Tag: Overseas Vietnamese

Le Da – Tales of sorrow told by a Rock

My birth certificate shows my parents in their early 40’s.

No wonder my Dad’s taste for music was a bit off.

One of his favorites however stood the test of time: Le Da.

After all, it has something to do with the rock of ages.

It’s very sentimental (Rock solid yet soft when it comes to matter of the heart).

I gave it a try last night. Got a square 100 according to the karaoke machine.

My Dad must have sung through me.

The musical genes.

His generation experienced upheavals: revolution, uprootedness, and twice a refugee.

No wonder they were defined by and encoded their experience and emotion via music. A famous Vietnamese composer of my Dad’s time, Pham Duy, has just passed away.

Other singers (The Uptight) are making their way back to performing in Vietnam: new audience, new aspiration.

Something about a wandering soul seeking solace and wounded heart, soothing.

America has indeed been blessed with many talents from elsewhere.

The experience of America’s newest poet speaks well of this.

The American Century might be coming to an end, but in its place, the American Character barely blooms, blending best in class.

The style and confidence Viet Kieu singers (Vietnamese American) and filmmakers prove this point.

And before you know, you will find The Boat, The Book of Salt etc.. on Amazon book list.

It’s been since its inception that America embraces seekers and searchers.

It entertains doubts and encourages determination.

After all, it has elected not one term, but two terms, an American of exception.

Uniquely 21st century, he always has vacation in Hawaii, a half-way between East and West. There in the cliff, you will find some rocks, some tears and some tales of sorrow only rock could last long enough to tell.

My Dad would be passionate to join, if you give him the second mike. I wouldn’t bet on the score at the end though. Even me, I was just lucky last night.

Saigon vs Little Saigon

Burger King near the heart of Little Saigon, Westminster, CA is now closed.

Burger King at Tan Son Nhut Airport is now opened.

Just one of the many striking contrasts e.g. scooters vs wheels nation.

Skin coffee vs alley coffee, homeless folks vs lottery-ticket sellers.

On and on. People in Saigon have a vague notion of what their fellow countrymen are doing in Little Saigon. They saw it on Music Video.

They heard it second-hand via tourists (often consisted of inflated tales of infidelity or gender role reversal). Entertainers have found inspiration and served as in-betweeners.

Instead of setting city folks against country folks, contemporary comedy focuses on overseas Vietnamese (Viet Kieu)  searching for suitable wives. Sometimes, with the help of  a matchmaker (equivalent of head hunter in the working world).

The cultural gap widens when the prospective groom is from Taiwan or Korea.

But it also exists with Viet Kieu, who grew up in N America or Europe.

He could use the chopsticks, speak a few lines of greeting “Chao Bac”, but he also works out at the gym and drinks Corona instead of Ken (Heineken).

If he chooses Mexican foods over Vietnamese, he definitely is from Little Saigon, and not Saigon.

Saigon now has cappuccino and espresso bars, while Little Saigon just wants to offer Cafe Sua Da and Rau Muong.

Someday, the twain shall meet at Starbucks.

For now, both like AE brand (XS size) and everyone loves Hollister.

California Dreaming still.

The strength of Little Saigon lies in its flexibility and fluidity (to and fro both worlds), while Saigon itself, is rooted in colonial French and rich history of openness and optimism.

One doesn’t spend much on room and board in Saigon. Just put on something hip, and hit the town.

Again, if they were to order Mexican, you can tell they are from Little Saigon.

Go Chipotle and Corona.

Time, on whose side?

Just like an old-time movie, friends met yesterday to rehash.

We mentioned briefly the passing away of our friend’s brother: nerdy, good old boy and an ATM machine service man and family man. In short, the least likely candidate to die young. Yet, he had been long gone (by now 3 years).

Earth, Wind and Fire used to have a song out called “Time is on your side”.

I don’t think so.

One can conjure up various scenarios for end-of-life, but it will end regardless, without credits roll (perhaps we should get going with our acknowledgement page just in case).

Feature-length movies, by convention, last one hour and a half (same way Twitter limits a tweet to 140 characters).

Except for Costner’s and Cameron’s (Dancing with Wolves and Titanic).

Life happens while we are busy planning it (John Lennon).

It came concurrently and not sequentially:  a brief sunset, a nagging child, a teacher’s stern look.

One can find happiness in confinement (Life is Beautiful) or at the last moment (Mozart’s Requiem).

It’s not over until it is truly over

When I was 4 or 5 years old, I saw neighbors carry out a dead man .

He had lived alone in a house in the alley.

I did not know his name. Only learned later that he had died without any relatives around him.

By all measures (culturally), he died unhappily.

He could have lived twice his age then, but his death was still viewed as an unhappy one. Quality trumps quantity.

Biotech has extended our “feature-length” narrative, from one-hour-and-a-half lifescript to that of Titanic’s and Dancing with Wolves’.

What are we going to do with all those extra hours? Amusing ourselves to death while waiting for death (there hasn’t been a playbook for seniors – Paterno for instance has just passed away at 85 after getting sacked by the BOD at my school).

In Silicon Valley where Steve Jobs started out, the motto was “trust no one above 30”.

Yet, Sculley and other investment banking CEO’s pocketed huge severance despite their poor performance.

Time is on whose side?

Of course not on the side of the poor or the pure of hearts (keep the faith).

Even with director’s cut, a feature-length film still needs to be trimmed down.

As creatures of selective memories, we often edit out and reinvent our past.

Nowhere else can you find serious anticipation of the new and relinquishing of the past than in Vietnam, during Tet.

The Year of the Dragon has finally arrived. It roars, dances and puffs out fire.

We invent myths and matiarials to redefine who we are (he is from a Royal breed, a Lexus owner).

Vietnamese people  are known as descendants of Dragon and Angel. To understand Vietnam, you need to understand its literary life.

Vietnamese  honors duty above death, sacrifice above love. These tales of heroism are the baseline. “Time is on whose side” is an irrelevant question. Happiness defined as personal fulfillment is also out of the question. People here see themselves as in transit, with Earth another station along the way. Home is where ancestors are waiting, provided you had fulfilled your filial obligation and honored them by courageous living. Try to work that in the State of the Union address, and see its impact on American society? (You lied!). On the CEO’s on Wall Street. On the armed men who preyed on US campus.

America needs Vietnam as much as Vietnam needs America, since time is on neither side.

How can I tell her

Lobo was hot in Vietnam during the 70’s.

Decades later, on an American stage, his Vietnamese fans even invited him to perform live for music video.

Just a simple man.

“I love you too much to ever start liking you, so let’s just let the story kind an end…”

The contradiction and dialectic – friend and lover.

How can I  tell people about Vietnam.

Its soul, its sentiment, its sorrow (of war).

People on both sides don’t talk about it.

Nobody wants to talk about it.

In Matterhorn,  we got a glimpse of what it was like back then by a Yale scholar. It took him more than 30 years to pen his experience.

In Bao Ninh‘s Sorrows of War, it took him less time, but painful nevertheless.

It eats you up from the inside.

You can’t forget it.

Everyone was affected by it.

The younger generation only heard about it.

The older buried it.

But it grows inside, like a cancer.

Sudden loss, separation and interruption.

One cannot swim in the same river twice.

Maybe you can go back in place, but not in time.

First cut is the deepest.

Now you hear only sentimental songs whose lyricst barely scratch the surface.

Who will speak for them?

Who can understand them?

Betrayal and bewilderment.

How can I tell her about you.

I am just a simple man.

I love you too much to ever start liking you.

So Lobo incidentally touched the nerves (top of the chart in US as well).

Just you and me and the dog named Boo.

Rhyme and rhythm.

Chorus and replay.

It gets right under your skin.

And stays there.

The artist has moved on.

But his fans are still lingering.

Like the smell of napalm.

The taste of Pall Mall, among other PX supplies: peanut butter and jelly,

cheese and fruit cake.

Go go girls in leather boots and mini-skirts.

Bob Hope and the choppers’ drops.

When I saw you standing there, I felt the blood goes to my feet.

Baby, I love you to want me.

Unassuming, unpretentious.

Pure longing and pure loss.

Fleeting flirt and life-time sorrow.

On top of the sorrows of war.

On top of post-war reconstruction.

There is still a glimpse of hope, of finding love once again.

Maybe this time, it’s different.

Maybe, when I saw you standing there, I once again, felt the blood goes to my feet.

Nobody cares if Lobo no longer stays at the top of the chart.

To the Vietnamese heart which he once conquered, Lobo occupied a well-deserving spot. I once felt ashamed that I had liked him. Now I no longer want to please what’s trendy. Just stay there, my simple man, because “everything seems right, whenever I am with you”……..

Juxtaposing

It just so happens that I am reading Matterhorn and Love Like Hate one after another. The former depicts the Vietnam War from a GI‘s perspective, the later from a Vietnamese viewpoint.

Coincidentally, people depicted in both novels came across as victims of an uncalled-for conflict and whose lives were disrupted and devastated. I found glimpses of truth in these novels: camaraderie, self-transformation and shifting policies (Matterhorn crew depended on choppers for medivac and ration drops, Viet Kieu in Love Like Hate depends on Boeing for home visit).

One can’t wait to get home,  state side (after the drafted tour of duty), the other, can’t wait to save up for the next visit (to show off).

Long ago, I had an idea for a movie script. I called it “OK Salem”, after wartime  popular street greet (it’s either Pall Mall or Salem).

The two central characters in my imaginative “OK Salem” are a lieutenant like Mellas and a shoe-shine boy (like the sidekick kid in Raiders of the Lost Ark). The two befriended and bonded (communicated mostly in numbers e.g. number 1, number 10).

Later, the street kid drifted to America and made it through college. The veteran, meanwhile, turned homeless. A chance encounter brought the two together, albeit with a role reversal. Now, moving on to the other side of the Pacific for a mis-en-scene, each serves as a mirror for the other’s former self.

I could never finish my script, since it is a work in progress (struggling writers all say that). But I know many are still living in the shadow of America’s lost war.

Matterhorn was said to be an epic novel, thirty years in the works. In the novel, there were occasional race and class in-fightings. I felt the exhaustion just trying to imagine what’s like to follow these Marines deep into the jungle of futility.

And ironically, in Love Like Hate, I found sub-texts of in-group discrimination 

(Viet Kieu against the native and vice versa).

To enjoy both novels which cover same region and same time span helps put the war in perspectives (Apocalypse Now 2.0). To read these two novels side by side, is analogous to see “OK Salem” on my desk (unlikely coupling brought together in war).

I know many of us are sore losers (and sore winners) frozen in time (with occasional relapses). I have walked pass many campaign signage in Little Saigon, whose sidewalks have been used as platforms for frequent war rematch.

I am not sure there will ever be real winners in war. But it sure looks like Matterhorn will endure as a safe repository of memories of a place and time far away, yet whose vested emotions remain so close to the heart.

Even mine.

daring swim

I was privy to not once or twice, but thrice, work  in non-profit capacity with displaced Vietnamese.

My first time was at IndiantownGap, Pennsylvania as a Child Welfare interpreter.

Later, in Hong Kong as a relief worker. And latest was in 1983, in the Philippines, where Cambodian and Vietnamese awaited their flights to the US.

One story stuck in my mind.

A 9-year-old boy.

No shirt.

Floated in a basket.

Ended up in a makeshift prison-turned-camp in Hong kong .

He could hardly speak Vietnamese , much less British English, spoken where he would finally be resettled.

I gave him some money, earned from my volunteer stipend.

The camp police caught him with dollars in hand, and took him to question.

So I had to bail him out, and wished him a nice life.

I often wonder how he would eventually turn out.

Will he be working in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Or is he back in Cho Lon, Chinese-enclave of Vietnam, as a successful Viet Kieu.

It has been 32 years to date. He must be in his 40. May even have a big family.

Then those boys I helped place in foster homes.

I am sure they do well, raised and schooled in the hills of Pennsylvania.

They are cheering for the Nittany Lions, same way I do.

But how they got here was slightly different from my journey, which had begun on a barge.

They got here unaccompanied, in the case of that boy, sole survivor on the merciless (pirates robbed and raped many of them) China Seas.

Before there were shows like Survivors on American TV, I had already met some real survivors who challenged my assumption about perseverance and persistence.

We only know something ironically in its absence.  Take comfort, love and companionship for instance. Or, if the AC is off this summer, we moan and groan for lack of cool air.

Love , I refuse to comment. And companionship: my friend is now a widow. I am sure she can comment on this better than I do.

The point is that most of us live within the confine of a bell curve. But many of us will have to face adversity and challenge at some point in our life time.

For me, I take lessons from those barge people and boat people. For some reason, they are endowed with much more than I could ever have e.g. adaptability. And they did not stop there: they put the past behind and move on to success.

The young monk once asked his master “why did you carry the woman – supposedly inhibited and inappropriate – across the river? The master replied “I crossed the river already, why are you still lingering about what happened on the other side?”

Unintended consequences of war and displacement depicted by a daring swim in a basket. No thanks. I will take barge over basket. And the song that stuck in my mind during that period was “We’ve Only Just Begun“.

torn between two places

Yahoo News had a piece about Diaspora, the return.

It features Mrs Nguyen Cao Ky, who is now a proud owner of a Pho restaurant in former Saigon.  She said to have spent a few months in the US, and the rest in Vietnam.

Other Viet Kieu expressed similar sentiment: “when I am here, I miss the States, and vice versa” said wife of a former Vegas casino host.

The attachment to places.

We are creatures of habits.

I found myself gravitated toward District 3 where I grew up.

I turned my head every time I passed by L’Ecole Aurore.

To lend some credibility, the article quoted Professor Hung, of the U of VA, who said what everyone had already known: the less attractive the US economy the stronger the pull of  Vietnam .

So, we have Vietnamese moving out of Hotel California. The choices are Houston or HCMC. Sociologists couldn’t have foreseen this 38 years ago.

I didn’t. We were in a state of shock!

Those of us who weren’t religious person then, became one.

Churches and synagogues welcomed the displaced.

So, my sweet guitar gently weeps.

I admitted to eating a bunch of church pot-luck dinners to get through college.

Then, upon graduation, I paid it all back by offering my ration packs to Boat People in Asia.  Whatsoever you sow, you shall reap.

I saw what people went through at seas to get to shores, to Hotel California.

Now, I met people like Mrs Ky who discussed opening up shops in VN, organizing a conference there, and perhaps buying a piece of land.

I do miss the comfort in the States e.g. clean beaches, ample parking and ubiquitous police. Over-protected in one place and under-served in the other.

Torn between two  places, feelin’ like a fool. Blame it on war, blame it on peace. But mostly, blame it on greed which brought down house of cards. As of this edit, I have read excerpt of Andrew Lam‘s latest Birds of Paradise Lost which is an expose on the theme of Diaspora of millions Viet Kieu, suffering the fate of “neither here nor there”.

The strangest moment came when songs of the 70’s got played at coffee shops in Saigon. It only accentuates a known fact: the place seems to have freezed up in time. Those music got me nostalgic for Vietnam when hearing them in the States, but then, to hear them play here in VN makes me nostalgic for time past, not the place itself. We all swim against the tide of time.  Boys-men-boys, in my case, a boy from BAN CO. Even grown men need to have some fun. It’s either biking or swimming now.  For that, you can do it anywhere.  But who you would ride with, that depends on the place. Those who went through the piercing experience of separation and exile are rarely heard nor noticed. Most force themselves to forget and move on. Others leverage new skill and contact to return, a phenomenon known as “brain re-gain”. More are coming back. Yet remain forever “outsiders”, torn between two places.

Dakao vs Dalat

Both have open air market. Both got some body of water that defines the city.

But that’s about it. 6 hours apart, they might as well be worlds apart.

Dakao, even without the street construction, can test your patience.

Dalat, even with a new bridge construction, can afford its  lake water drained for months . People here are patient.

Dalat fresh produce, from ground to table, is a given.

In Dakao, you have to get these from an A/Ced hypermarket.

Ironically, as one city starts its third shift, the other goes to bed.

Dalat has red dirt and misty weather. Dakao on the other hand is always noisy, dusty and hot.

Yet more and more people are pouring into District 1.

Must be the opportunities.  Yahoo has a piece about more Viet Kieu are coming back to open restaurants, coffee shops or to make movies. These are cosmopolitan Viet Kieu, at least, more of risk taker than Dalat tourists.

In the US, we have model minorities stereotypes e.g. Philippino nurses, Vietnamese dentists, Chinese herbalists, Indian engineers etc… To defy this “box”, young Vietnamese Americans are breaking out to run for offices, to receive Math award, to author a novel or self-help book (Impressive Impression for instance) and to be a lector at Yale. And like their Chinese American counterparts, a new wave of returnees are opening up off-shored centers, or just to test the waters.

In my opinion, they are coming back to “Dakao-like” opportunities, but they long for “Dalat-like” experience. One is dynamic, the other unassuming.

The head analyzes carefully, the heart whispers carelessly.

And to complete the circle , Dalat produces fresh vegetables for Dakao consumption.

The manure that brought forth produce out of red dirt become the supply for vendors selling on cement sidewalks.

City folks or country folks, both bleed red and often are too busy to read.

I read more in Dalat than in Dakao, where the sound of people toasting each other for health proves to be the only local distraction. Yet even amidst Tet celebration in Dalat, completely furnished with gay troop peddling lotto game, Dalat still proves to be an attraction, away from a Dakao of distraction.

Mathmatically Vietnam

Berkeley is popular with Asian students. Last weekend, I heard that an acquaintance got accepted and would be travelling to Houston to start college.

But many young Vietnamese study abroad chose University of Chicago.

It is no surprise  that Ngo Bao Chau, the math wiz, pitched his tent there.

Windy city. Cold. Home of Oprah and Ebert, the late movie critic.

I spent two years in a Chicago suburb, with my long coat in tow.

And one of my recent jobs was with a company based in Chicago.

So, Chicago, Chicago. Memories of jogging along the railway, in freezing temperature. You got to be there to experience heartland America. You have to read “The Devil in the White City” to understand Chicago’s place in the scheme of things.

Sears tower is no longer called Sears. Nor is it now world’s tallest.

Chicago itself used to be America’s number 2 city.

Now, at least, U of Chicago might, in a few hours, have its Vietnamese faculty receiving the highest honor in Mathematics.

I blogged yesterday about “revving without a cause”, about urban youth in Saigon. Today, I feel proud to share the heritage with one of world’s math treasures.

I ponder what makes someone a genius, while others would flush their lives down the toilet. Don’t they know, life zooms by faster than the speed of their bikes?

Even the author of Future Shock (Alvin Toffler) admits that his prediction wasn’t nearly “fast” enough for today’s speed of change.  Bill Gates, author of  “the Speed of thought”, missed the importance of the internet and the web (I know they are playing catch-up with cloud computing).

Energy, matters, and motion.

Cultures and technology converge and collide.

Generations with restless dreams, and unmet aspiration.

Fashion TV fuels the fire, while in reality its audience couldn’t afford a decent lunch (which is better than its models who mostly starved themselves to death).

So young Vietnamese girls try out for Vietnam’s Next Top Model.

The drop-outs packed up to work as “PR”, nothing to do with the profession of Public Relations.  Tuoi Tre, syndicated through Yahoo Vietnam, ran a nine-part expose of the trade. Mostly about how young girls having to endure trade abuse just to get some tips e.g. old foreign man, putting kleenex in their chest, and pulling the tissues out as if their bras were a tissue box or the infamous tale of a gangster who used $100 bills, folded, to shoot at PR’s like young brats would at birds.

In this boiling hot-pot, I have found mixture of the good, bad and ugly.

Math wiz, born to be wild, and modern-day Geishas. All here, and now.

Some thoughtful folks would chuckle, yet end up de-sensitized because life is what it is. Yesterday’s enemies become today’s best friends.

And most surprisingly, it’s not our friends who know us best. It often is the opposite. I am thinking of the McCain (warship) once docked at China Beach.

I am sure someone on that carrier know the ins and outs of Da Nang’s terrains.

All quiet now on the Eastern front. For now, the nation stands still awaiting the news. Big news. All of a sudden, numbers and math become chic here.

And for once, I breathe a sight of relief. The audience is tuning in to a show other than Fashion TV or World Cup. They are tuning in to await Nobel-equal Fields prize for Math. It may very well be one of our own, Ngo Bao Chau.

http://vnexpress.net/GL/Khoa-hoc/2010/08/3BA1F68C/

As of this edit, Bao Chau indeed got the prize which mathmatically puts Vietnam on the equation (better than known for beer consumption).

 

Flamencing Vietnam

The rhythm. The ambience. And the audience at Carmen.

Different breed. Different beat.

The Vietnamese singer tried hard at rolling her Latin “R”‘s, just like her predecessors at the French “un”, or the English “you”.

Vietnam, and Saigon in particular, has  always been a mix of culture: Cuban band on Caravelle terrace or Carmen Club nearby.

Not far away, you’ll find the Japanese and Korean alley.

All these venues accommodate a variety of taste and eccentricities.

A few million visitors, and 87 million residents. Even just the top 1 percent need a night out is a crowd.  A business man tried his hand at opening a club in California, thinking their expat counterparts can use some home-grown entertainment. He took a loss and closed it down after a year.

So, Hotel California did not play “I will Survive”.

Ironically, the pool of Viet Kieu would rather spend their entertainment dollars here, thinking it would stretch more. Typical tourist’s loosed purse.

Carmen, with Spanish decor and motif e.g. catacomb and medieval. Very pre-internet with candle and dark menu.

Servers’ outfit has some red on, female ones with flowers on their hair.

Flamenco, or ” I will Survive” in Spanish, all night long.

It strikes me as odd. In Orange County, where Little Saigon was right next door to Santa Ana (one is predominantly Vietnamese, the other Hispanic) you wouldn’t see a Vietnamese in a Hispanic bar. But here, in Vietnam, you  find even on a slow night, Korean and Vietnamese tourists enjoy Spanish exotic flavor, flamencing the night.

Passion evoked by the foreign element of it all.

In Santa Ana, it gets to be too familiar (scarcity principle).

Here, just pass the entrance, you enter a pre-medieval space. And it’s a neutral territory, since there has never been a Spanish War with Vietnam.

So, feeling safe, I joined in. clapping, but not dancing. Only those Korean expat women were brave enough to do so. Must have cost them a  ton of vodka and tonic . When the music stopped in between sets, they left. Probably went bar hopping. French maybe?

They can “tutoyer” over there then. Vietnam can handle that too,  C’est la meme chose.