Vietnam memories still haunt refugees in US
By Yao Minji |
March 24, 2013, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN Andrew Lam, who fled from Vietnam to United States with his family at age 11, was sent on a journalistic assignment back to Vietnam in 1991, his parents was in complete panic. They urged him not to go.
It was the first time Lam had visited his home country since he left in 1975, after the Vietnam War ended. His father had been a three-star general in the South Vietnamese army and the family led a privileged life, with servants and chauffeurs, before finding themselves on a packed flight filled with terrified, weeping Vietnamese refugees.
In the United States, Lam learned English as his third language after Vietnamese and French and experienced a life totally opposite to his first 11 years - surviving on food stamps, living in cramped quarters with other refugee families, and trying to adapt to the strange new world.
His father, at the time in his mid-40s, learned English, completed an MBA and finally became a bank executive to support the family of three children. Lam, however, resisted the will of his parents - they wanted him to be a doctor - and instead became a journalist and writer.
They only came to understand his choice gradually, after he proved himself with numerous prizes. These include the Outstanding Young Journalist Award and Best Commentator by the Society of Professional Journalists, The World Affairs Council's Excellence in International Journalism Award, the Rockefeller Fellowship in UCLA, and the Asian American Journalist Association National Award.
Today the San Francisco-based writer is editor for New America Media, an association of more than 2,000 ethnic media organizations/outlets in the US.
It was with the association that he went to work in Hong Kong in 1990, reporting on Vietnamese refugee camps and going back to his home country for the first time in 1991. At that time there were only four daily flights arriving in Hanoi.
"That visit felt very strange, and even today I still remember some scenes clearly," Lam told Shanghai Daily as he arrived in town to promote his newly published collection of short stories titled "Birds of Paradise Lost."
In Hanoi back then, there weren't many lights on the street and it was very dark in the evenings, but many people were riding bicycles, so they put glowing incense sticks on the wheels so they could see each other and prevent collision. The scene was very strange and left a powerful impression.
It was only years later that he realized the deep-rooted trauma of fleeing Vietnam in the past would persist in the present, as it has for his mother and for the vivid characters of the Vietnamese community struggling between the past and the present in his 13 stories from "Birds of Paradise Lost." It was published this month in English by Red Hen Press.
"After all these years, my mother is still heavily influenced from the trauma," Lam said. "She would always check to see that the door is properly locked. She always calls to confirm if I am safe when I go abroad. And I didn't understand that until years later. The past that has haunted her has also influenced me."
In his collection, the award-winning author explores in depth such trauma and how it influences people trying to build a new life in an unfamiliar environment. His stories are filled with humor, poignant moments and incisive social observations - never self-pity.
With a powerful voice, he assembles a cast of colorful characters, including an old immigrant and experienced leather maker who takes a job in an S & M leather store, a waitress who finds herself serving the American soldier who shot her husband. There's also a Vietnamese boy who makes friends with an American boy whose father fought in the Vietnam War.
It was the first time Lam had visited his home country since he left in 1975, after the Vietnam War ended. His father had been a three-star general in the South Vietnamese army and the family led a privileged life, with servants and chauffeurs, before finding themselves on a packed flight filled with terrified, weeping Vietnamese refugees.
In the United States, Lam learned English as his third language after Vietnamese and French and experienced a life totally opposite to his first 11 years - surviving on food stamps, living in cramped quarters with other refugee families, and trying to adapt to the strange new world.
His father, at the time in his mid-40s, learned English, completed an MBA and finally became a bank executive to support the family of three children. Lam, however, resisted the will of his parents - they wanted him to be a doctor - and instead became a journalist and writer.
They only came to understand his choice gradually, after he proved himself with numerous prizes. These include the Outstanding Young Journalist Award and Best Commentator by the Society of Professional Journalists, The World Affairs Council's Excellence in International Journalism Award, the Rockefeller Fellowship in UCLA, and the Asian American Journalist Association National Award.
Today the San Francisco-based writer is editor for New America Media, an association of more than 2,000 ethnic media organizations/outlets in the US.
It was with the association that he went to work in Hong Kong in 1990, reporting on Vietnamese refugee camps and going back to his home country for the first time in 1991. At that time there were only four daily flights arriving in Hanoi.
"That visit felt very strange, and even today I still remember some scenes clearly," Lam told Shanghai Daily as he arrived in town to promote his newly published collection of short stories titled "Birds of Paradise Lost."
In Hanoi back then, there weren't many lights on the street and it was very dark in the evenings, but many people were riding bicycles, so they put glowing incense sticks on the wheels so they could see each other and prevent collision. The scene was very strange and left a powerful impression.
It was only years later that he realized the deep-rooted trauma of fleeing Vietnam in the past would persist in the present, as it has for his mother and for the vivid characters of the Vietnamese community struggling between the past and the present in his 13 stories from "Birds of Paradise Lost." It was published this month in English by Red Hen Press.
"After all these years, my mother is still heavily influenced from the trauma," Lam said. "She would always check to see that the door is properly locked. She always calls to confirm if I am safe when I go abroad. And I didn't understand that until years later. The past that has haunted her has also influenced me."
In his collection, the award-winning author explores in depth such trauma and how it influences people trying to build a new life in an unfamiliar environment. His stories are filled with humor, poignant moments and incisive social observations - never self-pity.
With a powerful voice, he assembles a cast of colorful characters, including an old immigrant and experienced leather maker who takes a job in an S & M leather store, a waitress who finds herself serving the American soldier who shot her husband. There's also a Vietnamese boy who makes friends with an American boy whose father fought in the Vietnam War.
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