As I was sitting at a
stall with my mom on the unpaved streets of Vietnam questioning about whether
the aromatic bowl of noodles before me will lead to yet, another case of food
poisoning or not, I felt a tug at my shirt. I turned towards the pull and through
the eyes of a four-year-old American born girl, I looked down to see a man with
only the right eye in its socket and his overly tanned skin sagging from his
bones. What shocked me and made me reach for my mom was that he was missing the
lower three quarters of his body. His arms extended to two blocks of wood that
he used to elevate his body from the ground and to travel.
What country is my family from? Vietnam and China. Recently, I've been thinking about the prompt for my personal statement: Why do you want to be a doctor?
I realized that my upbringing and culture is a huge part of who I am and I want to preserve that. I've struggled with defining myself amidst the constant battle internally and externally between my Asian heritage and the American environment, which is offering me such amazing opportunities. Compared to most of my peers, I'm more fluent in my family's native language despite being born here in America. I am always trying to find way to improve and so far the most effective one is through singing. I can speak fluently, but after periods of not speaking the language for so long, parts of it lapse deeper into my memory. The little description of my encounter above is what has made me not want to be a physician for the longest time. I was young, naive, and I didn't understand. This was the image that used to come to mind every time I hear the words "medicine", "disease", or maybe the "Vietnam War". Yes it has discouraged me before for the longest time. But now I pull on that image in my mind, and all I think about is:
How is it possible?
He has to eat to survive so how does he digest it?
He has to urinate or even go No. 2 at some point, so how does he?
How long has he been that way?
Was it the war that did this to him?
What was he like before it happened or was he born like that?
If it was the war, has the government done anything to help him after he fought for his beliefs?
War is stupid. I've never been a huge advocate of "An eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth". I don't know if these questions will ever be answered, but I'm more than happy to continue searching for some inkling of the truth throughout the rest of my life.
