Arriving Back In Da Nang
Diem and I arrived back in Da Nang on December the second. It was marvelous to be back within the comforts of Da Nang. A place that has come to mean so much to me. A second home, a sanctuary, a place where things are so new, yet so familiar. A world I’ve grown to know as home. Not in the conventional sense of childhood and ancestral attachments, but in the sense of comfort, companionship and love.
A world that exist in a strange sense of its own place in space and time. My brother said to me recently that he saw my life now as a world split in two, a double life. I live in Vietnam for a moment, then I live in America for moment. His words made me think greatly about this concept. I realized that increasingly it is the world with Diem in Vietnam that is becoming home. Ever so rapidly life in America is becoming merely a vessel for time and money until I can go home to my love Diem in Da Nang. For wherever Diem is, so too is my heart.
And Please don’t turn that previous paragraph into some form of detachment from, or degradation of American life. That has not now, or ever will be the point I am trying to make. I miss my wife, she can’t be in the US right now, and so I pine for Rome.
Finding Home
I mentioned in an earlier post the man we met walking down the street near our apartment in Da Nang. He was wearing a Texas Longhorns shirt and we struck up a conversation. He invited us to Church in Da Nang, and Diem and I attended the Sunday before we left for Thailand. The gentleman who invited us to Church introduced us to an amazing group of people while there.
One woman in particular immigrated to America as a small child after the war and her family settled in San Diego. She grew up and eventually married an American. After children and a long successful life in Southern California they decided to move to Da Nang. Warm year round, beautiful beaches and a growing economy. She, being born in Vietnam and raised in San Diego, is fluent in both English and Vietnamese. It was a chance meeting, but one found in providence.
It quickly became a friendship and we visited the family shortly after arriving back in Vietnam from Thailand. Our new found community was growing rapidly in Vietnam. A world was opening up that I never knew was possible in this secular land ten thousand miles from home.
Worlds Collide
Almost instantaneously as we arrived back in Da Nang things seemed to just come together. Diem and I had a wonderful lunch with our new friends and were taking the girls out that night for a truly spectacular event. My little munchkins Su and Xu had never seen a movie in a theater. This, I was sure, was something I was destined to remedy. It was the holiday season; Christmas was quickly approaching and fun was something I was determined to make sure the girls experienced.
I took Diem and the girls out for fried chicken, French fries and spaghetti. We enjoyed an amazingly unique American dinner before heading over to the movies. Frozen 2 had just hit theaters in Asia. Disney had done a wonderful job in recent years. Hiring famous Vietnamese Actors to do the voice overs for their animated features. Xu and Su had seen Frozen and in Vietnamese. Now I would be taking them to see Frozen 2. The first time they will have ever stepped into a movie theater or seen a movie in all of its intended glory.
It was me however, that got a truly cultural experience. The movie was new, fresh and everyone wanted to see it. But it was not offered here in downtown Da Nang in any other language than Vietnamese and no English Subtitles. And so, I took on a different role. I retrieved snacks and made sure everyone was taken care of with little distraction as they very intently watched Frozen 2.
I will say this about my experience. Watching a Disney movie, you’ve never seen and watching it in a language you don’t understand save for a few numbers and maybe 10 other words is eye opening. Disney does such an amazing job with their animated features. They are masterpieces that transcend language.
Though I didn’t necessarily understand every aspect of the film, I always knew the basic storyline and I caught a laugh or two as even the jokes were mostly without language. The imagery always seemed to move the story forward and the movie was easily understandable even without an understanding of the language it was shown in.
Settling In
I always seem to find myself really falling into a comfortable place before I leave Vietnam. I place of peace, tranquility, love and purity. Diem and I cook, we take trips to the market, walks on the beach, we have friends over for dinner, the girls play, laughter and cries of children fill the air. It’s a place I try every day to incorporate into my entire world.
We wander the markets, streets and boulevards of Da Nang. The world gets smaller, yet its possibilities grow. I am in love with Diem Nguyen, my wife, my confidant, my everything. On January 21, 2020 the paperwork will be complete for her and the girls petition to come to America. It may take an additional 18 months before they arrive.
Rough Seas
In the days before my current time in Vietnam came to an end the sea became very rough. It became cool and wet and unusual. Not something I was particularly expecting, but when the monsoon rears its ugly head and drenches for days and the cool mountains surround, chilly becomes the environment. As the waves bash and the cool air penetrates, a very unexpected climate fell upon Da Nang. It was cold, dark and sinister.
We walked the markets in the cool dark rain of half night and the world seemed to change. It turned into this wet, dirty, monstrous time of bloody execution. Animals were slaughtered for the table, but they often did not die. I walked a market in north Da Nang to find skinless frogs leaping about and fish being cut and chopped as their gills still sucked dying breaths from the moist air.
Nothing made sense. The world was so different from where I came, yet its strangeness was intoxicating. A skewer of rat, a dried seahorse, a King Cobra beset in alcohol, the world has been turned upside down since the day I found it. Few want to look; few want to believe and even fewer acknowledge a different world. Different is beautiful, different is unique, different is necessary. For the world is a very boring place when the same is all that’s left. Remember that.
Merry Christmas Da Nang 2019
It was amazing. After several days of friends, cooking, fun…. it was time. Our friend from Texas had given us tickets the first day we met him to Merry Christmas Da Nang. A mostly English-speaking production, It offered Vietnamese Subtitles on each side of the theater and in many parts a live sing language choir.
We entered the theater, Nha HatTrung Vuong at about 2:33pm local time, December 7, 2019. I was due on an airplane back to the US before the day ended. I had waited for this moment since the day I me Diem. Not ever sure how it would happen or in what format, I was in a moment in time where my life and beliefs became available in a way that was not expected. Diem, Su and Xu were able to begin to live in and understand something that was previously unavailable.
Pictures with Santa Clause, Dancing Toys, all wrapped up with the real story of Christmas. The play was amazing, it was the most diverse, and beautiful groups of people I may have ever seen. The cast and crew were brilliant. The credits are a list of international Angels. Hailing from Vietnam, Australia, the US, the Philippines, Uganda, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea and beyond, It was an incredible sight to see.
The play was sweetly written and wonderfully produced. I was blown away by the quality, beauty and just fun the experience was. I was so happy and felt so wonderful in that moment. It was a moment that will always strike me as a moment I could live in forever. It’s kindness, its openness, it’s awareness, its tranquility, its awe. A moment I felt the world crash together without destruction. Meshed into a wonderful, diverse world void of strife.
Chasing The Sun
The play had ended and time was no longer on my side. I only had a few hours left before it was time to head to the airport. I had to get back to the US, see my family, fulfill my commitments and earn money. It was time to go, but I did not want to. I always welcome the sunset except for when it’s time to leave Da Nang. The flights are always late and I always chase the sun. When it takes its last breaths of the day so to must I depart.
I take comfort in knowing that as the sun sets and my time now and here comes to a close it is only temporary. Like Mary Poppins I will return when the winds change. Separation is only ever temporary and so I bid farewell with a see you later for goodbye is far to permanent.
Diem made one last delicious meal before I left. Anything I desired was on the menu. So, we had Oysters and Balut. We headed to the Airport and I made it through check-in and on to security. It is always difficult to leave and I keep my eyes on Diem past immigration and through the metal detectors. Once through I must walk out of sight.
Just before I walked out of sight, I lost her in the crowd. I refused to continue until I had one last glance and wave. I caught her again as she was negotiating a better vantage point as I prepared to leave her sight. She waved over the crowd and I waved back. As I gave my computer bag a tight squeeze with one hand, I waved with the other. I could tell that Diem was trying hard to not cry, so was I. I breathed in deeply and blew Diem a kiss. Over the intercom I could hear “Flight QR 0995 departing for Doha is boarding in zone 2”. It was time to go and I stepped out of sight into the terminal and began my walk to the gate.
A Change of Plans
Originally as I was writing this post Maggie and I were set to arrive back in Da Nang on March 11, 2020. I arrived home on December 8, 2019. Within days of my arrival back in Atlanta the corona virus outbreak began in China. Asia has now become a much different place than I left it less than two months ago. Unable to justify taking Maggie who has just turned 12 to such an unknown and quickly evolving environment, I will go alone. I cannot bear the thought of my wife struggling in such a volatile environment without me. If she must be forced to sit in such an unknown landscape, I will also be there.
This may prove to be the greatest adventure yet, or it may prove to be the toughest journey I have ever undertaken. I have immense faith and confidence in both my family in Vietnam and the government there. There is no doubt that everyone there will do everything they can to harbor an environment of safety and security. I speak to Diem as close to constantly as anyone speaks to their significant other in any normal environment. Discussing, each of my mornings, how Diems day has been as she expresses her good mornings to me. In my evenings I wish her good morning as we discuss how my day has been.
Just recently in Da Nang, about 8 days ago by my estimations now, the local authorities went door to door and deported all Chinese nationals. The locals in Da Nang were given a directive to not harbor, serve, rent to, feed or an any other way commit acts of commerce with anyone holding a Chinese passport. This may seem to be a civil rights violation in the US, but I will also point out that to have a rather large land border with China, Vietnam has mostly escaped the rapidly spreading outbreak.
As of the most recent update of this article, February 21, 2020. There are a confirmed 16 cases in Vietnam. Japan has 717, South Korea has 346, Singapore 86 and Thailand has 35, None of these Asian nations share a land border with China. In addition, the US has 34 confirmed cases to date. My flight leaves for Vietnam in 16 days. Regardless of the outbreak I am going. Have faith in my ability to adapt and my family in Vietnams ability to overcome.
It sounds much worse than it really is, and besides, the first Formula One race in Vietnam takes place on April 5 on a street track in Hanoi. If you will remember over a year ago I sat in a coffee shop window in Hanoi and overlooked a boulevard and marveled at the motorbikes whizzing by. It is on that very street I gazed upon 13 months ago, that the likes of Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton will buzz by in April. I intend to be there.
Click here for the post from Hanoi
or Click Here for a very candid video of our last days together for 2019
Click Here for the Da Nang International Fellowship website.
and Click Here for the official Vietnam Grand Prix Website
