Trang is 18 years old and a freshman at a local university in Ho Chi Minh City. I was seated across from Trang at Ralf’s Artisanal Gelato in our budget hotel neighborhood of Pham Ngu Lao. It was my second trip to the gelateria in spite of a double scoop’s costing $5.26–exorbitant by Vietnamese standards.
Trang’s English was great and we talked for an hour and a half. She has been learning German for the past 7 months because she hopes to study at a German university in the fall of 2019. She is a very tenacious young woman; I told her I wanted to receive brief emails from her in the future as she achieved her goals.
Many of her friends go to American colleges but she thinks the US is too fast-paced and competitive for her. She wants to major in psychology and get her college degree from a German university, although Scandinavia also appeals to her.
She was the first Vietnamese person with whom I discussed American politics and we were on the same page about Trump and the gun lobby.
She’s interested in psychology and possibly intersecting with criminal justice but she does not want to be a therapist. She wants to do research. I think she’s formed her perceptions of the US from books, films, BBC news and her friends who have lived in the US.
