the start of something new

Proud

I have proud moments in my life whenever I feel like I’ve successfully portrayed my family’s struggle with people that listen. 

For my Vietnamese final project, I narrated her story (all in vietnamese!!!!) resettling in America. More specifically, it was about her occupation. I chose to talk about this because I find such irony… that my parents fold dirty clothes for a living at their laundromat and here I am in vietnam being a lazy ass and dropping off my laundry at the story for only $5. 

At the end of my presentation, my teacher asked “How does it feel to pull out money from your pocket and pay the laundry lady?” I had a profound answer in Vietnamese— one that would not do justice if I translated it into English. 

In the end, yeah, I made a lot of people cry. But what’s important is that I once again was able to creatively portray my family’s history and story. I’m glad I had this very unique opportunity to not only hone my vietnamese skills, but to continue paying tribute to my parents. Like i said i would, for the rest of my life. 

You can view the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4g1vi2Qydvs

The english captions are cut off because I’m rusty with video editing and it did not upload nicely on youtube. But the beauty of learning vietnamese is appreciating the content of the language. It’s one of those situations where you had to be there. And u’d have to understand vietnamese to really get the truth out of my story. I can’t wait to go back to the states and present it all to my mother. 

“Những khó khăn trong cuộc sống của tôi là muốn có sự yên ổn. Tôi không muốn tất cả mọi thứ chỉ là về tiền bạc. Tôi chỉ muốn tìm được sự bình an và hạnh phúc mặc dù tôi phải làm việc rất nhiều. Đó chỉ là thực tế của cuộc sống. Mình phải làm việc chăm chỉ.”