Giving Thanks for Families, Privilege and Service

There we are! There were ETAs, research Fulbrighters, embassy officals and representatives from NGOs and other American Programs in Hanoi.

Traditions can’t last forever – it’s simply impossible. Things change and the road of life can very quickly lead to new places and lands where just about everything seems a bit off kilter. I knew when I signed up for this sojourn that the holidays would be different and that 23 years of traditions were going to broken.

What was strangest about this Thanksgiving wasn’t the heat or the sun or the geckos and palm trees (though it was unsettling) – it was the obvious lack of holiday spirit. I am in the Southeast Asian tropics in a land that has no religion *according to the government* (except that fact that nearly everybody is Buddhist – but who’s keeping track?) – so what did I expect?

I knew that these things would be absent but I didn’t realize how crucial they were to the holiday – or at least my perception and experience of the holiday. Without the excessive commercialization of Thanksgiving (and by default Black Friday and Cyber Monday) and nobody else around talking about it I honestly forgot. My calendar said November 22 but it sure didn’t feel anything like Thanksgiving – it felt like some random obscure day in summer.

Luckily for me the US Ambassador wouldn’t let us Fulbrighters forget about Turkey Day and he invited us all to the Ambassador’s Residence in Hanoi for a feast.

It was off the chain! So freaken good, I swear I ate ambrosia and now I know how Zeus felt. The real turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes so creamy and smooth it is making me drool all over again, the sweet potatoes, roasted veggies, bread and real butter! I simply don’t have words. Then there was dessert and it was a pie ménage à trois – apple, pumpkin and pecan. We had slices of all three served à la mode with homemade (I will type it one more time in caps and bold, italicized and underlined as it deserves it’s justly big to do) HOMEMADE FRENCH VANILLA ICE CREAM. That means somebody went and bought vanilla beans and cracked many eggs taking just the yolks and heavy cream and churned and churned until perfection was reached and the Gods smiled! All of us provincial folk were smiling too! I have many pictures from the dinner below.

The US Ambassadors residence. It's amazing and so pretty. It was an old French villa and the interior is spectacular. A grand staircase, glass elevator, marble floors, gilded walls, fretted ceilings and high empire crystal changeliers. It was a dream. I would love to live in a place like this someday... keep on dreamin'.

The offical china and seal of the United States of America. Rimmed in gold with royal blue the state china and silver were exquiste. This is the seal from the charger - yep it was so fancy that we had CHARGERS. I love chargers I really do.

My offical setting and plate full of scrumptious food.

My name card with the state seal and the dessert spoon. We also had dessert forks. So classy I was simply in heaven!

Me and Justin. He is the ETA who is farther east of me toward the ocean also in the Mekong Delta. He is wearing the traidtional Vietnamese ao dia.

Our TEFL teacher Andrew, me, US Ambassador David Shear and Justin in the dining room after dinner.

What I am most thankful for is all my families. First, my blood family who would go to the ends of the earth for me and I for them. They are all part of me and serve as the super-steady foundation upon which I have built my life. Secondly, my PhilaU family. Not only did they propel me through college and many have become close (and best) friends but I continue to lean on them and my advisors who are still in my corner. Thirdly, to my newest family – my Fulbright family. First of all these guys are awesome and I am privileged to have met 14 other absolutely inspiring, articulate, funny, incredible and selfless scholars and humanitarians. These people will rule the world and there dedication to causes ranging from justice, education, scholarship, business and medicine are truly awe-inspiring. I am blessed to even be included in this group and I look up to them and admire their grace and courage under the cultural firestorm that Vietnam, that teaching English in provincial Vietnam, can be.

I am  also thankful for is something that has weighed on me ever since I alighted my plane back in July and that is my privilege. Being a member of the privileged class (i.e. white and male) in America affords me the opportunity to never consider or discuss it if I don’t have to. To be frank I didn’t. I knew I was blessed but I would never have described myself or my family as privileged. But my family is privileged and thus so am I.

Some of this privilege is not something I (or they, or anybody) can control. Primarily being white and being male. I see my students, especially the girls facing sexual obstacles that will dog and hinder (and in some cases prevent) their career paths, that once (if ever) launched will mostly be halted when they have children that they are expected to bear and raise. The other great privilege of my life in monetarily. We are not rich by American standards – at best we are upper-middle class. But compared to my students I am dripping in wealth. In Vietnam community college students are seen by society as a failure (by not scoring high enough on the college admission test for university) and are thus expected to have little prospects for future success. But more then anything what this does is it limits their future access. A bulwark fortified by the fact that since most are farmer’s children and spend time outside to earn a living they tan and are darker (here whiteness or lightness is prized and deemed desirable/beautiful/sexy, etc.).

At the end of the day my privilege granted me access – access no doubt expanded upon by my diligent hard work. But things like my parents buying a house in Brighton and thus me attending one of the best public schools in the country. And have two gainfully employed parents with secure jobs in corporate America allowed me to skate and compete. Credentials that helped me gain admission into a good private university on a generous and sizeable scholarship. A university that recognized my passion and academic acumen and granted me endless opportunities to study, research, present and study abroad for a year – and graduating without a dime of debt. Those decisions and my success in PhilaU put me on a plane to Vietnam as a Fulbrighter and now I am applying for medical school.

I couldn’t even begin to describe any of this to my students, it would blow their minds. But being here – especially in Cao Lanh has made me very aware of my privilege and my access. For that I give thanks.

Finally, I am most thankful and proud that I have used 24 years of hard work, privilege and academic excellence to spend this year in service. Giving back to the wider world and meeting all these inexplicably wonderful people is the greatest blessing of all. A toast to humanitarian service!

One other note – I won my first badminton game! Yep I won, I won, I won, I won… Yippie! I beat my host who was stunned to say the least. I had many good shots and hustled my tall lanky behind around that court. By the time it was over the unanimous expression on men’s faces was “oh snap the whities got dope skill – fo’ shizzle”. OK so maybe not fo’ shizzle but that was the mood. Of course it was damped by the fact that I had to ask if I had won (they all speak Vietnamese – I just knew I was doing well. After losing for three months straight I just assumed they were cleaning the court with me).

In all honesty things have been very tough here and emotionally I am on the edge. My goal for this blog was to be honest – in the entirety of that definition. A majority of these past post have been honest but they are my colorful rose-tinted humorous versions. Next week I will try to be brutally honest about my emotional existence in the hollowed depths of stage 2. But for now I am going to let the Norman Rockwellesque atmosphere pervade for at least one more post.