We Are Here (3 page)

My mother’s family was much poorer than my father’s. They lived in a small hamlet on land that had been in my maternal grandmother’s family for generations. On this land, large clusters of bamboo grew and children played in safety among the burial places of ancestors surrounded by coconut and durian trees.

In the 1950s, during the French colonial rule of Vietnam, several forces emerged. Cao Đài is a religion born of Tây Ninh province and blends Buddhist, Christian and Confucian thought. At the time, it had its own army of soldiers headquartered in the Cao Đài Holy See in Tây Ninh. They were known as French sympathisers. The Vi
t Minh was an anti-French group fighting for independence that later, after the withdrawal of the French, evolved into what became the anti-American, pro-Communist Vi
t C
ng. The Cao Đài and Vi
t Minh soldiers were the only Vietnamese forces in the South who were armed with guns and other weaponry. During the day, my mother’s family, like many others, were terrorised by the French, who accused the villagers of harbouring anti-colonists. It was not uncommon for rogue soldiers from either the Vi
t Minh or Cao Đài army to rob and beat them at night. The family would hide their money in the treetops using tall bamboo stalks and routinely survey the premises. But despite their efforts, they consistently fell victim to abuse and exploitation. Like many others, they were humble civilians governed by fear.

My maternal grandfather was angered by the visible injustices of being ruled by white men. He became a passionate French resistance activist, leading a group of young revolutionaries. As an unusually tall man with a fierce commanding presence, he was a natural leader. But his activities increased the family’s adversity. He was repeatedly arrested and tortured. With each arrest, my grandmother had to procure loans in order to pay bribes to secure her husband’s release. Such consistent disruption was the reason why my mother’s family was less well off than my father’s. The family was in constant debt yet, despite this, my mother’s parents ensured that all their children were educated. They believed freedom and independence could not be achieved without literacy. Opportunity could not blossom without education.

According to my mother, my father was known as a man with a high level of self-respect. Others called it arrogance, accusing him of being an intellectual snob. He kept to himself, immersed in the study of literature, history and French. He was particularly fond of the play
Les Misérables
. As a teenager, he moved to the central highland province of Lâm Đ
ng, four hundred kilometres from Tây Ninh, to attend a special agricultural high school. As a young student he cherished the few international colour periodicals the school was able to obtain. He fondly remembers sitting in the library as the periodicals were removed from glass cabinets. Under strict supervision, he gently turned and caressed each page of text and each image, indulging in his deep affection for literature. He was a reflective
young man, always deep in thought, in marked contrast to his confident and extroverted younger brother. Though my father studied agricultural production, he had a strong inclination for scholarship, particularly arts and literature. After graduating from high school in 1966, my father moved to Saigon to do an extra year of study in agricultural production before enrolment at university. He specialised in forest management and went on internships throughout Southern Vietnam, studying the effects of mangrove and acacia plantations on soil erosion.

Throughout this time, the Vietnam War was raging. In 1968, both sides agreed to a two-day ceasefire during the sacred Lunar New Year celebrations of T
t. Nonetheless, the Northern Communist forces launched a surprise attack on 30 January 1968, the first day of T
t. The bloody attacks on military and civilian command centres were subsequently known as the T
t Offensive. In the aftermath of the attack, South Vietnamese president Nguy
n Văn Thi
u imposed conscription to increase the resources of the South. Most able-bodied men were required to participate in the war efforts. All those who were uneducated or couldn’t bribe their way into higher, safer positions were sent to the front line. Many did not return.