by Laura Lam
To the Americans and the local bargirls, the world around them didn’t seem to exist when they exchanged sex for American dollars. Four women in Xom Gieng worked as bargirls elsewhere, to avoid being seen and gossiped about by their own neighbours. Of those four, two had children with American men and would eventually resettle in the US. One woman and her child were to be abandoned by the child’s American father.
* * *
At the back of our house there was a large bamboo grove bordering on a cemetery. It never bothered us. The front of the house was rather close to the back entrances of Mrs Buoi’s and Mrs Troi’s houses, and their sewage drains. We often had to pour water into them to stop unpleasant odours arising, particularly when the weather was dry and hot. Buoi’s husband sold scrap iron for a living. They had adopted two little boys. Troi and her husband owned the Chinese restaurant at Ba Chieu market. They had no children. It was not long after we moved into the neighbourhood that my mother and Mrs Buoi had a fight and swore violently at each other. A few days later, as if nothing had happened, they became friends again.
Being at the back of other houses with their sewage drains caused my grandmother and me discomfort and embarrassment. We kept these feelings to ourselves lest we upset my father, who was trying his best to support us. We shared the same toilet with four other families. It was adjacent to the cemetery, above ground, made of cement with solid wooden walls. Everyone had to take a bucket of water to flush it.
We had no space for a bathroom. My mother put a simple curtain up near one of the water tanks in the kitchen area in order for us to shower every day. During the monsoon season my brothers took showers in the open. They would stand happily under the heavy rain in the little alley between our house and that of Bay Ca. Along the wall we had several giant ceramic containers collecting rainwater.
There was no spare land for a garden, something I missed greatly. I started growing houseplants of various kinds and had them all over the house. I even had a few rows of orchids hanging from the attic balcony. We had no electricity and used only kerosene lamps at night. This made concentrated work like studying or sewing difficult. It was only ten years later that I had electricity installed. The main water source, as for most people in Xom Gieng, was a well. It was my responsibility to collect water every day.
My father went to work by bicycle. It was wonderful having him living in the house again. However, he had no interest in material possessions. I doubt if he ever felt the pain of extreme poverty we endured. On the other hand, he was very generous with his time and effort in helping other people. Back in the village he had volunteered to teach children. Here, in the city, he volunteered to assist our neighbours. Most of them had little or no formal education and they were unable to write necessary applications for jobs, marriages, or for their children to enter school. There were no pre-printed forms to fill in then. Each application had to be written by hand. Previously people had had to go to a special office and pay someone to do it for them. Now they had my father, willing to spend his evening hours several times a month writing on their behalf. My grandmother was very proud of him and called him a role model for “poor but unstained, torn clothes but great integrity” (ngheo cho sach, rach cho thom).
The sewing my mother did, for the owner of the stall at Ba Chieu market, was to make pyjamas, blouses, shirts and shorts. Every day after school I helped her with the work. During the first two years I made buttonholes and sewed buttons, all by hand. Later, when I’d learned to use the sewing machine, I was able to sew pyjama trousers and the hems of shorts and shirts.
Our pay was low and inflation was rising rapidly. We were forced to work long hours in order to supplement my father’s income. On most days, my mother sat at the sewing machine for at least sixteen hours. I always left for school at seven in the morning and returned by one in the afternoon. My workday began after lunch. I spent at least an hour washing clothes by hand, then carried water from the well to our house, which took another hour-and-a-half. Then I sewed until late evening. I also looked after my brothers while my grandmother prepared supper.
I resumed sewing work from eight until ten. Only when I needed to study for exams was I exempted from sewing in the evening. Most days, however, I got up at four or five in the morning to do schoolwork. My mother and I never rested at weekends, and no one in the family ever took a vacation.
My brother Nhan, or Harmony, was born in the Year of the Snake, 1965. The birth of another child added to the family’s financial burden and I could not help worrying.
Before completing my last year at Chi Lang in 1965, I told my parents I wanted to continue with my education. My teacher offered a private summer class to all her students to prepare them for the three-day comprehensive exams to enter high school. I wanted to take this course, but my mother said she didn’t have the money to pay for it. She told me that my father would soon be dismissed from his government job.
My mother could give me no explanation about my father. However, later I overheard a conversation between my parents and learned that he might be arrested. They mentioned the words ‘politics’ and ‘Communist sympathizer’. I asked my father about it and he told me, “Don’t worry until I tell you to worry.” I did not ask any further. I had several sleepless nights before I overheard my father assuring her that he wouldn’t be arrested. Someone powerful in the investigation bureau protected him. He was able to keep his job.
My mother still objected to the idea of me going to high school. She wanted me to do sewing full time. I understood the financial dilemma, but I also remembered what my grandmother had said about a future without a proper education. My grandmother was as distressed as I was and said she would sell all her remaining china pieces to help pay for my school things.
My father and I discussed ways of convincing my mother to let me take the three-day entrance exam to high school. We waited for an evening when the weather was cool and my mother in a better mood. She finally agreed, saying, “Well, it’s a tough exam, I doubt you’ll pass it. If you do, I suppose you can go.”
Over two thousand girl students would take the Comprehensive Exams for Le Van Duyet high school that year. There were fewer than four hundred places available. The exams lasted three days and were closely monitored by teachers and assistants to prevent cheating. In Sai Gon, there were three elite high schools for girls – Gia Long, Trung Vuong, and Le van Duyet. All of them subscribed to the French system of education but lessons were taught mainly in Vietnamese. Those who failed the entrance exam had three choices: retaking the exams the following year, going to a private school and accepting lower standards of teaching, or discontinuing their education altogether. With the exception of two very expensive colonial schools where the teaching was conducted entirely in French, Vietnamese private schools were considered much less desirable. Classes were large, teachers not well qualified, and boys and girls were not separated.
Failure would mean the end of my education. There was no money to pay for a private school, and my mother would never let me study to retake the exams a year later. I worked harder than ever, determined to make it. I prayed to Quan Yin every night.
* * *
On the morning the list of successful candidates was to be posted, I went to get my friend Sen. We walked to the school together in great anxiety. A huge crowd of parents and students were waiting at the main gate.
The gate swung open an hour later and people flooded in. We had to force our way. At last I stood in the front of the list of winners. My heart was pounding and my eyes suddenly blurry. My fingers raced down the list until I found my name at number 257. The list ended at 329. Overwhelmed with happiness I felt like jumping up into the air. However, right next to me was the distressed Sen, whose name wasn’t there. I tried to calm myself down out of sympathy for her. Then we slowly walked home together, a study in contrasting emotions. Why only 329 lucky ones out of a population of more than two thousand girls? Why didn’t the government set up more high schools? I felt sad
for several of my classmates who had done reasonably well in their studies, but who were left behind. Out of sixty-four girls in my class, only five made their way to the prestigious high school. And I was one of them.
When I arrived home, my mother was at her sewing machine. I gave her the great news. She was surprised I’d passed. For the briefest of moments, I saw traces of a smile on her face. It didn’t last. My grandmother started to cry as she gave me a big hug, “My child! I am so proud of you.” That day my father returned from work early. He wanted to see the winners’ list himself and asked me to walk with him to the school.
I pointed out my name. His eyes brightened, he exclaimed, “Superb work!” He looked through the entire list himself. I told him that five students in my class had passed the entrance exam. He asked me who they were and where they lived. On our way back, he promised that during the two summer months he would save enough cash for my new clothes and books for the coming year.
My mother bought three metres of white silk for my ao dai, and four metres of satin for two pairs of trousers - one in white and one in black. An old lady in the neighbourhood offered to sew the dress as my mother said she didn’t have the time to do it. I needed two white dresses, which she said was too costly. Besides, she said, what if I dropped out? Wouldn’t it be a waste to own more than one dress? A month later, though, my grandmother miraculously came up with enough money to buy three metres of silk for my second white ao dai.
Nearly all of the teachers were female; their dress code was the traditional Vietnamese ao dai. They always dressed beautifully. The teacher of modern literature (kim van) was a strikingly beautiful woman – a writer herself. She introduced us to short stories and popular novels by prominent Vietnamese authors and translated works by well-known Western writers. First we had to learn the style differences between an Eastern novel and a Western novel. A Western novelist usually paid a great deal of attention to the psychology of the characters in the book, while in an Eastern novel all the characters were stereotypes representing concepts. In other words they symbolized roles understandable in the local culture, and these fitted into surrounding roles to make the full pattern of Vietnamese social life. A flowering of original Vietnamese plays, novels and short stories from the early 20th century had taken place – written in Quoc Ngu (Romanised script), many influenced by Western writing ideas and styles. The translated works I read during the first year of high school included La Fontaine’s Fables, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, and Le Malade Imaginaire by Molière.
I enjoyed ancient literature (co van) and appreciated various forms of poetry. My teacher was a sharp-tongued poet, whose father had been a classical Confucian scholar and a senior mandarin at the Imperial Palace. She taught us the different categories of Vietnamese poetry and verses. We read some of the major works of literature written originally in Chu Nho (Vietnamese writing with Chinese characters) and Chu Nom (still borrowing Chinese characters but adding Vietnamese ideas and concepts). From the 16th century Chu Nom was developed as there was no other form of writing available besides Chinese characters. There was a great collection of outstanding pieces of literary works. My favourite ones included the book of National Poetry (Quoc Am Thi Tap) by Nguyen Trai and The Warrior’s Wife Ballads (Chinh Phu Ngam) by Doan Thi Diem.
I loved The Tale of Kieu (Truyen Kieu). This was considered a masterpiece in Vietnamese literature. It contained more than thirty-two hundred lines of verse telling the life of a beautiful and talented young woman whose fate was doomed by the machinations of a mandarin. When I read it for the first time as a class assignment, it never occurred to me that a few years later I might be part of a parallel story.
In the civilisation class (cong dan), we studied the different forms of government and philosophies of East and West. In my seven years at high school, I read world histories, essays on various civilizations, and, not surprisingly given the French legacy in Vietnamese education, biographies of Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. French texts were translated into Quoc Ngu by the prominent scholar Pham Quynh, a Court Minister to Emperor Bao Dai.
History lessons had a patriotic tone. The country’s long struggle for liberation, the heroes and heroines and incidents of that struggle, were our subject matter. The long centuries of submission to China, and the eventual release in the early 19th century, were built into our textbooks. We came to understand the origins of many place names in our motherland: streets, towns, schools and institutions. We became patriots, even more than we might have been earlier.
Although the French had dominated and exploited Viet Nam for a century, history classes in both junior and senior high schools avoided discussing that. The school curriculum for South Viet Nam had been designed under the Diem regime, who favoured the French. The subsequent ARVN regimes during the American War did not make any attempt to change it.
I began English lessons with a strict teacher. We studied textbooks imported from England and the United States. I had a terrible time with English syntax and all the different tenses – tenses that do not even exist in Vietnamese. To my huge embarrassment, I did poorly in class and the teacher sometimes gave me zero points for my weekly work, with no more than a few points on my monthly exams. I was reduced to tears every time a classmate teased me. My long struggle with English would eventually come to an end when I met Robert.
The French teacher was educated in France. She spoke the language elegantly and without an accent. Since the writing of Quoc Ngu had been developed by a French Jesuit, the pronunciation of each letter in the alphabet was exactly the same as that in French. It was, therefore, easier for most Vietnamese to learn French than English.
Mathematics was taught by a distinguished lady, who was multilingual. Chemistry and physics were taught by one male teacher. He was a good teacher but the students showed him little respect as he was dating one of the girls in the senior class. Whenever they saw the girl perched behind him on his motorcycle, they made disapproving gestures.
My least favourite subject in school was biology and I never obtained a good grade for it.
As in the West, we learned Western music theory, modern arts, drawing, home economics, and sports.
* * *
I still did my sewing and other household duties meticulously. Despite a lot of homework – as under the French system – I did as much sewing as I could in the afternoon and in the evening. Each day, though, the task of carrying water from the well was a hardship that required both physical strength and patience. I had a large pair of tin buckets and a solid bamboo shoulder pole. My family required fourteen buckets of water every day. We had three large black metal tanks, and lifting the buckets to fill them was no easy task.
Mr Tu, who carried water for a living, was physically small and thin, but very fit. His bare feet were always stark white because they were immersed in the water all day long. He was the only person who dared to go down and touch the bottom of the well. Each year I watched him descending the slippery internal red brick wall and feared that he would not come up again.
People were injured at the well from time to time. The earth around it was always slippery. Sometimes conflicts broke out – usually over whose turn it was – and women used their shoulder-poles to strike each other. I fell down with the shoulder-pole and two full buckets of water more than once. One such accident left me with a crooked spine. On another occasion my ankle was badly sprained and I was unable to walk for several weeks. My mother took me to a traditional healer who made a cast, but the ankle never returned to its original position.
I was once nearly abducted by a gang of youths when I was at the well.
My neighbour, Bay Ca saved me. It was Sunday and I went to collect water right after lunch, thinking that other people would be taking their afternoon nap and I would not have to wait in line. As I was releasing the rope from the pool, suddenly four louts appeared in front of me. They were sloppily dressed, some with no shirts. They made jokes about my looks and there was lust in their eyes.
One of them moved forward and put his arm on my shoulder, staring at my wet chest. He whispered into my ear. I led him towards the house of Bay Ca, his arm around my waist. The others followed behind. I politely asked him, “Big brother! Where do you live?” He let out a sarcastic laugh. At that same moment I saw Bay Ca, who was sitting in the front porch. I cried out to him, feigning delight, “Uncle Bay! Uncle Bay!”
He looked up and immediately knew exactly what this gang had in mind. He got up and stepped forward, with fire in his eyes. The lout bent his head and apologized. The others stared at the ground. Then they drifted away. Perhaps they knew that Bay Ca had led a gang of pirates. His domain had been on an island long known to the French as Iles des Pirates, in the Gulf of Thailand.
I was most grateful to Bay Ca. He was known in our neighbourhood as a violent man. He regularly punished his wife and children in ways no other husband or father would. In a fit of rage against his pregnant wife one day, he seized her long hair and tied her to one of the wooden columns on the front porch. Then he beat her until she passed out. Then he untied her and announced to the neighbours who had witnessed the episode that he was going to make love to her. He carried her from the patio to the living room and shut the door. Nobody dared intervene. They had six children, four girls and two boys. He punished the girls regularly, leaving them with permanent injuries.
* * *
Early in 1966 my father hired a local man to build three concrete walls for our house, replacing the mud and rattan ones. The back wall was omitted, however, because of a luxuriant giant bamboo hedge that had become part of the kitchen interior. Pots and pans were hung to the knots of the live bamboo poles. Above the rows of cookware I had a few clay pots – also tied to the live bamboo – where I grew mint, parsley, pennywort, and even tomatoes. To prevent the bamboo bush from multiplying on the side facing the kitchen, from time to time I cut out the tender shoots and used them as vegetables. I made various stir-fry dishes and hot and spicy noodle soup with them. Years later, when I had the second storey of the house built, we managed to get a wall into that tight space, after we had uprooted a large section of the bamboo hedge.