{"id":10433,"date":"2016-04-08T22:01:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T06:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/?p=10433"},"modified":"2020-07-01T09:04:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T17:04:08","slug":"tien-d-bunny-nguyen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/tien-d-bunny-nguyen\/","title":{"rendered":"Tien D (Bunny) Nguyen"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stories of the War<\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\nDid you go to middle school and high school in Vietnam?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nYes, I did, but I actually went to an American international school, so it\u2019s a bit different from the public Vietnamese schools.<\/p>\nHow is it different?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nFor the international school over there, they don\u2019t really teach much about the Vietnamese culture or the Vietnamese subjects, such as math or literature or physics in the way related to the Vietnamese way of teaching. The school system and the grading system is also influenced a lot by the American way of teaching.<\/p>\nWhen you learn about the Vietnam War in your history classes in the international school, do you think it was more from a Vietnamese perspective or a western perspective?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWell, we have a Vietnamese history class, but it\u2019s really general. We also learn the Vietnamese perspective of the war, but everything is really general.<\/p>\nDo you think you learned more about the Vietnam War from school education or from your family\u2019s own past experiences?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI learned more about the Vietnam War from my family, because they actually were in the war. They told me a lot of stories about it, but I don\u2019t really learn a lot about the Vietnam War in textbooks or from my professors or from school. That\u2019s just me, personally.<\/p>\nWhat kinds of experiences did your family tell you about the Vietnam War? And what was your reaction?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nMy mother and my grandparents were actually in the war. My grandmother was a stay-home housewife, but she was supporting my grandfather when he was a soldier on the field. He was one of the people who helped one of the generals to write down all the important information for the Vietnam side. For my mother, she was an on-location soldier, so she was holding guns and everything.<\/p>\nWhat are your feelings on the fact that your mother and your grandparents had to go through something as momentous as a war, something that seems so farfetched from your own life?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m very lucky that I don\u2019t have to experience war, but my parents say that it\u2019s really intense. It\u2019s something that you don\u2019t want to go through. My grandfather and grandmother told me that war is something that just destroys you emotionally and physically, so I\u2019m really lucky that I don\u2019t have to go through that, but it\u2019s kind of great to have people who tell you stories about it, so you know what happened in the past so you don\u2019t repeat it in the future.<\/p>\nWould you like to share some of the stories that your family members told you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI heard one story from my mom. She told me there was one time when she was on location with her guns and everything, and they were telling people in groups to go hide in one of the locations they set up for people to hide in. There were two groups, one group went to the A location and the other one went to the B location. My mother was really little, and she tried to go to the A location, because she heard that it was safer, but when she reached the A location, they said there was no more room for her, so she had to run to the other location and the airplanes were everywhere up there, and they were bombing. When my mother finally got to the B location to hide for safety, she heard a \u201cBOOM\u201d. When they finally get up and get out of the hiding location, the location A is totally bombed. Everyone in there is gone, you don\u2019t even see bodies, everything is just gone. It was a pretty amazing story for my mother, because if she went there, she could have died.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s another story. When she was little, whenever she went towards a different village, there would be hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies on the sidewalk. Because she was little, she didn\u2019t know, so she would go and just look at it. There was blood everywhere, and a bunch of bodies stacked on each other. My grandmother always had to go out and drag my mother in because she didn\u2019t want my mother to get sick from the dead bodies. There was so many dead people that they don\u2019t even have time to bury them, so even when you hear it, it\u2019s just horrible, so imagine actually seeing it.<\/p>\n<h3>Aftermath of the War<\/strong><\/h3>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QNfV41M3NNc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\nWere your mother or your grandparents traumatized by the war, or changed as a result of the war?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWell luckily, I didn\u2019t lose any family members for the war, but my mother said that because of the war, all of my family members became stronger in a way, they know how to protect their family. I think it\u2019s a good thing for that aspect, but I don\u2019t think being in a war is a great experience. Whenever you think of it, it\u2019s not a good experience to think about. I asked my mom, \u201cHow it\u2019s like to be in a war?\u201d and she\u2019s like, \u201cYou don\u2019t want to even think about it\u201d because it\u2019s so horrible. You can die anytime. When you are on location and people are fighting each other, you see guns and bullets on the field, it\u2019s beautiful in a way because there\u2019s just so many bullets going across each other, it\u2019s just so crazy.<\/p>\nWere there any stories that you heard of about the consequences of the war?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nIt\u2019s not directly about my family, but since in Vietnam I work close to the entertainment industry, we go to charity events. Most of the time we come across people\u2019s families that were affected by the war. One of them was \u201corange disease\u201d which comes from the bombs of the Americans, and its effect carries through generations. It makes them suffer from Down syndrome, and a lot of people are still suffering from that. They are getting support from the government, but even if you get support from the government, it\u2019s just money, but they are physically suffering from those diseases, so it\u2019s really sad.<\/p>\n<h3>Moving to America<\/strong><\/h3>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u2itGbbQdZ8?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\nDid your family come to America because of negative experiences during the Vietnam War?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nFor my family it\u2019s kind of the opposite because we were for privileged in Vietnam, because we were the people who stood for the Vietnamese people during the war, and we won, so after the war, we get privileges from the government, so over there it\u2019s better for us, but my mother loves the weather here, so she came here! However, I know a lot of stories that people who immigrated here don\u2019t like Vietnam at all. Whenever you mention Vietnam or ask \u201cDo you want to go back to Vietnam?\u201d they would say no, because during the war, they supported the Americans, so that\u2019s why when we won the war, the government took everything away from them, all of the privileges they got when they were supporting the Americans. There\u2019s no bad and good during war, it\u2019s just the way it is. They got everything taken away from them, so that\u2019s why they came to America and why they don\u2019t like Vietnam.<\/p>\nAfter you came to America, how did you feel on the opinions on the Vietnam War from the American friends around you?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWhen I say I\u2019m Vietnamese, there\u2019s two things people talk to me about. One, do you speak French? I\u2019m like, no. So, do you know about the Vietnam War? I\u2019m like, yeah, my family was in it but I was not in it, because, you know, I\u2019m twenty. The interesting thing is, for different people they have different opinions on the war and different experiences of the war. Some people, when they hear I\u2019m Vietnamese, it seems like a bad memory for them, something that affiliated with the war and Vietnam. Some people are like, we\u2019re sorry we came to your country. Others were like, oh, we were trying to help you, so we came there, but it didn\u2019t work out, so we left. There\u2019s different stories about the war, and it\u2019s interesting to hear, because there\u2019s no true story, you don\u2019t really know what\u2019s true and what\u2019s not. I hear a lot about it, I think they know more about the war than I do, even though they are not Vietnamese.<\/p>\nHave your family\u2019s impression on Americans changed throughout the years?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWhen I was little, they thought Americans as being close-minded, because that how they saw the Americans when they were in Vietnam during the war. They thought Americans are strong, and they are trying to take our country away, but now, the way they see Americans are different. They\u2019re like, they\u2019re just friendly people, and I think that one of the reasons my mother decided to immigrate to America, because their lifestyle matches to my family\u2019s style.<\/p>\nDid your family ever hold a hatred towards America, and has it changed now?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nMy grandparents recently passed away, but when I got a chance to talk to them about that, they didn\u2019t mention anything about hate. They mentioned about what happened more, how everyone was scared, they didn\u2019t really mention anything about hate.<\/p>\n<h3>War in the Media<\/strong><\/h3>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vg0OAPshaBw?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\nHave you been to any exhibitions or museums dedicated to the Vietnam War?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been to the museum where they have airplanes from the war, and I\u2019ve been to the cemetery for the soldiers who were in the Vietnam War. When I went to the museum, it felt kind of strange, because you\u2019re seeing these things that were actually in the war, you just feel that it must have been intense. You see helicopters, parts of bombs, it\u2019s really crazy. When I went to the cemetery, it was sad in a way, but I also feel very grateful to the people who sacrificed their life to protect ours.<\/p>\nDid you ever come across some sort of western media that portrayed Vietnamese in a way you found uncomfortable?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI saw this in the 201 cinema history class. Most of the time when I see movies or anything that has any mentioning of the Vietnam War, they just use the Vietnam War as a time period in history instead of portraying it, but there was one movie that I watched, I forgot the name, but there was a scene between two American people where they try to make money, so they try to create a play where they were playing the American people and the Vietnamese people. The American person who portrayed the Vietnamese had a performance that was over exaggerated. For some reason, I felt kind of offended by that, because they were not speaking in Vietnamese, they were making very high-pitched noises, and dressed in costumes that looked ridiculous, and that\u2019s the only movie I found to be offensive to the Vietnamese culture, because that\u2019s not how we look like and how we sound like. The way the person runs in that film just makes Vietnamese people seem to be always afraid, but that\u2019s not true, because we won the war, right, so we did something right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,10,8],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pflUby-2Ih","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10433"}],"version-history":[{"count":97,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12516,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions\/12516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherwarmemorial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}