Spyke

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Introductions?

Thank you for the post!

Short introduction on my side: 2nd generation Vietnamese, my parents left Vietnam in the 80s due to the war and its aftermath. Saigon, my username, is the former name of the capital of South Vietnam, renamed Ho-Chi-Minh city after the war.

Born and raised in Europe.

Happy to be here, even if the activity is not that high, I'm sure it will still be a nice place to chat!

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Simu Liu Knows Hollywood Won’t Cast Him as Bourne or Bond, So He’s Working on Plan B

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Maybe not the best example to follow

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 21% based on 137 reviews and an average rating of 4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Chan is as charming as ever, but his talents are squandered by special effects and bad writing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tuxedo

Also, as we're on the Asian diaspora community, are you of Asian descent?

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People who can understand multiple languages, or have moved to another country, or otherwise traveled abroad; Do you feel like you experience existence from a PoV that nobody else can understand?

Definitely. I always speak Vietnamese with my parents at home, because that's their mother tongue and it just feels much closer than speaking French.

Growing up as an immigrant is a unique experience, at one point one of my previous girlfriends said "you should stop with your immigrant things". I knew it was over (for other reasons too, but that was one of them)

My current partner also grew up abroad, so she knows what that is like to be a foreigner in another country. We also live in a country where none of us are locals. But we're both fine with that, because we know how it is.

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What is a diaspora population supposed to do if their current country of citizenship is at war with their ancestral homeland?

It probably depends on which ones are the two countries, in your case it's even more complex as you seem to support Taiwan.

I'm second generation Vietnamese, and while I like the Vietnamese language and culture, I'm still closer to the country where I was born, grew up and spent basically my whole life.

Also Vietnam being a one party state that my parents left doesn't really encourages me to fight for it.

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Some of the things only immigrant children understand is that parents someone just force you to be their free translator/interpreter...

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“but you live here you really do need to know the language a bit???” (About the parents)

I've seen it reversed with English speakers moving to other countries and not bothering to learn the local language because they didn't see the point. And I'm not talking about Thailand, I'm talking about the Netherlands or Spain

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Some of the things only immigrant children understand is that parents someone just force you to be their free translator/interpreter...

Hey,

Sorry to hear you went through this, it's unfortunately quite common for immigrant children.

I was lucky enough that my parents knew the language of the country they moved to and lived on their own for a while before having me, but I know other people my age who definitely have a similar experience to yours.

By the way, I feel like an second generation Asian community is missing here on Lemmy/Piefed, would you like to start one with me? It could be a dedicated space to share such experiences between people who lived through them

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[Discussion] Do you really feel like you "fit in" in your current country? What do you feel about your ancestral country? Have you ever imagined about a hypothetical life in your ancestral country?

Hey,

I was thinking about this earlier, thank you for making this post.

I had a lot of the same questions in my mid-20s. I had graduated university, started working, made some money, so I could afford going back to Vietnam two times for around a month each time. It was great. Being in a place where everyone looks like you, speaks the language you speak at home, eats the food you eat at home. It's a very unique experience, only immigrants understand what it is.

I liked it so much I even considered living in Vietnam for a few years. I started looking at visas, jobs, etc. I had a few leads. Then COVID happened and stopped all of that. A few years passed.

Post-COVID, I was almost 30, and decided that being closer to my family and friends in Europe was more important than living in Vietnam. I still moved to a much bigger city to have a more multicultural environment, met my girlfriend there, we've been together for a few years now, we are happy together.

She's not Vietnamese, and that's fine. I came to terms with the idea of marrying a second generation Vietnamese when I decided to stay in Europe. It's a numbers game in the end, and the Vietnamese population is just not large enough in Europe for it to happen. Not really something I can change at my level, and I'm happy with that anyway. I still speak Vietnamese to my parents, I visit them every few months. They are aging, and they are also happier to have me in Europe rather that all the way over there in Vietnam.

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Some of the things only immigrant children understand is that parents someone just force you to be their free translator/interpreter...

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Well, as you can guess, this is an account I created mostly to discuss being a second generation Asian (that's usually some information I don't tell on my main account). I created it after seeing your post (to be honest, it was at the back of my head for a bit after seeing some of your posts).

We can wait for a bit if you prefer to see if I'm trustworthy.

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Introductions?

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Chào bạn!

Wow, thật tuyệt khi được gặp một người "thế hệ thứ hai Việt Nam" và có thể nói tiếng Việt!

Gặp lại sau nhé, tôi chắc chắn chúng ta sẽ có nhiều điều để nói chuyện!