Updates (August 3, 2025)
When I was working in 2019 selling cell phones and cell phone plans full time for 5 months in the large supermarket … I just knew how to use cell phones. I was so cheap that I only really knew how to use Android phones …
I did not know the hardware or software. I did not know how to build my own cell phone.
And now Vietnamese people build cars.
Ben pushed me and my parents pushed me to do more to feel better so I feel good externally.
Allan always pushed me to do more to feel good. At the end that is a health need. Health need to keep busy at least.
…
Now I understand the reason to socialize with Vietnamese here and there. We debate and learn and grow from each other. We build our identity to be stronger. We can learn and improve and change our ways in our worldviews.
That is why I understand why Vietnamese are now becoming podcasters and are on social media. We are doing more and being more and growing more. We need our sense of identity like everyone else and we need to grow it too to be healthy and strong.
Tony Tie for example from what I am learning is on social media. He is doing something good by exploring worldviews and being vocally active and present. And he is growing and his identity is always evolving and growing.
…
Before, I just listened to people and was silent. After socializing with Vietnamese my age range, I learned to build and put up an opinion for myself and my health and well-being.
There is room for everyone to debate and talk in the World. Everyone can live their way and do there own thing especially in the West. I learned the key is to just think broad and broader to allow for everything. Otherwise there is nothing. Living so broad gives hope. Hope allows for everything to continue.
…
With coding you can learn to adapt well and learn the perspectives of others quickly.
…
With coding you can keep things external.
…
With coding you can put stuff in levels of thinking.
…
With coding you can work with others on the same playing field regardless of race, nationality or culture.
…
In the West, life can be about external validation. It doesn’t have to either.
…
I have been socializing with Tammy Nguyen since 2021. I grew and grew.
I learned the new ways of living from her as a Vietnamese born in Canada.
Things are just different are we are the first generation of Vietnamese born in Canada.
…
If I did not blog and do these things over the past 5 years, I would not grow to see that I also need a way to breathe my way. Now I can exert my own thinking and opinion like everybody else.
…
Another way to look at my life at 41 years old, is trying to live and grow the fight for survival the independent Vietnamese way.
It is just the way things went.
There is other ways to live that is just as good and better. I just happened to live this way.
…
A good way to live for me is the fight for survival the Vietnamese way. If I live any other way it is doesn’t feel right.
If I live the laxed Western way, I can not feel my bones.
Then what is the right way?
…
Because I am born in Canada and have the ‘negative’ Western view implanted in my brain about life and about Vietnamese, I keep doing this. When you are born in the West something in you feels different compared to Vietnamese born in Vietnam. You can not really override that negative view.
I try to work with Westerners to bridge the gap.
…
What I learned so far after finally socializing with Vietnamese from USA.
There is the main perspective in the world that everyone knows.
Then there are millions/billions of other personal perspectives from other people. Some perspectives are just their personality. Some a created by struggle. Some are just old.
Some perspectives are used to help think different for a certain goal. Some perspectives are used to awaken the mind to make it see more and be more broaden.
How far is the mind then?
…
If I did not socialize with Tammy Nguyen, I would not understand how big the mind can be.
Therefore there is an element of ‘women’ in perspectives you can hold and use and want to achieve.
Women run everything?
…
Maybe my living conditions won’t change if I continue living this way.
If I do a different job, things might change.
…
After reflecting through blogging and socializing, I realize life doesn’t really change for me because the world is full of negative 200 year old stereotypes when you go out in public.
The current thinking and how other groups treat Vietnamese will be the same for the next decade or so …
Until the home country changes to be developed then things will change … and that might take 20 to 60 years???
In the meantime, what do I do?
Maybe I can’t really do anything at all?
Except work on myself with my friends ??? for that health and well-being.
…
Maybe this is the best I can get in life here in the West.
I think my Vietnamese classmates from my local college/university understand that now after finishing school and working.
This is the best I get in the world climate?
…
In August 2024, I went to one of the best busy pho restaurants in Mississauga with a friend. I met the ‘diverse’ Asian population there.
I met an Asian father eating with his young son. He understood me as he had a child of his own in Canada. I was born in Canada just like his son.
Simply … Vietnamese get treated really lowly outside of Vietnam. I just do my thing to improve however I can.
The Asian father just let me be as it looks like he was maybe born and raised in Canada and understood the negative culture that ‘other Asians’ have against Vietnamese in the background and foreground. He was a ‘Canadianized/Westernized/Multicultural’ father so he understood the darkness that plays out sometimes.
…
After all this socializing here in Canada with other Vietnamese from the West … this is the best I can do currently.
If I do different job things will just be different in what ways???
I am not sure better or worse.
…
Because I am the only child in my family willing to socialize and grow with other Vietnamese, I grew the portion of the brain that is Vietnamese and made it something.
So now I understand other Vietnamese born in Canada/Westernized a lot now at the middle-age range now and beyond.
This is probably the best I can do in life currently. Time to make decisions and make commitments. Life is not going to get drastically better if I do X or Y.
My older siblings have hope for a better tomorrow because they live and work with Westerners so much and don’t think like me. They don’t connect with reality with other peoples and with the Vietnamese population to find a Vietnamese wife or Vietnamese husband that meets them eye-to-eye at their core. Have they developed their Vietnamese identity fully in the West? How much compared to mine?
…
Vietnamese born in the West understand the treatment they get from other groups. It can be so bad.
Vietnamese from Vietnam take the negative treatment and divert it elsewhere and most of the time transform it into positivity or a brand new perspective that Westerners can appreciate LOL!
That is the crazy thing about different people from different parts of the world.
That is why I can only connect with Vietnamese born or raised in Canada because I don’t have the knowledge or world experience to transform negativity to positivity.
…
After thinking more …
I just realize that at this stage and understanding, people just like what they like.
It is simple like that.
There are cultures that think what you do for a living is part of who you are and what you represent and strive for and even compete with.
Then after socializing with other Vietnamese in the West, I realize after reflection, we just do what we want to make us feel: productive, well and present.
We converse and share and it makes us more productive, well and present in our way, in which we evolve.
If I did not socialize with other Vietnamese then I wouldn’t get to this point here in the West.
…
But also at the end for the sake of health and understanding … we all live different lives and do whatever for our sake.
I am Canadian and just do whatever because I am born here at the end. There are days when out in public and socializing I have an general opinion. But general opinion doesn’t apply for everyone.
And as Vietnam gets developed over time now in 21st century, we are fumbling around trying to get developed so we can relax later and do things like other developed countries.
…
After socializing, I am OK now.
Now time to do things I like.
At the end it is the future. What do you do now after?
…
Basically there are 3 ways of thought when outside in the world. Or 4 … I realized this after socializing this week.
- What Westerners think
- Other people think
- And minding your own business think. This sometimes conflicts with 1 and 2.
- What 65+ years old ‘Canadians’ think. This is this 2nd to yours.
You and your friends are a different perspective. It is zoned out and friendly world.
…
After thinking a bit I realized another way to understand the train of thought from my team and team projects …
We live in cold climates.
I work with Canadians, Polish, Russians, Ukrainians and British for the software.
The latitude climate makes us stay indoors and code and do these types of projects that aren’t American or ‘Costco’ like.
It is just a different way of life. It is not capitalistic or “extra large combo deal” type of deal.
I was born in Canada so I think like people here and do stuff like Polish, Russians, Ukrainians and British.
People in cold climates think like this. And now that I am 41 years old, I changed from young Vietnamese thinking to settled thinking with like minded people with the same climate.
People with the coldest climate like Finland people create Linux.
People in the warmer climates create Microsoft Windows in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then moved to the Seattle, Washington area where it has higher latitude than Toronto.
I guess firstly things depend on latitude then climate?
I seek help from people living in colder/higher latitude climates.