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SYDNEY, Australia - Over the course of five days, the Fourth International Vietnamese Youth Conference – attended by at least 500 people from some 15 countries – spawned at least 50,000 photos, probably 20,000 personal encounters, and billions of spoken words distilled into thousands of ideas. Although I don’t know how this lone sentence of 15 words will impact the future. The keynote speakers of the Conference have done a beautiful job in saying or encouraging us to say what was in our hearts. I must confess I am a city-dwelling American, and like many young urban professionals in my area, I have a 15-second attention span. So I’ve decided to write about one very specific thought as a preview to my novella of my entire trip that won’t take too much of your time to read, in the same way our radio plays 5-minute songs. It is nothing profound, but it needs to be said.
 Closing Ceremony (from lenduong.net)
I witnessed my final Australian sunset in Brisbane, returning from the beach with a group of fellow delegates who are touring Queensland after the Conference. I was in the back seat of the van, and the girl next to me, seated in the middle seat, fell asleep. Her seat had no headrest, so every few seconds her head would bob forward, backward, left, and right. This is repeated a few more times. Another delegate seated on the right side saw this and smiled, and I also smiled at this peculiar occurrence. I made the presumption that the sleeping girl did not want to rest her head on anyone’s shoulder, perhaps to exert a sense of independence, or perhaps because she is not comfortable with the two unfamiliar people on either side of herself.As the van continued to dash across the freeway, her head continued to bob forward, backward, left, and then right. This is silly, I thought. Good sleep is an essential, basic need. But here I am, watching her struggle to find a sense of peace. I was hesitant to do anything because I felt embarrassed to be doing anything to a girl while she’s sleeping. But after a few more bobs forward, backward, left, and right, it began to bother me. I looked around for something to help her, and noticed a pillow behind our seat. I reached my arm behind her head, picked up the pillow, and placed it behind her head when she bobbed forward. I kept my arm there to support the pillow, since there was no headrest. And from thereon, she stopped bobbing and rested peacefully.
I suppose you would not believe me if I said that before I gave her a pillow, I thought about how this related to our individual efforts towards Vietnam. The situations are different but the question is the same: There is a problem that lay before me, so why am I passively observing? I am reminded what Anh Quoc said, “What do you have to lose?” And conversely, what is it that you can gain?
During that sunset in that van, and watching her struggle to sleep, I became aware of a personal barrier that existed throughout the conference: the awkward feeling of meeting new people, much less helping one. This is where I have been stuck in life for the past few years: unable to meet new people, keep in touch with the ones I did meet, or breaking through that initial shyness of unfamiliarity. But I saw something more valuable than my sense of pride or fear of rejection; more important than the heartless question of “What’s the point?” It was Trust. And beyond that, it was Care. I had nothing to lose, and so much more to gain. All this talk of defeating the corruption of the authoritarian Communist party is noble. But before I could focus on societal issues, I had to overcome this difficult personal barrier. Regime change begins at home. It begins with yourself. And so I begin the New Year of 2006 saying G’Day Mates, arms around each other’s shoulders, with this in mind:
In Friendship We Trust. Danke!
P.S. I love wombats! |
