Goals for Vietnam 2009

After studying abroad in Shanghai last year and experiencing the entire culture shock and realizations about my own culture, I’ve set more specific and more meaningful goals for myself. Instead of setting out to confirm my biases and stereotypes about Vietnam, I want to observed and understand what life is like for a typical Vietnamese person. I have a general sense of how they probably view life and it has always been a negative one. However, I wish to participate and engage in conversations with local Vietnamese and hopefully not be viewed as a foreigner passing by.

The original goal that brought me to Vietnam was the business opportunities that still remain hidden in the country. I have no clue where it is or how I can become involved with. Yes, I originally came here with intentions of exploiting the vast amounts of cheap labor and natural resources but the more I learn about how this conflicts with my morals the lower it is on my list of priority. However, at this point, it is still on my list.

Another goal I have is to better understand myself, I don’t mean who I am or whatever, but a sense of how my relationship with people develop. I make a lot of friends but I end up losing a lot of them. I don’t know if its my natural tendency to do so because I’m so involved with many things (which I feel is the main reason) or if its just my personality is not compatible with anyone else’s. Whatever it is, I want to find out and work on it in the next few months.

Obituaries: Alan Landers

Cigarette smoking is a very interesting topic in that there are so many perspectives relating to this topic. In regards to Alan Landers, I think he learned his lesson too late. It sounds as if he truly thought that cigarettes do not harm you. I think that people who smoke choose to do so and they are knowingly harming their bodies and know that they may potentially develop various kinds of cancer, yet they do so. You can't blame the tobacco companies for making the product, but you can blame them for creating lucrative marketing campaigns to manipulate and set social standards/opinions on smoking. Fine, if a person has a biological need to nicotine to have a better life than so be it. But if one is smoking because they feel there is some sort of social reward, then there is something wrong with that. Either way, it is the individual choosing to make the decision to light that cigarette up. The tobacco companies are not putting the cigarettes in their mouth and lighting it up for them.

I guess the lesson here is that in life, certain things are already there. The air quality in your neighborhood is what it is, the pesticides in fruits and vegetables in Vietnam are there, any social standards in society, and it’s all there. Even though these things directly contribute or shape your life some how, you can't blame them for anything that goes wrong in your life. It's the cards you were dealt. What you can do however, is learn to accept these things and avoid or resolve these things them if you don't want to put up with it.


Alan Lander's obituary can be found at http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13276462&mode=comment&intent=readBottom