Vietnam and Asia, at home
About one and a half weeks before my scheduled flight to Vietnam (which was set to be March 28th), my bosses at my student part time job asked me: Why do you still believe that you're leaving the country next weekend? And with this, at that time, I realised my study abroad semester this spring / summer of 2020 wasn't going to happen anymore. My bosses sensed what I didn't want to see ahead of me. In very practical ways, we spoke about the happenings in our office. What this pandemic meant for us in Germany, what it meant for us as an office, what it meant for each individual on a very small scale.
I took that following weekend to grief and to let go. Shortly after this conversation, the airline cancelled all flights to Vietnam anyway and didn't allow Europeans to enter anymore. Eventually, my home university asked everyone here to stay put and everyone abroad, to return back home. Thus, I took my time with this newsletter. I finished a paper for school and needed to re-arrange my situation, my thinking, here in Berlin because guess what... I wasn't really planning on staying here.
Fast forward, it's Monday evening, still April 6th and I've been writing this letter for the past hours. I don't know if I extend my Master's to go to Vietnam in 2021 or if I just finish grad school and will postpone the trip to after, but what I know for sure is: I am going, eventually. This postponement has actually strengthened my wish to connect more deeply with my family, relatives and community members. It inspired me to bring Vietnam and Asia home to me. Obviously, there were things I imagined to happen, but I am adapting to this situation, as everyone is. As my friend Mekdes reminded me: the personal growth comes from within. And if I really want to, I can still do some of the things I planned on doing / creating / working on.
For now, I am making the most of my time indoors, trying to hone into my cooking skills. I am continuously inspired by Lam Thuy Vo's instagram pictures, who also recommended me Hungry Huy's food blog and I have yet to explore more recipes.
Besides cooking and meditating in the kitchen, it’s been incredibly healing to stay in and immerse myself into the worlds of some of the best Asian directors, actors and cinematographers. To watch ourselves move and to hear ourselves speak. To envision. In February, we had the pleasure to witness Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee in conversation with Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda at the Berlin International Film Festival, exchanging thoughts on time and space, overcoming creative struggles, the inter-relatedness of kindness and sadness in the Eastern world, as well as the concept of an afterlife, to think of death — so that we can understand the essence of life. Watch the full conversation here.
Some of the movies I enjoyed recently are: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by Lee, After Life, Like Father Like Son & Shoplifters by Kore-eda, Yi Yi by Edward Yang, In The Mood For Love by Kar-Wai Wong, Kung Fu Hustle, all Jackie Chan movies.
With the rise of xenophobia and racism towards people of Asian descent due to Covid19, it’s necessary to empower many different voices and perspectives, since there are so many nuanced ways of being Asian. I hope that we can all continue to empower one another, to speak up and to raise awareness. I want to continue to uplift and celebrate the communities I am a part of and hope that in times like these, you check in on one another. On that note, I loved reading journalist Nhi Le's experience on this in Germany and American journalist Joyce Chang shared here What it feels like to be Chinese during Corona.
I always go into writing these newsletters telling myself: keep it short, and then I push it by one week, and eventually by two weeks, and then it becomes three weeks or a month. After having submitted my school paper last week, I needed to reserve the last two days to get to this and finish this newsletter. For the sake of writing, for the sake of consistency, for the sake of doing it. For the sake of: creating and working on my personal project.
Although I intended to send these out on a somewhat monthly basis... I am not always successful. And that is totally okay. On this Tuesday morning, Chani Nicholas reminded me that "Below your drive, below your charisma, below your uncanny ability to get up and go no matter what has already left is the truth about you: you are valuable whether you accomplish mind-boggling amounts of work each moment or not. You are worthy of love whether you win the race each time or not. Your needs matter whether you can override them or not."
So, I hope you take good care and stay sane and safe and healthy.
That you stay patient with yourself and your friends and families. That you can still find beauty and joy in the simple things and that you choose hope.
I love you and thank you so much for reading,
xx,
Huyen
P.S.: Yes, remember the book list of 2019 I mentioned a couple times already and meant to share? Lol, it was as easy as copying it from my notes to publishing it on the blog, anyways, here it is. Let me know if we wanna start a book club ;)
And because I am realising I am writing up to 3000+ words in each letter (lowkey using this as a writing practice for my first book :))) if you'd like, you can add a dollar or two to my future publishing goals, thank you!