This photograph dates back to 1963!  My grandparent with my mother in the middle (the only girl in a family with six boys) and my four other uncles.  My other two uncles were not in this picture.

My mom with her brothers and nanny.  Undated picture, but I estimate that it was photographed in 1966.

Undated picture, probably in 1960 or 1961.  My mom and my uncle.  When I emailed my siblings this picture to show her, she gleefully shared that she was eating a banana.  She has been reminding me to bring all these photos back to her.

A photograph of my dashing uncle!  My mom’s oldest brother.

A beautiful shot of my beautiful mother in the ’70s.

My resilient and beautiful grandmother in her 30s.

In any case, one of the many perks of traveling alone is that you can eat whatever you want whenever you want.  I forgot to take pictures of a lot of my meals, but here are some that I did manage to catch.

Xôi gà – chicken over sticky rice with julienned pickled carrots, cucumbers, and daikon.  The consistency of the sticky rice was a perfect complement to the savory chicken.  The pickled veggies added a welcomed touch of tanginess and spice to the dish.

Bánh canh chả cá – Round noodles with slices of fried fishcakes; these noodles look like udon noodles, but they do not have the same chewy texture.  They taste like a thicker and softer version of vermicelli noodles.  It’s a very comforting soup on a cool day, especially with an extra helping of chilli.

Bò bía – Originated from the south, this is a type of spring rolls wrapped with sautéed tôm khô, strips of scrambled eggs, steamed thinly sliced jicama, and lots of fresh herbs and lettuce.  It is dipped in a peanut and hoisin sauce mixture, with freshly grounded peanuts and fried onions on top.  Light and refreshing.

Bún cá – Vermicelli noodles with two types of fried fishcakes and tuna fillet.  The light soup was fragrant and sweeten by the fish stock.  A handful of fresh beansprouts, lettuce, and banana roots adds more zing to the soup.

Bánh căn – This was my first time hearing of this dish, and thus, my first time trying it.  As shared by my friendly eating neighbor at the table, this grilled savory cake dish is a traditional treat enjoyed in the countryside from all three regions.  The flour mixture is poured into a small waffle-like container, and can be topped with eggs, seafood, or beef.  I tried all three, but only remembered to take a picture of the egg one, which came out first.  Bánh căn is then dipped in a concoction of beef broth and fish sauce with a meatball and a generous offering of green onions.  To add a tangy flavor, you could either put in young green mangoes or squeeze a slice of lime into the broth.  This is a fun and interesting mid-day snack.

Cá viên chiên – Fried fish balls with slightly ripened papaya and fresh herbs.  Another delicious mid-afternoon snack.  The crunch and very light sweetness of the papaya and the tartness of the herbs balance out well the fried fish balls.

After reading positive reviews about Omar, an Indian restaurant, online, I was considering getting it for my last to second dinner in Nha Trang, but decided to go for a cheaper alternative.  The address for the restaurant, as listed on the reviews I found, was on Trần Phú, so I decided to walk the opposite direction on to Nguyễn Thiện Thuật.  Around the corner on NTT, however, sits Omar!  The manager persuaded me to take a look at the menu for its dinner special.  The special consisted of vegetarian samosas, chicken vindaloo, garlic naan, rice, and beer.  The dinner special was all for 120,000 VND which is a little bit less than $6 USD.  I ended the delicious dinner with a delicious and comforting pot of chai tea (which was extra, but totally worth it).

Another wonderful perk of traveling alone is that I got to frequent lots of coffee shops!  Space to enjoy coffee, take a break from walking, people-watch, write, reflect, and use free Internet.

With four generations making their living as fishermen, L’s mother was adamant that he would not follow in the same footsteps due to the precariousness of the seasonal harvest and the unknown lurking in the deep sea.  As a single mother, she did not want her first child and only son to experience the same instability of working in the sea that generations past had experienced.  Instead of being a fisherman, he became a tour guide, venturing from one island to the next with the open sea as his unconventional office space.  In these waters, he finds solace, adventure, connection, and contentment.

After the tour ended, I went to the beach to enjoy the last few hours of sunlight.  L joined me later.

Overlooking the horizon, he pondered.

“Do you see the big resort on resort on that island?  The selection of the resort staff is very selective.  They get paid much higher than we get as tour guides.  They start easily with 3 million VND a month (~150 USD), while we make only 1.5 million VND.  But I don’t want their job.  There is no stability in that job; they usually only get to work for a year, then the hotel managers could recruit and train a new cohort again.  The hotel management does that so it doesn’t have to offer benefits that a regular contract would include.”

I know that staying at that resort costs hundreds of dollars a night.

He then talked about how much he enjoyed working with his colleagues.  There is a team of seven people per boat, so they know each others’ quirks, as well as strengths and weaknesses of one another to fill in for each other.

There has been a lot of discussions among political elites and business players to develop Nha Trang into a city—like HCMC, Hanoi, and Da Nang—directly under the jurisdiction of the central government, not the provincial government, which is its current status, L shared.   As a city evolves and grows, it has to be attuned to the different needs that would arise due to the changing political, social, and economic climate.

L is very keen about the conditions that his community faces, the disparity in terms of what workers get, what and how outside developers profit, and the salient issues that are by-products of tourism.  He hesitated a bit when I asked him what are some major social issues he sees here before stating prostitution.  He spoke of the incredibly high prevalence coupling between Vietnamese women and white men here.  He had seen a lot of unequal and exploitative relationships, but he also had to remain mum as a tour guide.

Despite his incisive understanding, he also possesses a matter-of-fact attitude about these conditions.  That acceptance, however, could also be seen as resilience.  Given these circumstances and conditions, what can he do to support his mother and sister?  Outrage certainly won’t feed anyone in the most immediate way.  Low-wage earners here face urgent problems daily, in which intellectual inquiries and lofty ideals cannot be the cure-all antidote.

“As Nha Trang seeks to be a more developed city, are the wishes of the community being considered?,” I asked L.

“Well, whatever tourists want, for example, if they have certain requests to have more resorts, or if they demand something else, then we will try our best to accommodate them,” he responded.

I pressed, “but I mean, what about the wishes and aspirations of people who actually live in Nha Trang?”

L paused, “oh, our main interest is economic.  If the demands of tourists open up opportunities for us to work, to make money, to support our family, then we will do our best to satisfy them.”

In these same waters—where he finds comfort and craves adventure—he moves with the natural ebb and flow of the sea, yet he is also bound to the whims of tourists and exploitation of developers.

The beach here is imprinted with the footsteps of backpackers from Australia or a honeymooning couple from Russia, of Vietnamese laborers picking up trash blown across the promenade onto the beachside, of browned feet setting up huts, towels, lounge chairs, drinks station—an exclusive extension of some luxury hotel—for white sunbathing bodies.  A mother carries a basket full of green mangos, setting her pride aside as she asks every tourist to buy one, or two mangoes.  The mangoes are very sweet, they’re actually yellow inside, she coos.   Local informal vendors often traverse this 6-km stretch of beaches, from dawn until dusk, with hats blocking the strong gust of wind and the penetrating rays of the sun, selling bracelets, soda, beer, coconut juice, or fresh mangoes and pineapples.

Against this backdrop, I noticed the same two young men, walking back and forth, barefoot, on a stretch of pebbled beach with two buckets of boiling seafood, balanced by a slender bamboo stick.  They usually would only stop to rest for a quick moment in the event that a tourist inquires about the day’s offerings from the sea.  In most instances though, tourists would brush them aside, signaling their lack of desire to make a purchase with a flick of a wrist.  These encounters do not amount to even a short glance.  In the very act of avoiding eye contact or the nonchalant shrugging of their shoulders or hand movements, these tourists, in essence, deny local vendors and workers their very humanity.  These two young men would then continue with short steps with their two buckets of seafood, approaching other tourists under a different cabana, still under the same open sky.

Akin to the unpredictable weather here, their earnings can be decent one day, somber for the rest of the week.

–

In this uneven landscape of capital and labor, of tourists’ paradise to locals’ reality, and here in a little over a week I probably spent more than what local folks make in a month or two months, or even three months.  By no means were I spending money frivolously, but I had a comfortable trip.  I ate out.  I went to tourist attractions.  I got a massage.  I bought little knick-knacks.  While I recognize and observe the disparity between tourists and locals, I cannot deny that I am indeed a tourist.  And I think there’s a different sense of hesitation and ambivalence on my part when I’m cognizant of my role as a tourist.  It’s inevitable that taxi drivers, waiters, receptionists, hotel staff, and other workers in the service industry are Vietnamese.  I am in Vietnam afterall.  Yet there’s this palpable sense of guilt and unease when I am in these settings to exert my authenticity as being Vietnamese, while seemingly indulge in things that are foreign to Vietnamese sensibility.

In one afternoon, after some cajoling, I bought bánh tráng, a can of soda, boiled quail eggs, and mangoes from different beach merchants.  I enjoyed eating those items (not so much the soda), but my initial thought was that, well these things don’t cost that much to me, so why not buy something to help these folks out?  But on second thought, was the act of buying these items a subconscious effort to make me feel less guilty about my privilege and position?  How do I reconcile the fact that I am in some respect an outsider, but in some respect an insider in Vietnam?  Am I contributing or am I exploiting?  How do I contribute to the local economy and the livelihood of the people who live here without seemingly creating more demands to expand tourism at the expense of the local community?

As I have shared with some friends, based on my experience so far, I observe that finding a job in the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector for Vietnamese Americans, or Vietnamese overseas in general, is a difficult and challenging dance.  By and large, country representatives and director positions in international NGOs seem to be dominated by white men and women, and for jobs that are advertised at the entry level or even mid-range level, the first requirement is that the candidate must be a Vietnamese national.  This latter part I understand and appreciate; I find that it is absolutely important that efforts to improve and sustain a community must begin at the grassroots level.  But I don’t fall into either category, which makes my candidacy for any position either nonexistent or very precarious.   Before getting too jaded with the job-search in Vietnam, I decided to take a solitary trip to Nha Trang, which is a lovely beach town on the south-central coast of Vietnam.  I came here for a relaxing getaway from the hustle and bustle of Saigon and to have the space to reflect on my goals and dreams and to recenter my priorities.

A few days before coming to Nha Trang, I received an interview offer for a position I applied for at an international NGO in it’s workers’ rights program.  I was ecstatic because this is exactly what I would love to do, to deepen my passion for workers’ rights, to advocate for better working conditions, to strengthen the voices of workers, in the context of an emerging economy in Vietnam and to build upon my experience in the labor movement in the U.S.  I actually had my Skype interview in Nha Trang and although the interview process was rigorous, I felt that I made a strong impression and that the interviewer was very interested in me.  However, he conceded that he was not certain about my candidacy going forward, given its personnel policy to hire a Vietnamese citizen for the position.  After checking in with the head office, he notified me that he could not offer me the position beacuse of legal and budget implications, but would still love to keep in touch should any possible collaborations arise in the future.

While I understand its legal and budget constraints, I am deeply disappointed that my candidacy did not advance because the position was seemingly the most ideal position.  And while I recognize the need to develop local capacity, I do hope though that in the future international NGOs recognize and appreciate the unique role and desire of overseas Vietnamese to contribute to and learn from the community and economic development work in Vietnam. Although we may have grown up in separate countries and are governed by different sets of personnel policies, we come from the same lineage, from the same historical conflict (perhaps different historical context), with the same passion to advance the livelihood of all Vietnamese people.  I am determined to stay in Vietnam and I will continue to apply to jobs here, but if this is the way in which personnel policies are structured in NGOs in VN, I don’t know where and when I could position myself to contribute outside of a volunteer-based position.  Money certainly is not a huge motivating factor in my work, but I am at a point in life with a different set of financial responsibilities that I cannot work on a voluntary-basis.

As such, my solitary 8-day trip to Nha Trang came at the most perfect time.  It was a much-needed mental break and provided a serene space to reflect, recenter, and reprioritize.  There’s a lot more that I want to share, but my overnight bus to Saigon is departing in a two hours, so I promise to be back on this blog very shortly.  Also, with lots of food pictures as well!

I’m sitting here trying to finish my report for work and to prepare a presentation in Vietnamese for tomorrow, yet my mind and heart are wandering elsewhere.  With my departure date from Da Nang set on December 13^th, I have a laundry list of things to do, from professional duties to personal ones, yet for the past week or so, and more intensely in the past two days, I’ve been reflecting on my lived experiences, what I’m doing now, and how I envision my life ahead to look and feel like.

I tend to always have my headphones with me when I work at a café, but I had forgotten them at work on Friday.  Instead of my usual musical fare, I’m being offered something just as interesting here.  I’m listening to the clamor from the open kitchen.  Facets running; mugs, glasses, and spoons clinking against one another; quick steps of waiters pacing up and down the stairs; intertwined and undistinguishable conversations speeding past my ears.  Receipts printing, and printing again.

I’ve always been a keen observer.  I like to watch and observe how people interact and communicate with one another. I like to read the newspaper.  I like to read and hear about other people’s stories.  I like to ask questions and to clarify.  I realize that it is through other people’s stories that I try to make sense of my life, my childhood, my own ways of relating to other people, my flaws, and areas of myself that I want to develop.  But in these past two days, the more I connect this one particular story to my life, the more I feel compelled and convinced that I need to be my own advocate and storyteller.

It’s funny how timing works in life, how certain things somehow align with one another and push you to challenge yourself and challenge others in that process.  But it’s also a matter of finding the courage to decide what path to take and what challenges are worthy to tackle head on.  And most importantly, if you are ready to take on those challenges that you have deemed worthwhile.  At this time though, I’m still struggling to find clarity in a state of flux and still trying to make better sense of the world around me.  In this chaos, I’m searching for my own sense of peace.

After lunch, L and I took advantage of the sun and breeze and biked by the river in search of either ice cream or sugarcane juice.  We encountered light rain 10 minutes into our trek north, so we rerouted to a new café that we recently discovered and have actually been frequenting.  As we chatted over iced coffee and salted lemon, I asked her what she would like to do if she wasn’t pursuing development work.  She mentioned cooking, perhaps conducting scientific research, or something related to business.  She asked me what I would do.  I said that it would be lovely to be either a photographer or a writer; even better, a traveling photographer/writer.  If not, I would like to pursue something creative and tactile, like interior designing or cooking.

I shared with L that I used to write short stories and poetry in high school.  I’ve always had a love and deep appreciation for writing, literature, and the arts.  Somewhere along the way in college and graduate school, academic writing regretfully took precedence over creative writing.  L then mentioned that she wrote a children’s book in the third grade.  She didn’t remember winning anything, but remembered that her teacher took her to a place where her book was mounted on a wall.  I shared with her I had a similar experience of writing a children’s book in first grade.

There was a competition in our class and even at that tender age of 6, my competitive streak showed; I was determined to win first place.  In the end though, I got either 2^nd or 3^rd place.  I don’t remember exactly, but I know I didn’t win the first prize.  What I indelibly remember was how unfair I felt the process was.  Perhaps you could say I was egotistic or arrogant, and perhaps my book really wasn’t as good as I thought it was.  In retrospect, however, I can attribute my quest for justice and outrage over injustice to lived experiences and observations such as this, stemming from a very young age.  Though at that time, I neither had the words to describe my observations, nor the concepts to fully weave the tapestry of my experiences.

I can still recall the name of the person who won, and more specifically, the book that won.  Her book about cartoon pirates was impeccably neat and brightly colored.  She printed her text with a catchy font, something like Comic Sans.  Bubbly and zigzag cutouts surrounded her computer-graphic images.  I remember feeling defeated when I saw that; there was no way I could compete against such a polished product.  My humble children’s book was hand-drawn and hand-written; the visual progression of the story carefully filled in with colored pencils.  I worked meticulously on my penmanship to articulate my vision and story.  My story was located in a cryptic place far away in a deep dark jungle; some parts perhaps conjured up elements of a formulaic fairy tale, but with a magical twist I don’t quite remember.  But the sentences from my story weren’t printed with a quick command from a mouse pointer.  An inkjet printer did not perfectly carve the lines and contours of the images I had formed in my head.

At that time, I remember thinking that, as a first grader, she probably did not produce that finished product by herself. Certainly, there was that real possibility that she created the book with her own two hands.  But did her mother or brother help her too?  Possibly, I don’t know. Then, was it fair for me to not praise her individual creativity?  On the other hand, my parents did not even have an inkling of what I was doing in class.  Not by choice, I would argue now, but by circumstances and long hours of labor, where often times I only saw my mother for a few minutes after 10pm every night.  I wanted to win so fanatically because I wanted to show my parents the success of my work and that their sacrifices and missed opportunities were not done in vain.

Now I recall this incident as an adult not because I am still bitter over losing a children’s book competition in first grade. What this incident speaks to is the very keen and enduring observations that children often possess.  Though it would actually be quite pathetic if I still harbored such a resentment.  Instead, I highlight this incident to connect a childhood memory to larger inequities in society I find worth articulating.  I don’t fault the prizewinner for having access to such technology and tools, but I realize that my agitation stemmed from the fact that I didn’t have access to the same toolbox and I did not understand the factors operating under that frustration.  Here, I attempt to unpack that inquiry.

Through my education and politicization in college and thus being able to contextualize the diverse experiences of the Southeast Asian community, I learned how, among other factors relating to refugee resettlement, one’s access to social capital plays a large role in determining one’s success.  And social capital accumulates from a very specific place—a place of privilege, prestige, and access.  With that children book’s experience at a young impressionable age, I recognized that even though we attended the same school and grew up in the same neighborhood, we did not operate on an even playing field.  The fact that I grew up in a predominantly white middle-class suburb in San Jose disguises the welfare checks, rented house, food stamps, and clothes and dollhouses bargained from garage sales that constituted my childhood.

I’ve never subscribed to that quintessential American notion that you can simply pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.  If you work hard enough, you’ll overcome anything, correct?  Rag to riches stories certainly make people feel good because they can absolve their own responsibility in creating a more just society and negate the different kinds of privilege we each are afforded or dispossessed of.  And more importantly, these stories absolve the government’s responsibility to transform policies and programs that mitigate and eradicate institutional and systemic oppression.  While I do not discount self-determination—I sure was determined when I painstakingly wrote the text of my first-grade fairy tale with a ballpoint pen—but I recognize that self-determination could only be expended and exhausted so much before it contorts in the face of institutional and systemic barriers.

After the tumultuous ride, we finally made it to A Luoi, a rich multi-cultural valley with a number of ethnic minorities, such as the Pako, Ta Oi, and Catu people.  Ethnic Vietnamese, the Kinh, constitutes only roughly 30% of the district’s population.  This was also the site of an intense American aerial campaign during the American war in Southeast Asia.  Not only were herbicides, such as Agent Orange, sprayed across the region to defoliate trees and to destroy food crops of opposition forces, these toxic chemicals were also mixed, loaded onto waiting planes, and leaked from barrels on the U.S. airbase located in this town.  Agent Orange contained the highly toxic contaminant, dioxin, which is a now-banned chemical that has been linked to cancers, miscarriages, birth defects and other serious health problems.  Dioxin also permeates the food chain—producing an insidious effect—through ducks and fish that receive their nutrients from local water sources.

To better understand the historical significance of A Luoi and the scope of Agent Orange contamination here, it is important to note that the Ho Chi Minh trail ran through A Luoi.  This strategic 12,000-mile trail was constructed during the war as a communication and transportation network to import arms, personnel, and goods from the north to the south, cutting through Laos and Cambodia and bypassing the demilitarized zone.  North Vietnam believed that if they have this trail they could defeat the U.S. because the U.S. could not break the neutrality agreement and enter Laos and Cambodia.  In addition to heavy aerial campaigns in this area, in what was known as “Operation Menu,” the U.S. engaged in secret bombings across the trail in Cambodia and Laos over the course of 14 months.  It is estimated that the U.S. delivered over two million tons of bombs in Cambodia alone, and an even higher number in Laos.  As an aside, the way in which this war is commonly referred to as the “Vietnam War” locates the war in a very specific place—Vietnam.  Yet as we understand very clearly, as in this case, other countries and people were also severely implicated in the war besides Vietnam.

Against this historical backdrop, we have heard from several sources that there is a high number of people who are living with disabilities in A Luoi, which prompted our program director to plan a visit to this town; first, to connect with possible NGOs that are doing work around the impact of Agent Orange, and second, to expand the dialogue around disability issues. The morning after our arrival the evening before, we met with representatives from the People’s Committee of A Luoi and A Luoi’s Vietnam Association of Victim’s of Agent Orange to learn more about the district’s current efforts to address the impact of Agent Orange in both environmental and social domains.  We learned about the monetary provisions provided to victims that have been ascertained by the local ministry of health, as well as the ongoing verification process.  They also mentioned a collaboration with organizations in the U.S. and Canada to address the remediation of a highly contaminated area, the former U.S. airbase in A Luoi.

Continuing after the morning meeting, our group took a trip out to visit Mr. Phung Tuu Boi’s project, whose objective is to reforest the denuded land and to deter trespassers on tainted soil.  I have read about his efforts on the New York Times and was excited to learn more about it; however, Mr. Boi himself was not physically there, so we did not get a chance to pick his brains about this project.

At the end of the day, I felt that it would have been more holistic to touch upon the necessity of addressing issues facing people with disability regardless of cause.  While I certainly think that it is vital to acknowledge the devastating effects of Agent Orange, it is just as important to articulate other factors that produce and maintain disabilities, whether it is poverty, a lack of adequate post-natal care, etc. While I recognize the sensitivity around discussing Agent Orange and do not dismiss the effects of Agent Orange, I believe that with a more comprehensive conversation, disability advocates and community practitioners would be afforded more entry points in addressing disability issues and exploring possible solutions.

On the ride back, I was charged with sitting in the passenger seat to converse with the driver so he would stay alert.  Aside from conversations about his family, sports, and the golden era of Vietnamese music, I was immersed in the haunting landscape.  We took a different road back; this time through Quang Nam—less rocky, but more windy.  I was once again in awe of the emerald forest and of the differently-textured trees and ferns cultivated from rusty red earth.  My eyes moved across small dilapidated hamlets, connected to the windy mountainous road with suspended, but sturdy, bridges.  Cows, water buffalos, and goats grazed on plants and shrubs atop muddy terracotta dirt.  I noticed a solitary motorbike gliding through every 30 minutes or so.  This terrain, with its tranquility and cold breeze, ironically brings me back to the knowledge that a debilitating war was waged here.  This piece of serenity was once a stage for intense battles, aerial tactics, and now contains enduring and devastating legacies of war.

While it is imperative to commemorate the thousands of people who lost their lives on both sides, it is also important to acknowledge that millions were uprooted and displaced during the process of war, which did not end with a haphazard helicopter evacuation in 1975.  I have to make clear that this is not an indictment of American soldiers who fought in the war, as war spares no one; there are casualties and lasting trauma on both sides.  We must, however, wrestle with the fact that while the war may end in the most conventional sense of the word, the rebuilding and healing process persists long after the war is over.  For Southeast Asians, the legacies of war—from psychological trauma, environmental contamination, destruction of the only society they knew, to the disfigurement of the traditional landscape—continue to linger on their land and in their lives across generations and across boundaries.

I asked coconut grandmother, what do you do here in the evening?  Do you often talk to your neighbors?  She smiled and said, no, I don’t have any neighbors left, they all moved away.  She shared that she would sit out in front of the store, gazing at the river if the evening’s not too breezy.  She mentioned a few days back she had made offerings to her ancestors on the 15^th of the month according to the lunar calendar and wanted to offer me the food after the ceremony, but she wasn’t sure if I would eat it.  She then slipped away into her room and emerged a few minutes later with a thick windbreaker.  She asked H to pack some baby bananas for me to bring home.

With no other customers there, H joined us at our scratched red plastic table.  She’s actually not coconut grandmother’s granddaughter, but instead a distant relative.  H is 16 years old. Her parents and siblings are still living in their ancestral hometown, Quang Tri.  She has an older brother who works out in the sea, shrimping and fishing.  She has four younger siblings who are currently in school. She came to Da Nang two years ago to help with the coconut shop.  I presumed that she left her family in Quang Tri to come here so she could make more money to support her family.

I asked her, do you like living here in the city or living in the countryside better?  She immediately responded, of course the countryside, I love it there because my parents are there.  I then inquired, if you were in Quang Tri right now, what would you be doing?  I’ll be in school, she responded.  I wondered, what about now, do you want to go to school?  She smiled, giggled, and looked down.