"You kids don't know how good you have it..."
The above quote said by every parent to their kids throughout all history. News flash, they're right. On a countrywide, democratic stability collapse, they were right. Maybe I was too young to understand then, and a touch naive to understand now. But my dad, uncle and Grandma can finally tell their stories with a true authenticity: their stories of their former home: Vietnam.
Vietnam, a homecoming 50 years in the making
I was foolish to think that visiting Vietnam would be a cherished homecoming. Of course, in retrospect and a week of recharging, I remain optimistic, that the best way is to honor our parents and grandparents for their sacrifice is to be the greatest we can be. And love each other. But that only comes after a dose of humility, and standing where they stood. Would you have made the same choices if your country was collapsing?
Ho Chi Minh City, District 1. The Times Square of the brightly lit city. Everyone comes out at night, and with strong economic growth, you wouldn't believe the stories of war that the country overcame.
Our family history: as told by my Grandma, Minh
My frame of reference was tinted with with the rose colored lens of my grandma's stories. Of how my grandpa, Wilbur, was a GI who was stationed in Cam Ranh Bay, who saw my grandma, Minh, walk of the bus one day from Saigon. The rest as they say is history...
Minh is my grandma who constantly relives her tales of her two sisters and her brother, and her parents. They were a wealthy, affluent family, her dad was a doctor, and mother was an owner of a Texaco gas station. Slowly her stories, pieced together over many grandson tales over her home cooked Saigon specialties, outlined a family history that was tragic and heartbreaking. In many ways her family slowly mirrored the social and political instability of the early 1960s.
Her father, a doctor in a time where tobacco and smoking were the norm, died of lung cancer very early on in her life. Her brother, an interpreter working for US Army died at a very young age, against the forces of the North the Viet Cong. Later, at the age of 19, a smoking cab driver lit a spark at her Mom's Texaco. It lit on fire and her mom suffered from 3rd degree burns, later dying at the hospital. With a grand estate in District 1 of Vietnam, (which I later learned was the wealthiest, most affluent district in all Saigon), she fought with her sisters, whether it be for her partners or their houses. Fed up, she took my dad and left to Cam Rahn bay around 1972, where she met Wilbur Sheffer.
In her past life she said she worked at cafe's, salon shops, and restaurants. Reminiscing about her skills to ride Honda's, and her love for dogs. She was fiercely independent, and always working. She even saved for a house, (that her sister later sold), and paid her sisters to watch my young dad, (he later tells stories of a distinct and dangerous lack of supervision, playing chess with strangers in the street at late hours in the day).
She closed the family history with Wilbur, who over the course of 4 years strengthen their relationship, (He found her wandering the streets of Saigon, next to a Pho Vendor, or maybe she found him?) and finally marrying and honeymooning in Hong Kong, before moving the the States and saving money to bring their children to the USA.
A US Army Tank from the Vietnam War, circa 1970s. Ironically, well kept with fresh pain to forever idle outside the War Remnants Museum.
And this is what I carried with me for 31 years. A story of love, in the face of sisterhood betrayal and a gratefulness to the Sheffer name (Even if they were poor in the US for a while).
The harsh reality is that Vietnam is a story of war. Whether it be from the 1000 years of Chinese invasion, 100 years of French Indochina occupation, or (as termed in the War Museum), 10 years of US agression. From the statues of Ho Chi Minh, the French influences in the Districts, Wards, and food, to the national identity that no matter the invading forces, Vietnam will always be independent, Vietnam is a sprawling, unified city, bearing the scars of foreign influence and yet the flourishing in the richness of their distinct communities.
That's why their flower is the Lotus, the beatiful, blossoming flower that springs from the mud.
And so no matter what, Vietnam will remain independent. Ho Chi Minh quotes, if the Americans want war for twenty years, we will give them war for twenty years, but if they want peace, we will invite them to tea
The War Remnants Museum. In the US we call it the Vietnam War, inversely it's referred as the American War.
The War Remnants Museum:
I always thought that my dad, Uncle, and Aunt never visited because they didn't have the means of vacation time.
The Vietnam war is known to be the first war with colorized and clear footage, with on-the-ground reporters. There were atrocities. Exhibits labeled: Agent Orange and their effects, War Crimes, Children & Babies.
While I was piecing together my grandma's love stories, I realized my dad and uncle casually and candidly mention hanging bodies on their way to school. Wait, hanging bodies?
Near my Uncle's house, a plane crashed in his neighbors building. A crash, or Kamikaze. Bodies laid out in the Chinatown area known as Cho Lon. ... A plane crash?
In the states, my dad pulls over and drives slow any time he sees a cop. We laugh, "Why are you so scared?".
And then I see a Vietnamese man in uniform here, Red flag and star embroidered on the chest, looking me straight in the eye and knowing I am a foreigner. Ideologically, this is a communist country. Illogically, I panic with a hint of PTSD that even today in 2023, nearly 50 years later, I'd be jailed with no rights. This isn't my home. But tourists are welcome of course, it's 2023!
All my family's life, we've been defined the Vietnam War, or the American war as it's known here. But in the course of Vietnamese history, our story is but a speck of occupation, invasions, and civil war by Chinese, French, Americans, political factions, and Cambodian opposing regimes.
Heroes celebrated by the Vietnamese, like Ho Chi Minh led the Viet Minh in their independence against the French. The US, under the backdrop of the Red Scare, the forgotten yet stalemated Korean War, ended occupation of the South. Even after we left, the Norht forces fought the genocidal regimes agains the Khmer's, discovering the horrors of Vietnamese communities in Cambodia killed abhorrently. China tried to invade Vietnam in the 3rd phase of the Indochina war, (The US titled the second phase), and the Vietnamese swiftly defended their northern territories.
Vietnam continued and grew, like a budding Lotus, even after my family left in the mid 1970s. And although our memories were forever seared in our minds, we didnt' start the fire. It was always burning.
History is told by the victors. The war in the museums highlights all the countries opposing US occupation, titled sections called "against U.S. aggression', and highlights the local casualties and war crimes.
At the same time, the Red Scare never reached fruition, Vietnam led by socialist values, did allow capitalism to flourish, and India never succumbed to Communism.
A sprawling city block, built as US army barracks back in the 1960s now serves as highly expensive and coveted housing in District 3 of HCMC. Vietnam has long grown past its roots in the US war, former barracks serve as business storefronts on level 1 of the complex.
I feel the Chinese, French, and Americans, are welcomed back ambivalently. Welcomed nonetheless, only to realize that Saigon's, aka Ho Chi Minh's city sprawling growth and economy are the new focus of the generation.
It's extemely hard to indentify poverty areas, versus massive population expansion, life, toursists, and massive construction for new buildings. The city is growing faster than it's infrastructure can handle, and the socioeconomic disparities are yet to truly unfold. But Saigon nonetheless is alive and well and flourishing.
War was half a century ago. Ecnomic successes are the story now.
Massive city squares in District 1, that compete directly with Times Square or Picadilly, witht he hum of Honda gas engine mopends lining the streets in crowded and smooth uniform wave.
These are peace and growth times, with extremely cool and friendly youth, and innovative companies like VinElectric trying to make a splash in the EV world.
It's like I met a family member,, a long lost Uncle who stoicly remembers the past, with a daughter who is well educated, well fed, hip and acclimated who reamins truly optimistic, (at the cost of youthful naievety).
I have to reconcile the two truths -
One that the horrors of the war happened. So real that my humanity is shaken.
Two - that like the Lotus, Vietnam fully healed, and that finally, and hopefully we can leave her to flourish in peace.
I found our old family home, in district 5, Cho Lon, or the Chinatown of Vietnam.
Like my grandma, the Vietnam story is actually one of both love and war.
Minh is healthy and at peace in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. She lives with her daughter, my lovely Aunt, May Phuong.
We've traveled to Vietnamese communities such as Orange County in CA, and San Diego, and she has treasured my childhood with South Vietnamese cuisines. She cooked for me for nearly every school packed lunch, and nourished my soul! (and Body a little too much).
Her other daughter became and accountant with her amazingly successful and artistic daughter Theresa in Minnesota.
My Uncle, a Tae Kwon Do master with 4 children, Allen, Jerry, Angela and Alex.
And my dad, a retired natural gas technician, with me and 4 other sons and 2 daughters LT/Little Thanh, Sean (myself), Anna (my wife), Andrea, Cristolee, Maximus and Michael.
I think it's time I visit her again to relearn the tales, and live a life cherishing everything they've been through.
