Conversation #4 - Vietnam Humor

I am supplementing this conversation with my conversation partner with a conversation with a friend about Vietnam humor. With Dr. Williams okay here it is:

I asked Minh Anh Dinh (Mia) to talk with me about Vietnamese humor. I have known Mia for quite sometime from a few different organizations. She also moved into my hall freshman year second semester so this conversation was an easy flow. We sat down in Union Grounds and started to talk about life. Just the normal "I haven't seen you in three weeks" catch up. Eventually we go onto the subject of humor! I asked her what she thought humor in Vietnam was all about.  The first word out of her mouth was diverse. She said in different regions different jokes were funny. The north and the south have quite different senses of humor. Mia is from the north therefore she knew a bit more about northern Vietnamese humor. She said how it required a bit off thought or more intelligence than normal humor. When northerners tell a joke their is rarely a large punch line. It is a joke that requires thought and understanding to get it. Now on the other hand Mia said the South's jokes were more about plays on words. They used grammatical errors or punctuation differences to create laughter. Rhyming jokes are often common in the South too.  Mia seemed to favor the Northern style more probably because that is what she grew up around.

This reminded me a lot of our presentations on humor around the world. Many of the presentations talked about difference within the country on humor. I remember Canada having many different topics for their jokes. I believe the US has many different types to. Often my friend Lauren will say that her jokes fall flat or that not many people get because she is from California.  I hear this from multiple people. Talking to Mia helped remind me that it is hard to summarize one whole country's humor preferences in a power point or conversations because even inside the country is different.

Mia and I talked about American humor as well. She said that coming here it can be tough to find American humor funny. A lot of American humor uses slang and the language barrier makes it hard to understand the slang. Even if Mia understand the slang often she said that it still didn't seem funny. She does find the show "Friends" quite funny. Mia mentioned that it plays at home too she she would watch it their as well as in America.

I went to the Amazing Vietnam production Mia had helped put on a few weeks ago. It was incredibly funny and well done. It was all about sharing and representing the Vietnamese culture. It truly was amazing. I laughed almost the whole way through it along with learning more about Vietnam. I know after seeing the show that a lot of Vietnamese are incredibly funny people. I did see what Mia was talking about. Often the jokes made us think a bit more than the average American joke or Southern joke according to Mia. If you didn't get the chance to go to Amazing Vietnam I would go next year! It was a wonderful submersion into their culture. We got to see their traditions, beliefs and more! Plus a lot of my friends were up their performing. It was a wonderful surprise to see my friend Ethan beat boxing on stage!

Thank you to Mia and the wonderful actors in Amazing Vietnam for helping me learn more about their culture!

In replacement of Conversation #6: Something I Value

My Most Valuable Possession:

My most valuable possession isn’t a normal possession. My most valuable possession isn’t an item that I loved as a child or my phone that I love as a young adult. My most valuable possession is my time spent at summer camp over the past 13 years.  I have been going to a small summer camp in Brevard, North Carolina since 2cnd grade.  It is a traditional all girls summer camp with three main sessions over the summer: a one month, a three-week and a two-week. After my first two years at camp I switched from a two weeker (camp lingo for someone who goes to the two week session) to a four weeker (aka the four week session). My summers have been filled with laughter, girls and hiking, climbing or caving in the Bluu Ridge Mountains in the Pisgah National Forrest.

Why is this time my most valuable memory?. Camp takes a groups of girls and throws them together, maybe for the first time and maybe for their 7^th summer together. These girls have to bond without technology, without their parents and without a school setting. What would a 15 year old do without being able to text someone if she is angry or mad at them? How does a 14 year old react when they are missing home and can’t call their parents? How will everyone sleep in a cabin with less room per person than a typical dorm room? Seems a bit tough? It is but it is worth it.

I can’t narrow down my favorite memory at camp nor would I want but for the sake of time I will let you all in on one of my older years as a camper. The summer of 2010. I was at the age considered the oldest campers at camp, the ones who “run” camp per say. I was headed into the last summer of being a camper and not a counselor with 11 other best friends.  To narrow it down even more I will talk about one of our nights we spent bonding over cold cereal and painting wall hanings. Being the oldest we were allowed food in the cabin. For the painting, as a group we create a themed banquet for the last dinner of the camp session. It is a huge extravaganza of lights, paintings, streamers and more!

All 12 of us were sitting around the cabin either on top of beds, trunks or on the floor. We sat and talked.  What did we talk about? I can’t say exactly what was said. Not because it is necessarily private but because it wasn’t the words that mattered as much as the time we spent and what it meant to us. As we sat on the floor that night we fell even more into a group full of life and love for one another. We sat and talked. I repeat this because how often do we sit and talk now? We had no distractions besides a paint brush or a handful of cereal. We had no mother or little sibling running through the room. We had no cellphone beeping or TV on in the background. Looking from face to face in that room I could tell we realized how special are time was. It seemed as if time was frozen. In that moment we had everything. We had friends that cared exactly what we were saying. It didn’t matter if we weren’t popular in high school, couldn’t throw a ball 20 feet, couldn’t cut in a straight line (me) or didn’t have your typical family. What mattered was that we could share things with each other. We could share and not be judged but be comforted. 

This time to sit and talk is my most valuable possession. Without it and without camp I would not have grown in the person I am today. Camp pushes me to be a better person every day. Camp pushes me to live for others, to work hard even when I am down, to be intentional, to love unconditionally and so much more. That summer of 2010 I realized for the first time and defiantly not the last time how much camp had given to me. I am now working to give back to it all that I can. I want someone else to be able to say they had the time of their life like I did. I want to make someone see the value they gain from attending a summer camp filled with love and acceptance.

With my last blog post of the year I will leave you all a tip of advice. If you haven’t been to a summer camp it’s not to late. Go work as a counselor. You will have the time of your life.