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Interview with our Year Rep Candidates

First year student Ashley interviews the three year rep candidates to find out more about them and their ideas and motivations.

Running for Year Rep is no easy task — it requires devising new ideas to improve the Sciences Po community, an inordinate amount of effort, and knowing how best to capitalise on the allure of food.

While each candidate often does their best to pitch their ideas to a range of people during the campaign period, you might not have had this one-on-one opportunity. If you’re still deciding on who to vote for as the election date approaches, the responses of this year’s candidates’ (Any Li, Joaquin Castillo and Zhenhao Li) to our questions might help with your deliberation.

1. Campaign mottos and ideas aside, tell us more about yourself. What is one thing people don’t know about you?

Any: I play several kinds of instruments, and I’ll also be joining the KPop club after Diwali. One interesting fun fact is that I dream very often and they usually come in a series of stories; I remember all of my dreams very clearly. Usually, people say that if you don’t sleep well, you will dream… But I have dreams every day and I remember them so clearly, as if they were movies or dramas. There was once when I dreamt that I got out of a Metro station that looked like Paris, and there was a war going on (I’m not projecting anything!) and we had to go down into a cave to hide. Then, I was elected as the spy of our group to talk to the people who had initiated the war to reach peace.

Joaquin: I agree that it’s important to know more about the candidates so I created a video on that, where I talked about liking basketball, athletics and sports. But maybe something else that others don’t really know about me is that I always try to work for people because I feel that it’s my duty to be with people and help improve their lives. In fact, I used to be a Year Representative in my high school. Another thing I would say is that I miss the hikes that I used to do with my family — we used to go to the mountains near my village (in Spain), and this provided special moments for me to discover nature and the environment, which I really appreciated. I also miss going to the beach, and going to the sea, for sure.

Zhenhao: One fun fact about me is that I don’t eat coriander because I don’t like the smell of it. Also, I think that sometimes, people may feel that I might speak better Chinese than English, but please don’t hesitate to talk to me in English because it helps me practice expressing myself in English. I just really like communicating with people, so I guess that’s one thing about me that I’d like to share.

2. What motivated you to run for Year Rep?

Any: The Year Rep is supposed to represent the interests of all students. This year, we have more nationalities and ethnicities than ever before, so I think it’s very important to represent the interests of everyone. Last year, I also worked in a voluntary organisation and we introduced policies and information flows between migrant children and schools, so I’m familiar with having to communicate with others.

Joaquin: I think we’re used to seeing ways of representation that we don’t like. I think it’s a necessity to create or innovate or prove that there’s another way to be more democratic, and to show that our representation not only listens to all voices, but is also efficient in the things that it does. I would like this campaign to, in a certain way, revitalise and provide new ideas — not just ideas imposed by the candidates on others, but also more collaborative, where ideas are shared horizontally by everyone. This is what I call “guarantees of improvement”. This is why I think that renewing and strengthening the democratic process and the way we’re being represented is particularly important for our generation, because we’re the ones capable of inventing democracy, change political systems and invent new ideas. That is why I would like to be the one to represent the ideas of the people and of all their voices.

Zhenhao: I’m running for Year Rep because I feel that it is a way for me to connect with other people in my year. I really appreciate everyone’s talent and I would love to talk to as many people as possible. I also talk about my motivations in a video I uploaded to my Facebook page, so you can check that out too.

3. Given Sciences Po’s diverse student body, how do you plan on being accessible to your peers?

Any: Firstly, I’ve joined many clubs, which consist of people from different backgrounds who speak different languages, and I get to interact with them. Speaking of languages, I’m currently working on French B1 and hopefully I’ll get to B2 by next year so that I’ll be better able to communicate with students who are more comfortable speaking in French. Personally, I don’t want to put too much pressure on students, so I don’t think I will be organising General Assemblies with mandatory attendance just because everyone is so busy. But what I will do is to create a Facebook page with a link to a questionnaire asking for general solutions or suggestions to campus-related issues. It’s fine if you don’t want to fill it in, but I just want to ensure that I’m always available if others have any concerns about both academic and non-academic issues.

Joaquin: I really want this campaign to be an opportunity for everyone, regardless of their background, to express their thoughts. I’ve been talking to people since the beginning of the campaign, who are sometimes “intermediaries” who speak with people from other classes and programmes. They then tell me the demands of other students. For the moment, I have more than 6 “intermediaries” who are both 1As and 2As, and I hope that there will be more in the next few days. Of course, I would love to listen to everyone personally, but I know this isn’t easy, so I need help from other people to be able to listen to more concerns than if I worked alone. Other than this, I’m also planning on holding some events in the coming days and will publish details on Facebook. I think both of these will help me reach out to more people, regardless of their background.

Zhenhao: My background is pretty diverse because I lived in Hungary and went to a French high school, despite only being able to speak English and Mandarin, and am also originally from China. It was quite complicated being an international student in that campus initially, but I was eventually able to overcome language and academic issues. Everyone was different in terms of their backgrounds and everyone was unique in that they have different feelings and points of view about issues, so I think this multicultural setting helped me better understand the international community. I’m also a polyglot (I speak Chinese, English and French, and a little bit of Japanese!) so I’m able to talk with different communities directly and understand their real concerns.

4. If you had to use a song to represent your campaign, what would it be?

Any: One of my favourite songs is “The Other Side of Paradise” by Glass Animals. I feel like Sciences Po is already a very ideal environment, but there are other areas for us to improve on. It’s kind of already an academic paradise, but there are still other things to improve on, and that’s on the OTHER side of paradise. I think what the Year Rep is supposed to do is to try to make this paradise more satisfactory to everyone.

Joaquin: I don’t know if this is a bit dark, but I think the song “Renegades” by X Ambassadors shows that while there are some people who don’t feel good in society, everyone is still united despite this. Comparing this to my campaign, I hope that our Year Rep, not just for this campaign but also in the ones that follow it, will help all of us feel part of this campus. I think a union between people is necessary. I wouldn’t want to see people suffering, and I want to work on everyone’s welfare.

Zhenhao: I would say the song “Right Here Waiting” by Richard Marx! It represents my campaign because I’ll always be there to help others with their problems, and I want them to know that I’m approachable.

5. What are some issues that you’ve identified about school life, and what are your plans to rectify them?

Any: I think the first thing would be to deal with information flows between 1As, 2As and 3As. As 1As, we don’t have an organised file of study/exam resources or previous class’ notes from 2As and 3As, and I think we could create a Drive or get access to the 2A’s drive. I also want to create a Facebook group with 1As, 2As and 3As, where we invite 3As to share their overseas experiences, as well as experiences with the Parcours civique. If we can publish some articles or videos conducted with the 3As during the Summer vacation, that would allow the 1As and 2As to have an idea of what our lives during the third year might be like. Of course, you can seek advice individually by approaching specific 3As, but you won’t be able to meet every person face to face or ask them questions individually… But with a page, information would be more accessible.

Also, I would like to start the Yearbook project as early as possible, since we started quite late last year. Another thing would be the improvement of facilities — we can install a mirror in the music room (Room A1), provide more food choices in vending machines if this is negotiable with the BDE and the administration, and also solve the problem of the broken microwave more quickly in the future. These are just some minor things in terms of facilities. Another very important thing is improving communication with Admin. It seems quite basic, but it’s something that the Year Rep must do. Sometimes, the Admin sends emails regarding the rescheduling of classes only a day before, and if we don’t check our emails, we might not see the rescheduled timings. I would like to see if these arrangements can be done in advance instead.

Joaquin: One thing I know is that the 2As have been seriously struggling with finding their place abroad in another university for their third year. I would like to help them by increasing the amount of information accessible to them — I think there’s a problem of orientation because we don’t usually have a lot of information about that, so I would definitely like to help the 2As with their third year abroad through what I would call the ‘LH Student Toolbox’, which will provide tools for everyone to express themselves and how they hope things will improve even after the campaign. The Toolbox will also provide essential information on Sciences Po life — for example, who should I email when I’m sick, and what is the information available for the third year abroad? I think it’s important to open the dialogue to the 3As who are currently abroad by inviting them back on campus or asking them to share their experiences, so that everyone is able to decide where to go for their third year. I also know that many people are struggling with CAF, which is why I would like to help the 1As with their integration here through the ‘LH Student Toolbox’.

Some other people have also told me that there aren’t enough microwaves, so one of my electoral promises is to buy more microwaves for students. Another proposition that I think is extremely necessary is to hold a General Assembly for students every two months, because this is another way for us to enforce our democracy. I would like to make all the ideas proposed during these Assemblies into a reality.

Zhenhao: Personally, I don’t have any big problems with school life. But I’ve been listening to people’s ideas and I’ve discovered that there are quite a few issues that we can try to negotiate with the administration. For instance, the absence policy is a problem for many people because some students may be sick for a very long time but they’re unable to get a justification from the doctor within the allowed period. Some people may also have psychological problems, which makes it very difficult for them to justify their absence. I think this concerns quite a few people, and that this issue should be addressed. Or, at the very least, we should make the absence policy clearer for students to understand why and when/how they should obtain their justification.

6. What is one challenge you foresee yourself facing as Year Rep, and how will you overcome it?

Any: For me, the most urgent challenge would probably be my proficiency in French, especially when dealing with the French administration… But I think I need to be more patient with this. Also, I think there’s a lack of interaction with some people who sign up for classes in French because they’re not in any of our classes and we don’t meet them a lot. Another issue would be the flow of information, but as long as we have Facebook pages and groups, I think this problem can be solved.

Joaquin: I think one challenge would be facing the worry of not getting what I want after voicing concerns to the school administration. To overcome this, we would need to find compromises with the administration to allow things to be improved. I think the administration is concerned with our welfare, and I would like to thank them for that because I know it’s not the same in all places. This is needed for us to make it possible for ideas to be implemented. For me, another way to overcome these challenges is to draw on my experience of being a class representative in high school to implement a recycling network. I’ve said that our school needs to be more ecological and that we need to recycle, and I managed to implement a system of recycling when I was in high school… I have experience implementing ideas that might seem complicated initially, but turn out to be achievable after good organisation and a huge willingness to see them through.

Zhenhao: My challenge is probably speaking in front of a big crowd because I’m not very used to this, and would prefer talking privately to people. But I think this may be an advantage as well, because talking to people privately could help me solve problems directly as a Year Rep. To overcome this, maybe I can attend more MUNs (which I’ve just done!) to practice my public speaking skills. The speech that I need to deliver on Monday is limited to 1.5 minutes, which is exactly the same amount of time for General Speakers’ List speeches during MUN! So I think I’ve definitely taken LHIMUN 2019 as an opportunity to train my public speaking skills.

Remember to cast your votes for your Year Representative on Thursday. After all, if our P.I. classes have taught us anything, it’s that voting is a right that ought to be exercised!

(For more information on each candidate’s campaign, do head to the following links: Any, Joaquin, and Zhenhao.)

On being French and Vietnamese, and the issue of Vietnamese immigrants.

Inspired by the Humans of New York platform, first year student Jason Trinh interviews Lucas Lam. He intends to write down the stories of our students on campus, and connect them with the bigger relevant issues in society.

You have heard of Vietnamese Americans. Their stories are everywhere, some of them best sellers like Thanh Nguyen or Ocean Vuong. But what about the Vietnamese French? Today I will tell you the story of Lucas Minh Duc Lam.

When I first arrived on the Sciences Po campus, the most commonly asked question, both by other students and by me when greeting new people, is “Where are you from?”. I answered the question easily, and admittedly I even felt a little bit proud of the answer I could offer, knowing that I was the only Vietnamese student going to the Le Havre campus this year. I was born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese family, speak Vietnamese fluently as a mother-tongue, had a Vietnamese upbringing and attended Vietnamese schools. It’s the life of an average Vietnamese. However, my I was surprised once when I answered the question with the same answer. The person went, “I think there is another Vietnamese”.

It turned out that the Vietnamese mentioned was Lucas Minh Duc Lam, but unlike me, he is not the “average Vietnamese”, or at least that was my impression when I saw and talked to him at one of the first social events. His vibe let me know immediately that there was some familiarity; he is humble, a little bit shy (maybe because we spoke in English?); he even looks like one of my cousins, who is really thin with slender hands and a short, carefree haircut. I couldn’t help but feel extremely curious: being in Vietnam for my whole life and surrounded by other typical Vietnamese, I did not really understand the life of Vietnamese abroad – those who are originally Vietnamese, but officially some other nationality. I have heard of the Vietnamese-Americans: they are easy to recognise as most of them call themselves Vietnamese, most of them migrated to the United States after the Vietnam War by highly dangerous ways such as boats, hence the birth of the term “boat people” which is often used to describe first generation Vietnamese-Americans. Some of them are very widely known authors such as Viet Thanh Nguyen and Ocean Vuong. But I have never heard of the Vietnamese French. I decided to interview Lucas directly, and this article is the recap with some reflections with the talk I had with him.

***

We had our talk in the library, one Friday afternoon right before the Fall break. I texted and asked for Lucas’ participation before, with his first response being, “I’m afraid I’m not an interesting person”, reaffirming my impression of him as a very humble one. I started the conversation with some very basic question: his childhood, his upbringing, his parents, etcetera. Lucas’ parents are of Vietnamese origins. Officially, Lucas is French. He was born and raised in France, around Paris, speaks French fluently as his mother-tongue, had a French upbringing and attended French schools. He was even named a French name, with his Vietnamese middle names rarely used. Spiritually, he is… also French. Lucas does not speak Vietnamese well; he does not identify as a Vietnamese, not because he is not proud of his origins, but rather because his parents raised him as an integrated French citizen, and now he just feels more French than Vietnamese. “It seems to me that there are two types of Vietnamese here” – Lucas told me – “The first type is the very patriotic one. My friends from secondary school, some of them have Vietnamese parents,and they were raised in France. Whenever somebody asks for their identity, they say they are Vietnamese. The second type is me.”

However, he also expressed that his parents helped him appreciate his culture and reminded him of his origin: they “only cook Vietnamese food” for him when he is home (which he admitted that he enjoys very much) and sent him to a school that had Vietnamese in his subject choices (there are only two of them in Paris). Lucas still identifies as French not Vietnamese, because other than the food and some of the basic spiritual or celebratory rituals like the Vietnamese New Year festival Tết or the famous Vietnamese food phở and bánh cuốn, he admitted that he doesn’t know much about the Vietnamese life. “My parents don’t want to erase my origin, but they wanted me to integrate into French society, to feel like a French person. After all, Vietnamese is just my origin; French is my nationality.” He also told me that among the Vietnamese community in France, it’s not always the same, but in his case, even his parents feel very French nowadays, as they have lived in France for more than thirty years. “I think it’s very nice to be allowed to be a part of French society and at the same time respect your own origin.”

I asked him more about his parents and their political opinions as the discussion moved to a more political sphere. His parents, from small provinces of Vietnam in both the North and the South, came to France as a result of the Vietnam War; but unlike most first-generation Vietnamese Americans who are highly anti-communist, his parents are said to be neutral in Vietnamese affairs. They just wanted to maximize their opportunity abroad, he said. I asked him if the community of French people whose origin is Vietnamese holds the same political position. “It depends, really. Many of them are very anti-communist, yes. But many are just like my parents who feel more French than Vietnamese, therefore they now only care about French politics.” He also admitted to me that his parents do not talk to him much about Vietnam.

He spoke of his experience as being “the only Asian in the whole school” back in the time when he lived in the countryside near Paris. He was mocked at school, but fortunately he was backed and defended by many friends. When he moved inside Paris which is a melting pot with many different people, he and even his friends never experienced racism again. He told me that there are many stereotypes – or “cliché”, to use his word – about Asian people, but most of them are good ones, such as Asian people are hard-working, intelligent and good at math. “I think the racist, bad cliché targets black and Arab people, so it’s much harder for them.”

***

At the end of the conversation, we talked about Sciences Po, about why we chose Sciences Po, about our future occupations. When asked about his plans for his future kids, if any, he told me that he would try to teach them about Vietnamese culture, about Vietnamese food, but it will be hard to teach the language.

I said goodbye to Lucas and went home to prepare for the Fall break. But the conversation with him has stayed in my head for a while, until now, whilst I’m writing it down. I have always felt like the serious conversation about the Vietnamese abroad is rarely had among the Vietnamese at home; if they do exist, they are mostly offensive jokes on the internet made by the Vietnamese at home about betraying and leaving the motherland, about refusing the identity. On the other side, the Vietnamese abroad (many times the Vietnamese Americans) talk of the Vietnamese staying as the “commies”, as uncivilized and uneducated, authoritarian-loving people. The Vietnamese at home and the Vietnamese abroad, mostly Vietnamese Americans, are even divided by the version of Vietnam they identify with. The Vietnamese at home identified with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the red flag with a big yellow star in the middle. The Vietnamese abroad identified with the Republic of Vietnam (the old South Vietnam regime back in the Vietnam War) and the yellow flag with three yellow stripes. The division is deeper than anything non-Vietnamese people can imagine. Many people are surprised when I tell them that I could not walk into a Vietnamese-owned phở restaurant in the United States and speak Vietnamese, because then my Northern Vietnamese accent would be exposed, and Vietnamese Americans might behave badly as a response.. The understanding between the Vietnamese at home and the Vietnamese abroad is almost non-existent. That is why when President Donald Trump decided that he could deport Vietnamese migrants from the Vietnam War back to Vietnam if they have any criminal offences, it hurt the Vietnamese community abroad in an unimaginable way: the Vietnamese government wouldn’t recognize or accept those people into Vietnam, and the Vietnamese people also wouldn’t sympathize with the deported people.

Maybe because of the strict censorship in Vietnam. Maybe because of the deep, penetrated hatred inside the people abroad who fled the country out of fear. But the conversation has never occurred, and I’m just very glad that I had the chance to talk to a Vietnamese who has grown up in a Western country, from the other side of the world, the other side of the conversation. Maybe the Vietnamese community in France isn’t as hateful towards the current Vietnamese regime as the community in the States, but there are undeniable differences in our mindsets, our lifestyles, our upbringings, and our opinions.

The current event in which 39 bodies were found inside a container in the United Kingdom, most of them suspected Vietnamese nationals trying to immigrate, sparked conversation among Vietnamese people. Vietnam nowadays is not having any wars and the economy is growing very fast, but the trend of immigration is still visible because many (mostly poor) people dream about the Western life and then follow the smugglers to migrate to Western countries. Is it illegal? Yes, but one thing that rather privileged people like you and me don’t understand is the desperate feeling of having no choice, of wanting to be better and to provide better for your family.

It is important to remember that not all immigrants’ stories are warm-hearted stories. People like Lucas and his parents can be said to be very lucky, to not only successfully come to France but also to successfully integrate into society. But somewhere out there, there are immigrants who die in freezing containers at -25*C, with their desire to have a better life unfinished, and we shouldn’t forget about them.

Photos: author.

Ouest Park Festival: What makes Le Havre a city and what makes Le Havre a home.

As the fall break passes, second year student Shivani Ekkanath takes a minute to contemplate a popular LH festival, and her time in our beloved city.

Think obscure artists, all manner of techno, pop, and indie, paired with seizure-inducing lights, deafening cheers, cheap beer and an overall, great weekend? C’est l’Ouest!

We always believe that Le Havre is quaint and small, yet there has always been more to this maritime port city that so many of us SciencesPistes call home. Owing to the thriving youth population, Le Havre has steadily transformed over the years. Ouest Park Festival is an excellent representation of these dynamic changes as well as the vibrant cultural wave that is overtaking the city as it transitions from its old roots to form a new cultural identity. One of the venues, Le Tetris, a gentrified establishment as well as an important cultural project, is proving to be the melting pot of Le Havre’s growing hipster and artistic culture with its melange of live performances and acts. The festival is also a great way to support and give local artists from Normandy a platform and an opportunity to share their music with a large mass audience, especially because prices for tickets are nominal and the last day is free of cost and people often come in big groups with their family and friends.

The weekend of Ouest Park witnessed dozens of artists, both established and up and coming, across France and beyond, making their way to Le Havre to share their latest music with avid and eager Havraises, among them many of us Sciences Pistes! The sixteenth edition of Ouest Park proved to be yet another breath of fresh air as we finally bid farewell to the summer and welcomed the colder but colourful and crisp months of fall. This year featured artists such as Daysy, Cadillac, Hocus Pocus, Taxi Kebab, Hellios Collective and others, each bringing with them a distinct and unique sense of style. Many of the Ouest artists this year explored and experimented with different types of music within genres like electro and groove. For example, the band Helios Collective riled up audiences with their haunting yet powerful tribute to the city. Born and bred in Le Havre, they conveyed the feral and wild nature of Le Havre’s cliffs, rough seas and beaches through their experimentations with different kinds of techno music, while also drawing inspiration from Le Havre’s industrial roots and evolving modernity in some of their pieces. Similarly, acts like The Jungle and Sentimental Race also featured a lot of music incorporating techno, percussion and other elements like rave and gabber.

Moreover, one of my first experiences in Le Havre was in fact, my visit to Ouest as I climbed the steps to Fort de Tourneville breathless but excited to see Therapie Taxi in concert and engage with my strange but fascinating new environment. My second time at Ouest not only took me back to this first few weeks of the first semester last year but also made me reflect on how fleeting time is indeed as we come to the second half of the semester. A large part of my love for Ouest over the past two years has also been other aspects of the festival, from the hype and the introduction of the acts on the Facebook page to its atmosphere, not to mention the free crepes. Apart from that, this is obviously the best opportunity to discover and explore new music as well. One of my personal favourites was a band called Daysy, I have even added a lot of their music to my playlist. They incorporate a lot of pop, soul and urban touches with their powerful vocals and deep lyrics, both in English and French. I now realise that the festival is also one of the only occasions where we truly see Le Havre in its truest form and essence. It is a great lens into the local culture, as we temporarily leave the everyday hustle and bustle of the Sciences Po bubble and engage and experience the liveliness and life of the city.

Perhaps, when I look back at my time in Le Havre during my 3A next year, I will remember my time at Ouest, which marked the beginnings of the two years of my university experience as well as the beginning of my concluding year. It remains one of those transitory phases, where I am finally at peace with my environment and bask in the comfort of what I can call home in my own way before I await the next phase of what is to come.

Photos: author.

On being ok, mental health, and regrets.

For Alexis.

1. “Are you okay?”

I am often stumped by this question, despite the simplicity of its earnest demand – there are only so many responses to it. Yet it is precisely this simplicity that stumps me: I can only be either okay, or not okay. Oftentimes, I lie on a spectrum of okayness; there are shades of okays and not-okays. My often complicated situation, my complicated feelings towards it, and my inclination to honesty all makes it harder to respond to this question.

I might be inclined to respond with an affirmative – “yes, I am okay” – or negative – “no, I am not” – followed by a caveat – “but…”. I could tentatively reply with a prefix “maybe” to the typical response, already indicating the slippery feelings that escape the neatly defined responses. I could also opt for a more obstructionist response; I might defensively or aggressively demand why I was asked that way – “why do you ask me that?” – deflecting the question and the intention of the questioner, trivial though it might be. Etcetera, etcetera.

But what makes it even harder for me to answer it, beyond just a surface linguistic examination of the question, is that often, I am compelled to say that I am okay, while in fact, I am flat out not okay. Within the possible answers the question purports to have, there are certain expected answers. Imagine for once, the question was asked when I just stepped onto campus, or while waiting in line for my turn to the microwave, or as I was just seated for a lecture in the grand amphitheater. Given the fact that there is too little time for an elaboration of my feelings, and that everyone is around me, and maybe that I don’t quite know who the person asking is, it simply is more practical to answer yes, perhaps an indifferent “yea, I’m alright.” Even a “maybe” might be inviting too much attention; they might follow up with a “why?” and then there is no time nor space to properly address it. God forbids me saying “no”, then out of their assumed kindness and care for others, they might have to ask why, when they themselves most likely lack the time, nor the space, nor the real intention to care about it, given their busy lives. I would not want to bother anyone with that; you would not expect to listen to struggles from strangers, nor do you know whether you could do it effectively. So out of sheer practicality, or perhaps, more precisely, the pressure to be practical, I answer yes. And nothing happens; life continues, undisrupted.

But we can push this a bit more. Let’s assume, whatever the context is, no matter how impractical it could have been, I say no. And let’s assume also that they followed up with a why, expecting, genuinely, some concrete answer. Now, my answers to this might differ, depending on who I am talking to and the situation I am in. If, at the time, I am only facing something mildly annoying and short-term. the answer could be similarly short, followed by a brief and inconsequential exchange of dialogue. But if I am facing something more drastic, something – or multiple things – fundamentally problematic, that causes me significant distress, I am stumped again, because there is no time for a proper elaboration. The best compromise, one that conforms both to a need to express myself honestly and the lack of time and space, would be a truthful but short, reductive, and unsatisfying answer. A recent example of mine was “I’m depressed, and I can’t muster the effort to study or doing anything else” (some more unfortunate individuals encountered a “I’m suicidal”). Now it’s their turn to be stumped, probably uncomfortable; the effect only amplifies if the answer is longer, obliging them to listen for longer, straining their limited patience.

2. Mental health, but for whom?

The heart of the problem is that no one really expects to see others’ dysfunction in life, especially in the workplace or on campus. We carry on living with a facade of functionality: Here I am, punctually, I work, consistently and without problems, therefore I exist. We might care about others, genuinely or not, but in all cases, it is difficult to go out of our way to assist them. We have distanced ourselves from that task and rdelegated it to professionals, their improficiency notwithstanding. We actively distrust ourselves in the task of handling emotions, disbelieving in our capacity to listen, to empathize, to determine when and what to advise. There is a certain vicious, self-reinforcing, cycle to this logic: by believing that professionals handle it better than us, we avoid further engagement with others, and thus place more responsibilities to the professionals, encumbering them in the process. Paradoxically, this occurs alongside the very recognizable and palpable fact that all we do is emotionally intertwined; everywhere we walk, we speak, we work – there are emotions that trail behind. Yet we cannot act – or more precisely, we believe we cannot act – upon them, despite our own lived experience with our own problems. In a strict sense, everyone is lonely, everyone knows everyone can be lonely, but no one does anything about it, a fact admitted to me by someone to whom I once talked about my issues. A case in point is the fact that everyone has presumed the cause behind our recent tragedy, and acted upon it without a moment of hesitation or suspicion despite no explicit official confirmation, seemingly already knowing why and how it has happened.

Ironically, it is here that professionals might fall short of effective help: they might lack the critical insight on how we go about our daily lives. They suffer from the same fallacy as we do. There is nothing but formality in their offices, evident in their degree hung on the wall, formal attire, notes and pens in hand, despite the fact that to our logic, all emotions are is informality. I find it unhelpful to approach my problems through speaking about my dreams, like psychoanalysis compels the professional to ask of me to do. I find it frustratingly difficult to convey my issues, be they my studies, my finances, or my inability to find fulfilling social experiences, to this professional psychologist but absolute stranger whose relationship to me I have to start from scratch. The communicative labor falls not onto the professional, but rather on me who, already in distress and need of help, easily finds myself unwilling to exert much more effort.

This labor gets more difficult especially when there is a language barrier. I speak and express myself in English well, while the professional do so with only French. The linguistic barrier suggests a larger cultural problem: What if my ways of approaching mental health is different? What if I find more fulfillment in community engagement than individual exchange? What if I have never talked about dreams, ever, to express my problems? Professionalism operates well through processes of standardization, and standards perform poorly in intercultural conditions. But we can take it further: What if I cannot speak well? What if I stutter, or am mentally handicapped? Effective mental health assistance in both cases are then inaccessible to me; I cannot attain it unless I have acquired a certain language, and a certain way of speaking the language. I feel there is a certain exclusionary character of “mental health” as expounded in official discourse here on our campus: mental health is not only defined by your capacity to work well, but the paths towards it are limited by your ability to speak a certain language, in a certain standardized manner.

We often talk of inclusion and mental health, but to whom does this inclusion and mental health belong to?

3. Beyond a collection of individuals, towards a community

The writing here contains without doubt my very personal, emotional motives. I have felt too well my feelings of isolation and helplessness here on campus, and a lot of what I have written thus far seems like an indictment (I admit the process was very cathartic). Nonetheless, I would like to restrain myself for a moment, and say that I am not trying to accuse everyone of being callus (not entirely anyway, cheek-in-tongue-ly). In spite of my critical view, I know painfully well the fact that everyone has their own priorities in life – perhaps the rent is coming, the civic engagement project or presentations have been procrastinated too long, the papers are long overdue – and caring for others sometimes takes a backseat. To quote from my favorite writer in Vietnamese literature, Nam Cao, who luridly described the selfish nature of pained individuals during Vietnam’s colonial period: “A person with an aching foot could hardly ever forget about their aching foot to think of anything else? When one is in so much pain, one could no longer think about other people. Their kind-hearted nature is obscured by their selfish worries and pains…”

But I must remind you all that we do not live in the miserable hellscape of French-colonized Vietnam; our feet do not hurt as much, and our kind-hearted nature still shows and glistens at occasions, to friends more so than to acquaintances. We need not religiously follow the liberal, individualistic logic of caring for yourself first and having sole responsibility for your own problems – it is this logic that formed the baseline of the toxic internalization of my problems that drove me to destructive suicidal ideation multiple times before and during my studies. Such mentality prizes independence beyond all else, and, in the process, anathetimizes seeking help.

I find the mentality incredibly frustrating, toxic, and cumbersome, and we’d do better not to think of life that way. And indeed we say we do not for most of the time, but I could not help but feel that we do not do what we preach. At times, I feel myself dismissed by others when I express my emotions, superficially or deeply, either through a blunt dismissal or suspicion of my feelings, or through a blanket statement that I would be fine, more reassuring to the speaker rather than me. No, I am not fine, and neither are many others, I believe, who share my sentiment, at times or always. Perhaps the problem in those occasions is that, while they do want to listen and help, they simply do not know how to do so well. But my deeper concern resurfaces when I ask them to do better than that, to listen better, to empathize better. They would be likely to defensively respond by saying they do not have to, or that they could not, do that.

We would do best by recognizing problems as they are, seeing that we all have a stake in it and we have the capacity to address it as a community. This does not necessarily call for a rejection of professional assistance to mental health, but it does question an overreliance on such an approach. If we do treat mental health as seriously as we do with physical health, then we would not advocate for an overdependence on medicine. Treatments of both kinds should be reserved, applied when necessary, not whenever a sign manifests. More importantly, we should first look to a simple vigilance and attentiveness towards others, expressed through each person with a handful of genuine statements of care and wholehearted exchanges, and through the entire community, a network of active support and positive integration, beyond faux-functionality.

In striving beyond my casual cynicism towards a kernel of hope, I urge all of us to care more as a whole, truly, lest we find ourselves regretting what we did not do or pondering we could have done, a trope that should have been put to rest before we received our most recent tragedy.

Photos: author