2008 AFSA Merit Award Best Essay Winner
by Benjamin Winnick

My three years in Vietnam shaped my perceptions more than any other experience in my life.  I encountered prejudice and learned about being a minority.  I witnessed poverty and saw the developing world firsthand.  I learned how culture shapes life, work, and behavior.

At the International School of Ho Chi Minh City, Americans were a minority.  Most students were Vietnamese or Korean, with a total of over twenty nationalities.   I encountered prejudice against America for the first time, though not from Vietnamese students.  The prejudice mostly came from Western students, driven by objection to America’s foreign policy but extending to its culture, history, and people.  I was not just Ben; I was “the American.”  I was torn between my own disagreement with U.S. foreign policy, loyalty to my country and its historic values, and my desire to be accepted by students and teachers.  There were also tensions among other groups, particularly between Koreans and Europeans.  After enduring these tensions for over a year, I took action.  During my sophomore year, I spearheaded the creation of the “Students for Tolerance Committee” to raise awareness and reduce hostility at school. 

My school experiences were complemented by invaluable lessons about poverty and its problems that I learned from living in a developing country.  In Vietnam, I saw families living in metal shacks.  I saw people use the Saigon River as a toilet, drink its water, and bathe and wash their clothes in it.  I saw children working in fields and begging on the streets.  Although I witnessed these events daily, my most direct experiences of poverty and cultural differences came from volunteering at Bien Hoa Orphanage.

The orphanage showed me the hardships orphans face.  The air inside was filled with the stench of urine, feces, warm milk, mucus, and sweat.  There were rooms filled with dozens of tiny mewling babies.  When we, a group of nine volunteers, held the babies, we could feel their heavy, impaired breathing.  Caring for so many tiny children was a Sisyphean task.   Only two caregivers worked at a time, and they concentrated on mechanical tasks such as laundry, cleaning, and bottle-feeding.  They had little time to play with the children.  When we came, we alleviated some of the strain but even as we held, rocked, fed, and played, there were unattended children screaming for attention.  I would solace one child but as soon as I diverted my attention to another baby, the child I had just put down would resume howling. 
           
At Bien Hoa, I learned that when people are concerned about survival, it is difficult to be altruistic.  The women who worked at the orphanage seemed more concerned with keeping their jobs than with the children’s welfare.  They rarely let the children go outside because they feared that any injury, even a scratch or bug bite, would jeopardize their employment.  When one of our teachers donated a pair of shoes, a woman on duty took them for her own child.  When someone is in poverty, short-term gain is a higher priority than moral correctness.  Perhaps moral correctness is a luxury reserved for those whose immediate needs are satisfied.
           
The orphanage also taught me the challenges of working with people from a different culture.  Culture is more than diet or apparel; it influences one’s way of life and work.  In America, people dispose of things without hesitation, but the women at Bien Hoa were raised to conserve.  Whenever we tried to change a diaper that was not bursting, they would stop us.  Although we saw children suffering from diaper rash, defying the women would have been terribly disrespectful.  So, although we changed diapers when we could, we never openly disobeyed the women who worked there.
           
Thanks to Vietnam, I better understand the meaning of diversity.  I recognize that culture shapes attitudes.   I am able to function in foreign or new environments.  I have more insight into prejudice and the way it excludes and divides people.  I also recognize the serious need that exists in the world and our duty to do something about it.  Although I still have a lot to learn about the world, living in Vietnam has made me wiser and broader-minded.