Nearly 10 months ago, in chilly and wet weather, my family celebrated Tet-Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Slaving over a hot stove making “Bánh chưng,”—a special cake made from sticky rice, green bean, pork, and a lot of specimens—was one of the happiest moments of Tet.
The fire flickered and I was waiting for the first and smallest cakes to enjoy the pre-Tet atmosphere. The day before, Mom and I went to the market to shop for everything for Tet: peach blossoms, bunches of miscellaneous flowers, cakes, sweets, fruit jam, and a lot of food. The kitchen was lit up with a range of traditional foods such as “Nem rán,” spring rolls, and “Giò lụa,” pork.
Behind the dishes are meaningful legends and never-ending stories. Dad started to clean the altar and re-paint the wall with the hope of blowing out all of the bad luck of the past year. I feel so lucky when my family keeps almost all of the traditional customs in Tet, although my Mom and I are usually suffocated by the mountains of preparation for Tet. For Vietnamese people, Tet is a family reunion, like Christmas in the United States. We visited both a local pagoda at New Year’s Eve and our relatives, giving one another our best wishes for the coming year. Although I was 20 years old, I was still so excited when I was counting each lucky bank note in the red envelopes that families always gave to children and the elderly as a gift to wish them health, success, and happiness.
“Without distinctive culture, there is no Vietnam today,” said my Mom. Despite roughly one thousand years of “Chinesation," Vietnamese people are still alive with their own traditional values. She preserves the soul of Vietnamese traditional cuisines within our small family as a way to nourish the endless Vietnamese spirit of her children. I am immersed in the beautiful world of delicious dishes from Mom with love every single holiday, from Tet-Vietnamese New Year to the Lantern Festival to the Cold Food and Mid-Autumn Festivals. Mom taught me no math and science, but plenty of literature and Vietnamese customs because she believed that culture is the soul of a people and that the disappearance of culture means the death of those people.
In the moment of saying goodbye to last year and saying hello to a new year, surrounded by the smoke of the incenses from a local pagoda, Mom and I prayed for a lucky year with happiness and success.
Finally, I got admitted to Wabash College. My friends said that it was on the edge of nowhere, not the center.
One month ago, I left Vietnam on a Korean-Air 30-hour flight to the United States of America. “Hello to the Promised Land, I am coming,” I told myself in my mind while my Mom hugged me and cried. I had been waiting for this moment for three years.
I am a 21-year-old Vietnamese person with an unusually large love for cooking, hotels, and traveling. I was born into a farm family in a very poor countryside in the north of Vietnam. I saw many farmers in my hometown who have never left the fields, gardens, and fish ponds nearby for their whole lives. They cannot spare any time to keep outside information on their pulses, they must take care of themselves and their families. They are surrounded by daily worries such as food, clothes, and money.
Like a vicious cycle, they are corroding an insipid life day by day. For them, trying to make ends meet is an all-out effort. In contrast, it is a dead boring life for me. Being born was a heaven-sent present, so there is no reason for me to waste this priceless life. Someone once said that life is not about how to survive the storm, it is about how to dance in the rain. I realized that happiness is not a small life without disaster or any errors. Happiness is to accept the fight, the effort, and the doubt to advance. We advance through obstacles. Resting on my own laurels is the way to hell.
I have a fanciful dream of becoming a great CEO of an international hotel and resort chain. So, I dropped out of FTU (Foreign Trade University), the most rigorous university in my country and took a 30-hour flight to come here with an illusory desire of living my dream. I ended up at Wabash with great financial aid. Nevertheless, I still had some financial hardship. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want my parents to suffer from my education because, above all else, I believe that I want nothing other than my beloved ones to be happy. I do not know what the intentions everyone else has on the way to the United States are, but mine was getting away from poverty. I put a lot of sweet dreams into this country, but, right now, I feel stuck.
After nearly a whole school year in the United States, this is the first time in the last four years that I have felt helpless and disappointed. I am shocked by everything. I miss my mom and her traditional dishes. The helplessness and disappointment that I find here make that longing worse, but I cannot go back to Vietnam. I have to fight.
I know that this transition process will take me a long time to recover from, but it will be fine soon. I am here to succeed, not to fail.
