Vietnam's Jungle Law: A Sad Story

I apologize for not writing anything on my blog for a while.  This past Thursday, we celebrated our Vietnamese New Year.  I remember in Viet Nam, New Year's Day was a huge deal for all of us. We came together like a family no other time of year.  Tet is celebrated like a birthday for everybody, no matter where family is, each will try to come home at all costs.  The younger ones wish the best wishes to the elderly relatives and in return we will receive wishes from them and also a little red bag containing of money.  In Vietnam my mom and sisters decorated our home with all kinds of exotic flowers and hard to find fruits.  As a catholic, we went to church to thank God for the old year and pray for the new year.

Here in the United States, now we also attend church to give thanks and prayers at New Year's.  We cling to the customs as we had in Viet Nam, but I know it is not the same. Somehow there is always an aching feeling inside of me knowing that I am so far away from "home".

New Year's I should talk about happy things, but there is a story that I just heard from one of my friends returning from visiting his family in Vietnam last month.  This story has haunted me for days and I would like to share with you since we all live in such a safe and privileged country. We don't hear about what is really happening back home.  I often say Viet Nam has no law or their law to me is 'jungle law'.  This story will let you understand why I said such thing.

My friend was sitting at an eatery on the street of Saigon.  He bought some breakfast from a middle-aged woman who was selling food from her cart.  After selling him the package, she pushed her cart across the street. An SUV come charging down the street and hit her. Her body was on the street gushing blood.  My friend said he tried to run over to help. Some police officers held him back so he wouldn't be run over in the street.  People crowded around the streets but no one cared to help or  each was afraid to help.  Just then a young man from the SUV jumped out, stood over the dying lady cursing, blaming her for not watching where she was going. Then he got back into his car and sped off.  Throughout this entire episode, my friend said he used his camera trying to tape the tragedy, but again the police snatched it and also made him leave the area. He was wondering why, and they told him the driver was one of the high official's son. My friend left the country with frustration, disgusted, and he has been haunted with this sight forever.

For those who have gone to visit Vietnam as a tourist or who as child returned to visit the motherland, I have heard many of them say positive things about the country.  I wonder if it is the material things they see.  Where are the rights for my people?  I am sure all they see are the lavish, tall beautiful buildings, hotels...the facade of Vietnam.  I hope they will look deeper into the heart of my people. There they will see the sorrow, agonies, fright, anger that the communist government is trying to hide from the world.  Viet Nam has NO law. Any law now is "jungle law" to me.  I am sure with all my heart that my people were happier and even safer during war time than after the war ended, and there were supposed to be peace in Viet Nam.

Please respond to the beginning of the memoir in progress.

Introduction

            At seven years old, my 1970’s Việt Nam was a breathtakingly beautiful land full of excitement and danger; a land of poisonous snakes, killer floods, and terrifying accidents. But it was also a place of adventure and delight, of exploration on the mountain and in the neighboring villages, climbing mango trees and picking acai berries, canoeing in the brook and crabbing, playing any and every game imaginable. Oh, yes, and by the way, it was a place where a war was going on. My mother, watched us arrive home plastered in mud or emerge from mists of tear gas, and folded us in her arms rejoicing in our miraculous, continued wellbeing. She knew we were surrounded by danger, so she trained us rather than chaining us.

My father struggled to save the world one child at a time by adopting Việt Cộng[1] spies and an orphaned boy, who years later turned traitor, a victim of communist brainwashing. Above all, we led as normal a life as possible amid battling artillery right outside the windows of our home.  My father, city manager and an important man, commanded our family before he died to tell people he was a good father
. Family always came first for him and then country. My father was humble about his public service.

I chose to write this memoir in tribute to what South Việt Nam once was, and also, to honor my parents, who planned and provided for my lucky escape from the horrors of the Việt Nam War that was fought on my front doorstep.

---

[1] The Việt Cộng (VC) are the Northern Communists who fought the Americans in the Việt Nam War.

Lost Tradition: Ngay Gio

My country is not that big, but because of the war,  we often were terrorized by the communists when going from city to city. That was why I did not get to see or know many of my relatives.  I only knew a few of them that lived in the same village.  I think I was closer to my village neighbors than my own uncles, aunts and cousins.  I was able to see my father's side of the family once a year for we had a day called "Ngay Gio".  It's like a family reunion only we got together to remember our ancestors, our love ones who were dead.

Every year, on that particular day, most of my father's family members, near or far, all tried to come to our home because the Le Cemetery was in the same village where we lived.  My father's uncle, Le Van An, who was a Bishop from Long Khanh City, would also come home to the village to celebrate a Mass there at the cemetery.

This was about the only time of the year I saw my relatives who lived far outside my village.  After these few days were over,  we parted ways and promised to see each other again next year.  I was too young to remember  anybody.  Years later when the war became too intense to travel and the village became
more dangerous for relatives to visit, that celebration could no longer being honored; therefore, my chance of knowing any family members was even less than before.

Now, so many of my relatives I will never see. I left them behind in Viet Nam along with my family's property, our possessions, and our beloved cemetery with its cherished tradition.

Thai Describes Her American Education

My son was finalizing details on his project and planning on studying for his tests the next day.

I listened to him complain how he will have to stay up late. I told him he needed to go to bed.  This bring back lots of memories for me. 

When I first came to the United States, I did not speak any English.  My way of  communicating was using  my English/Vietnamese and Vietnamese/English dictionary.

My everyday routine  after coming home from school was help with the chores, have dinner with my family and do my homework.

I would have to use the dictionary to translate any reading material I had for my homework.

This could take several hours, until all the words translated and carefully penciled in on top of the word. Then I would go back and try to read the chapters and answer the questions.  Even after all this hard work I still could not understand much of the chapter. It did not make much sense, but I did my homework anyway. 

Months later, when I was able to know English a little better,  I realized that words I tried to translate were not necessarily the same meaning of what was in the chapter or a sentence.  My realization made me frustrated.  I would rather not know that and just do my homework the best  I could understand. 

With this realization I became discouraged, not wanting to study anymore, and yet I had to spend more time into the night trying to do my homework.  I knew that this was the only way for me to succeed and gain education in this country.  If I wanted to live here and have a future here, I HAD to learn the language.

There were times when my mom peeked into my room with worried eyes because it was so late in the night, but she left me alone.  She knew this was the only way for me to better myself.  With this memory in mind, I told my son I loved him and goodnight.

Vietnamese Church Confession

I was raised as a Catholic.  As far as I remember my parents told me that we have been Catholic for many generations.  I grew up going to church every Sunday and every holy obligation day.  I went to Bible school every Sunday, and know to go confession at LEAST once a year. That's what I learned, but once a year was not what my family did.  According to my parents, I had to go once a month and I guess maybe because of my culture or the way I was raised, I still do whatever my parents said. I didn't argue then and I still do it now.

I remember one time I rode my bike to the church on a Saturday afternoon for my monthly confession with the priest.  It took me about twenty minutes to get there, and it was raining hard, too.  By the time I got to the Church, I was very wet.  The confession line in the Chapel was long.  I got in, kneeled at one of the chairs and did my usual prayers.  After that, I stood in line with the rest of the people and waited for my turn.

My heart was pumping so loud I felt that everybody could hear it.  When it was my turn, the priest told me he was going ask me a few questions about the Bible lessons I learned.  I don't remember what the one question was, but I did not know the answer.  The priest then opened the curtain, peeked his head out and yelled at me in front of everybody that he would not do the confession for me, to go home, study and come back next week.  I left the church with a heavy heart, felt humiliated and the thought of the ride home in the rain made me want to cry.

Nowadays,  I try to get my children to go to the reconciliation at least twice a year, and they still complain. I told them my story and tell them that was why my heart pounded so hard every time I faced the priest.  Today, we call it reconciliation. Just the word itself sounds easier than confession.  I don't understand why  the Vietnamese priest had to make it so scary and terrifying then. After all, we were going to make peace with our God and knew that he would always love us, no matter what we did.  The Catholic church today is more understanding and easier. My children shouldn't feel so terrified to go face God at the reconciliation booth.  Actually, I don't think they are scared. They are just lazy.  I hope my experience will help them see how lucky they are that they don't have to go through what I went through.  I look forward to reconciling with God every time. I feel good about it.

Death Reflection and a Dream of Peace

The front of my house in Bong Son had a porch with painted rails.  The top of the rail was wide enough for me to sit or lie on.  In the early morning I liked to like lie on it, so I could feel the coolness of the cement base on my back and enjoy the early morning sun.  One morning I was lying there feeling the sun and dreaming who knows what at that age.  I heard my oldest sister's voice calling for me. Her voice was loud and somewhat hysterical.  I did not want anything to disrupt my dreamy morning, so I decided to ignore her calling me.


http://notesfromacommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2009/11/bunnies.html

After a while, I decided to run to the back of the house. There I saw my sister  kneeling on the ground beside the rabbits' cage and our dogs were there, too.  I was terrified at the sight and realized that our rabbits were having babies  and the cage's rails were too big to hold the babies so they were dropping on to the ground, and the dogs were trying to attack the baby rabbits.  I ran to my sister and tried to shoo the dogs away. She was crying, and I felt so bad for not coming to her sooner.   A couple of the baby rabbits died from the attack of our dogs.  I told her I was sorry. We picked up the lifeless bodies of the rabbits and buried them by the lemon tree.

We lived in a place where we saw dead bodies carried up on our street almost every day  because of the crossed gun fires of the previous nights and where because of the war, human lives seemed so unimportant. But that does not means we do not value our lives and the lives of the others.  If the life of a tiny baby rabbits means that much for us to shed tears, then we know we wanted to live, and live with a peaceful happy life.  I wished the war had ended differently, and with a different government even if it meant we would die in the sea or in the jungles as long as we have freedom.  Also many of our soldiers  were jailed and many have died even after the war ended, and we are supposed to have peace in our country.  And let's not forget all the soldiers who have fought and died for the peace and happiness of Vietnam.  I hope one day Viet Nam will have real peace and happiness so all of our tears  had not been shed in vain.

Bombing the Bong Son Bridge

The explosion was so loud that it woke up the whole entire city of Bong Son.  I opened my eyes to this loud noise so close by my house. At the same time I saw all of the windows and doors of our house spring wide open.  Things on the shelves in my house were crashing down on the floor.  I heard my mom's terrifying voice called out to us to go in to the more secure room to hide.  I was crouching low
on the floor while there were guns firing outside.  We knew right away that loud noise was a bomb meant to sabotage someone or somthing specific, but we did not know what got hit. 


After what seemed like an eternity, the gun fire wore down, and we all went back to bed. The next morning we found out the bridge that helped us to travel from the village to the city of Bong Son had been sabotaged last night.  It was the saddest sight I have ever seen.  I had always known that our lives were connected to war and we could be killed any time, but seeing the broken bridge, which had taken me and my friends to school, to church, to the market etc. in the city of Bong Son saddened me. It made me realize war was close to home, and we were helpless to do anything to stop it.