Thang Nguyen 555

People are clustered and bunched up via personal preferences. All due to the accident at birth.

Village people look up to the Chief. Urban the mayor and in a Democratic society the President.

Individual freedom vs Internet freedom. A scary thing. We have at our finger tips all the knowledge in the world (including bias, unverified news and rewritten history).

Meanwhile, people of different cultures who immigrated here can have it both ways: earning and living on the dollars while entertaining themselves with news and bias from home across the world. Let the winner emerge. Let the truth show itself. Out of the many, One.

Or will it ever be? Each group self-project by clicking on subjects they are most comfortable with. Personal preferences once again. Individual freedom (of expression and perception). Village chief, medicine man, snake oil salesman and witchcraft.

So we have a situation where algorithm pushes more content of reinforced taste and bias. Theme from A Summer Place, Theme from Mahogany etc.. The older generation gets older, fading into the background. The young keeps asserting themselves i.e. driving faster, being less patient and creating their own code words.

The internet, once thought of as the greatest unifying invention (no central node, no way to take down etc…) now turns multi-nodes into mini-babels with milli-meter waves and two-way 6G fast upload. All stove pipes, if you asked me.

Parental control? Government control? Tipper Gore PG-initiatives? Good luck. The Genie is way out of the bottle. The individuals (and instinct) are set free to roam, to search, to Google and to Xerox.

Warning: The content might include offensive materials….(that is the trigger for more curiosity and extra attention).

And so it goes. Those with bias tends to turn on and view content that suits their taste. Those who love theme from this and from that would turn to the “good old days” and rock the rocking chair.

Voila. The twain shall never meet. This time, it’s not geography-relevant. Not generational gap. It’s taste (pre-conditioned per accident at birth) relevant.

And out of many, MANY. Enabled by the Internet freedom, for the Individual freedom. Everybody gets to say, to watch and to hear as much as one could. Prejudge until you drop. Instead of shedding some light into darkness, we’re offered a wide variety of flash lights, from dimmable to flood. To the point that darkness turns secondary problem. It’s the myriads of solution (SEO) that blind us. Like a driver passing Death Valley into dazzling Las Vegas at night.

Now that I have offered my humble opinion, let me sit back, relax, and turn on my Theme from a Summer Place (to forget about the cold outside, the harm done to people in the hospital where surgeons themselves ended up lying on the operating table due to misguided bombs.)

P.S. It will take another generation or two, before we learn how to cope with the deluge of info on the internet, how to develop Internet-era survival mechanism via acquired net-sabbatical habits.

I meant for it (the title) to set the tone. A right one. Non-judgmental. Just in plain gratitude.

However, what I want to say is, for the “children of the dust” ( or worse, ” cho muc i.e. black dog ” as Vietnam era Amerasian were coined in private), Homecoming Act could only help so much (with legal immigration for the roughly 20,000 in early 90’s). Meanwhile, for the Black Amerasian who are now full-grown, 12 per cent of the 3 per cent who got back in touch with their G.I.’s fathers, Fathers Day is hardly celebrated each year.

The struggle from backwaters Mississippi to non-violent Selma, to “nuke them gooks” in the jungle of Vietnam, resulted at best in children in temporary holding camps in Palawan, Philippines late 80’s onto Bolsa/Bellaire Boulevard of the Vietnamese-American enclaves in the US.

Double-discrimination: Black faces, Vietnamese names. Tell that to the barista at Starbucks.

Out of the many mothers who accompanies their Homecoming children to America, there were, per WarBabies.org statistic, 17 per cent were fake relatives. The Black enlist men fathered those unwanted, expunged and expelled by their government to finally be admitted by ours.

Those adults, few of whom made it in Vietnamese show-biz, turned around and adopted many orphan children e.g. Phi Nhung who died of covid recently.

Others, like a gentleman I had a privilege to interview and offer him a job at MCI (he subsequently changed his mind), never grow out of their hybrid identity and perhaps insecurity, even with the obvious advantage of the “right” skin tone.

The war forced people to come into brush with many unpleasant elements. Out of survival. Out of necessity.

Its aftermath was even uglier, due to compassion fatigue and media ill attention.

A stamp of visa never is an admission ticket to the American establishment. Au contraire.

Just file in, take a number, wait your turn and wait for the trickle-down economy..

Keep waiting. You carry two bloodlines. Immigrated from one country to the next.

But you’re neither here nor there. Never fully taken roots. Drifted and self-enclaved into precedent ethnic ghettos: Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Tokyo and of course, now Little Saigon.

Bring the native seed. Plant a fruit tree. Contribute to the ever-widening Rainbow cuisine of America.

If you (Black Amerasian children) ever are folded into your father’s clan, then Soul Foods and Southern Foods.

On VA pension. Wearing second-hand clothing and hearing over and over about the good old days.

Those good old days could have been better had it not for that war that your Dads got drafted into. Its Commander in Chief once rested on the long conference table, exhausted and self-deflated.

Torn between two lovers. The Great Society on the one hand, and Vietnam on the other.

Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. All drained. One war. Lost war. Lost cause.

Now the children come home to roost. To remind and ridicule us of our utter failure.

Decent interval. ” I shall not seek re-election ….”.

Of all the glorified war movies, NAM is at the far end of the spectrum.

Guess who is coming to dinner? Our flesh and blood. From afar. From Cu Chi, from Cho Lon. From the ethnic enclaves of former Saigon – which BTW, reestablished their norms and prejudice, thanks in part to the availability of influx of migration, student visas, spousal green cards and ethnic content on YouTube ( never out of the strong grip of country origin’s propaganda, supported by American Ads dollars).

Let’s give thanks to the Almighty on this Thanksgiving Day. That the children are safe and sound.

Their acceptance is an admission of guilt. But that’s for the Friday after Thanksgiving.

So the unpleasant surprise keeps staring at us, in the face. Two bloodlines, one Nation under God.

P.S. It would be so ironic for the children of the KKK’s to harass the Children of the Dust (imported from Vietnam). They ‘ve got plenty of practice at being invisible and living “underground”. This time to stay and not to have to emigrate to France for better racial acceptance. We congratulate the 12 per cent of the 3 per cent who reunited with Daddies. May they celebrate their Fathers’ Day in joy unspeakable and non-judgmental gratitude for the mixed-blessing.

You have to say it with a Southern drawl….” Just stuccccck”.

Can’t go far without destroying the transmission. Kevin Kelly said “technology wants to be free”…flow and fluidity.

Yet both people and technology often times are just stuck. No flow, no fluidity. In Beijing, where millions of cars clogged up the highways, one can call a bike (two service men) to come and help unstuck you (one would take your place, while the other gives you a scooter ride home for supper).

We’re boxed in: incubators at birth (in Gaza City, it’s a dilemma whether electricity should be cut off to deny the enemy the “flow and fluidity” of technology), then ventilators in death.

While we are all out for childhood vaccination, we then vote for weapons to kill “the others” in mass extinction might it be called World War numero Uno, Dos, etc… Einstein once said WWIV would be carried out by sticks and stone. In other words, WWIII is the end of everything. The Great Reset. Starting over. Unstuck.

I hold in my hand, with solemn reverence, Poetry of the First World War. Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel triggered my curiosity, with bodies blown up, trenches unearthed and holidays recalled until the soldiers were maimed. There were no “Joyeux Noel” as romantically depicted in the movies of that title. Perhaps once, along the trenches, two sides decided on an impromptu cease-fire.

Humanity. Dignity. All that it’s entailed: the feeding frenzy, the putting out fire with fire, education and re-education (concentration camps, forced labor and outright prisons of war).

How many Jungers and poets have we wasted in the battle fields? Or we only know there was a Junger because of war and destruction. It’s a privilege, to stay alive to retell the horror tales.

To get unstuck during PTSD. Dreaming once again of Hamas tunnel, Cu Chi tunnel and what not.

I saw a PBS clip about a “tunnel rat” during Vietnam. Only the upper body can be stuck inside the tiny tunnel. Rest of the GI’s body remained outside. Often their heads got shot up. Stuck.

Back home in a box. Southern drawl or Northern Virginia (Arlington cemetery). Then names on the Wall. The reflecting pool. The inscription “All men were created equal…”. May God still oversee His creation, in it, us included. A little lower than angels, and a little “higher” than animals. A mix of saints and sinners, killers and healers. We injure others and ourselves get injured. PTSD and resolve (never again). Then we forget. Stuck again. In 1st or 2nd gear. World War II…and then what?

Technology wants to be free. So do we, human. Artificial intelligence, machine learning. We too want the flow and fluidity now afford to technology. It seems to me, technology progress has outpaced human one. Just look at the refugees fleeing war zones, seeking safety and signals (for her I phone). Once, they cut off all connections, before turning it on again. On that day, in Gaza, both technology and people were stuck. Just stucccck. Like we in our daily drudgery and struggle to survive.

In looking around there at the gym, I must be the oldest. Of course I don’t have the latest and greatest gym wear. Nor do I bring all the gadgets like bluetooth and Apple watch. But I showed up. Like clockwork. Like I have always been there and forever I will be. Gym fees are automatically withdrawn also like clockwork.

As if on cue, every time I approach a certain machine, someone has just wiped it down. After Covid, this has been more of a routine. Folks came with large carry-on bottles, most refilled at the water fountain.

The abs area always seems to be available. It’s the most painful of all the exercises.

Thighs (sitting down) makes for a good multitasking chair i.e chatting away in between sets.

People pigeon the machines, hogging them or just standing around, looking around, checking out the chics.

Most got into a routine, for I can i.d. most of the familiar faces on that shift (before 9am).

Some machines broke down and no one reported to management. Hence, the gym capacity was not quite put to maximum use.

That tiny steam room is always occupied by a certain group of individuals. They practically “own” it.

So I avoid the turf, the territory. Locker rooms are OK, no incidents and no need for a pad lock.

Long ago, I used to bring my own, but of late, I just put on gym clothes each morning and be ready at it. In and Out.

One can take one’s health for granted. Only up to the day when the weather changes, when you have to go to Walgreens to visit the Cold/Flu section.

Winter sinus. Spring allergies. High Cholesterol, high-blood pressures. People are urged to check for lung cancer, whether they once were a smoker then quit.

Breathe in breathe out. Cardio and muscle toning. Health and no wealth. Mind and body. Self-destruction and self-preservation. For how long. For what?

I have noticed people prolong themselves relying on the system and process.

Work the system, I was told. Consume, consume, consume. Student loan, mortgage lending and mortuary pre-paid.

From cradle to the grave, we go through the motion, work the system, attend school and listen to lectures. Some of them make sense. Others, just passing the time.

Had it been earth-changing, we would have remembered, challenged and changed. Au contraire, they fed us the same dose of unreality, in the hope that some day, when we graduate into the “real” world, we can make an impact. To bend the world into one’s will. To play God and “save” it, and in the process, self-proclaim as little saviors.

At the gym, one accept the physical reality: a set of 3, 10 lifts at a time. Weight preset per body limits . A lie we tell our bodies: “you’re alright”. Good boy, good girl. Now go out and change the world. Weight scales never lie.

The world that sends its bills, demands its pay. It might give an extension but never gives us recognition and reward. Just ask the under-privileged, the under-paid and underserved. Ask the homeless who sleeps under the AMC sign (read also Breakfast at AMC).

Gym as metaphor. Metaphor for showing up, checking in with one’s self. To self-assure that we’re still OK, kicking and breathing. Until some day, one day, for sure, we no longer show up. As a regular or irregular. Ever.

The oldest at the gym. High maintenance. With bags under the eyes. Being left alone. Unsocialized. In a world that is always in a hurry to go someplace and be somebody. Greed is good. He who dies with the most toys wins.

The demographics of the gym, shows a huge bell-shape curve, with lots of young folks in the middle, and a dwindling population at its far-end. First the gym, then the coffee, senior coffee at McDonald’s. Then lunch at la Madeleine before a quick nap at the library. Work the system. Prolong the process. On the road, always. The journey is itself a reward. God knows to where, for the endpoint is not geographical. It is chronological and has no end. It’s our own expiration date that’s at stake. It’s prolong extension largely depends on and due to our health consciousness and gratitude exhibited each day, staring at the gym.

Any first-year student of Advertising knows this. The idea that if we can tie the unknown to a well-known, then chances are, the unknown will get bought. For instance, Brady endorses FTX.

Over time, we forgot that today’s well-known was yesterday’s unknown. For instance, student Co-Op. It was once a novel concept to cut down the cost of groceries (bring your own bags, which itself had been popularized by BYOB – bring your own booze to student party.)

Today, all the big chains co-opted this CO-OP concept, increase profits at our own expenses (time, energy, aggravation of being forced from being a consumer to a pro-sumer – a Toffler’s coined term).

We pair-associate everything. That’s how learning works. How the brain processes Unidentified Objects (to prove that you’re not a robot, please identify which way this animal looks up).

Before long, we never suspected Santos as a fraud: that which quacks like a duck, walks like one, must be one. After all, he had the right looks, costume, glasses and sweater (Mr. Roger knew this very well). On the way out of court, he wore Red Sneakers, supposedly a signal of defiance, i.e. “What are you gonna do about it” (like Sharon Stone “What! You’re gonna charge me with smoking?”.

With pair-association, we file new observations away into a set mental compartment. Never to be pulled out, unless challenged and required. George Clooney’s Tequila, Paul Newman’s salad dressing and Picasso’s canvas.

We stereotype things, people and places. Refugees? Wait at the border. Relief workers? good luck with reverse border-crossing. Bowling alley workers? secure job, but of late not so secure a job site even in Maine.

This Pavlovian experiment has gone too far. It was an experiment in dog’s salivation. Now, it’s all in for human. A trickle-down economy ( “where’s the beef”). A pragmatic society (the most people with the least of means). A Mechanical Turk uses recommendation software to pair our already uncertain choice to a totally foreign one, just to upsell. “Perhaps you might like to combine your purchase with these other items” e.g. selling a tie to a customer at the cash register (less chance to get rejected).

As long as we move forward, greasing the wheel. Never look back. Heck with grandparents. Heck with tradition (history is always being rewritten anyway).

So every year, at Thanksgiving, we sit around the bird, carve it, pass it around. May I have the cranberry sauce please.

Yam is good. Planted by the native American. To be served up once a year. New arrivals pair-associate what’s proper and acceptable by observing “authorities” in the established community.

(in their mind, “if they eat this bird once a year, it must be very rare and sacred”).

So new comers also want to have a piece of the action: white meat and white folks. Snow White and stark white shirt.

Pair association. Santos and we know this. So we walk and dress like a “duck”. In the hope that one day, some day, we just “naturalize” our way into the House of Congress. Quacking like a duck.

Only to be served up at the altar, to appease justice. America is an experiment, very much Pavlovian. Just throw it all on the Picasso canvas. See what sticks. Buy us some time. Make up as we go along. Let the process run its course. Due process. Until the bills come due. With interests of course. Money, money, money.

Any first-year Advertising student knows pair-association: tie the unknown to the known. The sizzle, not the steak. Sell them. Book them. Build the brand however parasitic it may be at first. Count on the public short memory. Co-Op them. First lure them in – puppy-dog sell. Then cram in more stuff, high-margin stuff to make up for loss-leaders.

“Sorry, the car you saw advertised has been sold. How about this one! ” Gotcha!

You know it because it rings true.

We live in a mechanical society i.e. data, speed and accuracy.

What rings true at the “heart” level needs confirmation. Hard data for hard decision.

Yet ALL of us, and I am pretty sure (no hard data to back up this hunch though) there had to be love at everyone’s conception. Then if that’s true, why what was once was so true, now deluded and decried by society as imprecise, emotional, weak, unproven and pussy.

People in the helping business was touted during Covid as heroes. Then of late, at least in CA, they had to strike to get their rightful raise.

We love Happy Ending. It pumps the juice. Happiness. Endorphin. Like they finally had a Speaker of the House ( “I felt it in my heart….best days are still ahead”).

21st-century men, deflated and often defeated when they let their emotions got the better of them. Get over it (whatever it is that gets you down).

Don’t even acknowledge it. If not recognized, it were as though it didn’t exist. Those matters of the heart.

The love for one’s motherland, one’s mother and one’s family. If it’s in the women’s department, we take it for granted. But male? go to war. Go out and drink. Go out and fight.

Then one day, the heart gave. Then we know what’s important. Like Jeremy Renner – injured in a snow plow accident – recently said he now lives a lean life, no fat whatsoever. He meant families, or what’s been regarded as important like matters of the heart.

Do we need the years to show us that? An accident? A setback?

When it comes to matters of the heart, let’s err on the side of too much rather than too little.

Give the heart its proper place – the center. After all, it gotta be love that got us all out here on Earth.

I grew up with a set of parents already in their 40’s. To me, parents mean old. And given the culture I was born into, I hardly ever associated my arrival with their bedroom encounter. It’s all hush hush.

Just be filial, give one’s highest respects to King, Teacher and parents in that order. When colliding with free wheeling Western culture e.g. spousal swapping, gay coupling and test tube babies, I was like a deer facing oncoming headlights.

My “Confucius” upbringing confused me. My reflexes (culturally) were at odds with prevailing mores. Where do I come from? Adopted maybe? Where and who were my playmates?

Finally, facebook gave me some recommendations (based on precise data they bought from other servers), for virtual friends. To widen my network and increase my Metcalfe’s influence.

Wave patterns. All digital and exponential. The more the merrier. Volume. Quantity. An imaginary audience, present and future (if by accident, they found me on Google via key word search).

Then what once was a matter of the heart, suddenly feels forced. Arbitrary. Pragmatic. And synthetic.

He who dies with the most Likes wins.

Our new society of vain narcissistic popularity. Unfit for a lonely child I used to be.

I might choke. Might throw up. Might cry out loud. For a click doesn’t solve all my social problems.

Only a heart-to-heart can feel each other’s beats. The same rhythm, like rain drops on the tin roof. A dance. A celebration.

That’s what made me me. You you. It gotta to start and end with love. Matters of the heart.

All else are sideshow, like a fortune cookie when they show you a bill after a Chinese meal.

For fun. To soften the blow. In it, we always find something agreeable and heartfelt e.g. “You will soon find your soulmate”. Things of that nature. Hard to prove and to predict. Not without more data and algorithm, to narrow down the uncertainty and risks.

“Our best days are yet ahead”.

Even with an unknown future , I know for sure I was conceived on one of those best days in the past.

In all fairness to everyone in this vast expanse. Each has his shares, his lots in life and the times of his life. 15 minutes of fame if you asked Andy Warhol. For others, in the age of YouTube, fake fame might be longer. Only that, in the age of amateurism, what’s repetitious and unoriginal get fewer responses. Nature has a way to “select” and sift through , discard and keep what’s suitable for taste, texture.

It took very long for an Eclipse, like the one we saw yesterday. Sun, Moon and Earth, passing and aligning for a few hours. Only to show, we are not alone.

In football parlance, we’re the receiver (Earth), as the Sun tries to pass its warmth and light, but the Moon, for a duration, plays blocker. Voila. Just as in a diagram, aligned and not alone.

Whether it’s Mars or Venus, Kramer vs Kramer, in all fairness, all deserve a hearing. Given the division of labor, different assignment and alignment, each delivers different values, on the same team. All quiet on the Western front. At times, we relied on the Cook to carve the pig. Other times, a Comrade to carry us out of the muddy trench.

We’re survivors of that modern-day trauma.

A lot of pre-judging statement and very few pre-fab housing. More destruction, demonstration and demolition than construction. In case no one noticed, China has had a good peace-time run as builders: housing, road, infrastructure and raw materials. No wonder it craves for more: from IP to AI, from the silicon clean room to the hospital clean room.

Meanwhile, on the Western front, kids consume fentanyl, fantasizing on YouTube and other “truths”. No national dialogue, no constructive criticism, and since last week, taking on a Middle East fight right here on campus. I am for debate, for dialogue and dialectic. We grow as a result.

I fear apathy, antagonism, and just irrelevance. Everyone does and should. Relegated onto a year-round cruise ship (because to book it back-to-back is cheaper than living in a nursing home ). Then drifting, coasting and floating. Playing a symbolic role (blowing those birthday candles, multiple of them), matriarchal or patriarchal, on special occasion, before get sent back behind the Home’s reception desk and door.

Goodbye my senior relatives’ clarity. Goodbye Sun and Moon eclipse (til the next one). We’re all on the path and occasionally, cross-path like an eclipse. In all fairness, we each have a function to perform. Be it Bach or Beethoven. Just make those pearls, those goose’s eggs and beautiful stanzas. The world can use them all. Consume it all. Even those with audacity on YouTube, putting up an act, be it amateurish at that. (their function is to help contrasting quality vs quantity, treasure vs trash).

Then in all fairness, it will all be sorted out. In the server in the Cloud. By AI. By all. Please vote for me. Please pay me. Please deposit and do not withdraw.

By the next eclipse more skeletons will cry out in a desert where flowers still bloom.

In all fairness , we have progressed beyond our level of competency. Have consumed beyond our need and destroyed more than we built.

As there are limits to growth, there are also limits to regret. When the D words out-shadow every other positive and constructive ones. What do you expect, when on the news, of late, we only see demonstration, destruction and demolition. Try to explain that to a kid who is playing with his construction toys: canes, shovels and sand. Kid! the future is yours.

I grew up in a household whose gender was in equal number ( as shown in our B/W album on opposite page) Dad and Brother, Mom and Sister. The female in my family, wore the seat of the pants. They left early for work, came home to cook, then stayed up late to grade papers or sew, iron, clean, organize and water the plants. Even keeping an eye on me, their little one who totted around in our ghetto alley.

My Mom, Mother Hen, and later, my Sister, acted from the same page: female and family. Role model. Old timer: not a lot of make-up on them. Purely professional and presentable.

They carried themselves admirably (teacher/banker). I might have picked up on some bad speech from the alley, but I have never heard bad language out of their mouths. School teachers were supposed to teach the ABC’s while exhibit quality and values, in a society which, at the time, still honored proper conduct and harmony (even in our big city).

Then all hell broke loosed: the dollar and its lure, the gun and its sway, and the Jeep and its imposition. While in the US, we saw Station Wagon and Volkswagen, in Vietnam, we still heard echoed horse carriage footsteps on city pavement.

The French were moving out, their timing overlapped with the US moving in. Like Move-In Date on campus. Any tips where to find the women? Whiskey? and good exchange rate?

TIME and Newsweek overshadowed Le Monde. Society in transition, people in motion, people in motion. ( more at Vietnamizing Woodstock). For more than 18 years, I never saw our society sitting still. Au contraire, they were all moving about at dizzy pace: vendors, cyclo – pedaled or with engine – trucks, Jeeps, convoy, taxi, velo-solex, mobilette, Vespa, bicycle, horse carriage, buses, train and plane.

Our airport was known to be the busiest due to the war. Our ground carpet-bombed, by tonnage of both World Wars combined. Trees, children, wild life, none were spared. Deny the enemy his sanctuary.

Our playground turned battleground. My early life speeded up, quick. No time for careful calibration. All reflex without context. Jump. My friends, most of them, went to Kung Fu school after Middle School. Few joined up to be paratrooper or Air Force. Finishing High School in a continuous flow? Hardly.

World disrupted, if not ended. Flag-draped caskets were a normal sight. Urban growth included an enlarging cemetery.

Besides the invasion of boots, we saw the accompanied invasion of all things Western: cigarettes, Zippo, peanut butter and guns. To exist meant to fight. Candles burned from both ends. With very little to live on, we somehow lived large in a paradoxical and toxic way.

Quick bucks, quickies and quick transaction. Everywhere and anywhere. Perhaps not at the Agri Bank where my sister worked. Perhaps not at the school where my Mom taught. But everywhere else , I noticed a sense of urgency; fast life and fast buck. Until one day, the anxiety and apprehension reached breaking point . The unsustainable regime collapsed, like a rag doll without support. One’s defeat was another’s victory. Shame and Pride co-existed on the same ground at the same time.

Admirably, the female of my family managed to pack up pictures and Ao Dai in their carry-on. While the situation called for nothing but being frantic, they came across calm and collected.

And in the new land, they rebuilt and nurtured again, by survival instinct. Continued Education, raising family and sending kids to school. Except this time, in much colder weather and with fewer resources (did not get Cup O Noodles until years later at a nearby Chinese groceries store).

Whatever treatment they received, it wasn’t surprising . Somehow the Chinese immigrant community had provided the cultural context as backdrop . We turned Asian American, without protest and without say. The American experience continues, with us, then later others: by train, plane and on foot. The business of America is business. Conducted in green. With accrued interests. So we all learn this quick. Thrift and saving. Protect and plan. This, again, fell on the female of our family.

In full circle, they conduct themselves admirably and honorably. I am not being subjective. Just the way it is. I have never seen them in the mood for self-pity, self-victimize or self-sabotage. The female of my family exemplify human’s best: nurturing and conserving. Respect for the environment and for others. Conduct becoming. Best role-models.

Lucky me. With snacks waiting after school. Guitar and songs, books and movies. I am where I am today, largely thanks to their selflessness. The untold tale of the Vietnam War, and its post-war era: female as scavengers and nomads in strange shores, hanging on to their last ounce of self-respect. One thing no one can deny: they paid a dear price to stay in place. that enviable and desirable place where they can fully be themselves. Female in family.