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Photograph by Stopher Eldridge from our Shanghai Running Trip, November 2019.

Newsletter #39

a decade of becoming and (un)learning
Hi everyone!

 
There are so many learnings and experiences I would love to tell and share with you, but for that it would require lots of tea, chocolate cookies and many hours. And all of those stories are best told in person. Maybe even on many runs. For this newsletter, instead, I tend to the things that were the most pronounced to me in the past decade(s): 

Becoming Vietnamese & German and becoming myself

The other day I was on the phone with a friend and told him about my Áo Dài story, how an incidence in 3rd or 4th grade of elementary school left me traumatised for the upcoming 10-15 years. Some of you may know, but the áo dài is a traditional Vietnamese dress or tunic worn for graduation and celebrations like Lunar New Year, birthdays and weddings. The dress is separated into two pieces, often times handmade of silk and bright colors, it consists of a long-ish blouse, most often with long sleeves and a high neck, and then the long flowing pants. Would you watch a Vietnamese drama that plays in the ‘old times’, you would see all kinds of people dressed in áo dàis. We’re speaking of kingdoms and dynasties. Depending on what fabric, it definitely has the feel of a ‘fancy’ uniform. 

As immigrants in Germany having no papers the first years, my parents booked a flight home to the motherland once we held the green Vietnamese passports with golden letters in our hands. While at first only valid for 6 months, we spent the whole summer school break of 6 weeks mostly in Nam Định and Thanh Hóa, South of Hà Nội, the capital of Vietnam (and the place where I am heading to for my upcoming study abroad semester :). Về quê, my folks would say. Coming home. Quê is Vietnamese for hometown and always reminds me of the German word Quelle meaning source. I was excited and gleeful being surrounded by all the family you could only imagine. I suddenly had a grandpa and grandma, aunties, uncles, lots of cousins, in the eyes of 9-year old me: lots of new playmates that looked and laughed like me. I also remember that from one moment to the next, I had 3-4 new sets of clothes. Two-piece suits made from the same fabric, tailored to my body. Childrens’ versions of an áo dài

It’s the first day of school after the summer break back in Speyer (the town I was born in and grew up), everyone is looking forward to reconnecting with school friends and my brother and I had so much news to share. Young Huyen wears her new blue two piece suit to school. Of course I was proud and wanted to show off. How could you not be in love with a silk suit? I felt like royalty. Sadly, the day just didn’t turn out like I imagined. In class, I was made fun of and bullied. My classmates would say: did you miss your alarm? Why did you show up in your pyjamas? Nobody played with me that day and I went home crying, burying all of those suits deep in my closet.

The next decade I spent hiding, being (in)visible and assimilating as best as I could. Trying to fit in, I’d wear ‘normal’ clothes, spend more time with my German friends, and not stand out too much. Apart from my skin tone, and my home inside my four walls, it was doable to live two parallel lives. The German Huyen out and about, graduating from high school, going abroad (like every other German student does after high school), graduating from university, becoming an achiever, but not an overachiever. 

Then, it was in 2014 when I returned to New York City for a study abroad semester during undergrad. The time and years to come spent in between places, spaces, conversations and with remarkable people made me come to realise: everyone here is from everywhere. I am allowed to truly celebrate both parts of me. As fellow traveller Carla said to me: take the good, leave the bad. I made it a point of taking the good of being Vietnamese and taking the good of being German. Instead of always having to answer to the question: “Do you feel more Vietnamese or do you feel more German?”, I started to not care. There is no answer. I know I am both. And some days, I feel more Vietnamese, some days I feel more German and at this point, some days I even feel more U.S. American. More than anything, I feel connected to all kinds of people and stories and also, to our land and the inhabitants as plants and creatures. 

I came home from New York for Lunar New Year a couple years ago and before the community celebrations, I asked my mother: can we go áo dài shopping? My mother was shocked and couldn’t believe why, after so many years fighting against wearing traditional clothing, I would want to do that. It was the first time in a very very long time, I felt comfortable being who I am. 

Photograph by Rog + Bee Walker from Paper Monday, September 2018.

Becoming an athlete and a leader

While growing up commuting by bike through my town every day and in all weather conditions, it was only after high school in 2011 during my year as an Au-pair in New Jersey, that I started running and going to the gym (voluntarily). Predominantly for my own health and fitness. For eight months, I would run an hour every single day. Same path, same routine. Doing it for myself, I didn’t see a need to compete or sign up for any races. Since the sport itself was already new to me and the only other person I knew who did it was my hostmother, I stuck to the simplicity of it. One pair of trainers and one hour every morning. In 2012, I returned back home and started my undergrad. College was intense, the media and communication science program including a minor in English and American studies took the best of me. Stopped exercising completely and after 2 years, I had an urge to move my body again. This time a bit differently. A family friend long-boarded [“A longboard is a type of sports equipment similar to (…) a skateboard. It tends to be faster because of wheel size, construction materials and more precise hardware. Longboards are commonly used for cruising, travelling and downhill racing”] through town one summer day and because I was too curious, I just biked behind her… until she stopped: “Hong Anh! What is this that you’re skating on?” I loved the sense of freedom and how she was able to cover kilometre after kilometre. Correct, long distances. Fast forward to owning several longboards, skating for 2-3 years, working in a skate-shop one summer in Berlin, meeting a boyfriend through the sport, travelling to Vancouver and then to New York with it and being welcomed into a global sub-culture community. As they like to say: it was pretty rad. 

In the fall of 2014, I was in New York for that study abroad semester at Pace University, weeks after witnessing the Broadway Bomb weekend [an 8-mile unsanctioned longboard race on the third Saturday of every October] where the whole NYC longboard community came together to celebrate welcoming everyone else who travelled in. It started getting cold and I walked into Nike Flatiron to pick up a fresh pair of sneakers. (Here’s another fun fact and why I am probably loyal to the swoosh, my first running shoe that I could afford with my own money was a pair of Nikes, and then guess what, I also skated with Nike Janoskis). In any case, that fall/winter, I said to myself: if you can’t skate, you’re gonna run.

Swept away by the rise of Nike Run Club and my former team, I signed up for the NYC Half and Full Marathon lottery. And won both in the same year of 2015. The ‘hobby-skater once hobby-jogger’ became a competing athlete. I started representing a team, a name, a mission. We scored numbers in championships and slowly but surely, I became more hungry and more confident. For better times. Yes, personal records. To become better and stronger. For someone who didn’t grow up playing sports, I seriously felt like I experienced some magic cure that everyone kept away from me. And with that magic cure I don’t mean anything that would make all my problems and trauma go away, but something that I could use as a tool to release energy, to gain energy. To structure my days and seasons. I can’t say it enough, that self confidence in my body and my mental well-being,  that sense of freedom and control at the same time, I could translate from the track and the road to my studies, my work and my personal relationships. Who knew that for someone with weak bones, and not many miles in the body, would Boston qualify in her second marathon? Right, I did, because I knew that I trained and worked my butt off that summer, and ever since. 

Throughout the past 5 years, I have completed 4 Marathons, a couple of Halfs, a couple of other distances, experienced injury, broken bones, off seasons, but also so many highs. Travelled to numerous places to compete, cheer and celebrate. Running gave me my first full time job. A once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to make a living and home in New York. It gave me a sense of belonging. A purpose. And part of you witnessed my journey. It connected me to so many like-minded spirits and so many other strong souls, I am forever grateful my hostmother Debra showed me her ways.

That is the kind of energy I would love to share and give to more women and girls to come. That’s why WoCForward, WayvRunKollektiv and now the GlobalWomxnRunCollective exist. 

Photograph by Pim Rinkes, September 2019.

(Un)Learning and healing (from) the patriarchy, the racism, the sexism, the ableism (within)

“There is so much to unpack”, another friend recently sighed when we discussed about critical race theory and white privilege. Words and meanings I didn't know of, and didn’t hear in my surroundings until this past decade. Now, also imagine that I was in the U.S. during Obama, and Black Lives Matter, the Muslim Ban, the Women’s March, the #MeToo movement and Trump. While at times not in class, I learned in other ways this past decade. I was just curious and to this day, ask a lot of questions. That’s one thing they teach you in the Western World: be critical. I started reading books by BIPOC people, like James Baldwin’s Native Son or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between The World and Me or Angela Davis’ Woman Race Class. I didn’t understand why, when we studied American Studies and Intercultural Studies at my university, the curriculum didn’t discuss the Civil War, nor included books by authors of color. 

There is no accident that most of my friends in the U.S. have multiple and diverse backgrounds. There, I was exposed to it and even going back to 2011, my first friends during my time in New Jersey (during the day I’d visit an all-womens college in Morristown) were Sophie, a Black woman from Haiti, Zuleima, a Latinx woman from Salvador and Trang, a Vietnamese woman. All Americans, too. It didn’t make sense to me, to be surrounded by other European Au-Pairs when we were abroad. I wanted to learn more and actively sought out friendships to people fully living here. 

Later, I would find myself in Crown Heights, Brooklyn sitting on the stoop with Faith on a beautiful summer night, we had just picked up some West Indian food and it was only one of many instances, where she shared about her experience growing up mixed. I sat there and listened. Another time, I called her and asked her for advice “How do I cope with this and that situation?” when you’re the only woman of color. All of those people and books and encounters with many more shaped me, and I am still (un)learning. 

I also learned that experiences can vastly differ from people to people. That not all Asians see themselves as people of color. That there are institutions and systems in place that never had BIPOC, LGBTQI* or disabled people in mind. That the narratives in mainstream media and history books don’t include us. That my personal decisions are my political decisions. That I cannot expect everyone to be more active, to speak up and to stand up. That it’s also about survival and coping mechanisms. That it’s about staying open and truly listening.

Another time this past decade, I was so heartbroken and low in energy, I questioned where I came from. The relationships I grew up with. What kinds they were. If they were healthy. Yes, there was a period I hated men so much, I couldn’t date them and didn’t. I let go and shifted my focus. What if I don’t engage? I started one of the most important relationships. The one with myself. And from there, instead of getting caught up in another romantic relationship, I invested time in sisterhood. Now, I better understand that I need the time to heal. Books that helped transform the ways I love today include bell hooks’ all about love, Audre Lorde’s Zami: a new spelling of my name and the one I am currently devouring, Pleasure Activism The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown.

Today marks 2 weeks of my current crutch-life due to injury and more than ever, I see how inaccessible so many spaces are. While the transportation system is pretty grand here, the floors inside the trams and trains are indeed slippery AF. It’s a real challenge to get from A to B, it takes double the amount of time when I am lucky and easy tasks like grocery shopping become strenuous. On the upside, I am learning to take my time to adjust and to be patient. Whenever my arms and shoulders are tired, I just stand in the middle of the street and take my break. It is what it is and I can’t change it anyway, but to accept it. It’s interesting how now, instead of trying to make myself small (when I was walking I would (sub)consciously do so), I have no choice but to take up space with the crutches. Literally. Lots of people do get out of my way then and even this morning, a cute boy opened up the tram door for me ;) . Other times like last night, a man tried to push me away… Overall, I am trying to stay on the upside though and through this experience I want to become more considerate with people with special needs. Thus, we should all pay more attention to the Paralympics in Tokyo this year held August 25th to September 6th. 

When I took off my boot this morning to take a shower, I tried walking for a couple steps and I couldn’t really put pressure on my left leg. Now is probably also a good time to pick up Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness book How To Walk again because it’s been really humbling. Nevertheless, it feels good to stay connected and to get on with my normal life. At the beginning of this period, I thought about cancelling the upcoming classes, at least for 1-2 weeks after the holidays, but it feels like a huge accomplishment that I made it to the library this morning. Here’s to coming back stronger!

A decade of social media...

Jenna Wortham’s newsletter and these words: “This decade was the decade that the Internet transitioned from being a place I loved to visit to a place that seemed responsible for my moods, my mental state and my emotional body. How it became a source of joy, alienation and desperation on an eternal loop, and the dark realization that a natural side effect of my own sharing is that it may contribute to someone else’s joy, alienation and desperation in ways I can’t even begin to imagine,” also made me think of the ways in which we now use social media. How it defined us and made us in the last decade. 

When I first started my travel blog in 2011, I just wanted to keep a journal of my travels, and eventually wrote more about working out and becoming healthier. In 2013, I picked it up again and wrote about fashion — easy enough since I interned at a magazine in Berlin at the time. But I turned from gold to green. I was into mindless shopping until I started running and saw that we are more than our materialistic belongings. That we are connected on all the different levels. Yet, I was the last one in my friend group who acquired a smartphone and then Facebook and Instagram. As a media scientist, I was late to the game, and even signed up to buy a Fairphone [“a social enterprise company which aims to develop smartphones that are designed and produced with minimal environmental impact”], but I gave in and asked myself: how can you conduct studies on social media without using it? 

So, the blogger turned into an Instagram-essayist as Michelle wrote about me in her Hot Knees newsletter in 2016. I do have to say though, that it felt freeing to use multiple platforms to write and to publish. For someone who was pursuing journalism without going to journalism school, I had the notion of: learning by doing. You write, you publish, you pitch and read, and write some more. Just gotta try. It didn’t make sense to me to go to school for writing, or business. Those things I felt like I learned by being thrown into it. 

In my undergrad, I read countless studies, learned about media psychology, how our addictions to technology changed us as people, how we interact and communicate with one another, what it does to our brains. In my papers for my current master’s in media science, I still reference MIT technology scientist Sherry Turkle and her talk Connected, but alone. While it was published in 2012, it still has a few good points that are valid today. Recently, I also read this good NYT opinion piece about the future of social media A Better Internet Is Waiting for Us by Annalee Newitz in which she talked to specialists about creating an even safer and more democratic internet landscape. 

What I’ve learned from studying media is: we can’t catch up. It’s still a somewhat new field of research and while in a lot of classes, we’re still wrapping our heads around film, tv and radio, Mark Zuckerberg is over there owning all of our data. And we got used to it. Well, it also happened so fast. While in the beginning of the decade, I was more cautious when to give out my email or learn more about data privacy and law, I am now pretty relaxed about my images, my words, my personal data being used for presentations, advertising and much more. One word comes to mind: democratisation. Here comes another question though: for who? Another word follows right behind: capitalism.

I am still figuring my way out with my own social media use, and keeping an eye on screen time, as well as taking every Sunday offline to remind myself of the simple mundane things (the ones I always end up sharing nevertheless). Here comes my prompt for you though to maybe feel a little bit better when you use it: while we’re being active, physically, by running around, staying healthy and fit, and cutting loose of all the toxic relationships in our lives, why not be more active and conscious with how you use social media? Cut loose from all the content that doesn’t serve you. Ask yourself: is it a safe haven for you when you open up and scroll through IG? Do you use it mainly to consume or to produce and share meaningful stories? What’s your end-goal? 

This past April, inspired by my friend Sydney, I deleted everyone I followed. Yes, it was around 1500 people. Manually even. It took me a couple days, but once it showed 0, I deleted IG for 3 days and started only re-following the ones I remembered. And that was around 100. Over time, it grew back to 600 but now, whenever I open the feed, I feel much more safe, much more content and way less anxious. It is truly the content I want to see. Mostly BIPOC womxn and thought leaders, people in sports, journalists, photographers.

Sister as a verb

“Sistering begets more sisters and mothers, and fathers and brothers. The chosen and given families of sisters in practice become family across and through sistering. (...) What is sistering? When is it happening? What is the freedom and accountability when 'sister' is not just a static identity that you have but is something that you do or don't do, with consequences. What happens when I apply that to all of my relationships?”

"In her essay 'On the Issue of Roles,' Tony Cade explains that if we want to have a revolution, we have to craft revolutionary relationships, in action, not simply in rhetoric. (...) A revolution cannot be created by conforming to existing roles in relationships already defined by the systems we want to overthrow. We have to practice creating new relationships." 

- adrienne maree brown
Meant to keep this newsletter short, but oh well.. for that I'll share my 2019 book list with you next time! Be safe, stay hydrated, sleep and happy new year 2020 friends <3

xx,
Huyen

I am currently featured in the print issue of Runner's World Magazine U.S. and lol did NOT know this was coming out! Do me a favour, snatch me a copy and pass along to friends heading to Berlin and/or Tokyo for the marathon soon ;) Thank you!! 

In the seventh episode of the podcast, I sit down with Vietnamese and Cambodian stylist and fashion designer Carolyn Son from New York. We speak about her upbringing, her own meditation practice and so much more. Listen in and subscribe! :)

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