My First Year Seminar makes me feel very Vietnamese

“What does zhong 忠 mean to you?” 

I scrambled for words when asked. Every strand of eloquence I gained in high school Model United Nations disappeared when I searched desperately for it. I hated admitting it, but I simply didn’t know. I hated that I didn’t know how to pronounce nor understand words in a class where everyone else seemingly knew everything. 

Later I found out it meant “loyalty.” 

If someone had asked me where I thought I’d be in 17 years, I would never have responded with learning Chinese characters for a First Year Seminar at Johns Hopkins University. 

For context, I have lived 17 years in Saigon, Vietnam. I knew moving to the United States alone wasn’t going to be easy. In the community that raised me, everyone looked the same, acted relatively the same and knew each other. At Hopkins, I’m met with people from all around the world. I knew no one. And the culture was unfamiliar. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who didn’t look like me, who didn’t understand my humor and some who saw me through a microaggressive lens. 

I had thought my First Year Seminar would make me feel more at ease. Chinese film and history weren’t topics I was particularly keen on, per se, but I had thought it would be a little relatable. I walked into class confident. 

Then, the professor asked: “Who here speaks Chinese?” 

And everyone raised their hand but me. 

It felt strangely isolating. Surrounded by those who looked like me, I felt like I was the only one left behind in that room. It was a surreal experience. I questioned if I belonged at Hopkins, at all. 

We screened a movie on the first day of class, and I silently thanked God for English subtitles. English wasn’t even my first language, anyway. It was the first time I was truly happy to be able to somewhat communicate — something I had taken for granted back home. 

Discussion-based classes were always hit or miss. A hit when you knew what you were talking about; a miss when you didn’t. A miss when everyone in the class seemingly knew everything about Chinese culture and relevant historical contexts of films to be able to positively contribute. Being there, I could only voice what I felt about the film as a girl from Vietnam. And no one could relate. And it reminded me of all the things I learned about China from home that, if voiced, would get me kicked out of class.

I have always been taught that China was somewhere abstract and complicated, intertwined with bloodshed and generational trauma of a war bygone. Một ngàn năm Bắc thuộc (1000 years of Northern domination), as they would call it. A collective (and perhaps, traumatic) memory is being invaded by China during feudal times, before they were eventually conquered by French colonial forces. This set the stage for another two decades of French colonialism on Vietnamese land. 

It was consistently perpetuated that China wanted to seize Vietnam and still does — I frequently heard references of the recent “Nine-dash line” conflict in the South China Sea. People around me shared a collective fear of China: fear of being brought back to that time when we fought inch by inch for our independence, clawing out of imperialism with nothing but bare hands and the fiery will of the Vietnamese — when families were torn apart and our people were abused under a corrupt feudalistic society. 

After not being able to meaningfully contribute in the first lesson, I briefly contemplated switching to another seminar. Surely, there would be somewhere I belonged — perhaps somewhere my views would be a little less controversial. But, something told me to not give up. 

I spent hours reading and watching the assigned pieces, seeing the lives of Chinese women and families unfold on film. The more I watched and read, the more I realized that we were more similar than different. Despite generational beliefs perpetuating China as an indomitable force that only persists to conquer and nothing else, I saw the vulnerability of the Chinese. In the films, they were also humans navigating a changing world — a changing political landscape that forced them to abandon millenium-old traditions for modernization. Chinese women were also in similar positions as Vietnamese women: vulnerable and complex, yet duty-bound to the patriarchal family that leads them by their nose. 

Recently, I had a chance to meet individually with the professor to complete the outline for our upcoming presentation. My friends in class had “warned” me about the meeting, about how the professor would ask me to tell her about myself. And she did just that. 

However, I never expected such a simple question to turn into a 1-hour talk. She had asked me what I learned about China back home, and I told her everything. Everything that generations preceding me have passed down to me. Everything the school system taught me. Everything about the national rhetoric. She was surprised, of course, but she never disregarded any of my thoughts. We went back and forth: two generations from two countries supposed to be enemies. The conversation confirmed my suspecting belief: we are more similar than we are different. We are both women in systems built against us. We both have unique concepts of family. We come from places that share the same trauma of fighting against colonialist powers, suffering the divide caused by superpowers of the world and rebuilding a nation torn apart by relentless warfare. 

I left the meeting feeling a greater sense of belonging. In the next classes, I felt more comfortable speaking my mind and raising points that spark conversation. My Vietnamese heritage is not something to be ashamed of — it adds to the class. I bring a perspective that is different, and I want to explore perspectives that I have never seen before. I come to class with the spirit of exploration and discovery that Hopkins boasts, sharing my viewpoints and expanding upon them with those who are different. 

Being in a class where everyone is of Chinese heritage is certainly an interesting experience, especially if you come from Vietnam. But every time my self-doubt creeps up on me, I remind myself that Hopkins is defined by exploration. Even though China is still a sore spot for many of those who share the same heritage as me, at Hopkins, I am more excited than ever to learn about its beauty. Because, at the end of the day, we are more similar than we are different.

And suddenly, Chinese characters became a lot less foreign. Because after all, each of us, regardless of nationality, is loyal to our country, our family — to our people. Zhong is shared. 

Katie Truong is a freshman from Saigon, Vietnam studying Neuroscience.