Dragon Diaries #19 – The Hope Constant

Does hope have its limits? I’m sure it does. But I’ve never reached them. And for that, I am thankful. I often languish in the quandary of that potent resolve. I once discovered at the bottom of every great adventure, every struggle, every great taste of the human experience. It’s darkness, its light, its laughter, and its cries. The common denominator is always me. Forever in the mirror, until at last he will be no more. But why? Why do I find myself seemingly and consistently, and that’s a gross and not at all accurate generality, in these insane situations. Captivity, death, disease, taken for everything I was worth…. twice. Why, oh why? Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Because my favorite movies growing up were Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story. The first NeverEnding story. Not those that transpire from it; they were awful.

How does one find these genres in one’s own life? One can not find exploration, action, adventure, discovery in a classroom. One must seek it out. One can never lie idle in the promise of excitement and adventure. Life must be filled with a bit of Buddha, a sprinkle of Bourdain, a dash of Wilde, and many prayers. If nothing is remembered at my funeral beyond this, then it will have been a life well-lived. So it is that his life was interesting, and maybe even intriguing, and I would possibly lavish in, dare I say, provocative. But an eternal death awaits me if I am to be remembered as, well, boring. For what is life worth, if not worth living to the best of all, it is capable.

Me Quotes

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.”

– Gautama Buddha

“It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.”

“The future depends on what we do in the present.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”

“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all, I want to try everything once.”

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

“To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.”

– Anthony Bourdain

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation.

– Oscar Wilde

A picture of a Buddai I took at the Linh Ung Pagoda, on the side of Son Tra Mountain, overlooking the sea. Spring 2021.

“A new command I give you: Love one another.”

Jesus of Nazareth. From the book of John, Chapter 13 Vs. 34(a).

“I find hope in the darkest days, and focus in the brightest.”

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

– His holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”

– The Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh

“Happy is the man who avoids hardship, but how fine is the man who is afflicted and shows endurance.”

– The Prophet Muhammad

The teeth of opportunity

One can’t always have life play out precisely as one wishes, and very rarely, it seems. But you take every opportunity as you can. Some work out, but some have a massive set of teeth on them. We landed in Saigon hopeful, ready, excited, anxious, a little intimidated, and some of us even scared. It’s a bit of a frightening thing staring down any branch of the US government. For better or worse, their authority and control are essentially limitless. I often get too cocky when it comes to the government—especially when outside the US. One could say the government can screw you less when you are outside its jurisdiction. Diem and I have been married what, two and a half years now. If not, pretty damn close. But the ability to travel freely together still eludes us.

We chose the slow route. It provided a setup that, at the time, was something both of us wanted. Yes, you have the 90-day Fiance visas, you rush off to America, must get married in 90 days, and off you go. It seemed so rushed and ungenuine. We were happy to let the situation play out more naturally than at the rapid pace often associated with American life. We would spend a couple of years traveling Southeast Asia, between trips back to the states until the paperwork was approved. Everything had started as planned. But you know how that goes—Thanksgiving in Thailand, Tet (Chinese New Year) in the Countryside, the great karsts of Ha Long bay. Then the unthinkable happened.

The world is closed

As I don’t have to tell anyone, I’m sure, but in March of 2020, everything changed. Canceled trips to Borneo, Cambodia, Laos, Sumatra, maybe even Bali. An incredible journey cut short. But, it was fine. We made the best of it by riding, flying, walking, and driving to every corner of Vietnam we could reach. So, in a sense, the adventure merely evolved. Because it has been one hell of a ride these past two years. But it was also time to go home. I reached out to my Senator’s office after the outbreak finally made it into Vietnam in a severe manner. Our ability to travel freely around Vietnam became affected as well. Combine that with grandmother’s getting older and more feeble. Both Diem’s grandmother and my grandmother live about 20 minutes apart in Georgia. But we can’t just visit.

God, I love bureaucracy. That was sarcastic, if you couldn’t tell. Senator Raphael Warnock’s office and his liaison to the state department, Charles mainly, have been amazing. It’s been long enough, we have earned our right to move freely between Vietnam and the US. But Covid had created a massive backlog in the consulate’s office in HCMC, so even though our case had been in process for almost two full years, it didn’t mean we were anywhere close to getting a letter of appointment for our exit interview. Warnock’s office expedited our case, and within a few weeks, we received a letter of expedited appointment for October 29, 2021. We received the notice on the 22nd.

When the teeth hurt

In those seven days, we had to get Medical exams that take 3 to 10 days to perform. We had to get to HCMC for both the exams and the interview. In addition, we had to meet specific travel requirements such as testing for air travel and passing medical declarations. However, the clinic can’t schedule the medical exams without the confirmation letter confirmation code we received on the 22nd. In addition, it is performed at a specific facility in Saigon that doesn’t operate on Weekends, so we lost two days there. We squeezed into HCMC or Saigon, limped in really, on October 26, just three days before the interview. We had to hire a local attorney to do whatever he did to get our exams done the following morning to pull this off.

Our $6000 Attorney in the US we retained to handle our immigration almost three years ago submitted some documents and only repeated the mantra, “Be patient. There is nothing more we can do.” Oh, yeah, then why am I paying other Attorneys in Vietnam to do your job? Of course, there is no way to get any information from the consulate about when they may send you a formal interview letter. Hell, it was 4 or 5 months after the damn case was expedited. So without warning, without anything, a letter shows up unannounced but longed for and says you have an impossible task to perform and seven days to do it in. Go! Taking the exams three days prior, I knew they wouldn’t make it. Even if we got the exams done the day we received the letter, there was a good chance they wouldn’t be ready.

The insanity of protocol

I knew the odds were stacked against us going into the interview. But we had to try. Even if we were incomplete but had at least done our end, we were looking at a postponement. But if we did not go to the interview or attempted to reschedule, it would have been game over. Our expedited status would have been revoked. A denial could have been triggered. We had no choice but to show up as best as we could. So in three days, the girls received every vaccine required to enter the US from Vietnam, chest x-rays, blood drawn, poked, and prodded. Little Xu cried a lot. I did my best to comfort her.

But unfortunately, this was the price of admission to the freest nation on Earth. So why not spread it out, you ask. Because it must be by approved Consular doctors, who only operate in Hanoi and Saigon, and don’t accept appointments unless you have your confirmation of interview form, which we just received in Da Nang a few days ago. I feel like I’m repeating myself. Sorry if this is becoming moribund. But it gets better.

The Morning of the Interview

We woke early on Friday. The girls were mainly unsettled. Not entirely sure what to expect after a week of insanity in the eyes of a child. Diem was scared. I was a little anxious but confident. If the exams had arrived, we would be getting Visas today. We had extra pictures from the last couple of years. It is encouraged to bring things like this. Our paperwork, the original of any copies we had already submitted. In Diem’s anxiousness, we arrived over an hour early. So we went across the street to the German embassy. to have coffee.

Yeah, I said it, the German Embassy. Germany tried to defeat the world, not once, but twice. You can walk into the lobby of their Consulate building, order coffee, a sandwich perhaps, and stair across the street at the fortress that is the American consulate in HCMC. As a US citizen, they wouldn’t even let you stand on the sidewalk in front of the US consulate. But more on that later. So we sat in the lobby of the German embassy drinking our coffee in the air conditioning and waiting for the time.

The Consulate

When the time had come for us to interview, we checked our bags at the German consulate. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is allowed in the US consulate. They will keep your phones at the entrance, but anything beyond that must be specific to your case. So that’s what the country who at one time was so powerful they took on the world twice, has become? Mere bag handlers for Americans entering their consulate? What a strange world. We walked across the street and showed our papers, and made it to the door. I was pushed back and told I could not enter.

Even though I am A. an American citizen, B. am the petitioner for my wife and children, and C. do you need a C? The interview is to determine the legitimacy of our marriage so we can travel to the US with impunity. How could that be determined if I am not present, which is my right? It is so understood that it is my right, the guard told me, “I know it is the law, but you can not enter.” Verbatim. I was shocked, frustrated, not happy. I said, fine, I will wait to the side. Then a guard began pursuing me, and everywhere I stopped, he would again walk towards me and did not stop his passive-aggressive you can’t be here approach until I was ultimately off the property and back in the German embassy.

Pacing away

I sat down across the street on the curb and pulled out my phone. I immediately began an email to my Senator when a guard with the German embassy almost immediately walked up and told me to stand. “What now?” I thought. I was free to stand on the sidewalk, sit inside, and even pace back and forth, staring at the Consulate exit. But I could not sit down outside. Fine, whatever. After about an hour of sitting in the Indochina sun and humidity, Diem came out of the exit alone. She called me to go to her. I ran across the busy street and asked about the girls. There was a problem with our paperwork. They needed to ask me a question. Great.

The interview had not yet occurred, and the officer was surprised to hear that I was, well, here and told Diem to go and retrieve me. The first hour was making sure all of the paperwork was in order, and one crucial piece was not there. Mind you. The laws were changed after 9/11. Now you must send your paperwork packet to USCIS, a branch of Homeland Security. They backcheck, check back, and whatever it is they do to determine the immigrants pass terrorist scrutiny guidelines essentially. USCIS then approves everything and sends it to the National Visa Center, who then compiles an immigration packet with your information and all the paperwork you submitted. They then send it to the consulate through which you are seeking entrance into the US. In our case HCMC, or Saigon, and you go for an exit interview.

An Interview I guess?

The officer asked me about the document. But, again, a copy that we would have never made passed USCIS or the National Visa Center without, and not one of the original documents required at the interview, so we didn’t have it. Today would not be our day. But let’s continue with the formalities anyway. She asked us to raise our right hand, at which point the officer put us under oath, and she asked us a few questions. Where did we currently live, how did we meet, if Diem had ever been a prostitute? Yes, she asked that question, and if anyone had ever been a member of the communist party. I almost laughed. You’ve got to love those McCarthy-era carryovers. Additionally, Diem’s medical exam miraculously arrived, but the girls’ had not. So, we were refused under R-1, incomplete documentation.

None of which was our making, but of course our fault, and we had to suffer the consequences. Somewhere between the USCIS and the consulate, a document was lost, and we were given four days to get medical exams done that could take three to ten days to process. Set up for failure by your own government. No, that can’t happen. Can it? The officer was amiable and only doing her job. But a bureaucrat in it all nonetheless. After an R-1, it can take 60 additional days to process but don’t bother them for 120. Again, at no fault of our own. So to those officers in those missions around the world. These are lives that are in your hands. And if you can’t get to C without getting all of your documents approved by A and B, double-check. Maybe the paper fell behind the fax machine.

Making sense of nonesense

We leave the consulate, and Diem is mildly hysterical. I don’t think she fully understood the situation. You can either get approval to travel, an R-1form, which means incomplete documentation, and the best possible scenario if not immediately approved. An R-2 refusal, meaning it needs an administrative review, which is not good. Typically means a lot of red flags, and more scrutiny is required. Or an absolute denial. We received an R-1. I fired off a very strongly worded email to my immigration lawyer in the states. You screwed us over. This is your fault. How could you have failed to submit such a crucial document that I delivered to your office over two years ago?

She made a compelling argument. We would have never received the interview if the paperwork had not been complete from the start. USCIS would have never approved it. Good point, but that still does not help me now, resubmit it yesterday. The first part is complete within hours. Now the medical exams. We go back to the clinic, but they will not give us the documents. They must be submitted directly to the consulate from the clinic. The R-1 form clearly states that we must submit the exams via a specific carrier to the consulate since the girls’ exams did not arrive before our interview. But, of course, there is no one to talk to directly. We were rushed out of the interview with ambiguous instructions at best. That’s it. I have figured it out. I am officially in the Twilight Zone.

Figuring it all out

After consulting another lawyer we had to pay separately in Saigon, that had gotten everything in the Vietnamese end taken care of, we discovered we didn’t need the actual exams. Just proof of them, which would be sent to our current address back home in Da Nang. No problem. We had flights out in a couple of days. We just needed to beat them home as a special currier would send them. Simple, right? As a round trip was not possible, we booked our tickets, as we had no idea what to expect after the interview. Would we need a follow-up in a few days, nothing? So it was entirely winged and not the kind I enjoy. Winging this kind of trip could mean very steep consequences. After having everything sorted, we booked tickets home for Monday. All we needed was our negative tests, and we were on our way.

Not so fast. We began seeking clinics for whatever test needed to board a plane. Air travel in Vietnam had just resumed from the summer lockdown. It was the only way. No trains, no buses. Air travel was the only domestic travel currently equipped to handle the strict requirements of the newly instated travel requirements. But as we went from hospital to clinic, to name it, everything was closed for travel tests as it was the weekend. Sunday by now, to be exact. We did find one clinic, but it was participating in the classic capitalist bent, price gauging. They wanted $600 US for a rapid test that most airlines were giving away with a ticket. But not on Sundays.

Just stop it already

After a bit of digging, I usually purchased the tickets, but Diem received a discount for using our Visa account, so she booked the tickets. I discovered that our airline did offer free tests. But they did not open the airline clinic until 7 am the morning of our flight. If the results were not processed in time, we wouldn’t be allowed on the flight. So it was going to be close. We woke very early on Monday, rush hour in Saigon, and made our way methodically and often cumbersomely to the airline’s clinic for testing as they opened. Our flight was at 6 pm. Hopefully, it will be enough time. After the tests were administered, we received what was probably the first time we were allowed to relax since we received the letter of appointment ten days prior.

There was nothing more we could do. Nothing more we could control. So hope was the only constant left. That, and to wait. My brother Luan and I went for a delicious bowl of noodles at a roadside dive for lunch. It was awesome. Other than that, we packed and tried to figure out what was expected on our return home to Da Nang. Our Nephew Duy will be returning with us to Da Nang. So we had an extra person to watch out for, but that was fine as long as those tests results came back in time.

Heading home to Da Nang

Luan dropped us off at the airport hours before our flight. It was a good thing. Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Saigon was not Da Nang airport we had left seven days prior. Wow, had it been that long. The week in Saigon just blew by. The airport was packed. But that should have been no surprise. Even though the borders are closed, the route between Saigon and Hanoi is the busiest air route in Southeast Asia and the 7th busiest in the world. That is pretty impressive for a domestic route. So it was no surprise when we arrived a few hours before take-off that check-in was packed. And interestingly, filled mainly with all of the servicemen and women sent into HCMC back when the current outbreak took hold in early summer. Now it appeared, they were beginning to return home.

Our tests were on time. We took off after dark and landed in Da Nang an hour later. A trip, if traveling by land, would take 24 hours. I’ve said it before, traveling around Vietnam is just insanely laborious. But, I’ve found that that is part of the charm. We took several days once to travel from Da Nang to Buon Ma Thuot in the central mountains. A distance of about 300 miles. It’s the lazy movement from town to town and region to region by van. That is the best way to travel in Vietnam. Suppose you are not in a hurry, of course. It was about 8 pm when we arrived home. Still not entirely sure what was up or down. We had made it to our exit interview, but what it all meant, I still couldn’t be sure.

It’s not over yet

We knew that we would have some restrictions coming back from Saigon, as it is the epicenter of the outbreak in Vietnam, and Da Nang has had very few cases over the past two years. I mean, less than a couple of thousand. So we had a consultation the morning after we arrived back from Saigon. It wasn’t terrible, but I wasn’t exactly excited about it. We had a first shot of the AstraZeneca over a month ago. But they have struggled in Da Nang with follow-up jabs. But our Nephew received two doses, as he has been in HCMC since Tet, so the vaccine drive in Saigon has been much more intense. We tried to get the second dose in Saigon but were unable to get the same shot.

The AstraZeneca is not an mRNA vector shot, so incompatible with the Pfizer or Moderna for mixing. And thusly, we have to quarantine for 14 days and Duy for only 7. The day after we returned home, our medical exam confirmation documents arrived, and we immediately turned around and sent them to the consulate with everyone’s passports. And here we are. All piled in the apartment waiting for Monday to send Duy to stay with Kevin at the shop, just kidding. I’ll be using him for a delivery guy. We emptied the fridge when we left for Saigon. It sucks relying on others to get your groceries. I know they do the best they can, but my cheese is essential, damnit!

Daily Checks

So we sit and wait. We get our temperatures taken daily. A nurse shows up every few days to give all of us a test at our own expense, of course. I’ve had a nasal swab shoved up my nose probably close to 50 times and never paid for one before. The punishment of traveling, I guess. It’s one thing to be on lockdown, and everyone is under the same restrictions. You can walk your dog as long as you stay close to your building and don’t get close to anyone. They would deliver free vegetables every few days, and the little store would open a couple of hours a day for basics: drinks, flour, noodles, some fresh fruit, and vegetables. But when the city is wide open, and you are quarantined, you get none of these simple luxuries. Instead, everyone is watching you and checking on you. It sucks.

But hopefully, the next time I write a Dragon Diary, I’ll be preparing to return to the US. One can only hope. And now that beginning in 10 days, I’ll start harassing Senator Warnock’s office again. As in all of this process, they have been the only government entity that has ever got the ball moving and helped us. So, It’s time to work on a travel article. There were some fun times and great food in those seven days in Saigon. Even with all the crazy uncertainties. But that is a story for another article.

For more Dragon Diaries, click here.

To return to the Home page click here.