Minnesota State University Mankato
My Study Abroad Experience
Standing in front of my University sign
I was running across the airport, two heavy suitcases on each hand and an overstuffed backpack on my shoulders, my sister and mom not too far behind. Adrenaline pumping, I quickly printed out my boarding ticket and went to send my baggage. Walking back over to my family, I glanced at the long security line, palms sweaty, and turned to my mom. “Where’s Dad?”
Brows furrowed, she answered, “He hasn’t come in yet.” In typical Hoang fashion, we had underestimated how long it would take us to get to the airport, especially with traffic, and arrived extremely late. So my dad had dropped the rest of us off before driving off to find a parking spot.
I bit the inside of my cheek and glanced down at the time on my phone. “Okay, I’ll wait for a little bit.”
My mom started taking pictures of me and my sister, insisting that she wanted as many photos as she could to remember this moment. With each snapshot, more time passed by. My dad had still not shown up, and my anxiety of missing my flight was spiking.
Unable to delay it anymore, I said my goodbyes to my sister and mom and headed into the security line. I tried to facetime my dad to say my goodbyes, but he was not picking up. Then, I heard my name called out, and I turned around to see him. A smile broke across my face, and weaving through some people, I ran to give him a quick hug.
“Stay safe, kiddo,” he said.
Laughing, I nodded. We said our goodbyes, and knowing that I was able to see everyone in my family one last time, I waved and ran back into the security line, focused on getting to my gate as soon as possible. It was not until I was sitting in the airport seat, staring outside the small window and seeing the airplane tracks that it hit me. I was going to be in a country, all alone, for four months. For the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly alone.
Over the Fall 2018 semester, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Bristol, England. There were many reasons that I wanted to study abroad. I desired to go out and experience something that was outside of my comfort zone. I had primarily grown up in the suburbs, and even though Mankato is considered a city, it still emitted a small-town feel. Bristol, on the other hand, is a city in all aspects of the word. I wanted to see how I would react to living in the city, and even more so to a city that was in a different country. Alongside that, I wanted to experience cultures that were outside of my own (Self-awareness level 2). What drew me initially to England was because it was a culture that I had no personal ties to, so I would be experiencing the culture for the first time. This was also an opportunity for me to go and face any of my personal biases and overcome them (Self-awareness level 3).
My time abroad achieved my goals, but not in the way that I had expected. Walking in, I expected that the culture that I would be exposed to the most would be British culture. When I moved into my flat, though, I discovered how diverse my flat was, and since I spent a large portion of my time with my flatmates during my time abroad, it had a large influence on my experience there. My roommate, Xyrene, was Malaysian. My other flatmate, Fennie, was Chinese born British, and my last flatmate, Cherry, was a Chinese graduate student from Japan. Each of us brought in our personal experiences, and it was common for us to just sit and talk about our different cultures in the shared kitchen. For example, Xyrene is Malaysian, but she is also Chinese. I had never even known that there was a Chinese population in Malaysia, much less that there were so many different ethnicities that live there. We all had differing spiritual views as well, and it was refreshing learning about them from one another. I was able to learn about cultures that I would have never else been exposed to. By having a safe space to ask about and explore different cultures, I became aware of my own cultural biases that I had, and not just about British culture (Self-awareness level 4, Knowledge and Understanding level 4).
Another thing that surprised me during my time abroad was how I also learned more about my Vietnamese identity. In Bristol, there are many different university societies, with one of them being Vietnamese society. Curious, I decided to attend one of their meetings. When I got there, I discovered that not only was I the only Vietnamese-American, but that I was one of two people there who were Southern Vietnamese. This was completely new to me. I had grown up surrounded by a Southern Vietnamese community and being surrounded by people who were from North Vietnam was a disorientating experience. I was in a room where everyone spoke fluently Vietnamese and had experiences that I could not relate to. It was like I was looking at everything through a warped mirror. The people around me were like me in the sense that we shared culture and language, yet at the same time, I was vastly different. I became self-conscious about speaking Vietnamese, afraid of not saying things correctly, even though I heard and understood almost everything that they were saying. Yet I would become sad when the members would in turn only speak to me in English. It almost felt to me like they didn’t see me as Vietnamese, even though I knew that was not their intention (Communication level 4). Being in Vietnamese society made me acutely aware of my dual identity. I found myself learning more about my Vietnamese side, even if there were moments of discomfort.
All of this was also paired with me experiencing British culture as well. Bristol surprised me in many ways, and I connected to many different cultures that I never would have thought I would interact with during my time abroad. My experience abroad was a testament to how diverse the world has become, and how life might surprise you in ways you did not expect.