Your Cháu Gái

Translation: Your Granddaughter.

A Saturday in Saigon.

November 2022.

Dượng Tuấn, my uncle in Québec, came to Vietnam for a long-overdue reunion with his high school friends. I happened to fly to Saigon that same weekend to celebrate my friend Megan’s birthday. Funny how the world works sometimes. I hopped on a motorbike taxi and sped to his hotel for breakfast. He walked me around the city for a few hours. Talking, drinking coffee, exploring. He told me what his life was like before he moved to Canada. When he was a young kid and when he was in high school. Where he would hang out with his friends. How much the city has grown.

It felt strange to have my uncle here–someone so familiar in a place not so familiar. He has his own memories here that I don’t know about, and I have my own memories here that he doesn’t know about, but now we were creating new memories, together (1). My worlds were colliding. I was dipping my feet into two dimensions where I was living in the present, but I now had a window where I could reach out a hand and interact with the past. The “stories” that were faintly painted in my head growing up started to become real. We were both here, me and my uncle, merging our individual stories into one.

Dượng Tuấn showed me the building where Ông Ngoại used to work (ông ngoại = maternal grandfather). The Independence Palace – where the president of the Republic of Vietnam used to live and work. The “Vietnamese White House,” if you would. The Fall of Saigon happened on April 30th, 1975, when North Vietnam tanks crashed through the palace gates. “Your Ông Ngoại was here two days before the Fall,” Dượng Tuấn said.

I was standing where my grandpa worked. Something about his story has never felt real to me. Maybe it’s all the gaps of information that demand to be filled-in. Maybe, it’s the fact that everyone has a different story to tell. What my mom says is different than what Di Yến says, which is different than Di Minh (2). I did meet him but I only ever knew him through stories. I saw him once a year at Bà Ngoại’s house (bà ngoại = maternal grandmother). Every time I saw him he was draped in orange Buddhist robes. Maybe that created distance where I felt like he was set apart from me. Or maybe, I was just a young girl intimidated by the combination of a language and cultural barrier. America didn’t teach me how to act around “different” people. He slouched as he sat at the head of the table, laughing loudly, mumbling Vietnamese I couldn’t understand. He slowly grazed on the food scattered in front of him. He would talk with all of his kids. That loud Vietnamese humor where every word is annunciated and aggressively delivered with furrowed brows, immediately followed by the hollering and laughter of everyone else. Ông Ngoại seemed like that. I didn’t know him, but I knew he was funny. He had little food quirks. For some reason, McDonald’s fries were his favorite, so we bought him a large greasy bag every time he visited. He loved eggs. He would cut out the runny yolk and plop the whole thing in his mouth. The Dương specialty, all my aunts and uncles do the same. I knew he was happy around family. I knew he called my mom “little mouse.” My cousin told me he could play the guitar. I heard him sing once. He smiled often. He seemed peaceful yet comical and rough around the edges. He was an intellect. He spoke many languages and translated books that I hope to read someday. He was a rule breaker. Like someone you would expect to be serious but turns out quite the opposite. With help from his “little mouse,” he snuck an mp3 player into the temple which wasn’t allowed (3). He loved Kenny G saxophone tunes. That smooth jazz… at least that’s what my mom told me.

Every time Ông Ngoại visited, Bà Ngoại seemed nervous. He silently took up space. This figure of a man, her husband, who returned once a year. She doesn’t often show her love through words, but I know I’m very loved by her. She squeezes my wrists. Sniff kisses me. Smiles at me. And of course, she cooks the most delicious food I’ve ever had. She spent so much time preparing for him. Cleaning. Cooking a welcome feast as always. When he arrives, she seems to observe from a distance. Standing by the table across the room with a chair by her side. In all of their pictures together, there’s distance. She seems unsure what to do. A quiet, composed woman. I have never heard her laugh like Ông Ngoại. I have only heard a small high-pitched chuckle escape from her throat once in a while. Even then, I’ll count myself lucky to hear it. Maybe she wanted Ông Ngoại to see her as well put together. Maybe she still had something to “prove.” Did she love him? I don’t know. But all I know about Ông Ngoại was through the actions of other people. How he shifted rooms he was in. How “important” was he in Vietnam? I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out. But standing here in front of this building seemed to nudge a sore spot inside of me that I didn’t know was there. I was standing where he stood. He may have been 30-50 years old when he worked here. And here I am, at 22, standing in a small piece of Ông Ngoại’s life. His life before America. His life in Vietnam that shaped how he would live the rest of his days: imprisoned, fleeing to the US, becoming a monk, and dedicating his life to peace.

I wonder if he ever stepped where I stepped. Who was he talking to? Who knew who he was? What business was he involved in? What did his day-to-day look like? Did he like it? What was he doing at this building two days before he left for America? Did he even go to America? Or did he get captured first? None of my questions were answered… but I had the slight feeling that I knew him a little bit more. That he knew I was here.

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Before Ông Ngoại died, my mom told me to approach him on the couch and say, “I’m Thuy’s daughter. I’m your granddaughter!” So, I did.

Không! I don’t know you!

He said in his deep, cutting Vietnamese voice.

My smile faded… I looked towards my mom who laughed it off, “Yes Dad! This is my daughter!”

I looked back at his eyes and saw nothing.

He didn’t know me. I left. I ran into my cousin’s room. I cried.

That was the last time I spoke to him.

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Today, I came and met him again. I’d like to think he knows. He remembers. He’s proud.

At least… that’s what it feels like.

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I always thought that when people die, that’s it. Everything we had and had known about them is everything we would ever have and know about them. It never occurred to me that I could start a relationship with someone after they’d gone. And how relieving is that.

I can finally release it all. The pain of not knowing Vietnamese. Wishing I tried harder. Wasting opportunities to know him. Distancing myself at family gatherings out of “difference” and “embarrassment.” Regret. All the shame of a sixth-grade girl who didn’t know any better. Released.

God gave me the opportunity to be here. Ông Ngoại granted me the grace to start again.

Looks like I need to make a trip to McDonald’s.

Footnotes:

1. During our mid-year Fulbright conference, my friend Kailan Bui talked about this feeling of making memories with our relatives when we each had our own separate memories in the same place. She has an incredible blog that you can read here: https://kaitlanbui.substack.com/

2. "Di" translates to "aunt" in Vietnamese.

3. Buddhist monks dedicate their lives to their practice. They aren’t allowed a lot of things not because those things are inherently bad, but because their lives are guided on the easiest path of enlightenment. Music is used as a form of meditation and prayer in the temple; however, the music that most people listen to leads to worldly desires, distractions, and longings which promote self-indulgence.

** Wix.com does not include the feature of footnotes or special characters (i.e. the Vietnamese alphabet) as an available option for blog posts; please forgive my formatting. As always, thank you for reading **