TABLE
OF CONTENTS
|
Give In To Your
Experiences
By Jane Wiseman
Vietnam
is a
country that almost embodies what it means to have vernacular and
transnational
culture. Not only does it have a quiet small village atmosphere to most
of the
country, but it was involved with a trans-continental war. While in Nha
Trang Vietnam
I had
an amazing experience with some Vietnamese children. I was walking
along the
beautiful beach in Nha Trang, and two friends and I ended up playing a
pick-up
game of sand-soccer, betting the postcards the children were selling.
It was an
awesome game and the kids were really good. I thought it was
interesting that
we all knew how to play soccer, showing me that there is such a thing
as a
transnational sport. It was also odd to find that all of them spoke
moderate to
very good English and were wearing t-shirts with either American comic
book
characters or English words. And yet, we were standing on the beach in Vietnam.
In
Christina Schwenkel’s “Recombinant History:Transnational Practice of
Memory and
Knowledge
Production in Contemporary Vietnam”, she criticizes tourists who come
to Vietnam
and romanticize encounters with “natives”. And yet, I can’t help but
walk away
from my experience and feel as if I somehow experienced something that
might
happen in a movie about a tourist visiting Vietnam.
Despite Schwenkel’s advice,
sometimes “romanticized encounters” just happen.
I
had another
wonderful experience during a visit to a nursery. The kids ranged in
age from
2-5 and they were all extremely friendly. They sang songs to us and
were really
playful. I know all kids enjoy playing but I thought it was odd that
they were
so receptive to foreigners. It was also surprising that one of the
thoroughly
Vietnamese songs ended with an English
line “I Love Everyone!” These kids were 5 years olds and couldn’t speak
English, but were able to say one line in a different language. I
wondered if
this small vernacular nursery taught the kids a song that they could
sing to
transnational visitors.
The
last day
in
Saigon, while on a motorbike tour of the city and surrounding areas, I
was able
to capture a true vernacular and transnational image with my camera.
We had
left the city and were going through a small village on an island on
the other
side of the Mekong
River. We
were just
cruising along a small dirt road and could see the ship on the other
side of
the river. I snapped a picture of a Vietnamese woman dressed in the
traditional
garb and straw conical hat going by on her bike, with our ship in the
background. I thought it was a great representation of the
juxtaposition of
vernacular and transnational. In the foreground is a woman wearing
traditional
Vietnamese clothing traveling along on a self-propelled bike in her
small
village.In the background is a transnational cruise ship that
transports
students form all over the world.
|
