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One Life Of Learning
Nguyen Tan Hung
Orchard Publisher, 1991
Table Of Contents
00. Foreword by Dr. S. Clifford
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00. FOREWORD
DR. SYLVESTER CLIFFORD
Hung Tan Nguyen fled Vietnam in April 30th, 1975, having served in the South Vietnamese Navy. He, his wife and children, and some of his wife's relatives have established themselves in the United States. In this book we see Vietnam through Hung's experiences as he develops into an adult, and then through his struggles to succeed in his second homeland. Here are revealed the tenderness and toughness of child and adult, the resiliency of youth, the ever renewing dreams and persistence of humans in desperate circumstances. Throughout, there are touches of humor, and always a clear-eyed reality.
The volume will be of particular interest to those thousands of Americans who helped Vietnamese refugees gain a foothold in the U.S.. For them it is a rare opportunity to "See ourselves as others see us." It will be a valuable history to other refugees, and even more precious to their thoroughly American descendents.
Mr. Nguyen previously has published both poetry and prose in his native language; this is his first professional venture into American English. Those twists of grammar and unfamiliar idioms that mark him as a "foreigner" enrich the writing by novel imagery and originality. The story itself reawakens poignant memories-cuts into the mind and heart all the more sharply for being true.
01. A LONG TIME AGO
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Hung was born in My-Tho province on the day that the war ended. He was just like a rescuer of the world; he often joked about himself like that. But, it was coincidental that he was born at the end of World War Two. Moreover, he was born on VE (Victory in Europe) day, the day that Hitler surrendered to the Allied Forces. Of course, he learned about that later on. At the time he was born, the Southern part of South Vietnam had 21 provinces. And the first given names of these provinces were arranged as a lovely poem that made it easier for him to remember:
Gia Chau Ha Rach Tra
Sa Ben Long Tan Soc
Thu Tay Bien My Ba
Cho Vinh Go Can Bac, Cap
Those provinces were Gia-Dinh, Chau-Doc, Ha-Tien, Rach-Gia, Tra-Vinh. Sa-Dec, Ben-Tre, Long-Xuyen, Tan-An, Soc-Trang. Thu-Dau-Mot, Tay-Ninh, Bien-Hoa, My-Tho, Ba-Ria. Cho-Lon, Vinh-Long, Go-Cong, Can-Tho, Bac-Lieu. And Cap was the beach resort of Vung-Tau. Later on who knew how many provinces there were in the South? Some provinces became districts; some districts became provinces. Some provinces disappeared from the map; and some new provinces were popping up. From the beginning of the first presidential era in 1954, Thu-Dau-Mot became Binh-Duong; Ben-Tre became Kien-Hoa; My-Tho became Dinh-Tuong. . . These names had not pleased his ears at all at first. However, after a time they were familiar and accepted. When his military unit was stationed in the area of Tra-Cu, Duc-Hoa, Duc-Hue districts (the Parrot Beak area as it was named by the Americans), he had the opportunity to tease his local friends:
"Hau-Nghia, Kien-Tuong, the names of your late born provinces first heard just stood for poor civilization. Those provinces were in no way a comparison with our provinces that have had 4000 years of cultural development such as My-Tho and Can-Tho."
But that was the truth. His province of My-Tho was a long time famous province -- the only province in the Mekong Delta that had the railroad connected to the capital of the country, Saigon. It was too bad for him that this lovely railroad was removed by the government during the Diem Dinh Ngo presidency.
The most ancient, famous architectural work in the city of My-Tho had been the Buddhist Temple of Vinh-Trang, built around 1840-1842, during the Minh-Mang emperor's era. The other areas such as Vuon-Lai (the tea flower garden), Cho-Cu (the Old Market), Ben-Tam-Ngua (the Horses Bath Ramp), Chua Cha-Va (the Hindu Temple), Cau Quay (the Quay Bridge), Ben-do Ty-cong-an (the Ferry at the City Security Department), Chua Phat-An (the Phat-An Buddhist Temple), Nha-Tho Lon (the Main Catholic Church), Bat-tam-bang Forth, Dai-Chien-Si (the tomb of the Unknown Soldier), Lo-Heo (the pig slaughter house), Cay-Xang (the Gas Station), Cau-Bac (the main ferry), Dat-Thanh-Tay (the French Cemetery), Bot-So-Tam (the 8th Fort), Ben-Xe-Moi (the news Bus Station), Ben-Xe-Cu (the old Bus Station), Vong-Nho (the small flood protected corridor), Vong-Lon (the big flood protected corridor). . . were nothing special in terms of how ancient they were. Hey, the two wells? That was right! There were no cities in the South that had a big well like that. Why were they not called lakes like Chung-Thuy lake in the city of Ben-Tre? A lake sounded bigger than a well; however, this was a special case: a well that was much much bigger than a lake. The wells were too old, too. They may have been dug when the city was established by the Left Marshal Duyet Van Le (there were Left and Right Marshals under the Vietnamese emperor) who built the fortresses of Dinh-Tuong and Nam-Vang (Phnom-Penh, Cambodia's capital) in mid 17th century.
The wells were used to store fresh water for the whole city of My-Tho in the dry season because in this season the salt water from the sea could reach there by following the Mekong river. In the rainy season, nobody paid any attention to the wells; however, in the dry season, the water level dropped lower and lower and everyone became concerned. Once about every ten years, the wells were dug again, deeper and deeper. The water was pumped out and the wells were left to dry for a while. Before the digging started, people could come down to catch fish, clams, and snails. The wells were like the openings of charcoal mines and the workers looked as tiny as black ants. It took a couple of months to dig about one meter's depth. Then, the water was let in. The smell of mud in the water was gradually reduced over several months. Overall, it took about a half year for the wells to come back to the normal situation.
People who lived around the wells were allowed to use the water in the wells. But none could swim in it. The police would arrest them if they did that, except for the school pupils because of the belief devil first, ghost second, student third . Although the police often chased them out, they still sneaked around and jumped in to take a bath before they went to school or down town.
When talking about students, there is need to mention the famous school in the city of My-Tho, the Chieu Dinh Nguyen High. This was an old, old school. This may be the third oldest school in the country, after Buoi (Grape Fruit) High in Ha-Noi and Petrus-Ky High in Saigon.
The My-Tho province has five districts: Cai-Be, Cai-Lay, Chau-Thanh, Ben-Tranh, and Cho-Gao. Among them, the Cho-Gao may be the poorest district. People could tell by just looking at its small market place; it was about twice the size of a village temple. Five districts were laid along the Mekong river; the nearer the sea, the poorer the living conditions, as the people knew. They talked bad about girls getting married with the boys in the poorest areas such as married in wealth not in poverty . Hung was born in this area, so he had to carry the same burden as his ancestors. Carry the poverty and throw it away in the swamp, turning around, run and say . . . no, don't follow me . But, it always followed. By the way, the poverty may have made the children in this area study harder because they were all good students. . . Up to the border between the My-Tho and the Go-Cong provinces, the areas of Hoa-Dong and Dinh market, prosperity was reinstalled. Most of Hung's relatives on his mother's side lived there.
Did you know how many legs the centipede has?
How many supporting columns the O bridge has?
How many people came to the Dinh market?
How many people sold the boys' clothing?
The inside market sold thread!
The outside market sold needles!
People who were crowded at the Dinh market looked like the the legs of the centipede? What a comparison in the folk song! Then, the O bridge was not the bridge between Dong-Son and Dinh? Hung did not know! This black bridge (O means black in Vietnamese) was also called the Fall bridge because the communists destroyed it. And why did they sell the boys' clothing, the thread, and the needles? Who knows!
The Cho-Gao district has five villages: Hoa-Dinh, Binh-Phan, Binh-Phuc-Nhut, Binh-Phuc-Nhi, and An-Thanh-Thuy. Except for the An-Thanh-Thuy village located at the border of the Ben-Tre province, the villages were laid along the Cho-Gao canal. This canal connected the Mekong Delta to Saigon via Nuoc-Man (salt water) canal, and Long-Tao River.
When talking about the Cho-Gao canal, it is necessary to comment about the Cho-Gao ferry that was located on the 35th Local Highway, between My-Tho city and Go-Cong city. This was a ferry powered by hand by pulling along a steel cable which hung across the canal. The ferry sometimes gave trouble for both the highway and the waterway. Every time a ship arrived, the ferry workers had to release the steel cable which sank down to the bottom of the canal for the ship passing by. The ship always had the right of way because its brake was not very good. The ship sounded a horn that could be heard far away to remind the ferry workers that she was coming; and then they had to estimate the ship's speed and to adjust their work. Sometimes they got a wrong estimate and released the steel cable even when the ferry was in the middle of the canal. People and cars were floated away, drifting into the bank at some point, needing several hours to get back to the ferry's ramp. Prior to the American withdrawal, the American Sea Bees built and maintained the Cho-Gao bridge. It was convenient, although people had to pay for using it. The ships were free because the bridge was so high. However, it was a sad sight for the two French built antenna towers that stood lonely in silence, sharing the same fate of being no longer used. Along the canal, the French had also built a red clay-stone road. However, when the Viet-Minh "revolution" (the Viet-Cong, VC, later on) came, the road was cut off. Some sections became trails and other vanished, swallowed by the dense plant growth of the jungle.
Hung was born in the Binh-Phuc-Nhut village. There were two ways to come to the village: the waterway by the Cho-Gao canal or the pathway by the red clay road that exited from the 35th Local Highway. The red clay-stone road along the canal was used by the Viet-Cong only a few years after the country had been divided. About half way from the red clay road to the village, people were surprised by a big house that had mysteriously popped right up in the middle of a rice field, the house that had a swimming pool on the balcony and was called Miss 8th and 9th Chateaus. Miss 8th and Miss 9th married Frenchmen and had already gone back to France a long time ago, so the Miss 8th and 9th Chateaus, now ruined, had become the ideal resting place for the cow-boys and water buffalo-boys. Every time Hung passed by this place when his parents rented a horse powered cavalier to return home during the Tet (new year) holiday season, in the 50s decade, Hung always felt somber and sad.
Hung did not know when his parents moved to the Binh-Phan village. He knew only that his father had to continue his grandfather's career, running a lumber company. The lumber mill was located at the Cau-Sat (Steel Bridge). No business, then never rich , his grandfather often said. Shortly after his parents' move, his aunt followed his father's steps and moved to the vicinity of the Cho-Gao district's market. She built a new house on the lot that his father had just bought. So, his father just gave that piece of land to her. Then, all were surprised that his aunt's business was geared up so fast. She got rich in a very short time. However, if you had a rich father or a rich mother you got off pretty well but if you had a rich uncle or rich aunt you would be the same and would gain nothing from them . One reason why Hung never got any help from his aunt was that she had a bigger family with over fifteen children. When she gave birth to the tenth child, she became tired of calling them by name so she just called them by a number in order of their birth: the Tenth, the Eleventh, the Twelfth. . ., up to whatever number Hung did not know. Then, she tired of calling her children by number and gave them names again: Bich Van, Bich Thuy, etc.
Hung's parents could not get rich because they sold too much of their product on credit to people in the village and all over the district. Then, they spent too much time going around to collect the debts. Gradually, their cash ran out and the saw mill kept shrinking down. Some new mills with gigantic saw machines were established in the area. Hung's father still kept doing business the old fashioned way, sawing the log by hand. Because of their debts, the debtors continued to maintain the business and relationship with his family.
Every time the logs were brought home from Saigon, the villagers came and helped to remove them from the float and secured the right place for the logs to lie down in the bank of the river. Then, there was a party. When bringing the logs from the river over the cross beam, the villagers came to help again. They used a big steel chain; one end to tie up the logs and the other end for going around a post. Two long bars threaded into the holes on a post free to turn. When the work was finished, there was another party. After splitting the log half and half, if the log was solid, his father was very happy and relieved; he knew that he would make some money; however, if the log was hollow, then he hoped that he would break even for that time.
The highest skill of log working was to know what the inside of the log looked like from the log's outside. Some were ugly looking but solid like a candle inside. In contrast, some were nice looking but there were holes or cracks inside. On the other hand, one could buy the logs that looked ugly at a much cheaper price. His father was very fast when he computed figures on a Chinese abacus but he was really slow when he used pencil and paper. The problem was that he computed figures with the old and slow style of the multiplication table every time he wanted to write down a number. Hung remembered some of the calculations by listening to him often. Cuu cuu bat nhat, bat cuu that nhi, that cuu luc tam, luc cuu ngu tu . . . , it was similar to nine times nine was eighty-one, eight times nine was seventy-two, seven times nine was sixty-three, six times nine was fifty-four. . .
His father's business kept going down. Now, he became the debtor to some of the business-men in Saigon. Every time they came down to collect, his mother had to make a good lunch for them, and his father had to find some money to pay them back. He was never able to pay them all off at once.
At that time Hung was sent to elementary school. The elementary school was across the river from the saw mill. It was the Tham-Thu river, a small river, that poured its water into to the Cho-Gao canal. The school actually was the vacation house of Mr. Luong, the chairman of the village council. The foundation of this house was so high, much taller than Hung at that time. It was built in the French style: very tall for more air space. Every day his father had to take him to the school and back home by the canoe. Inside his school bag, which was made by several layers of corrugated paper, there was only the ABC alphabet book. A year later, Mr. Chairman took his house back; and so Hung was forced to graduate early. The elementary school was moved and consolidated with the middle school that was located at the district's market.
The middle school was also a vacation house of a high ranked person in the district: Mr. District Chief. Oh! what a poor district! Hung began to go with his older sisters and brothers to attend the new school, one kilometer each way. He had to run to catch up with the speed of the others. However, he now carried the straw school bag like everybody, not a paper school bag anymore.
About a half year later, the district council planned to build a new school and return the house to the District Chief. All classes including the kindergarten, were held only a half of the day; the rest of the time everybody would go to work at the new school. The new school had three buildings that formed the U character shape and two small octagonally shaped buildings at the front for teachers and the school's superintendent. At the intersection of two walkways that formed a cross, the flag pole would stand with many flowers planted around it. In the four corners, there would be fields for physical education classes or games such as badminton or volleyball. . . Nobody could believe that the beautiful model school would be built in the jungle.
Besides learning to read and write the Vietnamese language, the students had a choice of French or English as a second language; and both were frequently used. The boys and girls like Hung in the elementary classes mostly played during the working time, but they always wanted the class time to go by faster so they could "work" for the school. Anyway, the upperclassmen did all the hard work, cutting down the trees and moving dirt from the hill side to fill up the swamp spots. Water buffalos were used to plow the ground. A soccer field gradually appeared. The walkways then were constructed. Dirt was mixed with the shells of rice for easy drying. The shells of rice were everywhere people walked. At that point, the work of the students was ended and the rest of the work was reserved for skilled carpenters. The wooden structure was raised; the roof was covered by palm leaves, and so forth.
Several months later, the Province Chief came to open the school with a big ceremony. Every one sang together Nay cong dan oi dung len dap loi song nui . . . (Vietnamese anthem: Oh, citizens, stand up for the nation. . ., and Ai bao nam vi song nui quen than minh. . . (President Diem's song of praise for his works: Who forget himself for the nation. . .
Time went by and the school's dirt floor became dried and cracked. Student tables and benches were warped, one end up and one end down. But nobody complained about that. All the village schools were closed and consolidated to this new school. The number of students kept increasing every year. At break time, there were ice cream bars, ice water with syrup, and wheel of fortune for candies to eat. A couple of cents were enough to spend on the sweets.
Every time Hung passed by the old school, when he was growing older, he always thought of his teachers who were still there: Mr. Tam Chuong, Mr. Chin Chuong, and Mr. Hoang -- even Mr. Tu, the ice cream salesman was there. Hung remembered about the spanks he got from his teachers, the fights with his class-mates, the mid-autumn parade at night with free cakes, and the prizes for the best work (the contest of making star shaped lanterns from colored papers and bamboo sticks). He thought that there were not many people who had a chance to build their own school.
Now back to his parents' business. Besides the saw mill, they also had to take care of several acres of rice field that had belonged to his grandfather. This field was located at the end of the Tamarind Road of Mr. Hoang, named by the former chief of the village himself. This was the only road that led to the village soccer field. Next to the soccer field was the Cay-Diep (Autumn Tree) Jungle that their rice field abutted.
The Cay-Diep jungle was said to be the ghost area. The rumor was that devils and ghosts appeared as tigers. They killed and ate people; bones filled up their dens. Hung never saw devils or ghosts; he saw only the cemetery of the members of the Viet-Minh "revolution" (the Indochinese Communist Party formed in 1945), the people who should have no place in this world when they lived and no place in the ground when they died. The Viet-Minh members once buried a large number of their comrades, about a battalion, there. It was surely not an easy job to do because they hid the old bodies anywhere they dug. They would dig and cover back, night by night. The jungle seemed to have already several layers of dead bodies.
Any time Hung went to the rice field, he had to pass this strange cemetery that always scared him. The scariest time was at night when it rained or drizzled. The light from his small lamp could not brighten the path of his feet, so how could it brighten the bushes and trees around him? He crossed his fingers and kept on going with a shaky feeling. Staying in the middle of the group was much better, and the worst thing one could do was be at the end of the line. It looked like the souls of those who died suddenly by the bullets and the bayonets did not want to go anywhere, even to heaven or hell. These souls just wanted to stay or wander around their totally broken bodies which were uncarefully buried in this forgetting world.
The rice field was right on the edge of the Cay-Diep Jungle. The two man, foot operated water wheel faced toward this jungle. At night, the water wheel's operators often kept the time by burning incense. That seemed to give a sense of praying for those souls to go some place. The men switched their turns when the incense was completely burned out. The perfume from the incense was not strong enough to run off the mosquitos which from time to time would bite much like a bee sting. The incense seemed to burn forever because the men had to power the water wheel for a long period of time. Their feet kept pushing down even while their bodies were going to sleep. A wrong step would occur and then a leg would get hurt. The friend on the other side would also complain:
"Are you sleeping? Just a couple of sticks of incense burned, and now you are falling fast asleep? To finish our shift, the whole bundle of the incense has to burn don't you know? The low tide is just changing now, a couple of hours more; we still have not yet finished!"
"It sounds terrible. Take a break, men. We must go into the jungle to find some manioc to eat. Go, quickly men, I am hungry."
The hungry ghosts were never afraid of the devils that did not even have a place to die! Manioc were plentiful although no one planted them. Guava was also plentiful, but it may have been planted by the birds: they would eat and shit the seeds everywhere.
Hung's father finally stopped running the saw mill business. He founded the rice mill in the Binh-Phuc-Nhut village. He bought the machine and equipment from one of his friends near the Cho-Gao ferry. He took it apart, brought it to the new place and put it back together. From the beginning, the business picked up real fast. People in the village no longer had to bring their rice to the Quon-Long mill. However, his father was not comfortable for a simple reason: the mill was in one place, and its owner was in another. After going back and forth a couple of months, his father finally assigned the rice mill to his uncle. Once in a while his father came to visit the mill and received the money. In his mind, he never was comfortable at all. He actually foresaw that something bad soon would happen. One night he dreamed about a worm, a big, green, and fully haired caterpillar larva. He did not know where it came from; it suddenly appeared on the table. It slowly moved and climbed up on the lamp. It reached the lamp bulb and. . . bang , the lamp bulb exploded. Early that morning, he received bad news about his rice mill: the fly wheel of the main engine was broken. One piece had flown away and hit the house post. The house collapsed on one side and several people were wounded. The engine was too old with two fly wheels, one on each side, and missing one it could not be operated. There were no parts to replace and it was no use to reweld the wheel they had because there was no warranty that it would not be broken again. Finally, his father sold the engine and the rice mill equipment to be used as recycling metals.
Having no success with the rice mill, Hung's father changed his career once more, making the saw mill into a furniture and coffin manufacturing company. He went back to Saigon to buy logs again, but processed the cutting at the saw mill of the log owner. Then he brought them home by car on the road instead of by boat on the river. He often bought a small amount of lumber, just enough for his own use, if nobody ordered house frame materials. Several carpenters in the villages came to work for him and they usually preferred to stay over night at their working place, going home only for the weekend. At night, these carpenters usually got together for talking and drinking tea. They joked, too. Mom, I would like to marry a carpenter, because he always plows the wood deeper and deeper . Some sang a poem or folk song. Some played music using a leaf of the holly tree for an instrument by placing it in the mouth. It sounded just like funeral music.
If a carpenter wanted to get rich, he would have to curse his energy power -- the Lo-Ban curse as the Vietnamese said -- into the products he made. For example, he might secretly carve any symbol (Chinese characters or pictures) into a rabbet. The carpenters had to do it if they did not want to see their houses ruined, their wives and children die young. If not a big curse, just make a small one , their Goddess taught them that. Hence, Hung's father received many complaints. This was from Mrs. To:
"The bed that I bought from you is weird. Every morning when I get up I can not figure out how to get out of it. The door of the mosquito net is on one side but I always try to open it on the other side."
Then, Mr. Dai also complained:
"From the day I brought my bed home from your company, my wife always turns her face into the wall when she sleeps!"
But the most serious complaint was from Mr. Trau:
"What the heck do your carpenters curse? My son wets in bed every night! The bed I ordered from you is for a married couple, don't you know? If this situation keeps on continuing, my son's wife cannot live with him anymore because of this blasted problem, don't you hear me?"
No one knew what was happening! No one knew if the superstition about bet wetting was true or not! However, Mr. Trau kept yelling at Hung's father like that every day. Hung's father got tired of the complaint and kindly replaced Mr. Trau's son's bed with another one at no cost.
The special carpenter was the one who made the coffins. His unique skill was to know how to trim a big piece of wood to fit the coffin cover. He used his special tool: an ax with the ax-head (balance bar) longer than the ax-handle. It was not easy to do this job; everybody knew it. The cover of a man's coffin was different from that of a woman's coffin. His salary was the highest, almost twice that of the other carpenters, but he always said that he planned to quit the job or to go work at the other place if he could not get a raise. Hung's father always had trouble with this man, but it was not easy to find someone to replace him. We always wondered if at night there were some strange noises going on in the coffin area, whether, in the following morning someone in the village had died and a coffin was sold. Every night Hung saw his father pray on the table of prayer; but he did not know what his father was praying. Did he pray that everybody in the village would die tomorrow?
When Hung's mother started a small department store, his father stopped running the furniture and the coffin company. He had a new career now: shipping, receiving, and paper work for his wife. The store boomed with profits and kept going strong for a couple of years. In those years in the Tet holiday season, there were flowers, watermelon and other fruits, foods, fire crackers, and money as Tet's gift for every one. However, some bigger stores that were open near the bridge on the highway tried to win the customers. His mother's store was a little bit far away from the market place and began to lose the people's interest. Merchandise was less and less; shelves were becoming empty and empty. Man had felt, now woman had felt it, too. People's lives were just like the water tide, sometimes high sometimes low. . .
Bim-bip (a slow bird) sang,
high tide comes, darling.
No profit for the business,
we are tired of moving the boat.
The boat that was used to float the logs home was gradually deteriorating in the shed. Hung's father felt bad for his boat and tried to bring her back alive by fixing her up. Then, he started a new generation of saw mill businesses. He mortgaged the rice field to get money for capital for his new venture.
That was the year Hung began going to the Chieu Dinh Nguyen high school at My-Tho city. Each one had one's own home-village and one's own childhood. That was it; Hung's home-village and childhood had no big things; however, it always followed closely with him like a man and his shadow. It is there in the front of him like it is happening now; but sadly it passed by a long time ago.
(In rememberance of when I was in Elementary School)
02. COUNTRY SCHOOL BOY AT THE DOOR OF LOVE
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Every one knew that there were only two seasons in South Vietnam, the rainy season and the dry season. People in the South would rest when there was rain, would sleep when there was sunshine, and would work a little when it was cloudy! Was that right? Yes, one usually said that it was the region of work like play but eat like eat . Compared with the North, the land of drought , and the Central, the land of rock , the South was so different: the land of prosperity . People in the South had plenty of food and goods. Was that right? Yes, people usually said that, but it was not that and sometimes it was worse than that , this non-literary idiom now had its place for use. And Hung's case could be an exception because there were no plentiful foods and goods at all when Hung left home and went to the city to attend the Junior High (in Vietnam, the high school had both Junior High, 6th grade to 9th grade, and High, 10th grade to 12th grade).
"Just let them go to school, and we will see later on that they carry the bucket to borrow grains or letters ? Hey, the poor tried to be like the rich!"
The neighbors in the village always gossiped about the others' successes. It was difficult to change the habits of the poor farmers. However, Hung did not know the reasons his parents insisted that their children go to school. It was just said "to go school" for pleasing the ears, but the real meaning was "go to fight for your life". His parents were busy making a living, so they did not have time to take care of their children. If God gave life, then God must raise . They did not know even where their children lived.
Hung followed his older sisters, Kim and Cuc, and his older brother, Tan, to fullfill one part of his life as a "country boy going to the city". This was the first time that he went to the city of My-Tho by bus. Although his sisters and brother were with him, he still felt nervous. He had many things to think about, and he did not know what to do. Where would he eat, where would he sleep, and what school would he go to? Suddenly, he felt that the responsibility to take care of himself was too big and heavy.
Something good that would come soon came. He passed the concurrent test to get into the public school; his sisters and brother still had to go to the private school. The classes in his school were only a half of the day and he had the other half to play in the school yard. The school uniform was a white shirt, black shorts, and a pair of thongs. The shirt had to be kept inside the shorts even with the elastic band shorts. His new school was so big and it had a cement floor, brick walls, and tile shingles on the roof. There were not any dirt floors, wooden walls, or palm leaf roof like his old school. Along the edges of his school entrance, two lines of limestone were laid that looked like two long dragons. The autumn trees were planted beside them with the long branches connected in the air so that they completely blocked sunshine, providing dense shade. Everything was so nice. And he thought that there was no way for him to make a bad grade even if he wanted.
The first place Hung stayed was Mr. Seven's house. Hung did not know his name, Hung knew only of his family order, the seventh. Mr. Seven came from the area of the Vinh-Trang Buddhist Temple, Hung thought. Actually, Mr. Seven's house was not a house at all. It was only a shed that was built in the dead end alley next to the wire fence of the city's Agricultural Department. This area unfortunately was called the Area of the Pig Slaughter House because it was located right on the front gate of the Agricultural Department. A Chanh-Hung (the slaughter house in the capital of Saigon) of the My-Tho city. Later on, however, nobody called it the Pig Slaughter House Area anymore because people got together to sell and buy things, and over time, were crowded enough to be a market. The market was named Thanh-Tri Market, and this area then became the Thanh-Tri Market Area. Mr. Seven was already retired, but he did not go back to his homeland to live. He still loved the slaughter house just like it was a part of his life and career. Sometimes he came to visit it and brought back to the shed some intestine links. These links were not good to eat and were used only for extracting the cooking fat. The link residues were of different sizes and shapes and had an ugly look. However, when there was nothing to eat while his stomach was empty, Hung ate some of them. Mr. Seven could not go back to his homeland anyway because, Hung thought, he never had a piece of land there. But, where were his children? Hung never saw anyone come to visit the old man.
Hung did not know who introduced Mr. Seven to his oldest sister, Kim. The rent was very right for them, almost nothing. Mr. Seven stayed in the room closest to the front with one small bed and one small table, and Hung's group had the rest of the house. At night, when the folded beds were open, there almost was not enough room for anything, but his sister Cuc decided to bring her friend, Miss Sen from Tan-Thach village, Ben-Tre province, to live there with them. Sometimes Mr. Seven said:
"I am happy when I see all of you. I feel so sad when all of you must go home for the weekend. Sometime I go to the Gas-Station and drink coffee for a long period of time and try to forget everything."
Monday was the busiest and most joyous day. It was a busy day because the Hung group must get up early to take the bus from home to the My-Tho city. When they passed the Cho-Gao ferry, they knew that they had to go a half way more. If they had not yet passed it, they felt that they had gone nowhere. When they arrived at the city, they had to get a man with a tricycle to haul their things to Mr. Seven's house. In some unlucky days, they got a weak and slow tricycler, then there was only one thing for them to do keep praying that the sun, please, would come slowly. Monday was a joyous day because the cooked foods brought along were plenteous. There were many things to choose from when they had lunch or dinner: meat balls, sweet and sour shrimp, and bitter melon soup. . . They ate little by little, but there was always nothing to eat at the end of the week.
Hence, they had planted beside the dish-washing board some vegetables that grew along the fence of the Agricultural Department. Purple spinach and green squash were the most easy plants to raise. Because the spinach did not grow fast enough, it became only vines that stuck on the fence without any support from the leaves. The fate of the squash was the same. First, the fruits were eaten, the flowers were next, the sprouts then were cut, and the young leaves were last to be consumed. The vegetable soups without meat were still ỌK.; rice soup that was drained from the cooked rice sometimes made Hung sick. Therefore, he and his hungry brother, Tan, always had to find some way to sneak out of the house. Hung went to the house of his friend Kien, and Tan also ran to the house of his friends Au or Chu. The friend visiting had another purpose of just now finding something to eat. Later on, of course, their friends understood the case.
Hung did not know why Kien wanted to be friends with him. Hung thought that it might be because Hung was a very good student! Compared to Hung, Kien's family was so rich. His house was located on Vong-Nho street, beside the steel bridge. From the outside, people would see only a thick fruit garden with prunes, mangos, and guava surrounded by a brick fence with pointed metal bars and a heavy metal gate. This house once was the headquarters of the Cao Dai Armed Forces during the war against the French, Hung believed. Behind the gate there was a V shaped, red clay walkway that led to two stair steps about two meters tall, side by side, connected to a brick front porch. Inside the house, the round posts were made of expensive woods brightened by a heavy black finishing coat. Mother-of-pearl inlaid, antique furniture for looks rather than use, was displayed everywhere. Behind the house, a kitchen was built; beyond that, the recreation room housed a pool table and ping-pong table. Behind the back yard, there was a huge fish pond in which the family raised fish. On the other side of the pond, there was a vast prairie where Kien and Hung usually flew their kites after dinner.
The dinner at Kien's house was just like the dinner at a fancy restaurant. Appetizers, the main meal, and desserts were attended to by the servants. Everyone had his own set of silverware, plate, and hand towel. Hung did not feel comfortable with this kind of service at all; the foods may have looked very good but the taste was not always so good. Although Hung was young at that time, he already knew how bad it was to beg for food; therefore, he starved many times at home.
Hung left his friend when Kien gave Hung some used socks and a pair of shoes for his new school uniform. Hung could not handle the differences anymore. Summer time made the separation easier. Though they had been friends for over a year, Kien did not know where Hung lived. The covering up was perfect, Hung thought.
In the following years, although they went to the same school, Kien and Hung had all different classes because they each chose to learn different foreign languages. Kien picked English and Hung selected French, so the close friendship was not renewed.
Hung's oldest sister, Kim, had to move to Saigon to find work. She got a job as a ticket seller at the only horse racing field in the country. She worked only on the weekend and she still went to school on the school days. She sent back some money for the rest of Hung's group to pay rent because they did not stay with Mr. Seven anymore. Mr. Seven had died and his house was sold.
Hung had loved Mr. Seven. Hung remembered the day Mr. Seven took him to the slaughter house. To be correct, one must say that this was the cow and pig slaughter house, instead of only the pig slaughter house, because people there killed both cows and pigs. Cows were smashed in the head by a big hammer. Some got one hit then died, but some still lived even after several hits. Pigs were slaughtered on the three foot high cement foundation that had gutters on the sides to convey the blood collection. Hung did not know why Mr. Seven let him see those killing scenes. Many times he woke up in the middle of the night and heard the sounds of pig squeals. But, someone told him that it was not pig sounds, it was the sound of the crazy man who killed the thousands of pigs.
The second place that Hung stayed was Mr. Bo's house. There were two main differences from Mr. Seven's house. First, Hung's group had only one room to share at the side of the house. And second, they had to pay much higher rent. The area was also well known compared with the Pig Slaughter House Area. This was called the Hang-Cong Area because there was a line of Cong trees (big like maple trees) that could be seen from far away. This area was well known because it was where the whore houses were located. In order to save some money, Hung's group had to stay there and they tried to learn the lesson of a lotus. The lotus was so beautiful in the pond, it was so close to the mud yet it had no muddy smell . Actually, half of the area was bad, from the Cong trees to the Canal Digging Company. The other half was good, from the fish-egg trees to the French cemetery, with flower gardens and a small Buddha shed.
The road led to the Hang-Cong Area which was the trail that ran along the railroad built in the middle of the city's fresh water wells (reservoirs). Nobody cut the grass and it grew tall over the people's knee. This trail was actually used only in the dry season. In the rainy season people walked on the railroad.
In the evening at that time, Hung and Duc, his class mate from Loc-Thuan, Ben-Tre province, and their friends often took a ride on the train that turned around for the morning run. The horsing around was interesting, cost them nothing to have fun, but was dangerous, like the scene of the fight between the Americans and the Indians in the movies. From the main terminal, the train went backwards to Hang-Cong, turned into the Bau-Sung swamp area, then went forward out to the Xom-Tre, Nam-Noi area, and then went backwards back to the terminal. When the train left the terminal, they jumped in and when the train went back to the terminal, they jumped out. The turn around train usually ran slowly; however, it was crazy on some days and ran at full speed and smoke. When they jumped out, the members of Hung's gang fell on the ground and rolled many turns before they came to their senses. It hurt badly. Later on, when they got more experience, they rode the train to the city and then jumped out when it reduced speed. Anyway, they had to jump before the train was back in the terminal because they would be in real big trouble if they were found and captured by the station guards.
Nobody could predict that the railroad would become the Kiet Thuong Ly extended street that runs from the the house of President Thieu's mother-in-law, past the water reservoirs, the Cao Dai religious temple, Vong-Nho Street, the Dinh Cong Truong Semi-private High, the Ngoc-Tuong Buddha Temple, the Military Exchange Shop, the Binh-Duc Air-strip, the Chan-Phuc-Minh Catholic Institute, and then merge into the road that led to the 4th Highway. The whore houses were disappearing and the Hang-Cong Area now became clean with its new name: the Well's Upper Border Area.
Hung thought that Mr. and Mrs. Bo's chosen careers may have been influenced by the closeness of the community because they both selected nursing. After full-time hours working at the main city hospital, they made a good business going around to give shots to sick people. However, their two boys were sick all the time and skinny like two prematurely delivered babies. They never seemed to grow.
Hung never felt comfortable staying at Mr. Bo's house. All his actions must be set in time. He could not even stay up late to study because the two boys would have awakened. There was no freedom even to plant vegetables in the back yard. So Hung's group planted only one kind, mint. Although under the shade of a big tropical cotton tree, the mint was pretty green. Hung and his brother were very much dependent on that mint pad. When the money ran out, for several days in a row they ate rice with only mint dipped into the soy sauce. The wind brought the lettuce to the heaven, the mints stayed back to love the soy sauce smell , as they sang. (The folk song actually said: The wind brought the lettuce to the heaven, the mints stayed back to receive all the bitterness). However, when Hung's sister tried to substitute something else for their meal of mint and rice, it was even worse. Every time Hung remembered he hurt in his heart.
"Sister, do we have something new to eat today? Or are we to get the same thing?"
"There is a pan of cooked fish on the stove."
When they heard about fish, Hung and his brother were really happy and hurried quickly to set up the table. However, when the lid was removed, Hung was so surprised:
"What kind of fish is this, sister? Why, there are only fish heads?"
"It is from Mrs. Bo she gives us only these parts. At least you can eat them for a change!"
Hung felt so sorry and he looked at his brother who took the lid and kindly covered up the pan:
"Sister, why did you do that? I insist that it is better for us to starve . . ."
"I cannot see two of you eat only mint leaves and soy sauce for so long."
Then, the sister and two brothers embraced together in tears.
A year after, they said good bye to Mr. and Mrs. Bo and went to Mr. Hau's house. Mr. Hau was a janitor of the Tru Cong Nguyen private school, the school that Hung's sister and brother were going to. The school's owner was Mr. Chan Van Le, Mr. Hau's uncle. He let Mr. Hau take care of a piece of land on the Vong-Nho street, near Pho-Duc Buddha Temple. Across from the street, there was the house of a retired school superintendent. This was the only house in the city of My-Tho that looked like a church. The superintendent's daughters thought that they were the upper class people and did not want to make friends with Hung's group. In both sides of this section of the Vong-Nho street there were creeks. The superintendent's house had a cement bridge and Mr. Hau's house had only a coconut trunk. This difference made Mr. Hau's side low in class.
Like Mr. Seven, Mr. Hau let Hung's group stay free. However, they had to build their own room, from the wall of his house to the milk tree. They went to the jungle behind the back yard to cut trees. After passing by a limestone tomb and a small pond with the white prune tree, there was the place. The bigger tree limbs would be used as posts and the smaller ones as rafters. Right after the very first hit, Hung's brother fainted. He got back to the house and surely had a fever. It was so strange. Mrs. Hau cooked some foods to curse the ghosts and he gradually got well.
The living conditions of Hung's group improved a lot when they stayed with Mr. Hau. They were free to plant vegetables. To eat meal without vegetables was just like a rich man's funeral without music , so the open land was totally used. The lettuce and the cabbage were green by the many rows; the squashes and cucumbers were hung around all over the frames. Fishes and shrimps were also easy to find just like hand catching, mouth eating . If none were lazy, they made a dam, pumped the water out by hand, and then caught a school of fish. If they were a little bit lazy, they caught the fish by fishing poles. If they were real lazy, they planted the stationary fishing poles overnight and harvested the fish in the morning.
Although it was far away, the tide of Bao-Dinh river still reached this area. During the rainy season, Mr. Hau planted a lot of manioc, not for eating but for catching rats for food. Grain fed rats were as big as little pigs. There were two kinds of grain fed rats identified by their sounds. Only those rats that had a low pitched sound could be eaten; the others were killed and buried. Fruit trees were also plentiful. Besides banana and coconut trees that were planted everywhere, there were prunes, mangos, grape fruit, guavas, and milk trees. The milk tree next to Hung's front porch was unfriendly, and sometimes would drop its fruits on Hung's body in the middle of the night. The palm leaf roof seemed like nothing to falling fruits.
Now, Hung remembered that he was living in the South, the area of work like play but eat like eat . Once more, his sister, Cuc, brought her friend, Sen, to come live with them. Hung's friends always wanted to visit him and his fruit trees. They brought their bowls along and had dinner in the limestone tomb. Those evenings were very memorable.
In such a short period of time that the palm leaf roof was not rotten, they had to move again. Not only Hung's group but also Mr. Hau's family had to move. Mr. Chan's children wanted to get his fortune although he was not dead yet. The oldest son got the Van-Cam Theater, in the Phu-Nhuan quarter of the city of Saigon. The daughters were satisfied with their farms in the Thanh-Binh village. Only the youngest son, Mr. Nam-Trung, took the land along the Vong-Nho Street. And he would have liked to sell this land to get money to build the Chan Van Le Apartments near the Dinh Cong Truong Semi-private High. That was a very good reason to kick Mr. Hau out. But he let Mr. Hau take care of the other piece of land that was far away from him at the Xom-Tre hamlet, near Binh-Duc Air-strip.
This time, together with Mr. Hau's family, they had to go out of the city. Mr. Hau built his new house. Across a small creek from Mr. Hau Hung's group also built their new house. Mr. Hau's family was much bigger now since Mrs. Hau had just given birth to the sixth child. Hung's group also grew with Hung's younger sister, Gam, a new 6th grader. Hung's team now tried to be independent because they were old enough to take care of themselves. And they had a lot of friends, boys and girls, so they needed to be left alone sometimes.
At the time Hung was about 16 years old, he rarely came home on the weekends. He stayed in the My-Tho city with his friends. When they got money, they could go to the Tau-Bay restaurant to eat "pho" (Vietnamese noodle), to the Phanh-Ky restaurant to eat Chinese soup, or to the Chau-Dieu bar to play pool. Many times one thought that another had money and caused someone to sit while the others had to go to get money, by pawning something such as a Parker pen or a Ray-Ban pair of glasses. When they had no money, they went to swim in the Mekong river at the park, at the main ferry, or at the boat ramp of the Do-Quang rice mill. When the tide was low, it was too deep, ten meters or more, to take a jump, but nobody seemed to be scared of dying. Even with the upright jumping position, they stayed under water so long they feared they would not reach the surface. Stupid? That was right, stupid, but if friends could do it, then you could! They sometimes went out of the city limits to the Con-Rong island, to the Tan-Thach village in Ben-Tre province, to the North area of Ben-Chua and Tan-Hiep villages, or to the Northwest area of Cai-Lay and Cai-Be districts for sight-seeing or eating.
In the middle of that academic year, Hung was free to eat breakfast at the school. The salesmen of French bread sandwiches, soy bean milk, and fruit drink, and so forth, all of them refused to take Hung's money:
"No you do not have to pay. Someone already paid for you in advance. It was enough for you to eat a whole month!"
Hung put the money back in his pocket, and shrugged his shoulders:
"Are you sure? Who is that someone?"
"That is a secret. If the secret is revealed, you have nothing to eat and I have no one to sell to understand?"
"But, how do you know I am the one to eat free?"
"Hey, that is also a secret, and the secret, like I have already said, cannot be revealed!"
Those salesmen kept quiet, Hung did not know who paid for his breakfast, but he knew that they were not his relatives. He kept thinking but found no solution. One day, however, the salesman for soy bean milk asked him for the money. He put his hand in his pocket and said:
"Oh, you mean no one paid in advance for me today?"
Suddenly, the salesman remembered something and asked:
"Are you the one that usually goes with the guy that has a big birth mark on his face? Where is he today? Here, keep your money."
That was Hung's friend, Chau with a nickname Hammer Chau because of that big birth mark. So the secret had been revealed. Then, Chau also knew about the other secret of the free breakfast and wanted to share the meal. That was it, Hung had no more information for almost a month. Then, Hung changed his strategy when he met the sandwich salesman:
"I think I would be carrying too much sin if I keep on not paying you like that. In three days more if you do not tell me who they are, I have to go out hungry for school!"
"What? Are you kidding me?"
"No. I am not kidding!"
"There is someone who wants to take care of you and you do not like it?"
Hung's new strategy was working. At the end of the third day, the sandwich salesman gave him a letter with nothing written on the outside. Hung opened the note, secretly read it alone, and said to Chau:
"Oh, no I am really in trouble . . ."
"What the heck is the trouble. Let me see . . ., tell me what it is."
No way, Hung could not tell! In the letter, there was only a girl's picture with some scribbled words in the back: "for my darling". It was Cam, a friend of Hung's younger sister who had lived near by his new house. She had come to his house just a couple of times. Now, what was Hung supposed to do?
"Do you dare to hide the note from me? I will know anyway!"
On the next day, Hung gave the sandwich salesman a letter asking Cam out on a date at a place on a very quiet street. It was not easy for him to do anything and he was afraid that people would see them. Cam was very little, no breasts yet, and she should have been home and not on the street with a boy. Hung knew that he would make Cam feel terribly bad because Hung considered that she was like his little sister.
However this event put him right on the door of love that he had never thought of reaching. Hung asked himself who loved him and whom would he yet love? He thought to himself wondering whether a ninth grader boy like himself was old enough? He remembered that one day he followed Mr. Hau to paint Tru Cong Nguyen School, and Mr. Hau tried to introduce him to Phuong, Mr. Chan Van Le's grand-daughter. Mr. Hau said that she was not a good student but she had a rich family, and in Hung's case if he married her, he would be better off later on. Then, Van, his friend's sister also liked Hung. She saved all the good fruits for him. When she gave them to him, she tended to keep the touch of their hands together a little bit longer. Her eyes surely wanted to say many words of love. Furthermore, the sugarcane salesgirl at the main ferry also paid attention to Hung. On that day, a fight had almost broken out between Hung and the other guys who liked her, but it was lucky that his body guard, the Hammer Chau came. Hung advised those boys that he would let them have her if they acted nicely. He mentioned that he did not want to gain anything from those ugly guys. He was so proud of himself that time.
Cam, Phuong, Van, and the sugarcane salesgirl were all sixth graders. It seemed that the sixth grade was the grade for love-searching girls in My-Tho City. With Hung, there was another sixth grader, Hong-Lan, who attended Mr. Binh Cong Pham's private school. There were two beautiful girls, the older was Hong-Hoa, the younger was Hong-Lan (From a famous poem of the poet Du Nguyen: There were two beautiful girls, the older was Thuy-Kieu the younger was Thuy-Van) . Hong-Lan had a skinner figure, egg-white skin color, and natural red lips. Mr. Pham's two boys always stationed themselves at the stairway waiting for her every morning. Lu the son of the Batou Tailor Shop, pedaled his bicycle to follow her around the whole Le-Loi Street. Chau the boy from the French cemetery quarter, also jumped in. And there were a bunch of boys from Ben-Tre Province such as Hoa from the Giao-Long village, Thien from the Vang-Quoi village, and Lac from Binh-Dai village who tried to get to know and talk with her. All of them were Hung's friends. They did not know that Hung was trying very hard to court her and eventually got her.
The reason was that she was in the same class with Hung's sister. Hung had many opportunities to talk with Hong-Lan at home or during the walking trips to the fruit garden in the Xom-Tre village. One time Hung stopped by at Hong-Lan's house to discover that she was at home alone. He was really afraid; wondering if he had stopped at the right time, right place. So was she, Hung thought. Suddenly, Mrs. Sau her neighbor came. Hong-Lan was now ironing her clothes on her bed and above hung a hammock that Hung went to sit on. Mrs. Sau jokingly said:
"This girl does not know even how to iron her clothes, so how are you capable of handling things when you get married, lady?"
"If I know how to iron or not it would not matter because don't you see I almost have burned them?"
At the end of that year, Kim, Hung's oldest sister, graduated from high school and got married in Saigon. Cuc, Hung's older sister, also graduated from high school and became a teacher in the Cai-Lay District, My-Tho Province. Tan, Hung's older brother, and Hung passed the national junior high examination. Gam, Hung's younger sister, passed the concurrent test for entering the junior high school. If they had been a rich family, there would have been a big party. However, Hung's parents gave them only fifty piasters each, not enough to go out to eat ice cream with friends at My-Duyen's restaurant.
Anyway, if Hung had the chance to do it all over again, although he did have to struggle for his life, he would beg God to let him be what he had been, a country school boy at the door of love.
(In rememberance of when I was in Middle School)
03. IN THE MEMORY REGION
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
The extended Kiet Thuong Ly Street, which was born from the railroad, always gave people a lot of trouble in both dry and rainy seasons. The reason was simply that this street was taken care of by Mr. Tam, a worker of the Highway Department. For both protection and repair, the only thing he learned from construction class was to bring up the "made in Vietnam" asphalt, the dirt from the rice field, to cover the street. In the dry season, there was a dirt storm every time a car or a breeze of air passed by. Dirt rings formed around people's nostrils when they walked anywhere along the whole street. In the rainy season, the street became mud. No bicycle or motorcycle could be used if the owners did not want to carry it on their shoulders or to push it beside the road. Even when people only walked, their feet kept getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier from the sticky mud. But the school girls had the most difficult situation because they did not know what to do to protect their white "ao-dai" uniforms from mud when walking on this street.
Although this was a big problem, the street also gave the people like Hung who lived with it for so long many lovely memories. At that time, the war had not come to the cities yet. People still lived in peace, and there was no curfew at night. Hung and his friends often played their music up to two or three o'clock in the morning on the street and it did not bother their neighbors. Oh, the lovely egg white moon light, there was a maple tree and a dreamed, clumsy man on the moon (Duy Pham's song). With those songs and the moon lighted nights like that, their music talents were improved from time to time. What did the clumsy man have a dream about? Who knew! However, Hung had dreamed that the street had always belonged to him and his friends instead of to the city or a private company.
This area was out of the city limits, and there were not many houses nor wall to wall concrete apartments. On one side of the street, there were the rice fields up to the Chau Tung Ngo Street that led to Binh-Duc Village and Dong-Tam Military Base. On the other side of the street, there were fruit gardens up to Phuong Tri Nguyen Street that led to Trung-Luong, Ben-Chua areas of the 4th Highway. Inside this fruit orchard, there was a private zoo belonging to Mr. Khanh which had all kinds of birds and reptiles.
This land brought to Hung two good things. First, it was very interesting to live near the rice fields. In the rainy season, he went out to catch frogs and fishes that followed the flood water during the rain. In the dry season, he fished by pole or dug them out of the mud oasis. Second, it was very interesting to live near the fruit gardens. He had all kinds of fruits to eat by stealing. The neighbor's fruits always tasted better. Hung and his friends, even the short ones, did not have to climb any fruit trees because they had slingshots in their hands. The mango was just like a lovely bell that hung by a stem small as a thread. It was better for the shooter to shoot right at the stem if he did not want to lose his turn as a shooter. The shooter would become the "goalie" who would catch the mango if he dislodged the mango.
Mango shooting was easy; however, shooting ducks or chickens was not easy at all. It was difficult because the ducks and chickens knew how to run and usually stayed around the house. The owner of the house obviously was an important obstacle. The ducks or chickens had to be hit right at their eye, with no second bullet possible. It was a little bit cruel, but Hung's group really needed the meat for their soup pot. Eating gave them the energy to discuss more about politics and the war that was going on in their country. High school students now did not have much time to do anything. Sooner or later they had to choose one of the three directions: nationalism, communism, or half and half. This meant that they must soon join the Armed Forces, the guerrilla forces, or. . . the teaching forces.
If there were no ducks or chickens, they had to dig worms to fish. Of course, they did not want to sit hours at the bank of the Mekong river without any catch, so they would fish in the private ponds. To steal fish from the pond seemed more difficult than to kill the ducks or chickens around the house by slingshot. Anyone knew that the fish would bite right away when the bait was thrown down. The caught fish then had to be moved out of the water before it made any noise that would trigger the owner to come out checking for burglars. At the bank, the fish was put into a sand bag because the fish also knew how to "bark" like a dog: "swish-swash, swish-swash. . ., swish-swash." There was no need to worry about the fishing line, fishing hook, fishing pole. They needed only to run as fast as they could. If lucky they caught a big mother fish. A small daughter fish was not enough and they would have do it again and the chance of getting caught by the owner was increased. Their hearts would jump out of their lungs if they kept doing things like that.
Those night missions of Hung's gang were then exported to the area of Go-Cat and the Vinh-Trang Buddha Temple. Many of Hung's friends lived there. Ducks and chickens were more numerous because the fruit orchids there were much bigger and connected together like never ending rows. Some places, the trees were so dense that with one more step one would discover another Angkor Wat Temple. However, Hung had the feeling of being like Robinson Crusoe who lived on an isolated island.
On the Christmas Eve of 1963, there were only three of them, Hung and his friends Hiep and Quyen, who was the host. After eating fish soup, suddenly Quyen remembered something, and said:
"Hey, Misses Bat-Tri (Not knowledgeable), Bat-Minh (Not smart), and Bat-Thong (Not understandable) are bad. We needed to teach them this lesson of pond fishing. I heard that they knew only how to catch the mud fish in the river banks for their meals."
Hiep had his ideas:
"That is right! Because they ate only the mud fish, they then became good and famous students. We ate the pond fish that ate the shit so we were too dumb because the shit came up to our heads. Hey, there are some fish ponds around Mr. Ba's house. We had to catch some for him to eat and drink."
Hung asked, "Who was Mr. Ba?"
Right away, Hiep gave his answer, "He was the man who lived near by the Vinh-Trang Buddha Temple. You just met him a couple of days ago. You forgot him that fast? He is also the Mr. Bat-Thanh (Not successful), the father of those Misses Bat, as Quyen just reminded. He then gave his dog the name of Bat-Tu (Not death)! Well, just wait until some day I will kill his dog and then Mr. Bat-Thanh will know if his dog dies or not. Let him eat his dog so then he will stop his habit of naming "bat bat" (not not) anymore."
"Oh, the man with the violin," Hung remembered now. "Hey, we could not do something not human, not faithful, or not knowing what was wrong and what was right. I heard Quyen said that he was a good man, right Quyen? He knew how to play the violin so why did not we invite him, the man who did not care about anything in his life, to join our band for more skill."
Hiep laughed harder, "O.K. He is a man who had guts. He does not even care about what the people say; so he continues to try and get Quyen's mother all the time."
Quyen did not like that, and he changed the subject: "Stop it, men. If you want to go down town then follow me to pick up your clothes!"
"Go down town right now?"
"Yes, this is Christmas night, men, do you not know?"
"All right!"
Hung and Hiep ran with Quyen to the clothes closet of Quyen's father. They could have worn either a sport coat or a long sleeved coat. Those oversized coats made them look like inspectors or double agents in a movie. Three guys now stepped out of the house in the middle of the night and disappeared in the dark. Hiep suggested taking the short cut in the dark orchard-like jungle. Quyen and Hung agreed. At the end of the trail that merged into the main road, Hung's gang fell into the ambush of the soldiers of the Four Kilometer Road Stone Fort.
"Who is there? Everybody hands up!"
"No need to play games, men. . ."
Quyen had talked.
"Hands up now or I will blow your heads off!"
The noise of bullets that came up into the barrel could be heard, and the light from the flash beams were pointed in their faces. What was that? Those young soldiers in this area had long paid respect to Hung's gang; why were they completely changed now? It was same trail that had been used by Hung's gang a million times. Was there a confrontation between Quyen and those guys? That may have been it! Hung was angry but he had to be hands up because the guys could have shot him accidently . . .
"Who is there? Stop! `War Front!'"
"`Assault!' Go five, back eight, and catch three of them!"
This was the first time Hung was kept in the bunker, and this was the first time he gave mosquitos a big "reveillon" (midnight meal on Christmas in French). In the morning, Nang, the fort's leader said to their face that he released Hung's gang because of his humanity. From that point on, Hung felt that peaceful times were ending, and speech without the back up of guns could not make anybody listen anymore.
Ba-Sau was Quyen's mother. Her husband was not dead but yet she had already become a widow. Her husband retreated to the North as a Viet-Minh comrade because he only heard what the communist said but never saw what the communist did (President Thieu had said: Do not hear what the communists say, we have to see what the communist does). Ba-Sau stayed as a widow with her mother from the day he left, and Quyen became a fatherless child in the family. His father now became a high ranked person in the North. He had planned to send someone home to bring Quyen there with him. However, Quyen was influenced by capitalism and he did not want to go. One by one, Quyen's cousins followed the Ho-Chi-Minh trail to the North. Cong, the son of Quyen's seventh aunt, had gone last year. Dan, Cong's sister, may have gone that year. Hung liked Van, whose name Dan was then changed to the new name Van, that was fitting for a girl, and he prayed to God that she would not go.
"Darling, you have to think twice. You are a girl, and you are not strong enough to cope with the weather in the Truong-Son mountain range."
"My father was in the North and my mother was in prison in the South. I even do not know who I am to listen to?"
"You listen to your grandmother, and grandma never wanted you to go."
Quyen's relatives were all communists. For those who stayed in the North, it was ỌK. for them to work for the North. However, it was not right at all for those who stayed in the South to work for the North. Quyen's seventh aunt, Van's mother, was caught and put in prison for that reason, a wrong-sided political activist. Quyen's third uncle also was head of a lumber company that supported the communists financially. Every month, he carried many rice bags of money to the jungle for enemies.
The people of the city of My-Tho were shocked by news that the VC came to the Vinh-Trang area and killed Mr. Hoa who was the chairman of the student body of the Chieu Dinh Nguyen High School. Everyone was surprised about the cruel action of the communist people who always wanted to kill persons, even if they were innocent, poor, and without homes or parents to live with like Mr. Hoa. His funeral was a big demonstration of all the students and the people of the city to condemn his murder by the VC in 1962. And for a short time after that, to support the students in Saigon, the students in My-Tho City also conducted a couple of demonstrations to demand that Mr. Luoc Van Pham, the school's superintendent, make changes in the school and goverment systems, to counter attack the VC more efficiently. That was a significant turning point in Vietnamese history, the beginning of the fall of Mr. Diem's presidency. Later on there was a bloody coup in Saigon in 1963.
Hung's gang knew Mr. Hoa very well. They met and talked with him many times at Vinh-Trang Buddha Temple during his evening duty of raking the leaves in the temple's front yard. He lived in a small room in the west side, the wall of the room made of a bunch of big, square, vertical wooden bars. After the killing, there were not many people that came to visit his grave because they did not want to be involved. Everyone was afraid of the VC; except Hung's gang. They seemed to know every single shade and leaf around the temple for hiding out; so they thought that they had the responsibility to light up some incenses for Hoa's soul that it could go with the birds wandering around the the temple.
Quyen had been corrected continuously by his mother who had a communist head. She did not agree with whatever he did, and he often said that he did not need whatever she did for him. After a time, the cold war between mother and son ended when Quyen's mother wanted to take control of Huong, his girl friend.
Quyen and Huong ran away from home to Saigon. He got a job as an accounting clerk for My-Kim Real Estate Company. There was room and board for him in the back of the company building at Duyet Van Le street. Huong stayed with her relatives. She had trouble finding a job so she had to go around the city selling government lottery tickets for a while. Later on, she get a job as a secretary to the owner of the An-Thanh Store on the Ton Thanh Le Street where he sold all kinds of military uniforms and gifts. Hung did not believe that Quyen was waiting for a consent from his mother to go ahead with the wedding when he had already run away from home. Finally, Huong got married to her boss who illegally had more than one wife.
"That was it for the love of Huong and Quyen."
Quyen told Hung about it once before he joined the Army.
The story of the loving relationship between Quyen and Hung was sad but it was not complicated like the love story among the three: Van, Hiep, and Hung. Hung knew Van when she was a little girl who often took a naked bath in the creek. He did not know when he was in love with her. Van loved him, of course, by natural reason because there was no boy around her area. Hung often spent more time at her house than his house. At night, they usually studied at the same table, and their feet were over each other's. Quyen sat beside Hung, but never knew what was going on between Van and Hung.
Once Hung went to the dark room, which had only a big circular wall container used to store rice, trying to find the mangos which usually were laid on the top of the rice by Van's grandma for self ripening. Van had the same idea and went in after a while. Hung sneaked behind her and softly said in her ears:
"Hey."
"Ahhh! You scared me."
Hung put his index finger on his mouth, "shhh", pulled her arms that were crossed on her breast around his waist and embraced her tightly. Who was guilty, the mangos stealer or the follower? Only the darkness had to share the guilt of their first kiss. The beat of their hearts could be heard loud and clear in their chests. Suddenly, Van struggled out of Hung's arms and ran away.
Hiep loved Van and this was especially the case when Van had grown to have some ideas or some sense about love. To go to school, Hiep had to stay at a relative's house that was coincidently near by Van's house. And later on, it was also coincidently that Hiep made friends with Quyen and Hung. They became close neighbors. Hiep came to help Van's grandma with many things because he had the skill of taking care of the orchard. The straws were too close to the fire, and Mr. To and Mrs. Nguyet (the two persons that introduce the boy to the girl in the folk song) were trying to ignite the burning and pour in some gas! In that evening, Hiep came for a visit to see a mountain of coconuts that were just harvested. He wanted to help Van's grandma to husk them. He rolled up his sleeves and told Van to go inside and get him the bar for skinning off the coconut husks. Van did not like that because she was playing and talking with her friend. However, she did what he told her to do. On the way out, she stopped at the door and said:
"Here, take it!"
Hiep could not believe that she threw the bar at him. The bar hit right on his foot and caused a deep cut. Blood was all over his foot. He held it and fell on the ground in pain. Van's face turned green and she did not know what to do. She called her grandma. In her fright, she tore her shirt to cover and tie the wound that she had caused by a simple mistake. Later on, she had to take care of him at his house. The wound gradually healed and then became a good memory in their hearts. Their love had a good opportunity to grow.
Van loved both Hung and Hiep at the same time; she tried to copy Miss Dieu-Thuyen (a lady with two men in Chinese folk story)! However, it was lucky that her act was discovered in a very short time. Loving eyes covered up by any way or means still shine as a light glowing in the dark. A loving gesture, that was deep and deep in silence, still had a lot of messages to be revealed.
One moonlit night, Hiep and Hung went outside to eat the baked sugarcane and to talk over their case. There was nobody to blame when they really understood each other. They just tried to find a solution that could save both their brotherly love and friendship. They both agreed to send Van a letter in one envelop and who ever got the reply would win her hand. One week later, Hiep received a letter from Van.
Hung felt sad about that. He did not believe that his long lasting relationship with Van in their youth could not win over her short relationship with Hiep as she was growing up. By paying respect to a friend and by keeping the promise, Hung tried to leave and forget Van. However, the more he tried to back out from Van the more she wanted to come forward to him. Hiep surely did not know that, but Hung could not come back when his heart was broken and the wound could not easily be mended.
Hung joined the Navy. Hiep also felt sad that he won a loving relationship with Van but in doing so he had lost a friendship, and he then also joined the Army. It was that on the way to love, if you had two lovers, you would be the guilty one (the real song said that on the way to love, there were hundreds of good times but thousands of sad times).
Two years later, Quyen got killed in the battle of Sam-Giang. A year after, Van's grandma passed away, and shortly after that Ba-Sau Quyen's mother, also died. For a period of time, Van worked at Cho-Cu Drug Store as a salesgirl, and she then followed the Ho-Chi-Minh trail on the way to the North. Van met Hung the last time at the railroad station in Saigon before she left. She could not say one word and fainted there because Hung was with his girl friend. Hung was told this by Van's eighth aunt who later lived in Van's grandma's house. Hung felt so sorry about it as far away in separation, you had gone, what was there for us to do but to cry and laugh. . . (Duy Pham's song) . Hiep graduated from the Thu-Duc Army School, stationed in Vinh-Long Province (Mekong Delta), and got married to a local girl. . .
After 1975, Hung and his family left the country during the refugee wave and resettled in the U.S.A.. Hiep was forced to go to the reeducation camp, actually the labor training camp. Five years later, he was released, and later on he returned to the Thanh-Binh Village, My-Tho province to live with his wife and children. The rumor was that Quyen's seventh aunt, who was Van's mother, died in the prison. Another rumor was that Quyen's third uncle became the district chief of the third district in the city of Saigon. Later on, his son got married with the daughter of General Giap Nguyen Vo (the conqueror over the French who was defeated in the Dien-Bien-Phu battle). And there was a rumor that Quyen's father, Mr. Quy Gia Nguyen, had the chance to light up some incenses on the burying place of his wife and son. Only Van, the lovely girl from his past, Hung did not hear about.
Oh, those former lovers, friends, and their relationships. . . were gone. With Hung, however, they never disappeared, instead these memories kept floating around and around in the memory region of his mind, forever. . .
(In rememberance of when I was in High School)
04. JOIN THE NAVY
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Hung went to Saigon alone when he was thirteen years old. It seemed like he was a child running away from home, but it was not true. Anyway, he was dependent on Diep and Quyen for his decision about going or not because his two best friends had the responsibility to find the money for his trip. He needed only ten piasters, eight piasters for the a one way third class train ticket and two piasters to ride on the city bus. On the way home, he would get a lot of money from his oldest sister, Kim. However, he had to have the money right on that evening because he might have changed his mind on the day after. He would have done what he said he was going to do only if he was acting a little bit crazy. Of course, he remembered what his sister said:
"It will be easy for you to come to Saigon and see me. First, you take the train to Saigon and get out of the terminal by the main gate. The city bus station is on the right hand side. You will then take the bus of the Phu-Nhuan Quarter; you should know that every bus has a sign on the top of its windshield glass. You tell the bus driver that you would like to get off at the bus station near Van-Cam Theater. Across the street from that theater, there is a big alley. Mrs. Suong's house where I am staying is at the end of that alley, facing toward the street."
The roadway that led to his sister's place was very clear. There was no way to get lost. And even if he got lost, he could have asked the people because all the roads were also in their mouths . Of course, it was safe for the children then. No one threatened to hurt them. Hung was lucky that "Me Min," the "Grenade Mother" who kidnapped children was not yet born.
At three o'clock in the morning, Hung came to the My-Tho railroad terminal (which later on became Lac-Hong Flowering Park). Its boundary walls were an old dark orange color. There were two entrances that had big steel doors. One was used for the passengers and the other was used for bags and luggage brought in by taxi drivers, tricyclers, or simple laborers. The non-passenger entrance always seemed crowded and noisy. The ticket windows and security check points were in several buildings that were located inside the boundary walls.
Hung thought that the early train would be really busy, but it was in fact very quiet. A few men in their suits were just walking from the hotels across the street. Today, Hung also dressed decently. He wore a "tetoron" (polyester) white shirt and gabardine gray pants with two ply lines that were carefully ironed. He had a "duck bill" pair of black leather shoes and a pair of new "aladin" red socks. Each article of clothing had a brand name. He had borrowed them from friends who did not want him to dress cheaply on his first visit to see their capital. The only thing that belonged to Hung was a wool hat which he had bought with his academic grant money.
After three long whistles, the train began to move. "Chug a chug a chug a . . .," the train went into the city still in darkness. The train then passed the main ferry area, the first gate on the Gia-Long Street, and the second gate on the Toan Quoc Tran Street (Later to be named the Mr. and Mrs. Long Trung Nguyen Street after the former city chief who had been killed with his entire family in a VC ambush). The train went faster through the Hang-Cong and Vong-Nho areas. The rice fields on both sides were like big lakes at night. Noise made by the train wheels rolling on the railway was monotonous as insipid music. Red ashes of charcoal were constantly blown out of the chimney onto the top of the locomotive steam barrel. From time to time, the train blew a long whistle. Hung now left the cabin door and came to sit down at the bench. He could lie down if he wanted to because there were not many passengers. "That was it, the beginning of a trip on the train was not a big thing," Hung thought.
Shortly, the train stopped at the Trung-Luong Station. Hung did not know what was happening in the other cabins, but in this cabin there was an invasion by prune saleswomen. All kinds of prunes-white, green, red, and red striped prunes-were put into straw bags that could be set on the top of each other. By setting them like that, space and time could both be saved. Hung could not hear the noise of the steam release from the barrel because people now were talking much too loudly.
Hung let the prune women take over that cabin, and he moved up to the next. He wanted more room, and he was also afraid that his clothes would get dirty by those many things around him. The train stopped again, briefly, at Tan-Huong Station. There were only a few passengers at this station, so right away the train continued to go. Then, the Tan-Hiep Station was reached. As at the Trung-Luong Station, there was another invasion by women, these selling vegetables such as green beans, cabbages, and celery. The smell from the fresh celery was good and it reminded Hung of the celery-beef stir fry meal that was on the menu in restaurants.
Hung let the saleswomen stay in the cabin and he kept moving up to the next. He was surprised that there was a small restaurant in the center of this cabin. He could not buy anything because he knew that he had a limited amount of money. The train had already passed the Thu-Thua and Tan-An stations. Hung sat on the seat next to the door. This was the ideal seat for outside sight-seeing; however, it was the most dangerous seat because the hot ash from the burning charcoal could smoke or burn clothes very easily. That may be the reason this seat seemed always empty. Hung realized that the closer he was to the locomotive the higher the class of the cabin. The seats changed from benches to chairs and then from plain wooden chairs to foam stuffed chairs.
At the waiting place where the two trains made a "rendezvous", Hung saw the ticket checker. He wore a blue uniform like a soldier. Hung took his ticket, a piece of card board just about finger size, out of his pocket. The man punched a hole on Hung's ticket and held it up:
"Who did you go with?"
"I went by myself!"
"It was not too bad to stay in the first class cabin with your third class ticket, was it?"
The man then returned the ticket to Hung. Hung put his ticket into his pocket and did not say a word. The man did not want to impose the rule on Hung because Hung was too young. The man also was in a hurry. There were a lot of people with tickets that he had not yet checked. Punch, punch, punch. . . he went at it like a machine, a robot. Hung thought that there was a big loophole in this kind of checking. If Hung should get off at other stations before the ticket puncher came through the cars, there would surely be no punched hole on his ticket. The ticket then might be re-used for ever! Well, its use may be coded by its colors, Hung re-thought! The train then stopped at the Ben-Luc Station; the smell from pineapple was strong. The next stations were Binh-Dien, Binh-Chanh, and Phu-Lam; Hung got tired and did not pay any attention to those stops.
As the train arrived at Cho-Lon, in the vicinity of Saigon, the sun came up on the horizon. The saleswomen hoped that they had enough time to carry their products to the market, which usually did not have enough space for them. Hung stood at the door anxiously; he wanted to see Saigon. Saigon had many faces. The ugly face was there with those poor houses that were built in no order, one was in too far and one was out so close that it almost hit the train. Hung saw that people lived there and the children were playing around. Saigon's nice face was next with wide streets carrying all kinds of cars and motorcycles, multiple story houses, and the graceful parks in the area of Hong-Bang Hospital. And where were the faces of lovers, the faces of mobs, the faces of gangs, the faces of whores? Hung could not see them now, but he would later.
Following his sister's instructions, Hung caught the Phu-Nhuan bus. He found the alley across the street from the Van-Cam Theater. At the end of this dead end alley, he did not need to ask anyone where Mrs. Suong's house was. He knocked at the door and waited:
"Oh, my gosh, Hung, why did you not let me know that you were coming so I could have picked you up! Mrs. Suong, come here quick and meet my little brother. I do not believe that he has come to visit me. He was so good in finding his way."
Hung was more surprised than his sister because he recognized that his sister was pregnant. That may be the reason why she had not come back to My-Tho for so long. . .
* * *
Now, Hung came to his sister's house not only to visit but to stay with her and go to school at the University of Saigon. Seven years at Junior High and Senior High had passed by with a lot of memories of teachers, friends, and lovers. But, he had to leave and go on. He remembered the day that he was a country boy coming to the city, and now he was a city boy coming to the capital. It was similar to the first move from the country to the city and now he would go to a new school and live the life of a student far away from home. However, it was different because Hung was not a young child anymore. He now knew a little bit about life. During Hung's seven years in High school, his sister had been married to Khai, a jet engine technician who worked for Air Vietnam Airline, and had already given him four cute little children. Her family now moved to Ban-Co Quarter. Their rented house was on Thuat Thien Nguyen street, near Nam-Duong Cafeteria and Phung Dinh Phan Elementary School.
The railroad from My-Tho to Saigon was removed by the government. To go to Saigon, people now just jumped in the A-Dong (Oriental) buses that had belonged to Mr. Thay-Hai, or jumped in an individual small private car. It was cheaper to go by bus than by car; however, the bus was slower because it kept stopping along the road to pick up some more people. It was just like the train. The car was a little bit more expensive but much faster because there were not many seats to fill up and no stops on the way. The bus and car station had also been moved to the outer section of the city of Saigon by the government. To go from the new bus station to home, there were many different ways: city bus, taxi, three wheeled motorcycle, or two wheeled motorcycle . . .
It seemed that each one person had his own fate. That fate was very difficult to change. After graduating from high school, Hung tried to pass the exams just to get one of the following: a foreign scolarship, admission to the engineering school, admission to the administration school, or admission to the teaching school. There was no exam to take for other schools or faculties. The dream was not too big for a good student like Hung who received a government grant every year. However, he failed all the exams. Besides the talent, it seemed that people always needed to have their "root of the family" or "money" to pass their exams and secure their chances of success.
Many of Hung's friends got something on the first try: Minh Tri Lam went to France, Van Tinh Quach was sent to Australia, and Chau Thanh Nguyen ended up in Japan. There was only Hung who had the fate of a "scientist", so he had to enter the Math and Science school in the Saigon University. His friends blamed him:
"After passing the "oral test", do you know how many problems of math and science I have to solve? Over three thousand! You only cared about the music, friends, and girls, so you had no way to pass those exams."
Hung explained:
"You did not have to tell me that. I agree with you that I did not do very well in the foreign scholarship program. However, I did really well on the exam to enter electrical engineering school. The problem had fifteen questions related to electricity from the Da-Nhim Dam, Da-Lat City, to Saigon, electricity that goes to the house and the kitchen. I even let the guy sitting next to me to copy my solution and he passed, so what?"
"The environment of the University often pushed freshman students into lonesomeness, especially those who came from the province's cities," Hung thought. The professors, class-mates, classes, and buildings were strange. In the beginning, Hung kept running around because he did not know where to go. He also never saw the professors up closely face to face. Chemistry, Mr. Ngoc Son Pham Chu; electrical, Mr. Can Cong Le; Biology, Mr. Ho Hoang Pham-the big names of that era.
The relationship between the students and their teachers was dry like a dessert. The friendship between students was separated by mountains and rivers. The main class room was like a theater with over five hundred students as sleepy spectators. At the end of the class, the teacher threw the last piece of chalk to the black board and ran to his car and the students rushed out like demonstrators. Tien Kim To and Ut Van Duong were Hung's only friends, having come from the same city of My-Tho. Some of his friends had gone overseas to study, some were in other Universities, and most of them remained in My-Tho for the next year's graduation. Every afternoon, Hung and his two companions went to the cafeteria at the stairway of the main class to eat chilled papayas. The colorful papaya dishes- rose, pink, and orange, gradually became the unique menu of the Math and Science School.
Hung stayed with his sister's family for a while, then her husband, Khai, joined the Air Force. Khai knew that if he did not join the Air Force, the Army would call him later. Hung's sister and her children went back to the country to live with his grandma. Hung had to move to a different place. He then stayed with his older cousin, Mrs. Kim-Sa, and her family. Her house was still in the Ban-Co Quarter, so Hung still walked back and forth to school. He remembered that his cousins, Mrs. Kim-Sa and Mrs. Kim-Phung, had some sort of relation with the three star general, Manh Van Nguyen. Hung's father once said that the only branch of the large Nguyen family that had success was the general's branch. Hung had stayed for free with his sister; however, to stay with his cousin, he had to pay. The money problem was the main thing that drove Hung out of the school.
In the city of My-Tho earning money was not difficult for the students at junior or senior classes because they could do the tutoring. Several lower grade students around the neighborhood could form a small class. But in Saigon it was difficult to find the lower grade students who needed tutoring. It also was difficult for the tutors if they did not have a motorcycle to go around to the students. Therefore, Hung went out and made money his way, by taking the exam for high school diplomas for the elders who had dropped out of the school. First, he did it for Mr. Huong, a friend of Khai, his brother in law. Huong and Khai both worked for the Air Vietnam Airline. Huong needed a high school diploma to remain as an airline worker instead of becoming a drafted soldier (the Army called only boys who did not have the high school diploma). The salary of an airline worker was triple the salary of the soldier, for sure. The price was ten thousand piasters for Hung's work. Huong gave Hung his "Velo-Solex" moped for six thousand piasters as that was its cost, although Hung had not done anything yet. It was difficult to refuse such a gift.
"Tomorrow Hung, you'd better remember to give me your picture, so they can make the identification card for you."
"OK, I will check my chest of drawers, tonight. By the way, what kind of identification card is it?"
"Hmmm, this identification card is not easy to make. No doubt about that, this would warrant that no one would pay any attention to detect you as a fraud."
A few days later, Huong presented Hung his identification card when they had a party at the Duck Stew Restaurant on the Hong-Thap-Tu (Red Cross) Street. Hung was now a worker of the Air Vietnam Airline. But, his name, his birth date, his birth place, his career, and his address had been changed according to the card. For Hung, the exam for the high school diploma was very easy. He only needed to solve the math and the science problems. To write the essay was just a way to get more points. Of course, Hung chose the moral subject to write instead of the literary subject because he had forgotten all of the poems, novels, and short stories he had ever learned. Although he did not review anything, Hung still got a second honor diploma for Huong. It was true that no one asked Hung any questions about his identity.
At that time, the "Velo-Solex" and "Mobylette" mopeds were still the most popular vehicles, although the "Sachs" and "Goebel" mopeds were beginning to be imported from West Germany. Hung was pleased with his own moped. However, he needed good friends to ride with instead of enjoying it by himself. Therefore, he dropped out of the college and went back to My-Tho City. His girl friends were more attractive and nice down there compared with those up here. Especially, those girls who attended the Math and Science School were the most ugly ones. They seemed to lose their student charcteristics from their faces. Their eyes reflected only the struggle for life. Hung did not want to become an old man before his time; he wanted to have good times with his friends at his home city.
It was not easy for him to have good times because shortly his parents knew about his dropping out. They lectured him once more and Hung had to go back to Saigon to study. Those old courses made Hung sick and he knew that he could not understand them anymore. What would happen in four years of college? He could not even handle the problems of the first year! He thought that sooner or later he would end up joining the Armed Forces because the law said that the Army would take care of him if he did not pass the exam once in those four years. It was better for him to join the Armed Forces now so he would have enough time to be promoted to the gereral's position, he felt.
Before he joined the Armed Forces, however, Hung would make money his way once more. It was a piece of cake, and he felt sorry for himself if he did not do it once more. The price he asked now was fifteen thousand piasters, and he would help either his friend Ngon or the nephew of the Minister of Education introduced to him by Huong. Ngon joined the Navy after he failed the exam to get into the junior high school, and now he was a criminal because he had deserted the Navy. Hung tried to help Ngon. The money was not a problem because Ngon's girl friend was a professional dancer. Fifteen thousand piasters was little for her who could afford to eat at fancy restaurants every day. The problem was that the relationship between Ngon and his girl friend that could be easily broken at any time. However, the couple came from the same village, Tan-Hiep, so it was no problem for them to curse each other's ancestors.
"Don't be such a stuck up snob with me because you now make good money, girl! You'd better remember that I took care of everything for you at the time you ran away from home. You just wait until I get my diploma! Even ten girls like you I still throw them all in the trash can."
"Shut up. Ngon, did you know who you were depending on? When you were still a lousy, boy!"
During the three days for the exam, Hung stayed at their apartment in Da-Kao Quarter. In those days, Hung again was not himself. As his identication card said, he was not a worker of the "Dragon" (the symbol of Air Vietnam Airline) Airline anymore, but a reporter of "Tia-Sang" (Morning Light) Journal. Dung, Ngon's nephew, made the identification card for Hung. And in those days, Ngon ran around with his girl friend, Be-Ba. Ngon was a criminal, but he had to get out of the house for his safety when his girl friend threatened him with a long and big knife. They almost killed each other, and suddenly they were in love again with each other. Hung could not understand this type of crazy love.
Finally, Ngon received his second honor high school diploma, a piece of paper to secure his life when he was out of the Navy. Hung, however, could not use his own high school diploma for anything, although he had the right to stay out of the Armed Forces. This type of diploma did not help him find a job because the only thing he needed was to know someone close to the big bosses. And Hung was not lucky to have that.
After two years in Saigon, Hung was surprised that he had not done anything that he could be proud of. He thought that his honor high school diploma could only be used as the passport to get in the military life. So he joined the Navy!
(In rememberance of when I attended the University of Saigon)
05. THE FIRST EIGHTEENTH EXECUTER
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Hung was forced to come to Nha-Trang Bay for the first time by water. From the sea, Nha Trang shore line had been seen as a long beach with white sand that was gently embraced by waves that continuously rolled in to the shore. The city, all low, no multi-stories buildings, extended to the foothills of the mountain which acted like the background of an old style painting. The sky was blue with no clouds in the days of Autumn. The military training season began, and the summer, the last summer for Hung as a regular college student, had already passed by. Hung now found himself in the Navy, at sea.
After two days at sea from Saigon harbor, the LST (Landing Ship Tank) Cam-Ranh, HQ-500, the biggest ship in the Vietnamese Navy at that time, finally landed at the beach in front of the Naval Training Center. Hung knew that the Navy had three main training centers. The Saigon Training Center was a secondary school that was used to train experienced officers. The Nha-Trang Training Center had two schools: one was the secondary school for experienced petty officers and one was the Naval Academy that was used to train the naval cadets. The third, Cam-Ranh Training Center, was used to train basic seamen. There were other training centers whose locations Hung did not know, which were for the frog men, the sea-bees, the rust cleaners, etc.. The ship's front gate opened and the landing ramp was laid down in place. On disembarking, the whole class, one hundred and twenty-eight new coming cadets, divided into five platoons. They stood in lines with the taller ones in front on the sloped sand beach. The ground seemed still moving up then down.
"Do you like to go on ship?"
"Yes, I do."
"Do you tire?"
"Yes, I am tired."
"Do you need me to carry your marine bag?"
"No thank you."
"Here take a drink."
"Gulp, gulp. . ., thank you."
"Atten. . . tion; forward. . . march; one, two three, four; one, two three, four. . ." Hung was surprised that the senior cadets were very friendly, contrary to his having heard that new cadets would be punished or tortured by the senior class members. The five platoons in line proudly passed the gate of the Navy Academy although the marine bags on their shoulders made them a little bit uncomfortable. The front yard was covered with asphalt and at the center there was a flag pole. Everything looked large and clean. "Step; one, two three, four. . . Stop. At. . . ease."
Hung and his classmates now faced a small, temporary plywood platform. Several senior cadets came within the platoons just to care about someone or something. Then, there it came, a big loud voice:
"Atten. . . tion!"
"Attention, do you hear? Do you know what to do when you hear it? Can you keep your body still?"
"You do you pay attention or do you smile? You don't know how to pay respect to your seniors, do you? Are you trying to go against us? Do you often demonstrate against the government in Saigon?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. No sir."
"Pardon, pardon. Did all of you already learn how to beg?"
"Oh! What the heck was going on?" Hung was totally surprised. The rumor now became the truth. Those guys might torture or even kill Hung if they wanted to. "What was one supposed to do now?" Hung asked himself. There was no gaining anything by crying or begging, he knew that. "Everything was too late, and he had to do what his friends did," he guessed. "That was it!" Then, beside his ears, there was a strange voice:
"All of you seem too weak. Look here! This guy almost falls down with a soft push. Do you not see that all of you are in terrible condition! The Navy would go down with such a bunch of sick men like you."
Hung tried to stand upright again, and angrily he stared at a senior cadet who was small and short. This guy would get hit if he talked like that in Saigon. However, Hung now was afraid of him and did not even talk back. One safe comment gains nine nice comments , this was not the place for the debate, the debate with only one side that always won anyway. Hung's classmates seemed to understand their situation because there were only the questions with no answers, now. The greeting speech that nobody seemed to listen to finally ended. Then, a loud and heavy voice came up:
"Listen, Seventeenth Class. Today, all of you are warmly welcomed to the Naval Academy by your seniors."
"Warmly welcomed, warmly welcomed. . . do you hear?"
"Do you know all of you are guilty . . ."
"Guilty, guilty, guilty."
". . . to let your seniors wait for you almost a year long."
"Wait for you almost a year long, do you know?"
With one man on the stand, the voice was loud enough for eveybody to hear. There was no need for repeaters, why did some other voices keep bothering the juniors' ears?
"All of you now cannot let your seniors be disappointed anymore, all right? In order to be proud about your dream of living the seaman's life . . ."
"Your dream of living the seaman's life, your dream of living the seaman's life."
". . . you will run one tour around the academy with the guidance from your seniors."
"One tour around the academy, only one tour."
"All marine bags on your shoulders. Run."
Hung did not believe that his big, tall classmates in front started to run like horses. They seemed to race with the senior cadets. Hung became tired and got far behind at the end. "Hurry, hurry . . . you; you run too slow, too bad. . .," such words were heard all the time. Hung had seen everything. Some fell on the ground; some lost their glasses; some had their caps fly away; some kicked their shoes off. But, they did not care for anything anymore; they continued to run. They ran like crazy. Only one tour around the academy and why did that seem to never end? Even Hung could not slow his pace for resting because the human stream kept pushing him forward. In his mind, he wanted to try harder just to follow his friends like a bird in a flock. He knew that he could not withdraw now, and he had to put all his energy into this first test. Finally, he reached the arriving spot, the corner of the parade marching area he knew later, where most of his friends were already in place. He got in line and threw his marine bag to the ground. Sweat was pouring all over his body, and his mouth was dry. The heat came up from the sands and rocks and made him think that he was baking in an oven.
"You. Are you tired?"
"Yes."
"Tired? Why don't you come over there and do ten push ups so it will help you to feel better!"
"And you are you tired?"
"No."
"Oh good. Why don't you come here with me so we can practice a special jump. Your legs change back and forth each time you jump, just. . . like this as you see what I am doing. You only stop when I stop, do you understand?"
Hung knew that whatever his answer was, he had to still do the unfair requirement. However, it was better to push up or to jump as his friends did than to stand still. It did not take long for him to see the sky begin to turn. Some of his friends had already vomited and fallen on the ground. Hung tried to remember where he threw his marine bag so he could have a soft fall. He then dimly sensed that he went to the hospital with his arms and legs up in the air held by four stronger classmates.
The cadets' quarters consisted of four single level buildings called "Alpha," "Beta," "Omega" and "Xi." The Omega Building destroyed by the VC rocket shells from the time the fourteenth class was in, was a small mountain of rubble. The rebuilding plan was not yet set. The senior cadets, the sixteenth class, stayed at rooms in the front while the junior cadets, Hung's seventeenth class, occupied rooms at the back, ten cadets to a room. Two sets of steel bunk beds were placed against the wall on both sides for eight men, and two wooden beds were placed in the middle of the room for the other two. Hung reported to the first room of the Alpha Building after a shot and about an hour's rest. Stepping inside the door, he saw his roommates were sleeping all over the cement floor, without changing their treillis uniforms. He found himself a place in the corner and lay down to sleep. He slept until evening. . .
"Taaa, teee, teee. Taaa, teee, teee."
"Hey, wake up everybody! Our whistle for coming to report, everybody! Come to report!"
"Are you sure it's our whistle, man? Let's hear it again. But, `Taaa, teee ' and `Taaa, teee, teee ' which one was ours?"
"O.K. You can stay there to think about `Teee, taaa ' and `Taaa, teee.'"
Hung followed his friends and ran to the report area. He did not know who was right and who was wrong because no one had told him about their whistle. In a very short time, the whole class was in place. Under his eyes, however, in that very short time, everyone in his class became dirty and ugly like the beggars on the street. What would those seniors do to them now? Oh, just eating, it was time to eat! They had to get in line to enter the mess-hall. They had to make a square turn at each corner and when everybody was in place, they all pulled out their chairs and sat down at the same time. The menu was fried flying-fish, pumpkin and bacon soup, and stir fried cabbage with squid. Everything looked good and he thought that the military meals might be tasty. However, whatever his chopsticks touched, was stinky and made him almost throw up. To clean the smell out of his nose, he ate his rice with the hot tea.
After the first bad taste of military dinner, the new cadets were allowed to come back to their rooms to make their beds. They had to put the string up for their canvases to fit into the steel frame. Hung thought of the times when he passed the concurrent test and later the health check. He also remembered the time when his friends gave him a farewell party to go to the Bach-Dang II camp. And he then recalled the time when he first received the military uniforms, and later his first marching session: one, two three, four. . . Everything seemed to have gone by a long time ago. There were no more of Saigon's evenings that gave him and his girl friend so many good times. He felt that today was truly his first day in the Armed Service . . . "Taaa, teee, teee. Taaa, teee, teee." The whistle cut his thought off, and his first day seemed not to end yet.
Everybody hurriedly donned uniforms and quickly ran to the reporting field. Evening was darkening.
"Listen, Seventeenth Class! Tonight, for all of you is a sleepingless night so you will remember this very important moment that you are proud of yourself to leave the civil life and build your dream of living the seaman's life."
"To build your dream of living the seaman's life. Haa haa haa."
"After the whistle, in only thirty seconds, all of you go back to your room, change your current uniform to the small ceremony uniform, and come back here right away. The ones who do this slowly will be personally taken care of by your seniors. Taaa."
Of course, it took more than thirty seconds for them to do the job and to run back and forth.
"Listen, Seventeenth Class! Your seniors have only seen that you all move slow and heavy as a carrier. To speed you up, after the whistle, you have thirty seconds to come back to your room, put the big ceremony uniform over your current uniform. Then, you wear your treillis uniform over them. Remember, you have to come here to report on time. Taaa."
They kept running and running. The door of the room seemed to become too small, and they almost stepped on each other. First, the small ceremony uniform; second, the big ceremony uniform; and third, the working uniform. Hung threw everything into the marine bag on the bed which contained all changes so he could pick them up easier. It took more than a minute for him to report back to his place, of course.
"Listen, all of you! Your seniors say that you have not improved on anything. After the whistle, you now have ten seconds, repeat ten seconds, to go back to your room and wear your shoes without socks in the form of "ten-ten" like . . . these two hands of the clock. At the same time, you are ordered to bring all your civilian clothes out here. Taaa".
The "ten-ten" form was OK, but without the socks, shoes filled with sand, making everybody run slowly as though handicapped. Some of the slower men were separately punished by the seniors. After each whistle, the number of people who came to report on time was less and less, but they still formed the biggest group. If Hung wanted to survive, he had to join them. One who was too smart or too dumb would die; only the one who followed the rule of half and half would live (Confucius). He burrowed inside the group to hide after throwing his last piece of civilian clothes into the bundle. He was really afraid that he did not have enough energy to follow the main group. He thought that those big guys were too dumb to scare the seniors. "They did not have to do it right after the blow of the whistle; they had to take time to do what the seniors wanted them to do. The seniors could not kill them. People were different from robots because they knew how to think," Hung thought.
"Listen, Seventeenth Class! After the whistle, all of you kneel down, with both hands on the top of your heads. Taaa."
The bundle of the civilian clothes was now burned. Hung felt sorry for those shaky minded guys who brought out even their new clothes. From the light of the big burning torch on the ground, the faces of the seniors seemed to have horns like devils.
"Everybody repeat after me: `I leave my civilian life.'"
"I leave my civilian life."
"Louder!"
"I leave my civilian life."
"More louder!"
"I leave my civilian life."
"Everybody cry, and cry louder. Taaa."
"Whaaa whaaa. Whaaa Whaaa, sniff. . ."
"You why do you laugh when you have been told to cry? Cry now, cry louder don't you hear me?"
"Whaaa, sniff. . . Whaaa, whaaa . . ."
"OK, time out, OK. . . For all of you to fullfill your dream of living the seaman's life, now you can lay down on the ground, facing toward the sky, and count those night stars. Taaa. Count, and count louder, taaa."
"One, two three, four. . ."
"Five, ten, fifteen, twenty . . ."
"Everybody laugh, now. Taaa."
"Haaa haaa. Haaa haaa haaa . . ."
"Heh heh. Heh heh heh. . ."
"Are you not afraid of your seniors? Why you cry when you have been told to laugh. You sure don't pay any respect to your big seniors?"
"Heh heh heh. . . Haaa haaa haaa . . ."
"OK, OK. Everybody now back on your knees, and put your hands on the top of your heads. Taaa."
"From now on, you have the right to call your seniors `Sir'. The one who keeps calling the senior `brother, brother'. . . like the civilian way will be personally taken care of by the seniors. Following is the introduction of your Seventeen Executers (the names of the seniors who had the responsibility to run the punishment program). Beginning from tomorrow, these executers will watch over you more and more carefully."
"The First Executer, Sir Khai Buu Vo. Taaa. Cry loud."
"Whaaa whaaa whaaa . . ."
"The Second Executer, Sir Hai Quang Ha. Taaa. Cry, now."
"The Third Executer, Sir Tung Xuan Trinh. Taaa. Cry louder."
"The Fourth Executer, Sir Teo Van Duong."
"The Fifth Executer, Sir Ngo Luong Le, cry now."
"The Sixth Executers, Sir Hung Quang Huynh."
"The Seventeenth Executer, Sir An Ngoc Ly, cry loud and loud."
"After the dismissing, all of you come back to your room and eat all the civilian foods that you have brought along with you from Saigon tonight. The one who keeps anything will be . . . torn apart. And there is to be no drinking, no smoking, no coffee drinking, no card playing, etc. allowed. Do you hear clearly?"
"Yes, Sir."
"After the dismissing, you can also `forward with two engines at level one ' to your room. It means that you roll back to you room. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Dismising. Taaa."
"Yes, Sir."
"Hey, you. Why do you run when you have been told to roll? Lay down and roll now. Are you trying to go against your seniors?"
It took them a while to roll and turn, and finally reach their room. It was lucky that the reporting place was not too far from the cadets' apartment. The newcomers looked at each other and tried to understand what they were doing. Then, there was tomorrow, and what would happen tomorrow? Who would survive with those executers, and how long would the execution be prolonged? Live and die together was the military brotherhood (the famous military brotherhood song at that time); who wanted to be brothers with those bad guys who tried to kill their younger brothers. Hung thought that he had run into dead end road. What was he supposed to do when he did not know even the directions? Where was West, and where was East? Well, you are on the back of the tiger, the only thing you had to do was ride it , he reminded himself.
"Hey, Hung, come and help me eat these foods," Viet Thanh Truong, Hung's friend who slept on the lower bunk from him, called, and at the same time displayed everything he had on the table: condensed milks, canned foods, cookies, sugar blocks, etc.. Hung did not hesitate to tell his friend, "In a terrible time like this who can think about eating, man. It is better to dig up a hole and bury them before you get in trouble. Don't worry about wasting money on foods!"
Long Thanh Nguyen, the oldest in the room, who became handicapped from the first round of this kind of hard training, went around the room on one leg to ask for Bengay. He said:
"Hung is right. We will not only bury them but bury them carefully. If the seniors find the mark and dig them up, then we will die young. It is lucky that the ground in this area is sandy; so we can dig the hole by hand. We would be in deep trouble if the ground here were hard like the ground around Saigon."
On the other side of the room, there was another voice:
"What do you do with these bags of cigarettes?"
"You better stay awake overnight to smoke them up yourself."
"The seniors cannot do that. All guys addicted to cigarettes will die with this cruel order."
"The seniors are the parents. If you want to be their loving son, then you can keep those cigarettes to smoke for yourself."
It was ten o'clock at night, and the whistle for curfew was blown. But they decided to wait a little bit longer, until they heard only the insect noises that mixed with the noise from the nearby electricity power plant, to come out to dig their individual holes. The funeral of the civilian foods went on in silence and darkness. They finally went to bed forgetting that nobody had taken a shower the whole day.
"Taaa, teee, teee. Taaa, teee, teee." It was five o'clock in the morning. The reporting whistle now had another job to do: waking people up. The whistle began to be heard in pain, and nobody knew when it would be blown. "Taaa, teee, teee." it was so simple, but it signalled the beginning of a mission that usually was difficult to complete. This morning, the seniors officially gave the the juniors the janitorial work, cleaning up the bathrooms and toilet bowls. Hung had never done that before. He was sickend of what he saw and could not hold his breath so long against the putrid smell. He hated this job. The water system was plugged up, so the water drained slowly from the faucets like someone taking a leak. A new water system was built right away to convey the water from the well. Water filled helmets were handed back and forth by a chain of men standing at arms lenght from each other.
"Taaa, teee, teee." They got in line and went into the mess-hall to eat their breakfast: French bread, banana, and hot tea.
"Taaa, teee, teee." They then came out to the reporting field to do their exercises. The seniors, who had the responsibility to train but not to punish, made the juniors run around the yard between their apartments and the office of their commanding officers. After three rounds, they felt that the sand under their feet seemed to become muddy. In the fourth round, they struggled to pull their feet out of that deep and muddy hot stuff. In the fifth round, there were some who turned pale. In the sixth round, there were some who vomited. In the seventh round, there were some who fell along the trail. In the ninth round, only half the group was running. In the tenth round, there were a few walking with the seniors.
"All of you seem too weak. You have to keep running every day so you are capable of maintaining your speed at least twenty rounds."
After the exercise, they practiced their marching skill; one, two three, four; one, two three, four, until noon.
"Taaa, teee, teee." They sweated like they had just taken a shower, but they had to get in line and go to the mess-hall to eat lunch. They did not forget to make the square turn at the corners. "Wow, today's menu seemed to be good: beef ragu vegetable soup, and lemon-grass chicken."
Suddenly, "Taaa," the seniors appeared like gangs on the street. His sixth sense let Hung know that the bad thing would happen again. What was that? The senior had to know that God never punished people when they were eating .
"Listen, Seventeenth Class. All of you pull out your chairs. Taaa."
"Turn the chairs around. Taaa."
"All of you now kneel on your chair, and hands up on the top of your head. Taaa."
"What the heck was going on?" It was clear that the seniors were not afraid of punishment from God. Some came close to selected juniors with some crazy ideas in their mind.
"You what is this?"
"A hot pepper."
"Is this a hot pepper? This is a banana, don't you know? The one who tells me that this is hot pepper again will be punished and corrected. You what is this?"
"A banana."
"Good. Now, you can eat your banana, open your mouth!"
"OK. Do you want your wine?"
"No. Thank you."
"You what is in this bowl?"
"Fish sauce."
"Who told you this is fish sauce? This is the Navy wine, don't you know? You drink this for me."
"Ok, time out. After the whistle, everybody go under the table. Taaa."
"Everybody bark. Taaa."
The juniors had to squeezed themselves under the table. It was hot down there, but they had to bark in the face of one another. The table covers made the area darker and their faces were black like they had camouflaged themselves with mud. "Hey, let's bark, friends: bow wow, bow wow, bow wow. . ."
"OK, OK."
"All of you now get up and sit in your chairs. Taaa."
"Fill up your bowl with rice. Taaa."
The rice pot now became only the pig's food pot. Taking advantage during the time the juniors played dogs, the seniors had mixed all the foods on the table into the rice pot. They even included the skin of the bananas for dessert.
"In thirty seconds, all of you have to finish eating your bowl of rice. The one who does not finish on time will eat the rest. Taaa."
"You are too weak! Seventeenth class is too weak, even when they are eating. Too weak!"
"Again, all of you fill up your bowl with rice. Taaa."
"Eat. Taaa."
At half way of the second bowl, Hung almost threw up. He stopped. He could not follow his friends anymore, and he surely surrendered. He laid down his chopsticks.
"You follow me. If you don't like the Navy rice, it means that you don't want to live anymore. Now you walk around this room on your knees."
"It was OK," Hung told himself in his mind. "It was better to be `individually taken care of' this way than to eat that pig's food." In the third bowl round, several of his class-mates joined him to walk on their knees. In the fourth bowl round, about half of the class stopped eating. In the fifth bowl round, only a few guys were left. The sixth bowl round continued. The last person was Mr. Qua Van Do who also joined the class in walking on their knees like dogs. The women who worked at the mess-hall were crying. Hung had seen them wipe their tears with their handkerchiefs.
The seniors felt that the level of punishment was not strong enough, so they blew the whistle to bring the juniors again to the reporting area. All seventeen executers were there. Some wore the marine uniforms, some wore karate uniforms, and some wore only pants or shorts. All kinds of hats were also worn by them in different positions on their head such as backwards, sideways. Their faces had cruel looks like the the faces of killers or murderers.
"As we already promised, today, all of you will be personally taken care of by your executers."
"To be personally taken care of. All right!"
"To start, all of you begin to run around this reporting field. The one who leaves the group or stops without order will be individually punished. Run. Taaa."
It did not seem very good to run after just eating! However, the juniors now had experience from the running lesson in the morning. They were fast learners because they now knew how to run slowly. Nothing was happening after five rounds. But in the next round, someone fainted and vomited along the line. Several rounds more, and the entire class was in the special category, individual punishment. In the reporting field, about three hundred people were separated into two distinct groups. The stand-up group was the seniors who divided themselves into three teams: the Execution Team, the Rescue Team, and the team that went around and gave drinking water. The group that lay on the ground were the juniors who acted like seals, walrus, sea lions, etc. that had to swim all the time in the sea of sand. The most comfortable performance was to act like the sea gulls which flew upside down and counted the stars in the sun. Actually, this was the rest session for the juniors who were rescued from the Execution Team.
In the east, near the fence of the vocational school, some who strongly protested against the seniors were buried alive in the sand. Only their heads and arms were up in the air. They would be gone soon if the seniors could find a pair of water buffalos and a plow. In the west, near the seamen's club house, a strange circus had been performed by the juniors. "The Log, the Cloud, and the Barrel" was the name of the show. It was said that the Cloud had to walk on the Barrel that had been rolled on the ground by its rollers. If the Cloud failed, he became the Log which had been placed inside the Barrel. That was the reason the Cloud, like the sailors, had to keep hanging on as long as he could to the Barrel that was shaking and rolling like a boat in the storm.
Time had quickly passed by for the juniors who were forced to do some actions that were not under their own control. They did not even know when evening had come. Suddenly, the seniors stopped the play and made them run to the big well where they would receive the "naval baptizism."
"Listen, you are on your knees and hands are on your head. Taaa."
"Now is the time you are declared as the new generation of naval cadets. You are proud to be the rotten eggs!"
"Oh no a bunch of rotten eggs, to stink and smell, yucky."
"In the future, you will be cracked and become the tadpoles. And when the tails of the tadpoles are cut, you will be allowed to go ashore. It means that you can go to Nha-Trang, by the way."
"Oh boy! Go to Nha-Trang!"
"Everybody bow your head three times. One . . ., two . . ., three . . ."
Each of the juniors received a few cups of water, enough to wet the hair and shirt collar. The water seemed to help their dirty and seemingly dead bodies to be re-born into a new world. In silence, the seniors gradually withdrew. Then, juniors threw helmets of water at each other. The seniors had gone, the juniors could now laugh, play, and curse. This was the first good time in the Seventeenth Class's world.
Night had come, and Hung thought that the second day had ended. Everybody had a chance to take a shower, look at himself in the mirror, and part his hair with a comb. . . those daily actions were almost forgotten. Hung was very pleased to lie down on his bed. He thought that he should write a letter home to tell everybody about this painful and exciting moment. The military life, of course, was different from the civilian life. Who could refuse that opportunity?
"Taaa, teee, teee. Taaa, teee, teee. Taaa, teee, teee."
"What was it? The second day was not yet over? Nobody wanted to get dirty again right after taking a shower. Reporting? There was always reporting! Those senior guys did not let people alone." This time, however, was easy because the cadets of the Seventeenth Class were reporting to learn to sing the marching songs. The seamen go out to sea today. The Vietnam sky was clear with the nice breeze. The seamen had nothing in the family to hold them up. . . The next song was The Bach-Dang river, there, was still the river to be proud of for the Vietnamese . . . And, the next song was There was a long road to go for the soldier. . . Suddenly, the light was cut off and the voice of "brimade, brimade . . ." (punishment, punishment. . . in French) was heard loudly. The seniors jumped out from the darkness and yelled out too loud.ly When the light was turned on, the Seventeen Executers were on the stand.
"Taaa. Listen, your seniors recognize that you are all bad singers; you only know how to bark. Everybody kneel on your bench and put your hands on the top of your head. Taaa. Everybody bark louder and louder. Taaa."
The juniors knew that there was no problem about barking. They even howled like a bunch of foxes or coyotes. The light was constantly turned on and off to make the scene more scary.
"Everybody go down under the table and continue to bark. Taaa."
"OK, time out. Everybody now get out and walk on your knees around the room. Taaa."
"Everybody roll up your pants up. Taaa."
The human skin was worn out fast when it grated on the cement. Moreover, there were some crazy seniors who carried sand in their hands and sprinkled it along the walk-way. Each step of the knees exploded like a fire cracker. Stealthily, the pants cuffs were dropped down at least one side to help the other knee. The dropped pants cuff was forced to be rolled up. Then, it was secretly dropped down again and again.
"You do you know what kind of animal this is?"
"A frog."
"How dare you tell me this is a frog! You are just only a rotten egg, do you remember? This is your grandfather, don't you know? Now, kiss your grandpa!"
"Are you sure you don't know how to kiss your grandpa by your tongue?"
"Hey, you who allows you to laugh around here? Kiss your grandpa."
"Kiss your grandpa!"
"Kiss your grandpa!"
"You make your grandpa have no power now (die), don't you see? Your grandpa is turning white. Hey, you open your mouth and swallow your grandpa. Now!"
"Gulp. . ."
It was raining. Hung crossed his legs and hung on the window of his room to think about something. The rain drops accidentally erased the marks of the holes that were used to bury the civilian foods. From the light poles along the fence of the ammunition center, the pale light was reflected by the drizzle that made everything around him an unclear picture. Nha-Trang was a sad city, he thought, although he had not gone to Nha-Trang yet. Well, at least, the second day had already passed and he had survived.
"Hung, we are running out of water, your turn to go and get some for all of us."
His roommate Phuoc, Phuoc Thanh Nguyen, came and told him that.
"It is time to go to bed, nobody needs to eat or drink anything, do you know?"
Although he said that, Hung thought he had a job to do. He jumped off the windowsill, took the helmet, and ran to the mess-hall. The tea barrel was still warm. He used the long ladel to pour the tea into the helmet. He then ran back to his room in a hurry because he was afraid to be caught by the seniors. But, he could not stay out of his trouble, anyway.
"Hey you where do you go at this time of night?"
"I have to get water for my roommates, Sir!"
"They surely don't have their feet, do they? You are good about getting it; so you are supposed to be good to drink it. Go ahead drink it for me."
"You mean the whole water in the helmet?"
"You don't hear what I say? What are you asking me about?"
Hung knew that the rim of the helmet was too big for his mouth; therefore, his shirt would be wet. That was a good idea. He had to be smart enough to chose either the wet shirt or a stomach of full water. His duty was quickly completed, and he ran to his room and never looked back.
"Where is the water, man? Is there some warm tea?"
"They still have some; however, it is better for you if you go to sleep. You could go there and check if you want to drink a helmet of water like me."
Hung tapped on his big and wet stomach several times and then climbed up to his bed. He knew for sure that he was safe after the second day . . .
The juniors began their third day with the same thing: cleaning up the bath rooms and the toilet bowls. They had their breakfast again with the same things: French bread, banana, and tea. The exercise class, running around the reporting field, was the same. This morning they had to sing those patriotic songs which they had learned on the night before. The seamen go out to sea today. The Vietnam sky was clear with nice breeze . . . Then, the Bach-Dang River, there, was still the river to be proud of by the Vietnamese . . . The new thing they had to learn today was how to polish their shoes with polishing paste and water. The lunch of their third day was also quiet, with no pig's food and Navy wines. There were no dogs under the tables.
The seniors might love the juniors by now. The seniors and the juniors cared about each other like the loving brothers. . . (the famous military brotherhood song). To the contrary, in the Navy, the seniors cared about the juniors in a much different way than the loving brothers. About a half hour after lunch, the reporting whistles were blown: "Taaa, teee, teee." The seniors informed them that one cadet of the Seventeenth Class, Mr. Tiep The Vu was dead. Although everybody later on knew that he had diabetes, the bad news at that time brought down the juniors' spirit. What could they do now? Could the juniors stand up to make a revolution against their seniors? Well, there was no choice for him, Hung thought.
"All of you make the Navy look bad. Just in two days of training, and already one has died. Don't you know that sixteen more of you will die before you become an officer, a naval officer."
Hung thought that the punishment level might go down after the death of his classmate; however, to the contrary, the punishment level kept going higher, much too high. Walking on the knees had been moved from the cement floor to the steel plates used to make the temporary runway for the combat air field. And upside down steel plates in the hot sun had been used next. Every step of the knees, err. . ., there was a burn. The protecting layer of clothes had also been removed, and bare skin had been violated.
"You why do you let your beard grow out that long? Here, I will give you these two pieces of tile, and you must use them to pull your beard out, one by one for each step of the special jump. Go."
"And you your beard is too short! You cannot pull them out by two pieces of tile. You need to grind them down by the cement floor one by one for each time you push up. Do it."
"Long nails? Grind them down!"
To love someone, give them a rod; to hate someone, give them the sweet . This idiom seemed nonsense now. The blood was not drained out, the heart was not yet softened . What was it about this idiom? That was right! If there was no blood, there was no going to the hospital. If there was no going to the hospital, there was no band-aid. If there was no bandaid, there was no exemption from punishment. That was right! It was easy like that, and nobody could think of it because they were terrified. After the burning session on the upside down steel plates in the sun, a half of the Seventeenth Class had gotten in line to visit the female nurses.
By the third night, the seniors felt sorry for the wounded juniors and they did not want to torure them anymore. To replace the game of punishment, the juniors were order to play an opera show for the seniors. The show could not be stopped. If the show stopped, the seniors would resume their game. Tonight, the seniors became like the King and his supporters. They all had been carried in the sedan chairs to attend the show. The the sedan chairs were made by beds covered with white bed sheets. Besides the King, there was a Queen; and besides the King's supporters, there were their women. Including the Queen, all women were made up of the juniors who wore tops and skirts that were made from the bed sheets. Some guys, who did the massage job, had been added for the King and his supporters. All sedan chairs had been carried around the reporting field several rounds before entering the theater which was a classroom.
"Hey, you. Where do you find this kind of women that smells bad for me? Why don't you please kick her out right now. . . hey, go away, man. . ., and you have to get me another one, OK?"
"Yes, Sir."
Taking the opportunity of the opera show, the juniors secretly criticized and put down the seniors. The seniors realized that so the show was terminated early and was followed by a strong punishment period.
Next day, the juniors had to take T.A.B. shots. And for several days following, they ate only rice soup. The seniors could not do anything to the juniors in those days. When the rest time was over, the math class had been started with the professor, Lieutenant Phung Le. The first year college of math had been added with the sphere-triangle part. Moving along with the schedule of classes, punishment from the seniors was carried out for almost three months although the hardship to body and mind was gradually reduced.
At the end of the sixth week, there was a ceremony for the rotten eggs to crack and become the tadpoles. And at the end of the twelfth week, there was a ceremony for the tadpoles to drop their tail and become the frogs. These ceremonies were carried out at the same big well, but in addition to a few cups of water, toothpaste and shoe polishing cream was used to anoint the heads of juniors. The most memorable time was the Ceremony of the Father and the Son in which a junior, a son, would be randomly assigned to a senior as his father. Hung had as his naval father, Mr. Trung Quang Le, a gentleman who never punished any juniors. The party night of the father and the son ceremony was the night that made the cafeteria owner richer. The father had to pay for his son (sometimes for both his son and his nephew because the Seventeenth Class were fewer people than the Sixteenth Class) to eat. For three months the juniors had eaten only mess-hall foods; therefore, they cleaned fast every dish their father ordered. The fathers just gave a kind look at their sons and understood their sons' feeling because the fathers had experienced them before.
The 25 kilometer marching trip to Hon-Chong Beach Resort and the coastal navigation to the Qui-Nhon harbor were the last things for the cadets to experience. These sessions were on schedule. Then, a dancing party was given on the day the juniors became midshipmen. It was nice that the door for life as an officer now had opened.
The naval courses were the main menus of their study. These included: coastal navigation, long range navigation, celestial navigation, combat navigation, strategic navigation, naval fire power, torpedo depth charge, leadership, etc. In order to know their seamen's capabilities, the naval officer also learned the fourteen duties of the seaman such as fire fighting, ship's electricity, mechanics, gunnery, light and flag signaling (semaphore), radar or sonar observation, small boat navigation, material supply, cooking and waiting, etc. And they also learned other fancy skills like dancing, karate, and Navy social life. The punishment, the hard training period, was soon forgotten; the seniors were fully respected. Hung thought that he had now became a strong man who would never be set in tear anymore.
The time had passed by so fast.
"Listen, Eighteenth Class. Taaa. Do you know you are guilty . . ."
"Guilty, guilty, guilty."
". . . to let your seniors wait for you almost a year long."
"Wait for you almost a year long, wait for you almost a year long."
And, Eighteen Executers for the juniors were also introduced.
"The Fourth Fifteenth-Executer, Senior Tieu Xuan Trinh."
"Cry out loud."
"The Third Sixteenth-Executer, Senior Ngan Bich Nguyen."
"Cry now, cry now."
"The Second Seventeenth-Executer, Senior Nghia Duc Nguyen."
"Here, I am. . ."
"The First Eighteenth-Executer, Senior Hung. . ."
Hung could not wait to hear the pronouncing of his entire name, he jumped on the stand, and greeted the juniors like a boxer in the ring. His fate was to be picked as a man who had the responsibility to pass the naval culture to his successors. Of course, he promised to carry this will correctly. He yelled loudly:
"I am the First. . . Eighteenth-Executer. . ."
(In rememberance of when I attended the Vietnamese Naval Academy)
06. THE LINE OF LIFE
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
While my naval classmates had lived their dream of the seaman's life, I was sent back to the Cay-Mai school for more . . . studying. ( To be consistent with the Vietnamses copy of this book's stories which had been published in several different Vietnamese magazines, the first person will be used from now on, `I ' instead of `Hung'. ) Cay-Mai (a kind of fruit tree in Vietnam), the school name, was just like that of an elementary school where children were at the age of eating fruits and sweet things. Many people did not know that this school was a military training center where the intelligence officers and agents were secretly trained.
For me, this move was actually half bad and half good. A half was bad because I, the same as my friends, still liked to live the naval life. I had a little over a year to serve on the ship and about six months to stay at the coastal division unit. A Navy man must have his naval duty medal, and of course, there was no medal for me with the kind of work I had been assigned for a fairly short period of time. And I still thought that it was better to be a naval officer than an intelligence officer. A half was good, however, because I, the same as my friends, always wanted to go back to Saigon.
Soon, I was back in Saigon, but a long term vacation in Saigon was not the case because I, the same as my new classmates, was forced to stay at the school's dormitory and eat the mess-hall foods. There was no exception for any military schools, including this one. Even relatives who lived right at the capital of Saigon had to be scheduled to visit.
I thought it would be funny if I should become the famous Z.28 agent (the Vietnamese 007 agent) in the books after I finished my studying there. However, there was no change in my life because the real Z.28 agent could not survive with the salary of a Vietnamese officer. The Z.28 agent had to go back to America. To become an intelligence officer actually was not a big thing. An intelligence officer was only an officer who had studied about the enemies. A regular officer, of course, could not have a right to discuss the enemy openly, or the communist party and its operations. Officers could not talk about Ho-Chi-Minh, the communist party chairman, Truong-Chinh, the big member of the political bureaucracy, Giap Nguyen Vo the general who defeated French in Dien-Bien-Phu battle, or even the hot news about Thanh Chi Nguyen, the general commanding the invasion the South who had just died in a bombardment of the B 52 bombers on the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail. They could be arrested and put in prison if they mentioned those bad guys. The same thing could happen if they talked bad about their president. That was the Vietnamese political custom.
Perhaps in his strategic books, Mr. Tu Vo Ton (the famous Chinese strategic commander) had said that to study about the enemies, one had to know the "intelligence cycle." "Intelligence information" once received had to be processed by comparing, analyzing and then delivering the evaluation comments, as the "intelligence news," to the other related stations to share. To form a cycle, this piece of "intelligence news" now became the "intelligence information" for the new owner. He then in turn tried to do the same thing. The "intelligence information" was the hot stuff, and the "intelligence news" was the cold stuff. The hot stuff might not be good, and the cold stuff might not be bad. Where did the "intelligence information" come from? Well, it came from the "intelligence information sources" which included the "intelligence agent," the enemies captured on the battle fields, the friendly units, the air-taken pictures, magazines, television, the friends, the family relatives, or the Americans. . . Of course, the truth or falsity of the source was the most important thing to care about. That was it for the entire "Intelligence General" course at the Cay-Mai School.
Once more, I graduated. This time, the honors of the graduation had no meaning at all, but the recommendation of the trainer's committee had the most significant impact on the life of the graduates. "Having good ability about interrogation," etc., those words might change an individual career. In my case, this was no big thing because I was still a naval officer. "Intelligence Officer" was the title of my left hand duty. Besides that, what I would do in the field was completely different compared with what I had learned from the school, I thought.
I knew that commander Hon Van Tran, the Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Vietnamese Navy, had not considered my application for stationing me near my home town because at his office he told me:
"From the beginning of the coming month, you will become the Tra-Cu Nilo as my order."
"Yes, Sir."
"Do you have any question?"
"No Sir."
The term of Nilo was the abbreviation of Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer. This was easy to understand; however, I did not know where the Tra-Cu was. I believed that Tra-Cu was a place in the Tra-Vinh or Soc-Trang provinces where there were a lot of Vietnamese with Cambodian root. Hey, that could be a big question for me to ask my boss, why did I not say anything? Well, I knew that at least this place was not in the middle part of the country. It was still in the South which meant that I would not be too far away from home. The cultural customs would also be close to my life style, I thought.
Later on, I discovered that Tra-Cu was close to home only by the line of sight. It was too far away from home because there was no roadway or railway to get home. I would not even consisder the airway which was too rich in life style for a Nilo like me. There was only the waterway that could be used from the Ben-Luc Naval Base, a half day's ride on the boat along the Vam-Co-Dong River. Tra-Cu was also much different from my cultural style because there were no civilians living in that area, the area named Parrot-Beak Area by the Americans. This was a military base in the open swamp, the Dong-Thap-Muoi Swamp, named by the Vietnamese. It had been covered by water for years.
The evening on Pha-Tam-Giang. . . (the voice of a famous song), I did not know what the beauty about evening on Pha-Tam-Giang was; however, I knew for sure that evening on the Vam-Co-Dong River had a good smell and a face that constantly changed. The good smell came from pineapple fields, thousands of rows running kilometers deep from the river banks. The whole sky had been filled with perfume. The changing face was actually affected by the different kinds of boats which were particularly used by "the seamen who fought on land" (VC terms for the marines). Besides the 250 horse-power outboard boats that were used as taxis for going back and forth from the city, those stationed in the Parrot-Beat Area often rode on the air boats, the jet boats, and the air-cushioned boats. They used only boats that did not have propellers, the boats that could slide on the top of the tall grass in the vast swamp. The horizon seemed to move up or down depending on what type of boat one was on.
The Tra-Cu Naval Base was located on the bank of Tra-Cu Canal near its intersection with the Vam-Co-Dong River. The stationary forces included an American Riverine division, an American marine company, a Vietnamese electronic sensors platoon, an American Nilo and I. Nilo was considered as a one man unit. Although all units shared the same base, their duties was conducted separately. I could not get along with my American counterpart because he always cared too much about the money in the secret fund, about a half million piasters. I hated that so I left the secret fund alone. I did not have to form my intelligence-agent net because I did not have any money to pay for my information sources. I also moved out of the concrete bunker to live in a wooden barracks with the Vietnamese platoon. The VC mortar shells might have eyes, I thought.
It seemed that I had lived in a foreign country when I stayed at Tra-Cu Naval Base. I had belonged to a minority group right in my own country. The foods were free and provided by the American Navy. After a few weeks, the Vietnamese platoon and I could not eat the American foods anymore; however, we still got in line to receive our meals. The two eggs of the morning breakfast were saved for playing cards. At the end of the month, the rule of "winner takes all" gave the winner a chance to sell those refrigerated eggs at the Saigon market when he got home. The meats of the lunches and dinners were used to exchange for Vietnamese dry foods and vegetables with the wives of the Special Forces soldiers who lived in the base next to ours. Ham, bacon, chicken, hamburger, and hotdogs, etc. had been traded fast, but the lobster of the Friday night dinner was eaten by us right at the mess-hall. Later on, we had to recook our own meals by adding traditional Vietnamese ingredients to the American foods. One in a while, we had to ride the outboard boat for a couple of hours to the Duc-Hue District Market to buy the foods we needed.
Were there any good information sources or agents in the middle of the vast swamp? None. Most of my hot stuff, the intelligence information, came from both the American and Vietnamese local army units. The naval patrol forces very seldom captured a suspect right on the field for me to interrogate. The suspects usually were the poor people who went out to catch fish in the restricted area. The naval force once brought back to the base an old woman. She did not cooperate with me at all. "Who was she, a VC or an ordinary woman? Who knew?" But I felt angry when she cursed the Americans and even me. I decided not to release her but send her to a district jail for more interrogation. "What would happen to her?" I did not know for sure. Several days later, I went back home for a short vacation. I saw my mother who was about the same age as the old woman, and I really felt bad about my decision. I thought that I might have killed her without the sword or knife. She might die in prison. Then I felt bad again. I asked myself, "Could I become a man who was never in tears after the hard training session in the Navy Academy?" Well, I knew that I never would be a man who had a heart of stone.
I was tired of processing intelligence information at the base: collecting, analyzing and sending out my evaluation messages. To kill time, I often followed the Vietnamese sensor platoon when they made an operation for laying the sensors or verifying the results. The sensors were buried along the VC infiltration trails for detecting the movements of the enemy troops from the Parrot-Beak to Saigon. The antenna of the sensors were green like stalks of grass. At home base, the noise that was collected and sent by the sensors' transmitter was carefully listened to around the clock by three shifts of navy men. There were noises made by the crickets, grass hoppers, rats, frogs, etc. and sometimes by human beings, which usually created goose-bumps on the skin of the listeners. VC, that was it. The listenners then called the nearby artillery company to shell a bunch of mortars to the area around the detecting sensor until all the noise stopped. The next morning, the operation of verifying the results was conducted on a large scale. Besides VC bodies, there were water buffalos that had been killed at the same time. I hated the blood sucking leeches that always sneaked under my pants and stuck with me to visit our base.
Because there was no gain at my position, for a short period of time I was ordered to become the Nilo of the 25th Army Division. This division's headquarters were located at the Cu-Chi Base (which was built on the top of the enemy's hundred miles long tunnel system as we knew later), about ten miles northwest of Saigon. Once more, I had been demoted because the place for the Nilo often was in the city of a province or at least in the town of a district. For example, the My-Tho Nilo the Vinh-Long Nilo etc. were the Nilo in the provinces, and similarly, the Tan-Chau Nilo the Ha-Tien Nilo etc. were the Nilos in the districts. I had been the Nilo of nowhere and now the Nilo of an army division, both cases were new and special. However, this time I had no complaint about it because I could go back to Saigon anytime I wanted to from Cu-Chi Base.
I had been promoted to Lieutenant JG automatically because my time had come, about two years after my graduation from the Naval Academy. Lieutenant JG was over-qualified for the Nilo job, so I had been recalled to the Navy Headquarters in Saigon. I now became the intelligence information analyst officer for the 3rd MR (Military Region), one of the only four MRs in the country. At the same time, I also had been assigned one more job as the briefing officer for the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations), Admiral Chon Van Tran because I had a better voice compared with all the other analyst officers. Imitating the Americans, the Vietnamese called all their generals in the Navy simply "Admiral", the equivalent of a four star generals. The briefing officers always said: "Good morning, Admiral. . ." They did not need to add the word "Rear" or "Vice" to the word "Admiral" for more definition. I took care of the Vietnamese part, and my former senior, Lieutenant JG Hoanh Hoang Tran, had the American part for Admiral Zumwalt. Mr. Hoanh had the best record in English for the Navy. His ECL (English Comprehension Level) points were never below 95, and he could go to the U.S.A. for more skill training anytime he wanted to.
Before he went to Guam to receive a new ship from the Americans, commander Hon Van Tran, Chief of Intelligence Department of the Navy, ordered me to take another position at the headquarters of the Riverine Forces. This headquarters was located at the Binh-Thuy Naval Base, near Can-Tho City, "the capital of the West" as the Vietnamese usually said. At that time, the Vietnamese Navy had divided into two parts: the Riverine Forces and the Sea Forces. The Riverine Forces were commanded by admiral Hung Manh Dinh. Under him, were three task forces, each commanded by an admiral. Admiral Minh Co Hoang had the 211th Task Forces. His main area of operations included the rivers of Nam-Can, Ong-Doc, Rach Soi, and the Xa-No Canal. Admiral Phu Van Nghiem had the 212th Task Forces. His main area of operations included the rivers of Mekong, Vam-Co-Dong, and Vam-Co-Tay. Admiral Dao Dinh Vu had the 214th Task Forces. His main area of operations included the rivers of Dong-Nai and Long-Tao. Under those task forces, there were the "dot" headquarters, such as 211.1, 211.2, and 211.3. Under those "dot" forces, there were the "dot dot" headquarters or the Riverine Division Headquarters such as 211.1.1, 211.1.2, and so forth. The Riverine Forces co-operated with the 3rd and 4th Army Corps in the 3rd and 4th MRs only. The VC operations in the rivers at the high lands or mountains in the 1rst and 2nd MRs were not important.
At the headquarters of the Riverine Forces, I was the third ranking officer in the Intelligence Department. Lieutenant Commander Duc Phuoc Nguyen was the chief, and Lieutenant JG Thien Chi Nguyen was the Deputy Chief. However, I became the briefing officer right away because I had a lot of experience from my previous position. It was an easy way for me to gain attention from the admiral. Mr. Duc gradually lost his confidence in the intelligence field and later he made an application and went on to Guam to receive a new ship, like Commander Hon. He was then replaced by Lieutenant Commander An Van Vo who had been transferred from Saigon. Mr. An did not handle the job very well, and later, he was really out of the admiral's sight.
Suddenly, I had been promoted to Temporary Lieutenant. In a period of one year and seven months, I was one of the seven in the Seventeenth Class who made the first jump. I did not know what my boss at Saigon had recommended. I became the Deputy Chief automatically, as Mr. Thien had been transferred to the Ninh-Kieu Naval Base. Then, one nice morning, Lieutenant JG Hiep Tam Le, my naval classmate who currently was the admiral's briefing officer, informed me by phone:
"Hey, you are moving up again, boy. Just like a kite getting the wind. . ."
"What move up?"
"You had better prepare to report to the Admiral."
"Me? Report to the Admiral now? Are you kidding me?"
"No kidding. I give you only five minutes!"
"What is happening?"
"You will know later, hurry up."
In my mind, I felt that there was nothing important. Although I met the Admiral almost every day, I had to look at my uniform and hat. There was a lot of difference between reporting and just seeing.
"Are you the highest ranking officer of the Intelligence Department after Lieutenant Commander An?"
I told myself that the Admiral already knew who I was and wondered why he pretended to ask me that kind of question? Of course, I said:
"Yes, Sir."
"Do you think you can handle the Intelligence Department?"
What? I would take the control of the Intelligence Department? This question gave me a little bit of a surprise. Mr. An had made an application to go to Guam to receive another new ship? I then gained back my confidence, and gave him a clear answer:
"I will put all my effort into this job if you have confidence in me."
"Sure. From now on, you are my Temporary Chief of the Intelligence Department."
"Yes, Sir."
I saluted him and stepped out. I met Hiep at the door, and he said:
"How is it? Did he let you get the position? You know, the commander position on the paper?"
"Yes, he did. Why didn't you tell me anything about this, so I could have prepared earlier?"
"Oh! Your intelligence skill is poor. Are you sure you didn't know anything about last night?"
"What is it?"
"Oh, oh. . . there is only a big story around your intelligence department. Your chief, Mr. An, stole some junky stuff that was supposed to be transferred from the Americans to us. The Admiral got really mad, and he signed a memo to send Mr. An back to Saigon in 48 hours. Did you see Mr. An come to work today?"
I did not know anything at all, but that was it. It was a big chance for me to move up. Just like a kite getting the wind as my friend Hiep said. I came back to my office and prepared the transfer processes and papers. . .
Although I was only a Temporary Chief of the Intelligence Department at the headquarters of the Riverine Forces, there was a lot of change that was going on in my life. On the road, there was a jeep and its driver assigned to me. Inside my house, I had three telephones with three different lines: civilian, military, and hot-line. I considered myself on the same level with other senior officers such as Commander Luy, the Chief of the Supply Department, Lieutenant Commander Dieu the Chief of Communications Department, and Lieutenant Commander Bay, the author of "The Seaman's Life" also the Chief of the Operations Department. But, I had been more and more busy with my job. I had to carry out the monthly meeting for the Intelligence Department. I also had to prepare the briefing, intelligence section, for the quarterly meeting of the Riverine Forces. Besides those periodic meetings, I often had to fly on the helicopter with the admiral to visit our operation units.
Meetings of the Intelligence Department, included all Nilos in the 3rd and 4th MRs, the two department heads of the Intelligence Department of the Regional Navy Headquarters in the 3rd and 4th MRs, the three department heads of the three task forces 211th, 212th, and 214th, and the two leaders of the naval secret-agent nets in the 3rd and 4th MRs. There were over sixty officers. Among them, some officers had higher seniority than mine, including Lieutenant Bang, 13th class, Lieutenant Tong, 15th class, and Lieutenant An, 16th class. And there was Lieutenant Commander Yen Ba Chu the Chief of the Naval Recognizance Headquarters. It was difficult for me to sit as the chairman of such a meeting. Then, I got an idea.
"The Admiral is coming, atten. . . tion."
"Please, be seated."
Then, Admiral Hung introduced me:
"To open this meeting, I have something to tell you all that. . ., and that. . ."
And his last words were:
"My conclusion is that what Mr. Chairman suggested for you to do in this meeting is my order. Everyone, please, support him."
"The Admiral is leaving, atten. . . tion."
The spirit of the meeting had been raised. Those Nilos were now thinking of serious matters because it was unusual for them to see the "star." They tended to make real reports and good speeches; however, the senior officers did not pay much attention, and one of them told me:
"Hey, we don't need to go on the whole day. Can we get a half day off, Mr. Chairman?"
"Sir, you can take off anytime you want to. But, I am afraid that the secretary will record all of what he sees and hears!"
The meeting of the Intelligence Department was not as complicated as the meeting of the Riverine Forces. All of the generals in the Navy would come to that big meeting. Their accompaning deputy officers often had several big bars on their shoulders for their rank (at least the commanders with 3 bars). During briefing sessions, it was a headache for the briefer if the CNO asked many questions because he got unclear answers. It was lucky that the CNO admiral Chon, still remembered me because of my long period of briefing him at Saigon. He did not ask me many questions, and sometimes he tried to help me get out of trouble with the other officers.
"He already talked about that before. Are you sleeping and just awakening? Why do you keep asking the same questions back and forth?"
Who would want to ask me more questions when the CNO said that? Consequently, my part was much easier at other times later on. However, my briefing was very good, of course, because I usually had obtained the information and material from the 4th Corps' Intelligence Department. For example, I had made friends with the officers under Colonel Binh (Chief of the Intelligence Department of the 4th Corps), officers such as Major Sac, Major San, who helped to get the negative of the maps. There was no need to make slides by hand for the maps as my friends usually did in the Navy Headquarters in Saigon.
The one who had most problems during questioning was Commander Luy, the Chief of the Supply Department. He had trouble keeping track of those sunken ships. He did not remember which one was still there, which one was back at the dock for repair, or which one was ready to be removed from the bottom of the river. Sunken ships were usually in the enemy's areas, and to remove them the naval forces had to protect the crane ships. If there was no protection, the new ships might follow the old and be sunk. To prevent unnecesary problems, the entire briefing was taken care of by two people: captain Kiem and me. Captain Kiem Do replaced Commander Da Trong Luu who was well known as The Yellow-Dragon Commander (He stole a lot of clothing materials from the merchant ship named Yellow Dragon when it went down in the Mekong river as the result of the VC attack.), Chief of Staffs, for just a few months. I briefed first and Mr. Kiem took care of the rest for other departments. It was amusing.
Although I was in the Navy, I had nearly received the Air Force Service Medal because I had a number of flight hours. I had to follow Admiral Hung like his strategic advisor. . . as the old Chinese book said. At that time, a lot of helicopters were hit by the SA 7 missiles, so the Admiral's helicopter usually flew just above the ground. If it was going to get hit, it would be hit by the AK 47 riffle and there was no big deal about that. On the way to visit General Quay Denh Chuong, at the headquarters of the 21st Army Division in Chuong-Thien province, the helicopter flew along the Xa-No Canal, and I thought that we were racing with the boats and sampans. When we closed on Vi-Thanh City, the helicopter had to make a jump up into the sky then land down on the place where there was a column of colored smoke. The same thing happened on the way to My-Tho when we visited Dong-Tam Base. The helicopter flew along the 4th Highway, and I thought now we were racing with the buses, cars, and motorcycles. The jump took place when we came close to base. However, it was different when we went to Ca-Mau City and the Nam-Can Base. Because of the distance, both helicopters or Cessnas usually flew very high, beyond the SA 7 missile's range.
It was fun to fly over the battle field. The scene was just like in the movies. At that time, the 18th Dao Hung Tran Campaign, which was promoted to protect convoys on the Mekong river from Vietnam to Cambodia, was very busy. A convoy with fifteen ships had to return twice, and two ships were hit each time. The VC from the north bank of the river shot out mortar like rain. The third time, Admiral Hung tried to make a big push. He ordered five Riverine Divisions brought to the area, two from the 211th and 212th Task Forces and one from the 214th Task Force. The LSSL (Landing Ship Support Large) HQ 231 was also on the way. Someone said that the LSSL would be a present to the VC; however, the admiral did not believe so. He had confidence in the direct fire power from the 76.2 mm, 40 mm, and 20 mm guns on the ship.
On the Army's side, the 31st Regiment, whose front headquarters was at the city of Hong-Ngu District, had the responsibility to attack the VC artillery batteries on the northern bank. The naval front headquarters were at the Tan-Chau Naval Base, across from the Mekong River. On the Air Force's side, there were many F 5 and A 37 jet fighters, and A 1 Skyraider propeller fighters had been assigned. In that early morning, the smoke from those exploded bombs made the sky black at one side. The Army infantry were moving into the battle field right after the bombardment to engage the VC.
The convoy started to move with heavy support of the Navy boats on both sides. Looking down from the Admiral's helicopter, I had never seen so many boats and ships in one place like that. It seemed like a bunch of big fish in the water. The second ship in the convoy passed the dangerous point safely. But suddenly, "whrrr. . . bang, whrrr. . . bang. . ." with many rainbows smoke appeared in the sky. It was the same thing: the VC shot out mortars. One of them exploded on the ship like a huge fire cracker. Another exploded in the river. Another shot up a high blast of water. This time, the VC did not stay on the river's bank, but positioned themselves on the four damaged boats. The Army just jumped into the empty jungle. That was bad. "Whrrr. . . ba . . . ng," a big and long sound could be heard everywhere. The entire ammunition barge exploded. The pulling boat cut the line and continued to run alone by itself. The whole river had waves. The naval boats surrounded the sunken boats at the banks. The crew of the HQ 231 now had their chance to use their guns. There were too many years of maintaining and cleaning up for just a very short time of use. The battle ended shortly. Half the VC artillery company was dead; the rest were captured alive. A bunch of arms were collected, including individual rifles, mortar launchers, recoiless guns, and some SA 3 wire-controlled missiles not yet used. That was good.
After a period of time of working together, everybody knew that they had to eat French bread sandwiches on the helicopters with Admiral Hung, they had to smoke the blue Bastos cigarettes (the cheapest cigarettes) when talking with Admiral Minh, and they had to count papers if they worked with me. That was disappointing. Therefore, after a period of two years set by the Navy for its transfering policy, I did not make an application to go to Guam to receive the new ship like most high ranking officers in the Intelligence Department but I went instead to Phu-Quoc Island, the headquarters of the 4th Coastal Zone. I could not even get my lieutenant's rank upgraded by firm-status, so I had nothing to hold me back to work there.
"You just took care of half of the Intelligence Department of the Navy, and why would you want to go to a small island? Do you really want to take a long vacation out there?"
Captain Hai Do Nguyen, the new Chief of Intelligence Department of the Navy Headquarters, told me that. I knew that he just said what he pleased, but he had to let me go any where I wanted. "What? Yes, he knew that I was almost. . . a VIP now," but I explained to him:
"I had been with the Riverine Forces for a long time. You have to let me switch to the Sea Forces so I can learn some new things, right?"
A few week later, I had to come back to see Captain Hai once more. He said:
"I will let you go but the Chief of Staff of the Navy will not. Look here, don't you see his note? Do you have any questions?"
I held up the memo and read the line of words: "I do not approve. Keep him at Saigon" and the signature of Captain Kiem Do. What? He was my former Chief of Staff. I knew he had been transferred to some place but I did not know where. He had been moving up; so I had a chance to move up, too. However, Mr. Chief of Staff of the Navy did not know my situation at all. I told Mr. Hai:
"Can I borrow this memo for a while. I would like to discuss it with him."
I ran. The secretary officer of the Chief of Staff of the Navy opened the door and invited me to come in. "My Commander, why do you not approve my application? I want to go to Phu-Quoc Island! You have been there and you know that it is a much easier life over there."
"I thought that they were trying to kick you out of here, so I tried to protect you. Now, if you really want to go I will let you go."
I ran back with a big word: "Approve." Mr. Hai did not like that and gave me some words:
"I let you go not by the recommendation of the Chief of Staff, you know? When the time comes, I will call you back, do you understand?"
Before I left the Riverine Forces and transferred my duty to Lieutenant Commander Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, the captain of the LSSL, HQ 225, that was sunk in the Nam-Can River by the VC mine, I wanted to ride a boat on the Vam-Co-Dong River once again. It was just to do again what I had done when I started my intelligence officer career as a Nilo. At that time I was just like the kite that began to fly, and now my kite was up in the sky carried by a lot of wind. . . The memo sent out said: "the Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Riverine Forces would like to observe and study the area of. . . Please prepare, support, and brief." The commanding officer of the field units did not know who the Chief of Intelligence Department was, and they thought I was a high ranking officer. Commander Giang, the Commanding Officer of the 3rd "dot" of the 212 Task Force (212.3) located at Ben-Luc Naval Base, was surprised to see me; however, he assigned 4 BPR boats for me to complete my mission. The Commanding Officers of the Naval Division at Tra-Cu and Go-Dau-Ha Naval Bases prepared lunch and dinner for me after the briefing session. Once again, I saw my kite flying higher and higher. But, was the kite still kept on the ground by the the kite line? And it could not come up to heaven, the empty and vast sky in the Tra-Cu Area. Tra-Cu Naval Base was a place I never forgot. It gradually appeared in my eyes. Without anything in mind, I said:
"Why don't we speed up a little bit!"
"We go first, Lieutenant? OK."
The Petty Officer pushed two handles forward for two engines at full speed. The boat flew around the curve of the river just like a motorcycle on the road. Just before the intersection with the Tra-Cu Canal, suddenly "whrr bang, whrr bang. . .," individual rifles were continuously fired. I gave the signal to turn around. The second BPR was hit by VC B 40 rockets and became a fire ball in the middle of the river. The crew members jumped into the water and were swimming. The VC intelligence works were good because they already knew which boat had carried the Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Riverine Forces. Live with the career and die by the career , it was so lucky that I had said something at the last minute. I was too close to death. However, it was my fate to survive because I did not want to be worshiped too early. Haa haa . . . it was lucky that my kite had not gotten a very strong wind, a storm, so it still had the kite line . . ., my line of life.
(In rememberance of when I attended the Vietnamese Military Intelligence Officer School)
07. THE FIRST STEP
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Leaving the refugee camp, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, I had known only that my entire family would be resettled in the northern, cold weather country, the land of the flowering cherry trees. My family members included my wife and me, our four children, three boys and one girl, whose ages were five, four, three, and two years, and Huynh, my sister in law who was seventeen years old. We were going to the cold weather country. That was right, and we really wanted it. My wife and I, both of us had refused our first sponsorship going to the city of Amarillo Texas. The reason was simply that we wanted to live in the area that had four distinct seasons. In Vietnam, there were only two seasons, the dry and rainy seasons. All the Vietnamese knew it. In Texas, we believed that there was only one season: the hot season. That was the reason why we had to go to the North. Another reason was that I did not want my children and me to become the cowboys and cowgirls, quickly. But, of course, we never told that reason to the LIRS agents who worked for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. It was so easy to go up North because nobody wanted to go there. For us, there was some sort of difficulty in refusing our sponsorship the second time. Therefore, we had been at the camp for a month. We no longer got in line in the B quarter mess-hall to eat our three meals a day because we had been bored with American food. Also we did not have to wander around in the Hitching Post, a military shopping center, any longer. And I did not have to be bothered by my wife:
"There are so many important things to do and why are you always doing the nonsense things!"
"What? There is nothing I can do everything is taken care of by the Americans. . ."
Finally, our plane landed in the Sioux Falls airport, South Dakota. Our sponsors came out to greet us. There were a lot of people who stood crowded in the hallway. Cameras flashed often. I did not believe that we were truly the VIPs at that time. We had three church sponsors, and they were the First Lutheran, the First United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ. After a series of introductions, I did not know who was who. Now, we had to speak English, and that was not easy. True or false and yes or no we had to say a word to please the people, I thought. Who cared about what was right or wrong? Only the children were happy with their new toys.
From Sioux Falls, it took about two hours for our sponsors to drive us to Vermillion, our home town in the United States. They followed the I-29 Interstate Highway which passed through the area of vast farm lands. One by one, the hills were connected to each other and seemed to never end. The evening sunlight shone on the wheat, the soy bean, and the corn fields that just had been harvested. . . it made me think that I was on the 4th Highway from Saigon to the Mekong Delta. The only difference was the farm fields here were much larger. It seemed like the surface of the desert or the sea, and there were no trees and houses there.
Our first house in the USA was an old house whose age was at least double my age. The members of the Methodist church bought that house with the intention to remove it for more parking spaces. However, the sponsor committee could not find a suitable rental house anywhere for our family, so they had to yield to that solution at the moment. Anyway, we had to pay rent although the price was cheaper compared with the other houses on the market. It was just over a hundred dollars a month. That was a two level house with a half basement. On the ground level, there were a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom which was perfect for Huynh to use. On the upper level, there were three bedrooms and a bathroom for us and our children. In the basement, there was only an old furnace that had several warm air conveying pipes arranged like a Buddha with many hands. There was no shortage in furniture, I thought. Although everything was from the Goodwill store, the gifts from our sponsors meant a lot to us. But, of course, only the rich men in Saigon could have that kind of house and furniture. Oh oh, now I knew that the big shortage for us was to be the absence of oriental foods: the rice, the fish sauce, and the mints.
"The blizzard will come tonight, did you know? It is a hundred percent chance, the weatherman says that."
A lady talked with my wife on the phone. I had to look up in the English-Vietnamese dictionary and try to find the word "blizzard." Was it a snow storm? I did not believe that it would come here too quickly and just only a few days after we got to our new home.
"You need to prepare . . ."
"To prepare what? Food? Someone has already bought for us so many things in the refrigerator!"
We had no experience with any kind of storm, even with the typhoon in the middle part of Vietnam. Well, we would try to do our best. . . And it was true that snow started to fall at five o'clock on that evening, heavier and thicker from time to time. I was so pleased to see the snow for the first time. I could imagine the scene of. . . the snow was falling on the train in the Lyon terminal (a city in France), I held your hand and would like to say . . ., that was a lovely scene described in a famous Vietnamese song. I ran out to the front yard and caught the snow flakes in my open hands with a warm feeling. I really felt bad for people who lived in Saigon that they would never see snow in their whole lives. I wanted all the members of my big family, my parents and my sisters and brothers, there with me at that time. However, I was alone, and I felt so lonely and sad.
In the morning of the next day when I woke up, from the window, I saw that the snow was too deep, over my knee at least. In the front porch, on the road, or on the trees. . ., everywhere, there was only white snow. I could hear the sound whooosh, whooosh. . . of the wind that was whizzing around the corner of the house. The snow dust whizzed in the air like clouds that made my view fuzzy. For me, the snow storm was beautiful, and it definitely was different from the typhoon in the middle part of Vietnam.
Vermillion was a small town, but it was not small compared with other towns in its state. The University of South Dakota was located in Vermillion. The population was about sixteen thousand people which included six thousand students.
There were two Vietnamese refugee families that had come to Vermillion before us. The Doan family with two old parents and four teenagers had come first. Mr. Doan's oldest daughter was relocated in the state of Missouri because she had her own family, her husband and children. The other was Mr. Tran's family. It was funny that the Americans could not pronounce his first name Moi correctly. Moi (meaning "new" in Vietnamese with the high accent) became "Moi" (meaning "Negro" in Vietnamese with the low accent). Mr. Tran had two baby girls. The Vietnamese who lived in Vermillion did not come to greet my family at the airport because we had arrived on a working day, not on the weekend.
I had one week to stay home because of the snow storm. The only thing I did that week was fill out a job application form. I knew that even if I did not fill out the job application form, I still had my job there. The manager of the company I would work for was a good friend of Lyle, a member of the Lutheran church. Lyle was a farmer. In Vietnam the farmers were the low class people, but the farmers like Lyle here had won some sort of high respect from all kinds of people in the community. He owned many farms in the county. He kept some to work on for himself and put the rest on rent. . . My transportation back and forth from home to my work place was also taken care of by one of Lyle's friends, George. One day one dollar , that was the fee charge for an every day fifteen mile round trip. My company's name was Load King, a branch of the CMI Corp., Contract Machinery International Corporation. The heavy duty trailers for the Army, Navy, and Marines were our products, which had been used to carry ammunitions, guns, or tanks. I just gave up my weapon not long ago and now I worked for some sort of a weaponry factory. My reincarnation wheel seemed not to stop yet.
The factory was divided into five areas: beam and parts, assembly, welding, sand blast and rewelding, and the finishing areas. I had been assigned to work at the beam and parts area. I helped Kurt run a big shear that could be used to cut steel or metal up to an inch thick and a few feet wide. Of course, I had to use the crane to bring the raw materials up to my cutting table. A special clamp built into the balance bar was used to lift the small or medium size pieces. To move the large steel sheets, I often had to use an extra tool, a long steel beam that had three big hooks on each side connected to the beam by steel chains. The job, after putting raw materials on the table, would be easy. I just followed the paper orders, measuring the length and the width, drawing the chalk marks, lining up the metal sheet, and then cutting. The number of pieces to be cut was very important, too. For example, they might need fifty pieces of thirty-five by thirty-seven, one hundred pieces of sixteen by forty-four, and so on. . . But, I could not believe that Kurt just took the time to cut one by one. I got an idea and I tried to do it my own way. I created an adjustable stop at the back side of the big shear. I told Kurt when I finished it:
"Hey, come here Kurt, I have a special tool for you. From now on, you need to measure just once, from the blade to this adjustable stop. After locking the stop, you just keep pushing that sheet of metal in and brummm, brummm, brummm. . ., cut and cut."
Kurt tried to cut with my new method once, then he shook his head and told me:
"You have a good idea. However, you will have nothing to do if you are doing it like that. Remember, you cannot just stand there all day long. I think we will end up cleaning the rest room or moving trash."
He had a very good reason, and I understood that. I hated to waste my time, but I told him:
"If you don't want to use it, that is OK with me. But, I think we might keep it there just in case we have a hot job."
Kurt went back to the old style: to measure length and width, draw the big chalk marks, line up the metal sheet, and then cut, one by one. Later on, I knew why Kurt took so much time to do the lining up job; he had a chance to kneel down. That was right, there was a happy time for one who stood or walked on their knees, and I felt the same way. Standing up almost eight hours every day, my blood seemed to be concentrated in the lower part of my body making my legs numb, feeling solid. Kneeling down gave my leg muscles a chance to recover their strength, and I liked it. For me, cutting the metal sheet was the easy part. The hard part was to carry those cut pieces to put them in order in the racks. With a simple calculation, I figured out that I moved almost ten tons of steel every day. No way could I put up with that stupid job for the rest of my life, I thought. I wanted to discuss it with my sponsor, and finally I talked to Lyle:
"Please, look for another job for me, Lyle. I am small, don't you see? I am not fit for my current job!"
"It is not easy to find a good paying job like that one. They pay you three dollars an hour while the minimum wage is set at two dollars and ten cents. Do you realize that?"
"I don't care how much they pay me. It is OK for them to pay me just two dollars an hour, but they have to give me a lighter job."
"Well, how about this? What kind of job would you like at Load King? I will let them know your interest, but please, don't leave that company."
"I want to become a welder!"
I quickly gave him my answer without any thinking. That was right. A welder would have a bright career in that world of half professionals and half laborers there. The welding gun was not too heavy for me, and I could have chances to do different things instead of just stand all day on my feet. I could lie down, crawl over, climb up, or even kneel down whenever I wanted to.
A week later, I had been assigned to attend the welding class. I had to buy my welding gear, a leather jacket and a welding face mask. The leather gloves were always free for the steel workers. Every evening I had to stay late two hours for my class. I first learned about the welding gun, the welding rods, and how to use the welding machine. I had then to practice welding flat, angled, and beveled surfaces. The results looked smooth, gradually. After two weeks, twenty hours, I took the welding test, and I passed. On the day I had been transferred to the welding area, I was happy, mostly for my legs. From now on, I did not have to get a massage or to use Bengay every night anymore. However, my happiness became short because there was a big problem to being a welder, too. I had to weld and weld all the time, 24 over 24. Of course, it felt hot, burning, smothering! The experienced welders also threatened me:
"You can weld a maximum of only twenty years. That is it. You have to retire because your lungs do not allow you to weld anymore."
"Are you sure? You are kidding me, aren't you?"
Day by day on the front of my face, I had only seen a line of trailers which were held together by tacks, ready and waiting to be welded. I had to weld and weld, but the line of trailers would never end. In this cold weather, I still felt very hot, so what would I feel when the summer came? Could I survive? Well, I had to live with it, I thought! I could not complain to my sponsors anymore because I already had what I wanted. It was too bad for me.
Among us, the professional welders, several female welders had been recruited. There was no difference between the male and female welders when their helmet was over their head. However, I always had a little bit of surprise every time I discovered the blue eyes, the soft skin, and the styled hair under the welder suit. There were so many good things for a woman to do; why did those gals choose to be dirty welders? I felt sorry for them!
At the break or lunch time, although all workers ate their meals at the same place, they usually sat in groups according work area or profession. Of course, the noisiest and biggest group was the group of welders. However, the female welders formed their own small group in one corner of the room. There was only one female welder who did not like to join their group because of her race: American Indian. Her name was Maria. I had seen that nobody wanted to talk with her, and I did not know why. When she had free time, she usually read her book. What type of book, fiction or non-fiction? It was a novel, I guessed. She was a little bit crazy to do different things from the rest, and I was afraid of falling into that category, of being lonely. Therefore, I joined George's gang. Their words had some sort of weight because they had worked there for a long period of time in the company. For me, I thought it gave me more opportunities to learn and speak the language. Of course, I had to munch sandwiches like them every day. I had a bad experience once when I brought in some Vietnamese foods, the dried shrimps that my friends had sent to me from California, for George's gang to try out. Those guys discriminated not only races but foods also.
"Where do you come from?"
Maria suddenly asked me that one day when she welded near me. Although her voice was one hundred percent the female voice, that voice was not one hundred percent American. I would like to see her as a Vietnamese woman because she had the black hair. I said:
"I come from Vietnam and I am a Vietnamese."
"How long have you been here?"
I felt that she seemed to know me very well, and why did she ask me? But, I replied:
"Just a few months ago! How long have you worked here?"
"About a year, but I will quit very soon. . ."
"Why?"
"Next month, my husband will graduate from the University. We will go back to my reservation to live. He will be the superintendent of the high school there."
"It sounds very good! Where is your reservation, in Sioux Falls or in Sioux City?"
"No. It is far, far away from here, a few hundred miles to the West. We belong to the Crow Creek tribe."
"Oh! I really don't know much around here."
Maria often came to talk with me, but I did not want to be friends with her. The Americans disliked her, so they would do the same thing to me if I had been friendly with her. Many times, I asked the Americans why they did not like Indians? They said that the Indians were lazy, too dependent on the welfare program, and got drunk most of the time. Later on, I understood that there were no jobs in the reservations for the Indians, and when they went out for jobs, they were often abused. That was the main reason that forced them to leave their jobs and go back to their reservations to get drunk and forget their hard times. It was lucky since there were not any Blacks in the area, I did not see the discrimination against Blacks. But, why did the Americans like the Orientals? The turn for the yellow men had not yet come, I believed. Before Maria left Vermillion, she and Tom, her white American husband, came to visit and gave us their new address. We hoped that we would have a chance to see each other again.
After a few months at the welding area, I had been transferred back to the beam and parts area. However, I did not run the big shear anymore, but instead I became a builder. The builder was different from the welder. The builder only put welding tacks on the things and very seldom had to weld. I liked that because I now inhaled less smoke. Following the blueprint, I built all kinds of parts, such as pedestals, out-riggers, tailgates, loading ramps, suspension blocks, and even the gooseneck's pins. I learned how to read the blueprint from my group's leaderman (a ranking person after the foreman). It was easy. After several weeks, I thought that I could perform the leaderman duties correctly. By the rule, however, I had to have the certificate as a second class welder by taking another welding test. It was simply OK with me. To prepare for that test, I had to practice welding overhead, vertically down, and vertically up. The secret was to know how to set the voltage level on the welding machine, not too high and not too low.
Even when I got the skill I needed for the test, I could not take it until my basic time as a third class welder, three months or so was up. Then, of course, I passed my second test. But, my leaderman position and title would never come. It seemed that the company had a special policy for the Orientals.
Well, I was an unofficial leaderman anyway because every day I had several guys assigned to help me do my job. I showed them what to do and usually I took care of supplying raw materials. In order to handle my job smoothly, I had to communicate and make friends with those skilled workers who ran special machines such as the saw, drill, punch, and lathe. But, those guys were often busy talking about car racing, horse racing, football, and baseball instead of inch, feet, and measurements. That gave me a chance to learn how to operate all kinds of machines myself.
Later on, however, I also learned very fast the American philosophy of work: "Do only your own job." That was right. If I kept working harder and harder, my job and my title would still be unchanged: a welder, no more no less. I got paid the same amount of money, so why did I have to do so many things? I finally understood what life in an American factory was about.
Spring had come-the season of outside sight-seeing that everybody was waiting for. Green leaves had started to grow and flowers had started to blossom. Everything seemed to have a strong lifestream. But, where were the cherry flowers which people often had talked about? It was too bad that the flowering cherries could not be everywhere in the cold weather countries, I thought! The famous cherry trees were in Washington D.C., my American friends told me that. I felt a little bit sorry for our decision to come here.
Anyway, I had planned to take a vacation, but I could not come to the District of Columbia which was far away on the east coast with only a few days added to a weekend. Therefore, I took my family to the Black Hills area, a famous recreation spot in our home state. We saw Mount Rushmore where the four faces of the presidents had been carved on the rock. We visited Rushmore Cave, Cathedral Needle, and Crazy Horse, too. I felt that everything that belonged to the U.S. was big. On the way home, we also stopped by to see the Bad Lands located along the I-90 Interstate Highway. It was the Little Canyon for me with many beautiful and colorful walls that were formed by the deep sinking of the land.
In this vacation, we were pleased to make friends with the chipmunks and prairie dogs, friendly animals that had not existed in Vietnam. We then followed the Missouri River to the north to visit Maria and Tom. They were so surprised because we did not inform them of our coming. I read the map very good, I thought. They just got home with several baby skunks. I asked Tom:
"What do you do with those stinky animals?"
Tom laughed loudly and explained to me:
"Are you sure you don't know about them? If you remove their smell glands, you can raise them like a pet at home. Dogs, cats, and even rats are afraid of them. Specially, these striped skunks are really smart. They are expensive, about fifty dollars each. Hey, follow me, I will show you something. . ."
I did not know what Tom would show me. But, I told my wife and Huynh watch the children, then I went with Tom to his basement.
"I will teach you how to remove the stinky glands from the skunks. But, you promise me that you won't teach anyone else, OK? I learned this from an old man who lives in my home state of Tennessee. The doctors charge fifty bucks for operating one skunk like this. It takes us five minutes to do the job. It is easy for us to earn a couple thousand dollars in three months of April, May and June."
"Why is it only in that three months?"
"Because after June, the baby skunks already grow big, and it is difficult to train them."
"Where do you find the skunks?"
"You put an ad in the local newspapers, such as a reward of ten bucks for someone who will locate the skunk den. People often call you and let you know where the skunks that got run over by cars are. Right away, you have to go out there and carefully check around that area to find the den. . . Here are your goggles. You had better wear them before the skunk sprays the dangerous stuff in your eyes."
I was glad that I had learned a new skill: operate on the skunk. However, Maria was not pleased about it. She did not know why Tom showed me one of the secrets of their life. Tom had been changed a lot, I recognized that. He talked more than Maria. He told me that all his friends never came to see him since he took his job at this Indian reservation. I was the first one who visited him and that pleased him very much. Besides his profession as a superintendent, he illegally ran a pawn shop. Around his house, there were so many things that had belonged to the Indians. Of course, the Indians did not have the money to repay for their things because they used it all for drinking. Therefore, once in a while, Tom had to take the stuff in his house to the next town to resell in the open market. Tom also collected guns. On the walls and in the gun closets, there were all kinds of guns, old and new. But he did not have the M 16 or AK 47, and I mentioned that to him. He thought I might like guns too and he handed me the Marlin,.22, and said:
"That is yours, a gift from me as a souvenir."
I was a little bit surprised and asked him:
"Are you sure?"
He told me to write my name on a piece of paper, then he wrote on the back of his visiting card about the possession of the gun. He gave it to me and said:
"I think that you should be all right with this note. You don't have to make any application to buy my gun."
Before we went back home, Tom gave me some Tennessee roots of tea. The roots were like oriental roots of manioc, but it definitely had the good smell of tea. Maria wanted to keep us there a little bit longer, so she could show us some interesting places about her reservation. There were monuments and museums that housed many spirit things of her tribe. She said that all the land around there had belonged to her ancestors who were the chiefs of the tribe of many generations. The government then took away the land from her family and did not pay them a penny. The government only built for them their village with all new houses, schools, and parks. She still thought that it was unfair for her family because they now had no land. Moreover, she had no country like me, similarly. The only difference was she still lived in her lost country and I had to live out of my country of Vietnam. So which had more pain?
When we got home, it was dark. My wife, Huynh, and our children ran in the house. I stayed back to collect things left over in the car and check the mail box. I was surprised, and I yelled loudly:
"Honey, how can you get in the house when your purse and keys are still here?"
My wife said:
"Oh oh, you forget to lock the door when we went!"
"You are the one who forgot it, not me. Remember, you were the last one who came out from the house while I was checking the car. . ."
It was lucky that the furniture and other things in the house were still in place. The people who lived around here were our good neighbors, I was sure. I took my shoes off; then I read those letters in a hurry. Most of them were bills, but there was one that looked strange. I opened it. It was from CETA, Comprehensive Educational Training Agency. CETA certified that I had completed three hundred and twenty class hours for my welding course! I read it once more. They were lying. No way, I never attended such a class. I tried to recall some papers I had signed. Did I sign some contract that I really knew nothing about? It was probable. However, the Load King company was also lying, because I knew that I had learned how to weld in only twenty hours. Well, it was good anyway. In just about six months in the USA, I thought I had learned many things besides the welding, but this was my first skill that I had papers to prove. This was my first step. I was at the bottom, so there was only one way for me: to go up. If you try harder and harder, you will find success, I comforted myself.
(In rememberance of when I was in the CETA program)
08. THE MAGIC STICK
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
While I was working in the beam and part area as an unofficial leaderman, I had been kicked to the sand blasting and rewelding area. Now I knew that working for an American company was similar to joining the Armed Forces in Vietnam, never staying at one place for long. A benefit was that all the employees could learn new skills without going back to the school. In many cases, those "hands on experience" people could be substituted for the company's skilled workers who had a college degree. The Americans were not comfortable with the Vietnamese proverb "One need only a profession to have a good life," because I had always been told to do other things when I finished my job. The laborers got pay by hours, so their money was counted in terms of their labors.
When a trailer was sent to this area, the first thing to do was put it in the sand blast room. The incoming trailer was just like a dirty pig, and after the sand blasting job, it would be clean and as white as a pig leaving the slaughter house, ready for a painting job. It was bad news that Phil, the foreman of this area, had planned to put to me work there as a sand blaster. Was he a prejudiced man? He might carry this sickness so long if he dared to tell me to do it! I said in his face:
"I am a welder, do you remember? The welder only knows how to weld, and he cannot be pushed to do that job."
I thought that he would be angry with me, but he laughed and went around to find someone else for the job. He sure gave me a big surprise. However, he had his reason, an appropriate reason. I found that the sand blasting job was a job at which each person takes his turn for a day. After Jim, it would be me. My turn came, and we started all over like the Chinese periodic years of animals. It was the time that everyone was waiting for because they would like to see how I handled that funny job. One guy said:
"I imagine that you hold the blasting hose like a boy who embraces the elephant trunk. You'd better have a firm stand because that trunk can lift you up in the air."
"What? Do you want to see? Here . . ., ki-ma-so-gi (horse stand in Korean), rum, rum. . ."
The Americans laughed loudly when I performed the karate punches. Jim took my hand and pulled me inside the blast room. He pointed at the blasting gun which was connected to a big, long hose like the fireman's water hose, and said:
"There, you'd better karate this thing."
Jim had the responsibility to show me how to do the sand blasting job. First, both of us had to wear the warrior uniform, a leather suit that had many steel plates connected to each other inside. Then, we put on our big helmet which also had long steel plates for covering up our shoulders. Now, we became two R2D2s who could only see each other though a piece of glass on the front of the helmet. We had to yell when we wanted to talk about something. I then connected the sand hose to my special suit. Right away, from the elephant trunk, a fresh air stream was blown on my face.
Jim put his index finger to his thumb to make the "ready signal." I prepared myself with a firm stand like a sailor standing on the rough boat. I gradually pushed forward the switch handle that was located near the end of the sand hose. The sound of the running motor was heard, and a stream of dust shot out from the blasting gun. Automatically, the elephant had been raised up by itself although I tried very hard to pin it down. It pushed me back, and I could stop only when my back was against the wall. Jim came and helped me to tame the big and wild python. We moved the dust stream back and forth along the side beam. The trailer turned white and clean like a fish that had been scaled by the fisherman. The meat of the fish would be gone soon if we kept the gun at one place.
I did not know why people called this act "sand blasting" when "steel blasting" was a more correct term to use. The dust was of steel instead of sand. The velocity of the tiny steel balls was very high, I thought. The tires on the back of the trailer were lucky to be covered by steel boxes to shield them exploding. Sand blasting was a good idea for it was easy to clean the heavy duty trailers. However, the hard part of the sand blasting job was not handling the sand blasting gun, the elephant trunk, but recycling the steel bullets. First, I had to pile them in four corners of the room. Then, I used the shovel to carry and throw them down a little manhole where the filter machine was. Of course, those tiny steel bullets were much heavier than sand, and that made it difficult for me to walk with a full shovel of them in my hand.
After sand blasting, the trailers were moved out by fork lifts. There were two kinds of fork lifts powered by gas engine or electrical motor. The trailers were righted and leveled by the tires on the rear axes and stands placed under the main beam at the front. Then, the leaderman used his flash light to find any badly welded spots and drew circles of chalk around them. Those spots were the results of setting the voltage on the welding machine too high or too low and from the forgetfulness and sleepiness of the welders who often welded "24 over 24," meaning all the time. In turn, workers using grinders or chisels had to find those circles of chalk to clean them up. The people's ears were really hurt by the metallic noises. The welders then made a better looking re-welded path. The final step was carried out by the carpenters who made the trailer's wooden floor. All the jobs in the sand blasting and rewelding area were described above. Therefore, there was nothing extremely difficult for me to do.
Actually, the difficulty of the job often depended on the place and time. One day, it was my turn to be a sand blaster. When I had finished the second trailer, I moved it out with an electric fork lift by raising its gooseneck at the front end. Back and forth several times, I finally made a parallel parking for the trailer along the wall. I found two sturdy stands and put them under the main beams. I pushed the "down" button which was located on the control bar of the fork lift to lower the trailer. Oh! the two stands were too short, and I had seen that. I stopped and then raised it up. I put two thick pieces of wood on each stand on both sides. Suddenly, there were friendly voices behind me:
"Hey, Hung, how are you? Long time no see, friend! I thought you already quit the company. I don't believe that you had been transferred to this area. How long have you been here, Hung?"
"It is about two months."
"Hi, Hung."
"Hi, hi . . ."
"Hi, are you working in this area?"
"Yes. Hey, where did your whole gang go?"
"Our stupid boss, John, you know him; shit, he told us to bring this hydraulic press back to our area to test."
"Are you going to quit the welding job? Do you want to become a mechanic?"
Throwing the hydraulic press down, all the boys who worked with me before in the welding area pulled out their cigarettes to smoke and joke around. There was nothing else besides the stories about their boss, the bald headed John. They always considered him a stupid man. Was he stupid? Why did the stupid man know how to tell them what to do? Oh, men. . . oh, shit. . . and four letter words were sputted out everywhere. Then, they started talking about girls. They told their love story naturally that made me like an uncivilized person or foreigner. It was not a big deal for me to be an uncivilized man because Vietnam never seemed to get out of the situation of the so called underdeveloped country. But, it was terribly sad for everyone to be a foreigner. My people never seemed to be raised in this country, this world far away from home.
"Hey, we have to go. See you later, Hung."
"Bye."
"Bye . . ., bye."
I had waved at those boys who thought that I was the same age as them with my young oriental looks. I then came back to work. My index finger pressed on the "down" button while I kept an eye on my teenager friends. . . until "craaack," a small sound hit my ears. I turned around, terrified to see my finger caught between the whole trailer and the control bar of the fork lift. The "up" button beside the "down" button could not be used because there was no room. The trailer kept coming down and the control bar gradually bent. I seemed to remember one thing and took a look at the two stands, oh no . . ., where were those pieces of woods? Fright came to me fast like the electricity, and I cried loudly:
"Oh, my hand, Phil, my hand. Help me, hurry hurry save me . . ."
Phil quickly saw I had been snapped by a big snapping turtle. He jumped on a fork lift, started the engine, made a quick turn, nailed two lift sticks under the trailer's gooseneck, and raised it up. I was so happy to take my hand out. Phil said:
"Take your glove off."
Slowly I dragged off my glove. My index finger was flat like a piece of paper with white bone and nerves showing. It was lucky that I had been using only one finger. I complained: "Oh shit. It's flat, men."
Phil stared at the wound. His eyes were round, and his face frowned. He was then afraid that the other workers would see my finger, and said:
"Put your glove back on and go with me."
I had no idea and just did what Phil told me to do. I thought that I was strong enough to survive with this light wound which could not compare with other serious wounds that I had seen in the battle fields during the war in Vietnam. But, I felt dizzy before I walked half way to the nursing room. I took my glove off again. The blood started to flow, and I now felt much pain in my finger. I fainted. In a few minutes, I knew that I was in the stretcher, and a needle for serum solution was stuck to my vein. The ambulance siren was dimly heard, and finally I felt that I was on a bumping road. I heard the voice of the female nurses:
"How long does it take from here to Sioux City?"
"About twenty minutes!"
"You'd better hurry, his face is so green."
The ambulance driver said:
"Tell him just hang on. . ."
I thought that I soon would follow my ancestors. I felt sorry that I had to die in a foreign country. Over ten years of fighting with the VC, I did not even have a scratch, and after only several months working here, I had to leave this world. Who would take care of my wife and children? I felt angry that I could not handle my simple job, only moving and parking the trailers. But, who took those pieces of wood without telling me a word? The ambulance finally reached the hospital.
"You must sign this paper so the doctors can operate on your finger."
A nice voice sounded in my ears, and I felt someone hold up my hand. I concentrated all the energy I had left over for a signature that could not be read or seen. I then listened to the nurse with the anesthetic and did what she told me to do. I counted, "One, two three . . ." then everything fell into darkness.
When I woke up, my head was heavy like a stone. Suddenly, I heard voices of my four children wandering around my bed. My wife said happily:
"Your dad is up. . . How do you feel, darling?"
Was I in the hospital? I tried to remember what happened to me. Oh no I used my right arm to find my left hand. It was in a cast? What was the fate of my flat finger? I put my left arm on my chest, and I tried to move my index finger. I felt nothing. It had been sawed off?
"What time is it, honey?"
I asked my wife and tried to sit up. My wife held my back:
"It is three o'clock in the evening. Why don't you just lay down in bed to get more rest. You don't need to sit up. . ."
Right away, I felt dizzy, and I gradually fell back to my bed. My ears were filled with noise, and my temple had pain. So more than a day had passed by. I took a long breath.
"Dad. . ., haaa haaa . . ., dad is not dead yet, mom!"
"Don't talk nonsense. Go and play with your brothers and sister. Let Dad rest."
My wife held up my hand, and gently squeezed it. My sleepiness suddenly came back to me, and it pulled my eyelashes down. . .
I had been admitted as a freshman student from the Western Iowa Tech Community College, Sioux City, Iowa, after my Vietnamese high school and naval officer diplomas had been inspected by special government office in Washington D.C. I spent six hours in the classes, from seven o'clock in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon, including lunch time. I continued to work at Load King six hours a day as a part time welder. With two more hours to drive back and forth, I had ten hours left for bathing, eating, sleeping, and doing my homework. Everything around the house including cooking and taking care of the children I left to my wife. From the beginning, I thought I might not have enough energy to do all those jobs. Later on, however, I felt that I was a robot which had been programmed to run or stop at certain times.
It was true to say that I could not understand what the teachers taught in the first few months. They said what they knew, and I knew what I said. Back at home, I had to use the dictionary all the time when I read my books. But, I could not believe that I suddenly knew how to talk and listen at least about the same as a fair student in the class. Then, gradually the difficulty was not to talk and listen but to read and write. Anyway, to talk, to listen, to read, or to write English. My high school's second foreign language in Vietnam was never an easy job for me at all. In my class, there were also two Vietnamese boys who tried to be the same as me, the full time student and a part time worker. However, they had to quit school shortly. I did not know what the reason was, either they had a problem with English or IBP, Iowa Beef Processing, paid them good money to work.
When I finished my first quarter, winter had come, and the land was covered with snow. I then got more and more problems, the car and the road. I had a 69 Toyota. It often would not start when the temperature got down below zero. Anyway, by pushing or jump starting, I had to make it run because I could not miss either my classes or my work. Those things were very important to me like blood in human tissue, and I did not want to sacrifice them. On the road, however, I had some experiences that first winter. If I ran in the ditch, I would make the cross on my forehead and shoulders and then climb back up into the road. If I spun around on ice, I prayed a few words in Sanskrit language and then turned to the appropriate direction. I soon knew very much about the difference between snow and the ice.
Once, however, I was unlucky because my front wheel bearing broke on the way home. I parked the car on the roadside and tried hitch-hiking, the only solution for me at that time. The people in the Mid-West area usually had a big heart, often letting a stranger take a ride in their car; especially in the winter, they did not want to commit a murder by letting the stranger be exposed and die in the terribly cold arctic weather. Therefore, on the first try of "thumbs up," I got my savior who was a semi-truck driver. I could not refuse such a quick offer. "Rummm, rummm, rummm. . ." the noise from the big diesel engine was like a sleepy and sad music. I climbed up three steps at three different places to reach the window knob of the truck.
"I would like to go to Vermillion."
The truck driver did not say a word; he just shifted the gear and went on. He did not even need to know where Vermillion was. I was sitting too high up in the air, and I felt that I was on a plane on the runway instead of a truck on the road. The airport was huge and completely covered with white snow. The runway, however, was rough like the roads in Vietnam which had been destroyed by the VC mines. Although I had been thrown up then down like a sailor on the boat in the rough sea, the driver seemed to be affected by nothing. Carefully, I took a look and found that his seat was separated from the bench which I sat on. That seat had a special built in system to absorb all the shocks making him hold still like a monk doing yoga. To break the silence, he asked:
"What kind of car do you have?"
"Toyota."
"You get what you want."
He smiled. It was clear that the American capitalist had a bad thought about the Japanese capitalist. For me, however, whatever the capitalist was, it still was much better than communist, especially Vietnamese communist. I replied:
"No. I did not get what I want. I got only what I can afford. . ."
I got off at the intersection on the I-29 Interstate Highway and State Highway 50. With one more "thumbs up," I got to my home town. I called my wife to come and pick me up, and both of us went to the car-parts store to buy the bearing. I needed to go back to fix my car that day, so I could go to school and work, the next day. We got back home, and we found something to eat fast. My wife wanted to go with me, but she also did not want to leave the children home without a baby sitter. We decided that the whole family would go together in my wife's Mazda Wagon.
Suddenly, it snowed heavier and heavier from time to time when we were on the road. I cursed a word, silently. About an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, I found my sick and lone Toyota which had been completely covered with thick snow. I made a U turn and parked the Mazda behind my car. I had to let the engine run to keep our children warm. I brought out my tool box and tried to operate on my friendly patient. After I cleaned up the snow that had been piled on the fender, I took the wheel off. Now, I reached the bearing. . . oh no it was worn out on one side and hardly stuck to the axle. I could not make it turn, even slightly. I sure needed a bearing puller; however, how could I get it in this vast farmland? I had to borrow it from someone who lived around here. I hated to spend all my effort and time for nothing. We had to go home with two cars, and I had to fix my broken one at any price.
Headed toward home, we got back to the next exit. There was a gas station and a bar there. I checked at the gas station first, and nobody knew what the bearing puller was. It was truly a rare tool. I then stepped into the bar. I found a bunch of cowboys who had hats on their heads and beer bottles in their hands and once in a while took a drink from the bottle. Although I was a little bit scared, I came and asked one guy:
"Hi, I need a bearing puller to pull my broken bearing from my car. Do you know someone around here who has one?"
"You need a bearing puller? No problem, I can handle that. Do you want a beer?"
He did not wait for me to answer his question and right away he told the bar tender to give me an open bottle. I was so surprised because I planned to refuse to drink. Now, I had no choice. I received the gift and said:
"Thank you. But I have no time. I live up in Vermillion, not here, and I need to fix my car so I can go home."
"Finish it then we go."
Waiting in the running car outside the bar, my wife wondered what happened to me and why I did not come out in a long period of time. She did not know I had been anxious to go too. But, I could not. Well, I finally emptied my bottle, and I was surprised that the cowboy left his buddies and went out with me. I also was surprised that he was the driver of the only semi-truck in the parking lot that had no wagon and had been left with the engine running all the time. "Rummm, rummm, rummm. . .," again, the noise from the big diesel engine was like a sleepy and sad type of music. However, the cowboy was surprised by the other thing and he blammed it on me:
"Oh my gosh, why didn't you tell me that your wife and children are waiting for you out here? Now, you just follow me, OK!"
Why did I have to tell him that my wife and children were here with me? Why did I have to follow him? Could I trust this guy? Why was it so complicated to just borrow a bearing puller? There were so many questions in my head. The snow kept coming, and it became darker and darker. I was on the back of a tiger, so I must ride it. I followed him deeper and deeper into the farmland full of snow. He then stopped at a lonely strange house in the silent darkness. I was now totally afraid of this unknown world. I even did not want to step out of my car, I just rolled down the window and waited for something to happen. I could step on the accelleration pedal and go fast. "Rummm, rummm, rummm. . .," the noise from the big diesel engine was always the same: a sleepy and sad type of music. Suddenly, he came up to my car and told me:
"Hey, come inside with us. Your car is already taken care of by someone else."
What was going on! It was clear that he tried to blackmail us to come here. If he now carried out his operation, I would fail to prevent it. Why did I not think of that? My wife was weak and I was not strong either. The children also could not do anything. I told my wife just stay there with our children, and I would come alone inside the house with him. Stepping into the living room, I gained some sort of confidence in the cowboy because I heard the voice of a woman lecturing her son. I wanted to bring the cowboy back to my problem. I was thinking to find some nice words to tell him because I sure needed his help; however, he came to ask me first:
"Where's your wife and children?"
"Well, we don't want to bother you too much. We would like just to borrow your bearing puller."
He ran out to the car and tried to talk to my wife:
"No one will bite you; please, come in. You don't want to freeze out here, right. Hey, boys and girls, wake up, wake up. Run inside to get warm."
My children woke up and took a surprised look around. They had been crowded in the back of the wagon, bored with nothing to do. They were delighted when they heard about going inside. They could not wait longer, just tried to jump out of the car and run. I could not stop them, and I hoped that the cowboy did not do anything wrong to them, my cute children. And everything seemed to be all right when he brought us to the kitchen for a warm introduction:
"I am Mike Wagner. She is my wife, Mary, and he is our son, John."
In turn, I introduced my family members, one by one. I had to spell our Vietnamese names out. He pronounced our last name Nguyen as Win. Win? Win all the time, he said he liked that kind of namẹ
"Have you eaten dinner yet? All of you seem to be hungry! Mary, why don't you find something for them to eat."
I sure blammed myself for having a bad thought about Mike. In any country, there was no doubt that the farmers who lived far from the city were always friendly and could be trusted. It might be too early for me to reach that conclusion. Well, I just had to wait and see. Mike did not know much about Vietnam and its war, and today for the first time, he had met some Vietnamese people. The war was over, and Vietnam came to him with a good spirit. Therefore, he felt that he was in love with whatever I said that had some sort of relationship to Vietnam. The cowboy seemed to have . . . a big heart, I thought. Anyway, we had to eat to please the hosts. The American food, the ham and cheese sandwiches, potato chips, and snack foods, had not yet become delicious and juicy to me.
About half way through our meal, I did not know where they came from, but Mike's neighbors crowded into his house like refugees crowded in camp. Oh oh, did Mike plan to put us on a show or circus? But, why had his friends brought along different types of instruments: violin, banjo guitar, trumpet, sax, accordion, and even a tom-tom drum set? Was this a famous band of country music in this area? I let Mike do the introductions; I got tired of spelling out our Vietnamese names. However, I reminded him about my problem:
"When will we go out and fix my car?"
"I already told you that someone else will take care of that job. Did you not believe on me. They just called back and let me know on the CB radio that they could not take your wheel bearing out by the bearing puller. Their bearing puller is too big for you car. They are now bringing out the torch to cut it off. However, you cannot go home in this kind of weather, a big snow storm out there. You just relax and enjoy with us."
Once again, I had a bad thought about Mike. My conclusion about the farmers in any country could be confirmed. But, how could I enjoy when there were so many things to think of in my head? I would miss my classes or at least be sleepy all day long tomorrow. Well, I just listened to Mike by paying attention to the music they played. I said that I did not know anything about the contemporary music at all, but I liked the 50s and 60s music. The band then played the music of the Ventures which I heard all the time in Vietnam in my time. I wanted to show off a little bit:
"Let me borrow your guitar."
"You know how to play guitar? All right!"
"I do not play very good. Well, I don't know for sure if I can play with this broken finger or not."
"When did this happen? Hey, let me see."
I let the American check my finger which had been certified thirty percent handicap with fifteen hundred dollars insurance benefit. For me, my handicapped finger had pointed me a good way to go for my future. Without it, I would be a dirty welder for the rest of my life. It could be my fate because I remembered the day I was in the hospital: there were so many magazines in the visiting room, Time, News Week, Business Week, Sport Illustrated. . ., why did I pick the catalogue of the only community college in Sioux City? I thought that I had to go back to school, and my sponsors were a half nay and a half yes. Of course, I was the one who had to make the decision, the decision that could change my family's life.
"Well, let me try. I am only afraid it may break again."
After I played the Domino music for the guitar soloist, all the people clapped their hands loud and long. I was surprised too. I did not know my broken finger still could be used to play music. In that moment of happiness, I lovingly kissed my broken finger, forgetting my broken car which was trembling in the snow storm. . .
I love my finger
From the day I reach my half life . . .
(Actually, Duy Pham's famous song said: I love my language. From the day I had been born. . .)
Was it a half life? That was right! The dark half of my life had passed, and the bright half of my life had begun. My broken finger was like a magic stick which brought me to further education and happiness.
(In rememberance of when I attended the Western Iowa Tech Community College)
09. THE BARRIER OF MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
There was no school around there for me after I received my two year AAS degree. If I wanted to continue, I had to go far away from home. The closest school was in the city of Omaha, Nebraska, 150 miles south. Omaha, the city name had sounded like a Japanese word such as Yamaha, Toyota, Honda . . . That was right, my wife and I, two of us made that decision. But, I was the only one who had to go. My wife and children would still stay at our new house that was built in our home town of Vermillion, our home state of South Dakota. I would be home only on weekends. I told my sponsors that maybe one day I would have a chance to go back to Vietnam, and I would make my parents feel bad if I got only as far as the AAS in my education. At least, I had to have a BS, a four year degree. At least, I had to be an engineer. That was the reason why I turned down the companies like Honeywell, 3M, and Perkin Elmer that offered me jobs although I took the interviews just to gain experience. Time would go by very fast in two years, I thought.
The summer was over. My partner, my car, and I, we together went to the city of Omaha. I felt like a country boy who first comes to town. It was a big city; there were several lanes in the streets. It was luck that after crossing the Missouri river, the I-29 Interstate Highway ended up in Dodge street, the street I wanted to find. Then, I found the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Chairman of the Department of Electronic Engineering Technology.
In transferring credit, one quarter hour was equal to two-thirds of a semester hour. I would have ninety semester hours if all the courses that I took in my two year degree program transferred. However, Mr. Chairman let me know that I got a maximum of only sixty-five semester hours, the number of hours equivalent to the first two years in a four year degree program. He compared my transcript with that of the University and he crossed out those equivalent courses-a simple job that he had done so many times he seemed to have memorized all the steps. Without even telling me a word, he wrote down four courses on my registration paper for the coming fall semester. He took out the stamp bloc in his desk drawer and printed the departmental seal next to his signature. "Good luck", he said, smiling. "Thank you sir", I replied. I then got out of his office while another guy stepped in right away. There was a long line of students who needed to transfer. I sat on the floor and took a look at my papers. I was pleased to be in the junior class, but I did not like the schedule at all. It would be difficult to find a job with two classes in the morning and two classes in the afternoon. It was not convenient for me to come back to tell Mr. Chairman about that. Well, I would do something later.
I stopped at the Student Job Placement Office, I put my name on the waiting list and took a chair. Shortly, I was called in because there were many interviewers. I described briefly my case, and gave the female job commissioner my conclusion:
"I really need a job to earn some money, do you know?"
She looked at my registration card for classes and said:
"You can only work at night. There is nothing else besides a cleaning up job. Many companies are looking for workers."
"OK. Put me on. Any company is right with me and the day that school starts is the day I begin to work."
I did not forget to say "thank you" to her before I went to the student club house. I had to stop at the cafeteria to get something to eat. The transferring had been done and a job also had been set, the only thing I needed to do was to find a place to stay. While munching my sandwich, I opened the telephone book. Who would I call? I knew nobody there! Oh! I first could call someone who had the same last name with me. Then, I could call the others if I had no success. L, M, N, Nelson, Newsome, Nichol. . . It was too far, I had to go back. Here, it was Nguyen, a bunch of Nguyens. I just started to call from the top down.
"Hello."
I was surprised by a female voice. I was just about to hang up, but I hated to lose my 10 cents. Well, I had already made the call and I had to learn how to talk with a woman:
"Hello. Good afternoon ma'am. . . I am Hung; my name is Hung. I come here to go school, and I trying to find some place to stay. Do you have an extra room in your house? By the way, I called you because you have the same last name as Nguyen with me."
"We came to this town just a few months ago. We have no extra room because we are staying at an apartment, now. Why don't you call those single guys."
"Do you know who is single around here? Please give me his phone number!"
"I don't know who is single and who has family because I don't know much about this city. Well, why don't you call someone else. Bye . . ."
She hung the phone up right away, I could not even say one more word. This was a failure. But, success was born from failure. I now had a good lesson about calling people on the phone: I only called someone who had a male name. Here, was Mr. Nguyen, Phuc V. (Phuc meant luck in Vietnamese language from the proverb: luck never comes twice, bad luck never comes once ). I would have good times with him.
"Hello . . ."
I really felt much better when I heard the male voice on the phone. I started to sing the same song:
"Hello Mr. Phuc. I am Hung. I come here from South Dakota to go school. Do you know any single guy around here whom I can share a room with?"
A few silent seconds was long like a few months. Suddenly, there was a nice voice:
"There is me. Come here to see me then!"
I was so happy:
"Is that right? It is perfect! Can you give me your address?"
"One-one-four-three, the 40th Street."
"I will be there in thirty minutes. You don't go anywhere, OK?"
I did not know where 40th Street was, But I just guessed thirty minutes would be enough. I opened the map to find it. Wow, I was lucky again to guess right. I had plenty of time to get there. After a half hour to drive and look up the house number, I saw Mr. Phuc in his apartment parking lot. He was standing with his back against his Vega. Through his dark sun glasses, I discovered his middle aged face. We shook hands, but not yet in friendly style. We needed time to know each other.
"Why don't we go inside. It is too hot out here."
The afternoon sunlight hit the apartment wall then bounded back with heat that seemed to smoke everything up. It was a two level apartment. Mr. Phuc stayed at the upper level at the end that faced toward the street. He opened the refrigerator and made two glasses of coke. He came back to the living room and gave me one. I talked about my family, my wife and four children. Because I loved to study, I had to leave them home in Vermillion. He talked about his family, also his wife and four children. Because he hated the communist, he had to leave them home in Vietnam. There was a home for him and me, but his home was extremely far, far away. Mr. Phuc had been laid off by a company that made cookies several weeks ago. He would start to work for the IBP (Iowa Beef Processing) Company the coming Monday. The IBP plants seemed to be everywhere. I thought that I might not have met him if he had not been laid off.
"This is just a one bedroom apartment. If you want to stay, it just fine with me. I feel lonely and I need someone to talk with, do you know?"
"It costs a lot to eat, not to sleep. It will be OK with me to make this sofa as my bed. However, how much do I have to pay you to stay here? I don't want you to have some thinking of an unfair situation later on."
It took a while for him to think, and he said:
"Well, I really understand your case. Why don't you just give me each month fifty bucks, and I will take care of everything for you."
That evening, I drove back home with happiness. It had taken only one day to do everything. My wife and children were anxiously waiting for the good news from me.
For me, to handle the school classes was an easy part. The hard part was to handle my new job. After evening classes, I called the Carriage Cleaners, my new company. My boss told me that I had to come early to do some paper work. It took me almost an hour to get there, a place between 130th and 140th Streets. Now, I learned my job was to clean apartments. We were gathering in many groups of six. I had been assigned to the 5th group which had a young black boy 15 or 16 years of age as the leader. Not long ago I had carried my soldier bag on my shoulders and gone out to fight the VC for the country, and now I had to carry the vacuum cleaner to clean the dust in the apartments. I felt that I was terribly insulted by someone or something. I hated everything: I hated that life, I hated the communist, I hated Mr. Chairman. . . I just followed those boys like we were a street gang. When I climbed into the Van, I remembered the first time I climbed onto the military truck, a GMC truck, on the day I had joined the Armed Forces. I would like to cry, but I could not cry. I would like to quit the job, but I could not do it. I needed the money to survive the next day. Those boys could not see the old age on my oriental face, they thought that I was about the same age as them because one had been teasing me:
"Do you like your job?"
"Job is a job!"
They laughed harder and harder with that kind of answer. They tried to let me know that the cleaning up was not easy like I thought. "You will soon find out!" After while, the driver stopped at a place those boys called a complex. Complex meant an apartment complex which included several one or two level buildings. Each level often contained ten individual apartments on each side with a long hallway in the middle. We had to clean those hallways. My leader, the young black boy, let me have the first building. He took care of the second himself, and the rest claimed their own territory themselves. He also recommended:
"You have to do fast and clean, OK! When I step out that door, I want to see you come out this door, OK! Not a second late."
In the first round, I tried to do a good job so I was slow. When I got out of the hallway, I saw him already standing beside the other door waiting for me. He said:
"You do it too slow. They already finished up several buildings, don't you see?"
I did not say a word to him, and I went in the seventh building to do my second round. I tried to do it fast this time. I vacuumed while I was almost running. When I got out, I heard the same thing from the next door.
"You have to do more, faster and faster. Do you hear me?"
"OK."
I thought that this boy had tried to fool me. He could not do it that fast. I had to give him a lesson. I just picked up some cigarettes or cigarette papers and raced out while the vacuum cleaner ran on. Beside the next door, he now yelled and threated me:
"You will be fired, you will be fired. . . do you know? You'd better run faster and faster!"
I was angry by his attitude, I yelled back at him:
"Shut up, boy! I have only two hands, don't you see?"
Later, we all worked together at the club house and around the swimming pool. The boy now kept quiet. I did not know whether it was because we worked together or if he was afraid of me.
Then, we got back up in the Van and went around to find the next complex. I tried to keep a distance from the boy for my safety. I did not need to do a good job anymore. I picked only the cigarettes and the paper and put them in my pockets. When I felt lazy, I just walked in, then walked out. My little black leader had no time to check, and he also had to run and run like the refugee who tried to escape from the communists.
I got home about eleven o'clock at night. My friend, Phuc, had been sleeping for a long time. He had to be ready for tomorrow. He was not used to the meat cutting job yet, so his arms and legs would be tired. I gently walked into the bathroom to take a shower. I then went to the kitchen to find something to eat. There were two chunks of boiled beef that might have been sneaked out by Phuc. I just sliced one and ate it with rice. It tasted delicious. After I did the dishes, I lay down on the sofa, my bed. There were so many things to think of, but I had no time for that. I just slept.
The profession of vacuum cleaning was not an easy one, and I, the hero felt fatigue after one week. Therefore, in the second week, I went out by myself to find another job after the morning classes. I followed Dodge street to the 72nd Street. I saw a row of many fast food restaurants. I stopped and filled out an application for work at Burger King, Hardy, Mac Donald, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The next and last restaurant was Long John Silver because I was interviewed and accepted right away by a female manager. Tomorrow, I had to come there to learn how to cook fish and seafood. . . That evening, after a well done cleaning job, I told my little leaderman:
"This time it is my turn, my turn to lay your company off, boy. Here, send my check to this address."
He felt sad and did not say a word to me. He might have felt sorry and guilty for putting me down from the beginning. He had to be sorry.
The profession of cooking fish and seafood at Long John Silver's was a mechanical job. There were four stainless steel containers, three feet by three feet wide and one foot deep, that always were filled with cooking oil. The oil temperature was controlled by an electronic device set to boil anything that was dropped in. One container was specifically used to cook fish. Two containers were used to cook other foods like shrimp, scallops, clams, and chicken sticks. The last container was reserved exclusively for cooking French fries and hush puppies.
Everything was flour coated and deep fried. Except for fish, all the foods were prepared somewhere else and sent to the restaurant in frozen bags. I just tore off the bags and dropped them in the hot oil. With the fish only, the cooks had to make the flour batter themselves when they needed it. Slicing the fish, the cod, was the manager's or co-manager's job. This was their right and responsibility for which they had to go through a special training session.
In front of the exhaust fans installed over the oil containers, there was a row of push-buttons. These buttons had been programmed to do their jobs. To cook fish, one had to push the fish button. To cook the shrimp, the shrimp button had to be set, and so forth. When cooking time came, the alarm sound, "Beeep beeep beeep. . .," could be heard. Resetting the button and picking the cooked food out was the last thing to do. The rule said that at least ten pieces of each must be ready on the tray. However, when there were too many customers, several things would be dropped in one oil container, then several kinds of "Beeep beeep beeep. . ." could be heard at the same time. The cook often was confused and did not know which one of foods must be picked. Food picked wrong might have to be re-cooked or end up in the trash can.
The cook learned only how to cook fish; other things were just thrown in. The flour batter to coat the fish was not too thick or too thin. The cook had to follow the sequence: one piece in the center, four pieces in four corners, four pieces in four sides, and eight pieces in between the other nine pieces. I called that the oriental "eight way" battle to remember it easier: five kinds (metal, wood, water, fire, and soil), four directions (East, West, South, and North), and eight ways (East Southeast, South Southeast, South Southwest, West Southwest, West Northwest, North Northwest, North Northeast, and East Northeast).
The sliding angle had to be right, and the sliding in job had to be perfect. If it was not, the cooking oil could be splashed. If the splashing hot oil hit the hand, it burned the hand. If the splashing hot oil hit the face, it burned the face, and so forth. If one was afraid of being burned and and did a poor job by standing far away from the oil container, all the pieces of fish would often stick together and end in the trash can. And if there was too much fish in the trash can, one had to be careful. . .
I was very careful on my job, but what would happen, happened. I brought fish and shrimp home to eat with the beef that Phuc got from his work place for only two weeks. When the time came that I had to cook alone, the problem camẹ That afternoon, there were a bunch of guys in Long John Silver brown suits. I was surprised. In the Armed Forces, before the commanding officer came to visit, the message had to be sent to let everyone know. Why did those guys not apply that rule? One of them stepped in and tried to race with me because there were a lot of customers who came for lunches. Everything had to be done in a hurry, and those fish and seafood did not cooperate with me on that day. Everything stuck together. I do not know what those guys recommended about my skill; however, I was fired that evening. When my working time was up, my female manager called me in her office and said:
"Today is your last day!"
It was a simple saying, no need to be sensitive or sympathetic. That was it, and I did not feel terribly bad either, although I really needed a job. If I did not work here, I must work somewhere. I would be called soon in response to two week old applications. However, to make sure I had another job right away, I came back to the Student Job Placement Office. My job commissioner thought I still worked for the Carriage Cleaner company. I described briefly what I was supposed to do there and what rules had been set. She was doubtful of me. She looked at my eyes with some questions in her mind, I thought. She then checked my record and suddenly said:
"Do you want to throw the papers? You cannot work either in the morning or evening, so you can only work at night. . ."
I took the introduction slip from the school and went to the Omaha World Herald newspaper circulation office. After several times of changing hands from one person to another and passing by several hallways, I met the man who really needed me. We both sure had a warm handshake.
"Come in, come in. When can you start?"
"Any time!"
"Oh, good. Sit down. Let me show you your round. Here, the map, your round is an easy round. You only deliver around the University, and you already know the area very well. You have 160 papers. With 10 cents apiece, you earn 16 dollars a day. You are your own boss, and there is no problem. Tomorrow you will go with me, and I will show you how to do it. It is easy. Do you know the 7-Eleven store at the corner of the 52nd and Leavenworth streets? I will see you there at two o'clock in the morning."
"Two AM?"
"Yes, from two to six o'clock, four hours is enough!"
I was very surprised. However, I had accepted the job because I had to have money. No money, no life. No life, no school. No school, no dream to be an engineer. I had to try harder and harder. I took my third job in a month.
At one o'clock at night, I awaked from my golden dream. I had to find the newspaper owner to tell him something. At two o'clock at night, things and stars had changed positions. Whatever he planned to do it would be making a living . (The original folk song was: At one o'clock at night, I lighted my golden lamp. Waiting for my former darling to tell him something. At two o'clock at night, things and stars had changed its positions. Whatever he planned to do I would be true with you ). I woke up at 1:30 AM. I changed my clothes and cleaned my teeth at the same time. Phuc might awake, too but he thought I was studying. He could not believe that I would go out to throw papers. With one eye that did not want to open, I ran to the rendezvous place almost on time. Bill, my boss, who had retired from the Air Force, arrived just a few minutes before me. He had served in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968. He told me to get in the rear seat and watch him do it. The passenger seat was used for two columns of newspapers that were higher than his neck. The right hand was used to roll the papers, and the left hand was used to put on a rubber band and to throw the papers out. On one side, it was a direct shot, and on the other, it was an over sky shot. The driving job was taken care of by both hands, one on another off. I practiced rolling the papers and putting on the rubber bands.
"At this house which has two big trees on the front, you have to throw the paper right up on the front porch. The old retired man doesn't want to go off of his porch to pick up his paper, and he often complains about it."
I tried to record the picture of the house in my mind.
"Today, you don't have any inserts. Do you know what the inserts are? The inserts are the ads that belong to Sears, JC Penney, K-Mart, and the grocery stores. Each insert you get one cent more . . . At this stop light, you turn left, and throw in the third house on the left. . ."
"Then, you turn right at Center street. Do you see the cemetery? You throw at that metal gate, two of them rolled in one roll."
"The Thrifty Nickel shop is next."
"Five papers. The more papers they need the more time you save, do you know?"
"Then, turn left. There are five places on this street. First, the house with a double garage."
"Second, the house that has a yard light."
"Third, . . ."
I began to forget the ones he had told me before. I hated it, and I listened to him no more. I could not remember 160 places, and at night, the houses looked alike. In Vietnam, the shed looked like a house. In the US, the wooden house looked like a brick housẹ
"Now, you have to get out of your car and go to this apartment. There are seven places. Come, go with me."
I got out of the car, and said:
"Bill, I think I have a very short memory."
"You don't have to worry about that, you will make it. An old man like me, I still can remember. So a young man like you you should have no problem. I am sure that you will be able to do the job in two weeks."
Bill continued to describe those points he had already memorized in his mind. I could not open my eyes. I stretched out my legs and put my head against the top of the seat. I wanted to sleep, but I could not. My body was pushing on this side then that side because Bill drove the car in both lanes of the street.
"Do you see the tall fence in front of us? Do you know where it is? That is the boundary of the Ak-Sar-Ben horse racing tracks. Do you know what the word Ak-Sar-Ben is? Ak-Sar-Ben is Nebraska written backward. . ."
"This house belongs to an old lady; you have to put the paper into her mail box. She wants that, and we have to do what the customer says. The customer is always number one, do you know?"
"No . . . Oh, what did you say?"
"You have to put the paper into her mail box."
In a sleepy condition, I heard nothing. Bill might get tired of talking to himself. But, I felt that the car was still crossing the road side to side, and stoping then going. . . Suddenly, I heard noise from the people and cars around me. Did the city awake? I sat right up, and Bill now drove the car carefully. The first sunlight shone on my eyes and made them hurt a little bit before I got used to it. When Bill drove back to the 7-Eleven store, I had just enough time to run fast to the school. Bill told me:
"You better go to bed earlier. See you tomorrow morning."
I practiced with Bill three nights, and the weekend then came. I had to go back home to see my family in South Dakota. Time went by so fast, and I had to go back to Omaha again. This time, however, I brought along with me a cassette recorder that belonged to my children. I needed to record my paper route path. Bill shook his head; he did not understand. One more night to practice, then I let Bill sit in the back seat. Listening to my own voice, the voice of a strange person, I thought it was funny. Along the line, I heard some cuss words that were not for anyone but to mark a place or a house which was difficult to memorizẹ
On the first night I handled the job alone, I missed three places. I was to have four extras. Two were used to replace the two that I had thrown up on the roof, therefore, I was supposed to have only two left. But, I had five. Bill might not like it because to deliver the missed papers was his responsibility. That was right. I had a call when I got home from the class. I said first:
"I missed three, right?"
"No you missed only one, not too bad. I got one call. If they forget to call me, that is fine . . . Well, you'd better stop by my office this evening, so I can give you your business papers and records, OK?"
"How about the window?"
"Did you break the glass? Which house?"
"I cannot remember it for sure. It may be on the 70th Street. Who paid for that?"
"You don't have to worry about it. We have been insured."
Wow, I felt some relief. . .
The newspaper carrier was the one who actually bought and sold the newspapers. The newspapers in the box were sold for a quarter each. The home delivered newspapers were sold cheaper, only twenty cents. The carriers bought their newspaper from the Journal at ten cents each. So they had one hundred percent profit if they did not count their expenses, which included gasoline, rubber bands for sunny days, and plastic bags for the rainy days. And there was their labor, of course, including collecting. The newspaper buyers had often forgotten what day they bought or what day their sale had expired. The bills were sent out quarterly, followed by phone calls as reminders, coming out and knocking on door of the customer's house was the last thing to do.
"I am your newspaper carrier. I came to collect my money . . ."
I had thrown the newspapers for almost three months, now. The winter had come, and it was colder and colder at night. The wind chill seemed to keep increasing from one time to the next. I suddenly remembered the beautiful introduction chapter called Picking The Leaves in Nhat Linh's famous novel, The Two Friends . The wind, please, come, more and more , the two sister and brother, pray (so they could have more falling leaves to pick for selling in the market as a heating source, although they felt more chilled by the wind). Every time I threw a newspaper, I could see Nom, the boy, pick a leaf up. Oh, for Nom, the only thing he had missed was the snow and ice in Omaha, I thought.
On those days Phuc and I were like the sun and the moon, very seldom did we see each other. When I got the newspaper delivery job, he also took a new job. During the time of serious lay offs of meat cutters, the only job at IBP Phuc could have was the cleaning up job in the second shift. He had to wear high topped boots used by trout fishermen because the level of hot water and animal blood was usually higher than his knee. His daily meals had never been delicious to him since the day he accepted his new job. We did not have chances to have some beers together like before because the time I went to bed was the time he went to work, and the time I went out for delivering newspapers was the time he came home, and on weekends, I had to go back to South Dakota.
Although we did not have any long conversations, there was a good relationship between us, the relationship between ones who had the same country and tried to help each other. However, our simple relationship had a very short life because of Linh, Phuc's younger brother. Linh just came back to Omaha after a few years wandering around with his friends in the state of Oregon. There was no room, and Linh had to put down a mattress on the kitchen floor for his bed.
From the beginning, Linh was very quiet, and he seemed to have many sad things to think about, such as no big chance for a growing boy. After several weeks of looking for a job and not getting one, he started to frown. He said things not for anyone to hear, even himself. His brother Phuc could not understand it at all. He did not like his younger brother's philosophy of life, a "dumb and backward philosophy" as he often commented. The two brothers argued daily, now.
"I felt sorry for your youth. Studying is not quite studying, and working is also not quite working. Compared with those Vietnamese who just come here, you are far far behind."
"Hmmm, let us look at you first. You are working quite a period of time, and now compared with those Vietnamese who just come here, are you better than them yet? You have only seen a very short distance."
That was it for all their arguments: young versus old, short versus long, and just arrived versus long staying. The older tried to change the younger's mind. The younger was thinking too much. And one day, after a big argument, Phuc announced his decision:
"OK, I will let you stay here, and I will move to a different place at the end of this month. I would like to see if can you stand on your own feet or not? You are just good at only talking, don't you know?"
What? Did he not think about me when he said that? Well, I had to take care of myself, too. I had many experiences of making peace for them, so I knew that this time Phuc told the truth and he would do it.
I moved to Bellevue, a small town 15 miles south of Omaha. I stayed at Bill's house, my newspaper circulator. I had to pay eighty dollars a month for my room and board. Bill and his wife had three daughters who were all teenagers. They were too noisy with their friends and boy friends. It was lucky that they all stayed down in the basement, and I had my small room on the main floor. Once, I made Chinese fried rice for the whole family to eat. The fried egg, fried ham, and fried hot dog was mixed with rice and soy sauce. Everyone seemed to like it very much. I thought that I was the former chef of Dong-Khanh Restaurant (a famous Chinese restaurant in Saigon) or former chef of a French Indochinese colonist, and not just a former cook at the Long John Silver Seafood Restaurant. At about the end of the month, Bill told me:
"I hate to tell you this, but I have to. I have to have a hundred twenty dollars a month payment, beginning next month, if you want to stay here with us."
What? Did he want to kick me out of this place? The eighty dollar a month payment was already expensive for me. With one hundred twenty dollars monthly payment, I had no money even to buy gas. I thought that it was time for me to go somewhere else, and it was also time for me to change my job. I had only morning classes in the second semester, so I did not have to continue with the newspaper-boy career. I said:
"Let me think for a while and I will let you know soon, OK?"
In the same manner I had done before, I opened the telephone book. However, I was in doubt about ones who had the same last name as mine, Nguyen. I would call others who had my wife's last name, Phan. Oh oh, there was also Rev. Phan, Ban V.. It was easy to talk with a Reverend, I guessed. My religious soul suddenly had found its fit in religion. I made an appointment to see Rev. Ban at his house in that evening. Wow, his free house was bigger than the house of a general. I knew that I could not stay at Rev. Ban's house because he had some teenage daughters. There was a big difference between the Vietnamese and American teennage girls in terms of discipline and cultural protection. But, Rev. Ban said that he would let Jeff who worked for CWS (Church World Services) know about my case. It was too bad for me I had not gone to those humanitarian agencies for help on the first day I went to Omaha! Jeff, who was about 30, interviewed me the next day.
Once again, I moved. I now stayed at Jeff's house, deep in the basement which had only one way up and down, not in and out. Basement and board cost me thirty bucks a month. It was cheap. I did not know whether Jeff tried to help me or help himself when he claimed me as his dependent. With nobody living in it for years, the basement was stinky and dirty like a rat den. It took me a half day to put aside things that had never been used to make room for an individual bed and a small table. The trash had to be dumpped out, the dirt had to be vacuumed, and Lysol had to be sprayed everywhere. Although it was easy on money, it was very difficult to breathe. When nobody was home, I tried to open a small vent next to my bed. After throwing charcoal and foam pellets (used as heat insolation?) behind a plywood board, I reached a piece of metal cover which was hung by two hinges on the top. I then pushed it with a wooden stick. Wow, I saw green grass and trees right next to my eyes. I felt the wind that brought fresh air in, blowing my hair. It was good, and I was happy. However, Linda, Jeff's wife, saw that, and she yelled at me:
"No. You cannot open it like that. The snakes will come inside the house."
I gave her some advice:
"Hey, I sleep there, remember. Even the dragon is still afraid to come in, why do you care about the snake."
But afraid that she might kick me out of the house, I said:
"I am just kidding you. I will make a screen door for it. Don't worry about that."
I lived with that vent like a fish that lived in the mud. Once in a while the stuck fish had to surface to get some air to breathe. Well, there was some happiness in every unhappy situation. For me, the stuck fish, the wonderful things were those nights I stayed up late for studying. I could see life out there in the foggy air as though I lived in a dream place. I wanted to be the man in love in a ghost story. I was sorry that the U.S. was so big, but I had nowhere to express my love. And I could see the rainy night. "Droop, drooop, drooop. . .," one by one the rain drops fell on the metal cover. The rain drops silently fell on my lonely soul.
My life had been safe since I fell into the basement of Jeff's house. I could not go down anymore when I was truly at the bottom. In this sad situation, however, I still had been accompanied by a friend. Xu my new friend, had been saved by Jeff from whatever street or park. We had to throw away more stuff to make room for him in the basement. Again, the cleaning, the vacuuming, and spraying Lysol! Xu had no relatives in the U.S.. He also had no education, no ABC's in his life. I sure could not believe that. He was truly a "danh ca" (with the accent, "danh ca" means a fisherman in Vietnamese; but without the accent, "danh ca" means a famous singer). I felt so sad for him and for me every time I had to help him write a letter to his home, Phu Quoc Island. He got a job as janitor in a company that made plastic products. Sooner or later, however, he would go to Texas or Louisiana, where a lot of Vietnamese refugees did fishing, I thought.
My senior project, a very slow air flow meter, was designed and built in this deep basement. When it worked, I knew that my graduation was close. Then, Magna Cum Laude was my honor. The road to Omaha, the road I had chosen, was not easy to go through like I thought it would be at first. I had learned one thing: the road to Omaha could not stop me by its barrier of mountains and rivers (in the folk song, the Vietnamese believed that to achieve your goals, the most difficult barrier to overcome was not mountains or rivers, but the weakness of the mind). . .
(In rememberance of when I attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha)
10. PROFESSIONAL CAREERS
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
The last battle for the student would finally come: an interview for jobs. From the beginning of the last semester, I had a good preparation for this battle. There were several main fighting grounds: IBM, Digital, Honeywell, Hewlett Packard, Sperry Univac, NCR. . ., those companies that had their branch headquarters in Silicon Valley. The soldier often "won the battle, but lost the war"
"Darling, you don't need to apply for jobs in the big cities like New York, Chicago Los Angeles. . ., OK? We are not able to live in those places where people are fighting for their life, do you know?"
I just said "yes, uh huh. . ." to my wife, but I did not care much about where I had to go. Any place in any state would be a new home for a refugee family, I guessed. Actually, all I cared about was how many companies offered me a job. And I did have three offers.
My first offer was from the Omaha Public Power District Company. The job was at a nuclear power plant that was only about thirty miles from my school. The salary and benefits were very good. However, the Three Mile Island accident had happened not long ago and the radiation still floated in my mind. Anyway, they had offered me a job to work as a controller in the operation room. It was no different than a quarter officer in the NOC, the Naval Operation Center, which I had worked at for a long period of time in the Navy. The company would send the newcomers to a special training school for one year at full salary. The company also promised to pay for their tuition later on if they wanted to study for the Master's degree. With the work schedule only three days a week, they could easily finish it in three years. But, my wife canceled the whole deal:
"Who wants to die young? Who wants to risk their life with a timed atomic bomb? There are so many kinds of jobs for you to do out there, don't be foolish!"
Well, she had some good reasons. My second offer was a field engineer's position with IBM. I did not have to go anywhere out of the Mid-West region. The salary was low, but I could have a good opportunity to make a big jump, if I had a good skill in trouble shooting. I also had plenty of time for traveling, about two thirds of my working time. However, my wife also dropped the whole case.
"That job is suitable to one who is single. You have your family, you have your wife and children, you don't need to go around and around anymore, do you know?"
Well, I did not have any success yet. My third offer was a Computer Support Specialist position from Hewlett Packard Company. The title had a very good sound, but the real work was to repair computers. Did they really need a four year degree graduate to fill that repairing job? Well, the repairer often wore a suit and tie to go to work! In the 80s, it was not bad with almost 20K salary. However, I had to go to the far West and to the big city of San Jose. Well, San Jose was not a big city if there were no other cities like Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto and so forth surrounding it. I had to convince my wife:
"There were only three offers. This time, if you don't like it, the only way for me to work is to go back to Vietnam and become a department chief of the electrical power department in a province. Don't you know?"
The big day for a student, the graduation day, came. Soon after, we prepared to go to the promised land of the Vietnamese refugees, the state of California. Huynh, my wife's younger sister who left Vietnam with us, had her own family now, and she planned to stay back in Sioux City, Iowa. However, four members of my wife's family had been added to my family after two successful escape attempts. On my family's side, there were also two escape attempts, but both were unsuccessful. Both my sister and brother had been captured and put in prison for a while. Anyway, my family now had ten people.
I sold my car to my neighbor for gas money. And in order to have enough room for everyone, I had to trade in my wife's station wagon for the biggest van available in the U.S., the Plymouth Maxiwagon. Our ministers of the three sponsor churches at the time we first came to town had been retired or transferred. Rev. Barrow went back to his home in London, England after 40 years with the Congregational ministry in the States. Rev. Moreland went to his wife's home city of Denver in the Rocky Mountains of the state of Colorado. Rev. Hanson went to the east coast and lived in the capital, Washington D.C. The same thing now happened to us, we had to move on with our job and to live our lives. The farewell time was so sad, and I thought that I was leaving my country the second time. In front of people and at the speaker's podium, I felt choked after saying a few words. My tears started to come down. I thought that all the people in our churches deserved credit for my success. It was clear that I could not have done anything without their help. They expressed pride in my family like they were proud of their good children. The reward was so enormous for them, they thought.
My new company agreed to pay all the moving expenses for my ten member family. The furniture and boxes would be sent first. Then, we would go on by ourselves later. One morning, I saw a United Van Lines semi-truck parked in front of my porch. Everything in the house had then to be carried out. Now, I knew that my family treasure was not very big when it did not even fill up one fourth of the space in the van. The daily expenses for people on the road were fifty four dollars a day for a family of four, a couple and their two children. Twelve dollars would be added for each extra person. Without a calculator, I figured that I would get one hundred and twenty-six dollars a day for my entire family. I then multiplied it with the number of days I would travel on the road. The expenses of gasoline and lodging were computed in a separate bill.
By the rule, I had to travel at least 300 miles a day. But, I thought that I could go as fast as twice that minimum limit. From Vermillion to San Jose, there were about 1800 miles, therefore it would take me three days and two nights. The first night, I planned to visit Rev. Moreland and stay at his house in the city of Denver, Colorado. And the second night, I would stop at any motel in Salt Lake City, Utah (I had to slow down in this section because there were many interesting things to see, like Rocky Mountain National Park and Dinosaur National Monument). The evening of the third day I reached San Jose. My family was housed at the Executive Inn on El Camino Real street, in the city of Mountain View, which was the place I had stayed when I had come to visit the company.
I found that 600 miles on the road was not a short distance. At the speed of 65 miles or 70 miles per hour, I had to drive ten or even eleven hours a day. Anyway, I followed my schedule; therefore I had very little time for sight-seeing. But, I still recorded some interesting points. For example, around the city of Denver, there was only desert land with lonesome short bushes. On the top of the Rocky Mountains, I still felt cool with the thin and dry air at the temperature of about a hundred degree F. In Utah, the straight and very long road that went through the big Salt Lake seemed to have no end. At both sides, it went down into the water. Across the Nevada desert, I often saw the sign "sand storm watch" along the road. When I reached the Oakland base, I crossed the Richmond-San Rafael bridge to go to the San Rafael area. I then went to San Francisco by crossing the Golden Gate bridge. The Golden Gate bridge was much shorter than the Richmond-San Rafael bridge and it seemed always to be covered by the smog. Finally, I headed for the hotel by following the 101st Highway.
I had two weeks to find a place to live. The company continued to pay for my family's daily expenses including meals and lodging. Inside the hotel, there was a fancy restaurant. I needed no credit cards because all they accepted was the key of my room. The cost of good food such as lobster, shrimp, steak, crab legs, and so forth, including the tip, was charged to my account, my room number. In the beginning of the second week, however, I had to take my family to a Vietnamese restaurant. The price was about half that in the American fancy restaurant, but of course, the taste was much more delicious for us. I had saved a bunch of money for the company. Of course, I had to keep all the receipts because the number on the key of my room could not be used. Anyway, to live and eat free in the transition time was a nice thing to have.
The rent of a three bedroom house ranged from 600 to 800 dollars a month. However, before I could get in the house, I had to pay the first month, the last month, and the deposit. With three monthly payments, I needed almost two thousand dollars. And I did not have that kind of money for the landlord to just keep. I then decided not to rent but to buy a house. I called the agents of ERA, Century 21, etc., to come and discuss it with me at the hotel. Each of them showed my wife and me several houses, and then brought us back to their office for more discussion. The offices of those realtors were often located in glass sky scrapers, and I had the experience of seeing cars and people moving like ants far and far below.
"With your salary only that little and your family size this big, I think nobody wants to loan you money to buy your house. The only thing for you to do is to assume the loan. . ."
"I can borrow money from FHA (Farm Home Administration), can't I? In Vermillion, South Dakota, I built a new house without a penny down. FHA gives me a hundred percent loan including the fee for the lawyer who takes care of the contract. Every two years, they check my income to determine my payment. The government helps me pay more than a half. Is there such a program out here?"
"There is a lot of differences between states, do you know? The FHA program is also available here, but you have to pay down at least ten percent. It means you have to have at least ten thousand dollars in cash, and besides that there is closing cost, lawyer fee, etc. However, you don't have time to make an application and wait several months for them to approve, do you see?"
I did not have two thousand dollars for renting the house, so where could I find ten thousand dollars to buy a house? Now, I knew that buying a house was more difficult than renting a house. But, I finally did both rent and buy a house in the Evergreen area: rent with option to buy. Bill, the realtor agent who came from Minnesota, got me the best deal in town. I signed a contingent contract to rent the house and only buy it when I could sell my old house in Vermillion, South Dakota. For now, I just paid 480 dollars a month to stay at my new place without paying the first month, the last month, and the deposit. Wow, everything looked like it was all set at the moment, and I was happy about that. The house was not too far from my place of work either; it was just about a half hour on the highway.
I do not remember what I said about my talent or skills during my on-campus interview; however, I now ended up repairing the power supply devices of all kinds of HP computers. Around me, a lot of people who had only a two year degree, or even no college degree, were fixing memory boards, disk drives, etc. My station seemed to be an unimportant one. The title of "Computer Support Specialist" or "Power Supply Support Specialist" did not have a real meaning at all. To fix the power supply, the technician must follow several test procedures which had been written in a manual. Then, depending on the test results, the bad parts would be easily identified. To replace those bad parts was the only job the technician had to do a job that could be handled by a robot, not a four year degree college graduate. I felt bored with my job because there was no challenge.
After long working hours, when I came back home, I felt more and more depressed with many unemployed faces. It took time for my wife and her sisters and brother to find jobs. It also took time for them to get the unemployment benefits. But, how long would it take? And how long would we go hungry? To not think about it too much, I tried to keep myself busy remodeling the house. I made an extra bedroom from the den without buying any materials. I then did some gardening in the front and back yards. The house looked better than before, I thought, although it did not belong to me yet.
I made a contact with some friends who had moved to this city about a year before, and I realized that I did not live close to where most of the Vietnamese lived. I met Loc who was sponsored by a church in the town of Alcester, South Dakota. He was working at FMC Company as a welder with fourteen or more dollars an hour pay. His income was almost double the salary of an engineer if he worked some overtime. I also met Kiet and his family who lived a short time in the town of Beresford, South Dakota. He had to move quickly to California because he had a hard time finding a job in Beresford. He was still unemployed, but he had a good income from doing hair cuts for the Vietnamese to supplement his welfare benefits. I thought that I had gone backward by spending four years in college. Kiet gave me the same advice that I gave him before:
"Brother, everyone who just came here must have a hard time from the beginning. However, we will make it in time."
I did not just come here, I had come here to the U.S., five years ago!
My wife started to complain about San Jose because San Jose was not a small city as she thought. Those walls with words of graffiti reminded her that this place was unsafe like New York, Chicago etc.. Everywhere she went, there was a line. She had to wait at the groceries or even the department stores. Moreover, it was bad to line up at the bank to withdraw her money. There were no such inconveniences in Vermillion, South Dakota. The land was wide open for the few people there. But, the unheartful people in the big city here were the main thing. Everybody seemed to be in such a hurry, and they did not have time to care about the others around them.
"Darling, I already told you that the people in the big city always fight for their life. We are not the same type with them, why do we have to come here for more trouble?"
Did we come here in troubles? That was right when I thought about my children. The summer would end soon, and where was the school they would go to? Would they take the buses or would we have to give them a ride? I heard that the Vietnamese school girls and boys often fought with the American or Mexican children. Remember that next to the ink is dark, and next to lamp is bright . Therefore, I did not want my children to sooner or later become street fighters. Up until this point, we sure tried to forget the other bad things like drugs, gangs, etc..
For me, it was truly many problems without solutions. But, there was one solution for me, to go back where I had come from, South Dakota. Over there, I still had my sponsors, my house, and even my job. My children also had their old school, their friends, and even their teachers. I did not have to think overnight, and I had to make a quick decision before it was too late. Next day, I came to my boss and told him that I resigned, now. He was so surprised:
"Are you kidding me? You have worked here only a very short time! If you have any financial problem, we can help you get a low interest loan. You are a good worker, I believe that you will get a raise after three months with the company. Hewlett Packard is a good company. A lot of people try very hard just to get a job around here, why are you going to quit? You had better think again."
Well, I already had had my second thought, and I wrote down the reason for my resignation: California was not the promised land, yet .
There was no farewell party, and we went back home in silence. However, I felt happy about it. Most of our furniture and stuff was sold or given away to friends. My small family treasure had been fitted into a small size U-Haul trailer which was pulled easily on the rear of our Van. I crossed the San Mateo bridge and took the 17th Highway to Oakland. Along the road, the brown prairie with dry grasses and the green trees and bushes kept floating backward behind us. In a short moment, everything would go into the past, forever.
My trip for reporting to work was now changing and becoming a long vacation because there were so many famous and wondrous places in the U.S.. I had to see. I visited the Grand Teton National Park in the state of Idaho and the Yellowstone National Park in the state of Wyoming. I did not know whether by the failure of my move or by nature around me, my soul seemed to float on the air. The hot springs with muddy bubbles along the road, the deep, deep down Yellowstone River with Upper and Lower Cascades, the geysers with hundred feet tall water columns, and the natural forest with wild animals brought me in my dreamland:
Heaven was not too far away
Yellowstone was considered an angel world
No divine training, suddenly one could be a sage
Oh! the beautiful nature, one should travel and enjoy his world
The next wonderful sight-seeing was Dinosaur Pass near the town of Sheridan, Wyoming. This deep and dangerous valley with many quick turns right at the edge of the mountainside reminded me of the time I passed through the An-Khe Pass on the road from Qui-Nhon to Pleiku and the Hai-Van Pass on the road from Da-Nang to Hue. The only difference was I drove my van really slowly, here. In Vietnam the bus drivers who memorized very well their daily routes often drove the bus at the highway speed like the wind. There were so many beautiful places in Vietnam, too but who had the chance to visit them all?
When we got home, our sponsors came to console us: "Don't worry you will find success the next time." A few people, of course, complained about my giving up a good paying job. My children were so happy to meet their old friends that they seemed to have a "long time no see" chat. For my part, I sent out my application letter and resume to about twenty other companies. Then, the whole family went to work on a farm. We picked tomatoes for five cents a pound, and we also picked watermelons for five dollars a pick-up load. To clean dirty tomato picking hands, one had to use tomato juice; and to clean dirty watermelon picking hands, one had to use watermelon juice. The farmers told us their rich experiences. In the poor country like Vietnam, there were not enough tomatoes and watermelons to eat, so how could people use them to throw at each other or to clean their hands?
Several weeks later, I had three interviews and company visits: Boeing at Seattle, the NCR (National Cash Register) at Wichita, Kansas, and Western Electric at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Between the two offers, Boeing and Western Electric, my sponsors preferred Western Electric although the starting salary was a little bit lower. Western Electric belonged to the Bell System, and Bell System seemed to never go out of business. To sign the employment contract with the Bell System meant to work for life. Without winning government bids, Boeing often laid off their employees in the thousands including their engineers.
That was it, and we prepared to move to Winston-Salem. Because of the experience from our last move to San Jose, this time only my children, my wife, and I went first. The rest of the family would follow us when our house was sold. One more farewell party was thrown, and one more trip we took, except toward the east coast this time. We passed through St. Louis, Missouri. In this area, the main interesting point was to see with our naked eyes the steamboat that had a big wheel propeller at the rear. We stopped at the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky to see the hidden river. Then, we reached the Smoky Mountain National Park at the border of the states of Tennessee and North Carolina. It was Fall at that time, and the view of colorful leaves on the mountain top was the most beautiful memory in our life. That might be the reason why the people in North Carolina did not call their state the promised land, but God's Country. Did that mean the heavens? With a short drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we knew that the Americans had to love nature much to build this famous highway just for sight-seeing.
Compared with South Dakota, open farmland, and California, treeless hill tops, North Carolina had its own distinct characteristic: too many trees and bushes like jungles everywhere. I even did not know when I got into Winston-Salem. The suburban part of the city was completely lost under the trees and their shade. And with a few more blocks, I was surprised to see some downtown sky scrapers. Anyway, I love God's country for its landscape, trees and flowers; however, in the first place I did not love the Southern accent at all. Compared with the Yankee accent, it was sure too slow. I thought that we were lucky to be reborn in the Mid-West area, the no accent region, where many TV anchormen had grown up.
In Vietnam, I was sorry that I had never seen the beautiful eyes of the Son-Tay girls; I had never looked at the lovely eyes of the Phu-Yen girls; I had never kept a Binh-Dinh girl who was supposed to be good in Vietnamese traditional kung-fu or I had never even kept a Ha-Dong girl who was supposed to be strong like the Ha-Dong lion; so I had to find something here to call my own. God's country was mine, for example. Or "Winston cigarettes were your lips, darling" was mine, too. I was surprised to know that the brand name of the cigarettes like Winston, Salem, and Raleigh were the names of the cities in North Carolina, the state where the King of Cigarette Makers, R. J. Reynolds, set his World Headquarters. North Carolina was also the capital of the U.S. in furniture manufacturing. Everything now was mine to claim, and nobody complained about it.
This time, my family stayed at the Sheraton Motel. The expenses were again charged to my account, my room number. I thought that no one would believe what I said about the living costs in North Carolina. It was much cheaper compared with South Dakota, and it was half that of California. The rent of a three bedroom, two thousand square foot brick house was about three hundred a month. North Carolina was the state of brick making because the clay, red clay, was everywhere. I did not think that the red clay was suitable for trees, but why were the jungles all over here? It might be the effect of the rain level! With almost forty inches of rain, the rain level in North Carolina was about the same level as that of South Vietnam.
To find a rental house in Winston-Salem was not a problem because the landlord had no request about the first month, the last month, and the deposit from the tenant. However, the problem was that my children always wanted to go back to Vermillion, South Dakota. Why? They just could not understand the Blacks in the first place because they had never seen any Blacks in their schools before. They could not even understand what the Blacks talked about because there were so many slang words in their sayings. I had to explain to my children:
"Well, whereever you go you will meet all kinds of different people in race. In South Dakota, we have Indians, in California, we have Mexicans, and here the same thing, we have Blacks. You will get used to it, and you will understand your world later on."
Later on, I was the one who really understood my own world. My own world now was the writing world, one of the biggest technical writing centers, with about eight hundred writers, two hundred editors, and two hundred maintenance supporters. All of the books belonging to the Bell System were produced in this plant. However, could a Vietnamese be hired for writing English books for the American audience? Or did the company just want to fill up the minority slots? Well, whatever the reason was, for me, the true title of "Writer" was too big and heavy to carry. But, the technical writers who wrote the manual, step-by-step procedure books were different. Each of them, including me, could write several books a year. Of course, I handled only the technical aspects, and my editor took care of the grammar, sentences, syntax, and so forth. In the busy cases, sometimes I had to borrow words from a famous Vietnamese poet, Mr. Tan Da (Tan Mountain and Da River), to straighten out my frowning boss:
"Hey, writing is not like wood splitting, do you know? You have to let me think!"
I was an amateur writer in Vietnam from 67 to 70. In the following 10 years, however, I did not write a word. Suddenly, I was forced to become a writer again, a technical writer. Was that my professional career? No my professional career, in fact, my fate I always thought, was to be a Vietnamese writer, an amateur novelist!
Later on, I had another professional career. Since the company had a tuition refund program and my boss talked me into it, after work, I had attended the MSEE classes at North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro North Carolina. "Professional Student" would surely be my other professional career!
(In rememberance of when I attended the North Carolina A&T State University)
11. ONE LIFE OF LEARNING
HUNG TAN NGUYEN
Every time when I had graduated from a school or a training program, my life had changed quickly in a new direction. This time, however, when I received my Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, neither my life nor my career had changed much. I just switched from the manual writing job to the program writing job. I might not have the talent to move up, but I just blammed it on the breaking up of the Bell System costing me my chance. AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company) was on the down hill path. The news of plant closings and the location consolidations was often announced to the employees. The company could not be doing good business when over seventy thousand employees had been laid off. To assume a life time career seemed unrealistic when the Bell System had been forced to split up. Nearly almost a decade with the company, my employment was still shaky. Anyway, I felt that my bosses were fair with me when they solved my case:
"If you want to get a promotion, you have to go somewhere else. Of course, you always have your job here, and you will do what you have done so far. There is no room to move you up. It's up to you if you want to leave this place, we will find another job for you."
I thought twice and made the decision not to move again. I hated to move out of North Carolina, the state of dogwoods (state flower), and cardinals (state bird). The dogwood flower was similar the "mai" flower in Vietnam that was only used in the Tet (new year) holidays. The dogwood had blossomed in the spring, but one did not have to remove the leaves in the Fall like in Vietnam because here there was winter. Instead the yellow color of the "mai" flower, the dogwood flower was either white or pink with four or five petals. Dogwood flowers lasted several weeks like the "mai" flower, and the dogwood tree was also about the same size as the "mai" tree. In North Carolina, of course, in the front yard of most houses, there were a couple of dogwood trees, although the price of dogwood trees was not cheap, about forty dollars for one five feet tall. In the spring season, the beauty of the dogwood flower was not only at the front of the houses but in the woods. The wild dogwood trees, always healthy in the jungles, reminded me of those wild "mai" trees in the orchard or plantation during Tet season. There were several branches of flowers (instead of several flowers) in the thin woods , if Mr. Nguyen Du (a famous Vietnamese poet) had lived here. In the Fall season, the beauty of dogwood was in the changing color of the leaves: from green to gold, from gold to purple, from purple to red before falling on the ground. And when the leaves all fell off, the beauty of the dogwood was its red nuts like the "cuom" nuts in Vietnam that often stuck together to form a new kind of flower on the tree. One petal of the flower now seemed to become a nut. Well, I did not know how to call dogwoods in Vietnamese . . . The cardinal bird was a red feathered bird with a bunch of long feathers that stuck out on the top of its head. The cardinals and the blue jays were the two most colorful feather birds in this area. They were as big as young pigeons.
If I had been single, I would have jumped to another company for a new job because it was hard for me to see that I could not use what I had learned in school. I had my family, and I had the experience of moving, not only in the U.S. but also in Vietnam. The loss of three times of moving was equal to the loss of one time of burning , so I chose not to be burned. I could get my promotion, but I might not benefit from it if I had to move to a high living cost area like New York or New Jersey. Moreover, one could not have a happy ending in a career if his life was not stationary , and I got tired of moving as I got older. Well, I just stayed with my top ceiling position for a while because the time that I could collect my pension would come soon. I was not in such a hurry, I thought.
Nothing had changed, so why not continue to study? It was a good thing to do and I usually did well in school. I had to remind myself that to study was like to swim in an up stream, to stop meant to go backward . Therefore, if I did not want to go backward, I had to go back to school. However, should I go back to school at this age? The higher you want to climb, the more pain you have to receive ! Could I just relax and enjoy after work? Could I just play tennis or do some exercise? I had to give the school and the home work for my children, I thought. I could not get them all, selfishly.
"Our parents are so happy and proud of you when you get your master's degree. Do you plan to continue for your Ph. D.? All Vietnamese parents always want their children to do well in education, especially our parents, who have no opportunity to get higher education after elementary classes, and are taken advantage of by the other people in their business. Our parents' dream is always their children's education. You better keep on going, my brother!"
My older sisters, Kim and Cuc, my older brother Tan, and I had a long period of living together when we went to the city to go to school. Therefore, I really understood what my sister Cuc wanted to tell me in her letter. At the time I was in high school, she often told me she believed that I would be the bright child for our generation, our big Nguyen family. However, she was very disappointed when I joined the Armed Forces although she knew that I had no choice during the war time. In every letter she sent me from Vietnam, she always had some words about going to school. Once, she mentioned:
"Now, I see that the prediction of Mr. An, who can read and understand Mr. Ta-Ao's book of the effect of geography on people's life, is true. Do you remember him? He is the one who studied and chose the location of our grandfather's burial place. With the effect of the landscaping format around that place, he says that our grandfather's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will have the brightest future. For the sons, grandsons, and their children, if they have not become generals they will be top administrators in the government. For the daughters, grand-daughters, and their children, they will simply be rich. Do you know our cousin Cu the brother of our cousin Kim-Sa and Kim-Phung, has been a two star general? Do you see our fifth aunt, Hien, has been the richest person in our Cho-Gao district? However, Mr. An also says that the only drawback in the effect of our grandfather's burial location is the morals in the big familỵ It may go down; close cousins might get married to each other. I don't believe that our uncles and aunts, from the oldest first uncle to the youngest eighth aunt, all agree to with the trade off between morals for the riches and fame. It is lucky that our big family was on the down-hill path when the communists took over the country, because the moral problems seemed never to occur."
Could the effect of the geographical conditions go half around the world? Although it was almost 30 years, I still wondered about that when my sister reminded me of those mysterious thoughts. I remembered the time Mr. An came to our house and stayed for months just to go around finding "the Dragon Mouth," the most wanted burial place for the Kings. There was no Dragon Mouth, but I heard that a dragon had risen in the Hoa-Binh area. Youngsters like me, of course, could not resist that special news, and none of us could miss the once in a lifetime opportunity. Therefore, we all had jumped on a bus to go there to check out the true dragon. From the bus station, we had to walk a few kilometers more toward An-Thanh-Thuy village, where the dragon was. When we reached there, I was surprised to note that most of the viewers were not young like us but were all teenagers or adults.
There was not one, but two dragons (the dirt floor bumped up). One had risen inside the house, from the front door to the kitchen, and one had risen in the backyard, from the limestone tomb to the fence. The head of the dragons were level to the ground, I could see only some whiskers (the spiral, solid lines of high ground like mole's digging lines) had been left. The body of the dragons were easier to recognize with the dragon's scales (the chunks of high ground, about three inches wide and a foot long, with hump lines like a huge fish's scales). Some did not believe what they had seen was the dragon, and they wondered why the dragon's body had risen only along the hallway? Would a hallway look like a dragon after so many years of people walking on it? But, that big question could not apply to the case of the dragon which rose in the backyard!
The dragons did not give me a big surprise, but the dragon's owner, Mr. Xuan, did. I did not know that he was my parents' adopted nephew. After a friendly conversation, he had discovered who I was while I tried to cover up everything about myself. The trip to come see the dragons at his house was my secret trip, which I had to keep secret because I did not want to get spankings from my parents. Anyway, he gave me some cookies and fruits.
People in our district had been divided into two parties with two different predictions about the result of the Dragon Rising Phenomenon. One side believed that the dragon could bring a treasure to the owner, and Mr. Xuan would soon be rich. The other side, on the contrary, believed that the dragon could bring down the owner, and Mr. Xuan would become poorer and poorer. People had to wait about a half year to know who was right. The dragon brought only destruction, not only for Mr. Xuan but the whole village because the VC set up their secret base there! The village name was Hoa-Binh (peace, in Vietnamese), but peace never came. There was fighting there daily between the South Vietnamese Army and the VC. People had to leave Hoa-Binh and move to the cities. Mr. Xuan, of course, stayed temporarily at our house. He then found that his return home was difficult, like going to heaven; therefore, he finally built a house in the hamlet near the bridge. During the time he lived with us, he had nothing to do. He wandered house to house to gossip and then gradually became a talk showman that most people liked to listen to. I did not like to hear what he talked about, I only liked the home made kites or candy (salt water taffy) that he made for me. Kites were made of colored paper and bamboo sticks. Candy was made of sugar and water. When the cooked batter of sugar and water cooled off, he hung it on the head of a big metal nail on the kitchen post and pulled down to made a finger sized candy string. Then, he chopped the candy string to made candy bars.
My grandfather's burial place was built near the Ban-Ba Buddha Temple about ten years before his death. Of course, this landscaping format was not a dragon mouth. There was no dragon head or tail in the farmland, rice paddies, in the Mekong Delta. Well, the future of his children and grandchildren might be good because of support of the nearby Buddha. Besides the importance of the burial place, the outcome would also depend on my grandfather's age, the date and time he died, and so forth. The other thing to care about was the laying down of his coffin which had been done only once. There was no move after the coffin hit the ground! Why? My grandfather's coffin was a little bit on the left side, but my oldest uncle said: "Just leave it alone." Someone mentioned that the daughters, grand-daughters and their children would have more good fortune and power if the coffin were not touched, even though it tilted to the left. That might be right because my younger sister, Gam, once upbraided me:
"Oh, brother! I heard that you have a big diploma of high education; however, you didn't make good money like other Vietnamese who only labored. The money you send back home like a drop in the bucket was nothing compared with Be-Tu the daughter of Mr. Ti, our neighbor, who is only a prostitute during the war. Everybody feels bad about that. . ."
My younger sister might be right! Damn it! I also felt bad myself about my case. Nobody at home could understand this. To have a college degree did not mean one would make a lot of money in this country. And what the heck was Vietnam now? All Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. tried very hard to make money and send it back home, but what could they do when in Vietnam, from the north to the south, everybody had holes in their pockets? The refugees had to save their families anyway. There was nothing else; there was no thinking about the country, the state of Vietnam anymore. People just cared about their families first in these days. In the same thought, could a robin like me make it springtime for my family?
I wanted to be rich, now. I had studied too much about transistors, chips, microwave, fiber optics, semiconductor theories, so I had to know how to engineer a machine that made money. I needed to make at least one; it did not have to a big one. With the money bag on your shoulder, people would listen to you even if you talked bad . It was not too late for me to be rich! Well, what could I do to become rich? If only guts were needed, there would be no poverty in the Vietnamese communities.
I seriously thought about that subject. In the U.S., there were several ways to become rich. To buy and sell houses was one. The realtor often got something from nothing, made glue from the water as the Vietnamese said. That house was our house which had been made by the Blacks and the Whites. We just sold it to get money because for the rest of our life we would always be far from home . (The Vietnamese folk song said: That house was our house which had been made by our ancestors. We had to maintain it because for the rest of our life it would be our home). For my best interest, I talked with Jim, my co-worker, who owned hundreds of houses and had a lot of experience in this field. He held nothing back:
"There are many guys at this location who do the same thing. You just need my advice. The difficulty is, are you willing to work from 14 to 16 hours a day? And do you have about ten thousand dollars in cash? In the beginning, you have to buy an old house, fix it up and re-sell it to make some profit. With a small amount of capital, you really need some cash flow. When you have some good money, you then buy a cheap house, fix it up a little bit, and rent it out to your tenant. Your tenant will help you pay all of your house mortgage premiums. A few years later, you sell that rental house and make a fortune. However, can you handle your tenants? You usually come to court with them 20 days in a month! If they don't pay rent, you can only bring them to the court. If they don't move when you kick them out, you can only bring them to the court. If they don't do what the court orders, you can only bring them back to the court again. Except for one thing; they may listen to you if you want to talk with them by shotgun or karate. Well, you have a long way to go to reach that point. The thing for you to do now is to buy an old house, fix it up and re-sell it. There is a whole strategy and tactic to buying those kinds of houses. Depending on the location, the direction, and the price, it can be sold quickly after the fixing up job. It depends also on your luck. If you cannot sell it in six months, one fourth of your capital might have soon gone . . ."
"That is enough. I understand, now."
"Do you still want to get in the realty business? I am not yet 40 years old, but my hair is all white, do you see? Is it my happiness?"
This way of making money seemed like jumping into an adventure. Nobody could predict what would happen! My verbal communication was not equal to that of Americans, so I prefered to let this opportunity go by . . . Oh! instead of buying and selling houses, would I make easy money by just doing only remodeling jobs? I visited my Vietnamese friend who had a lot of experience in this field. He gave me his advice:
"That job is considered as the off-hand job. It is a part time or second shift job because you cannot survive by working as a full time remodeler. From `remodeler,' I have been demoted myself to `wallpaper hanger.' With the pay of 14 or 15 dollars for a roll, I am satisfied to provide my skill and my labor. I don't have to think too much about the future of my business; I don't even have to be there on time. There is no hurry with me. If I have time, I come to work; if I don't, I stay home. However, there is real competition out there in the field of hanging wallpaper. A lot of American women who have nothing to do try to jump in and steal the job from us. But they do not have the professional eyes. They cannot handle the paper that has the square pattern. With that kind of paper, the rule of overlapping must be followed. When the light is turned on, no overlapping should be seen on the whole wall. They may never hear about that rule . . . There is a way for making good and easy money. You have to bid and win some contracts from the development contractors. With a few hundred new apartments, your income is more than enough for the whole year. You don't have to remove the old paper from the wall. It saves you a lot of time . . ."
"Did you ever win any contract yet?"
"What! Before you bid and win any contract, you must have your own company! Nobody wants to talk about contracts with the man like me who does not have even his office. Well, how about you establishing your own company, and I will then work for you. The profit sharing will be good, I promise."
I could not invest my future in the wallpaper hanging business, I thought. Where would I find ten thousand dollars to form my company? The rent for my office might cost me a thousand a month without water and electricity. If I could not win a contract within five months, half of my funding capital would be lost! To work as an employee was difficult sometimes, and to work as an employer had to be more difficult. There was debit and credit, accounting paper, taxes, etc.. Oh! why don't I open an Oriental Food store? If I could not sell those foods, I could eat them anyway. In this case, there was surely no loss. I discussed this with my friend who was half Chinese and Vietnamese. He said:
"Very soon, I will go out of business. If you do as me, you will end up the same way. I lost four thousand dollars in four months, don't you believe it? I started with twelve thousand dollars, now I have only eight thousand dollars, the inventory of what I had left on the shelves. You don't need to open your food store because two groceries will soon be open at this town, one from a Laotian man and one from a Cambodian family. Around here, there are not many people who eat with fish sauce, do you know? It is a lot different compared with our community in California. You cannot make profit even from your labor. You have only one way to go. I mean loss. The loss from the rent seemed to be so easy like an egg already in a snake's mouth."
I had no idea. Everything I thought of was already tried by other people. I was always a few steps behind. Oh! Why don't I open a Vietnamese restaurant? However, where could I find the cook and the waiters and waitresses? How much did I have to pay for hiring them? What happened if I put my wife as a cook and my children as waiters and waitresses? There were so many question without answers!
I thought that I would rather give up my dream to become rich. Frankly, to engineer a money making machine was not an easy task. I could even not find ten thousand dollars for starting a business. I was so surprised that some of my naval classmates had been millionaires in a short time in this country. Binh was the owner of several businesses such as Bolsa Fabric, Mini Mall, Parisienne Restaurant. . . in Los Angeles. Hoang was the owner of several fishing boats and a fishing distributor company in San Francisco. They might have a lot of luck in their fate because I knew that their ability and talent was about the same level as mine. It might depend on your fate which could not be changed, forever! (In the Oriental way of belief, fate meant something like predetermined fortune. One would become what the gods would will. Success depended not only on one's own efforts, but on chance, the cosmic will.)
As an effect of his burial location, if my grandfather's sons, and grandsons, including me, and their children had no success in military careers, they would have success in educational careers , that was Mr. An's prediction. My military career was over, and the educational career was the only one left for me. I thought that I might lose the 25 dollars non-refundable processing fee to enroll in the Ph. D. program at North Carolina State University, in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. I did not know whether I would have any steam left to become a Ph. D. candidate in the limited period of six years? However, I might go for it, for the rest of my life even if I did not make it. That would fit for. . . one life of learning . Success had always depended on belief and patience. Similarly to one life of writing, success had always depended on the struggling and fruitfulness of the circumstances in which the writer lived. Or similarly to a life of finding and serving God, the success of becoming a Saint might depend on the fate of the reincarnation. What would people think about the following saying?
In the heavens, there are too many Saints or Angels
Who used to be common human beings .
(In rememberance of when I was hoping to become a Ph. D. candidate at the North Carolina State University)
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