Personal Narrative: My Struggle With My Vietnamese Culture

Eyeing the mostly burnt fried fish with literal air bubbles forming in between the scales and meat and wrinkling of the top layer skin that was just a disaster on one plate.
Not only that, but there seem to be hundreds of bowls of rice, with the bright white grains seeping over the top. Within the bowls of rice were dry-microwaved pieces of Spam and toxic shiny film created from being out for too long. The more I looked at it, the more the food began to resemble increasingly intimidating mountains of dirty snow and less like an edible meal. However, this isn’t a story about my struggles with my Vietnamese culture, although it may seem to be, it just so happens my Mom isn’t necessarily the best cook around. When my family gathered around the

table for the family dinner, I found myself unable to eat anything. Being served was a few pieces of Spam, probably one piece of a vegetable, and a bowl of rice that I couldn’t even finish as I discreetly scooped some into another bowl. Scurrying away from the dinner table with my unfinished plate, suddenly an echo travelled down the walls of the hallway. It was my Mom ordering me to return back to the dinner table to continue to eat. After all, who else could call my name and leave me shivering from head to toe?
As my gaze returned to the bowl with the fish and Spam, I refused. I stood firm with no intention of returning back to the dinner table and my Mom came up to me with an extremely disappointed expression. She reminded me in a tone I’ve never heard used before about the kids in Africa and how they would love to have even a portion of the food on the table. I’ve heard that phrase a million of times before, but it never resonated with me until that day. How the poor village kids in Vietnam would kill to have this kind of meal per day and that just sunk right into me. As my mother’s voice resounded in the miniscule room, I felt my stern stance weaken, my creased eyebrows and feelings of frustration as I returned to the plate relaxed.
At that moment, I began to feel a lingering feeling of shame over my inability to finish the food my Mom had prepared for me. Since then, I have learned to appreciate everything that I have and understand that regardless of my own situation or condition, there is always someone less fortunate. Through this mindset, I started to approach life in a more positive light and learned to love and appreciate everything around me.
If you asked me a few years back what I thought of the MTA, my exact response would sound a lot like this: “ It’s always delayed, prices are rising, there’s a growing stench through every train cart entered etc.” However, as I look around in the MTA platform, it didn’t seem so bad. I was glad I had an accessible mode of transportation with hundreds of new faces everywhere I look. With the the fixed price of $2.75, I had the ability to move from borough to borough or from ends to ends of the city. In the future, I’ll probably use this trait of mine to instill good character amongst fellow students. I know college can be extremely stressful based on the amount of times I’ve heard a college student on the train complaining about the heavy load of work. I think approaching any situation such as college with a positive mindset and appreciating everything around oneself will make the college load seem much lighter.