Cultural Post 4: The Journey of Vaan Nguyen

[Rebekah Yowell]

The Journey of Vaan Nguyen was a film that gave a compelling, realistic look at the struggles of a Vietnamese refugee family trying to assimilate into Israeli culture. Vaan and her sisters and parents mostly stay together as a family unit, and there are very few friendships portrayed between the family members and others, with the exception of Vaan’s interaction with an Arab girl at school. Vaan faces discrimination almost to the point of persecution from her classmates, who marginalize her for looking different and not being Jewish. Growing up in Israel and speaking Hebrew, it is difficult for Vaan to understand the reasons behind her exclusion, other than that she doesn’t look like everyone else. When the father of the family decides to return to Vietnam to attempt to regain the family lands lost during the war, Vaan decides to accompany him, resolving bitterly that she is done with Israel, and is ready to be among her own people, where she doesn’t stand out, but can build herself a new life. However, she experiences difficulty in fitting in with the Vietnamese culture because she doesn’t speak Vietnamese fluently. The Vietnamese people even have a special term for her as a Vietnamese person who is trying to be part of Vietnamese culture after having formed an identity elsewhere. This conflicted identity causing Vaan to be unable to feel truly at home in either Israel or Vietnam dominates who she is as a person, and highlights the exclusive tendency of different cultures, from an Israeli culture hesitant to except her because of her background, to a Vietnamese culture that will not except her because she is no longer a ‘true’ Vietnamese. Languages play an immensely important role in this identity; if Vaan had been able to speak Vietnamese fluently, becoming part of the culture would have been far easier because the Vietnamese people would have far less reason to focus on the difference of her upbringing. On the other hand, Vaan was compelled to learn Hebrew if she was to participate in school and be a part of the community in Israel, but just knowing the language was not enough to gain acceptance into Israeli culture.