Yesterdays

My father and my mother were both born and grew up in Hue, a small town in the middle of Vietnam. Hue is a small town but they did not meet there until they were both in Saigon, some years later, where my father had come to study law and mom was deep into the study of philosophy. At that time they didn't have much chance of a courtship as students, but they became friends. Life moved forward and they both went their separate ways only to meet again in Quảng Tín, a small town near Hội An in the middle of VN. By that time, my father was a government official and my mother was teaching high school. They became reacquainted and as it happened, they fell in love. They returned to their traditional family home of Huế to marry in 1964 and by February, 1965 their first born daughter had arrived, a cute baby, me, hehe.

Tam Kỳ 1965

Soon after I was born, my father was drafted into the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (normally called the South Vietnam Army). My mother quit her job and carried me along wherever my father was stationed. I spent part of my childhood in the military barracks. By 1966 we were living in a barrack in Nha Trang. My childhood went together with the sound of exploding cannon shells. My sister was born there January, 1967. The delivery, I was told, was somewhat difficult but my mother was well attended by an American military doctor who was stationed in the vicinity.

By 1969 my father was separated from the Army, and we moved to Saigon, where dad had secured a position with the Saigon City government. My dad’s education and military experience as well as his capacity for hard work soon had him promoted to the Chief of the City Planning Department of Saigon city.  Both of my grandmothers lived with us at that time and the most affection I got was from those two wonderful old women. 

April 1975

At age ten, I witnessed the end of the Vietnam war when Saigon fell to the Vietnamese communists forces (The North Vietnam Army or NVA) in the spring of 1975. What was it like to live where bombs exploded every night?  That was my experience back then.

My father, being a city official as well as an officer in the Army of the South, was one of thousands upon thousands of men who were hunted down and rounded up by the new government and sent away to re-education camps across the country. In the camps all of the prisoners had to spend hours upon hours in studying of Marks and Engle’s communist philosophy, and they worked hard, no better than slaves. Many of them died in those camps because of sickness, unexploded bombs, and yes, from starvation, too.  

In Saigon, we had no news from or about my father for a year, maybe a little more. Additionally, we were continually harassed by the new government and the neighborhood cadre, who ransacked our home often. Their excuse to come in the middle of the night was that they were looking for my dad - and officer in Army of the South - and my youngest uncle who refused to join the current government army. They could come to our home at any time, even midnight, just to ask my mom and grandmother where my dad and my uncle were. Then they would throw open all the closets, drawers, climb on the roof, look under the bed or do whatever they pleased to make us suffer a little more that day.

By 1976, the government nationalized all private property: farms. plantations, firms, factories, private schools .... Everything belonged to the People but in fact we had nothing personally. In just a glance, the Southerners lost all that we had been working hard to have. People worked and contributed based on their abilities and got the same pay. That was the concept of equality of Marks and Engle’s communist philosophy. No matter how hard you worked, how much property you used to have you still got the same as others. No one wanted to work. This led to the fact that we did not produce enough food and products. Moreover, the embargo the Americans and the United Nations put on VN made the country poorer and poorer. The whole country was deep in poverty. I grew up with nothing, even electric power and clean water was limited too.

To keep her teaching position in the new education system, my mom then was subjected to hours upon endless hours of studying the new philosophy before she could return as a teacher. But even then, the income was so miserable that her mother (my grandma) had to work to help raise my sister and I.  Everything in our house - from furniture to kitchenware ... - gradually went to the flea market.  My mom sold them to keep the family survive. 

I went to a Saint Paul Catholic girl school. The school was run by the sisters of Saint Paul Convent. The Convent was next to the schơol. There was also a small chapel that we often went to had Mass after classes. I was taught by Nuns. Soon after Saigon fell, my school was nationalized and was run by the government. Most of the Nuns were not allowed to teach anymore. Some of the Nuns still stayed at schơol for teaching but the Nuns were not allowed to do anything not approved by the new government. Later, they used my school for another purpose and we were moved to other schools.

As the time passed I took notice of a man who was often came to our home. He was a teacher at the same high school that my mom worked. I was uncomfortable with him being there, I was uncomfortable with my mom allowing him to be there, and I worried …… it was an “unclear thing” to me. I worried too much for my grades suffered and my school record, overall, went down. I could not concentrate on studying as my mind kept wandering, thinking of my mom and that man.

I did not know what was wrong and I decided to find out why my mom was often not at home, so I followed her one evening. I was on my bicycle and very carefully rode after my mom and all the while trying to remember the streets, the turns, the sounds so I could find my way home later. It was very dark in the streets as there were no street lights and very little light came from the houses and shops. Electricity was rationed and for the most part was saved for public facilities and government officials’ homes.

I arrived too late at an intersection to see what way my mother had gone, so I stopped my bike and just stood there at the intersection… looking for a shadow that might be mom. As I looked around in the darkness, I saw ... my sister. She had followed me just as I was following mom. I was 12, my sister 10. Our faces met in the darkness and she began to cry and I cried too. I do not remember how long we cried but when we rode home together we were quiet…. Not a word. And even to this day, not a word has passed between any of us about that night.

Wounds heal with age and wisdom too grows along with those scars that life puts on us. As time goes by, I understand more about life and that old memories are not always as they seem. But still somewhere there in my memory I see my little sister standing in that dark intersection crying and I feel the pangs again of my unknowing childhood jealousy.

When I was in my 9th grade, my father was released from the Re-education camps but he was not recognized as a full citizen. He was under house arrest. He tried to escape the country many times by boat and finally got to Bidong, Malaysia, one of the refugee camps in the South East Asia. By then, there were hundreds refugee camps around for the "boat people" from Vietnam, my poor homeland. Finally he came to the US and has been living here since 1981. We, my mother, my sister and I stayed home. We had no chance to see my father till 1990 we were allowed to come to the US to reunion with my father from the ODP by the HCR.  Many thanks.