New horizon, new problem

The majority of South Vietnam intellectuals and elites have passed. Been 47 years. If survived at all, their memoirs would be full of selective and misplaced details. Sold at an ethnic bookstore near you e.g. Bolsa or Bellaire (CA or TX).

Few, but not many, books were meticulously referenced with footnotes, endnotes etc… I either did not want to open them, nor did I want to finish them. I fear the ending. I fear having to experience loss over and over again. The moments.

More immediately, I have just finished Alan Phan’s 42 years of Doing Business In US & China.

My fellow Penn Stater, albeit his accomplishments were way up there: already taught at an University in Saigon while I was still in High School. Nonetheless, the kinship is there. I could relate to his struggles (inked a NJ battery factory deal just to get an EPA multi-million-dollars clean up fine), his dare-Devilishness (taking a Black date to Bel Air Golf Club) and his aching nostalgia (commuting every weekend from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City).

He had a blog while still alive, and even linkedin w/ me given we’re both from PSU.

What do I do with social media connections who are deceased? Send a message saying R.I.P.? (and drop dead if getting a response).

Back to leaving Saigon, leaving Kabul, leaving Kiev. Somehow, America takes in and takes on a sponsorship role for the huddle mass.

Penniless (or “white-handed” as my brother-in-law used to say, instead of empty-handed).

Given time, we all become “American”, and America’s problems = our problems. No one can tell exactly when that occurs. The only test was when we read about America is in a decline (the ground starts shifting underneath us…look around for a next oasis?).

Like Ruth, the Moabite, “your people, my people”.

By the river of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept. Dried or flowing river.

As long as there is still water. There is hope and link. Global. Our common home. It’s just a plane hop away. Like Alan’s weekend commute. Like a trip to Little Saigon, with plenty a taste of Pho.

I did not want to touch those books. For fear of their ending. For fear of re-living the end of a sad chapter. Our younger generation even sings about it in Vietnam “un film de Coppola”, in French. We’re a diaspora, just like the Jews and Chinese before us. Or the Afghan and the Ukrainian today. Soon, they’ll find themselves with time to look back (history vs news), in context and with perspective. Haunting, introspective and melancholic as it is, their stories will be told again and again via different media and in different times.

Then America gets new blood, rejuvenated and revitalized. In decline? Hope not. Not yet. With complacency and slow-burn, maybe. New horizon, new problem – compounding. Just as soon as I turned away from the above ferry view, I have faced new challenges till today. Non-stop.