Keep up with Vietnamese traditions?

Question

For most of us Vietnamese who live abroad, do you still keep up with Vietnamese traditions such as Tết, Trung Thu, Giỗ (Cúng) Ông Bà, đi chùa, đi nhà thờ? What about wedding, do you still have 2 celebrations, one traditional Vietnamese and one western wedding?. When my sister got married, she wore 2 different outfits, Áo dài and a white wedding gown. Do you speak Vietnamese with your parents and sibblingss or do you speak English? I prefer to speak Vietnamese at home and when I'm out I still speak Vietnamese with my sisters unless we're with someone who doesn't understand Vietnamese then I would speak English. When I meet Vietmamese people , I always ask if they speak Vietnamese then I would speak Vietnamese to them. What about you?

Answer 1

My wife keeps up the traditions and I am happy for that.  Wish our daughter would speak a little more Vietnamese.  We celebrate all the Vn holidays traditionally as we can in Michigan..  Cheers.

Answer 2

Yes, for myself still keep up with Vietnamese traditions...try to speak Vietnamese whenever have chance...but the fact that we are living far from Vietnam and it's not easy to keep it up, we have to adjust with the custom & culture where we live and our mind also abit changing. But i guess it' ok and same for everybody who live abroad.

Answer 3

Im a viet living in Florida. My family tries to keep to tradition but sometimes it is hard as the viet community down here in florida is somewhat small. We do celebrate Tet and Trung Thu as well as going to Viet-Catholic-Mass. On the other hand, when we used to live In california the viet communities were much larger and it was much easier to keep to tradition. There were also a lot more business that catered towards Viet interest. In Florida where i live, we'd need to drive 4 hours to get to the nearest Viet-Grocery store or viet restaurant (lol).

At home, I speak viet to my parents. Honestly, i find it a bit awkward and disturbing when i hear viet parents speak English to their kids... but that seems to be a growing occurence in a lot of families. However, when i speak to my sister or my friends i dont speak Viet. Some of my friends will try to speak to me in Viet but i end up shying away....mostly because I'm not confident on how to hold a viet conversation with someone my age; I am more used to speaking viet with adults (you know how speaking to adults, you speak more politely.....well i don't know how to speak to someone on my level.) Also, when it comes to reading viet, i suck at it. But I intend to relearn how to read sometime after all my schooling.

The weddings that i've been to have all been semi-traditional with the bride in an Ao Dai but with the rest of the ceremonies being not too traditional.

though i guess i don't qualify as a viet living "abroad" since i was born in US.

Answer 4

I reached out to lots of Vietnamese when I lived in Chicago, but for the life of me never met any 1975 refugees.

   The ones I met were more from about 1980, or afterwards, and then I met a few coming over even after that, some even from North Vietnam, but those were considered a little weird by the people of that community  

   They spoke of  the 1975 refugees in respectful tones, even envious tones, because they seemed to have a lot more going for them than they had, for one thing  5 years head start learning English, and getting jobs etc.  But for another, the '70's were still a flush economic time, but the early '80's were already a recession and Reagan cutting Public Aid cut back, etc.

   And, for another thing the 1975 refugees at least got a free trip out of Vietnam, compliments of Uncle Sam  WITH their money, whereas the people who fled after 1975, often had to spend everything they had to get out.

  I finally befriended a Vietnamese widow with two little half Cambodian kids. She fled walking across Cambodia, and her interpreter/ Cambodian smuggler guide later became her 'husband' by force, (if you could call him that), later died and left her with the kids. Lovely kids, two little girls I fell in love with them.

   She was originally from Saigon, and always kept one little altar, and whenever I asked about it, her attitude was always "What's it to you?"

    Most of her time, and extra money, however, was spent sending care packages of expensive drugs and sundries, to her elderly mom who still lived in Vietnam, and who I guess resold them at a profit. She made many sacrifices to her mom which I sometimes objected to.. This, filial piety, added up amongst many people doing the exact same thing,, actually helped fuel Vietnam's renaissance and reopening to the world..

Answer 5

My sister who lives in France with her family for the last 28 years. I'm very impressed with my niece and nephew not just they can speak but also can write in Vietnamese. When they were kids, my sister sent them to Vietnamese boy and girl scout and weekend school to learn Vietnamese. They're both Engineers and successful in what they do but when they come home, they speak Vietnamese to my sister and my brother-in-law. In fact, my brother-in-law has a PhD in Vietnamese history from France. They later moved to the states but they only live here for 8 years and moved back to Southern France 3 years ago. At home, I don't speak English with my parents or even my older sisters. I think it's disrespectful to them although we all graduated from college here in the states.

Answer 6

I was born in the US to true "boat people", they ran for their lives 32 years ago.   My parents and two sisters came to the country with 8 US dollars and they emphasize to us hard work and did not want us to forget where our heritage is.  My family celebrates Tết, Trung Thu, recognize the deaths of our ancestors, go to the temple, where the traditional Áo dài, I have 5.  The second generation in our family all speak Vietnamese and sometimes Vinglish (a combo of Vietnamese and English).  We are lucky to have a tradition that we can pass from generation to generation.  

I have a beef with some people that come over to the country but that is another thing...  I grew up in a strick Vietnamese household, learning to speak, read and write in Vietnamese, which molded me into who I am today.