陳白菊 《 The Man from China 》 美國

        It was 1944. He  arrived from China like the rest of the other young men, walking off the boat with all his possessions on his back.  He  was tall,  slender  built,  his  dark black hair combed backward.   Surveying  the  scene before him,  his  eyes  were alert, intense,  and  his  thick  dark  eyebrows  furrowed  as  he  stepped  off  the   boat.    He straightened his white shirt,  wrinkled  from  sitting on the boat,  and  clenched  tightly onto his worn out satchel.  Inside his bag were a few  items of  clothing,  a  photograph of his family, and a couple of steamed buns his mother packed for the long trip. Before he left,  his mother handed him some money and two gold rings.  She reminded him to keep them safe.  He  put  them  inside  a secret compartment that she had sewn into his waistband the night before he  left.  Occasionally,  he  tapped  on  it  to  make  sure  his worldly possessions were still inside. Spotting his uncle from afar, he waved and called out  “Uncle,  Uncle!”  His uncle looked in his direction.  They both rushed toward each other and his uncle’s  hands  grabbed  the young  man’s  shoulders with a big smile and said  “Nèi Guó” (內國)!  You are here! Are you hungry?”  The young man grinned and nodded. The two men locked shoulders and walked away from the dock.  Behind them, the morning sun rose to greet them with a new day. It was a new beginning for a young man from China.  At the age of 17,  thousands of miles away from home,  little did this young  man  know that this day marked the last time he would see his parents and little brother.  From this  day  forward,  the boy would quickly become a man.  He  dreamed about what his new future in Vietnam would bring.  It  was  exciting to venture out in a strange place, yet he wondered when he would see his family again. What would he do to feed himself?  How  would  he  learn  to speak the local tongue?  Would  his  uncle’s family welcome him?  Thoughts  raced through his head.  He  shook  his  head to chase them away.  He thought to himself,  “For now,  let’s eat first.  I’ll  leave my worries for tomorrow.”

        My  father  never  told me how he  came  to  Vietnam.  I  could  only  imagine  by piecing together the stories my older sisters have told me.  My father’s  uncle  found  a job for him at a  Chinese medicine shop in Long  Thành,  a rural  district of  Biên  Hòa City.  Every morning,  after having his usual porridge,  my father opened the shop.  He dusted the counter  and  furniture.  The  shop  owner  would  tell  him,  “Cleanliness  is important;  people trust and believe in our medicine if the store is neat and clean.”  His day   consisted  of  greeting  and  selling  medicine   to  the  customers,   filling  herbal prescriptions, and refilling the herbal cabinet.The massive herbal cabinet had hundreds of little drawers that ran all the way up to the ceiling. Each drawer waslabeled with the name of the herb and it could take  days  to  refill  them.  When  he was  not  busy,  my  father cut ginseng roots and helped to make medicine.  At night, he slept near the back of the shop, with a little partition set up for some privacy.

        Life was fairly good for him.  My  father had a stable job and his boss was a kind, gentle man. On his days off, he spent time with the locals and learned Vietnamese from young ladies in town.  My  father  was  outgoing and loved to make conversations with everyone.  This helped him quickly learn Vietnamese in only a few years. He once told that when he first saw our mother,  he  fell  in  love instantly.  Courageously,  he  wrote "anh yêu em" ("I love you" in Vietnamese)  on a piece of paper and asked a lady friend to deliver his love note.  It  worked:  his  three  romantic  words  won  the  heart  of the beautiful young woman. My father was so proud that he ‘got the girl’.  They married in 1947 when he was twenty and she was seventeen.

FAST-GROWING FAMILY

        My father left the herb shop and rented a small house in   Long Thành for himself and his new bride.    In front of his house, he opened a shop and sold shoes, pots, pans, and whatever else he could sell.   His customers were mostly locals and foreigners. My dad learned a few foreigner phrases and confidently used them when he conducted his business. God knows if they understood him, but when there was a gap in communication,   he used his hands and gestures.   He often boasted to us that he knew seven languages, but my skeptical mother would just respond with a scoff of disbelief. Dad would tell us,  “If a French soldier walks into our store, I’ll say ‘Bonjour’;   after I sell something to a Filipino, I will say ‘Salamat’; and when I walk a Japanese customer to the door,   I’ll wave my hand and say ‘Sayonara’”.   We heard these stories a million times. Dad always made it sound like it’s the first time he had ever told us. The truth is, Dad had a knack for languages.   He could even read Vietnamese novels and write well even though he never went to Vietnamese school.

        Life wasn’t easy.   My parents were newly-wed and had a baby on the way.  Their first daughter was born, then came the second, third, and fourth.   All girls.   My father desperately wanted a son to preserve the family name, but  each time he and his young wife were blessed with baby girls. Either way, their little family was constantly expanding. What he earned from his shop could barely feed a family of six. My family later moved to   Phước Long, a small village outside   Long Thành,  to take care of my uncle’s   Chinese  medicine  shop.   Business  began to thrive  and my family settled in nicely.   Then,  a miracle happened:  my brother was born!  The whole family rejoiced. My parents’ prayers were answered!   My  brother,  Anh Sáu,  was smart and very cute. Everyone loved him.  He was a star and everyone doted on the young boy.   In the next five years, Mom would also gave birth to two more girls.

        As with any big family, the older children are the ones to shoulder the heavy responsibilities.With seven small children, my father decided that my four older sisters had to stay home to help out with chores and babysitting.   School was not a necessity; third grade education was enough to know how to count money and read labels on the goods we sold. My sisters begged to stay in school, but what could be done? Someone needed to help out with the store, meals needed to be prepared, and laundry to be done. In addition, there were three toddlers to care for.

        But what God gives, he could take away.   My only brother, Anh Sáu, died from a high fever when he was merely five years old.  Three days later, my baby sister had the same illness as my brother.   She died at seven months old. She  was the most beautiful and happiest baby.   Dad  was  devastated.   It was as if the whole world came crashing down on him.  It was a dark time in our family.   My father spent more time away from home. He’d go fishing for days. When he came home, he would bring back a lot of fish and a temper.   Mom  would be busy cooking and my siblings were happy because they had a nice feast. What we did not know was that my dad was very depressed. The long fishing trips were an escape. He was running away from home, the very place that reminded him of those tragic moments.   Life became tense for my sisters and my mom as Dad’s temper flared during this difficult period.  He would raise his voice with Mom and complained how unclean the house was.   His  voice  was loud enough to shake the  walls  and  struck  fear  into the hearts of everyone.  We  were  relieved  when  he went fishing and were anxious when he returned home.

THE LOTTERY

        Eventually,   time heals all wounds,   and  life was back to normal. By the time my sister,  Chị Chín and I were born, my older sisters had given up any hope of going back to school. Instead, they became young entrepreneurs.   They knew how to count money and gave correct change using mental math.   They knew how to greet customers. They knew what items sold well and how much inventory to keep. Our big break came when Mom bought a lottery ticket and won. The whole family packed into a xe lam (Lambro 550 bus) followed by two cows pulling our furniture and belongings to our newly built house. We left Phước Long and headed back to Long Thành.

        Life was getting better for our big family of ten. Dad opened a small grocery store and my older sisters managed it. Running a grocery store was a lot of hard work. There were always things to be done: weighing, sorting, measuring, and cleaning.  On the day the delivery truck came,   we  had to carry heavy bags of rice, beans, peanuts, and flour to our store.   It  required  a dolly to carry these over 200 pound bags. One sister would pull and the others would follow right behind to make sure the bag did not flip over. Many of my older sisters were in their late teens and early twenties. They were embarrassed if they ran into some guys they knew.   I  sometimes heard them lament “I was so embarrassed that I wish I could just disappear!”.   Apparently,  Dad  did  not see anything wrong with that.   He  was  oblivious to the plights of young teenaged women and did not hire any outside help.

NICKNAMES

        I  don’t  know  whose  idea  was  it to come up with a system of nicknames for us. Perhaps both of my parents collaborated on it.   My  oldest sister was called   Gái  Lớn (Older Girl).   My second sister  was   Gái  Nhỏ  (Younger Girl).   My  parents  quickly realized  they would soon run out of names if they kept up with the speed of their baby production.  It  was  like  a  light bulb lit up in their heads and brilliantly,   the  idea  of naming us with  sequential  numbering  system  was  conceived.   My  third  sister  was nicknamed Girl Four, then Girl Five, Girl Seven, Girl Nine, and Girl Ten (That’s me!). At this point,Dad must have thought he was not going to have a male heir and it would be proper to stop at ten   (a nice round number).  But  then  it  might  have  been  just a passing thought, because two years later, my youngest sister was born. What now? Not sure why they did not name her   Girl  Eleven,  but  instead,  I  became  Ten  Big Sister (Mười Chị)   and my sister was called Ten  Small  Sister (Mười Em). At the time, I felt embarrassed at these nicknames, but we still use them even today.

CHỊ TƯ (SISTER FOUR)

        My Chị Tư was a cheerful, fun-loving, and playful sister.I was told she was a cute and happy baby.  Before Dad had a boy, he dressed my Chị Tư as a boy. She had a boy haircut, boy chemise shirt and pants. We even called her  Brother Four—all of this was to fulfill Dad’s longing for a son.  We  lived  near a foreign military  base.  The  French soldiers  adored  her.   Many  of  them  had  children  in  their  home  country  and  she reminded them of their own.  They  would  often ask my mom to let them  borrow  Chị Tư  so  they  could  play  together  at  the  nearby  creek.  It  probably  helped  ease  the soldiers’  longing  for their own  children,  who  were  thousands  of  miles  away.  As a teenager,  Chị  Tư  earned  money by trading U.S.  dollars with American  soldiers  and prostitutes  and  then exchanging them on the black market for a  profit.  They  liked  to trade with her because they trusted teenagers and she was funny and friendly.  On good days, she  brought  home  stolen  army  goods  that  were  sold  on  the  black  market. I remember it clearly. Our eyes lit up as we gathered around her. We “oohed” and “ahhed” in unison each time she pulled out  American-made items like a can of peanut butter,  a pack of Spearmint chewing gum, a red apple, and my favorite, pound cake. She was like a Santa Claus bringing gifts to little poor children. We ate while she blurted a few words she learned at the army base. “Ô Kê Sa Lem, Sam Sam Cà Rem,  Number One”.  We all would burst out laughing at her silly phrases.  Dad  disapproved  of  her hanging around the army base and worried for her safety. However, my sister was a free spirit; she loved life and took whatever came her way  with  open  arms.  Even  though  there  was  a war going on, Chị Tư was independent and unafraid, always seeking the next adventure. One time she and her friend went to see a snake with three heads.  They  drove  to a place an hour from home to find there was no such thing!  Dad punished her when she got home, but that did not stop her from going out again the following week to see a crying  Virgin Mary statue. She was the most fearless person I knew.

        One  day  in  1969,  tragedy struck. Relatives and neighbors came in and out of our house. Everyone looked distressed. I was only four years old, too young to comprehend what was going on.  Chị  Tư was no longer with us and I didn’t know what happened to her. It took many years later for me to find out that she died from a motorcycle accident. A friend was riding with her and they were struck by a truck from behind. She was only seventeen years old.  Life  had only just begun for her.  She had yet to experience things like dressing like a girl, applying red lipstick, putting on sweet perfume or kissing a boy. I often wondered why bad things happened to all the nice people. Life can be so unfair.

OH BOYS

        In 1971, there was a ray of hope for my Dad. My mom was pregnant, and this time God finally heard my  parents’  prayers!  She gave him another baby boy.  Dad  was  so happy that I actually saw him laugh for the first time.  My  brother  was  a chubby,  cute  baby and he was a darling.  Extra care was taken to make sure he was healthy and well. Whenever  my  brother  had  a  fever  or  cough,  my  dad  would  be  very  worried.  He prescribed all  kinds of  Chinese  medicine and would stay by my little brother’s  side to monitor his condition.  Two years later,  my second brother was born. He had a bad case of colic and he cried almost every  day.  Mom  was  exhausted  from  taking  care of two small babies in addition to cooking and cleaning.  Giving birth to twelve children took a toll on her body.  Mom  seemed  to be pregnant all the time.  Even when she wasn’t, she still looked as if she was.

BOARDING SCHOOL

        As time went on,  my  father started to have a change of heart about education.  He felt  that  some  of  us  should  learn  Chinese,  his  mother  tongue.  A  quality  Chinese education meant that we needed to be sent to the city.  My  sister  and  I  were  sent to a boarding school in  Biên  Hòa,  known as Dục Đức  Elementary  and High School.  My sister was nine and I was seven. Truth is, we loved Dục Đức School but we didn’t want to be far away from home.  We  loved  learning  Chinese  and did well in school, but we were homesick. We missed our home and we missed our mom a lot. On weekends, from the fourth floor looking down at the gate,  I  watched parents picking up their kids and I cried, feeling sorry for myself.  My  family couldn’t afford to send my sister and I home every week,  and seeing those other kids going home made me even more homesick. To console me,  my sister would take me to the movies.  We watched many of Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu movies in those days.

        Dục  Đức  School was a private school,  but it was not rich.  All of the teachers and students  who  boarded  at  the  school  lived  on  the  fourth  floor.  Our  lives  were like clockwork:  every  morning,  we  woke  up  at  6:30,  brushed   our  teeth,   and  did  our exercises. Breakfast was served on the fifth floor. In the center of the dining   room  was a humongous pot of porridge. It was always porridge. Porridge with salted radish on one day,  porridge with salted peanuts on the next day,  and porridge with scrambled eggs on the following day, porridge, porridge, and porridge 365 days of the year.  When we were tired of porridge,  we went to the kitchen and begged the cook (we called her 姐 (Jiě) for some leftover cơm cháy (rice at the bottom of the pot).

        In the evening, we had to shower quickly so we could get to the study hall on time. When there was a long waiting line on the fourth floor,  we  had to use the bathroom on the fifth floor.  Hardly  anyone  used  it  because  everyone thought there were ghosts in there.  Many times,  I had to find other girls to shower with because I didn’t want to use the haunted bathroom on the fifth floor.  Three  or four of us would share one bathroom.  To make it worse,  every night,  Chị 仁秋 (Rén Qiū),  our  roommate,  would  tell ghost stories. I was really afraid to close my eyes for I imagined a tall ghost in black robe with green eyes staring at me.

        Rumor  was that our school was  haunted.  The  story  was that during the school’s construction,   a   construction  worker  had  an  accident  and  died  onsite.   His   spirit supposedly  haunted  the  school  grounds.  Often times my roommates and I associated unexplained  yelling  or  scratchy  noises  from  the  ceiling as evidence that he was still haunting the school.  We  walked  up the stairs from the first floor one day and someone screamed  “Ghost!” From the first floor, we all ran back up to the fourth out of fear. My legs felt heavy and weak and because I was slow,  I  was always the last one left behind. I really hated it…

        There were also tender moments at Dục Đức School.  Even though my sister and I were  far  away from our home and  family,  the  staff  and  students  there  became  our second family. When my sister and I arrived,  Chị 仁秋 was very nice to us. She treated us like little sisters and we looked up to her. We thought she was a rebel;  I believed she snuck out after curfews and we admired her for her bravery.

        When one of my teachers, 劉志華 got paid, he would take me out and buy me fruit drinks with his meager teacher’s stipend.  It  meant  a  lot to me when I think about how generous he was even when he had so little to give.  I also remember when my right leg had a serious infection,  郭老師,  another  teacher,  took  care  of  me.  She  cleaned  my wound  with  alcohol  to  disinfect  the  area,  sprayed  the  white  powder to keep it dry, covered it with a bandage, and then wrapped my leg with gauze.  I was so  thankful and touched by her kindness.  Whenever I look at the scar on my leg,  it  reminds me of her.  These days, decades after I’ve left the school, I often wonder where she is and how she is doing.

        When  the  war  ended,  my  sister  and  I had  to  come  back  home.  The war had destroyed  our  neighborhood  and  our  store,  and  there  was  no  money  left for us to continue Chinese school.  We came back home to find our grocery store, along with the marketplace,   burned  to  the  ground.   We  searched   the   rubbles  hoping  to  salvage something but all that was left were four charred brick  walls.  Everything  had  gone to ashes.

MOM

        My mom was like an angel.  She  was soft-spoken and well-liked by everyone.  In contrast to my father,  who had a fiery temper at times,  mom  never yelled at us.  Mom loved  her  mother  and  her  sisters  and  she  was  also  a  very  generous  person.   My grandmother and my aunts were poor so every time they visited, Mom would give them money and would send me to the best  noodle  shop in town to buy their favorite noodle soups for them.  On New Year’s Eve,  Mom  took us to  Grandma’s  house to help make bánh tét (sweet rice cake wrapped in banana leaves) for New Year celebration. Grandma did not have  electricity,  so we worked by the oil lamp.  My sister and I helped to clean the  banana  leaves  while  Mom  and  Grandma  wrapped  bánh tét.  They  talked  while working,  their  voices  were  soft  and  rhythmic.  I  didn’t  understand what they talked about, but their soothing sound made me drowsy. I slept while waiting for Mom to finish.

        One day,  Mom  fell  sick.  I’m  not  quite  sure what her illness was. Her condition grew worse and worse.  By  the  time she was brought to the hospital in  Saigon,  all  the good doctors had left the war-torn country.  Neither  Dad  nor  my  sisters  told  me  how Mom was doing, probably because they thought I was too young to know. It’d be best to spare me from worrying about her, they thought.  Mom  died  the  following  week.  She was only 45.  At her funeral,  a very big brown butterfly landed on the altar.  We’d never seen such a big butterfly before.  It  stayed  there  for  a long time and kept coming back for a few days.  Stories  have  been  told that the butterfly is the spirit of the dead and we truly believed it was Mom’s spirit. She couldn’t leave us and wanted to stay around.

GETTING BY

        Dad  became  withdrawn.  He  mourned Mom’s death.  She  left  him widowed with nine children that he didn’t know how to raise.  My  Dad  was  strict  and  everyone  was afraid of him,  even more so after Mom’s passing.  He spent more time with himself than with his children.  It  was like we were in two separate worlds that never  collided.  Soon we were running out of money.  My  sisters  reopened the grocery  store,  this  time  on a much smaller scale.  Due  to  the  war,  most  people  did not have money to rebuild their stores,  so  we  rented  the  same  store,  except  there was no roof or walls.  Instead of an actual store,  it was more like a market stall.  Our store was a shadow of its former glory, full of rubble and broken fixtures.  We  built  a  six  by  eight  feet  wooden platform and filled it with our merchandise.  We  scraped  together  what  we  could  in  an  attempt  to rebuild  our  store.  What  used  to be a  full  200 lbs  burlap bag of rice was now a 20 lbs paper bag  of  rice.  Over  here,  there  were  10 lbs of  black  beans,  green  beans,  white beans,  and red beans.  Over  there,  we had sugar, flour,  a few bottles of fish sauce,  and soy sauce.  Our mini store fit squarely on the wooden platform. It was a pale comparison to the store we owned before the war.  Not  only that,  but  our returning customers could only afford a tenth of what they used  to buy.  Because of that,  my  family  continued  to struggle financially.  The  war in Vietnam was  over,  but  Vietnam was still very  much a broken country,  and  everyone was in dire  situation.  We  consoled each other as best as we could.  In  the  evening,  we “closed” our shop by locking up our goods inside a rusty burned metal container.

        Due to the war,  food  was  rationed.  Once  a  week,  each family received a loaf of bread and cabbage.  Before  the  local officials even opened their  office,  a  large  crowd would already be gathered outside.  People pushed, shoved, yelled, and screamed at each other, trying to get to the front.  Everyone  was  hungry and fought for some food to feed their families.  I,  too,  was part of that crowd, fighting my way inside. I either pushed or was pushed by the crowd behind me.  I  was  a short and chubby 10 year old, but I could slither my way around people.  I  would  get my food and fought my way out.  I  have to say,  I was embarrassed of what I  did.  In  Chinese School,  I was taught to be respectful and orderly but during this  difficult time I did  the  opposite.  At  the  same  time,  I  felt satisfied because my mission to feed my family was accomplished.  We had bread to eat. We survived yet another day.

ARRESTED

        In 1977,  my  father  was unexpectedly arrested.  He  was taken away at  night.  We were told that the charge was because we had a relative in  United States,  our country’s enemy.  None  of us knew of any relatives  in  the  U.S.,  but no one would  question  the authorities. My dad was held at the local police station and sometimes I brought food for him with the help of a friend.  After a few months,  my father was miraculously released from jail.

        When  my  father was released from jail and reunited with  my family,  the  sight of him made me shocked and heart broken.  Dad  had a long beard.  His  hair  turned  white and he had aged so much. I was afraid to look at his eyes.  They were angry,  scared, and filled with bitterness.  My  dad  did not stay at home anymore.  He  lived  at our farm far away from home.  Sometimes he came back riding his bicycle,  bringing yams and corns for us, and left at nightfall. It was difficult to see him this way. My father used to be loud and outgoing. He loved to be around his friends and was an animated person. Instead, he transformed into  someone who  was  quiet,  sad,  alone,  and  tired.  It was like he was a completely different person. Whatever happened in that jail completely changed him.

CAMP D

        In 1979,  there  was  a  government  program that allowed all Chinese expatriates to leave  Vietnam.  Seizing  the  opportunity for a new life,  we sold everything we had and left  Vietnam  on a fishing boat along  with  other  Chinese  families.  After  nine days of sailing on turbulent  waters,  we  finally  landed  in  Bangka,  an island of Indonesia.  We were brought to a refugee camp.  As  we  rode  into camp in the back of  a  truck,  people from the camp rushed out.  We  were  surrounded by men with bare chests and long hair. Their skin was so dark in that if you used  your  fingernail  to scribble  words on it,  they would show up clearly.  We  were  very scared as we didn’t know who these people were or what country were they from.  Were  they  trying  to  rob  us?  To our relief,  we heard Vietnamese amongst the dark men’s voices.  It  turned out this was a Vietnamese refugee camp.  As we were waiting to see if someone would accept our family into their camp,  a few  of the  long-haired  fishermen  approached  us.  They  were  loud,  intimidating,  yet playful and intriguing at the same time.  One of them asked  "Welcome to Camp Airraja. Did you find a campsite?"  We shook our heads and sheepishly said "not yet".  My father looked at them warily;  moving in with a bunch of rowdy single men spelled trouble.  At the same time, no one seemed to be willing to take a big family like  ours.  "We can take you in.“ One of the guys shouted. "You'll be happy at Trại Dê.” (Trại Dê means Camp D, but “Dê” is also a Vietnamese slang term for “pervert”) They all burst into an obnoxious laughter at their creative pun.

        The Vietnamese refugee camp consisted of many small hastily-built sites.  Each site housed about  50-80  people.  Camp  D  was situated on high  ground.  Rows  of wooden platforms were built from one end to the other  end  of  camp.  There  were  no  walls  so people hung sheets to partition their spaces for privacy.  The  camp was full of bed bugs, eagerly feeding on the blood of new residents.  I remember many rough nights of tossing and turning. It took us months to get used to their bites.

        Many  of  the  men  in  Camp  D  were fishermen from the same village in Vietnam. Many of them were either part of young families or single men.  They  were a  tight-knit group.  Life at camp was carefree and slow.  Besides cooking three meals,  people  spent their days loitering or  lounging  around.  Some  Catholic  worshipers  congregated  at  a small  church  built  by  some  refugee  families.  Some  men  played  volleyball.  Others formed singing groups.  People passed the days while waiting for a country kind enough to sponsor them.  There  was barely enough food to feed our family of 10.  Every month, each family received a ration of  rice,  oil,  eggs,  and cabbages.  When we were running out of rice,  we  would  eat  porridge.  People  who  had  money  could  afford  meat  and supplement their meals. Others who had friends or relatives from abroad would conserve their food ration until that money arrived. We did not have that luxury.

        My  Sister  Five,  Chị  Năm  was  very  resourceful.  She  crocheted colorful dusters made out  of  plastic  fiber  string.  We  hung  our  dusters  along  the road and sold them to city tourists.  We  didn't  make  much but it kept us from being  hungry.  The  Camp D men  suggested  that  we  make  hammocks from the same fiber  string.  They  taught  us how  to  make  hammocks  using the same technique they used to darn their fishing nets. And so, a new product line was added.

        My  Dad  handled the front-end sales while we  managed the  back-end  production. The men pitched in to help us.  They found a new purpose and we found new friendship. Together,  we  made  a  great  team.  Who  would  have  thought  that  a  bunch  of young  fishermen  and  young  girls  could  work  together  and  make  the  use  of  our   limited resources?   After   our  work  was  done,  we  watched  the  men  play  volleyball  in  the afternoon and cheered  them  on.  I  appreciated  the  kindness  and  the  humility that the Camp D men had given  us.  It  was  a  wonderful  experience  that I will not forget and I really wouldn’t have changed a thing.

USA, HERE WE COME

        A  Catholic  church  in  Chicago  sponsored  our  family  and  we left for the U.S. in October 1979, after spending six months at the refugee camp.  We stayed at a church and the nuns were so kind to us. My dad and older sisters learned  ESL,  English as a Second Language, at a community college  while  the  younger  ones  started  secondary  school. Life was new and every day was a learning experience for us.  We  loved  walking home from  school  and  reading  the  billboards  while  eating  ice  cream  in  the   coldest  and windiest  days of  Chicago.   Our  favorite  time  was  doing  homework  while  watching cartoons (Tom and Jerry was our favorite!) and the  Chicago  Cubs.  In  the evening,  we gathered  around  the  T.V.  watching  The  Brady  Bunch  and  The  Little  House  on the Prairie. Dad was so happy when he found some Vietnamese friends at the school.  Every weekend,  he’d entertain new friends and treated them as if they  were  his  best  friends. Dad enjoyed his new freedom and the new life in America. Bit by bit,  Dad  was starting to  show  signs  of his former self,  becoming  more  social  and  outgoing.  Life  became normal as everyone was busy learning English and adjusting to new life in America.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

        We  moved  to  California  for the warm sunny weather in 1985.  As the years went by,  we  children grew up and got married but my dad  remained  a  widower.  He  spent most of the day reading and writing letters or talking to his friends on the phone.  When I  visited  him,  we  talked  about  his  grandchildren,  about  his  old  friends,  the  usual subjects,  weather  and  politics.  Neither  of  us ever said    “I  love  you”.  We  avoided meaningful conversations for we feared it would hurt both of  us.  But  deep  down,  we both wanted to be closer, yet both were afraid to make the first move.

        As he grew older,  Dad's  health  started failing.  He was in and out of the hospital a lot due to a  variety  of  chronic  illnesses.  His  memory  started  to  fail  him and he had difficulty remembering his  grandchildren's names.  He  became  agitated in the hospital, wanting to go  home.  It  was  really sad to see him this way.  I  promised  him he'd come home the minute he got better.

        His condition seemed to improve, but he still needed medical care.  We transferred him to a nursing home hoping we could bring him home as soon as he was well enough. When I saw him, I'd bring newspaper and read to him like he used to do. It was not how I wanted him to spend his last remaining years,  but  in  between  working  full time and raising a family,  it was the most logical option.  Still,  the guilt of not being able to take care of my father or spend more time with him ate away at me.

        My  father  had  sacrificed  so  much  to  bring  his  entire  family  from  Vietnam to America,  and  he  did  everything  he could to keep our big family together--a herculean task-yet here we were unable to care for him at home.

        I was shocked and in disbelief when I got a call one morning.  Dad  passed away in his sleep.  I watched him lying there,  he looked peaceful.  His  body was still warm,  his cheeks still had color.  I wanted to believe he died without pain;  yet,  it’s not comforting knowing he died alone.

        It’s been many years since his passing and I still think about him often. Strangely, I think I understand him more now than when he was alive.  A  frightened young man in a foreign country,  with no family,  and hardly any money,  all  he  knew was work to keep from being hungry and support his family. He had no time for fun. Fun was a luxury that the poor couldn’t  afford.  All  his  life,  my  father  seized opportunities for a chance at a better life,  from the minute he stepped off that boat in  Vietnam  at  the age of  17, to the day he packed up his entire family of 10  and crammed them onto a  fishing  boat.  Even though he was strict and seemed cold at times, it was through this belief of working hard that kept us all together during times of difficulty. It was this way of thinking that shaped how he raised us.

        Being a parent is not  easy.  I  learned it along the way,  just like my father did. I am luckier in that I have my brothers and my sisters to lean on.  My  father did not have that luxury when he was faced with  life’s  unexpected obstacles.  I  live in a better time;  my circumstances allow me to do more with my  life.  I  received  a  better  education  and  I didn’t have to struggle  financially like my father did.  Now  I  realize  that what we have today is what my father had wanted for us:  a better future for our family.  In turn, I want my children to have an even better life than  me.  I  find myself explaining things a lot to them; my concerns for their safety, my hope for them to be the best that they can be, and the decisions that I made.  We do not always agree,  but  I hope explanation is a bridge to understanding  the values my father imparted on us.  Let's  cross  that bridge and meet in the middle.

        P.S:  My  hope of putting these things down on paper is to help his grandchildren to understand that their grandfather was a hardworking,  generous,  and fair man.  He  took risks all for the sake of creating a better future for his family.  I  want  them to remember and honor him for his fine qualities.  Our journeys in life,  however  happy, sad, or tragic they  might be,  we  will  rise  above  our  challenges  if  we  stick  together.  Despite  the struggles,  if we fuel our hearts with tender moments – my Santa Claus,  Chị  Tư and her silly phrases,  the  memory  of  Mom and Grandma by the oil  lamp,  and  Dad’s story of impressing foreign customers-- they make us strong,  enough  to overcome any obstacles that come our way.  For  those  of you whose fathers are  still  living,  it’s not too late for you to tell him you love him. The best thing you can give him is your time, time to listen to his childhood stories, his love stories, his proud moments,  and his dreams.  Be honest with  him  about  your  feelings  and  be  ready to reconcile because it will bring peace to both of you. Learn from his experiences, because when he is no longer with you, it is his stories that will guide you through life’s challenges. And do it soon;  don’t  wait too long or it will be too late.

THE END