Tag: Penn State University

Repatriation

You can take a boy out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.

This happens to me, not once, but twice. Culture shock upon culture shock! until I feel numbed.

I jog on the street full of motorbikes (nice people would say “Co len”, bad people would try to run me over), or tell jokes at music jam session, oblivious to the fact that half of the audience barely catches the meaning, much less the punch line.

So I made a few mistakes upon repatriation.

Mistakes I have had to pay for dearly, monetarily or otherwise (just stop short of  becoming a social stigma since it’s more acceptable to backpackers to come across as free and loosed, not someone whose outward looks exactly like locals).

There are Viet Kieu, and there are Viet Kieu.

The former, tourists – waving their US dollars , and the later, expats – hiding their VN dong.

Or, as I often joke: the real Viet Keu would react “OUCH!” when got slapped, while the fake ones “UI DA!”.

But it depends on where you go and spend your money. If a place rates you on how thick your wallet is, then it will throw you out the next time when you are a bit short .

Back to my jogging across the round-about. Quite challenging. In the rain, and in the thick of Saigon rush-hour traffic, I had to tap dance, jog in place or run in opposite direction like a running back at the starting line of another down in football).

I do miss my time at Penn State. Just like when I was at Penn State, I missed my time in Saigon. You can take the boy out of Saigon, but you can’t take Saigon out of the boy. At Penn State, I simply wished for a meal surrounded by my extended family, or to hang out with friends, some smoke, some play the guitar. Now, I am back, repatriated. With some new friends who smoke, some play the guitar. Then all of a sudden, I wish for that 8-shaped trail which wraps around the University Park golf field. There, I wouldn’t get run over by two-wheel bikes, but then, I wouldn’t hear “co len” by complete strangers either.

More than once, I have let the outside affect what’s inside. Now, after taking so many punches, I counter-punch by let the inside affect the outside. Like telling a joke in English to an audience of mostly Vietnamese . The experience was diametrically opposite to the time at Penn State when I was trying to blend in without  “getting” the punch line (since I was unprepared for a completely different conceptual frame of reference ). Exile to expatriaton.

At the end of all travel, one returns to the starting point and know the place for the first time. It has happened to me. Like a newborn again, taking in and embracing everything. So familiar yet so foreign.

Matchmaking

In Vietnam, one of the first questions is What animal represents you? (12 symbols of the zodiac).

Second question is, how come you are single. Find someone to alleviate your miserable state of being single (collective society).

Third and logical conclusion: find someone, whose symbol matches yours, yin-yan, fire and ice, earth and sky etc…

I found this mechanism an easy way out, as opposed to Vietnam Got Talent, where candidates are picked base on their merits.

What do you expect? You are known to others as son or daughter of so and so.

This reminds me of the Museum of Innocence which recounts a story of a character who fell in love with his distant cousin. No where can you find individualism collide more with social more. He managed to collect even her hair to be displayed later in what he called, the Museum of Innocence.

I found a public comb hanging in the men’s restroom at an ACB bank branch here in Vietnam. Apparently, it’s common property, to be shared among the men.

Part of my missing education, was that by the time I was supposed to reap the benefits of all that our country had to offer e.g. matchmaking system, shared mores, shared pot of luck (guests would pitch in to jumpstart a new family), I instead launched cold turkey ino the culture of sports at Penn State, of extreme competition although we always chanted “We Are”.

The “We Are” in Vietnam is quite different from the “We Are” at Penn State.

The latter nailed Coach JoePa to be the fall guy (while it’s Sandusky who was supposed to be nailed).

I am not defending the former “We Are”, nor do I accuse the latter.

But in Vietnam, for example, a rape which occured within the four walls, stays within the four walls.

The victim would rather be dead than seeing her family be put to shame.

So life goes on. What’s your animal symbol?

Use that comb. Shake off  the past. Forget and move on.

You will never find a public comb in Penn State lockers, where We Are is the chant.

But you will find it here.

and maybe, even a suitable other-half, if you can answer the first few questions by the matchmaker.

Oh, by the way, these days, they also asked if you had own a house. A scooter was a given. Just as back then, they assumed you own some buffalos to tend the field.

My sister has lived a hard but productive life. As symbolized by the animal represents her.

Mine? you guess. It’s the monkey. Jumping from tree to tree , culture to culture and not commit completely to one set of beliefs. It’s boring for a monkey to sit under the shade of just one tree in a forest full of them. It would bore him to tears. Scratching that ich all day wondering if the next tree might be worth the leap. Who knows, I might find happiness at the next bend, next road less travel. And if not, the journey itself is the reward.

What’s your animal symbol? or Avatar? You see, each culture has its own way to move beyond one self. To break out of what’s given, what’s restricted.

May you find your match, off or online.

Closure

Fact 1: I went to Penn State.

Fact 2: I felt ashamed and defensive (no punt intended) at the same time

Fact 3: I am not alone in this.

There are more stuff to be worried about these days: immediate and long-term future.

Already a book was out (at 50% off) about Penn State and the culture of silence.

Collective amnesia.

Just like Vietnam War aftermath.

Or Watergate aftermath.

We move on. Have to.

It takes time discounting some relapses.

We are not therapists, much less self-therapists.

And we men don’t talk it out over coffee. Ain’t cool.

Let’s hit the gym.

Put some more weight on the bench press. Could you spot me!

Let pain reign.

It ain’t hurt.

Psycho-somatic syndrome.

What’s outside should not be let in, to infect and destroy what’s inside.

We last longer than the storm.

We survive disaster after disaster.

Only to get to the best part: closure.

By then, we have turned semi-experts on the subject of recovery.

Survivors and strivers. Long-distance runners and deep thinkers.

Conversation with myself while running, for instance.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance.

Each generation is tossed a curved ball. Up to us to catch it, spin it and develop new coping strategies.

Ours faces threats that we have never seen before.

Sometimes, from within. From the defense line. From the top whom we respect.

The day the music dies. Sometimes, I think it’s best for the candle to go out at peak.

Like James Dean, M. Monroe, J. Lennon and M. Jackson. At least, they are icons frozen in time.

A sense of permanence and immortality. For now, being human, I got to deal with stages of grief. I got to get to closure, to acceptance. Got to look at myself in the mirror and smile reluctant.