Patriotism

I grew up believing that I would become a revolutionist.

I was never "a child of the revolution". That title belonged to the aunts and uncles who lived to see their home wrecked and trampled on. However, my foreignness with war did not stop me from wanting to become a fighter. Or a speaker for children who did not have the education to express their hunger and sorrow. A soldier for those who could not afford to join in the good fight for a better society because they were still caught in the fight for survival. But most important of all, I was going to be a patriot for my ancestral home.

Andrew Lam writes: "it was the Vietnamese way to ask the land to bless and protect the newborn. 'Your umbilical cord is also buried in an earthen jar in our garden,' she said. The incident and the knowledge of my own earthly ties made a strong impression on me: our ways were sacred and very old....
No Vietnamese history book, no patriotic song, no agrarian-based adage could have possibly prophesied my own abrupt departure from Vietnam nor my subsequent transnational ending. For at the end of the Vietnam War many of us did no die protecting river and land as we, in our rituals, games, poetry, and songs, had promised ourselves and our ancestors' spirits. For all the umbilical cords buried, for all the promises made, we did the unimaginable: we fled." (4)

Perhaps the reason why I feel so strongly the way I do about my heritage is because I have a different connection to Vietnam, or "the Old World" as many Ameri-Asian writers have phrased it, than Lydia or my other friends. No one ever told me it was my duty to become Vietnam's messiah. Yet I could not help thinking I had a sense of responsibility to return to the forefront to help save the rest of my comrades. After all, did I not have the riches and fortune of America to become the leader I needed to be?

Co Le Mai was visiting Bac Khang and Bo for the weekend. Tonight was her last time in Los Angeles so we decided to take her out to eat Pho before her long 6 hour trip home to New York. During the dinner, Bo and Co Mai came across the question if the other thought that China would one day take Vietnam back. At first I was taken back at such a question. "Take it back?" Since when did Vietnam ever belong to China? From what Chinese history and soap operas have taught me, the officials in the North never cared so much to acknowledge the people of the South, let alone claim it as a part of its nation. How could they claim Vietnam "back" if it was never officially part of China to begin with?

I can't quite put into words the alarming emotions that arose at this moment, but it was nothing compared to the shock that followed with my father's answer. He agreed to China's reclaim of Vietnam.

At first I questioned his position of patriotism, but then considered his own position. What could a 50-year-old engineer with two kids and wife in California do about government officials forcefully taking Vietnam back? Perhaps my father, like most people, have lost hope.

She has been shackled and raped so many times before. It would only be a matter of time before she was taken away and proclaimed a child of China. After all, who was going to save her now? Not when family is the first priority and fear of political disturbance is the pad lock on the door out. And then there are those of us who are too taken up by our riches and spoils to give notice to her troubles. We could put money into her economy for a brief moments before they too are collected by her captures. Offer her glimpses of family pictures and newly found wealth from afar to allow her to dream. But each night that she returns to her dark and desolate prison, the truth remains, she is alone.