Introduction

Hello all! In my first blog post, I wanted to share a brief introduction of myself and the project I will be working on for the next five weeks, Thuốc & Tradition: Stories about Thuốc Nam from the Heart of Southern Vietnam. My name is Marissa, and I am an undergraduate student at Yale University. My exploration of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, was made possible by generous funding provided by the Council on Southeast Asia Studies Grant, Saybrook College Research Fellowship, and Richter Summer Fellowship. 

About the Project

Growing up in a Vietnamese household in the United States, I stood at a middle ground, receiving modern care in the clinic and traditional remedies carried through generations of my family at home. This area of intersection has been a favorite of mine to dissect in various school projects throughout K-12. Investigating integration between the modern and traditional approaches to medicine, I encountered several research articles emphasizing the potential for holistic patient care by integrative treatments.

So, why a blog?

The goal of this project is to (1) bring exposure to traditional Vietnamese Medicine and (2) see how this treatment has evolved and integrated with modern techniques in the 21st century. In an effort to share my findings in an accessible manner, I have constructed this website as the culmination of my project. So, feel free to pick and choose an entry to get started!

Important Project Disclaimers

Official translation services were not purchased due to limited funds for this exploratory project. To ensure the integrity of direct quotations, each interview was recorded with the interviewee's consent. Recordings were then used to translate Vietnamese to English and verified via cross-comparison across translation platforms for accuracy, such as Google Translate, Papago, and Vdict.