My Life

On March 25, 1989, Lindzey Dau was experiencing difficulty as she attempted to give birth to her first child. Like many others, she had made the long, grueling trip across the Pacific Ocean nearly 12 years ago to escape the aftermath of war in Vietnam and here she sat enduring an equally terrifying experience. The already long, complicated process took a turn for the worse as doctors realized the umbilical cord was wrapped several times around the child’s neck cutting off air circulation. They rushed to extract the baby and after critical minutes passed, John Hung Tran graced the world with his presence. From that point forward, the world would never be the same.

Contrary to the chaos of my birth, my early childhood was relatively ordinary having grown up in Sacramento, California. According to others, I was always a very outgoing, loving, and very curious child, always valuing opportunities to engage with others and explore the world. However, I certainly got into some trouble for being too talkative and overzealous about wanting to touch and feel everything. Overall, I was a very good child so perhaps somewhere along the way past adolescence, something went wrong. haha

One significant event that occurred in my childhood and completely changed my life around was the divorce of parents. I was about eleven years old and finishing the final year of my elementary school when my normal, comfortable world came crashing down. With puberty on the horizon and so many other developments occurring, this was surely the most inopportune time. The divorce was very hard on me due to the unstable nature of my father. Apparently, he wanted to recapture his youth so he turned to partying, drugs, and alcohol. It is the most difficult thing to do, to watch a person you admire so much begin to slowly deteriorate and eventually he was gone. For a year I stayed with my grandmother as the nasty divorce continued, an experience that ultimately opened my eyes. As an immigrant from Vietnam, my grandmother did not have much money, so naturally she lived in a bad neighborhood where drugs, violence, and death were very common. My curiosity compelled me to wander the streets where I saw things that shocked and completely disrupted my thought process and my whole being. The essence of my stay with my grandmother can be represented by the fact that I witness my friend being shot nearly an arm length in front me. At that very moment, I realize that I could easily assimilate and become a victim or rise above the turmoil and hardship. Certainly, people have seen and experience far worse things, but for me these memories made me who I am today and I share them because they are very important to me.

Eventually, my mother gained full custody and she was able to move my brother and I to the Bay Area where she believed we could have a better life. In regards to my father, I found out months later that he conceded custody and was content on seeing us once a week. His bitterness towards my mother blinded him and the weekly visits soon turned to once a month and within a year, it ceased altogether. I had to go to therapy to recover but it was truly a long healing process that I still attempt to deal with today.

My brother and I excelled in our new environments doing well in school and becoming very active. I myself in particular worked exceptionally hard wanting to prove to my father I was worth his time. In addition to doing well academically, in high school I was very active, becoming Senior class president and prom king, captain of the basketball team, singing in choirs, commissioner on the city council and many other activities. In regards to working, I did wide array of jobs from commercial and residential real estate, nail salon, manager at Extreme Pizza, construction, bank teller, interning at Merrill Lynch, and even starting my own business, JT Solutions LLC. This was all partially motivated by the fact that I wanted to gain the affection and approval of my father so badly. Unfortunately, while it helped me excel and motivated me to do well, my goal of earning my father’s recognition was in vain, having seen or talk with him only twice in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, it made me who I am today, for better or worse, and having been raised by such a loving, caring, and extraordinary mother even without the financial support of my father surely compensated for the absence of my father.

Having closed that chapter of my life, I look forward to the future and Vietnam is essentially a big part of it. People often ask me why I chose Vietnam as the location to study abroad and the truth of the matter is I did not choose Vietnam but Vietnam chose me. Growing up my grandmother often told me stories about her homeland, which gave me a strange feeling of nostalgia. It was as if I had been before and everything she described felt so familiar. I knew all my life that I had to visit Vietnam and with the study abroad program I knew it was a perfect opportunity to fully experience the country. Subsequently, this upcoming semester I hope to take a very light class schedule so I can have the opportunity to explore and volunteer in the community. My goal is to learn anything and everything about Vietnam from the language to the customs to how to efficiently bargain. I am really spontaneous and I feel that making plans restricts an individual and so the truth of the matter is, I have no actual plans or expectation. I have a very open mind, which will aid me on my quest to discover the goals I hope to accomplish while in Vietnam. This is experience is dedicated to my family and especially my mom. =)