Hanoi: Pain and Growing

"Let go to get one, lose some to win some,
sorry i'm a champion, sorry, i'm a champion." -Jay Z

Ha Noi has a ferocity about it, a fire underneath it. In this city you have to be aware, alert, witty, it forces you to somewhat grow. And I love a challenge more than nothing else, I love the pace and the ruthlessness of this city-- just as I love large cities in general, I just don't love the idea of me in this city. I don't love the mentally and social dynamics of this city. So far, it seems to be taking more from me than it can offer me.

Color, gender, build (body), because Viet Nam wants to modernize and Westernize itself so much, I feel that the mentally is becoming progressively more superficial. And because I don't look Vietnamese, people don't think I know what they're saying; it's only when I fire back at them in Vietnamese with that Black/American feistiness, completely untypical of many passive Vietnamese women, that they take notice.

So far, I'm a bit amused, because I try not to judge this culture, this country, and I try to have an open mind but it is difficult when it hasn't shown me much positive thus far.

I've always been proud to look the way I look and to be Black. Being accepted in South Africa and considered desirable and beautiful in South Africa and not the country I was born in is a difficult concept to grapple with. It's also fine for people to not like the way I look but to assume my intelligence or lack there off due to the color of my skin, and to do so, so overtly, I can neither accept that idea or wrap my head around it.

Alongside a few other things, that mentality has taken away from my experience and the friends and homestay family who have worked intensely hard to make my experience a positive one, who always smile and greet me warmly, and certain speakers who I've learned so much from and historical site visits.

It isn't my goal to remember the teasing, pointing, laughing, hurtful words, or to not give the many great people in this country the benefit of the doubt-- or to be too judgmental. The country has been through a lot.

But there is a difference between being judgmental and accepting the fact that racist and sexist attitudes are pervasive, especially on beauty, especially because it disempowers women by making them internalize the negatives about themselves and making them question their natural beauty, whether that be brown skin or small eyes or height. As a social mindset for the people in this country it's unfortunate, but I don't appreciate when those social attitudes are forced onto me and invades on my self esteem, which is so far one of two major problems I'm encountering in this nation. The other being the propaganda that's been "propogated" or simply the lack of unity between the north and south, discrimination, and lack of discourse. If the nation is not united it should be two nations rather than one socialist/communist nation filled with propaganda and internalized pain (but then there's a question of how to divide up central Viet Nam.

So many complexities but it has made me grow closer to some in the group-- and if tough skin comes out of this, then I take as a positive, it still has more than three weeks to become more positive of an experience.