Guess where I've been

No, there aren't any prizes becuase the neon glowing thing really gives it away.

I spent a cold, drizzly autumn weekend in Paris and I have a new artist love: Francois Pompon and his white polar bear. Not only does the artist have a very cool name, but he captures the majesty of the polar bear in simple, stark lines.

I also found a fabulous Viet bakery doing Viet baguettes (I missed them muchly in England and I do not have the skills, or the baguettes, to replicate them): Saigon Sandwich in Belleville. It is at 8 rue de la Présentation, 75011 Paris. The nearest metro station is Belleville.

I learned about Saigon Sandwich via Chocoloate and Zucchini's blog. But I really did find the place, because I set off in one direction from Belleville and found myself walking through a grungy, multicultural suburb. It was great to be surrounded by brown faces. All of sudden, it ended. The streets were cleaner and there were fewer people about. I thought, "oh dear, I've missed it." So I turned right back around and wandered down different streets, taking random left and right turns at whimsy (and once to escape a gypsy woman who started yelling at me in French and my pathetic pardon je ne parlais Francais - yes I'm now aware that is wrong, but I was not aware at the time - did not shake her). Saigon Sandwich is actually about 50 metres away from the metro station.

I had their special baguette, which I successfully ordered in French: je voudrais speciale baguette sil vous plais. But then, the man in the bakery said something in French and I had to apologise and say I don't speak French in bad French. He held up a bowl of chillies and I said, oh! ot. Then I braved some Vietnamese. We had a conversation in Vietnamese, and another patron of the bakery joined in. They were pleased to meet a Viet-Australian and I was pleased to meet some Viet-Parisians. Oh, and the baguette was delicious. And very cheap - only 3 euros (about 2 pounds).

After that, I kept hearing Vietnamese at the other tourist spots I visited: Basilica Sacre Coeur, Tour Eiffel, the Louvre (though I did not go inside) and the Musee d'Orsay (where I spent a solid three and a half hours on only the second floor). I did not engage anyone else in Viet conversation. I'm quite shy in a non-English language (and that includes Viet).

I have also learned, from my solo travel, that middle-aged men like me. I was expecting to get hit on, but hit on by middle aged men only? A wee bit disturbing, really.

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On a different note, I will soon be travelling home to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. So, this blog's going to go quiet awhile. If being away for a few weeks is anything like it was last time, coming back to work is going to be horrid, so I may find it extremely difficult to post.

One thing I miss quite a bit about Australia is bushwalking. Something very different from rambling or hiking or trekking. I miss the Australian bush. Here is a photo of me, this time in the Tasmanian bush, looking up at my partner who has gone where I am too afraid to follow.

I Got the Post-Holiday Blues

Stockholm was incredibly relaxing. As was our long hike inside the Arctic Circle. I came back feeling refreshed and like I really had a proper holiday. Probably not everyone's idea of a holiday - hiking through thoroughly breathtaking landscape, all I need in a rucksack on my back (my pack weighed between 11 kg and 13 kg most days, my partner's between 13 kg and 17 kg) and eating cous-cous and noodles every night.

I find walking / hiking / tramping , especially in difficult terrain, very meditative. I am inside the moment of walking, of picking up one foot, and placing it down again, of ensuring each foot is placed solidly. Glimpses of flowers distract me, but the most profound of my thoughts is, "Oh, that flower is so pretty (or cute or blue, whichever is most appropriate)".

In one patch, we walked for approximately five kilometres over uneven stony ground. It could have been moraine, except that I think moraine involves bigger rocks. These rocks ranged in size but the average size was a square foot. For most of the walk over these rocks, I watched where I placed my foot, ensuring also that I did not place a foot onto the middle of a rock too often, as that would cause a slow ache to develop in my arches. I know this from previous walks, where I have been neglectful of my arches, plonking them unthinkingly on rock after rock, only to find myself in perplexed discomfit weeks later. It seems like the best thing to do is put a whole foot on a rock. No, the best thing to do is balance toes and heel between two rocks. Or, at least, mix up the toes-heel balance with whole-foot placement. I concentrated on my walk.

As a fleeting thought crossed my mind - "Ha! This is perfect ankle sprain territory" - I looked up to make the observation to partner, and stumbled. Only a little stumble. Not one he even noticed, lost as he was in his own fugue of rock-walking concentration. Thereafter I resolutely tried not to think about spraining my ankle, right in the middle point of the walk - the point where going forward to its conclusion involves as much distance as going back to the start.

We were the few - perhaps the only, ever - Australians on the walk. We met a pair of Swedish walkers who, after my "Hej" and smile, launched into rather a lot of Swedish. All I had learnt (bad, bad me) was "Hej" (Hello) and "Tack" (Thank you). I kept saying "tack" like the German "tag". I have a few accents that I do: Italian (thanks, Latin!) and German (in which I can fluently say, I am hungry: "ich haben hunger". I practised that long and hard because it contains all the guttural Germanic sounds that I find so difficult to make). And whenever I am somewhere that does not speak English as the main language, I have a strange, barely suppressible desire to say, "minasan, suate kudasai" ("everyone, please sit down", in Japanese).

When I smiled and apologised for not speaking Swedish, one of the walkers repeated what he had said, but this time in German. Then he apologised, in English, and repeated what he had said in Swedish and German, in English. What had he said? How are you? Then he apologised that he did not know very much English. Then, in English, he went into great detail about the walk that they had done. Then, we had a conversation in English. His English was great, but he kept apologising for it, leaving me no space in which to apologise for my lack of Swedish; my oversight was more culpable, I thought, than his non-native-but-otherwise-perfect-English.

Foolishly, he asked me which direction we came from. I am not good with compass direction points. My partner was not then present, on a brief exploration of our rest area. So I told we had come from our last landmark, Tjakta Pass. He told me he had come from the west. I don't think either of us really understood each other - he failed to understand me because I mispronounced Tjakta (he later identified it and said something entirely different to what I had said) and I failed to understand him because I did not know which way west was. Still, we were both just talking for the sake of talking to someone other than our respective walking partners. I further confused him by announcing that our next destination was Salkastugorna - when we were already there. I am not the navigator. My partner is. I am absolved of all responsibility.

Me and Our Tent: Taking in the sights at one of our campsites.
I have no idea which one, or why I am not doing something useful.

Since being back, over a month now, work has made a quick meal of that mellow refreshed feeling one gets from a great holiday. Now, I'm all wound up again. Everything is very busy. I am still chasing my tail post holiday. My tail gets longer, but I get no closer. I do know which direction I'm going though: round and round.

Photos on Holiday

I have a new camera. Well, it's a few months old now.

It is a Fuji Finepix S9600 - it's an almost-but-not-quite SLR. It's pretty darn heavy, weighing in at about 750gms without batteries inside, which is somewhat contrary to my plan to get a camera to take hiking with us. It's also pretty bulky, having a massive, don't-mess-with-me zoom. But it's the best on the market for what I want.

We took it with us to Sweden where we spent a mere weekend in Stockholm and then proceeded to hike through Swedish Lapland, inside the Arctic Circle, where there was 24-hour daylight.

Mountains, lake and bridge: Everything Swedish Lapland has to offer.

What does round the clock daylight mean for photography? The wrong light, always. Never that slopey-angle orange toned light of dawn or dusk, always that overbright, overhead light that makes playing with the exposure of a photograph complicated.

Also, because we were impatient fools, we forgot to set the camera to store photos on its highest quality setting. Many of our photos (and there are many) were a bit disappointing. Not because we are not brilliant photographers (ha!) but because we used the second highest quality setting. That edge of great images was just ever so slightly lost. Woe, woe, woe.

Just means we have to go back.

My partner is the landscape photographer. I do not seem to have an eye for landscapes. Rather, I am the details photographer. You can always tell who had the camera at what stage because there will be a series of landscapes, some with Oanh in, (my partner has the camera), then a series of close ups of flowers and a shot of my partner looking off in the distance or mucking about with the tent or otherwise keeping himself occupied while I contort myself for the perfect shot of a flower in situ (I have the camera, of course).

Another reason why I am not the landscape photographer is that I have an unerring ability to render my horizons ... slanted. There are any number of series of photos where the horizon or ground gets slowly, inchingly, straighter. Even with the camera set to display lines, I manage to take slant-angled horizon photos. Just a talent.

I am also the director of photography. While my partner holds the camera, I sometimes say, "Make a photo of that!" Or I am trying to take a photo of something but my height prevents me from making the shot that I want, so I hand the camera over to my partner and ask him to take some shots from his height. Occassionally, we have a bargy over who took which photo.

When I was travelling with my sisters in Viet Nam, we each had a digital camera and together, took rather a lot of photos. One photo in particular, The Accountant really liked and proclaimed that she took it. We were on a walk alongside the beach at Vung Tau. In the background numerous Viet flags fly. In the foreground walk my sisters, my mother, my aunts and uncle and cousins, all spaced out in a very aesthetically pleasing fashion. I argued with the Accountant, trying to tell her that I took the photo, but she refused to believe me. She insisted that she took it. Finally, I resort to stabbing at the figures in the photo - "Look! There's the Vegetarian! There's Um! There's Y*! And Vuong**! Where am I? There YOU are! You CAN'T have taken the photo!" She conceded that perhaps she was wrong.

* pronounced ee - means aunt on my mother's side

* pronounced yurng - means uncle who is husband of aunt on my mother's side

My partner and I cannot have such clear proof of who took what photo, although a negative version of this argument occurred over a photo of what I thought to be nothing in particular.

Me: What's this of? It's really weird framing.

My partner: It's of you!

Me: Me? Where? I'm not in this picture.

My partner: [pointing at a blackish shape on the left hand side of the picture, beside some bluish shapes] There you are. It was Alesjaure. You were chillin'.

Me: What? Oh yeah, Oanh like a rock. There I am indeed. So you took this photo? It's one of your crappier photos, man.

Of this photo, my partner and I have the following conversation:-

Me: Oanh has the camera! Nice buttercups. Lovely depth.

My partner: I took this photo.

Me: No!

My partner: Yes, I did.

Me: Oh. Okay, perhaps.

I have to concede that he could be right. He proclaims no proprietory interest in any of the other close-up-of-flower photos. His certainty in respect of this one causes self-doubt.

The following are definitely photos I took:-

My favourite of the myriad wildflowers (fjallblumen, lit. mountain flowers) we saw. I'm naming them 'Bog Cotton Flowers'.

Extreme close up of some very delicate wild mountain flowers.

The Joys of Blogging

Subtitle: What's with twinkies?

A few months ago, Wandering Chopsticks suggested a food swap. What a brilliant idea, thought I with full enthusiasm. So I started collecting her goodies for her, and she for me. When she asked what I wanted from the US of A, I was a little bemused. Nothing, really. I have discovered that I am a hideously incurious person. This surprises me, because I think I have a lot of intellectual curiousity. I just don't have any need to see or taste or experience particular things. If they come my way, I will investigate them with all the curiousity and abounding enthusiasm (quite a lot) I have, but if you want to know what I have been dying to try, or see, or experience? I don't know. I'm just not really like that. In addition, I have never been to the US, so I do not know what it has, that I cannot get in the UK or Australia. Oh, except for groovy t-shirts without exorbitant postage costs. But I tangentalise.

This is what the wonderful Wandering Chopsticks sent me, and which arrived shortly before my holiday:-

I have been working my way through the box of goodies. Clockwise from the lychee jellies, we have Fudge Shop Grasshoppers, Brussels Cookies, butterfingers, lemongrass, Nestle Crunch, Twinkies, gunpowder green tea and curry powder so I can make some ca ri ga. Somewhere in there too are some loofah seeds. And what's the blue thing drapped over the Brussels Cookies? Read on, read on...

The first thing I chose to eat was the only thing I asked for: twinkies.

My curiousity about twinkies has two origins. The first (not in time) is from an episode of (I think) The Family Guy, in which an apocalyptic event wipes out the world and the family of The Family Guy live on in a twinkie factory; twinkies obviously being impervious to apocalypse.

The second is my awareness of "twinkie" as a perjorative for people of colour. I was so much more aware of racial issues in US and UK culture that I knew the insult "twinkie" and "coconut", before I knew the insult "banana". And if you're not in the know, the common thing about all the above is that they are white on the inside.

The first time I heard the term, "banana" was when a friend in university, laughingly said to me, "Bet you're such a banana you don't even know what one is." Because I did not know what one was, I could have no feeling except perplexity about her comment. My bemused look was enough for her, still laughing, she explained, "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I'm one of your few Asian friends, you know."

I think about these terms every now and then. And you know what? I can't get worked up about it anymore. The terms just make me roll my eyes, either actually or figuratively (depends where I am).

Still, I'd never eaten a twinkie, and I have eaten plenty of bananas and coconuts. And I want to taste the thing impervious to apocalypse. Maybe it will make me impervious, too?

There was another good reason for trying the twinkie first: it was pretty squished on arrival. Clearly, cross-Atlantic travel does not suit a twinkie.

I have this to say about twinkies: ugh. No thank you! Awful airy sponge thing on the outside, terrible tasteless but too sweet "cream" on the inside. I could not finish one. (Sorry, Wandering, for the waste.)

I have also scoffed all the lychee jelly things. I miss them from Australia. My mother used to have loads in her cupboard for the kids (and me) and we'd just randomly pull one out, tear off the foil top and squeeze into our mouths. It's not the sort of thing I have in my own household, but I devour it when I find it in someone else's.

The other things are still waiting to be eaten. I have to eat my sweet things in short bursts.

The curry powder has found its home on my overflowing, disorganised spice shelf, and has already successfully fed my friends, who loved ca ri ga. Thank you, WC for the curry powder and the recipe! I did ask for the curry powder, but it doesn't count as American food (per me).

And the blue things? I had told Wandering Chopsticks that I was off to Sweden. So she knitted another beanie and scarf for "her Iron Boy". My partner and I took her directions and went looking for him in Stockholm's Gamla Stan (old town). We did have some trouble, not because WC's directions were poor, but because, well, all the buildings were the same colour, they all looked like grand churches (except the one that looked like a grand palace) and they all seemed to have courtyards.

But we found him:

Wandering Chopsticks writes about what I sent her ...

Made in Viet Nam

Today I am wearing all clothes made in Viet Nam (with the exception of underwear, socks and shoes). My t-shirt, which I've decided is fancy enough for work, is a turquoise North Face t-shirt and it has a label "Made in Viet Nam." My suit was tailor made for me in Hoi An.

I and my sisters had a ball getting clothes tailor made for us. The lovely tailor was surprised to discover we were sisters; the three of us are a sample of the different-ness of the girls in my family. Though I am youngest and brought up on nutritious Aussie food (har har), I am also shortest, and darkest, with a mop of unstyled long black hair usually pulled back and away from my face in a pony tail, although wisps escape to pester me and dismay my otherwise tidy appearance. My eldest sister is willowy slender with lustrous black hair cut in a becomingly jagged way. My other traveling sister has quite pale skin and light brown hair, also layer-cut as is the fashion.

I am a bit casual about my appearance, and even more so when traveling. My two sisters are much more coiffed and presented. It took us a couple of hours to get ready in the morning: I showered first and was ready in about 15 minutes: I put on one of the three quick-dry trousers I had packed and whichever t-shirt came to hand. Each of my sisters spent what felt like a lifetime getting ready, while I itched to go exploring. I found myself doing stretches and exercises to kill the time while I listened to the shower, then the hair-dryer, then each of my sisters crossing the other's path back and forth from bed to bathroom.

It was quite a revelation for me. I am separated from my sisters in the family by a brother. Until we were teenagers, I shared a bedroom with my brother. Until my brother got embarrassed by his younger sister hanging around, I spent most of my play-time with him. I briefly shared a bedroom with my sister but she could not stand my untidiness and sleep-talking. One of my elder siblings (I can't remember which) saved her by marrying and moving out: then she and I got our own bedrooms. I was about 12, my sister about 15.

Our travel photos are perfectly illustrative of our differing styles. Like good Viet-Kieu tourists, we took a photo of all of us outside every monument we visited. In most of the photos, I am in exactly the same outfit (especially in Ha Noi, where it was cold, so I am in jeans and the one jumper that I brought with me; and in Hue, where it was raining, so I am in jeans and my red raincoat). Each of my sisters, however, were in different outfits, in different pictures. I trawled the thousands of pictures we three had taken: only rarely are my sisters wearing the same clothes twice. Although, one of my sisters took greatly to an outfit made for her in Hoi An and wore it quite a few times.

When we got to Hoi An, we went hunting for a good tailor. The decision of which tailor was made randomly, I think, and based upon who was nicest to us. The tailor we chose was so nice that her brother drove us to a restaurant for dinner, where I forgot that I was not supposed to give money away and promptly gave some to a young girl who asked and we were then accosted by a whole bunch of kids, one of whom became tearful when I said I had run out of coins (it was true, I had no more coins). The restaurant proprietor shooed the kids away, and my sisters and the proprietor looked at me very disapprovingly. I looked ashamed, and felt a bit silly, and then secretly pleased because I'd fallen for a trick that was written in the Lonely Planet Guide! I'm a sucker like so many other people, which makes me kinda in a book!

We spent about three hours at the tailors, getting measured up and choosing fabrics. I was a great disappointment to the tailor. I wanted three trouser suits in conservative fabrics (black pinstripe, navy-ish and beige-ish) with conservative cuts. I wanted one matching conservative dress and one matching conservative, slightly above-the-knee skirt.

The tailor kept trying to persuade me towards a more fashionable cut, a more revealing skirt, or another item that was funky and young. In the end, she chose to cut my clothes rather tightly, and slit the dress either side so that it was halfway up my thighs. I asked her to let out one of the trousers, and had every intention of asking her to let out the others as well, but her brother rushed my trousers to their factory out of town, and rushed it back again in minutes. I felt bad so I just took the other trousers as they were. I'm yet to wear the dress, although the suits are worn in random rotation every day of the working week.

Rick Stein's Seafood

Months ago, when I told a friend we were going to Cornwall for my partner's birthday, he suggested in awed and hushed tones that I try to make a booking for Rick Stein's restaurant, which was in Cornwall, somewhere. The friend is a gourmand. I like food but I'm a little lax with my celebrity chef knowledge. However, always amenable to suggestions about where to go for good food, I googled Rick Stein and discovered that he has not one, but four, restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, UK.

That's a bit excessive, thought I.

His website is very good, with pictures and menus; I had a good look around and decided that, for the occasion, I should book Seafood, although the fish&chippery was probably more our style.

I left it a little while but my friend's words reverberated hauntingly in my ears: if you can get a reservation. It was a month and a half before our planned holiday. I had not asked work; we had not booked anything. Oh, how much effort is an email? I berated myself and sent one off.

The reply came back: Why, discerning marm, we do have a reservation - but only at 9:30pm. Would you like to make a booking? If so, please telephone us and provide a credit card number.

I should have known: my instincts are rarely wrong. I really did not like the tone of that email (I've paraphrased). I thought: oh, how ridiculous to have a reservation but only at 21:30, and to require a credit card for the booking. I already feel the restaurant is not for the likes of me - but the recommendation is in place. I telephone and give them my credit card number.

Thereafter, we make our accommodation bookings and it is nowhere near the restaurant but we have a hire car for the weekend, and Padstow is really not very far from our accommodation.

The roads in Cornwall are more twisty and turny then we expect.

I have packed a nice dress to wear. I put it on. I stand in front of the mirror for a while; I walk down into the lounge and sit there, trying to gauge if the dress is okay. I walk outside to ascertain if I will be warm enough. I won't. I return to my room and put on tights. The dress is pale, and my tights are black. It looks all wrong. I remove the dress and put on my jeans, and a black shirt. There. I look fine. Not very elegant but fine. My partner looks lovely and I tell him so. He grimaces at me but the compliment is returned.

On the fateful night of The Booking, it is drizzly. Visibility is poor and I am reading the map. Both things mean that we are bound to get lost. Luckily, we only miss one turn. The journey however has been tense, with both of us craning our necks forward, wary of other cars, wildlife and the wet road. When we finally reach the restaurant 45 minutes later, we discover that the car park requires all-night payment, and we have not brought small change.

Never mind, I say, I will ask the restaurant. We go in and are skeptically greeted at the door. I smile and say that I have a booking. The maitre'd does not smile and looks my name up on his computer. He permits us to enter the restaurant with a disdainful gesture. I smile again and say: "I'm terribly sorry but could I get some change for the car park?" The maitre d' continues to look unimpressed but tells us it is unecessary and that no one will check in the poor weather. I am rule abiding and a little torn, but the maitre d' looks like he has no intention of giving us any change. We go to our table.

Beside us on one side are an interesting couple. I think they are old friends catching up: there is sexual frisson but of the safe kind mixed in with a little jokingly unsubtle innuendo. They also strike me as landed folk and/or country posh. She is beautiful with long dark hair and an aristocratic nose. He is also reasonably attractive but with a weak chin - something I associate with the middle child in a posh family (too many costume dramas for me). He wears a pink shirt, with cuff links; she is wearing a wrap-around dress. They both drink a lot.

On the other side are another couple, who strike me as travellers. I am pleased to see the man is wearing jeans and a t-shirt; the woman travel (quick-dry) trousers and a fleece jumper. They are eating crab and laughing. I like them instantly, and more so when he proffers her a crab claw with the words: "here, have a paw."

I am too self-conscious to take any photographs especially as all the wait staff seem to descend on us. We are served by at least six different staff, only one of whom smiles at us. The maitre d comes to take our drinks order and his top lip remains disdainful as we order only one glass of wine; I ask for water for both of us. Another waiter brings the drinks to us, and places them on the table almost as an afterthought. He flounces off. I wonder where to.

Our order is taken by a surly waitress. We have ascertained that we are both feeling overwhelmed and out of place, so we take the easy option and go for the tasting menu of 6 main dishes, dessert and petit fours. In comparison to the better-than-you attitude of the staff, the tasting menu is on a tatty piece of A4 paper. I think about pocketing it so that I have a list of the dishes for future reference. However, I don't wish to ask the staff if I may take it and have them patronise me further for being a hick. And I don't really want a souvenir of the place.

The meals themselves were reasonably good, but most do not follow Rick Stein's model of "good food, cooked simply", which I see as we leave. No it wasn't! I say to my partner, pointing at the sign. The crab and rocket salad was lovely, and the steamed mackerel was also very good - but a little salty. None of the other dishes stand out but I do recall that the main fish dish of pollock was a bit tough, and drenched in some creamy sauce. That's not what either a good fish or good cooking of that fish should be like; fresh fish is silken and crumples on your tongue and fish should be set off with a sharp, but complementary, flavour.

Dessert - panna cotta - was decidedly disappointing.

To be fair to Seafood, we were a little out of sorts and perhaps did not choose the best dishes for our tastebuds. But rest assured, we won't be dining at Seafood again (especially if I am required to book more than one month in advance). Rick Stein still has three other eateries in Padstow with which to redeem himself, and my vote is on the fish&chippery next.

A Goodbye Post

In my travels around the web - I was working really hard today, honest - I found this site.

The Migrant Project seems like a very interesting one. This is a little something from their manifesto:

The Migrant Project is a unique, interdisciplinary arts project, developed by a collective of Australian artists from a variety of cultural and artistic backgrounds, discovering and reassembling the untold stories of Australia’s past and present.

I am reminded of a day I spent at the National Archives in Canberra. I had planned myself a little 'Nationals' tour (only one day free in Canberra): the National Archives (half an hour), the National Library (1 & 1/2 hours), the National Art Gallery (2 hours), lunch (1 hour), the War Museum (1 hour), plane home. It did not quite work out like that because the Archives had an exhibition of the lives of people who first arrived in Australia as emigrants and who lived initially in a migrant community at Bonegilla. It was a fascinating exhibition and I spent about 3 hours there.

Each time I see things like the Bonegilla Exhibition and the Migrant Project, one half of me is inspired, and the other half exhausted. My desire to document my family story and, indeed, to find out more about my family story is re-invigorated. On the other hand, the time evidently put into these projects and the sheer talent that surpasses my own wears me down.

The Migrant Project poses this very interesting question:

In what ways do we forge a hybrid sense of self between our different identities, our different senses of home and belonging and the many identities we possess, the communities we straddle?

This blog started out telling snippets of my family story. It's morphed into all kinds of things - a little about books, a little about law, a little about race/ism, a little (probably more than I intended) about me.

In many ways, I have found it impossible to separate my Viet refugee past from my current life.

The nature of blogging itself does not assist me to keep separate stories of my past, from stories of my present. I began to worry, as I realised that people were actually reading my blog, of revealing too much about people who had not agreed to have anything at all revealed about them, to an unknown audience. It began to be safer to tell stories of my present, in which only (or predominantly) I - who had explicitly agreed to having things revealed about me and who was (mostly) in control of the revelations - figured.

I am a hybrid - not only of my Viet-ness and my Australian-ness, but also of the different identities of Oanh the daughter, sibling, aunt, partner, lawyer, reader, feminist, etc. I live a digital, and a non-digital, life. You, too, are a hybrid.

I have documented, and will probably continue to document, the transgressions between the me who aligns with my family and cultural expectations of me, and the me whom I think of as more truly myself. It is the cultural straddling I (and others) do, and suspect will always do, that intrigues me. I do it mostly unthinkingly. Have I forged a hybrid sense of self, or has it just arisen?

I am moving to the UK - a kind of confused reverse Australian migration. I will soon be struggling for a sense of home, and definitely for a sense of belonging. That won't be anything I have not done in the past, but it will be interesting to do, equipped as I am now, with the verbiage of theory. I will soon have no family and very few friend reference points for my identity. I will be behaving amongst people who will have no pre-conceptions about how to expect me to behave in any given situation (except my partner, of course, who has years of pre-conceptions, now). It is why travelling is so exciting to people, I think, this opportunity to re-create.

For my parents, my moving is not quite travelling. I wonder if they view this move as akin to their migration to Australia. It is not, of course, as I reassure them of at least 12-monthly visits home. That in itself, and the immediacy and simplicity of communication unknown when they left Viet Nam (and complicated by other factors too), makes what I am doing now, conceptually very different to what they were doing then.

This is my goodbye post. Not because I am leaving blogging forever, but, because, circumstances being as they currently are, I will need to have a blog hiatus of at least two months, maybe more. Moving across the world is time-consuming. I will probably still be reading and commenting but suspect that, too, will be sporadic. A break will be a good opportunity to think about the direction and purpose of this blog, and to return, hopefully, with a clearer idea of what I want from my blogging or an epiphany that such clarity is not possible, nor even desirable, for me.

chao.

Who am I?

In my preparations for travel to Viet Nam last year, I made multiple copies of my passport details page, asked a workmate to certify the copies and then placed the copies in a variety of places – my 'personal items' drawer at work, in my filing cabinet at home, in my sister's filing cabinet at her home. I was fearful of losing my passport. Visions of me at the Australian Embassy in Ha Noi, attempting to persuade a bureaucrat of my identity and unable to do so drove me to this neurotic over-planning.

I have little proof of who I am. My father keeps a tatty piece of paper that was our travel visa to Australia. It has a yellowing photo of me as a girl aged about two, squirming on a chair. There are similar photos of a sister and brother, squirming on the same or a similar high-backed plastic chair. My mother is also on this flimsy piece of paper, younger and more worried looking, with a deceptively smooth brow and glossy black hair that will be shaved off as soon as she reaches Australia. My father is on a different piece of paper, with two other sisters and an uncle – a pretend brother. These slips of paper were kept by Ba with a pile of important papers inside an envelope stashed under his mattress, and it was only about a decade ago that one of my siblings bought him a folder, with plastic sleeves in which to place and hopefully preserve the documentary evidence of our existence.

These flimsy bits of paper were pulled out at intervals whenever we needed to 'prove' our idenity: opening bank accounts, enrolling in school, getting a job, renting a house. The fold lines are deep, and little rips creep along where we have not been careful enough.

I do not know if, in Viet Nam, we had identification papers. I do not know if these were lost. Whenever I hear or read about all these terrible persons arriving on Our Shores (not on Our Terms) without the correct documentation, I think: That's how we came – with nothing to evince who we were.

I accumulated identification evidence around me as I grew. When I was 7 or 8, my parents became 'naturalised', taking the citizenship oath that their English language classes had taught them. I am a mere name on the back of my mother's certificate – and this is all the evidence of my citizenship, my nationality. When I opened a bank account at age 11, it was my first independent evidence of me, unconnected to my family. Then, age 16, I got social security documents and my driving learner's licence, followed rapidly by my driver's licence. Soon after, I applied for a passport and out came the tattered, yellow travel visa. The only proof of my date of birth. I took copies of the visa and my mother's citizenship certificate, got them certified by a Justice of the Peace at a bank and have them still, stored away in my own safe places.

I did not apply for a passport because I had overseas travel plans. I wanted more proof that I was myself, but especially that I was Australian. Before I went to Viet Nam, I would pull out the passport and check its expiry date often – to ensure that I would renew it without trouble when the time neared.

Viet Nam was my first trip overseas and out of Australia. The first visa in my Australian passport, although Thailand are the first stamps (we flew Thai Airways). When I told work, making light of my very real fears, about my concerns that I would be in Viet Nam, passport lost and having difficulty convincing the Australian embassy that I was indeed an Australian citizen, one of my bosses earnestly stated that I should call and he would help me out. My fear was probably overblown, a touch on the paranoid side. But I do have tendency to absent-mindedness.

We had no difficulties at any of the airports we passed through, although I was ramrod straight and alert, particularly in Ha Noi where my excitement at being in Viet Nam was quickly dampened by the austere and rather forbidding atmosphere. The customs officials took one look at my passport and knew I was Vietnamese. Clue number 1 – my name; clue number 2 – place of birth. They spoke to me, but their accent was so thick I had no idea if it was Vietnamese or English, or another language they were speaking, and I just stared blankly back. When I realised that the official was only exchanging pleasantries, I smiled ruefully and left the queue a little wild-eyed.

At every hotel we checked into, we had to pull our passports out and present them to reception staff. At the Saigon Morin Hotel in Hue, where we arrived dripping wet and bewildered after an incomprehensible exchange with our new tour guide, reception asked to keep our records for the duration of our stay and I refused. We reached a compromise whereby reception would take copies of our passport and return them to us – but we had to wait until dinner time. We left to visit the markets, dodging clingy vendors and then to the the elaborately rambling tomb of the emperor Tu Duc. When we returned our passports were safely handed back to us and I was relieved.

From Hue, we drove to Da Nang and into Hoi An. The drive had taken all day because we stopped at a few spots on the way (but thankfully did not go near any of the claimed 'China Beaches'). We were shown into the lovely reception area of the Hoi An Life Resort in the soft drizzle of non-stop rain we had encountered since flying into Hue. Staff at the Life Resort had, to my surprise, never before encountered Viet-Australians. They told us that no Viet-Australians had ever stayed there and were impressed by how rich we must have been if we could, like all the white travellers, afford their rates.

Because there were three of us, an additional arm chair had to be located for me to sit in while we went through the usual check-in procedures. First off – our passports. A young woman came with drinks for us but by this stage, I was frantically rummaging through my bag for the case that I kept my passport in. It was not there. I waved her away, panic setting in. My sisters, too, stared at me in horror as I patted down my person, then my bag, then my backpack, opening and closing zippers in increasing terror. One of my sisters sat me down in a chair and made me talk my way through what I had done with my passport. Rational thought was gone.

The Australian Embassy is in Ha Noi. I will have to travel there by car because you need a passport to fly. How long will that take? I am going to be stuck here. I am going to miss my flight. I can't go home. What if they do not believe me? I left my driver's licence, everything else at home. Only a passport (gone!) and my credit card (still on me). When did I last have my passport? I don't know. Where is it? Why is it not here? Where else could I have put it? No where else. It has to be here. I could not have dropped it. Could I have dropped it? But where? When? I've been so careful. Really, I have!

I must have looked as panic-stricken as I felt because our driver came into reception to ask if everything was alright, to see if we needed interpreting help. The last thing I could recall doing with my passport was taking it off reception staff in the Hue hotel and then heading off for dinner, intending to stash it away in its safe place after dinner. But I did not recall stashing it away. I pictured myself putting my passport into my pocket jacket and missing. Maybe it fell on the floor of the hotel. Maybe someone had picked it up and handed it in. What if someone picked it up and pocketed it? But I was not wearing my jacket when we returned from Tu Duc's tomb. I had not been cold. I had my raincoat slung over an arm, bag and camera straps criss-crossing over my chest.

I was readying myself to ask the driver to take my back to Hue. I turned to my sister to ask her to do it, because my Vietnamese was not good enough, too impolite. And all the while I was still thinking: But where? When?

The passport was in an inside pocket of my raincoat. I had put it there to protect it. And then I had forgotten and left the raincoat slung over the back of a chair inside the van at all our numerous stops. I was so relieved at finding my passport, I almost hugged the driver. All the potential mishaps from a lazily left behind raincoat crowded into my consciousness but I pushed them away. My sisters' sympathetic relief turned into the type of berating mothers are very good at after their child returns safe from some misconceived adventure. One of my sisters demanded that I let her keep my passport, but I refused.

I had no further passport misadventures during the rest of our time in Viet Nam and then our few hectic days in Thailand before returning home.
My paranoia about losing my identity was realised in Viet Nam by my own easily distracted mind, ever on the present and drifting away from practicalities. I still have a fear that I will be unable to prove who I am because of lack of hard evidence– everything is built on some other piece of paper. I have more now – a lease, my legal admission documentation, employment contracts. But I am still worried that if I lose one – the big one – , the rest of this identity house of cards will fall down around me and there will be: nothing.

Inspired by an Odd Traveller

Que Nha

This incomplete bridge is one of the reasons my family left Viet Nam. My father's land, and my father's family's land, was taken by the government for reasons that included the building of this bridge. Twenty something years on, and this is the bridge. It sticks out no more than 10 metres from the river bank - indeed it is not even joined to the river bank, just a random structure of concrete and steel, jutting out of the Mekong, without purpose and abandoned. It makes a joke of our leaving for a new life.


These neat rows of well-tended vegetable garden is where my family home was.


I am pleased that my father's home is now a thriving garden of watermelon, herbs and 'rau cai' (a medley term for an assortment of green vegetables necessary for all meals). Ba is an excellent gardener, and it is appropriate that the home he built should birth meals for his younger brother's family.

***

This is my uncle's home, which is directly behind the garden above. It is made of concrete and corrugated iron; inside it is tiled and cool. It is a rich man's home for the region.

On one side of my uncle's house lives another aunt - older than him, but younger than my father - one the other side is another uncle. Their houses are built of palm and patted clay.


My father is sitting in the left corner - the guest's place where he sits and is served tea, coffee and food, where brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews come by to meet him. One of my female cousins leans against the door, taking a break from her daily work, or calling a child home. A cousin's husband is carrying around his son, stooping to pick up something. A visiting uncle perches on the banister, chatting with my father; and the uncle whose house it is, is gathering the tea things - to make more tea, so the decade of catching up is lubricated well into the late afternoon.

***

This is one of my younger male cousins, resting from his work. He is perched on the fishing net that delineates where this place is. It is an unamed place, except for the number of the fishing net (9). This is Hang Day Chin - fishing bay no. 9 - where my family hail from.

Hoi An

Hoi An is a beautiful town.



We sat in this cafe staring out as the river rose and rose even though the rain had stopped hours ago.



And then men on hondas, with women clutching their waists, whizzed past. I wondered how high the water would come. My answer was - so high that we had to exit the cafe through the back door. The poor street seller who had his wares laid out on the footpath - had to pack up and move elsewhere.

Beautiful Bonsais and Gargantuan Gates

Bonsais at Thien Mu pagoda, Hue:-



One day, when I am old person with two much time on my hands, my own home and control of the weather (ie no drought), I will have bonsais. And they will be as mesmerising as these - even if it is only because I am competitive. Throughout Viet Nam's temples and pagodas were numerous delicately crafted bonsais (large and small). They are such meditative plants.

***

Something that is not meditative are these incredibly ornate gates in the imperial citadel. The splotch is a rain-drop - not me being a terrible photographer.



If only I were still an ancient historian - I could turn my hand to archaeology and assist the Vietnamese to restore their tourist attractions and historical monuments. Some gates were well-kept.

Others were not:-




There were also ancient paintings hailing from the 14th century that were just happily on display, close enough to be touched by all and sundry (except for the sundry short people) and photographed by everyone - except me. It was my ethical stance - my camera flash was not going to contribute to the further deterioration of the imperial paintings. It is not worship of material items - merely recognition of historical value. In the same way that we should tread softly in rainforests and areas that retain their pre-human beauty, so too should we preserve the precious endeavours of our forebears.

Of course, it all comes down to money - the tourists bring in the bucks but they also contribute to the destruction of the things they have come to see. Vicious, vicious cycle.

Communist Propaganda

I think that I shall let these speak for themselves. Why get myself into more trouble?

Temple of Literature

The imposing entrance gates to Viet Nam's first university:-


As you enter, this vista of peacefulness greets you:-


The accountant's reflection in the honour roll:-


I loved the Temple of Literature. I wished I was on my own and I would have sat myself down on the inviting grass, opened up whatever book I had at the time and whiled the rest of the day in the complex.

I would also have loved to have been a student of the Temple of Literature. I can picture myself, nose buried in book, mind half composing poetry and hoping to become a public servant (har har). Oh, except that I would have to have been a man. No, thank you!

Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

This post is in honour of this worthy site. Work be warned: I have an organisation to donate our next casual Friday coffers to.

I met these gorgeous kids at Thien Mu pagoda in Hue. The rain steadily drizzled and most of the tourists were huddled under the eaves of one of the pagodas. I did not go in. I left my sisters and the tour guide and wandered around the serene grounds of the pagoda where beautiful bonsais were artfully displayed. I was warmly protected from the rain in my bright red raincoat.

These children - the eldest's name was Hieu - fell about laughing whenever I opened my mouth. In English they said:"Where you from?" and in Viet, I responded: "nguoi Viet o Uc" (I am a Vietnamese person living in Australia). Oh, how they laughed. First, a nervous giggle. But then I said: "What are your names?" (in Viet) and they started to double up. The eldest responded, nudging the littlest at the same time who was hopping from foot to foot. When I asked if they lived near the temple, they almost fell into the pond laughing at me. We shared some sugar cane lollies I had in my bag, I took this photograph and they laughed as I and my red raincoat continued to meander about the pagoda grounds. I have never been so funny in my life.

Ha Noi Traffic

Welcome to Ha Noi! Land of communist propaganda posters and young Vietnamese on Hondas!



I loved the street sellers - especially early in the morning. Rows of women with baskets full of roses, marigolds and carnations lined up alongside Ho Hoan Kiem (lake) to sell their wares. Each one had only one colour and type of flower in her basket. If I lived in Ha Noi, I would wake every morning to buy flowers.



And some Ha Noi folk are just plain crazy.


The best part, however, is crossing the street.

It is an unusal sight to see Ha Noi traffic stopped at a stop light. Most drive blissfully through, horns honking away. Only outside the Presidential Palace and the Parliament building are the traffic lights obeyed - and that's probably because there are guards/police loitering nearby.

So crossing the street requires a hardy constitution. The old people do it best - by taking their time and stopping for no one. One takes a deep breath and places an exploratory foot onto the road, withdrawing quickly as another Honda goes past. But waiting for a break in the traffic is futile. One must step onto the road when at least there is enough room for a body and begin a steady and slow saunter across the road. Do not - I repeat do not - stop suddenly for anything other than a bus honking its horn urgently. The Hondas flow around you as you edge across the road and you must have faith in their ability to see you and dodge you. You do not dodge them.

I perversely enjoyed crossing the road in Ha Noi, horrifying my sisters when I crossed diagonally across a five way intersection because a gallery over there caught my eye. There must be a kernel of crossing crazy Viet traffic in my blood, because I have always been a somewhat absent minded road crosser and, though dangerous in Australia, am rather suited to Vietnamese city traffic. With your mind on other things (like the brilliant red oil painting you can only just glean the corner of or what you will have for dinner that night) the incessant horn-honking morphs into a pleasant, chatty background noise; everyone is saying "Hi!", "Hey There!", "Nice Coat", rather than "Get out of my way!" or "Idiot! Trying to kill yourself?"

Ha Long Bay

The sky, a deep blue sea

A golden boat,

wind-driven, lists and tilts -

unmoored, it sinks.

And coldly, time flows on.

~ Tran Gia Thoai

A poem actually about a falling leaf, but I hijack it here to capture the ephemeral beauty of visiting Ha Long Bay. These pictures don't really do Ha Long any justice.

We were so lucky - it was just my sisters and I (and our tour guide and the boat crew) on our Halong boat. Such a delight to have the entire boat to ourselves, and hence, the entire Bay too. Miles, acres, gallons of water and grey overcast sky were ours alone to meditate on and enjoy. It was the most thoroughly peaceful experience, siting at the end of the boat and just widely arcing the bay, watching the sea eagles dip and soar overhead, and marvelling at the limestone cliffs in all directions.


I loved the looming limestone cliffs, wild and untrammelled by tourists' feet, who must admire from afar. I took these because I hope to head back one day and explore the cliffs more intimately and directly - to climb all over them with the backdrop of the deep blue-green sea and the overwhelming serenity of the place.



I watched this woman and her child - or grandchild - row almost a kilometre at a measured pace. I could not help but covet the peacefulness of the journey, although I do not actually know for what reason they were rowing.

The child looks to me like he is being berated, head hung in shame.


I wish to live in this house - I came home and told my partner we were moving to Ha Long.

I am sure that there will be satellite facilities and my workplace will be more than happy to accomodate me working from home, from the China Sea. And then I wake up from my dream. I am not a very strong swimmer, and nor is my partner, and living in one of these houses is clearly asking for trouble!

But still, I have long dreamed of my own home.

I used to be an insomniac and my trick to get myself to fall asleep was to picture a home; I visualise and decorate it thoroughly. I usually fall asleep by the time I get into the backyard. I still use this trick when I am having trouble sleeping. The house I imagine changes; sometimes I am so familiar with the home that I merely have to start and the rest of it fills itself in for me.

The houses have changed as I and my desires change. When I was in high school and desperately wanted more privacy than my large family could give, I visualised a large warehouse, the edges filled with book-shelves from floor to ceiling (a recurring decoration in all my homes), and my bedroom and bathroom in a loft, in one corner of the high-ceiling warehouse. I don't recall installing a kitchen. Currently, the home I picture is environmentally sound - using it's natural surrounds (it's built on the side of a cliff) for light, heating and cooling. It has solar power, and water tanks. The kitchen is large, full of shelves for my many herbs and spices, and hanging space for my cooking utensils. This is my current phase in life - attempting to live more consciously of my impact on my environment.

Ha Long is a 360 degree experience, inside and out.

Take them off!

This sign made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Lucky for me, I was wearing long trousers so I didn't have to walk into the pagoda pant-less. Nevertheless, many people stood and stared at me laughing at the sign. I was quite a tourist attraction - I'm surprised no one took a photograph of me. No one else laughed. Well, that's not entirely true. When I explained the sign to my sister (whom I've taken to calling the Accountant) what was so hysterically hilarious about the sign, she also joined me in a stomach enhancing chuckle.

I am sure the good folk at One Pillar Pagoda did not intend the meaning I took. But if you are vsiting Ha Noi, heed my advice: don't wear shorts - you may be asked to take them off!



This is not One Pillar Pagoda. One Pillar Pagoda has many many pictures of it, and when I was there it was surrounded by tourists (me & my two sisters being more culprits) and the beauty of the place was lost. This was a pagoda we visited at almost dawn one morning - Chua Tran Quoc. (Chua is the Viet word for pagoda, so this is Tran Quoc pagoda) The pagoda is on the edge of a Ho Tay ( West lake). To maximise the little time we had in Ha Noi, we got up at the wee hours - the first morning to see all the folks doing Tai Chi and other exercises beside Hoan Kiem lake. Our last morning in Ha Noi we rushed out to Ho Tay as my eldest sister (the Vegetarian) wanted to go to a pagoda that she could actually pray at. The Vegetarian prayed while the Accountant and I wandered around the grounds - empty of all people except for a young woman ineffectually sweeping the path.

Viet Nam Airlines

Viet Nam airlines were not the terrible airline that most people suggested to me they were. We flew internally twice and both times the flights were delayed with little explanation - but a delay is not a hiccup that makes me consider an airline to be avoided at all costs. Efficiency, though worthwhile, is not the highest value that I can attribute to airlines.

I'm undecided about what is. It probably depends upon the reason I am flying. The ability to stay up, without too much rocking about, seems like a pretty good start. Cleanliness and friendly staff are also up there.

But I was amused by the food.

My sister took these photos, with her eensy teensy camera. I don't think 'amused' described my sister's reaction to the food. Sure, there was a level of humour. But the way she picked up this poor roll, doing it's best to be appetising, turned it over and put it down again could be better described as disdain. I ate the roll. It filled a roll-sized hole in my belly.

What I did not find amusing was the mid-teen caucasian North American girl who said to her father, loudly and in disgust - "Tell them to move their feet. They stink." Her father, obligingly, did not tell 'them' anything. He called a hostess over and told her to tell them to move their feet. The offending feet belonged to locals travelling. I wondered whether it was just too much for the mid-teen to turn around and attempt to communicate that she did not want the feet on her arm-rest. I'm sure there are appropriate gestures. She could have even indicated that the smell was not to her liking - surely pinching the nose is a universal gesture? Who knows, the locals may have spoken English.

Coffee

Coffee in Viet Nam was fantastic. It very rarely looked like this:

Really, it only looked like ludicrously dark coffee in a pristine white cup in the hotels.

In street cafes, a metal filter sits atop an itsy bitsy glass half filled with sugar and your highly caffeinated tar drips steadily down. As soon as you were ready, you discarded the filter with aplomb and downed your coffee in one (or two) gulps. I take my coffee strong, black and without any sugar. Unfortunately for me, I kept forgetting to ask for coffee without sugar and felt restrained by politeness to return my coffees once I got them. I had enough nous to ask for "ca phe phim" to ensure I did not get awful instant stuff but only once managed to ask for coffee with no sugar.

Ice coffee is also better in Viet Nam because there's no milk, ice cream or cream! Heaven for we lactose reluctant types. Ice coffee is "ca phe da den" - which is literally coffee ice black. Again, you have to ask for no sugar which most people interpret as "a little sugar". My Viet language skills are wanting but I thought I go "no sugar" correct and polite; and yet the waiter responded with "a bit of sugar?" I was flabberghasted. My politeness overwhelmed so I just smiled and nodded.

I did not take a photo of ca phe phim. And I did not buy a Vietnamese filter either.

Looks like that's two more reasons to return.

Home again

I have returned from Viet Nam and I am ... ambivalent.

Only a tiny portion of the trip was about visiting my family home in the South Mekong Delta. The tourist part will be discussed elsewhere - I am still doing my best to keep my genres clean.

The landscape around Hang Day 9 was undeniably beautiful, and poignantly bare in places. Where our house once stood, a thriving garden of watermelons, chilli trees and random herbs now live in neat rows. My uncle's house is a new structure of concrete and tiles, bright and gaudy in the way rich Vietnamese like, and is directly behind where my father's house was. It is luxurious for the region. I preferred the dark palm leaf huts with their patted down clay floor. All my father's family have given up rice farming, and some have given up the fishing life, hiring out the fishing nets to people who are poorer and have to work harder to survive.

Nevertheless, the area is still very dependent on the river. Travel was entirely by boat - our initial trip out from Ho Phong to Hang Day 9 was on a small, low 'long tail speedboat'. It was about one metre across, 7 metres long and half a metre deep. One could stand in it reasonably comfortably, but 3 sisters, Um & Ba plus all our luggage filled it up quite quickly. The rest of our travel on the river was on a suong - also a long tail speedboat but this time only about 70cms across, 4 metres long and about 30cms deep. One could not stand and it was best if one sat serenely in the middle, with as little shifting as possible. The locals squat, but our cousins knew we would not be accustomed to doing so and had placed reed mats on the floor of the boat for us to sit on.

I felt lost and timeless out there. We left when the tide was high, ate when we were fed and went to bed not long after dark. I never knew where or when I was going next and I never grasped the geography of the twists and turns of large river and little and littler tributaries.

I wished to be left to myself more, to wander around the prawn filled dams, my grandmother's tomb and the gardens surrounding the area but each time I walked off, someone would follow me for fear that I would get lost or fall into the river. My westernisation comes out most strongly in my desire for peace and quiet and my inability to spend lengthy amounts of time with people. This all manifested in a migraine which I could not shake the whole three days I was there, because I could never lie down in a cool, dark and quiet spot.

The twists of filial relationships confused me and I called most of my male cousins: older brother (hia or anh - also the polite term for any male). Many of them are older than me and almost all have young families. Most traced their relationship to me, meaning that they were to call me older sister (che) and I to call them younger sibling (em). I could not do it. I was so useless and dependent out there, I had no claim to demand a term of greater respect.

My female cousins I did not see very often. They were almost always busy in the kitchen or garden. They woke before me and started breakfast. After setting up and clearing away breakfast they disappeared into the garden to collect the vegetables and begin preparing lunch. And after lunch, the routine was repeated for dinner. I wandered into the kitchen a few times to talk to them but was ushered out again after it was discovered I did not want anything. I offered my washing up services but was politely declined. My mother suggested that I would be unable to do the dishes because I was unfamiliar with how it was done. When we wished to bathe, my cousins boiled water for us and came to get us when the water was ready. I felt coddled and suffocated. The only cousin I spoke to for a lengthy period of time was excused from serving duties because she had a child still at the breast. She conversed with us in between dealing with her young son.

My position would have been no different if we remained in Viet Nam. I was only served because I was a guest; in another life, I would be serving. All my female cousins called me 'che' but I tried to use their names. Even they called each other by filial denominations and I was confused again.

I found Viet Nam beautiful and moving, and I could imagine living there - as a foreigner in the city. I could not live as my cousins do. I have changed too much to be able to accept their life. I am too outspoken, too feminist, too intellectual and too different.