Chào các anh các chį!

21 Nov 2005 Journal Entry

I'm sitting at the airport (Ha noi) eating jackfruit and drinking Halida, while waiting for my friend Masato to arrive. A lady, about 35 years old, just walked up to the register to purchase who knows what. She is clearly Vietnamese, not Vietnamese American or anything else. And she is wearing an American flag bandana on her head. As I watch her, it sort of baffles my mind...One the way over here to the airport, my driver says "Em la nguoi nuoc nao" which means 'what country are you from?' and I answered "Em la nguoi my". He then exclaimed "America!...America! America!!!..America number one!", smiling and jovial. Everything American here is good. People wear hats with American flags, and generally talk about America like its the best country ever.

I never thought Vietnam would be like this. It's not like I'm studying abroad in Sai Gon. I'm in Ha noi, I'm in a communist country, in an area that was decimated by U.S. bombing raids. And only once have I faced animosity for being American, and that was from a young, heavily drunk guy outside of Apocalypse Now, who was looking to start a fight with anyone.

I'm not the first to recognize this phenomina. I actually recently read an article that my classmate on this EAP program wrote for one of the Berkeley campus newspapers. The article was titled somthing to the affect of "Vietnam: The last pro-American country"....It's an interesting article, and I suppose since reading it, I've been even more aware of how welcome Americans and American culture are here.

Masato, who has been teaching English in Japan for months, lives in an undoubtably more Westernized/Americanized country, but I feel that even he will recognize that being here is completely different from previous perceptions. And all I can say is that I can only hope Vietnam will always maintain its unique beauty and character, even after being admitted to the WTO and such. Change is not bad, but losing grasp of its history and culture would be. And as Masato's plane lands in 5 minutes, I still contemplate on exactly what part of this history and culture I can shove down his throat in a short five day period of him being here.

posted by Steffanie @ 9:02 PM