American culture values individualism. An Individual is a
center of the universal circle with spinning communities to the self, such as
family, extended family, neighbors, friends, learning environment, religious
organizations, and workplaces. The widespread and diverse loops tangle with one
another to build a solid, silky cocoon to conceive and develop a human identity,
to shield the individual, and decide the person’s fate. The relationship
between a person and a community is the reciprocal status: individuals form a
community; a community nurtures individuals as a self-center.
Family is the
closest community that a human naturally attaches to at first. Researchers say
that a fetus feels and interacts with the mother and the people surrounding her.
The mother’s emotions and temperament transmit to the unborn baby. Music and
poetry are staples of Vietnamese culture.
The rhyming verses calmed me down, so I did not hit my mother’s belly
from within. The lullabies called me to leave my mother’s womb to crawl the
Earth in order to participate in our family’s bookish worships and to practice
the Vietnamese social rites. The melodies cradled and carried me to Lala Land. The
bookshelves nurtured my creativity, fed my hungry caterpillar mind, and sowed
the seeds of charisma. The charisma gradually sprouted, grew, and harvested a ripened
literary fruit.
The hurricane
of liberty whirled me and the aesthetic fruit to the United States and dropped
us on the dry Rocky Mountains in California. The artistry fruit hit the rock
and cracked it down into many pieces. Day by day, I watered my writing passion
with rainy tears, fertilized it with hardships. The American society patiently
cultivated the promised tree with education and kindness. I absorbed the Western
culture and the American prominent values: independence and individualism. I
solely split the Vietnamese cultural tree, but deep down in my uttermost
veiling the Vietnamese value: an orientation toward family.
Individuals
and communities build the concrete bond that relies on each other. Individuals
engage with communities to develop physical needs, to strengthen social skills,
to regulate emotional competency, and to stimulate potential. Communities need
individuals to exist and to structure social laws, morality, and cultural
trends.
--San Jose: Friday, October 31, 2014
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