Proposal

I have a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. I liked to paint myself as an allegory from a novel: white turtleneck under a black blazer, black coffee on rainy mornings, old notebooks and worn out paper that have the faint smell of cigarettes, all in a minimalistic, monochrome apartment in downtown Athens. Immaculate with that cold, mannered charm that wasn’t modern in the least, having an air of the ancient world. I like to say that I listen to classical music, Shubert is my favorite, and quote Leo Tolstoy. I didn’t care for anything that went on in the world or the people in it. Something as illogical as sentiments or affection was something I really didn’t need. There was an aesthetic to everything I did, and I tried to fill my life with all sorts of Epicurean delight. All my fantasies and pretentious attempts to be aesthetic were all born out of my love for the elegant words in books that portrayed an inner world of poetry and depth that differed from the vacuous nonsense that permeated most of the conversations I saw happening around me in high school. I was full of myself. As I sat there pondering what to write for my English project, I wondered how it was I came to have this tendency of renouncing my humanity for super-human ambitions. It brought my back to my parents and I thought about who they are as people. Their thoughts and emotions, words they’ve said to one another, their marriage, our relationship as parent and child, every caprice that ever crossed their mind. There was poetry in all those things, and I wanted to find it. I’ve known them for all my life, yet they’ve only known me for half of theirs. The beauty bounded in the minds of my parents, quotes from a book they never wrote. There is an intimacy between family members, but also a rift where I’m dying to know the answer to the question: What are you thinking about?

I recall one time we were eating dinner together as a family and my dad told me about the time when he was little how a distant relative would look with disapproval at every piece of meat and rice that went in his mouth when there wasn’t much to go around. No one expected anything of my dad. He was ugly with olive skin, a wide, circular face, a fat nose that I take after, and narrow eyes. He sold gum on the streets while other kids went to school. I could only imagine the unbearable loneliness in growing up with a family who could never love you as their own. Children in Vietnam had to know how to cook and train cattle at an early age. Many are abandoned by young, single mothers who couldn’t afford to raise their newborns. My mom said one of her greatest fears growing up was that the cows would run away and my grandfather would whip her as punishment. For most of her life, she had to hike up the side of mountains and farm crops. When my grandfather was called to fight in the Vietnam war and then imprisoned for seven years, my grandmother couldn’t raise her five children all on her own. Consequently, her children were siphoned off to relatives. At some point, my grandmother had to run while carrying and dragging her five children to boats that were supposed to relocate hundreds of families to places away from combat. Most families were lost or separated during the chaos, my mom was one of the lucky ones who narrowly escaped being trampled and forgotten by the crowd. Other toddlers were not so fortunate. My mom grew up in Phan Thiet while my dad grew up in Hue, which is far away to the North, away from the cities of Saigon, Da Lat, or Phan Thiet where we usually visit. By a certain alignment in circumstances, both my parents immigrated to the United States in 1991 through a U.S program that promotes Vietnamese veterans who fought in the war to immigrate to the U.S and ended up in the same apartment complex in Chamblee, Georgia. Working at a nail salon in Lenox Square for several years, my mom worked to support my dad and I while my dad attended college at Georgia Tech. We moved around to San Francisco, California, Alabama, and Maryland so that my dad could go to medical school and become a physician and take the MCAT. By the time my brother was born, my dad had become a doctor specializing in emergency medicine and supporting my mom in return. Now, we take yearly vacations to Vietnam, driving to several cities eating, shopping, and drinking Vietnamese iced coffee.

I always loved coffee shops in that they have a natural way of bringing people together. There is one coffee shop I go to in Vietnam, and it is Café Milano in Phan Thiet, a tiny shop that faces the street next to a high rise everyone in Phan Thiet knows as the headquarters for the Ocean Vista condo and resorts. In America, I wouldn’t wake up til noon if I didn’t have to. In Vietnam, my mom and I wake up at 7 am, put on our finest Avant Garde gowns and drive to this one specific coffee shop every morning. There is something about slowly pouring boiling water over a small carafe on top of a tall, cylindrical glass and watching the coffee slowly drip into the condensed milk at the bottom that I find therapeutic. Once all the bitter coffee has formed a thick black layer one top of creamy milk, I’d use a teaspoon to stir the solution until it turns a milky brown color and add ice. The delicate aroma and strong, sweet taste, and thick, creamy consistency gave me such pleasure that lulled me to a calm. I could’ve sat there for hours. We would gather around a small wooden table under the green canopy of the restaurant and watch traffic go by. The shop is basically a wide, straw canopy over a series of small wooden tables and chairs. Most shops in Vietnam are outside in such a way because of the overbearing heat. We’re closer to the heart of Phan Thiet, but you can still feel the ocean breeze from there. Such memories were colored by the passionate and fiery hues of yellow and red. It was that summer when my parents were so full of youth and vigor. They grew up in severe poverty and experienced abuse and neglect along with the tragedies of war, but Vietnam is forever in their hearts. My parents would take trips to Vietnam up to five times a year basically. In America, my mom stays home most of the time cooking or cleaning around the house while occasionally going to Phipps Plaza or Lenox Square to buy colorful, expensive gowns only to save them for her Vietnam trips. My dad works most of the time due to his long and erratic work schedule. When he comes home, he’ll sleep half the day away due to exhaustion, play a Vietnamese classical melody on his guitar, or we’ll go out to eat at a family restaurant. My mom has a hard time sleeping. Her allergies give her migraines during pollen season, and she is more vulnerable to colds and the flu in the winter. We each stay in our own section of the house, barely saying anything. Sometimes we can hear my dad screaming at night in his sleep when he’s having nightmares about his past traumas. The years, the laughs, the arguments, silent dinner at the table with fish sauce and soft rice, the boredom and simplicity of an upper middle class family here in America is a stark difference from the city lights, bustling of mopeds, and smell of street food. It seems as though Vietnam is a haven where my parents can break out of the monochrome monotony and routine of daily life in America. I wonder what it felt like for them when they first moved into that tiny apartment. What changes and adaptations did they have to make? What do they think of when they go back to Vietnam? What difficulties did they have to face while growing up? What cultural aspects have stayed with them this whole time? How did it change the way they thought or saw the world? Who were these people who raised me?

A family bible will give me the opportunity to appreciate the lives that both my parents have fulfilled. It’s interesting to gain a new perspective and retrace the steps someone else had taken: the difficulties and seemingly insurmountable challenges that marked their youth. I also hope to gain insight into the way my old-fashioned, traditional parents think. I often get caught up in my own worries of college life. For this project, I want to know more about the Vietnamese economy and hardships under a communist government, the social conventions that impacted their place in society and how they perceived the world, and what parallels exist between the existential crisis of a young boy growing up in abysmal living conditions in Hue versus that of a Vietnamese-American girl lying on a bed of roses sipping wine and reading Oscar Wilde.

Interview Questions:

What year did you come to the united states?

What influenced your decision to come to the US and become who you are today?

What was it like to grow up in Vietnam?

What was your childhood like in terms of family, means of survival, what jobs you had to do?

What are some childhood memories you would like to share?

What do you remember about the war?

What year was it that you had to live in the mountains and why?

What was it like living in the mountains?

What are some old songs or traditions, or customs that have stayed with you throughout the years?

What was the type of education you received and what was the education system like in vietnam?

Do you have any stories about having to escape a war zone or combat?

What is it about Vietnam that continues to draw you back there several times a year?

Nguyen, Kien. The Unwanted: a Memoir of Childhood. Back Bay Books, 2006.

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