I've been collecting books on Vietnam and finally dove in to Culture Shock! Vietnam. It is really great! It was written in 2000 which means it's 6 years outdated which, actually, probably makes a huge difference. I already feel...well...less shocked! I highly recommend it. I also have Rough Guide to Vietnam but have only breezed through it. I feel like it's silly to spend a lot of time reading it when we won't know for awhile if we are going to be in the north or the south.

It does bring up a lot of questions that I am curious to know about my boys' grandparents who are Viet Kieu. Even though I lived with them for several years, the only them I really know is the Americanzed version. Here, in America, they are Catholics, they are obsessed with wealth and materialism. They still cook traditional Vietnamese and speak Vietnamese in the home. They have five kids including one special needs child. As a family, they don't really seem to push education as a goal - only their daughter went to university and my boys' father dropped out of school in the early highschool years. They spend a lot of time singing karaoke and gambling. And cooking and eating. It always seemed to me like a sad sort of combination of old world and new americanization. But I don't even know what religion they were back in Vn. I don't know where they lived, how much family they have left over there, how it was to raise a child back in the 70's in Vn, what they did for fun in Vn, how often they go back to visit, etc. I pretty much know nothing. Unfortunately I don't have a good enough relationship with them to be able to approach them on any of this.

I was, however, thinking of assigning a family history biography to my kids and having THEM to the research. After al, it is their family! They SHOULD know these things! Ahhh, the benefits of homeschooling!