Where you from?
This should come as no surprise. Internationally, George W. Bush is not a popular character, but despite our concerns everyone we’ve met is able to distinguish between Americans and the American government, at least long enough to extract our tourist dollars.
We have been in Vietnam for a week. It is here, like everywhere, that anyone who knows any English will ask “Where you from?” It is here, unlike most countries, where we are actually worried about the response. No one mentions Bush.
The cafe owner gushes to us about his doctor son living in the United States. The cyclo driver reminisces about his time as a U.S. airforce mechanic before becoming an illegal alien in his own country for the past 30 years. The successful refugee living in America comes back to visit his extended family and chats with us about how much safer Vietnam is now than 5 years ago for us and for him. We haven’t met the North Vietnamese soldier who killed American citizens. We haven’t met the amputee whose village was bombed by us. Everytime we hear “Where you from?” in Vietnam, we worry that we might.
The excessively biased propaganda that the “American War” was an “imperialistic scheme to occupy Vietnam” makes us believe that an unwelcome response is not far off.
Although we are not always happy with the choices our government has made and seeing the results of war is never easy, we still and will always say we are from the United States. Not only do we feel we’re lucky to have been born in the United States, we feel proud of the ideals our country stands on and the good we’ve managed to accomplish in the world.
Tags: Vietnam
Adam
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