Vietnam.

Originally (partly) writtien on the 16th of December, This is a post I've been wanting to make for a long while, and I still don't know how exactly I wanna go about doing It, I was initially thinking of making this a huge page, full of photos and recollection; but that would probably take a long while, so I think I wanna segment It all in seperate, smaller, posts in the future, Stay tuned for that. Though apologies for how abrupty this page ends. The future Vietnam posts will be better, probably.

Being a Second-generation immigrant from an asian family is something I struggle with in my young adulthood; I was born to a vietnamese family, and throughout my life I would raised with a clash of both vietnamese and american culture. My parents would try to speak to me in vietnamese, would cook vietnamese food, celebrate vietnamese holidays, feel vietnamese corporal punishment, etc, all whilst I would also be experiencing the "average american childhood" during the 2010's. Despite my heritage, I can't really speak vietnamese bar basic phrases I use with my grandparents, I didn't know much about vietnamese history for the most part, can't cook vietnamese food...

I mean obviously, I still am vietnamese even If I can't do any of the things I've stated, but throughout my life, I alway just felt like an "American who just happens to be vietnamese." I don't view that as something good nor bad, It's just who I am for better or worse.

So when my family announced we'd be going to the country last year, I was, hesistant. In my head; I always thought my first visit to Vietnam would be during a time in my adulthood where I would be "Ready", where Ready means I would learn the language and the culture and all that, where I felt more comfortable mentally and physically aswell. But this was something I obviously couldn't avoid.

It was August of last year where I would have to leave America behind, and hop on a (grueling, but surprisingly luxurious) 20 hour flight from JFK Airport to Vietnam, the country I would be in for 3 weeks.

I've been wanting to make a post like this for a long time but didn't really know what would be the way to go about It. I'm not going to recite everything I did for each day I was there, I think I'm more so gonna go back on the photos I have and reminisce, while having my end thoughts on this trip at the end of this page.

The first photo I took once I was off the plane, of the airport we landed out. my first thought was "It Is fucking sweltering here." It was about 1am when we got here, but It had to have been around 90+ degrees farenheit. Not saying this to seem surprised; It is a southeast asian country, but the temperature really did hit me after being in a nice, cool, plane.

The first thing I texted to my friends after landing here was "Vietnam is a hot car."

I didn't know really how to process being here; I was admittedly quite just really distracted by the aforementioned heat, It really did not help that we had to stand in a long line to get through the airport. Though I do remember feeling an odd sense of ease, just now being in a place where I didn't feel out of place, It was nice seeing my parents converse with other vietnamese people in their native tongue just as we were waiting.

Photo taken during the wait to be picked up.

We were picked up by my uncle, to be taken to his familys home. It was interesting to see my first real sights of vietnam as we drove there, I saw a FamilyMart which I thought was neat, alot of those Japanese convienience stores exist all throughout Asia. There were also many, many Pho places.

My uncles house was quite interesting to see as we arrived, despite being tucked away at the end of an alleyway, it was quite large, and surprisingly wide im comparison to alot of the archetecture in the country. I stayed in my kid cousins room, which was littered with math papers on the wall, and old, somewhat bootlegged toys, notably he had alot of Pikachu plushes that were really dirty.

Despite it being very late (It was about 2-5am for the time we stayed up) alot of our family were up and at it just to greet us. It was nice to communicate with the little bit of the language I know.

I had a 7-up, which I haven't had in years even in the states, I'm not sure if it was a recipe change or placebo, but it tasted alot "lighter" here. Skinny cans for drinks are also the norm here, I like how It looks, but I don't know the actual reason for It.

I also had a beer while hanging out with my family, the legal drinking age in the country is 18, I thought It sucked, I stuck to the soft drinks.

The house had a quaint, if somewhat overgrown garden area, many plants, many statues, was very charmed about the tiny river and bridge they had. There were fish in the river but the water was so murky you could barely notice. You would also hear many frogs in here, but I never saw em.

There were alot of stray dogs in vietnam, I am to the understanding that you don't really own a dog in vietnam, a stray just comes to a house and decided to stay if your chill with it. There were about 6 strays here (and one very aggressive dog they kept in a garage) and this dog seen in the photo to the right seemed to be the one they took care of the most.

It's name is "đốm" which translates to "Spot" in english, with " chó đốm" meaning Dalmation in english. My dad said It's named that because of "101 Dalmations" which is really funny, cause the dog is very much not a dalmation. He was a sweetie though.

Very interestingly, đốm and 5 other dogs would sleep together as sort of a pack, there was a big blonde dog who would wrap around some of the smaller dogs, they would sleep under the shade of a tree to the side of the house, now that's comradery; I wonder If they all came to my uncles together.

The first day was nice, granted I don't think there was any day during this trip I didn't really enjoy. Sure, I was a bit stubborn before, but I knew that my overall comfortability would be overshadowed by my inherant fascination of the country. This was the "homeland" for me, and I was very eager to see many of the sights, with only a mild case of unease throughout.