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How I defied my Vietnamese parents and pursued my writing
By Andrew Lam |
March 1, 2013, Friday
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ONE summer afternoon many years ago, I stole home and robbed my parents of their American Dream. I wasn't going to be a doctor, after all. I was going to study creative writing.
When they heard the news, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the living room. Mother covered her mouth and cried; Father cursed in French. Older brother shook his head and left the room.
I sat silent and defiant. I was only a small child when we fled Vietnam in 1975, but I remember how I trembled then as my small world collapsed around me. I trembled on this day, too, as I told my parents that I was following my passion.
At the University of California at Berkeley, more than half of those in the Vietnamese Students Association, to which I belonged, majored in computer science and electrical engineering. These fields were highly competitive.
A few told me they didn't want to become engineers: some wanted to be artists, or architects, and had ample talent to do so, but their parents were against them.
And I, with a degree in biochemistry and on a path to attend medical school to the delight of my parents, was, in their eyes, throwing it all away - for what? I had, in secret, applied to and been accepted into the graduate program in creative writing at San Francisco State University.
"Andrew, you are not going to medical school," said Helen, my first writing teacher after reading one of my short stories. My response was lacking in eloquence. "But ... but ... my mom is going to kill me."
Filial piety was ingrained in me long before I stepped foot onto American shores. It is in essence the opposite of individualism.
"Father's benefaction is like Mt Everest, Mother's love like the water from the purest source," we sang in first grade.
My mom didn't kill me; she wept. It was my father who vented his fury. "I wanted to write, too, you know, when I was young. I studied French poetry and philosophy. But do you think I could feed our family on poems?"
This was the late '80s.
Father looked at me and with that look I knew he was not expecting an answer; it was not how I talked in the family, which was to speak respectfully and with vague compliance. Perhaps for the first time, he was assessing me anew.
I matched his gaze, which both thrilled and terrified me. And crossing that invisible line, failure was no longer an option.
Vietnam was for a long time a tribute state of ancient China and it was governed by mandarins, a meritocracy open to even the lowest peasant if he had the determination and ability to prevail.
Temple of literature
Of all the temples in Hanoi, the most beautiful is Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature, dedicated to all those laureates of Vietnam who became mandarins, their names etched on stone steles going back eight centuries.
It was Vietnam's first university, the Imperial Academy. That it became a temple to the worship of education seems entirely appropriate.
Under French colonial rule, China's imperial examinations were replaced by the baccalaureate. To have passed its requirements was something so rare that one's name was forever connected to the title. My paternal grandmother's closest friend was Ong Tu Tai Quoc - Mr "Baccalaureate" Quoc.
My paternal grandfather's baccalaureate took him to Bordeaux to study law and when he returned, he married the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the Mekong Delta.
And for Vietnamese in America, education is everything.
So, for someone lucky enough to be handed through the hard work of his parents the opportunity to become a doctor, to say "no, thank you" was akin to Confucian sin. By refusing to fulfill my expected role within the family, I was being dishonorable. "Selfish," more than a few relatives called me.
Betrayal of the parochial
But part of America's seduction is that it invites betrayal of the parochial.
The old culture demands the child to obey and honor the wishes of his parents. America tells him to think for himself.
Many children of Asian immigrants learn early to negotiate between the "I" and the "We," between seemingly opposed ideas and flagrant contradictions, in order to appease and survive in both cultures.
In Vietnam, as a child, I read French comic books and martial arts epics translated from Chinese into Vietnamese, even my mother's indulgent romance novels. In America, I read American novels and spent my spare time in public libraries, devoting the summers to devouring book after book. When not studying, I was reading.
Some years passed...
Eavesdropping from upstairs during a visit home, I heard my mother greeting friends and learned of a new addition to our family. "These are Andrew Lam's awards," she said, motioning to a bookshelf displaying my trophies, diplomas, and writing awards. "Andrew Lam" was stressed with a tone of importance.
"My son, the Berkeley radical," my father would say by way of talking about me to his friends. "Parents give birth to children," adds my mother, "God gives birth to their personalities."
Andrew Lam is an editor at New America Media. He is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres." His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," was recently published by Red Hen Press.
When they heard the news, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the living room. Mother covered her mouth and cried; Father cursed in French. Older brother shook his head and left the room.
I sat silent and defiant. I was only a small child when we fled Vietnam in 1975, but I remember how I trembled then as my small world collapsed around me. I trembled on this day, too, as I told my parents that I was following my passion.
At the University of California at Berkeley, more than half of those in the Vietnamese Students Association, to which I belonged, majored in computer science and electrical engineering. These fields were highly competitive.
A few told me they didn't want to become engineers: some wanted to be artists, or architects, and had ample talent to do so, but their parents were against them.
And I, with a degree in biochemistry and on a path to attend medical school to the delight of my parents, was, in their eyes, throwing it all away - for what? I had, in secret, applied to and been accepted into the graduate program in creative writing at San Francisco State University.
"Andrew, you are not going to medical school," said Helen, my first writing teacher after reading one of my short stories. My response was lacking in eloquence. "But ... but ... my mom is going to kill me."
Filial piety was ingrained in me long before I stepped foot onto American shores. It is in essence the opposite of individualism.
"Father's benefaction is like Mt Everest, Mother's love like the water from the purest source," we sang in first grade.
My mom didn't kill me; she wept. It was my father who vented his fury. "I wanted to write, too, you know, when I was young. I studied French poetry and philosophy. But do you think I could feed our family on poems?"
This was the late '80s.
Father looked at me and with that look I knew he was not expecting an answer; it was not how I talked in the family, which was to speak respectfully and with vague compliance. Perhaps for the first time, he was assessing me anew.
I matched his gaze, which both thrilled and terrified me. And crossing that invisible line, failure was no longer an option.
Vietnam was for a long time a tribute state of ancient China and it was governed by mandarins, a meritocracy open to even the lowest peasant if he had the determination and ability to prevail.
Temple of literature
Of all the temples in Hanoi, the most beautiful is Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature, dedicated to all those laureates of Vietnam who became mandarins, their names etched on stone steles going back eight centuries.
It was Vietnam's first university, the Imperial Academy. That it became a temple to the worship of education seems entirely appropriate.
Under French colonial rule, China's imperial examinations were replaced by the baccalaureate. To have passed its requirements was something so rare that one's name was forever connected to the title. My paternal grandmother's closest friend was Ong Tu Tai Quoc - Mr "Baccalaureate" Quoc.
My paternal grandfather's baccalaureate took him to Bordeaux to study law and when he returned, he married the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the Mekong Delta.
And for Vietnamese in America, education is everything.
So, for someone lucky enough to be handed through the hard work of his parents the opportunity to become a doctor, to say "no, thank you" was akin to Confucian sin. By refusing to fulfill my expected role within the family, I was being dishonorable. "Selfish," more than a few relatives called me.
Betrayal of the parochial
But part of America's seduction is that it invites betrayal of the parochial.
The old culture demands the child to obey and honor the wishes of his parents. America tells him to think for himself.
Many children of Asian immigrants learn early to negotiate between the "I" and the "We," between seemingly opposed ideas and flagrant contradictions, in order to appease and survive in both cultures.
In Vietnam, as a child, I read French comic books and martial arts epics translated from Chinese into Vietnamese, even my mother's indulgent romance novels. In America, I read American novels and spent my spare time in public libraries, devoting the summers to devouring book after book. When not studying, I was reading.
Some years passed...
Eavesdropping from upstairs during a visit home, I heard my mother greeting friends and learned of a new addition to our family. "These are Andrew Lam's awards," she said, motioning to a bookshelf displaying my trophies, diplomas, and writing awards. "Andrew Lam" was stressed with a tone of importance.
"My son, the Berkeley radical," my father would say by way of talking about me to his friends. "Parents give birth to children," adds my mother, "God gives birth to their personalities."
Andrew Lam is an editor at New America Media. He is the author of "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" (Heyday Books, 2005), and "East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres." His latest book, "Birds of Paradise Lost," was recently published by Red Hen Press.
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