Hi, I have followed your blog since the beginning. I have admitted that I agree with most of your writting and observation in your own life. I find many of incidents and though that you have experiences. I am a VK as Viet Nam had categorized us oversea Vietnamese American. I close to mid 50'. Born and raised in Viet Nam for 15 years. Finish high school and college in the US and went on to work and got assimilated into the America main stream society. Enough about myself, I just wanted to offer an observation. You strike as an American with a Vietnamese inferiority complex. This comment will need clarify later. I just wanted to writting whats on my mind at this moment. I'm not a good communicator. My profession and formal training is science. I wanted to apolozied to you and anyone happen to read this comment due to my subpar English skill. BTY, I think I also have the American Vietnam complex. Have a nice day.
A lot of Vietnamese Americans who live in areas with a high concentration of Vietnamese population (like Houston or Bolsa) tend to not fit in very well with the mainstream society. Most of their friends are Vietnamese; Their English is subpar; They listen to Vietnamese music and watch Vietnamese (or Korean movies); ect. You get the picture. Thus, they developed what Mr Trucker referred to as "Vietnamese inferiority complex"; To elaborate, everything "American" is good and "Vietnamese" is bad. English is preferred over Vietnamese, even both as fluent in Vietnamese. Vietnamese are the only people who are ashamed of the heavy accented English of other Vietnamese who are not native speakers; I have never met a Chinese or Indian or any other nonnative speaker who feel so strongly about the heavy accent of their own people. I can go on, but y'all get the picture. Stop making fun of Mr Trucker because if you do, you are in denial.
That anonymous isn't VietTrucker. His written english is much better than VietTrucker, no offence. Seems like for a lot of VK's that grew up in Vietnam at a young age still don't seem to grasp the English language so well, even if they lived longer in an English speaking country afterwards.
Anyways, on the topic of Viet inferiority complex, I think it doesn't necessarily affect just those the anon stated above. It can stem from the realization of the differences, the inequality and the benefits of being a white person in a white world. Being/looking different to the majority can istantly make you feel like you don't belong too and it feeds the complex. If you have high self esteem and confidence you might be able to avoid it. Even though I grew up in an english speaking country and can communicate just like a white person, the differences just in looks alone affects me at times and I don't feel like I belong.
i was born in vn but i was raised in canada and i have been married to a white canadian lady.we have 2 kids.i look much more westernize than kyle but the white people here still see me as a viet boy and i accept it.i think that all the viet boyz who were raised in the us like kyle or john have an inferior complex becuz the white people dont let them intergrate in their society so they have to prove to the fobish
hell, yeah, bud, you've nailed it. I was born and raised in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. No offense to Kyle, but, I'm a lot more "mainstream" than him, both in look and in attitude. For example, I'm 6'2, 205, all muscle and could barely speak a word of Vietnamese until I was 15 (that was when my parents took me to Viet Nam with them for the first time). In college, other Vietnamese students often referred to me as "banana". You get the picture. Yet, sometimes, I feel like an outsider looking in. As I grow older, I realize that white people (except for those who know me and are my friends) will always see me as foreign and inscrutable. Now, living in the Bay Area, I often notice the need of Vietnamese people to prove that they are not fobish. At first, I failed to see the point in all of this; however, upon much reflection, I finally realize that if a person who seems to "fit in" so well, like me, can feel alienated, at times, then, those who don't fit in, must feel the need to prove otherwise to their newly arrived compatriots. Thus, feeding the inferiority complex that those above have already mentioned. A very interesting subject.
“We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!”
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (November 5, 1930 – August 6, 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, and winner of the 1972 Turing Award.
Hi, I appreciate anonz defended me and explained to the reactions toward my opinion. Anonymous February 7, 2013 at 10:01 AM also had kinds words to me and I thank you. My English writing skill is weak and needs polish. I apologize that my writing are not up to the English standard of this blog. I am not afraid to express my honest opinions and my life experiences. The way I write may come across unconventional due to my cross cultures up bringing. Please take that into consideration when you read my comments. I want to thank Kyle for the chance to express my opinion in his forum.
Safari web browser and Apple IOS can behave sub par while editing texts. On the other hand, I am not use to to Safari interaction capabilities and that is my fault. What I wanted to write to Kyle was I found many incidents that you have encountered in Vietnam seem familiar to my own experiences. It took me nearly a dozen tries editing. I got frustrated gave up and just posted comments that's laughable. I am not trying to give an excuse. I was careless at that time. I figured I will try to explain the illogical comments later. I was using an Ipad at a coffee shop.
My formal education was in the science field. I hold a BS degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from University of Texas Arlington. I have worked for twenty plus years in corporate America. It has never been appealing to me to work for someone other than my self. To me a couple weeks of vacation per year sometime is not enough. The requirements of taking and saving vacation according to corporate policy suck. I like to a take 6 months to a year off during my productive adults life to travel and explore the world. I don’t do that every year. I just wanted to do it at least once in my prime adult time. I am not a demanding person. I recall that during my time working for corporate America there were consecutive years that I did not take a single day of vacation. I saved the vacation days for later time. Over two weeks vacation while being employ by a corporation is possible. I have taken couple while still employ in the corporate world. Still the standard practice is you don’t go for a 6 months long vacation. Your job don’t stand around for you while you go off all over the world vacationing. As you can see I can not travel extensively and expect to keep my job.
I was working as a firmware engineer for a defense contractor. No thing special about my job but it was very satisfactory to me at the time. It provided me with many difficult challenges. A firmware engineer is as software engineer that writes programs in a low level language. The sole purpose of firmware is to provide software with functions that gives direct commands to the computer hardware. For example with today computing it is similar to a driver for a printer. Working as a software engineer requires independent problem solving skill. Software engineers write code then debug his own code. During the programming process it is up to a software engineer to finish his own program. A computer program is just a step by step instruction manual aim perform very simple task. A program that solve complicate problems are just many small program working together logically to produce result. A firmware engineer is a software engineer that writes code in high level language such as C or Assembly. The different firmware to software is during test and debug firmware may be debug in machine language. All higher level languages use a special program call compiler to translate a program to machine language. Firmware engineer use a different compiler call cross-compiler. This compiler take high level language such as C, C++ translate directly to the computer assembly language and machine instruction. This help you debug your program in real time using machine instruction. In the years that I worked as a firmware engineer I learned a lot about the heart and core of a computer system. In school they can make you read, learn, and solve problems that are taken directly from the real word. Nevertheless, nothing beat actual work experiences. I found that the most profound way to have knowledge is to gain knowledge from my own corrected mistake.
I was happy with my job and I excelled at work. After first 5 months of diligent my effort pay off I finished a firmware project ahead of schedule. I had to do it because the project was under constant pressure from managements. When it was given to me to finish all I had was 6 months. The project was already 18 months behind. The reason was the previous engineer quit in the middle of the project. He got a better paying job at a competitor. After my firmware went into production, to shows appreciation from management. I got a 2K out of cycle raise. My boss toll me I deserved it because I worked my butt of to deliver the product. I really appreciated and expressed my gratitude toward him.
Even though I have a good normal professional job and was enjoying my life. I felt stuck just like most everyone else that holds corporate job. I want to have absolute freedom to work and play whenever I desire. Working for someone else I will not have total freedom to manage my time. I made a decision to my job moved to California to start my own business. After many difficult years of labor and a hand full of experiment on different type of business. I finally found a business that give me freedom to do what I want and requires minimal supervision. I own a a small owner/operator trucking company. Thus VietTrucker is my login name.
As for having a Vietnamese Inferior complex looking back may be I should not have put it quite like that. My though at the time was Kyle being somewhat similar to me in that he was raised in a multi culture household. I am a naturalized US citizen and got assimilated by choice. Kyle on the other hand is American Born Vietnamese (ABV), his parents may be first generation American and raised Kyle with an Asian culture and values. Our view may be similar in many life situations especially when it involved people from Vietnam. Being ABV and raised in California Kyle may not have experienced United States as I have. To clarify my statement, I have lived extensively in Texas, California and the Midwestern US. I have travel and worked in 38 states in the US. I am not claiming that having experience living and working in those state make me an expert. All I am saying is that every state has their own unique citizen. Base on my own experience the citizen of each state in the US dislike the citizen from other states. California, Texas are two states that are ridicule by just about everyone in the US and I happen to have lived in both of them. I know that Kyle is an American and I am a naturalized American. Kyle only know the US as his home land. I on the other hand consider both the US and Vietnam to be my home land. To get back to my point, on the views that Kyle have ranging from the white guy attitudes in Vietnam, the different of girls from the US to girl from Vietnam and many other observation in this blog is very true but not ALWAYS true. Many of the thing Kyle wrote I whole heatedly agree with, but some of his observation I found to be isolated incident and honestly disagree with. I am sorry to go off topic again, getting back to inferior complex. What I actually wanted to express is sometime living in the US makes me felt like I am just a silence citizen. The Asian minority sector that affected by Confucius teaching are the model minority. This is due to its characteristic of obedience, blend into the masses and conforming to the ruling class. Furthermore , US culture is bias toward whites. There is no such thing as racial equality in the US or in the whole world. The majority race of a country dictate what its country policy and culture.
I guess this is wat we are going to see in ur up coming videos? Cool pics.
ReplyDeleteBaller!
ReplyDeleteI looked up "khmer soldier" in google image to compare the images and the results were not surprising
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI have followed your blog since the beginning. I have admitted that I agree with most of your writting and observation in your own life. I find many of incidents and though that you have experiences. I am a VK as Viet Nam had categorized us oversea Vietnamese American. I close to mid 50'. Born and raised in Viet Nam for 15 years. Finish high school and college in the US and went on to work and got assimilated into the America main stream society. Enough about myself, I just wanted to offer an observation. You strike as an American with a Vietnamese inferiority complex. This comment will need clarify later. I just wanted to writting whats on my mind at this moment. I'm not a good communicator. My profession and formal training is science. I wanted to apolozied to you and anyone happen to read this comment due to my subpar English skill. BTY, I think I also have the American Vietnam complex. Have a nice day.
WTF
Deletehhahahaha...
Deleteuhhhh wtf..nice story bro LOLOLOL
I had no idea "trucker" is a science related profession nowaday. You're very amusing sir.
Deletehahaha....maybe he builds a truck...
DeleteWtf did I just read???
DeleteInferior complex towards American? You mean Caucasian? hmm....what is wrong with you SIR?
ReplyDeleteIt can definitely happen. I get it sometimes. Kind of like you don't fit in too.
DeleteA lot of Vietnamese Americans who live in areas with a high concentration of Vietnamese population (like Houston or Bolsa) tend to not fit in very well with the mainstream society. Most of their friends are Vietnamese; Their English is subpar; They listen to Vietnamese music and watch Vietnamese (or Korean movies); ect. You get the picture. Thus, they developed what Mr Trucker referred to as "Vietnamese inferiority complex"; To elaborate, everything "American" is good and "Vietnamese" is bad. English is preferred over Vietnamese, even both as fluent in Vietnamese. Vietnamese are the only people who are ashamed of the heavy accented English of other Vietnamese who are not native speakers; I have never met a Chinese or Indian or any other nonnative speaker who feel so strongly about the heavy accent of their own people. I can go on, but y'all get the picture. Stop making fun of Mr Trucker because if you do, you are in denial.
Deleteare you VietTrucker and just defending yourself?
DeleteThat anonymous isn't VietTrucker. His written english is much better than VietTrucker, no offence. Seems like for a lot of VK's that grew up in Vietnam at a young age still don't seem to grasp the English language so well, even if they lived longer in an English speaking country afterwards.
DeleteAnyways, on the topic of Viet inferiority complex, I think it doesn't necessarily affect just those the anon stated above. It can stem from the realization of the differences, the inequality and the benefits of being a white person in a white world. Being/looking different to the majority can istantly make you feel like you don't belong too and it feeds the complex. If you have high self esteem and confidence you might be able to avoid it. Even though I grew up in an english speaking country and can communicate just like a white person, the differences just in looks alone affects me at times and I don't feel like I belong.
i was born in vn but i was raised in canada and i have been married to a white canadian lady.we have 2 kids.i look much more westernize than kyle but the white people here still see me as a viet boy and i accept it.i think that all the viet boyz who were raised in the us like kyle or john have an inferior complex becuz the white people dont let them intergrate in their society so they have to prove to the fobish
ReplyDeletehell, yeah, bud, you've nailed it. I was born and raised in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. No offense to Kyle, but, I'm a lot more "mainstream" than him, both in look and in attitude. For example, I'm 6'2, 205, all muscle and could barely speak a word of Vietnamese until I was 15 (that was when my parents took me to Viet Nam with them for the first time). In college, other Vietnamese students often referred to me as "banana". You get the picture. Yet, sometimes, I feel like an outsider looking in. As I grow older, I realize that white people (except for those who know me and are my friends) will always see me as foreign and inscrutable. Now, living in the Bay Area, I often notice the need of Vietnamese people to prove that they are not fobish. At first, I failed to see the point in all of this; however, upon much reflection, I finally realize that if a person who seems to "fit in" so well, like me, can feel alienated, at times, then, those who don't fit in, must feel the need to prove otherwise to their newly arrived compatriots. Thus, feeding the inferiority complex that those above have already mentioned. A very interesting subject.
Deleteall the little saigonese included kyle have inferior complex becuz they can intergate in the real american society...
Deletekyle is a ramboooo
ReplyDeletedo you have inferior complex kyle?
ReplyDeleteHolyshit!!! A Mexican druglord.
ReplyDelete“We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!”
ReplyDeleteEdsger Wybe Dijkstra (November 5, 1930 – August 6, 2002) was a Dutch computer scientist, and winner of the 1972 Turing Award.
Hi,
I appreciate anonz defended me and explained to the reactions toward my opinion. Anonymous February 7, 2013 at 10:01 AM also had kinds words to me and I thank you. My English writing skill is weak and needs polish. I apologize that my writing are not up to the English standard of this blog. I am not afraid to express my honest opinions and my life experiences. The way I write may come across unconventional due to my cross cultures up bringing. Please take that into consideration when you read my comments. I want to thank Kyle for the chance to express my opinion in his forum.
Safari web browser and Apple IOS can behave sub par while editing texts. On the other hand, I am not use to to Safari interaction capabilities and that is my fault. What I wanted to write to Kyle was I found many incidents that you have encountered in Vietnam seem familiar to my own experiences. It took me nearly a dozen tries editing. I got frustrated gave up and just posted comments that's laughable. I am not trying to give an excuse. I was careless at that time. I figured I will try to explain the illogical comments later. I was using an Ipad at a coffee shop.
My formal education was in the science field. I hold a BS degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from University of Texas Arlington. I have worked for twenty plus years in corporate America. It has never been appealing to me to work for someone other than my self. To me a couple weeks of vacation per year sometime is not enough. The requirements of taking and saving vacation according to corporate policy suck. I like to a take 6 months to a year off during my productive adults life to travel and explore the world. I don’t do that every year. I just wanted to do it at least once in my prime adult time. I am not a demanding person. I recall that during my time working for corporate America there were consecutive years that I did not take a single day of vacation. I saved the vacation days for later time. Over two weeks vacation while being employ by a corporation is possible. I have taken couple while still employ in the corporate world. Still the standard practice is you don’t go for a 6 months long vacation. Your job don’t stand around for you while you go off all over the world vacationing. As you can see I can not travel extensively and expect to keep my job.
ReplyDeleteI was working as a firmware engineer for a defense contractor. No thing special about my job but it was very satisfactory to me at the time. It provided me with many difficult challenges. A firmware engineer is as software engineer that writes programs in a low level language. The sole purpose of firmware is to provide software with functions that gives direct commands to the computer hardware. For example with today computing it is similar to a driver for a printer. Working as a software engineer requires independent problem solving skill. Software engineers write code then debug his own code. During the programming process it is up to a software engineer to finish his own program. A computer program is just a step by step instruction manual aim perform very simple task. A program that solve complicate problems are just many small program working together logically to produce result. A firmware engineer is a software engineer that writes code in high level language such as C or Assembly. The different firmware to software is during test and debug firmware may be debug in machine language. All higher level languages use a special program call compiler to translate a program to machine language. Firmware engineer use a different compiler call cross-compiler. This compiler take high level language such as C, C++ translate directly to the computer assembly language and machine instruction. This help you debug your program in real time using machine instruction. In the years that I worked as a firmware engineer I learned a lot about the heart and core of a computer system. In school they can make you read, learn, and solve problems that are taken directly from the real word. Nevertheless, nothing beat actual work experiences. I found that the most profound way to have knowledge is to gain knowledge from my own corrected mistake.
I was happy with my job and I excelled at work. After first 5 months of diligent my effort pay off I finished a firmware project ahead of schedule. I had to do it because the project was under constant pressure from managements. When it was given to me to finish all I had was 6 months. The project was already 18 months behind. The reason was the previous engineer quit in the middle of the project. He got a better paying job at a competitor. After my firmware went into production, to shows appreciation from management. I got a 2K out of cycle raise. My boss toll me I deserved it because I worked my butt of to deliver the product. I really appreciated and expressed my gratitude toward him.
ReplyDeleteEven though I have a good normal professional job and was enjoying my life. I felt stuck just like most everyone else that holds corporate job. I want to have absolute freedom to work and play whenever I desire. Working for someone else I will not have total freedom to manage my time. I made a decision to my job moved to California to start my own business. After many difficult years of labor and a hand full of experiment on different type of business. I finally found a business that give me freedom to do what I want and requires minimal supervision. I own a a small owner/operator trucking company. Thus VietTrucker is my login name.
As for having a Vietnamese Inferior complex looking back may be I should not have put it quite like that. My though at the time was Kyle being somewhat similar to me in that he was raised in a multi culture household. I am a naturalized US citizen and got assimilated by choice. Kyle on the other hand is American Born Vietnamese (ABV), his parents may be first generation American and raised Kyle with an Asian culture and values. Our view may be similar in many life situations especially when it involved people from Vietnam. Being ABV and raised in California Kyle may not have experienced United States as I have. To clarify my statement, I have lived extensively in Texas, California and the Midwestern US. I have travel and worked in 38 states in the US. I am not claiming that having experience living and working in those state make me an expert. All I am saying is that every state has their own unique citizen. Base on my own experience the citizen of each state in the US dislike the citizen from other states. California, Texas are two states that are ridicule by just about everyone in the US and I happen to have lived in both of them. I know that Kyle is an American and I am a naturalized American. Kyle only know the US as his home land. I on the other hand consider both the US and Vietnam to be my home land. To get back to my point, on the views that Kyle have ranging from the white guy attitudes in Vietnam, the different of girls from the US to girl from Vietnam and many other observation in this blog is very true but not ALWAYS true. Many of the thing Kyle wrote I whole heatedly agree with, but some of his observation I found to be isolated incident and honestly disagree with.
I am sorry to go off topic again, getting back to inferior complex. What I actually wanted to express is sometime living in the US makes me felt like I am just a silence citizen. The Asian minority sector that affected by Confucius teaching are the model minority. This is due to its characteristic of obedience, blend into the masses and conforming to the ruling class. Furthermore , US culture is bias toward whites. There is no such thing as racial equality in the US or in the whole world. The majority race of a country dictate what its country policy and culture.