Life is a Trip, Searching for Forgiveness in Vietnam

In the last few classes we have been discussing Judith Fein's, Life is a Trip. This book is a collection of essays in which the author portrays how traveling can transform your life. Today I would like to talk about the third chapter, Searching for forgiveness in Vietnam. Fein went to Vietnam seeking answers about how the Vietnamese people feel about Americans after such a brutal war. To her it was a big surprised how forgiving this people were, they did not like to reminisce about their dark past and would rather enjoy the present a worry about a future. As the author does, I feel very astonished how this people do no have any resentment against the Americans after such atrocities were committed, after the use of chemical warfare which still has lingering effects on thousand of newborns. Here in Puerto Rico, at Vieques, we had an American military presence and they only did practice and for a lot of Puerto Ricans, including myself this is not easily forgiven. I find this essay very interesting because I think that we in the occident have a lot to learn from people all over the world. Sometimes we are so immersed in our life and way of thinking that it’s not easy to remember that this is not the only one.

I would like to travel to places like Vietnam so I too can change my way of thinking to a more forgiving one. I feel this is possible because good ways of thinking, in my opinion are contagious. If we, as the human race, could learn to take the best elements from other cultures and internalize them the world would be a very different place.   I wonder what makes the Vietnamese so forgiving while other countries are still fighting over thousand year old ideologies. I guess each country creates it’s own identity based on their context and history and we can learn about this present attitude by learning about theirs past, the war took a lot from them, but it did gave them the ability to forgive which is no little accomplishment.