陳白菊 《 Leaving Home 》 美國

        It was 1944. He  arrived from China like the rest of the other young men, walking off the boat with all his possessions on his back.  He  was tall,  slender  built,  his  dark black hair combed backward.   Surveying  the  scene before him,  his  eyes  were alert, intense,  and  his  thick  dark  eyebrows  furrowed  as  he  stepped  off  the   boat.    He straightened his white shirt,  wrinkled  from  sitting on the boat,  and  clenched  tightly onto his worn out satchel.  Inside his bag were a few  items of  clothing,  a  photograph of his family, and a couple of steamed buns his mother packed for the long trip. Before he left,  his mother handed him some money and two gold rings.  She reminded him to keep them safe.  He  put  them  inside  a secret compartment that she had sewn into his waistband the night before he  left.  Occasionally,  he  tapped  on  it  to  make  sure  his worldly possessions were still inside. Spotting his uncle from afar, he waved and called out  “Uncle,  Uncle!”  His uncle looked in his direction.  They both rushed toward each other and his uncle’s  hands  grabbed  the young  man’s  shoulders with a big smile and said  “Nèi Guó” (內國)!  You are here! Are you hungry?”  The young man grinned and nodded. The two men locked shoulders and walked away from the dock.  Behind them, the morning sun rose to greet them with a new day. It was a new beginning for a young man from China.  At the age of 17,  thousands of miles away from home,  little did this young  man  know that this day marked the last time he would see his parents and little brother.  From this  day  forward,  the boy would quickly become a man.  He  dreamed about what his new future in Vietnam would bring.  It  was  exciting to venture out in a strange place, yet he wondered when he would see his family again. What would he do to feed himself?  How  would  he  learn  to speak the local tongue?  Would  his  uncle’s family welcome him?  Thoughts  raced through his head.  He  shook  his  head to chase them away.  He thought to himself,  “For now,  let’s eat first.  I’ll  leave my worries for tomorrow.”

        My  father  never  told me how he  came  to  Vietnam.  I  could  only  imagine  by piecing together the stories my older sisters have told me.  My father’s  uncle  found  a job for him at a  Chinese medicine shop in Long  Thành,  a rural  district of  Biên  Hòa City.  Every morning,  after having his usual porridge,  my father opened the shop.  He dusted the counter  and  furniture.  The  shop  owner  would  tell  him,  “Cleanliness  is important;  people trust and believe in our medicine if the store is neat and clean.”  His day   consisted  of  greeting  and  selling  medicine   to  the  customers,   filling  herbal prescriptions, and refilling the herbal cabinet.The massive herbal cabinet had hundreds of little drawers that ran all the way up to the ceiling. Each drawer waslabeled with the name of the herb and it could take  days  to  refill  them.  When  he was  not  busy,  my  father cut ginseng roots and helped to make medicine.  At night, he slept near the back of the shop, with a little partition set up for some privacy.

        Life was fairly good for him.  My  father had a stable job and his boss was a kind, gentle man. On his days off, he spent time with the locals and learned Vietnamese from young ladies in town.  My  father  was  outgoing and loved to make conversations with everyone.  This helped him quickly learn Vietnamese in only a few years. He once told that when he first saw our mother,  he  fell  in  love instantly.  Courageously,  he  wrote "anh yêu em" ("I love you" in Vietnamese)  on a piece of paper and asked a lady friend to deliver his love note.  It  worked:  his  three  romantic  words  won  the  heart  of the beautiful young woman. My father was so proud that he ‘got the girl’.  They married in 1947 when he was twenty and she was seventeen.

陳白菊 (Laura Tran)