VietBlog

Sitting in a hot classroom with no air conditioning for eight hours listening to lectures is tough on anyone. It’s not surprising that after a big lunch that some students in our social work workshops at An Giang Univerity in Long Xuyen would occasionally dose off. It didn’t matter if they were Vietnamese, Khmer, or even a certain blog editor – a full stomach in a warm room after a long day always equals one thing: exhaustion.

During our trip, we had plenty of opportunity to meet and mingle with our Vietnamese and Cambodian peers. In Ho Chi Minh City, a group of high school and college students called the V-riders accompanied us during our visits around the city, and became good friends. After we left the city, we made friends in Long Xuyen at the workshops held by the Newfields at An Giang University. There were students and social workers from all over, including Long Xuyen, Dong Thap, Ho Chi Minh City, and even Cambodia. And then we made friends at the various social agencies, cultural outings, getting our hair cut – even on the plane ride to Vietnam.

Now that I am back in America, my friends ask me what my friends from Vietnam were like. Could we communicate with one another? Will we keep in touch? Were they friendly?

I am really grateful for the opportunity to meet so many people in Vietnam. To me studying abroad is not only visiting the country, but also experiencing the culture. And you cannot truly experience anything without seeing firsthand how people live day to day.

In Ho Chi Minh City we met the V-Riders. Thy, Tam, Phuong, Biu, Huy, Phuong, Minh, and Trinh are all students in Ho Chi Minh City who volunteer their time to take visitors around the city. All of them could speak great English, and they were also wonderful and informative friends. They took us to cafes, taught us to use chopsticks properly (or attempted), and helped us cross the busy streets. Our visit culminated in a night of karaoke, where we connected by singing English classics like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, and even “Take Me Home Country Roads” by John Denver.

One question my parents had when I told them I wanted to go on the trip to Vietnam was how the people there would perceive us. With a rocky history between the US and Vietnam, the same question crossed my mind when I first arrived. On our second full day in the city we visited the War Remnants Museum. This museum was dedicated to the horrors of the Vietnam War, including grievances committed by the French, South Vietnamese, and Americans. After about an hour or so touring the museum, we were all sick. The WVU students and the V-riders could both agree that the graphic images filling the walls were unnecessary.

After the visit, we all went to our bus and had a discussion on our thoughts and feelings about the museum. Almost every single V-rider agreed that while the things of the past were not necessarily pretty, now was a time to move forward together. Instead of seeing Americans as invaders, they saw us as just another obstacle to independence. The height on the experience was a comment by our friend, Tam. She proclaimed that dwelling on the past would not change anything, so we should move forward together as allies and friends to improve the future.

The members of the V-riders came from every different walk of life. Minh was a Mormon who wanted to eventually attend BYU in Utah, Tam worked for Samsung, but her true passion could be called photography because she snapped some of the best pictures I have seen, Phuong was a karaoke goddess who will surely be the next Vietnam Idol, Xuy was attending college in the city, but is far displaced from his home in central Vietnam. And Thy, one of the leaders of the V-riders, was a gentle soul who inquired about American slang and always had a kind word for us.

When we had to leave Ho Chi Minh City, we were devastated! We had become so close to the V-riders. We were Facebook friends, tagged each other in photos, and just wanted to hang out all night talking. A farewell email from Thy to all of the WVU students characterizes our feelings for one another after just three days:

We have spent the 3 gorgeous days together, and we will never forget the period of friendship, happiness and joy we have had when we were with you. You guys have shown us another picture of American, a vivid one, friendly and open-minded. Something has been cured? we know that when we hug each other, when we hold hands tightly, when we look into your eyes. Don’t worry about the war, it is so far away and now, we can only state that: WE ARE FRIENDS. I believe in you, WVU friends, and in my V-RIDERS. We are the new, young, happy and pretty generation of US and Vietnam, and we are the most suitable ambassador for our countries. We hope you guys will have a very nice trip in Vietnam and in Cambodia. Luck and love will be with you on your whole trip because of our pray for you.

Even though the first chapter of our trip was over, we were to meet even more friends during our stay in Long Xuyen. And we even got to see Tam, Minh, and the rest of the V-riders towards the end of our trip. At An Giang we met other university students at the An Giang Workshops. Thu, Phung, and Nhan were just some of the students we became friends with during our two week stay in the town. And we made friends from all over – from Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Thap, and Cambodia. The Cambodian social workers at the workshops, like Bunna, Chanty, Nat, Navi, and Kimhourt, became close friends who traveled with us on outings throughout An Giang province, and even accompanied us during our portion in Cambodia.

One thing that characterizes people in Southeast Asia is their generosity. When we went to the Cham Village, an ethnic Muslim village, we were invited into the home of a bride who was to be married later in the day. All 30 of the people in our group were served food and drink. Chi, a Vietnamese student at WVU, asked her aunt to hand make aoi dai’s, traditional Vietnamese dresses, for our entire group, Project Adapt, a local NGO in Long Xuyen, treated us to dinner numerous time. And of course, no matter where we went, we were always met with waves and smiles. In small villages, where some people had never seen westerners before, instead of speculation, people welcomed us. Even through language barriers, we made good friends.

Meeting people and experiencing the culture had different effects on us. Sometimes experiencing poverty surrounding the people in the socials agencies or villages we visited was difficult. Arnita Sitisari, a native to Indonesia, faced a different feeling when meeting villagers in the Cham village:

When the plane landed in Ho Chi Minh City in my first day of my trip to Vietnam, all my childhood memories came back to me. Seeing the condition outside the plane, reminded me of my home country, Indonesia. Although this trip is not my first trip to Southeast Asia, my trip to Vietnam gave me many experiences that I will always remember for the rest of my life.

As all members in the group have experienced, I feel everything in Vietnam is different, such as the air that we inhale, the food that we eat, the traffic situation that we see and the culture differences that we have experienced. For me, as an Asian, all these differences are easy to be adjusted until I visited the Cham village in where the ethnic Muslim minority in Vietnam located.

We went to Cham village on Saturday the first week of our stay in Long Xuyen. The first place that we visited was the first mosque that was built in that area. Suddenly, I felt that I was at home, except I could not hear my mother’s voice called me and my brother’s voice ask me to play with him. I missed home right in that moment. Maybe other people in the group did not feel what I feel. I have very strong bond with the people in this village.

From visiting the mosque, we went to inside the Cham village where I met some women from Malaysia. They were being able to speak and communicate with me using the same language. One of these women was hugging me and crying in my shoulder. At the first, I did not know the reason of her crying until she told me that she is suffered from the poverty. That confession broke a tear in my eyes. I felt sad. My skin color and my feature just look like her but we are in a very different world.

Fortunately, I have opportunity to come to the United States to get high education for my better future. However, another side of my heart, I felt guilty because even though I get high education, I cannot do anything to help this woman and other people in this village improving their quality of life.

All frustrations that I have felt during this trip teach me very important lesson about life. I take these frustrations as a motivator to do better in school and one day come back to my community and help the government to improve people life.

Despite our poverty, people invited us into their homes. In Cambodia, our friends from the workshops accompanied us on our trip, along with people from Project Adapt. When we returned to Ho Chi Minh City the day before our plane took off, Tam invited us to her home for a home-cooked, Vietnamese meal.

By the end of our trip, we made friends that would last a lifetime. Some of us were vowing to come back next year to visit. The friendships we made in Southeast Asia stayed with us all the way back home. Every time I get online, I talk to my friends I left across the ocean. I email them, Facebook them, or tag them in pictures. Our learning from one another still doesn’t cease. We still exchange music and ideas. Hopefully one day I can return to Vietnam to visit all my old friends. I know that without them the trip wouldn’t nearly be the same.