Being Foreign

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108690

Trivia

I wonder ... if some values (in the new society and culture) are gained, will the old values be lost? Is an identity so important that ppl don't want to lose it, which makes them keep belonging to the crowd(s).

It might be too soon to say, or immature to make my own statement that one's own fate is his responsibility. Especially, when he (she) had a chance to see the world and to decide which environment he should live in. It's idealistic to hope for a value changed. What a person can do is changing himself first and stay where he wants to keep those values, as long as he won't change being back to his old place. It's simple; that he will have forgotten how he was which makes him do not turn back to his old self. And the crowd, the audience is always there, for those loners, who have the love for the whole world... Sometimes, I don't know if I have turned too practical, too materialistic.

It is the luck to know that you are with someone, from whom you still see the values that you once set. It is good to move, and yet to have a so-called ''frame of reference".

Khoai

It's the name of the boy whom I changed diaper when he was one and a half year old. I went to America and came back after more than a year. He still remembered me. And then, it looked like nothing had changed. I went and came back. But now he's going to go, with his family, the family with whom I stayed for weeks when I was ill, a family where I often stayed in the weekend in Delft, coming from busy A'dam.

I tell myself in my relationship, it's very good that I stay rational, even when I can't control myself. It's good that my relationship is fun and interesting, that makes me stay away from thinking, from being too emotional, to do something else. To what extent a person can be so nostalgic?

There's another family who are friends of mine, everyone in the family is in the same zodiac as Khoai's. I am so superstitious and unreasonable to see they have a lot of things in common, especially when they say Taurus and Cancer make the best family, and the lucky, adventurous life of the boys born in December. And now, one has come back to Vietnam, the other one will be in the US soon. I am telling myself that I will look at Khoai's clips when I miss him. I'm not sure how many times I will watch it. I will be busy with my own, with spending time with my boyfriend, my mother, my brother and good time with my colleagues. It's just life, people come and go...

I am not sure, in the end, being adventurous will bring happiness. It's just the way people choose for themselves, since they're not happy with other ways of living. It's good that people don't set high standards and requirements right from the beginning but develop plan and new things during the journey. But to some people, like me, sometimes unhappiness or satisfaction comes as the vision we have. In the end, I've learned not to expect a lot.