Vietnamese Culture

Living in a new world is always difficult. I have been transferred to the United States with a totally different culture. In Vietnamese culture, the relationship between siblings was determined by the principle of seniority, which requires younger siblings to respect and obey older ones. The eldest brother is entrusted with a heavy responsibility, that of substituting for the parents in case of emergency.

When I was a child, my parents always taught me that family was the school to learn the respect rules in both behaving, loving, respecting, and obeying parents. My parents always watched my sisters, my brothers and me. Each night, my parents taught us how to writing and spelling Vietnamese words because it’s the only language we used to speak in Vietnam. The rules in my family are that girls are shy and passive because my parents feel reluctant to raise questions that would be rude to the adults.

The rules also prevent us from interfering and interrupting older...