Power, Privilege and Oppression (Part II): Questions and Next Step

Last activity of the week: sounds of hope (I call) 

We stood in the circle, closing the week. The sound we made increased in volume gradually, from rubbing our hands together, to snapping, to clasping, feeding thundering, and subsiding in the circle. Impacts we make that could start in a small circle, from one individual and we can’t see where it leads to. Didi said “keep making your thunder, your clasp or whatever it is that you can.” 

my weekend contemplation

As finishing the course, here are questions I have: 

How did the Yagi typhoon happen? Who’s responsible for the vulnerable ethnic communities in the mountain? 

As a woman, what do we have to still conform to in society? What are we encouraged to do? What language and actions are we allowed to do? What are the boundaries and possibilities to live within family, cultural and social contexts? 

How is this topic, Power, Privilege and Oppression being educated in the current education system in Vietnam? 

How oppressive or free are we?

While we are not free to do protest, but we still have social media, mainly Facebook to express. Often times, words can become so unkind, and amidst the miserable disaster in Vietnam, there were people who took advantage of kindness to eat up donated money for the communities. They distorted reality by creating fake news to intensify the fear, and trigger the compassion of society. While there are other groups who risk their lives to jump in the alarming area to rescue the endangered. They travelled across the country with food and any necessities. 

An opinion was that the public support system wasn’t well-organized so responses to risk were not immediate enough. For instance, supplies didn’t reach at the right places in desperate need. I think within such a short of time, it was the best we could do. Apart from public system, there were individuals and small groups who took initiatives to offer support in different ways. We may need a more centralized database that update the right information of at risk areas and status to channel the right resources. 

What to mention here, I wonder why there was such a trust-based issue?

My heart is in fire, I am tending to fire thinking about the challenges women and the marginalized groups are facing 

My body is cosmic, others’ body is cosmic too

We are all sharing a space of humanity 

So I have a duty to take on

To keep learning and giving back 

This breath comes from the air of the earth

This strength is granted thanks to nutrition from the soil

This eye has vision thanks to the indefinite sunlight

Can the sunlight run out one day? 

I don’t know

I know that I want to be alive and create love

I know that I want to make the earth alive along my course of living

My commitment

I wrote down my commitment in my notebook, and read out loud to everyone. So did my friends. I want to reiterate that here so as to reaffirm my commitment.  

• Design a session revolving around Power, Privilege and Oppressive issues and ecological exploitation for youths in my highschool. 

• Have conversations with my family members, relatives and friends about gender roles, their challenges, feelings and also what privileges and opportunities availble at the moment. 

• Explore relationships between natural disaster an industrial production while exploiting natural resources in Vietnam

In Tet 2023, I ran a workshop with Youth Nurture Club in my highschool as a space for them to discuss and talk about what challenges existing in the school community. It was insane that the issues they faced were the same, and worse that those in my time in 2013. Bullying was the most serious one. 

Bao luc hoc duong = Bullying in Vietnamese

Others I’ve experienced and observed: discrimination against economic background (countryside and cities); normal school and gifted schools, stigma against disabled people and ethnic people, and LGBTQ+ people, bullying at school due to stereotypes of gender, physical appearance (fat/out-of-norm looking), social science, humanities, art and creativity versa science, etc

I could start designing sessions for a short conversations; and build awareness for the young to know the hindrance caused by power, privileges of certain aspects, and challenges of the marginalized groups, and that shape the communities of schools, family and society we live in. 

For example, a boy is expected to perform science well due to typical gender role, but he doesn’t not reach that expectation due to his interest in art. Art is thought to be a not practical field because society doesn’t support it to generate money and it is judged to do no goods to any individual and society. 

This is a lovely Women Circle run every week by my friends. I look up to their commitment.

My cousin who has passion for sports is discouraged from pursuing the studies of sports science because there’s only one job that he could do with that major which is physical education teacher. Due to my mom’s experiencing all social stigma for teaching that job, she insisted him not study that field. That field of teaching is considered a lower-class subject as it is not part of academic subjects or not part of the set of subjects for entrance exam into university. Our society values academic “intellectual” rather than “creative” and “physcially healthy souls”. 

However, when it comes to sport events like SEA games or Well-known Championship Cups like Olympic games, people celebrate the achievement of Vietnamese winning athletes crazily, and say, I am so proud of Vietnamese and Vietnam. What an ood!? 

Why children are blamed for playing too much (sport or any extracurricular activities)? 

Why children are forced to take extra classes given so much intense learning hours at school? Not to say the whether or not they could actually engage in all those hours with any practical takeaways in their daily living, cognitive and emotional development? 

Why only the success that brings “national pride” and “social recognition” is celebrated? 

Why not giving time and celebrating the learning process to make that outcome or success happen? 

Why not investing on nurturing individuals that play a part in that “success” outcome such as physical education teachers? Curriculum designers? Teacher education? 

Why does welfare policy come so unfair for teaching occupations compared to enormous investment in infrastructure, most of its budget often end up being in personal pockets of officers rather than serving the “public service”? 

On the other hand, culturally speaking in Vietnam, teaching is the most “notable” job in all jobs.” The statement itself and the practice are in complete contradiction. The meaning sounds beautiful but the reality is romaniticization of an oppressive cultural belief. In another hand, all jobs are of importance, not just teaching. 

Without environmental workers, who would clean the streets and public space to make the cities clean and livable? Who would be there to manage loaded waste from millions of households?

Without construction workers of buildings, where do we spend our life being in well-protected environments? 

Without farmers, how would we feed ourselves with food and nutritions needed for our metabolism and survival needs, and more than that, the desire to eat clean food and having energy to live healthily? 

Needless to say, ingrained in my brain since childhood, “farming is a dirty and poor job, so when I grow up, I should never work in agriculture”. Now that looking back, I feel sorry for the farmers, my aunts, my uncles, my friend’s parents, who gave me those advice. I am glad that I never look down upon what they do. I volunteered, and still do, my time going to their farms and help harvesting onions, garlic in winter, harvesting rice late autum, and planting rice after seedling in early season of rice growing. I also had so much fun being in the field getting my hands dirty. 

never get bored of this stunning Baltic sea

Lens on Mekong project in 2019 was the first time I spoke about the importance of farmers and created a space for the city youths to express their gratitude for farmers, especially in regions that are prone to flood. With the Yagi typhoon this month, September 2024, I got a heart attack. I want to take serious climate actions again. I would attend Climate Strike in Stockholm next Saturday. I would talk to anyone about the natural crisis in my hometown that never ever happened in Northen Vietnam since I was born. There were hundreds of people dying, lots of agricultural property were gone, efforts of farmers were gone, houses were gone. Yes, we can’t blame the power of nature, but we can blame humans for being the root cause on a deeper level. We must see the interconnectedness of everything in this universe.