Right Hand Drawn by Miki Huynh

12/30

Vietnam ain’t exactly what my mom said it’d be anymore. Just outside the Saigon city limits out in the open dirt roads, where the crowds clear out except for the dirt-covered citizens selling things in baskets a bit too close to the cars, as Chuong and I buzz along on his motor scooter, we can see all manner of tall buildings under construction behind big signs promising a future full of skyscrapers and supermarkets – a future of commerce and high-end residences. These sights are nothing short of abrupt, though the food vendors with their basket don’t seem to notice anything from across the street.

My cousin and I are headed towards some wilderness to gawk at trees and animals, but the bulk of what constitutes life for the people in this part of the country appears as urban in intention as any American big city I’ve ever lived in. It had been about two years since Chuong ventured around this area, and even he can’t recognize any of it now with all the new concrete divides and street lights at the intersections. For me, it feels a little ridiculous realizing how all the preconceptions of Vietnam I’ve nurtured are ages behind this modern day version.

I guess the countrywide renovation isn’t entirely clear from the vantage point of our family’s quận. Though many brand new second and third floors can be spotted growing out from older buildings throughout Saigon, seeing the peddlers equally spread throughout the streets earning just enough to last from day to day, it doesn’t feel like grand changes lay in the future for everyone. I welcome this contradiction when walking through the local market and sitting LOW to the ground to enjoy a bowl of noodles at the soup stand, but as my aunt tells me, “people smile on in the outside, but inside they are not that happy.” How could you blame people really? It’s quaint and all for me to witness and photograph these scenes where things feel closer to the life I imagined my parents lived, but more than a little disparity exists between the country’s “growing” economy and most people’s static living conditions. As proves true in any big city, gentrification is never intended for locals.

While I make these observations, I often feel so self-conscious carrying such a big clunky camera with me. Seems whenever I’m with my aunt and whip the machine out, she has to explain to the person whose fruit I’m photographing that “it’s her first time here. Everything is strange to her,” as if I couldn’t be any more out of my element.

I know she doesn’t intend this just for me. Plus, I’m not the one to stick around after two weeks and hear whatever comments these people have to say about the odd little Việt Kiều “from Japan” later on. Still, it’s hard to figure out what’s natural to do sometimes in an unnatural situation, and harder still when a spotlight’s thrown on the fact.

***

In the parts of the city where everything’s been done up to look all ritzy and Las Vegas spectacular, I can see huge wedding parties taking place with loud music and loud displays and crowds of people pouring out of the banquet halls, taking pictures with the bride and groom, or trying to grab a taxi because dinner has ended and they need to beat the rush home. Everyday it seems I pass at least three nice cars decorated up with flowers all ready to pick up the bride and whisk her to an alter somewhere. My cousin tells me that lots of people wait until the end of the year just before Tết to get married. Over the few days, these receptions and cars become so commonplace of a sight, I begin to wonder if it isn’t a little too easy to find a spouse out here. I end my curiosity immediately after that thought.

***

The ending of the 31st feels much more matter of fact this year. I go with Chúc to a News Years concert to watch a full line-up of famous Vietnamese singers perform, but by 10PM, we’re back at home and everyone’s retired to their separate spaces, and all I hear is the soft murmurs from Chuong and Chúc’s TV set in their room. Even the neighborhood is remarkably quiet for once. I lay down on my mattress and, for the first time in ages, close my eyes and let of the rest of world count down for me while I nod off.

1/1 – 1/3

With the coming and passing of the January 1st New Years, my aunt and uncle seemed thrilled to start educating me about preparing for Tết. I notice that my relatives continue to ask me the same kinds of questions I get asked in Japan: “Can you eat this?” “Have you ever seen this before?” “Can you understand what he/she just said?” I suppose if owning up to not knowing a few of those things really gives me something to learn, it’s okay to be bombarded. Can’t complain about the variety of food they keep feeding me.

The rooftop cat joins me in the afternoon when not much is happening except for the baby wailing. I’ve established my favorite spot for note taking, which is right in front of the door to my room where I can lean my back against a wall and dangle my legs on the stairs.

Here, because of the way the house is built where the roof of the central part of the house is disconnected from the roof of the spare room, sunlight can stream in and I’m somewhere between being indoors and outdoors. The cat also gets easy access.

I write down my notes while she leaps down from above and rubs up against me, giving me a little undeserved credit for the pampering she receives hanging around this place, until she finally stretches out to take a nice nap.

***

At night, my cousins find a little free time and take me to some of the nicer cafes in the city. A few of the districts have pretty fancy looking stores, all touting international brand names. The young people I see biking and walking around dress up like Forever 21 just exploded onto the entire population. Man, so that’s where that aesthetic comes from…

***

I ask my uncle about the place where my mother used to work when she was a case worker for delinquent children and their families, so I might be able to photograph what the spot looks like nowadays and send a picture home to her. My uncle happily offers to take me, warning that it’ll be another one hour motor scooter drive. I’m perfectly fine with that. However, after some thinking out loud, he finally decides that it wouldn’t be worth the trip because everything has actually been demolished and reconstructed after ’75 and giải phóng. My mother’s child service program, in particular, was sponsored by the US government, so there’s no chance that any remnant of that building remains. Photos I’d take to send home would bear no resemblance to what she remembered.

My romanticized notions of connecting the present to the past and linking myself to my mother falls flat with a gorgeous thud. There’s little room for poetry in politics, I guess.

12/26

My uncle, Cạu Cường, shares some tea with me from a big insulated plastic pitcher. It’s a light but bitter brew made from dried leaves stored in a brown paper package. The pitcher’s meant to last him the entire day, and there is no shortage of tea or stories this morning, as he recounts with great sweeps of his arms and wide-mouthed laughs all about growing up with a single mother (my grandpa had died when he was thirty while fighting in the army) and three older sisters each with very different mindsets. He got along best with my mom, the two were the youngest in the family, and were the closest in personality. Likemindedly, they’d often get into trouble with the older siblings.

Your mother was a mischievous one, he tells me. One time when she was a child, she reached under and plucked an egg right out of a chicken, right in the middle of its laying. Can you believe that? It wasn’t even all the way out! Immediately, I feel quite proud of the genes I’ve inherited.

The teenage years were filled with clashes between the younger and older sides. Since money was scarce, funds had to be prioritized and there were heated battles between conservatism and self-expression. My uncle thinks back to one instance when he bought a pair of fashionable bell bottom pants, something he’d saved up for for many months. The tinge of anger remains in his eyes when he tells me how one day, one the aunts and my grandmother took out scissors and cut them short to make them less ugly. Here’s a man that’s been through quite a lot of struggle since the Communist encroachment, and I can only peripherally guess how a mind can cope and piece together so many deep impressions from the past, but I feel glad these family stories, and this particular moment that brings out the younger man in him, persist as some of the stronger ones.

I look around and try to imagine all these now-50-somethings running up and down the steep staircase and through the open entryways, all wrapped up in 60’s attire and angst. Trời ơi trời, he tells me, this house was always noisy; always filled with laughter or yelling. But yes, he footnotes quickly, that period together was also very short. For most of their lives, the siblings went to their individual boarding schools, nunneries, or workplaces, or eventually married and moved away with their husbands, though sometimes later returning to this house bringing along their babies, my older cousins. Each new little one introduced merriment and their own share of problems between my mother, uncle, and aunts too.

Then, after giải phóng, life abruptly shifted and that’s when the family separated permanently, hundreds and hundred thousands of miles apart.

My uncle pulls out some pictures from the cabinet. He retains a few of his wedding, even some from when he was quite young during his boyscout days, and some more recent photos of my cousins from Norway, two who’ve visited and stayed at this house before. My uncle also lets me take a look at the original black and white photographs of my grandfather and grandmother. I get to see their faces for the first time.

I want to find more photos, but Cạu Cường tells me frankly that we really don’t have any photos of the family beyond the few. Creating a visual history that you can thumb through isn’t a priority when you’re financially struggling. Outside of special occasions, the rest was left undocumented.

Undocumented. I suddenly comprehend a little more clearly and frantically try to grab at the stories still free-floating in my head, but only in time to find that some of the details my uncle gave have already eroded away.

***

The house remains, at least, as a sign of our family’s own kind of fruitfulness. Many people and animals have been raised here. My uncle owns two dog and, before these two, owned a previous dog who was very intelligent and well loved and had a good fifteen year run. The family also tends to a cat who lives out on the rooftops but checks into our house for dinner. At fourteen years old, she’s already spawned many litters of kittens and continues to have boyfriends wailing their awful tomcat howls late in the night after her. The cat’s own scratchy, constant meowing doesn’t cease until she gets her rice. In the living room sits a small aquarium of little freshwater angel fish. My uncle even used to own birds. All these creatures at one point coexisted at the same time.

Of course, plenty of children have grown up in this house as well. Not just those in our family, but neighborhood children my aunt and uncle have helped to raise from just a few months to about five years old.

It’s no wonder I felt so comfortable immediately after arrival.

***

In the afternoon, my aunt, Mợ Phúc, takes me out to the outdoor market place a quick walking distance away. I follow her through some unbelievably narrow alleyways that all interconnect like a strange maze, and I am impressed at how easily my aunt navigates through. People in the neighborhood resting out on the street watch as we pass. Even without holding my camera, I feel so obvious here, even more so than I ever felt living in Hamada without having to say a word.

The mosquitoes don’t appear so discriminating. They do their mosquito business all over me with as much zeal as the Japanese variety. The resultant bumps are just as red and just as abundant on my arms, legs, and even on the bottoms of my feet. I feel like I’m scratching myself raw, around the bites of course, but I can only assume that by the time my skin becomes thick enough and my blood salted with enough nước mắm so the mosquitoes stop drawing near, it’ll be just about time to go home.

Photos of some of the things mentioned can be found here.

Now… three trips.

12/27 – 12/28

I meet up with good ol’ pal Kim, also on her winter break, and go with her family out to Vũng Tàu. Boiling eggs in hot springs, eating exotic foods of questionable legality, and bumming around beaches and lighthouses ensues.

12/29

With Chuong, I ride a Honda bike and ferry to Cần Giờ and the Vàm Sát ecological center. Before we get to check out various bats, fish, crocodiles, crabs, and heaps of monkeys, my cousin and I travel for a good hour on a slippery and bumpy dirt road, and we even meet a rather evil dog that decides to chase after us for a brief stretch. I’m a little too concerned with keeping my legs out of the reach of its jaws during that time to take pictures of that animal.

1/03 – 1/04

I go with my aunt to Phan Thiết. The beach here is where my mom caught a fishing boat to leave the country back in ’78. Kind of strange to see the setting 30 years later. I wonder what she would think now if she were to come back.

Phan Thiết used to be very poor, but now there’s a strip of hotels that line the beach and vendors walk around selling shellfish and bánh bột lọc for you to eat right by the ocean. There are also sand dunes nearby composed of naturally red sand where tourists flock.

It’s all resorts now, these beaches. So many changes on the surface that successfully hide away traces of the past war and of current poverty. It’s difficult to argue, though, how naturally beautiful the countryside looks out here and how calm the scenery can make you feel. The Vietnamese natives I’m traveling with have known the realities of change for a long time now, and if anyone’s entitled to hold onto feelings about the past, they are. They, however, feel no bitterness today, so I can only allow myself feelings of peace as I step into the ocean water and let the waves swallow me whole.