Happy 4th of July

It is Independence Day here in the good ol' USA. I feel very priviledge to be allowed the freedom here. I never take my voting priviledge for granted.

We celebrate it with friends and family. Having a cook-out - hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ, coleslaw, lemonade. Hanging out at the pool and going to see fireworks.

God Bless the USA!

Long Time

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted a blog. I've been busy... with life.

Recently, a cousin of mine came over from Vietnam. About 2 months now. She and her husband and 3 children. Those of us who have been living here in the US for a long time (since early 80's or came over in 1975) wanted to know why she would want to do that. In appearance, she has everything over there - monies that her mother and father and sister send her every month to live on. They do not work. Their kids go to school, the oldest is in her 2nd year in college. They have a maid. The list goes on and on. For her, she think we live a wonderful life over here, big house, big car, big paying job.

So, I found out the truth. Because my cousin has family over here in the US, her mother-in-law constantly badger her for monies and material things. She said it was to the point that my cousin wanted to commit suicide. She said from the time she opens her eyes in the morning until she lay her head down at night. She was glad to get away from her. Her husband is dead weight - never worked a day since they've been married. Now, that they are here, they will have to get a job and pay taxes and car insurance. Oh, yeah, don't forget, if you own a car, you have to maintain it, oil change, tune-up. She is already learning about taxation and how we have to insure everything over here.

Well, there is that saying "The grass is NOT always greener on the other side".

Cultural Differences

I am just fascinated with cultural differences. Today, I read an article about 'Rest Hotel' from Vietnamese God. He wrote about places in Hanoi renting hourly. I was curious and wanted to know if young, unmarried couples in Vietnam are going there? Are these couples having pre-marital sex? It made me think about what I saw when I was in Hanoi a few years ago. While I was visiting Vietnam, I caught a late flight into Hanoi. It was well after 10:00pm. On the drive from the airport to the hotel by Hoan Kiem late, we passed some undeveloped area. As the taxi headlight passes these roads, I saw many couples, with their parked mopeds, making out in the dark, on the side of the roads.

In America, it is not uncommon for young people to have pre-marital sex. Because most young people leave their home and go away to college, living at college campus, they are often not bound by their parents rules. Even if you are still living at home, most young people have freedom to come and go as they please, dating whoever they want, even if their parents do not approve of their boyfriend/girlfriend. This is their "rite of passage" age where parents consider their 18 year old an adults.

American students attend high school until the 12th grade, most of them graduating from high school when they are 18 year old. Even though these students can not legally buy alcohol or vote, they could still have a lot of freedom at 18. Those that choose to attend college can still live at home and go to college OR go away to college and live on college campus. Most college campus have dormitory, with 2 students sharing a small room and 4 students sharing a bathroom. When I went to college in the early 80's (wow! I'm so old!), co-ed dorms were not common. Nowaday, it is not uncommon for boys and girls to live in the same building. Some college campus will have same-sex (all girls or all boys) dormitory building and some will have girls and boys on every other floors. Even if the high-school graduate may choose not go to college, he or she can move out of the house and live on their own. Without a college eduation, most can barely support themselves by working a full-time job. In America, a full-time job consist of a minimum of 40 hours a week. May be I'll write about working hours here in another blog. OK, sorry, didn't mean to get off the subject, but being out of the house from parents allow you freedom to do mostly whatever you want - stay out late, party with friends, date (actually many students dates in high school), and that will probably follow with sex.

I would love to hear from some Vietnamese students, even anonymously, about what they thought about pre-marital sex in Vietnam. Is it more common than people think? Is it not spoken because it's still unacceptable? Is it still unacceptable? If you are a Vietnamese student, here in the US on a student VISA - what did you think the first time you saw boys and girls living in the same dorm? What is your opinion of the lifestyle here.

Arranged Marriage

While my brother and I were backpacking through Vietnam, the first thing most people ask is if we are married. When they find out that we are siblings and that my younger brother is single, he gets all kind of marriage proposal. Some even offer money. I couldn't believe it at first, but as he got more offer, I realized they weren't kidding.

But this is not what I wanted to write about. I was actually thinking about my parents' marriage. I considered it an "arranged" marriage. My mother side of the family had money and my father side of the family needed it. Hard to think about, but my father was quite a catch in those days. Actually, he is still quite a catch today... but that's a whole different story. I never thought my parents were compatible. They fought constantly. I remembered them arguing all the time. And we didn't live with my grandmother like most people in Vietnam does. My father and his mother-in-law did not get along. My parents had an apartment not too far from my grandmother (mother's mother). When my father was in town, we stayed at the apartment. Otherwise, we stayed at my grandmother's house.

Later in my life, after we came to America, I found out that my father had another family. He had a mistress. I have never met her. I saw one of her picture and she was very attractive in her younger days. In the picture, the mistress lady had on a bikini. She had a very curvaceous figure and beautiful long eyelashes. Not to take anything away from my mother, but there was no competition. Together, they had a daughter. My mother told me that she did not know about the mistress until later, post-1975, when she got left behind.

How devastating is that! To be separated from your children and then to find out that your husband has another woman and there is a child involved. She didn't even get to confront my father about it. Not that I think she would confront my father about it. They were divided by a continent.

Today, my parents are divorced. My mother had to get a divorce before she was allowed passage to America. After all the red tapes, my mother and I were finally re-united in 1992. I was so glad to see her. We are getting to know each other better, everyday.

Sea Change

I can't believe it's May already. Almost half of the year is over. Where did the time go?

I am having such a tough year. First, a husband of a friend of mine died late last year. My uncle (by marriage) died from lung cancer in February. Now, I just found out one of my close female friend is dying from lung cancer. Prognosis is not good, they are giving her 8 months to live - this is with chemo and radiation treatment. Prolonging life so that she can get her business in order. Her husband is also in his last stage of cancer. He had it for about 2 years now. I have 2 other female friends with breast cancer! Goodness. I feel blessed everyday to be healthy and alive.

On to other business. I've been doing some art business with a lady in Vietnam. She is wonderful. I like her so much, but I tell you, I'm thoroughly frustrated with the process of doing business. For example, I asked how long will it take to complete the business transaction. She said 10 days. After 10 days, it's not done correctly, so I ask her to correct it. Here it is 9 weeks and many phone calls later, it's still not done. I have already sent her a 50% deposit for the work.

I would like to see the small businesses in Vietnam thrive. It's because my business is not urgent that I can wait for this young lady, but if I was a general business here, I wouldn't have returned after this happened the first time. In the US, a business can not survive like that. I see this with many of the small businesses in Vietnam. I hope she can get it together soon.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Happy New Year everyone!

It was business as usual for most business in the US. None of the Vietnamese business were closed because of the New Year. Celebration was minimal where I live. However, if you're living in California, they know how to bring in Tet! The state that I live in have a fairly large Vietnamese populations. Yet, there aren't anyone here that knows how to setup a good Vietnamese New Year celebration. It's too bad. I wanted to take my children to see the dragon dance and there wasn't any.

Carte D'Identite - from Indochina

Wow! I just found my grandmother's old id (dated 1947) from Indochina's days. The Geneva Accord was not signed until 1954. On the left of the paper, it said 'Quoc - Gia Viet - Nam', then 'Phu Thu - Hien Bac - Viet'. On the right, it showed "Carte D'Identite"

When my grandmother (ba ngoai) died, I kept some of her things in a suitcase. I was too sad to look at them. Tonight, as I cleaned out that old suitcase, I found my grandmother's old id. Her picture is no longer on there, but it had her old address - Sadi Carnot is the street name, of Ha Dong. So French!

I am sure that street name no longer exist. I googled the name and found a well known thermodynamics scientist and engineer who later became French president in 1887-1894. If anyone out there from Hanoi/Hai Phong/Ha Dong knows this street name still exist, I'd like to hear from you. I would love to see a little bit of my heritage.

Welcome 2007

I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while. I’ve had several deaths to deal with recently. One of a close friend and another is a member of the family who was battling cancer. It has been a tough holiday.

Death is inevitable, but I can’t imagine how I’m going to deal with it when it happens to my parents. They are very healthy, so I don’t expect anything to happen to them, but you never know when it’s their time. It could happen to anyone, like my friend. He went in for a triple bypass and never made it out of the hospital alive.

There are some things that have been on my mind that I want to write about, so keep checking back for an update. Over the holidays, I had a chance to watch a special about China. It was a story about how China's boom in manufacturing and the way they dispose of the chemicals that affects their rivers and agriculture. Some of the other topics I would like to explore are about the vietnamese culture: the acceptance of the "second wife", handling of different class - marriage between families with money and families without money, and last but not least, my observation of the Vietnamese's obsession with their look, the nose and eyes and all the plastic surgeries that Vietnamese women in America are having.

OK. I hope that's enough tease to bring you back. I promise to write some of these blogs within the next few days. So check back again soon.

Thanksgiving

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Tet Trung Thu, where the Vietnamese celebrate successful harvesting. The Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving next week.

Many years ago, the pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic, came to America and settled in what is now considered Massachusetts. Many people died that first year because of disease and lack of food. The Iroquois Indians showed the pilgrims how to grow the food and hunt and fish. The following year, they had a bountiful harvest and celebrate it by inviting the Indians to a feast. They kept the tradition and celebrated autumn harvest many years after that. Eventually, United States Congress made it an official holiday on the last Thursday in November.

For many of us, it is a day of family affair. This year, we have lots of relatives in from out of town. Our house will be full with grandparents, brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. This is my favorite part of the holidays – getting together with families. Sure they can be a pain at time, but you can’t choose your families.

When I was a kid, about 50 of us would cram into my aunt’s home for Thanksgiving. Everyone would bring a dish to share. We would have both American and Vietnamese dishes. Afteward, about 25 of us cousins would pile into a few cars and go out to see a movie.

As an adult, I celebrate Thanksgiving with both my and my husband’s family. We will spend time cooking, eating a late lunch or early dinner. Afterward, the guys will gather around and watch football games. The girls would watch cheerleading competition. Sometime, we will play some board or card games. The kids will be in the basement, hanging out with their cousins.

I am thankful for my families. Thankful for the plentiful food that we have and a roof over our head, that we are healthy and not in debt. I think of the soldiers that are away from their families, fighting for our rights to freedom of speech. I never take our freedom for granted. I excersice my right to vote every election year. I would like to send those soldiers a prayer and wishing them to return to their family safely.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Amazing Race 10 in Vietnam this past summer

Last week I had a chance to catch part of Amazing Race 10 in Vietnam - Hanoi, and Ha Long Bay. I just want to catch a little glimpse of the cities that I got to visit 2 years ago. I'm looking forward to another visit soon, may be within the next year or 2.
But in the meantime, I'll just watch this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6979378667063705340&q=vietnam

Tet Trung Thu

I think in America, we call it "Mid-Autumn Festival".

As a child, it was a fun holiday. We would get a lantern. The lantern frame is made in a shape of an animal using wooden stick. Popular shapes were fish or boat. The frame would be covered with this clear cellophane type of papers in specific colors, then it would be painted with designs. Inside the middle of the frame, it would have this spring-looking thing that you can put a candle on it.

On the night of Tet Trung Thu, we would light our lantern with the candle and carry it with a stick. Usually, the neighborhood would have a parade and the kids would sing the Tet Trung Thu song and parade our lanterns.

I actually have a lantern up in the attic made like this but the lantern is made out of metal wires instead of wood sticks. I'll have to pull it out tomorrow and take a picture of it and post it. Recently, I've seen many lanterns with battery operated lights on them but I love the old lantern best.

How are the Vietnam lantern of today look like? Please send me a picture and I will post it.

Medical Insurance

Recently I read a Vietnam post about going to the hospital and this blogger (http://vuth-it.blogspot.com/2006/09/national-dayfull-problem.html) mentioned medical insurance.

My half-sister, who has only been in the States for about 3 years, gave me the impression that most people in Vietnam does not carry medical insurance. It is better to pay for it yourself. This does make sense.

In America, the cost of treating a patience is high because of 'additional' insurance that the doctor has to carry. This is a vicous cycle. Doctors in America needs to carry malpractice medical insurance in case they get sue by a patient (called medical negligence claims). For example, I don't feel good. I go to a doctor. He operates on me but the surgery did not go well or it is not a surgery that I need because he misdiagnose the illness. Now my have some kind of side effect from the surgery. I can hire a lawyer to sue the doctor. May be it's a kind of lawsuit that I can ask for $600,000 and I could win in court. If the doctor has malpractice insurance, the insurance company would pay me the $600,000. If the doctor did not have malpractice insurance and he has a a $300,000 house and $300,000 in the bank, I can take the monies in his bank account and his house if I win the lawsuit. The the doctor would be left with nothing. He might have to close his practice or start all over again. That's why doctors have to have malpractice insurance in America and premiums (the amount you pay on the insurance policy each month) are high. So the doctor pass that cost to the patient.

Night Blooming Cereus

It's been a HOT summer. Worried that one of my precious plant might burn from the sun, I moved it to a shady spot. It's not close to a water faucet, so I have to water the plant from afar - with a hose. One day, I decided to put some plant food in a watering can and carried it over to water the plant. Lo and behold - it had 2 dead blooms on it! I was so sad - I missed the blooms.
My family loves plants. We have all kind of strange plants. Most of them are too exotic for the climate that I live in. I usually put these tropical plants in containers and move them into my sunroom in the winter time. About 3 years ago, I was over at my cousin, she had some kind of cuttings in water. I asked her what it was, she didn't know but said she got it from her mom. Asked me if I wanted it. Of course, it's a plant, I want it. Took it home, plant it. Didn't know what it was (name or anything) or how to care for it. A year later, a friend of mine, a master gardener, was over for lunch - I asked her about the plant. She told me it was called a 'Passalong' plant, because so many people take cuttings from it. She gave me the technical name for it too. I looked it up on the Internet and was so excited to read about the flower. Cool! Flowers the size of a dinner plate.
Three years later, it bloomed and I missed it.
Well, the gods were kind to me. 3 weeks ago, I went outside to visit my Night Blooming Cereus and saw buds! This week, it awarded me with 4 flowers. The fragrance was unbelievable.

I stayed up late to watch it bloomed. My mother told me that my great grandmother use to have a big ol' tree at her house in Hanoi. They would have about 80 blooms on it. It's a rare occasions for farmers to stay up late, but they did for these 80 blooms.
I think the Vietnamese name for this flower is Hoa Thanh Long. There are certain species with fruits - Dragonfruit. I don't think the one I have will fruit. My cactus leaves are flat.
Stay tune... next month... Plumeria blooms!

Oh what a hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer....

Well, my children have been out of school since late May, right before Memorial Day and they will be going back to school in less than 2 weeks. I am so sad. I will miss hearing their laughters while they are laying in their beds in the morning.
We had a wonderful summer this year, not too busy, but busy enough so they won't be bored. I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom. So my children are enjoying the summer going swimming at our neighborhood pool, seeing free movies every week, hanging out with friends, going on vacation and staying up late.
Of course my children does not have the same freedom that I did when I was child. The smell of honeysuckles would mark the beginning of the summer. I can just see it - getting off the school bus and going to the neighborhood convenience store to get candies. Not a 7-11 (seven-eleven) convenience store, but an old store with concrete floor and the wood door that pops right back with you let it go. They sell Sunbeam bread and some basic necessities, but best of all, they sold candies. Not the .89 cents chewing gum that you're paying nowaday, but candies that you can buy with your pennies and nickels.
We would watch Captain Kangaroo while having breakfast and then we would leave the house and roamed the neighborhood all day long. Sometime we would come back from lunch and sometime we would stay out all day long. My favorite thing to do is to play kickball in the street and we would use speed bumps for 1st and 3rd base.
Oh, how I missed those days of summer!

Swimmer....ears

Recently my daughter made the top 100 swimmers for our county. The county event was held at a facility that was the former cite of all swimming, diving, and synchronized swimming competition during the Centennial Olympics Games!!! But only the top 50 swimmers got to swim at the County Meet.
I also found out that our county has the largest number of summer league swimmers IN THE COUNTRY!!! With over 6000+ swimmers! Our team alone consist of 133 swimmers. Sometime we would host a meet with another team that consist of 260+ swimmers. Imagine, all those kids at your pool and parents and sibblings and additional family members. Wow, what would the fire marshall say?

Amazing Race in Vietnam - Again

I just read an article that Amazing Race 10 was in Vietnam! I can't find any other article about it, but I can't WAIT TO SEE IT! The show will not air until the fall of 2006. I missed the Amazing Race when it was in Vietnam in 2002 - because I wasn't watching the show then.
For those who are not familiar with the show or have not seen it. The show starts out with about 10 or 12 teams (in pairs) of players. Destination unknow. At the beginning of the race, the host will tell each player where they are going, example- they could be in the US in Denver Colorado and their 1st destination will be Brazil. The contestants will race off and try to get the earliest flights out of the country, sometime with restricted plane travel or strict budget. Once they arrive in Brazil, they will get a clue and it will tell them to go to this XXX place. Once they get there, they may have to compete in a series of task, some are physical and some are mental, the team will get to choose which one they will do. Team farthest behind will be eliminated as the race progress and the first team to arrive at the final destination wins one million dollars!!!
If anyone out there heard anything about it, drop me a note.

May is busier than Christmas in December

Whew! I'm so glad May is over. With the children getting out of school in May, it's been crazy. My son completed 5th grade this year. He will attend a middle school in the fall for the next school year. So the parents of the school makes a big deal about the 5th grader leaving elementary school. They had many activities that was special for the 5th grader. This kept me very busy. Also, the 5th grade teachers are trying to prepare the kids for middle school, so they are working them extra hard, giving them loads of homework (not that I'm complaining) and last minute projects! My son also got to sing the National Athem with his classmates at the Atlanta Braves game! How cool was that!
Also, we are waiting to hear about a job transfer. It is possible that we may be moving to another state or even another country. We will find out about one of the jobs by the end of June. If this job doesn't come through, we will not hear about the overseas job until late August or September. If the overseas job comes through, we will go to Rome, Italy. So lately I've been spending all of my Internet time reading about Rome, Italy. I'm preparing myself so I won't be so culture shock.
Ciao!

Gas Prices

Everything in America is BIG! We all live in our big house, drives our big car on our big highway. We have big parking lot for our big mall or shopping center to fill up our big closet. What is it costing us to drive our vehicles? On the average, I drive about 200 miles (321 kilometer) a week. It is costing me about $2.89 per gallon (3.78 liters) and it takes about 14 gallons (53 liters) to fill up my minivan, costing me about $40 in gas a week.
Because of our large family, I need the larger car. I can't wait to see a more fuel efficient large vehicle.

Hard Mattresses in Vietnam

I love my trip to Vietnam, but there was one thing I couldn't wait to get home to... my own bed and pillows. When I travel, I like to bring my own pillows. I sleep better with them. But in Vietnam, the mattress is so hard! So are the pillows. I grew up sleeping on a cot, and we also have one of those wooden bed, but that was the first 10 years of my life. The other 30+ were slept on a soft mattress with springs. I even have friends that stayed in those fancy expensive hotels in Vietnam and they said those beds are also hard. What's the deal? When is Vietnam going to make some soft mattresses?

Do your relatives give you a headache?

My mom called today to cancel our lunch date on Sunday – which is fine with me – no big deal. I was in the middle of eating lunch when she called. She wanted to know what I was eating, so I told her that I was having a sandwich and some chips. She proceeded to tell me that it doesn’t seem like I’m eating much, but it seems that I am still fat, so why don’t I try to exercise some. What the h---? Is this the Vietnamese way of making a compliment? May be that’s normal for Vietnamese people, but in America it’s considered an insult. It’s an equivalent of telling a Vietnamese person in Vietnam that they have a pretty tan.

Betel and Areca Nuts

When I was in Hoi An, I saw an older lady with dyed brown teeth. My younger brother asked me about this.

I remembered our grandmother had the dyed brown teeth. It had something to do with stuff that they chewed. It seemed like they were chewing tobacco, but it’s not. They are betel and areca nuts. The women teeth are dyed brown so they wouldn’t get stained. I don’t remember ever seeing my grandmother chewed betel and areca nuts. I read somewhere that in some culture, the teeth stained red or black indicates marriage ability or coming of age.

According to the legends, this custom was popularized during the Hung Vuong Era, and closely follows the famous fairy tale of the "Story of the Betel and Areca Nut". A quid of betel consists of four materials: an areca leaf (sweet taste), a betel bark (hot taste), a chay root (bitter taste), and hydrated lime (pungent taste). The custom of chewing betel nut is unique to Vietnam. Old health books claim that "chewing betel and areca nut makes the mouth fragrant, decreasing bad tempers, and makes digesting food easy". A quid of betel makes people become closer and more openhearted.

A quid of betel makes people become closer and more openhearted. At any wedding ceremony, there must be a dish of betel and areca nut, which people can share as they joy the special occasion. During festival or Tet Holidays, betel and areca nut is used for inviting visitors and making acquaintances. Sharing a quid of betel with an old friend is like expressing the gratitude for the relationship. A quid of betel and areca nut makes people feel warm on cold winters days, and during funerals, it relieves the sadness. Betel and areca nuts are also used in offerings. When Vietnamese people worship their ancestors, betel and areca nut must be present at the altar. Nowadays, the custom of chewing betel remains popular in some Vietnamese village and among the old.

Memories of Thi Nghe

It’s so strange how a certain scent can trigger a sense of nostalgia. While I was in Hanoi, I stayed at this hotel that served breakfast on top of their roof. I was enjoying the view when a breeze blew by. I could smell the plants next to me. I could not identify the flower, although it reminded me of flowers from a kumquat or a jasmine tree. It was this scent that instantly brought me back memories of my childhood. It made me think of Tet and my mother’s mother (ba ngoai) house.

Back then, before we deflected in 1975, my grandmother lived in Thi Nghe. I vaguely remembered it being down the street from a graveyard. We had a cemented front yard with a koi fish pond in the front. Sometime, my father would bring back some of those water plants from Vung Tau. I was told that there used to be some kind of fruit tree in the yard, but the neighborhood kids would climb it so my grandmother had it cut down and put a covered roof over the front courtyard and a high fence.

In the courtyard of my grandmother's house, we also had a swing that could seat several people. Enter through the front door and you would first see a huge room with black & white tile floor. Close to the front door is where we would park our Vespa. I think the Vespa was a light blue color. There were also bicycles and other types of motorbikes. The front room is where we would receive guests. It was sparsely furnished, but included an armoire type of cabinet. The top of this cabinet is used as an altar for the ancestors. There was also a large dining room table in this room. This is where my brother and I would celebrate our birthdays.

In the next room, we had a bed. Cots could also be setup at night. I remembered having to hook up the four corners of mosquito netting and screw them into the four corners of the cot. Then we would have to take a newspaper into the cot and tuck the mosquito netting under. We would proceed to swat all the mosquitoes that got in the net, so they wouldn’t eat us alive.

Through that room, we have an open area. This was where our maid would kill the live chicken that we had fatten-up for Tet. There was also a large and tall ceramic tub that holds rainwater. There were stairs to take us upstairs, where an additional room was used as a bedroom.

Further behind the open patio area was where our maid lived. There was a kitchen/cooking area, a separate area for showering/bathing and a separate hole-in-the floor type of bathroom.

Memories spent with my grandmother. Memories of when my uncle took me to school on his motorbike. Memories of the trees-lined Duy Tan street – I think there is a song written about this street. I don’t know if Duy Tan street is still has the same name. My father had an architect friend who lived on this street. He had a really nice and fancy house and I use to love to visit it. Memories of going to the big market with my mother and wanting her to buy me one of those clear plastic bracelet with sparkly stuff in it.

I often wondered if my old school is still there. A small Catholic school – Notre Dame des Mission. We had Vietnamese lessons in the morning and French in the afternoon. Even though I was not Catholic, you had to go to Mass every Friday morning in school. There is a public school just a block down the street from my school. If any of you reader out there knows what happened to this Catholic school – I’d love to hear about it.

These are memories that I hold dear...
It is the reason that I still feel such strong ties to Vietnam even though I no longer live there.

Magazine feature

There is a huge bookstore close to my house - Barnes & Noble. They are a large bookstore chain. I like going there and just have a latte and sit on one of their cushy chair and look at home magazines. I just love reading home decorating magazines. Some of my fav magazines are Southern Accents, Traditional Home, Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and Coastal Living - just to name a few. So I came across this month Traditional Home and there is a beautiful house in there. Immediately, it reminds me of Vietnam. So I skimmed the article and realized that it was a house in Vietnam! This family is from France and they have decided to live in Vietnam. They have a house on the Saigon River, a little bit outside Saigon. The home owner has a store in France and one in Vietnam, specializing in embroider linens. The picture made me missed Vietnam - a little homesick. One of my friend is traveling Vietnam right now as we speak. Wish I was there. May be in a few years... I will visit again.

Adoption from China

My sweet niece is such a joy. My brother and sister-in-law are blessed to have adopted her from China. Children change your life forever, for the better. They make you see things in a whole different light.

I’ve been thinking about my Chinese niece growing up American and wondering how she’ll feel about her connections to China as she approaches adulthood. In fact, I want my own children to appreciate not only the country they live in now but also their Vietnamese heritage.

Recently, a friend sent me an article about how the first wave of adopted Chinese children in America are now young adults seeking their identities. The article talked about how these children have been raised. Some of their white parents incorporated things relating to their Chinese culture into their lives, such as Chinese dance lessons. The adopted Chinese girls who live in larger cities where they were exposed to many cultures seem to embrace their Chinese identity, while the ones raised in a more "white" community don’t. They have been more likely to just want to fit in with their white counterparts.

I can completely relate to this! When we came to the United States, we moved to a town with a very small Vietnamese community. Other than my cousins, I was not exposed to Vietnamese people on a daily basis. We went to ESL school in the summer in order to learn English. We were told by the instructors that if we wanted to speak excellent English, we needed to use it all the time, so we did. In doing that, we abandoned our mother language. I am embarrassed to say that I can no longer speak Vietnamese fluently. Like many kids, we just wanted to fit in. My brother and I often spoke about this - we thought we were white kids. I don't think we fully appreciated our cultural identity until we went away to college.

As I got older, I came to appreciate my culture more, especially after my recent trip to Vietnam. In light of my experience, I am trying to teach my children about my Vietnamese culture and traditions. I don’t want my children to lose their cultural identity. I want my children to be proud and knowledgeable about their entire identity, to be able to appreciate their heritage as they grow up.

A Game of Tennis

Recently, I picked up the game of tennis. It is very popular here in the area that we live. Tennis is a game played with rackets by two (called singles) or four players (called doubles). Players strike a hollow rubber ball covered in felt over a net into the opponent's court.
I started out only to get some exercise, to see if I can get my borderline high-blood pressure down. Now I'm addicted to it. I'm not a very athletic person but somehow this sport brings out the competitiveness in me. Granted, I'm only playing with friends, so it's just for fun, but I really like it.

Information about 'tennis' was retrieve from encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Hoa Anh Đào - Cherry Blossom

I love plants and flowers. I could spend all day at a plant nursery. I should live in Florida or California, where the climates are milder for tropical flowers. Last year, I went to Callaway Garden in Georgia and I spent most of the day at their greenhouse. Some of my favorite flowers are Cherry Blossom (hoa anh dao), Peach Blossom (hoa mai), Plumeria (hoa su) and Bouganvilla (hoa giay).
One of my best childhood memory is visiting my grandmother - bà nội (that's your father's mother) at Tan Son Nhat. We only visited her once a year. My mother would make me dress up in some fancy clothes and we would take a bus out there. I call it a bus because I don't know what else to call it. It looks like an old truck with a covered roof over it. I don't know why we didn't take or moped or car. It seemed like a long trip at the time. Recently, I flew into HCMC and took a cab from the airport Tan Son Nhat to Saigon and it didn't seem that long of a drive - may be because the roads are now paved and it wasn't back then.
My grandmother had this swing out in the front. It was under this HUGE pink bouganville tree (hoa giấy) climbing over the house. She also had banana trees. I spent alot of my time there because my cousins thought I was some fancy city cousin that couldn't get dirty.
Today, I have an arbor in my yard. I planted 2 climbing roses on it. A yellow rose climber on one side and light pink "New Dawn" climber on the other side. It's still fairly young - under 2 years, so I don't get as much flowers yet. I can't wait for it to cover the whole arbor. The pink roses is a hybrid that is supposed to take over the arbor. Someday, I hope to give one of my daughters a dinner reception in the garden. May be nothing as big as the wedding in Steve Martin's "Father of the Bride" movie, but something along that line would be fine.

What about all those Nguyen last name? They're as common as Smith in the US

In old Vietnamese society, if someone contributed to the court, the emperor allowed that person to adopt the royal last name, a practice much like being knighted.
There are other historical reasons for the prevalence of the Nguyen name. During the Tran Dynasty in the 11th to 13th centuries, many of the families of the prior dynasty courtesans - the Lys - changed their name to Nguyen to avoid persecution.