Wow. Powerful, heartbreaking stuff there..... I suppose in some cases, you just can't go back home as the old saying goes. The disparity in the cultures is or was simply to great to overcome.

I guess there IS something to say about "you cant go back home". There was Heidi saying how much she was touched by their sense of family, and believe me, it's so much different than our cultures, but then she became offended (overly, I thought) at the request to help out her mom. Now, I know that a lot was lost in translation, but even $10 in Vietnam is a lot of money.

At the end she said that she wasn't even communicating with her mother anymore.

Agreed, but I think the principle of the "asking for support" was the jump off for her. I think she wanted this storybook reunited fairytale and got a cultural reality check in some ways. She grew up a world apart from where her real mother grew up and just like one of the guys said in the piece - "She is new to this and Vietnam" ... "And the other says "Wow, she sure cries easily" - which is another sign that we as Americans IMO take compassion for granted here from one another and elsewhere - mainly in other cultures and countries it is a whole different ball of wax. Sadly, I think Heidi should have thought this thru maybe a little deeper and looked into her culture more so before going thru with the whole thing....

Yes, agreed, she should have looked into her roots a bit more. I guess the fact that she, because of a request for support, just threw away her mother (never contacted them again) when she wanted so much to find her roots was a wee bit immature. She could have easily found someone here in the USA who could have written a letter explaining that she just didn't understand, but man, twenty years, you find your mom and then, boom, just like that....no more contact???? Even if she sent $20.00 a month. You know, next to, I think it's Haiti, the Vietnamese are the poorest in the world income wise.

Yep, that is similar to what I thought as well. Seems as though she should have just not even have tried if she was going to give up so easily. More so without perhaps getting them to understand her difficulty in accepting this from her perspective perhaps....

The daughter caused more heartbreak for her mom. Her mom gave her up for a better life, she got it, but a mom is ALWAYS going to love her child, no matter what, and to be rejected like she was?????? To just cut the mom off like that? I don't get it. The daughter kept saying, "It's what I know". Okay, I can understand that. No one was asking her to give up her life for her mom. I dunno. I think the daughter is going to live with this the rest of her life.....if not, then she's messed up.

Yep. Absolutely messed up to say the least.