Himilee Novas. Everything You Need To Know About Asian American History. New York: Penguin Group, 1996.

Summer of Love (on-line) http://www.Realsaigon.com/features/summer/summer.htm Heaven and Earth Dir. Oliver Stone. Prod. Mario Kassar. Tommy Lee Joans, Joan Cheu, Haing C. Ngoi, Debbie Reynolds, Conchata Ferrell, Dustin Nguyen, Vivian Wu, Robert John Burke Warner Brothers Production.

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