Cultural Perspective In The Trip Back By Robert Olen Butler

The author, Tim O'Brien, is writing about an experience of a tour in the Vietnam conflict. This short story deals with inner conflicts of some individual soldiers and how they chose to deal with the realities of the Vietnam conflict, each in their own individual way as men, as soldiers.

Less than a page later, O’Brien writes about a memory involving Jimmy and Martha at a movie theatre. He recalls the movie they saw, what happened between them, and what he wishes would have happened as well. The more they occur, these flashbacks serve as a contrast acknowledging that the country of Vietnam is not the only thing that is war-torn.

The streets of Ho Chi Minh City are beautiful around the summer time, but my favorite city was Huế, the city of cheap eats. My siblings and I have never been to Vietnam before, so it was an experience for all of us. As we were sitting down in a restaurant, looking at the menu, an old lady came up to us to take our order. My mother used to order for my brothers, so she ordered for them. When the lady looked at me, waiting for me to give her my order, all I could do was point at the picture on the menu and give her a smile. The look on her face was clear displeased. “She was born in America. She doesn’t know Vietnamese,” my father quickly told her, apologizing for my lack of knowledge. I felt embarrassed, lowering my head whenever she came near us. It was not my fault that I did not know my native language, but it was not my fault entirely for being able to learn it all these

The Time in Between by David Bergen tries to show a different kind of cultural understand than is usually shown within the Vietnam war narrative. Bergen tries to highlight the cultural similarities instead of the cultural differences, where there is a sense of cultural appreciation. During the Vietnam war there has often been a stigmatization towards the Vietnamese that associates them as the enemy, they are seen as the opposing other. There is often an Eurocentric view of the Vietnam war that tells the story of the white male American solider and very rarely has another perspective been represented through media and literature. The attempt to acknowledge the war from the other perspective through the Vietnamese solider is used in The Time in Between. The trauma that is often associated with the Vietnam war is seen through the lens of the white male solider, often forgetting the the symptoms of trauma were experienced by both sides. The trauma from the war becomes a bridge between the two cultures and subverts the stereotypes of the Vietnamese as being the cultural “others”.

Hmong families, like the Lees in the novel “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” have been immigrating to the United States since the end of the Vietnam War. The majority of the Hmong living in the U.S. are now located in specific cities and regions of California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (Lee and Green 2010). The Lee family moved to the Merced, California in 1980 and has had to adapt to life in a new host country (Fadiman 1997). Acculturation is used to describe how the culture of immigrants changes over time as they adapt to living in a new country (Vang 2013). Fadiman’s depiction of Nao Kao and Foua Lee’s life Merced indicates the couple resisted shedding any aspects of their culture in favor of Western culture, which is typical of first generation Hmong living in the United States. This paper will discuss why Hmong families left Laos, the findings of two acculturation studies of Hmong living in the United States, and a discussion of possible reason(s) why it has been difficult for first generation Hmong like Nao Kao and Foua to adapt to life in the United States.

In Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, Tim O'Brien gives a dynamic example of how even the deep roots of ones culture can be modified. The focus is on the young lady, whose boyfriend manages to have her shipped over to Vietnam from the U.S. She is then thrown into a completely foreign culture that thousands of American GI's were experiencing. This change in culture affected the strongest and most skilled of America's ground troops. The affects on a civilian are almost unfathomable.

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

Jack’s predicament with finding himself being stuck between his original lifestyle and new desire to fit in was cleverly established in the story, drawing my sympathy, as I have also personally experienced this struggle. In the middle of the story when Jack began to realize that his Chinese life was different from others’, he narrated, “Mom learned to cook American style. I played video games and studied French” (4). These succinct sentences stood out, as the surrounding

In her essay written as a travel journalist, The Old Man Isn’t There Anymore, American journalist Kellie Schmidt does a remarkable job entertaining readers with the awkwardness of her relationship with her Shanghainese neighbors, and describing a subsequent Chinese funeral. The author explains her neighbor’s hesitancy towards having a friendship with her in the shared three story house she had lived in four a year. After she observes some of her neighbors crying in the hallway, she phones her cleaning lady and learns an old man in the house, who she has believed has always said hello to her, has died. In her continued attempt to be neighborly, Kellie takes flowers to the family of her deceased neighbor; while there, she was invited to the

Although she knows that change is bound to occur in her family, she did not know it would happen so abruptly. With the influence of Rosa, Bich begins to develop a feeling that she is part of the US now, she still remains connected to the Vietnamese culture. The Saigon Market “became the epicenter of our lives, splitting our existence between two cultures,” Bich explained (Nguyen 34). After all, despite all of the changes Rosa has influenced in the Nguyen household, Rosa still encourages Bich and Anh to keep her Vietnamese roots alive.

In the text she said, “I never wanted to tell anyone about my family’s suspicions of writer because it would be misunderstood as a lack of familial support, as suggestion of domineering family, another nod affirming the tired Asian stereotype of a cold, strict family.” She was in conflict to write what she wanted to say because of these stereotypes she wanted to avoid. Also, she felt she didn’t have a voice because of where she comes from. Minh-Ha found her voice when she became appreciate of her heritage. In the text she said, “My voice is a tool, an heirloom, perhaps, that was handed down way before time began.

In his business life, Fong See was very successful and he dressed like a business man in his three pieces tailored suits like most successful American business men did. Both he and Letticie had an eye for Chinese antiques. He sold antiques to American people and even rented out pieces of Chinese furniture to film studios for movies. His antiques is what made him wealthy and in return he was accepted by American society. American’s accepting a non-American into their society was unheard of at that time, however because Fong See became wealthy, he used that to his advantage. The things he did in business and publically was all done, so that American society would accept him and embrace him as if he was one of their own. Fong See would make trips to China to buy Chinese

He recalls on the time when a woman saved him; after surviving a bombing, he could not find her again. The man tried to retrace his steps to the spot that he had collapsed at in front of her house, but he is unsuccessful. The man is distraught and "...stalked back and forth on that street, brooding over my failure", hoping that he will miraculously remember the woman's house. The man is obviously upset about not being able to recognize her home because he tells the reader that "after the war, on my rare visits to Hanoi, I would always return to the same street". He struggles with the conflict of not recalling the location of her house, therefore, losing her. The man cannot let go of her memory; he clings on to "this remote, alien city, with which I have had no intimacy" . He could no longer trace back his steps to the exact point because "..the trolley, which was my only clue, was gone..". The Vietnamese man, after having survived a bombing because the woman "wearing those clogs, she couldn't run", must've believed that he was destined to be with her. Clinging on to that possibility of being meant to be with the woman, he was hopeful when he followed the trolley track. The man's wishes of returning to the woman who helped him is diminished because the reference points of the street- that he used to track down where her house was-were no longer

After we reached Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s capital, we were greeted by relatives at the airport. The neon lights, humidity, motorcycles, traffic, and the smell of petroleum brought me back to my second experience in Vietnam when I was just 5 years old. I felt a rush of nostalgia as we passed through houses, restaurants, and stores of the

As the matter of fact, the racial diversity in the world is increasing day by day. However, people just need to find out how to live comfortably with other of different history’s background. It is true that the process to overcome the past between nations and the discrimination between races takes an amount of time. Nevertheless, people nowadays are opening a new chapter of life. In reality, people all over the world now do not think about the painful past, the war or whatsoever anymore; instead, they start to shake hand, make business or lifting embargoes which last decades. In the essay, “Vietnamese Youths No Longer Look Homeward” which was written by Nancy Wride focuses and reflects on young Vietnamese