49 Days: The 40th Annual Vietnamese Culture Night
- honorsfifty
- Feb 13, 2020
- 4 min read
It's January 20, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and as 7 pm nears, hoards of people fill the plaza outside of Royce Hall, a testament to how highly anticipated this event is. People begin to file into the auditorium, carrying bouquets of flowers, and the sense of pride and excitement is palpable: hundreds of hours of preparation over the months will finally culminate in this three hour production.
From an outsider's perspective, the careful planning of the event, down to the very last detail, is evident. A quick scroll through the Facebook event page shows numerous announcements and posts ranging from parking arrangements to brief interviews to even a link to a website designed specifically for this event. And as the opening speeches begin, everything is translated between English and Vietnamese, both countries' anthems are performed, and a visual warning sign that will precede triggering scenes is introduced to the audience.
As far as events go, truly hats off to the people who planned this night.
The drama itself begins shortly, and the narrative follows a Vietnamese-American family as they struggle to cope with the loss of a loved one in Vietnam. The son, estranged from much of his Vietnamese heritage, finds himself unable to mourn someone he hardly knows, and his struggle and confrontation with his parents allow him to finally see some of their buried trauma. Also central to the play is the son's search for self-worth in the shadow of inter-generational trauma as he tries to navigate the uncertainty of his future as a college graduate.
I thought the key themes touched upon in the drama were incredibly relevant to the second-generation, American-born Asian experience. Even though the drama was specifically targeted to address the experiences of the Vietnamese-American community, it was applicable to even those in the audience who were not Vietnamese.
One of the messages that hit hard was about the unintentional trivialization of the second generation experience by immigrant parents. By comparing our relative financial security and stability of life to the poverty, warfare, and lack of basic human rights that many of our parents struggled with, children are made to feel as though their problems aren't valid or as important as those their parents lived through. It builds a sense of worthlessness and inadequacy over time. And the worst part is that the damage caused by this mindset is usually unintentional by the parents; the trauma they lived through follows them even into a life at peace.
My parents are Taiwanese, and I am also a second generation, American-born Asian. My father came from a poor, rural village, and my mother was from a wealthy family in Taipei. Both of them left behind their lives in Taiwan to build a new, more financially secure life in the US. Their mindset of financial security above all else and their reticence about their previous lives mirrors the mindset of the couple in the drama.
The son in the play eventually suffers a mental breakdown, and the mother questions what she did wrong. "I just wanted what was best for him," she says. "I fed him, clothed him, kept him safe and warm."
And in that sense, I think this play really hits on the central issue of the Vietnamese-American (and Asian-American) families: there's a deep cultural and psychological disconnect between what the two generations need and want.
Fleeing from a country at war or escaping a history of poverty, many of our immigrant parents vow to provide financial security for their children. It is their greatest concern and their way of showing love, because it is what they themselves could not have but wanted: peacetime security, an education, steady income, a comfortable life.
On the other hand, the second generation children, growing up Western values, are looking for purpose in careers and life-trajectory beyond simply the financial. Many of us feel pressured to fulfill our parent's expectations and burdened by their sacrifices, unable to make them understand that we are looking for self-worth and life purpose beyond just money.
Both mindsets are valid, but they are products of different lives, different cultures, different values, and the play does exceptionally well at demonstrating these facets of the Vietnamese-American family.
Beyond just the plot however, the integration of the drama into the guest performances was creative and powerful. Between scenes, guest performers such as hip hop dance teams, traditional Vietnamese dance groups, and a capella performers would fill in the transition gap. Sometimes it was just a reprieve from the drama, but other times, characters from the play would stumble onto stage, integrating the emotions from the drama and from the performances.
And even for the acts that were not as integrated into the drama, the performances were still absolutely incredible. As someone who has never seen traditional Vietnamese dance before, I found it beautiful, and I'm glad that students today are still preserving this piece of their heritage. The hip hop and other forms of dance were also a great twist and a fusion of traditional and modern elements that I thought really fit with the integrative theme of the production.
For someone who hadn't initially planned on attending VCN and had only attended because of a friend's invitation, I am so incredibly glad I had the chance to experience this production. It was absolutely worth the time, and I walkied out feeling like I had not only a greater understanding of the Vietnamese-American community on campus but also the shared Asian-American and immigrant family experiences.
I think that the Vietnamese Student Union has truly outdone themselves with this production, and you can definitely plan on catching me at next year's 41st Annual Vietnamese Culture Night!
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