May 3, 2005
It has been over a year since I first came to Nha
Trang as a tourist. Now I am at home here. I have
been sharing with you the process of trying to
integrate into a totally foreign environment and
culture and at the same time maintain my income base and money management back in the U.S. It has had its annoying dimensions but I haven't regretted my decision for a minute.
My greatest regret is my relative inability to absorb more of the language. My friend Lloyd says he couldn't see himself living where he wasn't literate. I agree with him it is certainly preferable but if that were my criteria, I'd have never had this experience.
When I am going about my daily activities I feel like I am 20 or 30 until I look in the mirror and see the old face looking back. I'm also pretty done in by the arthritis that is in my genes and that gets
worse by the month. The first Sunday of the month is the day for a regular day trip for the kids at Kim's
school. This month, as is often the case, they went
to the water Park in Nha Trang and I joined them there around noon. Having a bunch of screaming 15-year-olds excited to see you is great but when they start pushing and pulling my 70-year-old joints and bones from one water slide to the next I am painfully aware that I'm not getting any younger.
I've included a copy of the formal wedding
picture that Dung and I had taken at the Saigon
studio. When I sent the earlier pictures, I didn't
have a clue as to how to scan and send a picture and
those I sent had been sent to me so I could just
forward them. I actually scanned and attached this
myself. Those of you who find this easy can't
appreciate how pleased I am with myself.
However, having said all that I think this will be the last monthly letter I send to the Frogpond. Bob has been so good to feature my little scribblings but when I look at a list of 10 Postcards, it seems a little too much from one classmate. I had hoped that others would share their efforts at adjusting to our age but it hasn't happened. I do intend to send my postcars to those on my mailing list from time to time. I just don't expect Bob to keep putting the postcards in the Frogpond.
***
Some other scribblings since last I wrote:
April 2 is the day that the Communist government
celebrates the liberation of Nha Trang. (Dung is
relatively stoic about it considering it triggered the
"liberation" of all her families' property from her
father as well as his incarceration in a re-education
camp for 10 years.) We walked to the beach to watch the brilliant fireworks display amidst an enormous throng of people.
They observed the 30th anniversary of the end of
the American War on April 30. The other night one
of the Vietnamese channels was broadcasting a film
called Ten Thousand Days, which was an American-made film about the war. The scenes shown were of the last days in Saigon when the Americans were scrambling to get their personnel out of harm’s way and the Vietnamese who had worked for them and cooperated with them were desperate to be taken out. Dung described to me what her experiences were at that time. They were living in their Saigon house and their father was hoping that he could evacuate the whole family. As a precaution, her mother sewed diamonds and gold into the hems of each of the children's garments so they could buy their way out of any tight situations.
Dung was 23, her youngest sister was 7. They went to the Saigon airport where the crowds were so thick that the planes couldn't land. This was the beginning of years of very hard times
***
I have a circle of expatriate acquaintances that spend the afternoons at a bar called Jack's, run by a Brit who is married to a young Vietnamese woman. There is a good deal of pool shooting which I haven't joined yet as my skills from my misspent youth have totally abandoned me. One day there were 11 of us sitting around, including a former helicopter pilot and a veteran who is married to a woman who became a Viet Cong soldier at the age of 15 and who was badly wounded in the war.
We have periodic get-togethers with wives and girlfriends and wide-ranging discussions on what’s in the news. I guess it is our effort at normalizing relations. One of them invited us to a barbecue at his house one other evening. He is married to a Vietnamese woman. She is a lovely woman that Dung is very fond of. He is the Scottish chef I mentioned from the boat outing last month and the food was delicious. I mention it because of the interesting mix of people that one finds in a social group like this in another country. There were four Brits, one of whom was an old friend of our host, a mother and two daughters from Denmark, an Australian woman who is teaching English at the American School, a chap from Tasmania who is married to a Vietnamese schoolteacher, several other Vietnamese wives, myself and another American from Minnesota and a Canadian fellow. We dined on the fourth floor balcony of the house with a cool breeze
and the lights of the islands in the distance.
***
Dung had a reunion with some of her classmates from
the university and one of their professors who was
visiting from the U.S. One of her friends is the
Vietnam manager of the Beatles performance group we had seen at the stadium and he invited us to join them at a club in the Sunrise Hotel that evening. I was surprised at what a well-behaved and mannerly group of young men they were. The chap sitting next to me even asked me if I objected to his smoking! They were asked to perform for the club, which seemed to me to be an imposition but they agreeably did so.
***
Dung had to meet with the family of the fiancee of our son, Lu, to arrange the engagement/wedding. They live in Saigon so she went down on the train alone. While she was there, her niece Uyen, who owns the restaurant, told her that she would like to give me the use of a Vespa motorscooter that she keeps in NhaTrang to have available when she visits. Since I have been paying 600,000D a month to rent a bike, this was a nice offer. Now this is a restored 1962 model that looks like new.
There is a certain cachet to Vespas, even though they lack the streamlined appearance of the Honda and Susuki motorcycle/bikes, so its almost like having my '75 Cadillac convertible again. I'm told that these machines, which are the same as the one
Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn drove around Rome in Roman Holiday, are in great demand again in Europe; also, a friend of mine is buying them to restore and send back for sale. Unfortunately, the Vespa is a heavy and badly balanced machine and not as easy to handle as the newer bike, so I have to be extra careful in tight quarters.
***
My brother-in-law, Si, is in town and starting the
work on our house. We are just two months behind
where I had hoped we would be by now. He has gotten the old house demolished and construction should commence soon.
***
An anecdote about Dung that illustrates what
a gem I've found. She is constantly frustrated by the
delays we encounter with the Internet but is always
anxious to send something. Frequently she will type a long message only to lose it when she tries to send
it. I tell her to let me know when she's ready to
send so I can save it for her. One day she wrote two letters and sent them both successfully. Then her next effort resulted in a lost message. However, she was delighted that her first two messages were
successful and she signed off and did a little dance
of satisfaction. When I asked her why she didn't ask me to save the messages for her, she stopped her dance, gave me a charmingly coy look and
said, ''I'm not a patient woman!''
Tam biet!
Dick and Dung
