Reflections

It’s been fifty years since, yet that US-shaped cake with red-white-blue icing still lingers somewhere in my memory: all typewriters stopped, and all Child Welfare staff joined in “Happy Birthday”. Placing unaccompanied minors into foster care to them was just a job. To show me, unpaid interpreter, some humanity was extra.

The 322-22 highway curved along the Susquehanna River to lead the way. My first time away from home. Alone. To face destiny. Everything, everyone and everywhere looked utterly alien.

My mom stayed back in the camp, like a mother hen, guarding the fort of Indian town Gap (yet we had a heart to pick up a hitchhiker). My sister’s family of 6 got group sponsor down to Northern Virginia. My guitar brother had, without missing a beat, restarted his US pharmaceutical career in New Jersey. Voila! 4 different zip codes.

We’re almost out of the woods or so I thought. Maslow scale? No sweat. Starting at the bottom and working your way up the food chain aka the American Dream.

Balls of various shapes and sizes tossed and thrown at us: straight and curve, hit and miss (Playboy centerfold smashed in my face for instance). Threats behind e.g. hot war, Cold War and nuclear war, then war from within: doubt, death and fractious families/nation.

Naive and eager, I rolled up my sleeves: toilet flushing, floor mopping and sandwich-break on night shifts. You probably read about Steve Job’s notorious 3rd-shift demotion per poor hygiene and low social skills. In my case, back then, what “social skills?”! By wiping down really good, I thought this could somehow by way of penance scrub away our collective sin (just finished a book by my classmate: Rain on the Red flag. Could have been my story).

Fast forward to today, with declassified materials, we found in Kissinger a perfect scapegoat, whose politics of backroom dealing undermined the war.

After being washed and dry, sterilized and bleached, immersed and sprinkled – emerges an old Oriental at the gym. “You’re from Vietnam?”. So, it’s still my fault? (a walking sad reminder of a sorry time).

In America, one must first “find oneself” (individualism), live for the moment (without an inkling of the past) before self-effacing phase (world citizen) – the personal before the universal, I before We e.g. shaved head and painted face chameleon (like Woody Allen’s Tron lookalike in Sleeper, or in his Blue Jasmine – “yep, we were very civic-minded,” says the like of Madoff’s wife i.e. Cate Blanchett).

“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”, with given fine-print disclaimer (never in Large Print).

Suckers are losers. He who finishes with the most chips wins. It’s always been a numbers game/winner-takes-all society (what else to be there, given predictable and planned obsolescence e.g. fuel, hybrid, electric and Toyota’s recent hydro power, Wayne’s world to Waymo.

Breathe in.

Things will change again in 50 years e.g. hot or cold war, post-cold war, globalization then Monroe Doctrine 2. 0., the China card, Russia card and soon India one. Good luck to citizens of small nations – take heed: per Napoleon’s “whichever side got more ammo wins”. Hence, DoW (department of War).

That said, it’s time to take stock: my mom passed, my dad passed, my sister passed. It’s she who said “It’s finished” at our father’s funeral- while my dad seemingly and reluctantly complied, in limbo and in transit from the Western world to the afterworld.

This was quite consistent and characteristic of him who took the whole decade to join us in the US – someone who once had been in the employ of Air Vietnam yet could barely get a seat on the plane. His dictionary was Larousse. Mine, Merriam-Webster, an office parting gift to kick off a lifelong word search and soul search. Half-life living, in infinity, father and son, ignoring headwind on wings of wax, with occasional reminders of certain end.

In Other Colored, Orhan Pamuk wrote: “Everyman’s death begins with his father’s death”.

In my end, my beginning. While I appreciate being “sentient “and all, that alone could not predict my destiny. His journey consisted of constant uprootedness.

“Oi coi tau nhu xe doi long” …” if you missed the train I am on, you’ll know that I am gone…. you will hear the whistle blow a hundred miles”.

Although I did not leave camp by train, it sure feels like something that runs in the family: urban dwellers turned nomads. Whether it’s in 1954 or 1975 time passes all the same: like a blink of an eye.