“So what’s the one question that you have brought back to Vietnam?”
“Must be ‘What is the American Dream?’ It’s been on my mind for quite a long time.”
I was sitting on the coach, near the window, negligently looking at the lonely, pointy, newly built Landmark 81. The grey-haired American professor was sitting on my left, discussing his experience in Vietnam, my exchange trip in the US, his two cents on a plausible public transport system in Vietnam, and my career plans. It felt like two rivers, one big, one small, one ancient, one new, taking turns to tell their stories. My American Dream was by no means his; he is a citizen born and raised in ‘Murica, and usually, one does not dream about his home with such zeal and inquisitiveness. “Okay, tell me what it is.” He said, unable to hide his excitement.
——
Since time immemorial, my eyes have been seeing the United States of America as the Land of Freedom. As a child, I would envisage it was a place without suffocating parental supervision, without norms and conformity, without a limit to the sky. The USA is synonymous with quality education, and I love learning, so it must be good. Now looking back on those childish wishful thinking, I could not help but feel nostalgic. I used to be that simple-minded girl with a limited horizon.
My coming-of-age anecdotes are lengthy ones. Long story short: I became immensely rebellious, fought for my exchange scholarships, fought for my parents’ permission, underwent and overcame my quarter-life crisis. Along the road came the tears, the sweat, and the loneliness. Whenever I hit the rock bottom, my childhood dream would resurface. What if I found myself in a faraway land? What if the American Dream was waiting for me there, in between the weeping and the self-pity? For four years, I worked tirelessly to make it come true.
I landed at nightfall, in Atlanta. The timid girl, for the first time of her life, stepped into the busiest airport in the world, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Jet lag had no mercy. I was wide awake, and dead tired, and excited, all at the same time. Here and there, people said something like welcome. An announcer made a joke. It never occurred to me that people could joke via announcements at the airport. Again, they said welcome to Atlanta. But will I be welcomed?
I was one of three Vietnamese fellows of that YSEALI (Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiatives) cohort to get a full-ride scholarship to the USA. Joining us were other ASEAN fellows, making up a team of 21. We stayed in a hotel near our host university, walked to school every day, attended lectures, had lunch and dinner at the Commons, and joined extra-curricular activities like any other American student. The first trip was to Alabama – Selma and Montgomery to be exact. On weekends, we had free time to explore Atlanta, or once, Cartersville. Then came Miami. And finally, Washington D.C. We had a whale of a time.
For the next few days, I managed to adapt to my new temporary home, Kennesaw State University. Exciting things started to unfold. In the cold of 0oC, I found my passion for walking, something Jean-Jacques Rousseau would agree. We walked like there was no one else. We showered the sidewalks with laughter. We complained about the cold together, then stopped for a while to hug each other, just to warm ourselves. On the way to school and back, there was a wealth of flora. My guilty pleasure was taking “artsy” photos of flowers using my obsolete phone. It turned out not bad. I then realized that happiness does not necessarily come from flashy, earth-shattering, mind-blowing things, like winning the Olympics, being world-famous or featuring in Forbes. That I still hold close to my heart, and when the sky turns grey, I tell myself to slow down and enjoy the enchantment of little beautiful things Mother Nature offers. I have never been disappointed.
For twenty-one years of my life, I had only met two black people. In Georgia, I met thousands of black people, thousands of Hispanic folks, and many people of various descents. What struck me the most was how beautiful they all were. In Vietnam, girls with a fair complexion, oval faces, slim bodies, and long silky hair are considered beautiful. Here, I beg to differ. Here, I learned to love the diversity of beauty and the beauty of diversity. People might have thought I was rude, but I simply could not contain my excitement and admiration for the sporty, curvy colored girl who was running in the early morning to keep fit. She had a pixie cut, wearing workout clothes and earphones. In every step that she took, I found plenty of confidence, self-love, and energy, and all of a sudden, I thought I fell in love with that soul. In Vietnam, the young worship Kpop idols’ looks; such a skin tone, hairstyle, and sense of fashion might appear to be odd and unattractive, yet it sounds hypocritical to say that you believe in the opposite if you have yet to be in a nation of diversity. I thank this experience for endowing me with the ability to see beauty in everyone and everything.
Have you ever heard of Southern hospitality? I had never known, until people greeted me with huge smiles every day, waiting patiently for me to reply to their question “How are you?” In the beginning, remembering what my friends had told me about that question being just another way to say hello, I was about to ignore. After my moment of shock, which somewhat also shocked the black canteen employee, I shyly said that I had a terrible sore throat. “Bless your heart. Hope ya’ll feel better soon. Have a nice day!” she exclaimed. I thanked her, writing down “Bless your heart” in my notebook. It was by far the loveliest thing I had ever heard.
We befriended a bus driver. I guess he is in his late fifties, and he possesses a distinct Southern accent that one could find in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I mention this literary classic as it gave me more pain than anything else that we studied in the English – American Literature class. I secretly doubted that the author tried to prank us, learners of English as a foreign language, who try their best to decipher the Southern accent script whilst the so-called mainstream American accent still sometimes seems unintelligible. Then I met him, the bus driver, and all the ye and y’all came to life. He told me and other two girls not to try to walk to the gym alone; just wait for the bus, he drives until 11 pm. When we were about to step off, he said he would look out for us in the evening and make sure that we are safe. I smiled like a child.
Atlanta was an interesting playground. One day, when I felt like a million dollars, I decided to walk from CNN Headquarters to Atlanta Beltline. Later that day, I figured out I walked 7 kilometers, which was both scary and admirable. The landscape changed from layering skyscrapers downtown to more green spaces in what looked like the outskirts, to lots of bushes and trees in an empty land. We crossed residential areas, took photos in front of shops, then continued to move forward in the scorching sun. My Singaporean friend, the only one who said yes to my insane walking tour, had to lend me some sunscreen. It was a nice payoff. We were the only one who saw the Atlanta Beltline, full of gorgeous boys and girls on their bikes, in crop-tops and shorts, hanging out on the porch of a pub. The Beltline was like an outdoor museum. Here and there, graffiti and weirdly shaped sculptures stood in the breaking dawn. The vibe was indescribable. It was the kind of happiness that sneaks in your lungs when you are off-guard so that with every breath you take, you feel jubilant. At the back of my mind, however, was still the sight of the old shopkeeper in the dark and dusty convenience store we stopped by. It was a black neighborhood, one of the poorest neighborhoods we had been to. There was nothing we could buy, as the goods were in very bad condition. The disappointment and weariness were on his eyelids – in a split second, I thought his eyes were closed.
During the last two weeks of our trip, we became unexpectedly close, which was amplified by gift and postcard exchange sessions. After rounds of laughter came pauses where no filler dared to move in. We had to say goodbye. But what remained were many, many promises, promises of reunions in all ASEAN countries. If one has yet to think of what it is like to be a global citizen, this is it: you can be both a stranger and a friend in several countries. Just like a few days before, I had thought the cold, the alienated landscapes, the interstate, the car smell, the undying optimism and the deafening orchestra of American accents could never become something so familiar to me. Now, going back to my home country, I fear their absence. C’est la vie, I told myself. C’est la vie.
One of the professors at our host university once told me the US is cunning and effective in hiding its traps. Very often, it is the American Nightmare, not Dream. He teaches political science and was in charge of the luggage of more than half of the team which consisted of twenty-one ASEAN fellows. It was a five-hour car journey from Kennesaw to Miami when all we did was making a verbal cultural exchange. I scrutinized aspects of the American political system and society, and credit cards, just like the way he curiously posed questions about Vietnamese food and culture. We talked about gender inequality in the US, and how strange it sounds to the Vietnamese. Vietnam normally has no glass ceiling in the workplace – no, that, we consider unforgivable. The Confucian notion of female submission and loyalty to men for life is now, slowly but surely, perishing. We even have a quota for female leaders in our organization. What’s wrong with an economic powerhouse like the USA? “We never know for sure. But I’m glad to hear that women in your country have more opportunities to work and become leaders.” As if I felt guilty for making him feel guilty, I explained that in my home country, most of the gender inequality, or sometimes gender-based violence, comes from home. Women are expected to be superwomen, juggling work and family, husbands and children, birth mothers and mothers-in-law… And sometimes, men think they have every right to hurt their partners. Silence fell. It was only one of many pauses that occurred, just to poke a hole in the balloon, to let go of some built-up tension, not from the conversation, but from life itself. The American moon, the eerily gigantic moon with different shades of yellow, was pouring down its gentle light on our car, like a special kind of caramel. Upon reminiscing about our mini-road trip, I could not help visualizing the first immigrants to the States, whose first sight of their new home was the Statue of Liberty. Little did they know that too much expectation was as disastrous as no hope at all and that discrimination and violence were lurking in the dark. Dream or Nightmare, it remains the question.
——
That was my American Dream. It was both happy and sad, rich and poor, upbeat and cynical, real and unreal.
“So would you like to come back to the US one day?” asked the American professor.
“That’s a big fat yes. I will,” I replied, without hesitation.
Until we meet again, America.
*I won the First Prize of HCX Writing contest. I sorely miss the USA. I know what I’ve experienced and BELIEVE that I’ve experienced was just snapshots – or illusions – of a foreign country. Please forgive me for that. Hope you enjoy, at least, some paragraphs of my writing.
The Loudest Mind 