It was October 9th, 2013, the day that I and my family moving to the United States from Vietnam and started a new life here. I heard and learned many things about this country before but I was astonished experiencing the country myself. As soon as I discovered there was nothing like I expected, I was anxious and homesick. I wondered how long it would take me to adapt to this new culture and the people. Only a couple months passed, but I already experienced several culture shocks such as tipping, holding doors, greeting strangers, kissing in public, and difference view of respecting to elders, etc. Most of them I experienced in high school, it was where I learned the most interesting and weird things of American culture. First day of school,
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We have Thanksgiving Day in Vietnam, so I didn’t surprise until I heard some people called it “turkey day”. At school, other students talked about turkey, I got some friends asked if I was going to have turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I shake my head, I didn’t understand what they meant. I wondered how a turkey could represent for Thanksgiving and why people eat turkey on the holiday night. It didn’t make any sense to me. Then now I know that is one of the traditions here that has been continued since the 1600s. It is really interesting. Thanksgiving in Vietnam has never been a big holiday compare to Thanksgiving in America. We just had normal daily meals as other days, but after a couple years living here, our Thanksgiving meals have been slowly getting more American. For the third Thanksgiving, my mom prepared a turkey with potatoes, and also Vietnamese traditional foods. Then we invited our relatives to come to have dinner with us. We try to adapt the culture here while we’re still keeping our culture from …show more content…
As I can see, the elders in America are respected for their wisdom, experience, and knowledge. That is not as much as we respect the elders in Vietnam. In our country, elders are highly respected for their knowledge, wisdom and especially their ages. Depending on their ages, gender, and how they relate to our parents, we have to figure out ways to address them correctly. There are more than ten ways to address elders in Vietnam. It is way too complicated compare to American culture. Because in English we only use “you” and “I”. I was shocked when I heard a student called his teacher just by her first. I didn’t like him at first because I thought he was insolent to her. After then I figured out that the teacher told the students to call her by her first name just to be friendlier and so she would feel younger. I felt awkward trying to call her by her first name. I kept calling her “teacher” or “Mrs.” Gradually, I could get used to it. However, I still showed my respects to her by using two hands to take or give her something. I was taught to do that to the elders since I was about three. So it became a habit that I will not change or give it up. The elders in Vietnam wouldn’t like to see it, or they would feel not respected and they would tell you to change
We have Thanksgiving Day in Vietnam, so I didn’t surprise until I heard some people called it “turkey day”. At school, other students talked about turkey, I got some friends asked if I was going to have turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. I shake my head, I didn’t understand what they meant. I wondered how a turkey could represent for Thanksgiving and why people eat turkey on the holiday night. It didn’t make any sense to me. Then now I know that is one of the traditions here that has been continued since the 1600s. It is really interesting. Thanksgiving in Vietnam has never been a big holiday compare to Thanksgiving in America. We just had normal daily meals as other days, but after a couple years living here, our Thanksgiving meals have been slowly getting more American. For the third Thanksgiving, my mom prepared a turkey with potatoes, and also Vietnamese traditional foods. Then we invited our relatives to come to have dinner with us. We try to adapt the culture here while we’re still keeping our culture from …show more content…
As I can see, the elders in America are respected for their wisdom, experience, and knowledge. That is not as much as we respect the elders in Vietnam. In our country, elders are highly respected for their knowledge, wisdom and especially their ages. Depending on their ages, gender, and how they relate to our parents, we have to figure out ways to address them correctly. There are more than ten ways to address elders in Vietnam. It is way too complicated compare to American culture. Because in English we only use “you” and “I”. I was shocked when I heard a student called his teacher just by her first. I didn’t like him at first because I thought he was insolent to her. After then I figured out that the teacher told the students to call her by her first name just to be friendlier and so she would feel younger. I felt awkward trying to call her by her first name. I kept calling her “teacher” or “Mrs.” Gradually, I could get used to it. However, I still showed my respects to her by using two hands to take or give her something. I was taught to do that to the elders since I was about three. So it became a habit that I will not change or give it up. The elders in Vietnam wouldn’t like to see it, or they would feel not respected and they would tell you to change