There are a lot of things about Vietnam that frustrates me. There have been moments where I felt so disillusioned with this whole country that I felt ready to go home. I came here with a set of expectations, shaped by my childhood memories of my last visit and raised even more by travel documentaries poetically illustrating the wonders of this country.
It’s hard not to travel without a set of expectations. The whole point of traveling in the first place is because we have a set of expectations in our mind about what we would like to see and do in a new place. We don’t travel and expect to hate that place to which we’re traveling. What’s the point of travel then? We travel because we expect the new destination will offer us a new perspective, that we’ll learn more about a new culture, that we’ll be able to momentarily escape from our troubles back home, that we can sit on the beach with a beer in hand and not be bothered by our usual distractions. That is why we travel.
So of course, coming to Vietnam, I carried a set of expectations that I hoped to fulfill during my time here. Expectations about traveling throughout this country, family, getting an internship, learning about my dad’s past, about throwing myself headfirst into familiar yet strange culture that is my motherland.
And to be completely honest, despite all the rosy blog posts about my time here, all my expectations were unmet. All of them. Some more disappointing than others. There were some expectations that were…expected, but still frustrated me. Like, being treated different as a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese). I knew that that was a given, that people will view me as a target for money or that their kind words are a mask to hide their resentment toward all Viet Kieus in general (especially American Viet Kieus). But even though I knew this was a given, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t piss me the hell off when it happens.
This expectation revealed itself immediately, the moment our plane landed and we were forced to bribe to get through customs. No one else has to do it, not the Vietnamese nationals, not any other foreigners, but Viet Kieus have to. We had to stick $5 in each of our passports so the customs jerks won’t give us trouble and let us through. It is beyond frustrating to look into the face of those bastards knowing that they are only giving us trouble because of our citizenship.
There are other things about the government that frustrates me, like the overall corruption, the ideology, etc., but I think if I go into details I will get into trouble…and I want to go home. Let’s just say that when there is corruption at the top, it will definitely trickle all the way down to the bottom. The root of many problems in Vietnamese society—the general distrust toward one another, the inability for good people (not tied to the government) to move up, the difficulty of doing honest business and become rich in this country—can be traced back to that problem.
There is also the matter of how Vietnamese people treat each other. I mentioned the general distrust people have with each other here. Of course in America, it’s not like I have my arms wide open in trust of strangers, but at least here I don’t have to worry about people scamming every second I turn. Here, you have to worry about getting yelled at the market for simply haggling, to the bus driver cheating you out of a few extra thousand dong on the bus fare, and the airport baggage claim workers who whisper in your ear threatening comments so you could fork over money to them (this actually happened to my mom). It’s tiring having to look over your back all the time, questioning everyone’s intentions toward you.
I also came here believing that Vietnam was an easy and cheap country to travel in. WRONG. First off, the roads in Vietnam are very undeveloped, making travel (even for locals) very difficult. Traveling the local way is VERY tiring—think long rides on old, rickety buses alongside smelly livestock. A trip from My Tho to Saigon is really only an hour, but on a bus, it is three. So if not the local way, you can take the taxi, charter a bus, or book a flight, but that ends up being quite pricey if you plan to travel throughout the whole country. So, you book a tour, which seems cheap at first, but ends up costing more than you actually paid because of obligatory tips to the driver, tour guide, and surprise costs that pop up during your trip. While Vietnam is still very cheap compared to, say Europe, it is not that cheap backpacker’s traveling paradise as some make it out to be. And, if you’re a foreigner, you’ll get ripped off everywhere. Guaranteed.
There was also the matter of getting an internship. I got one here, with the Red Cross branch in the countryside. I was excited, full of optimism, and ready to throw myself in whatever work they would give me. Then I met the person in charge, who upon first meeting me, spoke about how some American students like me also worked with her and raised money to build a bathroom for poor kids. At first I thought she was just telling me this just to share, until it became clear to me that she also expected the same from me—to raise money. Obviously, I didn’t have that capacity and made it clear by avoiding the subject of money altogether. Although I was accepted, I never got a call back from her about my work schedule. After this, I kind of dropped the hope of interning in Vietnam and did my own thing.
The most disappointing expectation was one I didn’t anticipate and that was of family. The very reason I’ve wanted to come back all these years was to visit my extended family here because they made my first visit so joyous and memorable. In the US, I grew up knowing only my small, immediate family. I didn’t have grandparents to defend me against angry parents, no aunts and uncles to spoil me, nothing. Before my first visit, I didn’t really understand what it meant to be part of a big family, of gathering together at Tet, of having cousins to play with, of being comforted knowing that I had a safety net beyond my parents. I came back to recreate those memories and to feel part of a big family again. Then I came and…it felt different. People had their own lives. My aunts and uncles had their own families to deal with. My cousins, oh god..., save for a few good ones, are...spoiled and disrespectful.
I understand that family is not perfect, but here’s the thing. All my siblings and I grew up poor, not having anything new or even the hope of our parents getting buying it for us because my parents scrimped and saved any money they had to send back to Vietnam, telling us that they were more in need of it than us. We were told at an early age that if we wanted anything, we would have to find a way to get it on our own. I don’t have anything against my parents for raising me that way. It is the best lesson my parents taught me—to learn to care for myself and be independent.
But then, coming back and seeing my cousins having grown up with so much more than I could even dared to imagine when I was little, in a country much poorer than my own, and (this is what gets me the most) seeing them act materialistic, disrespectful to their parents, and lacking the ability to be independent has made Tammy and I resentful for the sacrifice we had to make. I’ve tried to tell myself that while they might have grown up having more than me materially, I still have more opportunities than them. But then I see them act spoiled and resentment just stirs in me.
Because of this, it has made it difficult to feel the warmth I once did toward some members of my family as I did feel on my first visit. Of course, I still love my family. My mom’s side is impossibly good to me. They see that all my siblings and I were raised with good values to understand the value of hard work, to know how to share, to feel empathy toward others less fortunate, and to respect our parents. They see this and they respect my mom and treat me really well. But, the disappointment of not being close to everyone like before has been a hard, emotional fall. When it’s strangers that disappoint you, you accept it as a fact of life. But when it’s family, it hurts in a way that is difficult to fully grasp.
There was an upside in all of these disappointments, as there always is. I'm sort of glad that I experienced them because it made me appreciate those things worth appreciating even more. Unlike some who come to this country, I got to experience both sides of Vietnam--the beautiful and the ugly side. It also reminds me of my age, that I am old enough to understand that everything is so much more complex than the surface may reveal, and to learn from this. This trip didn't make me hate this country, or the people, or my family. It opened my eyes and was a lesson to not wear rose-colored glasses to every new place I visit. Nothing is perfect, nobody is perfect, no experience will ever be perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment