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A Young Việt Kiều's (Overseas Vietnamese)

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A Young Việt Kiều's (Overseas Vietnamese) A young Việt Kiều’s (Overseas Vietnamese) Identity in Global Vietnamese Contexts Julia Ha Die Identität einer jungen “Việt Kiều” This narrative stems from a research project (Übersee Vietnamesin) im Kontext des I conducted for my dissertation. In the first globalen Vietnams period of my research I conducted 33 interviews with women across Vietnam aged 18 to 59. Through the method of biographical narratives, Die vorliegende Arbeit präsentiert einen Rück- I was able to skim the surface of these women’s blick bestehend aus Teilen der Selbstreflexions- everyday lives, and glimpse the challenges of analysen der Autorin und ihrer Forschungsar- being a woman in Vietnam in this day and age. beit als vietnamesisch-österreichische Studentin The second part of the research comprised 21 in Vietnam und in Österreich. Dieser Beitrag interviews with Vietnamese women in the age stammt aus dem Dissertationsprojekt der range of 27 to 54 living in countries such as Autorin mit dem Titel „Two Worlds One Origin Austria (Vorarlberg), Switzerland (canton of St. – A Comparative Study Of Vietnamese Women Gallen) and Germany (Baden-Württemberg). The Living In Vietnam And Abroad“. Dabei geht es selection of this group was standing to reason, um unerwartete Herausforderungen, Schwierig- since I grew up in West Austria and my family keiten und Überraschungen mit denen sich die lives there, which meant I was very close to the Autorin auseinandersetzten musste, während Vietnamese community in this region. sie mit Teilnehmerinnen aus Vietnam und vietnamesischen Teilnehmerinnen im Ausland, For my dissertation the topics of education, oc- narrative biographische Interviews durchführte. cupation and family life are central. Because of Insgesamt hat die Dissertantin der Universität this I decided to use biographical interviews, in Innsbruck 54 Interviews mit Frauen zwischen order to have a broad and open field to work in. 18 und 59 Jahren geführt: 33 Interviews in I was interested in the change and development Vietnam und 21 außerhalb Vietnams. In diesem of a Vietnamese migrant from a female perspec- Artikel werden auch die verschiedenen Perspek- tive. Questions such as the following inspired tiven, die die Autorin während des Forschungs- me to start my dissertation: prozesses als „insider/outsider“ erlebt hat, in den Blick genommen. 1. Does the position of a woman in her family change in a foreign country? This piece of work presents a flashback that 2. Is there a better chance for women to enter contains parts of self-reflective analysis of the their desired professional field? author and her research as a female Viet-Aus- 3. Is there any change in their position and trian graduate student in Vietnam and Austria. placement compared to that in their country of This paper stems from a research project of the origin? author’s dissertation entitled “Two Worlds One Origin – A Comparative Study Of Vietnamese This narrative is also about the challenges I faced, Women Living In Vietnam And Abroad”. It is and the constantly changing perception of myself about unexpected challenges, difficulties and and my position I experienced conducting the surprises the author had to struggle with while interviews. In the beginning I believed myself to conducting narrative biographical interviews be an insider, but it quickly became apparent with female participants from Vietnam, and that I was actually an outsider both ways, in Vietnamese women living abroad. Overall the Vietnam and in Austria. In the end I settled into graduate student of the University of Innsbruck a happy medium of being a semi-insider and conducted 54 interviews with women between semi-outsider, depending on whom I was talking 18 and 59 years: 33 interviews in Vietnam and to. In speaking about the difficulties, challenges 21 outside of Vietnam. This article also address- and surprises, I shall touch on some issues that es different perspectives the author experienced were raised during my work in Vietnam and in being an “insider / outsider” during the process Austria. Identities, cultural differences, family of conducting research. hierarchy including respect towards elderly and Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg | F&E Edition 18 | 2012 51 image 1: rice field in Austria, as I grew up here, and I don’t know This image was taken on the way to the Mekong Delta while anything else”. However, if it was a Vietnamese sitting at the back seat of an old rickety Honda motorbike. It person asking, my answer would be: “I am Viet- shows a group of women during rice cultivating - a traditional namese, I was born in Vietnam, how can I ever women labor in rural areas. forget my country of birth?” The fact is, I really was born in Vietnam, but when I was one month old, my parents took me on a fishing cutter with them and we escaped as boat people to Malay- sia and from there later to Austria, where I grew manners towards younger community members, up. Both answers, therefore, suited me, they are some of these issues I will elaborate on in were right and honest and true for me. this narrative. Not until I started my research for my disserta- tion in psychology did I give a second thought “I am many” – Identities to what I considered myself to be in terms of a hybrid identity. In this context hybrid Identity is I cannot recall how many times I have tried to to be taken as a mixed identity of Vietnamese change my own identity throughout my life in – Austrian. For Bhaba (1994) identities are order to attract the least attention possible. per se hybrid as they evolve from a space, the My answers to questions such as, “do you feel Inbetween, a space where different cultures more Austrian or Vietnamese?” would invariably meet. Habermas (1988) likewise emphasised the be determined by the person who was asking importance of culture and stressed that the con- me. If it was somebody from Austria, it would cept of hybrid identities is based on a dynamic always be: “Definitely Austrian, I feel at home cultural term: 52 Pädagogische Hochschule Vorarlberg | F&E Edition 18 | 2012 It understands culture as a process in which the em) and the younger brother/sister. The strict lifeworlds (Lebenswelten) are consistently altered observance of these has its roots in the Con- through cultural knowledge and as a result of trade fucian moral doctrines. The above-mentioned and negotiations. Such a dynamic notion of culture three relationships characterize the social makes it possible to make a distinguish observation commitment and are also named as the “three of cultural adoption and exchange processes which chains” of Confucianism. can rage from an adoption of Western culture to self- assertion against Western culture. (in Westermann, I did not like the Vietnamese part of myself. My 2006: 85-86) siblings and I developed an anti-Vietnamese atti- tude during our childhood and early adolescence. I was therefore not even aware that I always I was embarrassed for my parents’ poor German had a different answer when these topics were language skills yet when in public I would speak raised. Much to my surprise, the more I started to them in German in order to prove to others to engage with that topic and these subject that we did understand the language. I was matters, the more I realized that I did not know ashamed of being Vietnamese, but mostly what I as much as I thought I knew about my country was ashamed of, was simply being different. All I of birth. The questions about my own culture wanted was to be like everybody else. that could possibly help me find the key to my identity dilemma began to multiply, and my interest in finding answers increased. Appropri- “Opposed characters” ately, Abu-Lughod (1991) uses the term “halfie” to describe the identities and experiences of I was the first born of my family, which means researchers “whose national or cultural iden- that my duty was to serve my parents and act tity is mixed by virtue of migration, overseas as a role model for my siblings. As a daughter I education, parentage” (in Subedi, 2006:573). As also had to support the family’s income, which is Louie (2000) notes regarding his own research, I why my father had the very specific vision of me also found that although my research was not a running an Asian store or a Chinese restaurant. study about me, I ended up learning very much Looking back now, I realize how far my parents about myself. were forced to step out of their traditional way of thinking. It was not only a challenge to con- While growing up, our family had tried to vince them it would pay off in the end for them integrate as seamlessly as possible. The image to let me follow a serious academic career, but that the society we lived in had of us was very it was also a challenge for them to defend and important to my parents. On the outside every- to justify their support of my chosen path to thing had to be white and spotless, especially the rest of the family and in their Vietnamese as an immigrant family. Once they returned to community. As I continued along my chosen their own house, however, without any intruding path the feelings of ambivalence on their part outside observers, my parents became the same only increased. old Vietnamese people they had been before they arrived in Austria. This meant that behind My family came from a small, undereducated closed doors we had Vietnamese food, spoke the countryside village and their life was strongly Vietnamese language, listened to Vietnamese influenced by the tradition of Confucianism.
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