My mom and grandparents lived a happy life in Vietnam, but..

There were certain circumstances

And they left Vietnam for a better place

My grandfather was a doctor and they were well off in Vietnam. At the time the Vietnamese government took control of mostly everything.  However, their money in the bank became the government’s. So they gave a few ounces of gold in order to leave.

“I inherited my love for music from your grandfather who had been composing and performing music for his fellow soldiers on the road,” my father, Lam, reminisced as I asked him about his start in music. 

“He taught me how to handle a guitar ever since I was a little boy hiding from frequent bombing in the city. I joined a band when I was in college, shredding impromptu electric chords though more than occasionally distracted by your mother singing at the center of the stage,” he confessed. He met my mother when he was a senior in the College of Architecture and she was a freshman at the College of Medicine; they got married right after my mother finished medical school and became a doctor.

A sad thing happened during this great love story: my father broke one of his finger and although it healed, he could never play it like he used to. After college he became an architect for the Ministry of Foreign Affair, overlooking national projects to accommodate foreign diplomats in Vietnam.

My father has sacrificed a lot since accepting his post in the Mission of Vietnam at the United Nations, having been struggled to readjust with life in a foreign land while reaching fifty year old, half of his life. Even though he is swamped with works at all time of the day, every now and then father picks up his guitar to play some of his love song or playfully finger the electric piano we found in front of our apartment.

“It’s never too late to start with music nor does it worth to give up melodies,” he always tell me. His life story has proven so…

“I regret not caring for your mother and my own family. I was selfish and wanted to achieve my own dreams.” My grandfather was the only one in his family to emigrate from China to America. He was the oldest child in a family of six children, leaving him with many responsibilities. Responsibilities he wanted to escape. He was young; he had dreams, but the possibilities in China were very limited.

“I had a love for cameras and loved taking pictures of everything. I bought so many fancy and expensive cameras and lens for my hobby. I eventually opened my own photography business in Chinatown, but it didn’t do so well.” My grandfather’s passion for photography still lives with him now. At every family dinner, he’s always the one with the big camera, taking pictures of the celebration. My siblings and I like to show him our iPhones with the built-in cameras because he always finds the self-portrait camera on it very confusing, but amused by it at the same time.

“I had many failures and many successes. Life in America was great. I had to figure things out myself first before bringing your grandmother, your mother and your uncles into this. I sent them all the money I made to try to make up for my absence but I don’t know if that was enough. “ My grandpa is eighty-six now, and cares for us before caring for himself. My mom always believed that he only does this to make up for the past. Whether or not my mom is right, I believe that my grandpa truly learned from his past and is careful to not make the same mistakes again. And that is why I love my grandpa.

The visual diary of my sister’s experience through college is in this attached word document and PDF file below; (please note that the visual diary begins at the bottom of the page and ends at the top)

Eyeing the World

Eyeing the World – PDF

      “I lived in an apartment with you aunts and my mother, then I went back to Guyana to marry your father.”This is how my mom’s story of her beginnings in America always starts.  “We didn’t want you three to grow up like we did, cutting cane, herding animals, living in poverty.  We wanted opportunities for our children.  We decided it was time to leave Guyana and come to America.” 

      I once wrote about my dad leaving Guyana, and made up that he turned around and looked back at his family with tears in his eyes.  My parents laughed and my dad told me: “once you leave Guyana you don’t want to go back.”  Now my mom really resents going back, since she has no reason to.  After my maternal grandmother passed away my mother seemed to have rejected the idea of returning to Guyana.  To her Guyana reminds her of a past where she was constrained by the shackles of poverty.  In America she has gotten rid of those shackles and can help provide a future for us.  What she wants most for us is to “get a good education,” which is unlikely to do in Guyana.

            I thought my parents had some harsh remarks about Guyana, but as I grow I understand where they are coming from.  They love their country, but at the same time they know that for the future of their children it isn’t the place to be.  For this reason, I reject failure as an option because my parents made it their duty to provide a flourishing future for my siblings and I. 

A common tradition in Russia was to celebrate the passing of winter and the start of spring, something that my mother did with her family every year. This celebration lasted one week. This tradition goes back to a time when people still prayed to the sun, but was adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church. The winter in Russia was very harsh so people were excited for spring to finally come.

“There was still snow on the ground, but we knew that spring was coming so we played in the snow while we still could. We had snowball fights and rode around on sleds.”

“My mother made pancakes for my family and friends. The pancakes represented the sun. They were as round and as hot as the sun. We hoped that the sun would melt the snow quickly and that spring would arrive soon and be as warm as the pancakes were. We ate them with caviar, butter, jelly, or sour cream and drank hot tea. Sometimes we ate the pancakes and drank the tea outside.”

“The culmination of the celebration was the burning of a scarecrow that represented winter. Many people came out to the center of our town to watch this ceremony and say goodbye to winter. Everybody was excited to see each other.”

(Quotes from Irina Polunina)

Bibliography

Beecroft, Kelvin. Blini, the Russian Pancake. N.d. N/A, N/A. flickr. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.

Gunn, Dave. Children Playing in the Snow. N.d. N/A, Cambridgeshire. flickr. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.

Krevenets, Eugene. Chucelo. 2007. N/A, Belgorodsky. flickr. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.

My father came to America with a suitcase and a thousand dollars in cash. He lived in a house in Farmingdale, Long Island for about 1 month. He worked at a banking company for about six years before his life changed. He was introduced by his friend to join PaineWebber, a stock brokerage and asset management firm. It was located in New Jersey, right across the river.

My father managed to establish his livelihood through this job opportunity. He started working there since 1987. “This job has turned my life around,” he told me. He managed to earn enough salary to support himself and his family.

In 2000, PaineWebber was acquired by UBS AG. My father has worked there for over twenty four years. The building was very close to his old office building and he would never forget this place. It was right near the water’s edge. “Without this company (PaineWebber) I would have never been able to have a family.”

I interviewed my grandmother about her journey from Tibet to Nepal.

“It was a very tumultuous time. Everything was in chaos and our country was disappearing and luckily our last hope had survived. Our people were dying and even the innocent monks were being beaten down. “(She is referring to the Dalai lama, the spiritual and political head of Tibet when she says “our last hope” who escaped imprisonment in Tibet in 1959.)

“So your grandfather and I decided it was time to escape Tibet after we realized it was no longer safe for our family here in Tibet. It was the one of the worst days of my life, second only to the passing of your grandfather. We packed our things and we together with some other friends escaped through the Himalayan Mountains and crossed over to Tibet early in the morning. “

“I remember that I took one last look at our land before finally crossing over to Nepal only to realize that this may be the last time I ever see my homeland. So I looked and I tried to memorize everything that I could see so that someday I could tell my children and their children about just how beautiful our land really was.”

That’s when I promised her that someday I’ll tell my children about our beautiful country.