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Hello, from Vietnam to the world, and to
the University of the Pacific,
here at Stockton, California.
I was born in Vietnam, and grew up in
Vietnam, and I lived many years in Europe.
I came back home during the war. I've been
a teacher, a diplomat, an elected
representative, and today, I'm a
social, cultural, and educational
entrepreneur. I define myself as
passionately Vietnamese, creatively
individual, and thoughtfully global.
In a sense, Vietnam's journey is my
journey. Its striving to its place
into the sun, and how I relate to it.
How I contribute and impact on it
moves me and makes me.
In this intertwined journey, I have
come to the conclusion that the more
globalised our world becomes, the more we
need to be anchored in our nationhood,
our culture, and our specific, individual
identity. We need to navigate this
triangle of self, nation, and the world,
creatively, in our own specific way,
if we are to find peace and fulfillment.
Personally, I don't believe in the notion
of the "pure" global citizen; one who
would drift about, breeze in and out
and above nations and communities,
not belonging anywhere. Not- not
committed to any constituency
smaller than the broader world.
But you and me know that for the
foreseeable future, people will keep
asking, "Where are you from?" Now,
let's ask ourselves, "What are Vietnam
and the Vietnamese known for?"
I believe that the defining strength of
the Vietnamese nation is our enduring
humanity and identity through the worst
ordeals and trials.
Wars tend to dehumanise. Vietnam has
suffered massive physical destruction
and immense loss of life. Successive
wars, however, have failed to dehumanise
the Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese Nation emerged from
wars, retaining their humanity, unshackled
by resentment and hatred, bent on
moving on. You just have to look at faces
of Vietnamese, old and young, soon after
the war. Many visitors to Vietnam,
including U.S. veterans who were stationed
in Vietnam before, cannot feel but be
surprised at the lack of resentment
towards Americans, including from our own
veterans. And the same attitude applied
to French veterans. And this is the
natural disposition of the Vietnamese
people that could never be detected by any
government. The Vietnamese fight hard for
what they treasure above all. Which is
their independence and identity. But once
the fight is over, they look forward, and
don't let resentment drive them.
A Korean-American professor once observed
to me: "I don't know how you, the
Vietnamese do it - to reconcile so fast
with the Americans. We - the Koreans,
and the Chinese on the one hand, and
the Japanese on the other - at times,
the hurt and the anger of the past still
haunts us. Those of you old enough may
remember the tragedy of Mỹ Lai,
a village in central Vietnam where, back
in 1968, a U.S. platoon killed more
than 500 unarmed villagers -
all of them women,
children, and old men. But on that fateful
day, three U.S. soldiers on a helicopter
happened to fly into the area, and they
took it upon themselves to save two young
villagers - two young women - by whisking
them away to safety. There is a
documentary by filmmaker
Trần Văn Thủy, called "The Sound of Violin
in Mỹ Lai". It shows the return to Mỹ Lai
several decades later by captain Thompson,
one of the three soldiers on that heli-
copter. And the deeply emotional moment
when he meets again the two women he had
saved. The women, now in middle-age,
weep, and embrace him in gratitude for
having saved their lives. The meaningful-
ness of this moment is that the horror and
grief of Mỹ Lai did not totally engulf
these women. There was enough emotional
empathy and maturity for them to make the
distinction between those who had killed
the innocents and the defenseless, and
those brave men of conscience who did the
right thing, during the-
amidst the madness of that
darkest day. Captain Thompson and his
comrades did not let war dehumanise them.
And the two women villagers emerged from
the tragedy still able to discern right
from wrong. To remain unembedded,
unhateful in a world still humane. It is
the singular legacy of openness of heart
and soul that we Vietnamese, from inside
and outside Vietnam, must treasure and
uphold. I'd like now to ask, "what is it
that the Vietnamese are known for?"
I would say: their fortitude, their
resilience, their
resourcefulness, their adaptability.
"Tomorrow is another day." These words of
Scarlet O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind"
hold particular resonance
with the Vietnamese psyche. Post-war
Vietnam is a living testimony to this. Let
me tell you the story of Jerry Sternin.
Jerry Sternin was the country director of
Save the Children U.S. in Vietnam. One
day, he said something puzzling to me. He
said, "I've never had to feel pity for
anyone in Vietnam." Of course, I asked
him, "What do you mean?" And here is his
answer: "I've worked in many poor
countries of the developing world. There
still are, in Vietnam, pockets of poverty
comparable to, say, Bangladesh. But in
the most destitute corners of Vietnam,
I've never had to feel pity for the old
villagers that I met because, looking at
them, there was no sense of despair, of
fatalistic resignation of the sense of
giving up. Instead, you could read the
quiet resolve that they would continue
to strive for a better future - if not
for themselves, then for their children
and grandchildren." This is the fortitude,
the resilience, the ability to look ahead
and adapt. In other words, the indomitable
character that I've been speaking of. The
Vietnamese diaspora on all continents
equally show this remarkable ability to
overcome, rise, and excel, in different
places, in diverse circumstances,
particularly the power of education.
Now, what lies ahead? What challenges lie
ahead for Vietnam and the Vietnamese?
During the war, greed - this basic human
instinct - was naturally muted by deeper
and more powerful drivers of our actions.
Today, in peace and plenty, we are faced-
we, the Vietnamese, we are faced with a
threat of greed, unleashed, shameless. And
this is an extential threat to our legacy
and identity. During the war, we were
grounded in our local and national
reality, no matter how harsh. Today, as we
move into the world, as we are more of
the world, we still need, in fact, more
than ever, to nurture our roots; our sense
of belonging to specific place, community,
nation. Culture dies hard. "Culture is
what is left when you have
lost everything," as the French writer
says. Culture makes us human.
The Vietnamese culture and
character has enabled us to absorb, to
assimilate, and to turn into our own the
changes that we face through the centuries
and today, it enables us to live with the
paradox of reconciling globalism and
individuality. Those of you who belong to
the worldwide Vietnamese diaspora do
embrace the richness of biculturalism. The
culture of the society you live in, of the
country you're a citizen of, and the
culture of your origins. Nurture your
biculturalism, or cross-culturalism, and
then you can confidently move back to the
world, secure, knowing who you are, where
you belong, and what you can offer to the
world. And remember: in this day and age,
you can belong to more than one place.
The global and the local are in you.
Vietnam, and the Vietnamese, come to the
world with a message of hope, fortitude,
and compassion. Thank you.
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