I was born in Vietnam three years after the end of the war. I came to the United States at the age of 8- year old. At the time there wasn’t many Vietnamese living in America. The variety and quality of the motherland food was sparse. We had to make do with what we had. And we did! In many towns and cities around America and other countries that accepted Vietnamese refugees, pockets of Vietnamese communities started to pop up. At first, we didn’t have much. People went to churches and temples and build their communities around their religion. Businesses started popping up selling imports from Vietnam, money remittance services allow people to send money back to their loved ones, supermarkets that cater directly to the Vietnamese need, and of course pho stalls hadn’t become the food phenomenon that it is today. In it, the Vietnamese communities thrived. The Vietnamese community is my reference and to improve it is my life. I identified myself, intellectually as American, but my heart belongs to Vietnam.
First and foremost, I identify myself by my Vietnamese root. I eat Vietnamese food almost every day and speak Vietnamese. I think by those two standards, I can identify myself as being part of the Vietnamese community. I try to teach my children my culture and background. I speak to them in Vietnamese and I expect that they learn to speak and write in Vietnamese as they get older. My oldest daughter (4-year old) speaks Vietnamese.
In any new setting that I am in, I seek out other Vietnamese. When starting a new job, I look at the company’s directory to see if I can find if there are colleagues with last names such as Bui, Nguyen, Tran, Ngo, Ly, Le, Duong and other popular ones. In school, I seek out clubs that seek to bolster the culture of Vietnam. When I started ungraduated education, I was one of the founders of the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) at our school. When I started on Steemit, I was pleasantly surprised when the first two people who welcomed me into the platform has Vietnamese handles (
You see, that’s what it is about the Vietnamese community. Vietnamese people love to be approachable and generally want to welcome everyone into their lives and into their homes. When you go into a Vietnamese person’s home, expect to leave full in stomach, full in laughter, and probably very drunk!
Many people think of the culinary contribution that Vietnam has made on the rest of the world. Pho is the go-to noodle soup these days. Banh mi and café sua da, among others, are big food draw to Vietnam, whether they are served by street vendors and ladies carrying her food stalls or in 5-star restaurants. Vietnamese food are becoming more popular for its authenticity, healthiness, and overall good taste.
Active participation in your community is the way to engage. Talk about the history of Vietnam, its rich culture, the food, the people, the international communities of Vietnamese living abroad, and sleuth of other topics. On Steemit, specifically, we should try to focus on how we can use the new social medial platform and cryptocurrency to improve the lives of Vietnamese living in Vietnam. Maybe it can’t be done. But we should at least talk about it. While I would love the idea of physically meeting up enthusiastic members of the Vietnamese Community on Steemit, I think there will likely be limitations. Therefore, we should try to organize online meet-ups so that we can talk to each between time and distance. Hopefully we can strive for productive and deep conversations. You never know, you may meet up in real life one day, further developing our deep friendship.
Until then, Chao!
This post is part of the Banana Contest: https://steemit.com/vn/@hungrybanana/contest-for-vietnamese-community-why-you-love-being-in-vietnamese-community