a case for comradery.

With the world in disarray and people being uncertain about the future, I felt a strong urge to share a few thoughts on the most human trait.

As my grandma is getting older, every time I am in Vietnam, I try to spend as much time with her as possible. I really want to preserve her memories, so I always ask her a lot of questions, trying to learn more about her life. She told me about how she met my grandfather, how mom, my uncle and aunts were when they were young and about how she experienced the Vietnam war. I realized how little I knew about the latter and my home country in general, so I embarked on a journey to learn more about my heritage.

I read a bunch of books on the topic — my favourites being The Sympathizer and The Mountains Sing — went to every relevant museum in Hanoi and Saigon. The most beautiful thing for me was that the more I dove into my heritage, the more I understood my mom, my friends and ultimately myself.

Here is an example: It has always brought the deepest sense of joy to see my friends succeed and especially if I could support them in any way. I never knew where this feeling came from, until I learned more about the Vietnamese culture.

Vietnamese people are well-known for their overwhelming spirit of solidarity. This trait is so deeply ingrained into our culture and it even shows in our language. In Vietnamese there is not really a concept of “I” and “you” — you refer to yourself always in relation to others. Not just any relation — people from the same generation are your anh, chị, em — big brother, big sister, little sister. Older people are your chú, your bà — your uncle or grandmother. Younger people are your cháu — nephew or niece. Basically, everyone is part of your family. There are no strangers.

I believe this addresses a deeply human trait — you don't exist in a vacuum, but only in interaction with your environment.

Concepts can sound nice and plausible, but the only way to know something based on a fundamental truth is to peel the onion. Strip away the fluff and put them to the test in the most difficult situations — and when they prevail or even thrive in the face of cosmic challenges — you know they are the real deal.

Vietnam has been through the worst wars again and again — fighting one Goliath after the other in China, Japan, France, the US. They have faced a devastating famine in 1945, extreme poverty post-war 1986 and are hit by typhoons almost every year. What I've heard and read again and again were stories of compassion, solidarity and mutual support.

One personal story: My grandma's family stayed with various hosts during the Vietnam war when they fled Hanoi to escape the American bombing us “back into the Stone Age”. The hosts shared food and shelter with them, people they had never met in their lives, treating them like their own family.

I've experienced it in my professional and personal life time and time again. At Y42, we were like family (although Hung would always call us a sports team) and the Vietnamese spirit ran through all of us — not just the Viets, but everyone, Russian, Ukrainian, German, English, Spanish, Filipino... I am close friends with almost everyone in the organisation and I know that I can call anyone up for support (I've actually done it countless times and they've always picked up).

The other day, @bakhai took me to a Vietnamese dinner in SF. I knew no one, but immediately, the people were warm and welcoming, calling me anh, em, offering me food, and speaking to me as if we've known each other for all our lives. I guess, when everyone is your family, you treat them well even though you've never met.

And this sense of comradery is not an exclusive Vietnamese trait — it's deeply human. Another time I witnessed overwhelming comradery was during the big flood of Passau. Before the flood, there was a big tension between the citizens of Passau and the students — students were too loud, partied all the time, disturbed the peace of the city.

Then the flood happened in 2013. People were displaced, many lost their homes, the whole old city was under water. I remember we were sitting at our window being cut off from the rest of the city while observing the water coming closer and closer to our house. It was horrible. But in the soil of this disaster, something beautiful was born.

After the flood moved back and in the face of destruction and devastation, the students went out and for some reason, we started helping people clean up their houses, basements, removed the debris. It started small, just helping out your neighbors, but quickly picked up the pace. We were calling back all our friends who had left the city, formed and distributed teams to clean up the city. Every animosity, every little quarrel forgotten. We sent teams to the hardware store and cleaned out the shovels and rubber boots and working gloves. The whole student body was mobilized. Everyone was doing all they could. Our favourite cafe cooked lunch for free every day for all the students, restaurants provided free drinks. The army came and worked alongside the students, residents and students worked side by side.

We cleaned up the entire city within 2 weeks. I've heard that similar cases would normally take 3 months. For a while, the whole city was one. Although the news reports it as a devastating natural disaster, I know for a fact that everyone who was involved remembered the time as one of the most wonderful times of their lives.

In Vietnamese, there is no concept of me and you — in fact the words are considered rude. You don't exist in a vacuum, only in relation to your environment. My grandma told me a famous Vietnamese proverb: “Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.”

And if everyone is an anh, chị or em — the whole world is a part of you.