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Dinner was almost over, yet the merriment was just beginning. As I sit with legs crossed in front of the array of empty dishes, the patchwork of dirty chopsticks, and the company of family and long lost relatives, I think back to the conversation that had played out weeks before.
“It was a rough marriage. She left him...” My mom spoke into the phone in Vietnamese, the mellifluous articulations captivated our ears. “Poor thing, he lives alone now. He rents the house from an old landlady. Yes, it’s in a pretty dangerous area, there have been several break ins already.”
It was the summer before my freshman year of high school. My family was preparing for our trip to Vietnam. It was our family’s first return in nearly ten years and mine since I was five years old.
“Is she talking about Chú Bích?” I whispered to my sister surreptitiously.
I don’t remember much from my first few years of life. I can’t recollect any memory of my uncle but I distinctly remember getting in trouble for stealing a picture of him and his bride because it was the prettiest thing five year old me had seen. He had let me keep it and take it with me to America. It still lies in one of the many dusty albums closed away in my parents’ bedroom.
Now I sit in his two-room home, tucked modestly away from the cacophonic streets of Saigon. This destitute reality differed immensely from the glossy picture that had eternalized his happier days. When I first stepped into his homely dwelling, I didn’t know if I could reconcile with the sparse furnishings, the quiet absence of air conditioning, and the cracked antiquated, blue floor tiles. However, it was on these tiles that Chú Bích laid out breakfast for us each morning; on these tiles, he sat and conversed with my father, as if thousands of miles and a decade hadn’t separated them at all. Within the walls of his home, my sense of materialism tumbled away, and all that was left were the people that I love and the place that I had come from.
I do not fully understand all the struggles or pain he had gone through, but Chú Bích welcomed us into his home and gave us all he had, even when it was so little. He represents an essence of Vietnam that I, in my naivete, had failed to grasp: through all the turmoil and difficulties, he still has the strength to love and the perseverance to toil on. It is the quiet, unsung heroes like him who inspire us in the most profound and unexpected ways. Through them, optimism shines despite pitfalls in life, and selflessness endures in the face of economic strife. They may not embody our conventional notions of success nor the bravery of an archetypal hero, but they anchor us home and remind us of what is important.
“It was a rough marriage. She left him...” My mom spoke into the phone in Vietnamese, the mellifluous articulations captivated our ears. “Poor thing, he lives alone now. He rents the house from an old landlady. Yes, it’s in a pretty dangerous area, there have been several break ins already.”
It was the summer before my freshman year of high school. My family was preparing for our trip to Vietnam. It was our family’s first return in nearly ten years and mine since I was five years old.
“Is she talking about Chú Bích?” I whispered to my sister surreptitiously.
I don’t remember much from my first few years of life. I can’t recollect any memory of my uncle but I distinctly remember getting in trouble for stealing a picture of him and his bride because it was the prettiest thing five year old me had seen. He had let me keep it and take it with me to America. It still lies in one of the many dusty albums closed away in my parents’ bedroom.
Now I sit in his two-room home, tucked modestly away from the cacophonic streets of Saigon. This destitute reality differed immensely from the glossy picture that had eternalized his happier days. When I first stepped into his homely dwelling, I didn’t know if I could reconcile with the sparse furnishings, the quiet absence of air conditioning, and the cracked antiquated, blue floor tiles. However, it was on these tiles that Chú Bích laid out breakfast for us each morning; on these tiles, he sat and conversed with my father, as if thousands of miles and a decade hadn’t separated them at all. Within the walls of his home, my sense of materialism tumbled away, and all that was left were the people that I love and the place that I had come from.
I do not fully understand all the struggles or pain he had gone through, but Chú Bích welcomed us into his home and gave us all he had, even when it was so little. He represents an essence of Vietnam that I, in my naivete, had failed to grasp: through all the turmoil and difficulties, he still has the strength to love and the perseverance to toil on. It is the quiet, unsung heroes like him who inspire us in the most profound and unexpected ways. Through them, optimism shines despite pitfalls in life, and selflessness endures in the face of economic strife. They may not embody our conventional notions of success nor the bravery of an archetypal hero, but they anchor us home and remind us of what is important.
