Part 3: Return to Vietnam, Summer 2014 what does it mean to return home? where do I belong? Có ngồi quay quần bên nhau Mới biết ta đã xa nhà bao năm when we gather around each other suddenly I was aware I’ve been away all along At the beginning of this year, I had the fortune to spend giao thừa (new year eve) with my extended family in my hometown. The air was chill at midnight, but the atmosphere in the last moments of 2018 was heart-warming. Me, my aunts and cousins gathered in a small circle to have tea and have heartfelt conversations. it is through being present to these moments that I understand how simple things like this matter. My heart was full for all of us was simply present, calling forth the best in us to meet the sacred moment of a year ending, and a new one beginning--appreciating life in its fragility and wonders, forgiving whatever displeased us, rejoicing in simple things such as good health, as being alive, and sharing hopes and aspirations for this upcoming year. Moments like this made me realize aunts and uncles and cousins are somehow, just human beings like me, as fragile and tender, beautiful and majestic, who are experiencing illness and aging and death—things I will have to go through eventually. Everything is bounded to fade away, but what will remain is the love we have for each other. It made me feel closer to my family. It makes me want to love them more. It makes me feel more connected to this world somehow. I am home. Finally. I am home. It this very moment, by being home both physically and spiritually, I suddenly realized I've been away from home all this time. I felt deeply for my past self, and for all the children far from their homeland, far from the source, far from themselves, far from love. Like a refugee, searching and struggling in the dark to find a sense of belonging. Moments of being together, being present for each other is sadly, foreign to my family in the United States. With years go by, somehow we learned to eat separately and not together anymore, to be alone more, to not tell each other stuff, to struggle alone, to live our life separately, to not make coffee for each other, to watch different anime, in different timeframe, to not light incense every night for the ancestors anymore, and not going to pagodas for festivals anymore.. My brother becomes a stranger. My mom became a worker. My heart was emptier, colder, and closed off. I was once asked a question: what was your childhood dream? For a moment I was confused because I entertained the common answers of becoming a doctor, or to fly, etc. But then I know mine is much simpler. My childhood dream is to return home. To re-live beautiful memories at school. To have a normal life. To belong. Grief and pain became my identity and clouded my being. I was beginning to forget who I am. To make this dream a reality, I got a job as a cashier at a Vietnamese grocery store in the summer of my sophomore year of high school. Every day I had to bus almost an hour to where I work, and another hour back home. It was the first time I made money, and I was determined to save up for a ticket back to Vietnam. It was not an easy job. Every day returning home, my body was in pain, but I was happy cuz I was working toward something. But then I got fired six months later, and my dream was shattered. But fortunately, my mom saved up enough money for the whole family to return for a visit two years later. Finally, seven years, I could come back to Vietnam. I remembered the first moments I the airplane landed in Saigon, and I kept my eyes glued to the window with disbelief that I am back. When my feet touched the ground, I knew I was in Vietnam because people are skinner, simpler, their skins are tanner, more expressive, no shame, cracking jokes that are so natural, so sharp it can only come from deep suffering. They ’re real. My aunts and uncles grew older, wrinklier, and my cousins too. They are almost like different people than I remember. Things have changed. That entire night, we drove back to my home town which is five hours away. I kept my gaze fixed to the window, trying to look for something familiar, something that I can belong to. My cousins were joking in the background, but I was slowly realizing I am not really of their world anymore. I was stiff. I forgot how to speak Vietnamese like that—natural and fast. I forgot how to be like them—điên điên khùng khùng (crazy). I was too busy looking, and I forgot how to be. But I was comforted by the richness of the air, the mosquito flying around, once annoying, suddenly endearing. As I kept looking, I begin to see how things aren’t the same. The building was smaller because I grew taller. When coming back to my old house, I felt helpless, for the room once mine looked older, and stranger. Everything I thought mattered are fading away, like water, slipping out of my hands the more I try holding on to them. I am too small and helpless against this reality. I found belonging in memories, in things I remembered, things that are no longer real and tangible. Vietnam is in the present--moving and changing and not waiting. I was stuck in time. I've kept my heart closed all this time, for seven years, and I forgot how to open it. I was not alive. Some parts of me have died. I forgot how to just be. Just be me. Then on many occasions, I was encountered by little kids that sell lottery tickets, but I didn't know how to respond anymore, so I stayed silent as if they didn't exist. I feel like I carried a whole world people don't know about, and I can’t really say anything because “việt kiều” (Vietnamese abroad) are supposed to be well off. What suffering would we have? I couldn’t let my guards down. something unsaid that I can't tell people. I felt like I was the only one stuck in time. Everyone moved on, and here I am in this space only I can see. I can’t find home, until I can find myself again. I’ve returned to my physical homeland, but yet to come home within myself. I was on a quest to retrieve lost parts of me. They are somewhere, in some places, buried in memories. They’re not dead. I need them to go through life with an open heart again. I was on a quest home. To remember who I was, before my grief and sorrow, pains and tears. my dad said
this is the world you belong to I left to ask myself what “this” means because dad, today tears fell at six in the morning for wounded children whose anguish and pains are hidden deep in memories rooted within their frail bones because on the back of their souls there are worlds they carried worlds they didn’t belong to “This” is a world where getting an education means walking to the bus driver everyday holding fears of being a fraud for keeping a ticket we didn’t throw away the days before hoping it would match color So we don’t have to steal $1.25 from the $800 you get per month for cleaning houses for giving care to children that are not yours because I want you to sleep well throughout the night knowing you are sacrificing for what’s “right” “This” is where we went to school wanting to learn about the world but through worlds that are not mine through eyes that are blue and through hearts that cannot see that I glued my body to the pain of writing a 2-page literary analysis of English people in English, for ten hours straight but through the aspiration of searching for universal truth of a love that crosses time space and race and for you, Mrs. Madison the only person that ever asked me what is your story? to be proud of my embodied prayers but your English heart read and you told me This is not your essay, son because the grammar is perfect This is not a world we belong to because in this world our main profession is not being students but prostitution of love and understanding both of which my heart can’t hear from you no more so for both we gave up our virginity our morality our sincerity to too many bodies to count only to realize that we have an addiction to an illusion so please release us from your fiction. I am sorry but this is not a world we belong to America is your dream a Vietnam you hoped and fought for but here my truth and prayers can’t be translated Dad, the world we carried is your American Dream Mom, the world I carried is your uninterrupted sleep Let’s not tell ties Our exile your pains your hopes my memories and tears are the worlds I belong to So how can we begin anew?
3 Comments
Bela
7/18/2019 08:56:20 am
Such beautiful and poignant reflections dear Liem. You are an amazing documentarian of your heart’s deepest yearnings. Thank you for sharing with so much trust and vulnerability.
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Rhea Miller
7/18/2019 02:41:44 pm
So poignant. I read all the links in English. This is such important work for you, and I am grateful you share it with us back in the States. I too am learning and expanding because of your generosity in this sharing.
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Linda Robinson
7/21/2019 10:05:00 am
Thank you Liem. Your writing is profound and beautiful. I am grateful to be your witness.
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