Updates (July 9, 2025)
I finally growing my Vietnamese identity here in Canada.
Before I did not know who I was really here in Canada born and growing up here in Canada.
After socializing with Vietnamese old people who are doing business in the GTA, I grew and grew. There is a new part of my brain that feels solid and growing. I feel like my identity and how I feel has changed now.
I feel comfortable now here in Canada finally after 41 years after socializing with Vietnamese who are old as me living and working and thriving here in Canada. Because they are so confident, established, well and living Vietnamese and normally in Canada without issue, I feel finally OK. I can do the same.
Like I can finally place my foot down and be rest assured life is going to be OK here in Canada.
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Before meeting thriving Vietnamese business owners, I was pulling on straws trying to get a foothold on Canadian life.
I did not know they existed and firmly here.
Before I was always grasping for stability.
I was always looking towards getting along with Vietnamese from Vietnam or even looking back to Vietnam for some foundation and connection.
Thriving Vietnamese business franchises and elevated business models show me that life is more than the bare minimum and scraping by.
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I would not connect with these old people unless I grew myself first.
If I did not grow my brain in development, I would not be able to connect with Vietnamese who know more and do more.
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Yes, Vietnamese identity and growth and flourishing is the thing in the West.
That is what I am missing.
It comes full when there are economic supports and business franchises growing that are Vietnamese. This way Vietnamese have a full life in the West that is more than stereotypical lifestyles 50 years back.
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But really after the socialization for 4 decades as a Vietnamese born in Canada, you really just got to do your thing you like and are passionate about.
People can say this or that, you can learn and do more this and that.
But at the end of the day, you should have learned by now to just enjoy your time and do your thing with a nice coffee and snack. That is what I am seeing now.
I ventured 4 decades of life doing this and that and still nothing is enough and you can’t please everyone. You have to just learn that people will grow up one day reaching their 40s too. You learned to respect everyone but enjoy your time and enjoyment too for your old self. Everyone is OK out there really, people need to grow and learn life lessons and eventually reach the same conclusions. People need to learn the hard lessons.
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Funny thing in life, as I venture in life in the West and come to the conclusion to grow and explore more, I see people wiser and more smarter than me connect with me.
That means really everyone in Canada/West really learned the fact that you kind of have to live forward and ‘capitalistic’? You are pushing to learn more and do more which is the way life is here in Canada. This kind of is self-centered and selfish???
When I said I would code more passion projects on this blog, I noticed more people see that I have ‘learned’ the truth about people in general. I learned that people are in a way are greedy and wanting more regardless of where they are in the world.
It is basically the capitalistic way of life??? and it is normal?
There are people way more capitalistic than you think currently?
This is one way to frame life. You can think the Western way is forward … kind of greedy … or kind of capitalistic … That is how the West runs really though and you can not fault that.
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So after understanding the Western forward thinking, I realize I am just a Southern Vietnamese man who is balanced and Buddhist naturally because I come from an area that is balanced in An Giang province: rich agriculture, Mekong river with plenty of freshwater fish, Buddhist.
I conflict with the West forwardness and other people/groups naturally in my natural state.
I sit here complaining (blogging). I code to become forward. I develop software to not be backwards in society.
It is a tug-of-war in my mind.
A balanced person like me goes pretty far out to develop.
So this is what it is.
So this is what happens when a Southern Vietnamese guy is dropped in the West.
My mother said she born me a computer guy when she was pregnant with me??? What does that mean when parents do such thing and say such things?
I am not a parent. I don’t have kids yet.
So understanding growth and development is a mystery.
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Another way to live in the West is just accept the backwardness of myself and just work for the hell of it to have something.
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This blog website has become an ongoing development of the intersectionality of Vietnamese in the West from middle-age and beyond looking at work, growth and health in modern times.
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In one of my team projects, I got commented on.
The commenter said the because the project doesn’t have a lot of active support for end-users then the project is not deemed OK for use.
How does that work in the world?
What opensource projects have ‘full support’?
That is the interesting thing about software development and life itself.
In the West, products go through rigorous scrutiny because that is how Westernized people are in a free market.
But who works for free in the West without getting at least something in return?
Who works on an opensource project to provide ‘full support’?
That is the cool thing about being born in the West and getting questioned like this? Where else in the world can you get questioned like this?
Full support doesn’t really exist I think but people still ask for full support in the West.
There is the Microsoft way and the Linux way. And the Linux way is mainly updating the kernel of the operating system.
After this comment, it got me thinking. The Western way is so fun and perplexing.
When people expect stuff like this, then things make sense. Who we are and what we believe in and how we partition ourselves to get what we need and want …
People are actually wanting full support … even when they don’t actually say it out loud or write it out really. It is human to ask for it …
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