Because your voice matter.
It’s the end of the festivities of the New Lunar Year. Being Vietnamese from my mom, I proudly wanted to wish everybody I could reach here a lot of love. I wish that this year, you will be able to achieve your goals, find and define your own way of happiness and realize your dreams. I hope you will have the strength to work hard to succeed in whichever initiatives or changes you want to have in your life. I believe you will get over some of your fears and take a leap of faith that you would not do before. I support you in every little decisions or actions that you will take to make your life a little bit better.
And I hope you will find the strength to raise your voice and own your identity. And representing yourself out to the World. With no shame, no shyness and no stress.
Because everybody is different and everyone has their own story.
Because your history makes you represent your identity, your battles, your hardships. It enlightens the injustices and what’s wrong in this world that made you who you are but can prevent from others to suffer through it. Or at least have a way to be able to handle it.
Because there’s nothing wrong with being who you are. There’s something wrong with denying what you are, who you are and what you represent.
I am a mixed human being. I am very proud to be Vietnamese and thankful to be French.
For the longest time I tried to fit into one box. One culture, one ethnicity. But things are never that easy.
I finally realized that I needed to set an example for myself. As a mixed female in nowadays world, I feel the need to represent both ethnicities. I feel the duty to be the bridge that allows people to connect and to reach out. Being from extreme both sides of what once was called Eurasia, I have to be with the ones representing and being the balance. Between two different backgrounds, between two different lifestyles and between two different worlds.
We are on the same planet for one reason, we are living through life for the same goal. Trying to make the best out of it until our end. We can or can’t have different views, opinions, beliefs and wants and needs on how we want to make our life great.
But we all have one thing in common. Nobody wants to live a miserable unfulfilling life. Nobody wants to be unhappy, unsatisfied.
That’s why everybody needs to respect one another. I know I lack of that treatment in my life and to me, it is the clue to have had better memories of my life in France. I find that respect comes from actions and behaviors that you can see in people you don’t know and you learn not to fear or be suspicious about.
That’s why I hope that everybody could show a little bit more of themselves. It matters. It matters for us to learn more. It matters for us to open our minds. It matters for us to be able to live side by side in a better environment.
Representing your culture, your character, how and what you learn from it, what it brought to your life. It is important.
People will still try to put you in boxes, that’s the way it is. It appeases minds and give a sense of security. It is part of a comfort zone.
But we also enter a new stage of age. Everybody can feel it. We want to be recognize for all the diversity we can bring to the table. We want to change history, we want to have a seat at the big table, a voice that is heard, a difference that matter.
And I get it. I can’t quite believe it too. You’ve maybe always try to fit in. Thinking that if you’d become someone else, you will be accepted and included.
But there is nothing wrong with being who you are or embracing whatever heritage you were brought up to. Your identity represents your experience, your history and your way of living life.
Furthermore if your heart is in the right place, people will love you anyway. Despite your differences.
And they will love you for You.
So don’t be ashamed of who you are or what you represent. Because that’s beautiful. You are beautiful, just the way you are.
And remember, « Be yourself ! Everyone else is already taken. »
Travel Life With Vân 