Thang Nguyen 555

Headlines from the Guardian: “VietCong promise a policy of peace”….

Right. But rewind a bit. To the beginning of that year. 1975. When I shaved my head. Determined. Do or Die.

Gotta to get in that Medical School, where space were limited ( this is how the world works: counterparts from upper class with fuller war chest, leverage their social pecking order to secure a seat. Not to mention, more disciplined , if not more determined country-side kids flanking from behind). Hence, focused. Let the war rage outside. Inside, all I did was to hit the book.

Then a gal- pre-med student – passed the collection bucket, for war refugees (the Convoy of Tears floated down to our city, now tent city. )

I couldn’t stay and sit still. I stepped up to the plate, “hey, hand me the mike”. Then I spilled, I spoke and I pitched. The bucket got fuller with each passing for then homeless in our city.

Mind you. I am not a saint. That New Year, T-e-t 1975, I felt the urge to go out, like kids my age, to meet girls, strangers on the dance floor.

My brother gave me vitamin booster shots. And I knew then as I know now, there wouldn’t be home, New Year or anything close to it again, ever.

“Policy of Peace”. Just look at abandoned boots on the ground. Kennedy promised no boots on the ground, just “advisors”.

Yet as you can see. All you can see, is to the contrary.

Back to my odyssey that year, the end game of a long war. A war where everything was put to a test: a policy of containment, unmanned flying weaponry (now called drones), and the very heart of man (loyalty).

We ended up splitting up. Dad stayed behind. The rest, fled. Without an escape plan.

Just drift. Let life take care of us. Nine.

No destination. Just determination.

Go where the sun is shining. Leave everything especially a peace “promise”

There went my dream for medical school. To wear that white coat, to heal and to “win”.

Our side lost that day. A terrible loss.

A defeat. Stripped us off our dignity, confidence and sense of self.

Willingly and totally abandoned everything we had held dear.

Now, everything is re-constructed, glued-back fragments of a distant past.

We failed once. All of us. All we have with us, top of my head, are some residual core values: respect for the elders (right?), love of literature (right? love of money to be more truthful, even though my last imprint of that journey was a guy tossing money to the wind), sense of irony/humor (this we do best) and finally, pride of a people (who fought and resisted centuries of invaders) – but us, not counted, since we are a band of run-aways. Stateless. Stoic. Yet playing both sides of the fence (a friend who fled that same year, who sat next to me and looked back in the direction of home from Subic Bay, said, “many among us now think we’re White).

To re-invent ourselves, we’ve taken on a more dominant social strain, the White folks (who would, after what we went through, side with and put on the x- and identify with historical slave’s struggles. Aren’t we broken enough in many places? No room for being further broken. To paraphrase Hemingway, where it’s broken, lights manage to get through…Our refurbished lives are made of patched-up holes. The patches are self-deception and aggrandisement, self-invented nobility ready for a game of one-upmanship. All the world’s a stage, might as well be Count of Monte Cristo.

Spare you all the transfer points and check points, all the modes of transportation and translation. I ended up at Penn State, late check-in.

Just shit. I will clean. My janitorial debut.

Towards the end of that year, I found myself celebrating the Holidays again. This time, with long hair (I don’t remember ever stepped in to a barbershop, 365 days of that year), not shaved-head Holidays – from Saigon to State College, PA. I gathered all the Vietnamese exile students to my basement, dimmed the light, and threw a cake-cookie party. Music from a small cassette player. Music recorded while I was in the refugee camp. We chatted, we got to know one another. We even danced. But there was an Elephant in the room. My room. The Elephant was that big Loss: identity loss, Home loss, relationships in their cultural context which made us who we were. I remember an upper classman. She said I had quoted Shakespeare “All the world is a stage”, when I mentioned all we were tasked with, was to play our part in a play: the play of life itself.

The play changed its script that year. Forever. Boots left behind. More than stepping out of uniforms, we just let ourselves drop: aspiration and ambition, Do-or-Die confidence to hit the ground running. In that vacuum and void, we refilled with externality, as we would a Costco cart.

I don’t know who I am anymore. Not after that year. It’s as if there were two me’s: one guy who speaks the native language, joking around in friendliness and camaraderie. And another guy – me, transformed and conformed to new norms and new hoops, of white lies without white privileges – as a “banana”, playing for time, eyes on the clock, which is ticking and ushering in my inevitable end. Hail Mary! Just like our politicians and professors, priests and privileged echelon of that fateful year. “They” always get a seat, in medical school or a cargo plane.

Fooled me once. But fate dealt us a good hand. I am here. Still. Still throwing parties. Still smiling and singing. But this time, I ain’t gonna shave my head. Knowing it’s not hair or lack of it, that makes a difference. Head-shaving was just a self-denouncing act, an outward manifestation of my inner determination: I am gonna get in. No matter how high the barriers to entry. Do or die.