Experiencing Culture Shock In Vietnam

Well hey guys, welcome back to another video, this one is a special one because it is Tet, which is Lunar New Year for those of you who don’t know. And its tradition to go back to one’s husband’s hometown to ‘ăn mừng’ with family, and this would be our second year as a married couple returning to Nhà Bùi.
So you may be wondering, is this at all familiar to you as an American living in Vietnam and never having celebrate Tết until marrying into a Vietnamese family? Well the truth is that it was a huge culture shock. Me having grown up celebrating Christmas and eating turkey, coming to my husband’s hometown up in the mountains, far from the city, with his entire family and eating foreign foods was big culture shock to me.
I remember the first year coming back to my husband’s hometown as a married couple, we had many fights and many disagreements. But looking back at it now, I see it was honestly because of my unwillingness to feel uncomfortable in an environment that I was not familiar with. But I’ve learned that marrying my Vietnamese husbands meant embracing a new culture and a new family.
So how am I approaching this year differently, well I’ve decided that they’re my family now too. They have open their house to me, a foreigner and embraced me with open arms. I’ve felt nothing but warmth and love from them. I am truly grateful to have married into this big and humble family.
haha so now having lived in Vietnam for 7 years, I cannot imagine a different life than the life that God has called me to. Because never in a million years did I see myself moving to Vietnam and settling down , becoming a wife to Vietnamese man, a teacher to a bunch of kids in Bình Dương and leaning a completely new language only to converse with my husbands family during Tết. All of this to say, Gods plans are usually something way different than whatever you had in mind. It is an adventure and it is one I am excited to be a part of.