Saigon @ Saigon @quokk.au

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17

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1 mo. ago

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Tough one. Vietnamese is definitely a unique language for me, it's the one I spoke at home growing up, with my parents, with my family. Not sure about writing a song or a poem however, for that it might not be the best, as my vocabulary can be a bit limited sometimes.

But yeah, in a family setting, it's definitely the one, and hearing Vietnamese randomly from time to time makes me happy instantly.

Hey,

I was thinking about this earlier, thank you for making this post.

I had a lot of the same questions in my mid-20s. I had graduated university, started working, made some money, so I could afford going back to Vietnam two times for around a month each time. It was great. Being in a place where everyone looks like you, speaks the language you speak at home, eats the food you eat at home. It's a very unique experience, only immigrants understand what it is.

I liked it so much I even considered living in Vietnam for a few years. I started looking at visas, jobs, etc. I had a few leads. Then COVID happened and stopped all of that. A few years passed.

Post-COVID, I was almost 30, and decided that being closer to my family and friends in Europe was more important than living in Vietnam. I still moved to a much bigger city to have a more multicultural environment, met my girlfriend there, we've been together for a few years now, we are happy together.

She's not Vietnamese, and that's fine. I came to terms with the idea of marrying a second generation Vietnamese when I decided to stay in Europe. It's a numbers game in the end, and the Vietnamese population is just not large enough in Europe for it to happen. Not really something I can change at my level, and I'm happy with that anyway. I still speak Vietnamese to my parents, I visit them every few months. They are aging, and they are also happier to have me in Europe rather that all the way over there in Vietnam.

The whole thing is terrifying.

Impressive level of Vietnamese, that's the result of years of practice.

It definitely depends on your relationships with your parents. I have a good one with mine, and I have a small altar with my grandparents in my home, but if I had a bad relationship with them it would probably not be a thing.

Chào bạn!

Wow, thật tuyệt khi được gặp một người "thế hệ thứ hai Việt Nam" và có thể nói tiếng Việt!

Gặp lại sau nhé, tôi chắc chắn chúng ta sẽ có nhiều điều để nói chuyện!

Unexpected RRRrrrr clip ha ha

Thank you for sharing!

Yes, the coffee/pizza ordering can be quite wild sometimes ha ha.

Indeed, things are better now than 20 years ago for sure!

Yeah I remember he got attacked for that. Quite sad to see

Thank you for sharing

Thank you for being here!

Bánh hỏi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_h%E1%BB%8Fi

It's a Vietnamese type of very thin vermicelli. What I specifically like about them is that they are so thin they can be "boiled" just in a few minutes of water boiled in an electric kettle, no need to actually cook them in a pan. Yes, I am lazy ha ha

I posted this community on !newcommunities@lemmy.world and !communitypromo@lemmy.ca , I'll wait for a few more people to subscribe to it before starting posting. Should be okay in a few days.

Thank you for the post!

Short introduction on my side: 2nd generation Vietnamese, my parents left Vietnam in the 80s due to the war and its aftermath. Saigon, my username, is the former name of the capital of South Vietnam, renamed Ho-Chi-Minh city after the war.

Born and raised in Europe.

Happy to be here, even if the activity is not that high, I'm sure it will still be a nice place to chat!

Definitely. I always speak Vietnamese with my parents at home, because that's their mother tongue and it just feels much closer than speaking French.

Growing up as an immigrant is a unique experience, at one point one of my previous girlfriends said "you should stop with your immigrant things". I knew it was over (for other reasons too, but that was one of them)

My current partner also grew up abroad, so she knows what that is like to be a foreigner in another country. We also live in a country where none of us are locals. But we're both fine with that, because we know how it is.

It probably depends on which ones are the two countries, in your case it's even more complex as you seem to support Taiwan.

I'm second generation Vietnamese, and while I like the Vietnamese language and culture, I'm still closer to the country where I was born, grew up and spent basically my whole life.

Also Vietnam being a one party state that my parents left doesn't really encourages me to fight for it.

That's harsh, sorry to hear...

Not everybody knows English, I've been to the Dutch countryside where quite a few people aren't comfortable speaking English. And even if they were, it's not their native language, so if you never speak you will always be less integrated.

Denmark and the other Nordics are a bit in the same situation, of course people know English there, but not knowing the local language is still frowned upon.

Yeah, that's definitely a valid concern x)