Vietnam for the Summer
I've been in Vietnam since June 20th for an internship through my university. The internship counts for upper division credit for one of my minors (Global Health), and Vietnam was one of the international options offered, so I said "full send" and applied for the program. Among the other locations offered were Cape Town in South Africa, Buenos Aires in Argentina, and London in the United Kingdom. So why Vietnam, a place I've called home for the summer every 2 to 3 or so years, and not somewhere I've never been before?
The Past...
I've had the privilege of returning to Vietnam with my family 5 times in my life prior to 2022. Four times with my entire family and once with only my dad. I've heard extensively about my family's history here. My mom would drive me around Saigon on a motorbike, telling me stories about her 18 years living here.
"I went to school here. I met my
best friends here and those friendships
traveled with me across the sea."
"I walked these streets everyday. I used to sit on this curb
and help your grandmother sell iced tea after school
while I did my homework on the side"
I would see her past life transplanted from the 1980s to the present, recounted with both stars in her eyes and a tinge of sadness about the life she gave up here before she emigrated to the United States with my grandparents. The stories were always bittersweet; her struggles growing up were always as real to her in 2012 as they were in 1985 and she wanted me to know the reality of it all. "There are lessons," she would say, "in every single one of our memories." Memories were made to be shared, and as she passed down her history, I became more and more cognizant of how her life shaped mine, and how her life is just as much part of my greater history as it is her individual history.
We'd split our time in Vietnam between Saigon and a fishing village about two and a half hours away called Phuoc Hai, "the Blessing of the Sea." This town was my dad's stomping grounds until 1978, when as a 17-year-old he left his family behind and escaped Vietnam as one of the hundreds of thousands of boat people fleeing towards a hopeful future. Time yields growth (and maturity), and as it passed, I went from a 4-year-old grumbling about the lack of air conditioning and the smell of fish as we passed by the markets to appreciating the calm of the village. I am a city boy, born and raised, but even I was able to find appreciation in the quiet mornings there.
"I fell into a fishing hole here once.
I trekked so much mud back into the house,
your grandmother was mad at me for 3 whole days."
"This is the beach I set off from.
I had a shirt, a photo of our family,
and a small bag.
I prayed I would one day see them again."
My relationship with my dad has been anything but steady, but the respect I have grown to have for him has become unwavering. It's easy as a child to scrutinize the littlest things, to complain about this and that and to react without thinking. I grew up, and I learned about him and his life. In seeing his history I saw him -- not just as a father (immovable, impermeable) but as a person capable of fear and of resilience. It was growth on my part as much as learning how to navigate a teenage Eric was on his part. He left the village in the hopes of seeing his family again. Now, as a twenty-one year old, I hope that the memories we've shared by the seaside have become as much of a blessing for him as it has been for me.
... Is what informs the Present
As I arrived in Vietnam in June, I was greeted by the three remaining family members on my mom's side still here. I was home. I would be here for the Summer, working, and most importantly, experiencing Vietnam for myself. I was ecstatic to be a parent-free, 20-almost-21-year-old finally able to explore my homeland on my own. I was determined to "make my own history here." I learned so much from my parents about what I perceived as their history, but I had yet to make my own here, to place roots down in what felt like home. I was excited to run out into Saigon and make it mine too, not just my mom's or my dad's.
It turns out that this was as far from my reality as it could get. Everywhere I went I saw my parents and my family. As I walked the streets of District 1, I saw the church my grandparents got married at. I took one of the interns in my cohort to my home-district of District 5, and we sat where I always sat with my family at our favorite broken rice plate restaurant. I passed by the park where my mom taught me how to play badminton, the same park where she'd sold curbside tea with my grandma at and I began to introspect. As much as I wanted to free myself and establish myself as some independent being I couldn't escape the wisps of my family's past. As I've spent more and more time here, I've begun to realize that to free myself from it all is a fruitless endeavor.
"Know history, know self."
A phrase I heard ad nauseam in organizing spaces at UCLA; I had always applied it to activism and our history as people of color on campus. It was only as I walked the streets of Saigon, contemplating my history in the midst of the white noise of motorbike engines, did I realize how personal this statement could be. My history and my sense of self are inextricable from each other. My parents' lives here are what shaped them, and their experiences are what shaped the present me. The ephemeral ghosts of their stories of yesteryear are replayed and made tangible again as I walk the same streets they did nearly 4 decades ago.
I'm here in Saigon for the summer because of a calling. When I saw the option to spend an entire 3 months here, I felt something inside telling me I just had to apply. I came here out of this sense of urgency, a soon-to-be 21 year old grasping for some sense of self-identity by returning to his motherland and firmly planting roots down to ground himself. I came home to find, to my surprise, a garden, tended by generations of those who came before me. There was no need for me to set a new foundation here for myself. A plot had been set aside for me long before I had even realized, made possible through two decades of worth of love, intent, and respect poured into maintaining my connection with the country I am blessed to be able to call home.