VIETNAMESE MEN; A CONVERSATION ABOUT MASCULINITY & PATRIOTISM

To offer context, I was born in Brooklyn, New York; from immigrant parents. My parents were refugees who fled the dark repercussions of the American war (Vietnam War). I hadn’t spoken english until the age of Six. Through the years of American propaganda learned through the public schooling system, I’ve passively downloaded core American dogmas.

Freedom! Liberty! And the pursuit of happiness! For all I knew we Americans had it while the rest of the world, didn’t. To be honest, one of the reasons Vietnam appeared on my radar was in High school when people would ask me where I was from. I’d say Brooklyn, people would ask; “no I meant like, where are you REALLY from?” As this happened countless times over the years I began telling people I was Vietnamese, it was much easier to do so.

From my travels back to Saigon over the years I’ve only become stronger as a person and closer to the fatherland. Living amongst my countrymen; I have never enlisted in the Vietnamese army or lived through 25 years of struggles being a Southern Vietnamese national. I did however face hardships of being a lost asian boy finding his way through discrimination and racism, trying to build himself in a society that intentionally tries to tear him down.

It is unfair to say that I’ve suffered more, as I know many would have traded places with me in a heartbeat to have had my privileged watered down version of suffering. I’ve experienced poverty in America, but it was nothing compared to being poor in Vietnam.

My quarrels were with American misrepresentation of Asians in the media and in Hollywood. It was one thing to have a lack of representation, which doesn’t upset me as much as the humiliation of seeing emasculated token Chinese men and sexualized Asian women in tv shows and movies alongside the broadcasting of White actors and their beauty features which perpetuates White worship.

This has made Asian women and men greatly insecure, leading them to hate themselves and in turn hate other Asian people that look like them. It is a dishonor to ones own family and ancestry. What do you get once you’ve criticized all the Asian people who are disgusting and primitive? Asian people who don’t speak english like true westerners; what exactly do you achieve by doing so? A pat on the back? From people who spit on your last name behind closed doors? Such foolishness.

But I digress, yes; what have I learned from the Vietnamese men and women back home that made me walk as tall as I do today? I’ve learned that my people are a cunning people, artful in military aspects and have fought for thousands of years. The Mongolian Army that once conquered Russia, Eastern Europe, China, India and Iran invaded Vietnam Three times and in all occasions have seen defeat by the Vietnamese.

Aside from defeating our European colonizers, the French; and our western enemy and ally, the Americans, there is something to be said about the Vietnamese people. They surely are the small underdogs of the world; but they pack a mean bite.

For the most part, I found kinship with my brothers on the Soccer fields in Cần Thơ, a southern Vietnamese city. We played Five a side and our matches would often times lead to altercations and flat out brawls. I admired our congregation afterwards talking about everything that happened on the small green patch of land we called the battlefield.

Speaking of fighting, the majority of men are enlisted in the Army; It’s a mandatory Two years. Resiliency gained from the military is apparent in civilian life. A mental and spiritual toughness that I sensed as I paid attention to people and their eyes as they passed made me believe the country’s environment bred men with true grit and resilience.

I lived in Gò Vấp, a small neighborhood in Saigon where airplanes from Tan Son Nhat airport would fly right over our heads at all times. One night as I was riding back home from dinner, I made a turn down Quang Trung street as I often do. Suddenly I saw Chairs and tables flying in the air which made me come to a full stop as I observed a huge fight in front a local pub.

A mob of Vietnamese gangsters dressed in black held long wooden sticks and chairs and were fighting another group of people. As they were destroying and trashing the place, I knew the best thing to do was to hurry up and move along home. It was hard to leave as I was mesmerized by audacity. Men dressed in black were beating people to the death and somehow I was amazed and somewhat inspired.

Maybe it was because I haven’t seen that much chaos and rawness of my inner human self in such a long time; People are products of their environment; and as peaceful as the Vietnamese people are, there remains much repressed violence within like racehorses at the starting gate.

For the record, I’m not one to condone violence. Personally, I believe there are higher ways to resolve conflicts. The crux of my words is to share perspective and a side of Asia that millions of the diaspora don’t get to see or maybe have forgotten.

My aim is to share stories of reconnection to my strong Vietnamese heritage in hoping other men might find solace and cheer whilst on journeys to learning more about themselves through their bloodline. The definition of an Asian man in Vietnam was dramatically different from what is advertised in western media and society. If there was such a thing as a red pill for Asian Americans I knew I had taken it the moment I became self aware.

As individualistic as I am, believing that a person should stand on their own two feet leaning on themselves for strength and courage. I would be a liar if I said the camaraderie of Vietnamese men and society didn’t give me a boost in courage, dignity and a tremendous amount of leverage in coping with being an Asian man in the West.

There’s a Vietnamese proverb that translates to, “A tree can grow mighty and tall away from the ground, but when the fruits and leaves grow, they eventually fall back down getting closer to the roots.” It’s evident anger and bitterness remains from the diaspora towards the past and current political climate in Vietnam. Revolutions tend to be messy, therefore friction is often needed for opportunities in which better outcomes may emerge.

But no matter what the problem is, it’s our problem; internal affairs that leaders of our country have to deal with. The past is simultaneously attractive and unattractive and as ugly as it may get, there can be no alteration of the truth about our Vietnamese ancestry.

Let my words today not be a confusion of where I stand; I am putting on wax that I am not anti-American. I have participated in the Voting process, paid taxes and am a contributing citizen. My intentions are good as I only wish to help and enlighten those around me in whichever surrounding I may find myself.

I’m pro-Vietnam, I have to be; I love my brothers, sisters and family as I love my language and culture. I can’t turn my back on 90 million Vietnamese people back home just because we have different beliefs. We have shared the same history for thousands of years, and I look forward to sharing that same kinship for thousands more.

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