pick your battles

doctormom4@yahoo.com	8:39 AM (2 hours ago)
to me

pick your battles.   it is not always effective to resist. Expecting the police with their limited English to sort out a dispute is not entirely reasonable. What if there was a dispute in New York City with a person who spoke only Mayan; the police would tend to believe the story told by the Americans at first.

The Vietnamese people keep complaining to me that their country cannot be expected to be the same as USA.

What if a Swiss or German person tried to tell us that OUR way of law was wrong?

Everyone goes thru misunderstandings as an adult. Most people get accused of doing something they didn’t do.

Authorities don’t always make the right decisions. What about when they forced me to give you and Ricky a test at Harvey Clarke school?

Police detained me once and accused me of being “mentally unbalanced” when I just kept asking for a rest room---that is all I needed (11pm in Hillsboro and everything was closed). They had to call your Dad to ask if it was ok for me to come home!! or they were going to take me to the hospital, I was actually locked inside an ambulance!

I was stopped in a town on the coast in 2005 because neighbors had called the police---I was not allowed to shake and kick the floor in nervousness because other people (at the retreat) were trying to sleep. They would not work with me and find a solution. I went outside and exploded in screaming---because of the stress of not being understood and also I was quite tired.

Life is not fair. In another country you must submit; you don’t entirely know the culture and you are an outsider. It is good that you can be independent and teach English. Count your blessings that you aren’t stuck in a dead end job here working for a boss who doesn’t appreciate you.

Be happy for what you have. I wish people could always believe you and understand you, but I can’t insist on that.

You were not discriminated against as a foreigner, it was a misunderstanding (she was wrong, but that’s the way it goes) for example, my boss at Walmart kept calling me a moron.

Sent from Windows Mail

From: Joey Arnold
Sent: ‎Saturday‎, ‎October‎ ‎11‎, ‎2014 ‎6‎:‎28‎ ‎PM
To: marilyn mitchell, Rick Arnold, fyg.engclub@gmail.com

Joey Arnold <joeyarnoldvn@gmail.com>	10:37 AM (47 minutes ago)
to marilyn, Rick, fyg.engclub

Mom, when were locked in an ambulance? I do pick my battles.

Circle K is NOT a Vietnamese store. It comes from another country which means it is more international than other businesses in Vietnam which should require or should adopt a more internationally exclusive business model and perspective.

Furthermore, even if it were ONLY a Vietnamese establishment, it is STILL in HCM, which is very international as oppose to many places around the world.

When you open the country borders for trading transaction with foreign businesses, you expose yourself to the ways of those other businesses of those other countries and you should try your best to meet the demand of them as well.

I try my best to pick my battle and I do NOT plan to repeat this "Circle K Situation" again and I ONLY allowed it as to serve a purpose of illustrating social injustice and a kind of discrimination. It might not be a direct example of discrimination and it might be more a misunderstanding or something, but it is also built from jealousy and stereotypes and other race-related things that are not exactly fair.

HCM is not AS-VIETNAM as OTHER-PARTS are. HCM is more international and more American and European and Australian than it is ancient Asian. In other words, HCM is becoming more developed and more modern than even Hanoi, the capital of VN.

I demand more from HCM because HCM has more potential than parts of Vietnam as it has the most exposure to America and to progress itself.

I believe in HCM more than other parts of Vietnam and that is why I apply the kind of tough love towards it because it can succeed and it can change.

It there was no hope and no potential, then I would NOT waste my time and effort on it.

But I will continue to try my best NOT to try to persuade each and every person on the earth. I will continue to step back more and let the Holy Spirit do the persuading job more as it is better at it than I am.

One of my biggest weakness in my life is in my desire and my effort in trying to FORCE people into thinking and feeling and saying and living and going and doing like maybe like totally like EVERYTHING that I want or think or whatever, and as I get older I try more and more to maybe do that less or to do better or to do it differently or only when it is absolutely necessary or something.

Mom wrote,