Thang Nguyen 555

After defeat, try again.

At my first wedding, out in the open, at a park, my dad took over the mike (sound system all set up, why let it go to waste) to sing. Too far to hear across the lake, I remember him raising his fist in the air when the song was over.

Perhaps something in his time and in the water. Certainly, he was not to hail the reign of some monarch or revolutionary in particular. Foreign legionnaire marching spirit? Since he never spoke of his time way back in the Army. I only heard second-hand through my older brother, that had he stayed on, he could have risen in rank.

Decades later, surely enough, I grew into his image give and take, with rebelliousness add-ons e.g. one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, or like Alan Parker’s Midnight Express protagonist who walks in circle – around an abandoned fountain – yet in opposite direction. The Turk’s “to the right”, ” To know yourself means to know God,” the other “conformist” whispered repeatedly. The road less traveled stirs me away from dad’s set path, swiping and bumping against the grain, while journeying into my own night. We all came from a dad who raised his fist and embarrassed us in public. Then I was trying to get on a rented limo with “Just Married” goodbyes to get on with the times.

His absence this week, joined by Jesse Jackson’s and Robert Duvall’s, cast a long shadow. My dad always seemingly took his time e.g. nursing his beer, combing his hair or singing slow-rock songs whose endings always milked out or in my first wedding, fist raised. Similarly, Robert Duvall in A Civil Action, plays “Theme from a Summer place” on transistor pocket radio – would have been for baseball scores – in wait of a jury verdict (he, however, uses a bullhorn in Apocalypse Now with choppers and mortars overhead, to show off his “brief-shining-lie” bravery).

Men of my dad’s times with cinematic good looks (using hair puck and combing backward).

Here we go again. Belittle your opponent to gain an edge (but then why should the world pair you up with him to begin with). Well, it’s the cosmetician that failed to powder up my nose for show debate with telegenic Kennedy.

I feel, however, a touch of pride coming across archive photos of students in suits and not shorts, back in the early days at my schools. My mom’s teacher’s college certainly observed that same conservative code (tien hoc le, hau hoc van) of French Colonial era.

Respect before rhetoric. Formal they were and conducted themselves above board. S’il vous plait. Merci beaucoup, reflexively at the tip of their tongues. Civility, courtesy and compassion.

Stop. There is someone in need (of our pocket change). Mieng khi doi = goi khi no. Beggar cannot be choosy. Someone’s trash = your treasure. I will remember as long as I live Bac Be, mom’s colleague/friend, who graced us with her New Year visit, then her “li xi” (new year’s lucky money). Hers was quite unconventional: not folded new paper money in red envelope as 99 per cent of other people “to the Turkish right”. She had me open both palms before placing one shiny penny alternate with the other until I could no longer hold. Adult impactful grace.

Groomed and coached in creativity, I grew up into an adult life of code of conduct, of courtesy and high expectations: table d’honneur, straight A’s, proper speech and etiquette at home (in the presence of the adults, two decades and more my senior). Honor first and foremost.

I try, God knows. Even in face of bullies, of unjust, unluck and damn happenstance. As long as I could still hold residual core values at trial moment, when 99 per cent others disregard and dilute common good, common cause (of rainbow, of hope). Let go off those pennies that you cannot hold on to.

My hope for the year of the Horse is to pause and thank the generation before, then to distinguish ourselves from animals and AI. The later needs a lot of handholding and handling.

Since we’re people of proud heritage, let’s face headwind without face down. Rinse, rise and repeat. Defeat? Rise again. And again, and again as long as our blood still flows, our fists still raise.

After defeat, try again.

For that brief moment watching him across the lake, I know I got it in me too.