MovieChat Forums > Journey from the Fall (2006) Discussion > How did this movie affect you?

How did this movie affect you?


First of all, I want to say that this was a great film. Great in a way that it is the first movie I've seen about the Vietnam war and refugee experience that I could actually relate to in some way. I'm sure that for many of you this movie hit home in various ways and I'd like to hear about it.

I was born in Saigon in 1972 and came to the U.S. in '74. My mother is Vietnamese but my father is white. While I was not one of the boat people, there was alot I could relate to in this film. I grew up in Bowie, MD... far removed from any other Vietnamese population and I was made to feel it. I was bullied repeatedly like the kid in the movie so I identified with his character the most. When my parents inevitably divorced, I was left without a father figure. With only a mother who speaks strongly accented english and no other family or Vietnamese community, my mother took low paying jobs such as waitressing to support us. As you can guess, she was never home, like the mother in the movie. Because of the constant bullying for my ethnicity and not other Vietnamese around to encourage me, I began to be ashamed of my Vietnamese heritage. I wanted to be recognized by my other racial half, but this never happened. I never learned to speak Vietnamese and ridiculed my own mother for not speaking english properly. I was embarrassed when friends I tried to make would finally speak with my mother and their difficulty understanding her. I was equally ashamed when she would offer them food, usually a rough version of a Vietnamese dish my mother could round up due to the lack of Vietnamese stores for ingredients. I never thought I could top the shame I felt shopping at Good Will thrift stores or digging through trash for aluminum cans. I fought with my mother constantly for this but in my brash young age, did not understand how to swallow my pride for survival.

As I got older, the hardships I had to face changed me. I began to toughen up and fight back. I became a bit of a loner. After constantly hearing wrong and hurtful information about Vietnam, I started to learn everything I could about my heritage and developed some Vietnamese pride. I was determined to inform myself and others about the differences between the Communist Vietnamese and South Vietnamese. Although I was still highly distrustful of people I meet, (I still am somewhat of a loner even today), I managed to find friends who didn't care about my race or heritage. I began to have an attraction for girls. Even still, I could not be attracted to Asian girls because the only connection I had with Asian girls was my mother and sister. As a result, every asian girl I came across immediately reminded me of them! My mother eventually remarried and I finally had a semi-father figure, but not without alot of fighting and hardships. That marriage ended after 10 years and the birth of another sister. To this day, I never really had a father figure.

When I grew to adulthood, my mother finally moved to a Vietnamese community. Like a homecoming or something. She needed to be with a community to share her heritage which she had to repress, even from her own children. I can't count the times I've been smacked by her for rolling my eyes as she told us about "how it was back in Vietnam". This move to a Vietnamese community near Atlanta, GA brought me new revelations. It was here I learned the term "F.O.B." I also learned that due to my mixed heritage and lack of speaking Vietnamese, I was not very popular with many young Vietnamese. I also came to know the term "whitewashed" or "twinky". I also came to realize something I thought of as laughable become deadly serious. Asian gangs.

Anyway, now I am a full grown adult and a product of this time. I now live in the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam and have a family of my own. One of the vehicles I've developed through the years in order to express myself is through music. Appropriately enough, I have a rock band named Black April (www.blackapril.com), made up of other members who have their own refugee experiences because of that fateful day. Our music has even reached Vietnam and I've been swamped numerous times with emails suggesting I change the name of the band because it's too "political" or "inflammatory" towards the government and people of Vietnam. Well, that's not going to happen because that day forged who we are and that's not something to apologize about. In my opinion it should be something to revere, honor and respect and my duty to never forget it.

Okay, enough about me! Feels like I wrote a book and had a psyche session in the process! My experience is probably pretty tame compared to many of you who had to actually escape Vietnam by boat and suffer through the refugee camps. I wan't to hear your own personal stories and how this film affected you.

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good post. hopefully others will post. i am not vietnamese but as an american it makes me want to get involved in not letting these things happen in the future, i don't know much about it but i think what happened was a result of other powerful Western countries meddling in vietnams affairs (starting b4 vietnam war).

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john_fredrickson, your words and feelings touched me as much as this film and many of my favourite films.

I am happy that you let flow your feelings, and I am truly sorry that your conflicted emotions were tearing you apart throughout your life. I am sorry that you could not find a real friend that would have accepted you and your mom and your culture, a real friend who would have tried to help you to stop feeling angry and embarrassed.

This is one of the most technically flawless and emotionally subtle films I have ever watched, Journey engendered seeds of hope at time when we are experiencing a global civilization entangled in the never-ending cycle of inhumanity and violence.

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Wow... thanks for the post. Hmm, to be honest, I've always been a bit jealous of half Vietnamese people. I felt like they received all the benefits of being a white American (usually).

I guess I'm still learning to grow...

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