Tag: Wisconsin

Repatriation

You can take a boy out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.

This happens to me, not once, but twice. Culture shock upon culture shock! until I feel numbed.

I jog on the street full of motorbikes (nice people would say “Co len”, bad people would try to run me over), or tell jokes at music jam session, oblivious to the fact that half of the audience barely catches the meaning, much less the punch line.

So I made a few mistakes upon repatriation.

Mistakes I have had to pay for dearly, monetarily or otherwise (just stop short of  becoming a social stigma since it’s more acceptable to backpackers to come across as free and loosed, not someone whose outward looks exactly like locals).

There are Viet Kieu, and there are Viet Kieu.

The former, tourists – waving their US dollars , and the later, expats – hiding their VN dong.

Or, as I often joke: the real Viet Keu would react “OUCH!” when got slapped, while the fake ones “UI DA!”.

But it depends on where you go and spend your money. If a place rates you on how thick your wallet is, then it will throw you out the next time when you are a bit short .

Back to my jogging across the round-about. Quite challenging. In the rain, and in the thick of Saigon rush-hour traffic, I had to tap dance, jog in place or run in opposite direction like a running back at the starting line of another down in football).

I do miss my time at Penn State. Just like when I was at Penn State, I missed my time in Saigon. You can take the boy out of Saigon, but you can’t take Saigon out of the boy. At Penn State, I simply wished for a meal surrounded by my extended family, or to hang out with friends, some smoke, some play the guitar. Now, I am back, repatriated. With some new friends who smoke, some play the guitar. Then all of a sudden, I wish for that 8-shaped trail which wraps around the University Park golf field. There, I wouldn’t get run over by two-wheel bikes, but then, I wouldn’t hear “co len” by complete strangers either.

More than once, I have let the outside affect what’s inside. Now, after taking so many punches, I counter-punch by let the inside affect the outside. Like telling a joke in English to an audience of mostly Vietnamese . The experience was diametrically opposite to the time at Penn State when I was trying to blend in without  “getting” the punch line (since I was unprepared for a completely different conceptual frame of reference ). Exile to expatriaton.

At the end of all travel, one returns to the starting point and know the place for the first time. It has happened to me. Like a newborn again, taking in and embracing everything. So familiar yet so foreign.

Wrong Track

I came across a brief piece about the suicide of an Orange County man. At Orange Metrolink station. Nguyen was his name.

The report said he calmly stood facing the oncoming train and seconds later, got run over. No fuss, no self-preservation.

I also came across that piece about victims of Temple shooting in Wisconsin. One of those people, an old lady, used to work 60-hr week and came there to pray all the time. A regular. A faithful.

Random lives. Random deaths. No grand legacy or leaflets to leave behind.  No “closure” of any kind.

They did not even die for a cause. Just gone, in 6 seconds. That window, between life and death. Close out!

Dream and doubt swallowed in death.

Both deaths were noisy (oncoming train and oncoming bullets).

Suburban deaths. Incomprehensible. Wonder if there were any relatives and loved ones who cared when Nguyen committed suicide that day. Poor train crew. They were trying to stay on schedule. Now with the investigation, and all.

I also read that the PhD student who shot people at the mid-night showing in the movie theater in Aurora, got glowing recommendation from faculty (mature judgment?).

He must have sent them on the wrong track. He must have kept his hair straight, his face composed (unlike the night before, when he went out and had his hair dye bright red).

Train track, academic track and religious track, all on the wrong track.

All happened within a span of a few weeks here in America, the Beautiful.

At least in the case of Nguyen, he did the job himself. He was not a victim of hate crime or anything. Just “calmly and deliberately stepped in front of an oncoming train”. Must have looked at the schedule, and was familiar with the track.

The wrong track that led to death.

I feel sorry for the lady. The laborer (60 hours a week) which wound up with nothing. By the sweat of your eyebrow shall you receive food on the table. She certainly put in more than enough for her shares. And all the hours of faithful prayers.

I hope she RIP. I hope the gentleman who stepped out in front of an Orange County train also RIP. I  hope the shooter get the justice he deserved, since he came highly recommended as “mature”. Now, his lawyer is trying to argue otherwise.

Wrong track!