In about ten days, the world will see an exodus of millions. Chinese New Year.
Workers and students on The Last Train Home.
First day of the New Year (Snake) will be dedicated to ancestors e.g. visiting their graves or wherever the family altar happens to be.
From then on, neighbors visiting neighbors, catching up on latest gossips.
Saigon is about to be emptied out. Students have just finished their exams.
Workers party on with co-workers while try to save up for their home-bound trips.
Companies pay out bonuses. Not nearly enough. Hard times.
Money from the common pot, just changing hands.
Even Vietnamese American from overseas try to find an envy seat on those East-bound flights.
Back in 1975, some of them got experience, but at the opposite direction.
This herd-like movement is as predictable as the Muslim and Hindu pilgrims.
However, their sons and daughters have changed. More adapting to city landscape and playground, with more mobile phones and supermarkets.
Even clubbing, an urban phenomenon, now a common practice in second and third-tier towns.
Parents put up one last-ditch effort to hold on. Who want to be an empty-nester!
Where have their children gone? Eyes glued to the screen, racing against the machine (virtual combatant).
This is not the first time parents learn to let go.
But it’s the first generation of parents who fail to understand the force of modernity whose grips are so strong on their fast-growing children.
We used to place blames on cultic figures (Jim Jones) or gang leaders (Hearst syndrome) who gather and garner followers.
Now, who can prosecute animation and urbanization.
A force of change here, an adoption there. Before you know it, kids are strangers in their own homes.
They want to connect as they used to. But have lost the keys.
Alienation and estrangement. Celluloid and chip set. Instruments of change, but also instruments of divide.
I am glad people still go home each year. Keep them sane. When seeing yourself in the faces of others of common genes set, you can’t help questioning yourself.
No one comes out a winner. It’s not a race. Modernity and machine just keep going unstoppable. Up to us to regulate our internal filters and rate of adoption.
Last Train Home. There might be both blessings and curses awaiting at the last stop. Ironically, the symbol is that of a snake, which keeps you guessing, and sweating at the edge of your seat.
Thang Nguyen 555 