how foreigners make themselves look bad to locals

Today was my second night at the Engish Cafe/Club. My friend and I was actually on time this time, and we even had a good group of people instead of sitting my ourselves because we were late like last time.

How the meeting operates is that people are divided by groups, and each is set to discuss a sub-topic of a bigger topic for the night. Then all the groups would hear what the other talk about and furtherly discuss the topic with each other. It's a way to get everyone talking and learning to use category specific vocabulary.

Tonight's topic was "Co-habbiting without a marriage liscence and Marriage." What I got out of what young people like me are saying is that, they prefer to marry a person before living together because the Vietnamese society values the virginal status of the bride and if there will be a lot of pressure on the couple if they are just living together and not married.

I was a bit shocked to hear these idea because I had expected a more modernized answer, but I wasn't that shocked because after seeing that my friends here are still heavily attached to their family and all the social traditions. I guess that means that I will never brings honor to my family as a blushing bride. Oh well.

Anyway, there was a older American there as a facilator to one of the English speaking group. He stood out a lot because of his age, around middle age, and his attitude, he wasn't that friendly. As the discussion went around, he was very outspoken and opinionated about what the other young speakers have said regarding marriage. His tone was a bit condesending and patronizing commenting on how he has been to about 8 weddings in Vietnam and they all pretty sucked because everyone rushed in and out, and how he doesn't understand why there are so many bridal and wedding studios in the city or why everyone invites people they don't know to weddings and pretty much concluded that Vietnamese marriage is often about money and not love or enjoyment of the couple's reunion.

He is so lucky that the majority of the people in the room didn't have enough English vocabulary to give him a rebutal or just didn't understand completely what he was saying. Honestly, who the hell is this guy coming in here criticizing a country with thousands of years' ceremony and tradition? And if he hates it so much, why didn't he stop at wedding number 4 or number 5 and went to all 8 only to bitch about it now? Being the only non-white person who speaks and understands English fluently, I had to explain to him the flaws in his statements, that we don't just invite anyone, and those who are invited can not refused because lots of thoughts are put into the invitation, and wedding in Vietnam has seen better traditional days but it's not just a business like he thinks now. But he didn't even bother to turn around to look at me as I spoke to him and continued to refuse to see my point by saying that all he knows is that American wedding are way more fun and more sincere.

Wow... really? 250 years old America has better traditions and values than more than 3000 years of Vietnamese traditions. Like I said, he is lucky that no one else in the room knew enough English to tear him a new one, and that the discussion was ended before I finished speaking my piece.

I am told that he is the husband of Helping Hand Saigon's founder, and often expressed his negative attitude toward Vietnamese traditions during English Club time. Then why the fuck are you still here man? Get the fuck out of this place if you hate it so much, because now you're just annoying people with your pessimistic and shallow insutls about their culture. What you know is only the size of my pinky toe's nail and is nothing worth mentioning so don't just assume my entire culture is base on your wikipedia knowledge. Seriously, you are making yourself look bad, and just because no one is saying anything, doesn't mean they're not thinking about how shiteous you are for looking down on their culture. And what makes you think you are better than us to even look down on us, being white and ignorant?

I spent some part of my life making fun of people like you for a good laugh, but to really run into one of you, you should be really glad that there were barriers that kept me from whiping out my dick and slapping you silly.

Honestly, to come to a foreign country and to have stayed here for obviously a long time, he should at least learn to appreciate its good and bad sides as oppose to compare it to your homeland that is a melting pots of cultures. I think he thought that he could talk shit since there was also no one who could call him bullshit on making American culture seems way better than it really is.

Good news is, I made some more local friends and we're going places so more pictures soon.