Nguyen the Patriot

Dear comrades,

Don't believe me when I promise you things, like follow-up posts and such. Whilst reading some of my blog, I've realized that I've failed to deliver worse than your run of the mill politician, which is really saying something unsavory. Incidentally, I think that Obama is doing a great job considering the circumstances. I don't quite understand why people are fed up about the incumbent Democrats; you knew what you were voting for: a bunch of liberal tendencies with no consistent consensuses. At least with the GOP, you're guaranteed a fight for small government, and small-minded social policies no matter what the economic/social/environmental climate. They will fight for oil companies' rights to 'drill, baby, drill' and 'spill, baby, spill' even in the aftermath of the Horizon Rig fiasco, if somewhat silently.

I must apologize for my last post. Reflecting on the mercurial climate that is my family dynamics, I've realized that our dysfunction is nothing particularly special in America. My parents aren't divorced, they aren't physically abusive (though psychological abuse is their specialty), they aren't drunks, they gamble (as is required of every Asian, especially Viets) but not to excess like some of our countrymen laying down stacks of Benjamins at a baccarat table when they only make 30k/yr, they lay some serious guilt trips but not anything more than any other parents. And on the whole, I've turned out remarkably well adjusted though this point is more than debatable. Well, I've turned out remarkably well on the surface, which is what most Asians hope for, to save face and present an outward appearance of solidarity.

And I guess that's the difference between myself and those comics on Last Comic Standing who poke fun at Mom & Pop: I am not 'allowed' to criticize or poke fun of my family because family is all that is important. And because the frustration can be so great, it erupts into a tirade against something well meaning. So I guess I'm sorry. That's a really pathetic apology, but it's the best and most sincere one I can make. Next time, I'll be sure to laugh a little at myself and my situation and my family. Because I'm not six feet under, and I don't mean that I'm not in some basement because basements are non-existent on the Gulf Coast (because of hurricanes and such). Just don't bother me when the NBA Finals are on, since it makes me resort to the baser male instincts of rooting for inconsequential displays of athleticism.

--

So comrades, my blood does not bleed red; it bleeds whatever color capitalism would be, which I imagine would be like the pastel green on the front of the new $20 bill. After I purchased my bed sheets, I found it looked a lot like that color which helps me sleep well at night.

Though socialism and communism and all the left wing stuff seems great and all in theory, it falls apart because of the human weakness (or strength) toward self-preservation and self-advancement. (I'm going to make a whole lot of sweeping generalizations based on what I feel at this very moment is 'truth' or 'near-truths'. Tomorrow I may abandon everything I say today; this is supported by my history of Benedict-Arnold-ing on my views). I very much doubt all those Communist leaders would be content to live in the same shacks as the glorified worker--they must, after all, present a strong, dignified front when greeting foreign dignitaries.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Red theory, but it would seem that the Commie leaders are capitalists because they get to live in all those fancy mansions and such at the expense of the working class. Then there's the lack of incentive for working hard when you're going to get compensated the same no matter what your work. Why be a doctor when a street cleaner gets paid just as much? Humans are not much more evolved than Pavlov's dog or that mouse with the pleasure bar; we will tap that bar that releases dopamine into our brains until we die of starvation with a smile on our faces. Without reward, what is the impetus to do anything? Even a sense of satisfaction in 'doing good' is a type of reward.

So yeah, I think the Commies have it wrong, because I am a loyal American and thus obligated to say so. But being an American, I am also entitled to a minimal amount of dissenting views, the more 'popular' these dissenting views, the better. Wearing a t-shirt with an impression of Che Guevara is cool if a bit common; wearing anything associated with Ho Chi Minh is generally frowned upon by nearly everyone in the U.S. Let me explain.

First of all, Uncle Ho (I'll call him that from now on but I mean it in an endearing way) looks kind of like Master Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And though Splinter is cool, you wouldn't wear a t-shirt with him on it. Second and more seriously, the Vietnam War is one in which the U.S. 'lost'. You can argue that there wasn't an official declaration of war and that it was simply a support of the Western-loving South Vietnam. You can argue that you couldn't declare war without erupting the Cold War between the States and the Reds. And you can argue that we could have napalmed the whole countryside (even more than we did) to eliminate the hiding places of the guerrillas, but we mercifully chose not to. All very true and all excuses. The States lost. And you're not allowed to support the enemy. Even now, there's still some tension between the U.S. and the U.K., like as if we had hooked up and left on less than amicable circumstances one time long ago, and met again at a wedding.

And third, the Viet expats who live here will pretty much firebomb your establishment if you raise the Communist Viet flag, the one with the single yellow star in the red background. You can raise the Confederate flag and be scoffed at as a hick, but you will be murdered (possibly) for raising the traitorous Commie flag--that's one thing you can trust Viet people to do (aside from gambling of course). Why? Because the expats believe Uncle Ho stole the land from them. When we talk about the Fall of Saigon in 1975, we refer to it as the year we lost our country. But you contest, 'The country is still there!' No, it's the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. And that's not the same.

But I am thankful for Uncle Ho. When I remember to give thanks to people, he's always on the top of my list. That's because without him, I would be stuck in some developing country toiling away for less than minimum wage, whether it be a democratic capitalist society or a socialist one. Because of the war, pretty much all of my family got green cards to come to America, the land of milk and honey. And I was born on this great, free soil and was granted automatic full citizenship. Man, what a deal! Give up some podunk, yellow-fever-mosquito infested, tropical hell adjacent to the South China Sea for the privilege of living in air-conditioned paradise of America. I bet people from developing countries would want to get a piece of that action.

I told my parents that, and they agreed and laughed. They said that Vietnam was one of the poorest countries, even poorer than St. Lucia, an island in the Caribbean which we lived in when I was younger. 'You couldn't be anything or anybody unless you were rich or famous or connected.' And that was that, a de facto caste system. But their laugh was mixed with a hint of pain and loss of a land once theirs. I guess even though they've moved on to an objectively 'better' place, there's the regret of a loss of innocence. Would you know you were naked unless someone told you? Would you know you were poor unless someone told you? If that was the only Vietnam they knew, what would be the difference?

So when I put it like that, I think a lot of Viet expats would have to agree with me (if begrudgingly) that it turned out pretty well, this Vietnam War thing, as long as you got to America (or Australia or the UK or any Western country). Those people who missed the last helicopter out of Saigon are still pissed to this day. Note to people of countries subject to impending collapse: get to the coast and have a big boat.

--

Besides the fact that I owe my U.S. citizenship to Uncle Ho, I also admire him as an intellectual and as a patriot. Some of the salient points of the Wikipedia article on Uncle Ho (which is probably written by the most well English spoken Commies in Vietnam) are that he studied and worked in the States (Harlem, NY), France, Russia, and China and was fluent in each country's language; he had petitioned the U.S. referencing the Declaration of Independence to help get rid of the French influence in favor of a nationalist government; and he had pretty much removed the French and Americans from Vietnam and unified it under a single government. Before he adopted the name Ho Chi Minh, he had been Nguyen Ai Quoc, or 'the Patriot'. 'It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.' If the Americans had responded to his petition, maybe we would have had a 51st state by now...

I think that's pretty cool to defeat a couple of western powers, don't you? It's the classic David v Goliath story. Except since America was Goliath, we can't join in David's victory. And David's country wasn't vastly improved under Communist/Socialist rule.

After reflecting a bit more before writing this, my liking of Uncle Ho isn't akin to liking Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin or such who were all nationalists at core: there wasn't any genocide to my knowledge; there were only the typical casualties (if casualties may be deemed 'typical') of war.

But again, you can't say you like the enemy, and when the Jefferson Scholars Committee had asked me whom I admired, I said Uncle Ho, for I owe the fact of my even being there to his vision of an independent Vietnam. Uncle Ho had probably cited Jeffersonian ideals in the Declaration of Independence. But as I think about it now, I'm pretty certain that the committee considered it in 'poor taste'. I probably should have picked one of the white guys in U.S. history, or one of the African-Americans that have gained enough popularity to be quoted by the white guys in Washington (think Martin Luther King, Jr, not Malcolm X).

Oh well.

Family Shackles

Dear involuntary wedding guests,

I'll get to my Commie-leaning stance tomorrow. Today's post is about a random sore subject endemic to my immediate family, and possibly other Viet Catholic or Viet or Asian families: the obligation to go to family events.

Mama came up to my little den area, my brother's old room which I had redecorated with my TV, sofa, and weight set. There is a 2nd floor communal area which would probably be a more appropriate area for a TV, but it is visible from the street. Though we're in the suburbs and the street does have a moderate traffic flow (unfortunately with some idiots banging their muzak or revving their crappy midlife-crisis bikes), you can't have anything nice and visible in a major metropolitan area. Even in the suburbs. 'If people weren't poor, they would not need to steal.' Not true: poverty and theft are not perfectly correlated.

Some neighborhood kids broke into one of our cars to steal floor mats. Floor mats! So no, my TV is not to be visible from the street.

Mama has never understood the concept of privacy or of respecting personal space. When my bedroom door is locked, she jimmies it until it opens, thinking it must have been a ghost who moves the knob from horizontal to vertical. But the door was open this time, since you have to let the heat dissipate from the room when the thermostat has a hard-floor of 83 degrees.

She's smiling. She's always smiling whether she's sad or happy, whether she's angry or elated, whether she wants to put a kiss on the cheek or the switch to the backside. She disarms a lot of people but not me. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

'Oh, you have the internet on?' She doesn't wait for my answer; she sees the USB cord hanging from my laptop to my phone. 'Hey, my friend from work told me about this 18-month old who smokes 2 packs a day. Can you search for it?' She knows I can search for it, not because I'm some tech nerd but the fact that I'm under 25.

So I search for the stupid thing which had been on the news all the while thinking, 'Who the [copulate] cares?' and found the kid's name, then youtubed it: Ardi Rizal. 'Haha,' she laughs. 'Do you think it's real? Do you think he's 18 months?'

'Sure it's real.' I refrain from a metaphysical explanation of the reality of things shown on Youtube. 'They show it on TV; it must be real.' I pick the simplest, albeit fallacious, explanation to facilitate my ends: getting her to stop bothering me while I'm watching the NBA Finals.

'It's not in the U.S. right?' she asks.

'No, it's in Indonesia,' I respond easily, taking the word of some uncredited source on the internet. 'You can do whatever you want there.' I continue to leave my critical thinking on cruise control; ignorance is bliss as they say. It's easy and pleasant to be ditzy, and I can turn my hair blonde on-demand.

She watches me a little further, while I continue paying my bills online. She glances at the TV, hoping I'd say something more, to continue a dying conversation. But I had learned to be withholding from the pro sitting to my left.

She buckles, 'Hey, there was that news story about my workplace. Can you pull it up?'

I search grudgingly, then earnestly as I wonder if it was possible to find the news story. But I lost interest, and made up an excuse, 'It was a news story?'

'Uh huh, they came to the company and we had to wear uniforms. We never wear uniforms.'

'What happened?'

'Nothing, just something to get attention I guess. My friend had found it on the internet after they showed it on TV.'

Like that means anything. I make some more faux searches, and then point at the TV. 'You see that commercial there? You see it now, and you can probably see it online somehow, but it's going to be difficult.' She senses my irritation. She's really good at sensing non-verbal cues, but she's even better at ignoring them.

But she gives up this time. She starts up from the couch and probably caught my half-smile that signified my victory. Halfway to the door, she casually asks, 'Did you find those car rental prices?'

'No.' I might as well get it over with. To delay something that may take care of itself tomorrow is a potentially profitable way to procrastinate. But to delay something that will only come back tomorrow is plain lazy especially when the tools to do the job are in your hands. I should follow my advice more often.

alamo...national car rental...avis, et al all go one by one into Google's omniscient, omnipotent bar. Then I get smart and do a Priceline search to show all the rates at once. Channeling the voice of an old African-American sage playing dominoes at the park, 'Think long, think wrong.'

'Bossman, two out of three ain't bad.' (the one out of three being my inefficient searching).

I imagine him responding, 'No it ain't, son, nah it sure ain't,' while wondering if he thought what had been the two out of three I had gotten correct.

'Mama, you can save $5 if prepay now, but if you cancel you have to pay $5 cancellation fee.'

We get into an discussion about the prepay discount. 'When your aunt reserved it, you can cancel anytime you want.' 'I understand that, but I'm trying to save you some money.' 'What about the others?' I echo, 'What about the others?'

She continues to waste my Lakers vs Celtics time. 'You're not going to cancel, right? You're going, right? So it'd be cheaper if you prepay.'

'But I might not go or she could find someone else to bring her.' Finally, the crux of the matter. My family has a habit of complaining (as you can see from my own belly-aching).

'Don't go then. Why do you have to go?'

'It's your grandmother's brother's kid, Dad's cousin. Your grandmother has to go, and I have to go because none of your aunts and uncles want to drive her there [New Orleans].'

'Who cares? The groom or bride won't care, probably won't even remember Dad even if he were to show up. All they want is your money [Viet wedding gift], so send it and be done with it.'

'But they invited your grandmother and Dad, because he's the oldest child. Your great uncle felt obligated to invite them because it wouldn't be right if he hadn't. And it's not right if we don't go.'

'What? You couldn't just lie and say you're not in town? It's not like you've never done that before. See? Easy.'

She's frustrated. As independent of a woman she is, she is still shackled by the conventions of family and family obligations. I had thought about how we didn't have grandfather's portrait on the wall of the house, and thought how unconventional the absence had been. Then I realized that it was because we just haven't hung it up post-Ike; it had been in the living room of our old condo. The Catholic missionaries had not squashed our ancestor worship, and the somber black-and-white portraits in every older Viet Catholic's home is ever present next to the Christian altar.

She backtracks, using ad hominem attacks, 'Your aunts and uncles are disgraceful. None of them will go, and so I have to go.' I sit in silent agreement. 'Your brother would go. He said he'd drive as far as Lake Charles and stay there while I drove on to New Orleans. But not with your grandmother in the car, never with your grandmother.' Grandma had called my brother a 'gangbanger' and had basically disowned him once grandfather died.

Mama says that last bit to try to cajole me to offer to drive her and grandma to N.O. Nice try.

We talk some more about the prepay discount, and then she drops the car rental subject. 'Maybe someone will be going there too, and I won't have to drive.' Not likely.
--

It will be the death of her, this family business thing. America is not like Vietnam. In olden Vietnam, there's nothing to do but live in your little village doing your bit of subsistence farming, while enjoying the little weddings and such that intersperse the daily drudgery. But these things are only grudging obligations in this fast-paced society of Google, Facebook, iPhones, and silly videos of an 18-month old smoking on Youtube.

You can't live in two different worlds and maintain consonance. You cannot serve both God and Mammon, except in this case you don't know who is God and who is Mammon (though a bunch of people think us Americans as Devil spawn).

Well, she'll go to that wedding and I won't. And the next. And she'll smile all the while hating that she had to be there. And I'll smile sincerely as I sleep away that free weekend.

Six-Years Hence

Dear patriots,

This past Memorial Day got me thinking about all the men and women overseas (and at home) fighting so that we can be free. Free to be what we want to be. Free to think our perverse thoughts. Free to be unpatriotic if we wanted to. Free to practice any religion we wanted. Free to be of any sexual orientation or any sexual distinction (unless you're in the South of course). And even free to criticize even the very fact of their being over there killing so that we have our own right to kill here in the States. I, for one, am extremely proud to be an American (though I've mentioned the fact that I'd pull out my Viet card when traveling overseas to get friendlier treatment). And I am extremely proud of all our armed forces, even if I don't know any of them personally.

But though this great nation gives you many freedoms to be what you want to be, as Emerson wrote, 'For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.' I've since learned this lesson and bridled my temper and strange thoughts though with varying success; I present exhibit A: this blog, a collection of my boons and banes.

One of the first hints of this displeasured nonconformity was when I began to reflect on why I was not selected to be a Jefferson Scholar, an honor which amounted to a full ride to one of the most prestigious public universities, the University of Virginia. On a sidenote, it's funny how people compliment things by comparing them to something else, as if to say, 'Look, this is just as good as so-and-so!' when by contrast the thing being compared to is even more praised by the glancing mention. Example: 'The University of Virginia is one of the eight original Public Ivies.' So what you're saying is that it's good and it might be as good as a private Ivy, but it probably isn't better than an Ivy. Nice back-handed compliment; probably should avoid qualifiers next time.

Just like a certain school being complimented as the Harvard of the South. I agree with the author's sentiment: 'Rice is one of the best universities in the country and doesn't really need the comparison.' Gosh, it's not like you're buying store-brand, one-ply toilet paper! Do they even make one-ply anymore?

Incidentally, I was accepted to both Rice and UVa despite the rampant, openly secret, reverse discrimination of Asians (through no fault of our own, except maybe the Japs and WWII) in higher education. In a extremely joking tone: at least the white folks got some free labor before they were presented with an overdue bill which some have debated whether they have paid, will pay or will ever be able to pay fully with or without the use of reparations. And as proof of the discrimination, my high school counselor commented that had I been Hispanic, I'd have been nominated for a National Merit Scholarship, but as it was I needed an additional 30 points on my PSAT to qualify because I checked the 'Asian/Pacific Islander' box. Hey, at least I wasn't toiling in 110 degree sauna fishing the South China Sea or wading through the rice paddies while my sister (because my parents would have had more than 2 kids) exclaimed at the waterfront resorts, half-saying, half-asking the male tourists, 'Me lub you long time!' Funny, sad, but likely true.

But they (those universities) had proffered letters of acceptance despite my lack of musical aptitude, tennis-playing abilities, ability of my parents to pay the tuition, or pleasantly broken Engrish [sic]. I don't fault them even if they hadn't accepted me: it's tricky this 'non-use' of quotas in higher education. I guess if you were to shaft anyone, it would be the Asians because they'd be least likely to pitch a fit. Please refrain from sending threatening emails and/or hate letters: I jest, but even jokes have roots in truth, yes?

But you really can't ignore machine-like precision on standardized tests: a 760 on the Verbal portion of the SATs from a kid who was pigeon-holed to the English-is-Second-Language section of school because his last name was foreign, and 800s (twice) on the Math section (he's Asian after all, and any less would have been a disgrace) along with some other odds and ends like perfect SAT IIs, perfect AP tests, etc. Thankfully I fit neatly into the rarefied tier: those you accept indiscriminately simply on high aptitude for selecting an arbitrary permutation of As, Cs, Ds, Bs, and sometimes Es.

But I'm getting off on a severe, self-righteous, if-you-kiss-your-ass-any-further-your-spine-will-be-stuck-that-way tangent. [insert smiley face]

--

Backtracking a bit:

Universities weren't exactly the problem, not the main problem at least in my situation. I wouldn't have even applied to these universities had it not been for my guidance counselor and the incessant insistence of a couple of English teachers (If either of you are reading: Look! I'm using my limited Language Arts skills after all, if rather dismally and with numerous syntax and grammatical errors and abuse of commas, semicolons, parentheses and brackets). And this would explain the lack of any mention of true Ivys: I simply didn't apply to any. It would be nice to have acceptance letters from Harvard and Princeton, but I'm not that vain.

No, in the context of my world, any school which didn't have a pharmacy program was simply out of the question. And I wasn't the one who was in love with pharmacy; it was my parents, and they weren't really in love with pharmacy either. But you see, the girl's parents were utterly stinking rich, and it didn't matter what the girl looked like or even if she was a girl. As rebellious as I wasn't, I took the sad truth of my parents' ultimate disapproval, made a last ditch effort to run away with my love (with my Rice financial aid letter as an unsigned marriage certificate), but was corralled into a pleasant relationship with a nice university (of Houston) who was both low maintenance and accommodating, ambitious but not psychotically driven, intelligent but didn't one-up you in front of your friends: the girl next door who you propose to once that French filly dumps you for the next guy in pearl snaps and a cowboy hat (what I'm going to wear on my trip to Europe complimented with a phony East Texas accent).

And now I'm 23 and I command a six-figure sum per annum. Though I know and feel my parents are and were 'right', especially in this economic climate, I lay at night thinking of the vain self I might have created with all my liberal learnings and snobbery and wondered how that alter ego would have fared in the year post-graduation.

Would he have even cared to write? Would he think of what I'm doing as bourgeois or pedestrian? Would he have some girlfriend's mother to take to Sunday brunch, drinking mimosas whilst flattering away the crow's feet from her eyes and wonder if his girl would look that way in the smooth white sheath dress with oversized buckle some 30 years into the future? Would he be dead, physically, emotionally, mentally, and/or spiritually? Would he think me dead?

Would he still be enslaved incurably to the desires and wishes of two people who happened to have given him some genetic material in the distant past, the act of which, he had found out, wasn't exactly difficult.

But I try not to think too much. Dad had said that 'if' was a dirty word, though he lives it every day like a father who lectures his son on alcoholism while he enjoys several cold ones with Sportscenter each night: 'If only I can pass the medical boards, then I'd be happy.' But would he be happy?

Am I happy? Can I be happy? I don't know. But I definitely feel a whole lot better than I did last year. That much is certain.

I'll finish up the Jefferson Scholar bit tomorrow. As a preview, I told the selection committee who was dispatched to find young adults who epitomized Jeffersonian ideals (of course excepting the sexing the slaves bit) that I had admired a Commie, which was probably comparable to partaking in gas station sushi.