Thursday, August 30, 2007
Back when I was a kid....
I have been sending money to family in Vietnam since I was a little kid. I remember my grandfather used to send money to relatives once a month. My brother and I would bring a dollar from our piggy banks in and add to the fund. Of course it was hard for us to understand how our two bucks would help, but we did it anyway. When my Dad went "home" a few years ago, Rae-Anne and I sent some money with him (more than a dollar this time). It didn't really register with me how much my few dollars over the years meant to my relatives till my Dad came back with pictures of our family living in houses made of concrete (just 2 of the exterior walls) and sticks (the other 2 exterior walls) and having less furniture than my first apartment. The kids didn't have any toys and not for lead paint fears. I should have known by the way my Dad was always showing me and my brother how to make toys out of scrap wood and rusty nails. There was a picture of 2 guys wheeling dirt to town in a cart, as selling dirt was the only way they had to make money. And I thought I had it hard with blocks made of scrap metal (really did when I was a kid) and working for 6.50 an hour in a convenience store (back in 1996).
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2 comments:
I've heard that story before, but reading it was a good reminder. It's not just random people living over there in foreign countries... well, I mean, it is, but just the fact that it's barely two generations removed for your family really drives that ol' American immigrant thing home for me.
We can almost all look back not so far and see similar stories in our own pasts. And even some of our relatives in recent US history never got even a middle school education, instead working in factories for their childhoods.
I don't really have a point, save for this. Whenever we tell ourselves that we aren't world citizens, even a quick glimpse at our own lives should send that notion far from our heads.
Hello again Tua:
Hugh here. When I was a kid my father owned an automotive electrical repair shop in Upstate New York. He was asked to sponsor a Vietnamese family. The father was a translator for the US military during the war and when the US pulled out of Viet Nam, they took him and his family with them. They knew that if they left them behind, the communists would have killed them. The Vietnamese translator was named Ngok Van Lee. He worked for my father in his shop for a few years as I recall.
Part of our "job" as the sponsor family was to see that the new immigrants were acclimated to US culture. My Mom took Mrs. Van Lee grocery shopping. At first she was very confused. She was amazed at the variety of food we had but didn't know what most of it was. She knew chicken and the like, but the processed foods were beyond her experience. My mother had to teach her how to cook "American" food. In exchange, Mrs. Van Lee taught my mother some Vietnamese dishes that she still likes to make to this day. One of our favorites was fried stuffed squid. We had never heard of it before.
The Van Lee family had 3 girls when they moved to the US. One was named something like Kim Wyn, one was Kim Hug, and the last was something like Ngok Hue. They had a fourth baby girl just before Mr Van Lee left my father's employ and moved to Houston, Texas. They named her Juliet. She was their "American baby." I was young, but even then I knew that Juliet was a French name, or maybe Italian. I didn't have the heart to tell HIM that though.
I remember watching Mr. Van Lee rebuilding starters and alternators while he was squatting on the floor. We had perfectly good benches to work at with perfectly good stools to sit on but he preferred to squat as he worked. It looked very uncomfortable to me but he seemed quite happy working that way. The only problem we had with it was that we were in an upstairs repair shop on the side of a hill. There was another repair shop below us. When Ngok used a hammer on a starter or alternator to get it loosened up, it was like someone was pounding on the ceiling of the shop below us! We used to get irate phone calls from the mechanics downstairs. ;-) My dad would have to try to explain to Ngok, once again, why we preferred that he worked on the counter and not the floor. A few hours would go by and... there he was again, back on the floor. My dad would leave him alone as long as he wasn't making too much noise.
Ngok bought his first car while he was working for my dad. It was a beautiful 1969 Pontiac GTO. It was JET BLACK with a white LEATHER interior. Ngok PROMPTLY painted the white leather interior green with a can of spray paint. Everyone who looked at the inside of the car wanted to cry. My father asked him why he did it. Ngok's reply was that the color green made women feel.., um, how can I put this delicately? In the mood? Yes, I think that is the best way to put it. That isn't the way HE put it, but that is the way I will put it. Let's just say that all of Ngok's AMERICAN buddies weren't too happy about his choice of interior decoration. Every one of them could dream of themselves sitting in that car. None could envision that car with a green spray painted interior. There was a bit of culture clash there.
Ngok used to teach me songs about Viet Nam when I worked at the shop during the summers. I don't remember them now except as vague memories of songs about butterflies and birds and trees and beaches near the sea, but it seemed to make him happy to try to pass his memories on to someone else. It was like he was still there in his heart in some way. He also taught me the words for rice and beans but I have forgotten those too.
I would tell you about the time he invited us over to celebrate his "American" daughter's birth, but I don't know how you feel about eating cats. Let's just say it was a surprise for us too.
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