Going Back to Where It Began

This past week, we went down to the southern region of Vietnam, miền Nam, including my family's hometown, quê hương. I find it interesting that in the Vietnamese language, "home" is synonymous with vocabulary around the "countryside" or "village." I believe I mentioned this before, but through analyzing this particular diction, you could see how explicit it is. In these words and many people's realities, home often times is not the city. It resides in the rural. "Traditional" Vietnamese culture is rooted in this setting though change, phát triển, is residing in the very anti-thesis of "home"; and that is, the city, thánh phố; in the massive skyscrapers towering over paved concrete, financial districts facilitating the spread of global capitalism and corporatism, interconnection through machines whether mobile or stationary--all of which break what once were boundaries or limitations of time and space. Expansion to the city from the country. Your very city life source: extraction from the country. Elements of the country appropriated and reappropriated for sale. It's all about money, ain't a damn thing funny. And that is real.

Throughout my experience in the various cities we visited in the South, especially Saigon. I kept on pondering about the sameness of "the city"--whatever and wherever it may be: from San Francisco to Saigon. Youth may be consuming the same thing whether it is Japanese anime, Justin Bieber's music, Hip Hop, Korean dramas and pop music, and so on. Although skeptics like me would critique this aspect of the condition of the modern world, you could also many aspects of the countryside, and its culture from which many aspects of the city extracts are also, in many ways, the same as well. It is just that there are some particularities of each region that are shaped by differing geographies and circumstances. Ah, survival.

Aside from visiting cities, I also had the opportunity to stay in the countryside. Although life was more uncomfortable there for me: the most mosquito bites I've ever had in the span of 2 nights, shivering at night time, sleeping on hard floors, dusty and muddy floors (and feeling it on your feet all the time), lack of electronics and technology, etc., I am very grateful to have had an experience like this. It was a great time to reflect about life, to be put it generally. I thought so much about the very way I live life outside (and in many ways, opposite) to the countryside: from the food I eat (especially its socialized meaning, and the way one obtains it) to how my thinking, interests, hobbies, and passions are products of growing up in such a setting. I suppose this experience helped me realize a part of humanity that is often neglected today as so many people are so heavily worried about ipods, phones, and clothes. Ah, standardized excess.

Going back.. I did, going back to the root of it: the countryside (quê) and also my parents' hometown (quê hương). Rather than call this past week "beautiful," I'd call it "rootiful." I was able to meet families from both on my mother's side and my father's side. Growing up, I was quite jealous of my other friends for having such large festive families. I always thought my family was small, but now I know I truly don't have a small family; they're not in one place, but in many places. Perhaps this trip made me truly realize what Diaspora, any Diaspora, really means. I'm finally accepting this truth of dispersion, of "dislocation" as something quite normal nowadays. Simply, the world is shrinking; it may not be a bad thing.

While there are a ton of people in my family on my mother's side, there aren't as many people on my father's side. I was able to meet my cousin (my dad's brother's son)--never thought I had a cousin on my father's side, but I met him. My dad doesn't talk much about his brother who passed away way before I was born. I remember the night I met my cousin. I had to hold in my tears with so many thoughts rushing in my mind. All thoughts of family. Thoughts of thoughts i had as a kid always being so critical of my family. Why weren't they like other families? And why was not all my family in one place? I believe this experience has made me grow up a little bit more. Don't know how else I would put it. My thoughts on family are rapidly changing so much while I am here. Though I've gone through many ups and downs, a lot of downs, I am very happy that I am doing this program here in Vietnam.