Short Trip Home

This summer has been a wondrous, dizzying blur of jet-setting, delicious foods, old and new family/friends, and new experiences. I feel like I haven't been home in Chicago for more than a few days or a week at a time (that's not true, but it certainly feels that way), and I feel like I haven't written (for public consumption) in just about forever. 

This summer, I went for broke (literally and figuratively) on my traveling shenanigans. Our annual family trip was to Hawaii in May and I had the time of my life in Japan in July, but I'm sure I'll write about that later. In between those two trips, I had the great fortune to finally travel to Vietnam and Hong Kong. To fill y'all in, my trip to Vietnam has been a long, long time coming. My dad grew up in Vietnam and I still have family there, so he's been trying to get me there ever since I was a little kid. In elementary school there were camps, in high school it was summer ball/workouts and JSA, and in college it was work (...JSA). I never had time, so I guess that's one thing unemployment has given me.

Anyway. I'll get right to it. 

People like to wax romantic about traveling to third world countries like Vietnam (looking at you, Bourdain).

Well, I can tell you right now that it's not all that romantic, unless your idea of romance is taking squat shits without toilet paper *FOOOOOOOGHORN* and being so sticky and sweaty you don't want to touch -- let alone look at -- another human being. (Although it was maybe my fault for going there in the summer.) (And don't get me started on the actual shitty things.) So yeah. It's fucking romantic. I guess, I don't know -- am I being cynical? Because I know Anthony Bourdain and his crew are probably staying in some nice hotel in the capitol, claiming to be giving his viewers a "no reservations" look at the country? Does he mean that gritty is romantic? Maybe that's what he means, and I'm just being harsh. I guess I could dig that.

Anyway. I flew there a total blank slate -- I had no idea what to expect. I've gone on college ultimate trips, so I know in some small capacity what it's like to travel thrifty. I've traveled pretty extensively through China, and I'd like to think that my gag reflex has been pushed to its limit (*pause* *realizes* *that's what she said* *foghorn*), and I've smelled/felt/ate/heard/seen most of what could horrify me on a trip of this nature. I prepared myself for shit like that. But the experience was disarming in a completely different way.

I made the long trek from Chicago to Hong Kong to Saigon with my dad and a bunch of white kids from Miami (Which, hilarious, but also: Flag on the play, you guys. Flagrant/excessive/Caucasian use of the word "peeps". I think "*shaking my head*" was meant for just such egregiously Caucasian offenses *smh*). I just barely made it on the flight -- I was the very last person they called to board, and I ended up sitting business, which was clutch in a major way. My left knee gets very stiff if I sit for extended periods of time *first world problems*, so being able to stretch out for the long flight was clutchington. Aaaaaand I watched not just the Michael Jackson episode of "Glee", but also the "Glee in Concert" movie. (This is slightly less embarrassing when you consider that I saw about eighteen different women in business getting they Caucasian on and watching that Ryan Gosling/Michael Scott joint.) The gentleman next to me hated my whoooooole entire life. He was also drunk and had a broken leg and I kept making him get up so I could pee. (My b, my pal. Ginger ale goes right through me. Sucks to suck. Sorry I'm not sorry.)

I lost my breath a little when we finally touched down in Saigon, because I have no words to describe the heat. None. You cannot even begin to imagine the sweating that occurred. And it was 2AM. And obviously, when I am looking my personal best, that's when I met my brother. I don't know how other Asians/families do it, but in my family, we address the cousins on my dad's side of the family as brothers and sisters. So I guess I would introduce him as my cousin to other people, but I call him my brother. He's about five years younger than my dad, and about a foot taller. Alright, that's an exaggeration, but dude is tall. He is my oldest uncle's son and the oldest of all the cousins, and I had never met him before that night. I've seen pictures, heard stories, but I've never even talked to him on the phone. But he knew who I was immediately. None of that awkward, "You must be 琳琳/Joann?" stuff. He and his wife greeted me warmly, hugs and all, like they had known me intimately my entire life. We drove about half an hour into Saigon, my dad excitedly pointing out landmarks and streets and buildings to me as we drove past them in the dark. We rolled up to our hotel, put our stuff down, and started to walk around looking for some late night street food. I tried to keep my cool, but I saw the biggest rat I had ever seen in my life just taking a leisurely stroll on the sidewalk. (My friends from/living in New York are constantly trying to talk to me about the rats and roaches and all that in New York. Go to fucking Asia. Get on that level.) And then we got closer, and it was "just" a roach. *FOGHORN* The actual rat scurrying into a drainpipe just beyond the roach was about the size of a cot damn full grown adult ass fucking cat. This was going to be fun.

I typically have a lot of trouble falling asleep/sleeping in hotels, but that night I had no problems at all. I passed out in a bed that was roughly the size of a bathtub -- I am considered a big girl in Vietnam (hashtag/pound biggirldontcare). We woke up early the next day and headed down to the markets, which is one of my most favorite things to do in any place I visit. The markets are a few blocks long, held underneath white and green tarps and tents. The walkways are narrow, it's loud, it's really crowded, it's hot, it's a little smelly -- it was a delight for all my senses, truly. I was getting dizzy from whipping my head around so much to make sure that I was seeing everything. I saw a lot of stuff I've never seen before, and I ate things that completely blew their American "counterparts" -- I don't want to use that word because it demeans the actual thing, but I think "counterfeit" is too harsh -- out of this universe. Then we went to have pho with my sister and eighteen-year-old niece (NIECE. SHE ADDRESSED ME AS "AUNTIE". WHAT EVEN.) Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel, decided that hotels are bougie, and moved all our stuff a few blocks over to my dad's old apartment/my brother's current apartment, on the third floor of a building on a famous temple street.

While in transit, my brother offered to carry all our stuff upstairs for us (common courtesy/human decency would be to say no, but jet lag and general travel fatigue were responding with a resounding yes), so my dad took me for a little tour of his old street/neighborhood. We walked from storefront to storefront, where surprisingly a ton of people spoke Cantonese. He started finding all these old neighbors and friends, stopping to talk to all of them, trading stories about how they survived the war, and stories about how others fared. It was a surreal experience for me to be hearing about that stuff. These were people that my dad knew, that he grew up with. I know that a lot of people didn't survive the war, but I didn't expect it to feel so... personal... to hear about it.

Finally, we went up to my dad's old crib. The staircase is tucked in a sort of alley way, between a storefront/apartment building and a temple. The apartment on the bottom floor has no doors, and the neighbor from his childhood still lived there with her children and grandchildren. The stairs up to the third floor were super steep and super dilapidated, so it was a little nerve-wracking. We didn't really explore the second floor, and then finally the third floor. The outer apartment apparently belongs to an actual, honest-to-life whore. Like a prostitute. Where they do that at? Then there was a gate (to separate from sexually transmitted diseases and other general whorishness) (just kidding, I don't know why that gate is there, it's actually kind of a fire hazard) and a hallway before another apartment, and a turn to the left revealed my father's childhood home and my brother's current spot. Everyone's clothes just kind of hang out in the open, in any openings in the gate that separate the different apartments. The bathroom is also outside, just to the right of the actual front door, and I took my showers there, scooping buckets of cold water onto my body *foghorn* from a large collection vat.

The first floor of the apartment is the living room and the "kitchen". The living room is probably the size of a normal college apartment's living room; it's small, kind of cluttered, but cozy. It also doubles as my brother and his wife's workspace. Y'all know those designer shirts with the rhinestones and whatnot on them? A lot of that is done in Vietnam. So my brother picks up a shipment of shirts a couple times a week, they have all these adhesive sheets of rhinestones and etc. at their apartment, and he brings the shirts home and they put that stuff onto the shirts by hand before pressing them. Anyway, a lot of their equipment for that stuff is all around the living room. My brother also showed me all these sweet medals he won while competing with the Vietnamese basketball team, NO BIG DEAL. In the back of the room, there is a narrow staircase leading upstairs to the only bedroom in the house. My brother and his wife share the mattress on the floor on one side of the room, and the other side of the room is a makeshift office and a small elevated hutch where their niece sleeps. During my time in Vietnam, I was able to sleep in the same room that my dad had shared with eight of his nine older brothers. He showed me the ledge in the kitchen where two of my older uncles hid when the Vietnamese Army came around looking to draft them to their certain deaths. He showed me where my grandma, grandpa, and five aunts slept in the current living room. I cannot wrap my head around how all of them lived in that tiny, tiny apartment, and I cannot even believe that I got to be there and see the place and experience it.

I'm sitting here right now, procrastinating (because like, four hours is enough study time for an Econ midterm, right? When I haven't been studying all semester? Yes?), and I want to tell all of you (read: there is nobody reading this) every single detail of my trip. Or at least all the important details. The things I saw, the places I traveled to, all the new and unique experiences I had. I want to tell you about everyone I met and everything I tasted and felt, but every time I start, I find myself overflowing with words and stories and phrases and snippets, and I just feel like I can't get them all out to you, you know? Not in the way I want to, anyway.

So let me try to abridge, the best way I can: I traveled from South to North. I used a Vietnamese outhouse. (Actually a majority of my stories are about outhouses and having to use them at 3am...) I stayed in the "suburbs" (read: the boonies). I rode a motor bike the Vietnamese way (which is to say, four to a bike with my legs hanging off the back precariously, next to the tailpipe, holding a child in front of me, baby in the front). I got 30 mosquito bites a day and didn't get West Nile, slash die. I explored caves, hiked mountains, and saw many, many temples. I ate breakfast on the side of dusty dirt roads. I rode on motorbikes, on buses, and in vans on "highways", came close to dying about 6000 times, and can laugh about it now. (Did you know you can pull a U-turn in traffic especially if you're all the way in the innermost lane on a three lane road? No big fucking deal.) I boated down the Mekong River. I ate fruits I've never ever seen before in my life. I witnessed a drowning. I made best friends with four year old children. I had lunch in the jungle.

The best way I can sum up my trip is with this anecdote:
During our stay, my brother slept on the floor of the living room so the rest of us would all fit in their only room upstairs, which is the only room with air conditioning in their apartment. One morning, I woke up at 4am, and unable to get back to sleep, I tried to sneak downstairs to use the bathroom. But of course, the problem with an outdoor bathroom is that you have to open locked doors to get to it. And I woke my brother up. He was surprised to see me, but he sat up and we started chatting. We talked about my life, school, my friends, his life, his job. Surprisingly, I told him about my employment and relationship struggles, things I don't usually like to talk about. He told me not to worry about the results, just that I'm happy on the journey, because that's all that matters. He told me that he loved me, and that he always has. That he loves all of the brothers/sisters (cousins) that are in the States, and that he has all these pictures of us that our parents send over, so he feels like he knows what we look like and all that. Those same cousins that I don't even talk to when our families get together, he loves from an ocean and a world away. He said something to me to the effect of, if he had money, he would send us money, or he would get us gifts, but he doesn't have those things, so he hopes that the love he has for us and the good thoughts he sends our way will be enough. And then he got up from the couch to take his cancer medication and it made me really fucking sad that I wasn't there for him through that, and that I didn't even fucking know. I was so caught up in my own life, that I didn't even know, and I didn't even think to ask about it. A few days later, he asked me if I wanted to ride with him to our family friend's house out in the aforementioned boonies. It's about a 40-60 minute motorbike ride away, depending on traffic. I said I would love to ride with him. He drove "slow" and talked to me about how he met his wife, all the times he tried to escape Vietnam, how he dealt with cancer, his financial struggles, how my uncle Yanic had almost finalized his naturalization papers -- and then 9/11 happened and my uncle unexpectedly passed away and all of the work was for naught. That was especially heartbreaking. He told me secrets, things he didn't want my dad or aunts and uncles to know. He told me his future hopes and his aspirations. Deep down, I believe we both know most of those things will never come true. I know I'm not translating everything that's in my head into words on the screen right now, but I think he was telling me the things he was telling me to make sure I knew that he does what he does and he keeps soldiering on for his family. Because even though he's never met most of us, we're his family and he feels like as the oldest cousin, he wants to leave something tangible for us. He wants us to know how much he loves us, and I think he wants to know that we're thinking about him too.

This trip was new and exciting and different for all my senses. But what truly made this special was the people -- my family. Finally meeting them and learning about them and now, loving them.

Chicago is my hometown -- I'm 312 until the very, very end -- but this is where I "come from". These people: my family. These are my people, and this is part of my history.

I grew up listening to my dad's stories about Vietnam. About his life, the things he did, the things he's seen. I have grown up with this image in my head of what Vietnam is, constructed from my dad's stories and descriptions, from movies, from TV shows, from documentaries, from pictures in history books. So to see it, with my dad? I don't know how to put into words how special that was. To be standing in the places where all these wonderful, seminal, terrifying, and awful things happened is something I will never know how to describe with mere words. My dad took me a few streets from his old house, to the street where this iconic photo was taken, and where he used to watch his older brother have lunch with his family. My dad told me stories about running from his home just before the fall of Saigon, through streets littered with the bodies of his neighbors and American soldiers. My dad told me stories about my grandmother's courage and strength, and how she essentially hijacked an ambulance to get her family to the U.S. embassy. He told me about how I wouldn't be where I am today without my grandmother and my aunt Nancy, a woman I already admire endlessly for her strength and courage.

Those stories and these people are such a huge part of why I'm here on this earth, why I exist. I never felt like anything was missing from my life, and then I found some of myself in a place and in people an entire world away. There's so much more meaning to my life now -- I feel more driven, more grateful, and more thankful than ever. I feel so much more love.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit the place your family is from, I encourage you to do it. One of my dearest, oldest friends is currently doing that right now, finding where his family is from in Italy. I know that it will be an amazing experience for him, to find out who and where he comes from, to find more love in this world, and more people to share it with.

On that note: I am an extraordinarily lucky person. For all the shitty things I've said (meta trollolololz) (*foghorn*), all the shitty things I've done, and all I've failed to be, I have been blessed with some truly amazing things and people in my life. I'm not sure that I deserve it, but know that I'm endlessly grateful that you exist and that you're in my life. Love.


(When it's not ass o'clock at night and I don't have an Econ midterm in a few hours, maybe I'll post some pictures from my trip.)

(Because that was a good way to end a heartfelt post. Say something eloquent and dignified like "ass o'clock".)

Since I've already ruined this, a few additional end notes:
a. Will Madison folks (well, I probably need the real Asians in Madison to answer this one for me) please sweet baby Jesus tell me that there's a Chinatown? My parents took me out to this Chinese joint for my bidet, where they bumped absolutely nothing but Taylor Swift, the Backstreet Boys, and Chinese covers of popular American pop songs, in that order, on a loop. That's the kind of shit I'm looking for.

b. On one of my flights to or from Vietnam/Hong Kong this summer, I saw a hand bidet in Sky Mall magazine. I would holler at that hard.

c. I got a note on my door from my landlord that said I need to keep the thermostat between 70 and 72. Apparently I control the thermostat for all the units in our janky, crusty old building. Listen up, fellow residents, it's not my fault you don't like to have your thermostat constantly set at 78 degrees so you can wear your shorts year-round. It's entirely not my fault that my arms are so chiseled/warm that they need to be exposed in cutoff shirts and jerseys all the time. You not about that life, apparently. And that's not my fault. In my defense, I'm pretty sure that my neighbor across the hall -- who is a. probably having sex right now and b. having more sex than you and I have ever had combined in the past and will ever have in our entire lives -- probably appreciates that I keep it so warm. So keep your strongly worded post-it notes to yourself, Gary! Eat a baker's dozen dicks, my dude!

d. Five songs that you are not allowed to change should they come on in our presence, in order (they are not separated by much in utility factors):
1. "Love in this Club" Usher
2. "Ignition (remix)" Kels
3. "Call Me Maybe" Carly Rae
4. "Party in the USA" Miley
5. "Always Be My Baby" Mariah (Also, if you cannot identify this song within the first two seconds, we cannot be friends.) (That was harsh.) (We can't be best friends.)

e.  HeTexted.com exists. Totes brill. *eye roll*

(/sarcasm)

*cut to me furiously submitting every text I received from the same person from approx. April through last night*

*foghorns forever*

f. Inspired by the success that is Nightlock Ultimate, I am finally putting into print the blueprint for the master's team Chansy and I are going to start -- District 12.

g. Finally, this is for all the devastatingly cute white girls that exist in our lives. *foghorn* *foghorn* That will be all. Carry on.