Skip to main content

Resentment

I don't think there is a Vietnamese word that is totally equivalent to "resentment". Yet I have been seeing (and probably experiencing) so much resentment lately, be it about a country that is disliked, a trend that is criticised, a past that is regretted. It kind of scares me, to be quite honest.

Frankly, I don't even know where these waves of resentment are coming from. Everywhere we go my mum would refuse (or at least avoid) any kind of products that are made in China. That is most probably out of fear that any product made in China is toxic, dangerous and low-quality, despite the fact that 90% of the world's stuffs are made in China (random, unchecked statistics) and in a place like Vietnam the label can be switched in a minute. The resentment continues on at any sort of news that pops up on the TV about China, especially with the recent debates about sovereignty over the islands, whereas my parents would immediately say something that can be roughly paraphrased as "F*ck China and their greed!". After a while, the repetition becomes dull and really annoying.

My family eats dinner around news time (and even if it's not news time there would be news programmes on other channels, since it would be awkward for them to watch American shows - which I prefer). It amazes me how resentment has cut really deep into their perceptions of life, most remarkably the anti-China sentiments and the skepticism towards the government. When these conversations pop up in almost all the interactions that my family has with others, I realise that the society has been filled with resentment. Over China. Over the government. Over the Korean pop culture that is making waves on thousands of fans and, more importantly, anti-fans, and the ones who may have never heard or seen a K-Pop performance but jumping on the bandwagon of hate against Korean pop and their fans because it's the "cool" thing to do.

Personally I have my resentment over a lot of things too. Seeing how resentful people can be makes me realise my resentment, sort of. I don't know. Wouldn't letting go and being grateful for what you already have be a much better solution, rather than being so angry and hateful? I bitch about (many, many) things too, but I let go and don't want to focus on the negativity. Or so I try.




I don't know much about algebra, but I think everyone should just want to be happy. That's a weird sentence, but I hope you get my point.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's another New Year!

If you know me, you know that I don't usually do new year's resolutions. Because what is time but a social construct? Like ok, I see the point, and if it helps to motivate people into doing things, good for them. But I've never been the kind of person that is able to follow through with something if I plan them too rigorously. But then again, now that I'm 5.5 years into the corporate life, I realise that planning is important, and not even for the kind of big picture capitalist goals/visions/missions thing that companies do, but even for the day to day kind of work, because of how technologies have created this need to be super 'efficient' and 'productive'. Sometimes I wish that writing a blog post like this could be considered 'productive' as well in this capitalist world, because then I may be more motivated to write more than one post per year. Remember the time that I wanted to write one blog post per week and I wrote like 5 posts? Lol. Anywa

Life in quarantine

Ah hello, it's been a while. Not that anyone visits this blog anymore lol. But it's still good to be able to write things out some time. So we're entering the third week of lockdown here in Singapore. Yes it is a lockdown despite what the formal term is. And me, being a good citizen and law-abiding non-Singaporean, is staying at home. Thank you e-commerce and delivery services (as well as frontliners and health workers, of course). It's interesting to see how things are panning out, at least from the way people are reacting to this. For me personally, I really don't mind being at home for most of my week, but I do enjoy the very rare trips to the convenience stores nearby or just to check my mails downstairs. I've grown increasingly lazy to even go out to a supermarket and buy actual grocery - luckily my roommates will be happy to help. Generally I do feel that people are frustrated because they don't have a choice - das ist nicht freiwillig! (Yes I

2019

Just realised that I posted a post for 2020 planning/goals/whatever you want to call those like 1 month ago. Which makes me posting a 2019 reflections post at this moment kind of random lol but it's my blog so I do whatever I want. Nothing too fancy, just want to lay out some achievements and other highlights of 2019: Jan - switched to a role with more responsibilities. Started training phase Feb - went home for Tết Mar - qualified for Breakfast Club. KL trip was fun April - got promoted May - good start to the Consultant life, another Breakfast Club qualification. Didn't know what would hit me next lol Jun - shit month at work Jul - meh month at work Aug - first time being a groomsman Sep (craziest month) - first time being a bridesmaid and wedding emcee (the day after being a groomsman. Went on leave for 10 days on one of the best trips of my life to Japan and came back getting Consultant of the Month Oct - some severe post-travel depression that led to an improm