The New World

It’s hard to believe it has been eight months. For me, it was a homecoming. For Diem and the girls, it was something I don’t think anyone can fully comprehend. What a fundamental restructuring of life. A complete uprooting from everything you knew and into something you never thought possible. It’s many non-Americans’ dream to visit the United States. For many, the idea of being able to work and live there would be unimaginable. The difficulties one must overcome to immigrate to the U.S. from beyond the Latin world are daunting. Money often wields power. But for the average global citizen, it’s a lottery they’ll never win. In particular, what happened here to Diem and the girls is a rare event. How special it is.

A new story to tell

It’s only fitting that we share the trials, tribulations, and joys of being, at least in part, a family immigrating to the U.S. What interesting stories can come from sharing our lives as we go through a profound life-changing event. What percentage of humanity do you think will be able to say at any given time throughout history that one day they picked up all that they had and took their lives to an entirely new world. They are uprooting themselves and their family from everything familiar and comfortable and settling in a land of strange landscapes, languages, and streets. To a place where everything, as simple as it may seem, is fundamentally different. From how you get good produce to dealing with getting paid. Everything is new.

What’s a Social Security number? Why do people have so many guns? What do you mean you can’t just turn around in the middle of the road? If Atlanta is half the size of Da Nang, why is traffic so bad everywhere? How do you pump gas? Why do you pump gas? Just a tiny sample of the many surprises and questions that have come up in the eight months we’ve been in the U.S. It’s strange for me too. I have never been in the U.S. in pandemic conditions of any kind. I had never heard of Covid-19 the last time I left the U.S. No masks, vaccines, or plastic between you and everyone else the last time I was in the U.S. And so we begin a new adventure together as it is, in some ways, for all of us, A New World.

Eight months gone

It’s hard to believe it’s been eight months since we landed at Hartsfield-Jackson airport on that cool Thanksgiving day. It was strange even for me to see a wintery world of trees without leaves and tan dead grasses flowing in the breeze. It must have given the girls pause to see the barren landscape and chilled air that is Georgia in the throws of the coming winter. I can’t begin to imagine the things going through the girl’s minds when we drove down the massive multi-lane interstate, pulled into a vast parking lot, or stepped into a Cosco to explore the alien world of Buy-n-Large. Everything was unique and fresh. Everything.

The expression that quickly became the constant theme of the day was simply, wow! To see children in all-encompassing wonder at every turn. Gasps of excitement around every corner. At times, the feeling of simply being happy to be here, is intoxicating. Think of everything you have grown to appreciate and love about America. Hot dogs at a baseball game, onion rings at the Varsity, a dipped cone from Dairy Queen, getting your food from a drive-up window, discovering what you will drink at Starbucks, putting on your Sunday best for Easter, Church Picnics and Homecoming, school sports, everything about the world that you know, is a new experience. It must seem impossible at times trying to figure it all out.

What I knew but couldn’t explain

I knew the language situation was one of the more challenging aspects of transitioning to the new world. I spent more than two years experiencing loneliness, isolation, and occasional misunderstanding when I understood nothing being said around me. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t the hindrance I had initially thought. On the contrary, living in a world where you can not effectively communicate can be very liberating and enjoyable. I once heard it called the serenity of traveling alone. But would Diem, the social butterfly she is, adjust or adapt as I did. I found that my ignorance was often viewed as a disability, and I was taken care of accordingly. It’s worth a laugh. But I was constantly nudged in the right direction, spun around, and pointed off to where I needed to go.

I didn’t have to give my opinion on where we went or what we did most of the time. I was along for the ride. It was so much fun. But sometimes it’s lonely when you go off with friends and family, and you can’t have an effortless conversation. I hoped this would not be the case for the girls. Their English is manageable, but I’ve talked to them in broken Vietnamese and English for years. We could get along fine. But I won’t always be there. Diem began work at a Salon with her cousin and many other Vietnamese speakers. So a lack of engaging conversation hasn’t been a big issue. Su and Xu, forever now known as Lisa and Jennie, just decided they would learn to speak English fluently and do it quickly. Diem’s English has improved tremendously since our arrival as well. It truly is impressive how effective total immersion can be.

Weather

This one, I think, came mainly as a surprise to all involved. You can explain to someone what the weather is like, but if they’ve never experienced chapped lips from dry and cold conditions, lightning storms, and only thought tornadoes were made in movies. For people who have never experienced the southeastern United States weather cycles, I can only tell you it must be experienced to believe. Snow in the morning, blistering sun in the afternoon. I think Diem got a little nervous when we got into greater detail about tornadoes. There have been five tornado events in Vietnam since 1997. Let’s just say that tornadoes and lightning are rare.

We lived through one of the worst Typhoon seasons in 2020, but I only remember the howling wind and rain. It rarely, if ever, thundered. The makeup of the landscape combined with ocean currents just caused a lot of monsoon rains. But that’s all it was, rain. The weather here is much more extreme and unpredictable. In Vietnam, it was dry or wet and hot or mild. That was about as extreme as it got. I wrote many an article about central Vietnamese weather patterns and Typhoons. You can find some of that here. And after our first heat wave with humidity and temperature at relative capacity, Diem declared that Vietnam was far more comfortable than Georgia.

The Holidays

Landing on Thanksgiving day threw us into the belly of the holiday season. Sure we celebrated Christmas while in Vietnam. But there, it was just secular machinations. Here, it permeates life. Christmas morning, when the girls tiptoed down the stairs, Diem included, they must have thought this was it. We must have arrived at that heavenly place we are learning about at Church. An old friend of a dear friend was known for saying, don’t hear something I’m not saying. We lived very well while in Vietnam. Probably better than most. But living well in southeast Asia can not prepare someone for the abundance and availability of choices that are the American experience.

For days we seemed to celebrate. We visited friends and family, seeing many for the first time in years. The girls stayed with their great-grandmother. Diem, Jennie, and Lisa met my grandmother for the first time while celebrating her 90 birthday. It’s difficult to express the amount of emotion one can experience in these once-in-a-lifetime interactions. It was the cliche whirlwind of existence for a month. But eventually, things would fall into the routine everyone finds themselves in when carrying on in America. School, work, friends, family, and adventure.

The most wonderful time of the year

the lesser holidays

We have silly holidays, don’t deny it. I sometimes pause when I begin to explain a holiday to a 10-year-old who has never heard of such a thing. It sounds strange to me. Well, there’s a magic rabbit called the Easter Bunny. And he sits in some underground dwelling, no doubt in the forest of the Keebler elves, somewhere outside Montpelier, Vermont, manufacturing Easter Candy to rot out your teeth so the Tooth Fairy can clean up on some dental recycling racket. It’s a cut-throat world out there. The best is explaining to Diem why we have proportioned others’ holidays for the sole purpose of excuses to drink. Queue up St. Patty’s day and Cinco de Mayo. The American holiday experience is a strange thing.

The 4th

Sometimes you just get an awakening moment. American independence day is an easy enough concept. Every country has a birthday or some sort of holiday to commemorate the birth of their nation. But what caught me by surprise, and I’m ignorant for not considering it, is that our history is not the world’s history. I sat open-mouthed and dumbfounded when Diem asked me who America had to fight for independence? Indeed America has always been more powerful than its opponents. Even though Vietnam eventually expelled the American forces, they still acknowledged American military superiority. An interesting dynamic in the outside world’s perspective of America. The thought that it ever had to fight anyone for its independence was ludicrous to Diem. Asia is so big that North America’s and Europe’s affairs have been unimportant until colonialism caused the two worlds to collide. And for The United States to be formed out of this colonialism. There is much to teach and just as much to learn.

Lunar New Year, Tet.

Of course, we had to find a local deli pumping out classics for the Lunar New year. So we put out a traditional spread and had an otherwise relaxing day.

Do we really need stinking papers?

The one thing I have discovered that is absolutely overly complex and a nightmare to deal with is one’s immigration paperwork. Or anything involving the government, really. The social security cards were printed wrong. We had to reorder those. Twice. The immigration officer at the border station at the airport in Atlanta assured us that everything was done on our end and resident cards were on the way. They never came. A little digging discovered that the consulate in Saigon was supposed to collect the fee for the cards to be printed. No one ever asked us for the said fee.

It was several hundred dollars a card. Surprise. Of course, we paid it immediately, and the cards were printed. They arrived incorrectly. Shocking. The middle names were juxtaposed with the first name. After already having so many issues from Saigon to now, our immigration attorney said it was probably fine as it was really semantics, so there’s that. Everything in the U.S. would be done off of the residency cards. So it just meant Diem’s driver’s license would have the same name switch. But at this point, what does it matter as long as every document is filled out with the juxtaposed names from now on. Easier than trying to get it fixed at this point. After some discussion, we agreed with our attorney’s assessment. What did it matter?

The cult of tanning

I’ve written in great depth about the strange clash of cultures between east and west, particularly in the skincare industry. You can’t help but notice the countless tanning products that line the shelves across America. I’ve studied this phenomenon to great lengths in my travels—massive international beauty companies doubling down on a paradoxical expanse between east and west. In the east, to be tanned is hopelessly attached to the concept of poverty. The darker your skin, the lower on the social ranking you will find yourself. From what I can tell, this is an underlying symptom of fading colonialism, particularly in Southeast Asia. You had the wealthy elite, often European, that spent their days in villas sheltered from the baking Indochina sun. In comparison, the impoverished working class toiled their days away in the relentless sun.

This clear division between light and dark, have, and have-nots still permeate society. The burgeoning middle class in Vietnam has begun to move inside working tech jobs and as machine operators in the exploding industrial economy. Thus, the agriculture workers remain tanned and toiled in the lower castes of a society still figuring itself out. The first time I shopped for toiletries in the land of the dragon people, I was taken aback by the countless whitening creams, masks, and every other whitening product. Everything sold with a whitening label, from shampoo to deodorant, lotions to body wash. And everything was made by the same companies that make tanning products. Have we lost our minds?

Tanning in America

On the other side of the coin, I can only throw conjecture as to why tanning has become such a sign of beauty in America. Maybe it’s because we’ve moved past the agricultural needs for labor. You hear of migrant workers, but it seems they are mostly immigrants. Not too many Americans can be found bent over in fields tending crops. So the average American may spend their days indoors. Sitting at desks, waiting tables, working at factories, and countless other indoor jobs. To have a well-managed tan is to have time to do so. To seemingly be in an upper caste. Beyond the need for daily work, the tanned and toned body is developed from harnessing leisure time. Something not many of us may have to devote to such a fruitless activity. A tan does not pay the bills. And so the tan is king. But this, of course, is a theory.

So with great support and comforting gestures, I assured Lisa that the beautiful bronzing she had experienced splashing in the sun in her pool, mind you, was a sign of good times and not a handicap. It took more reassurance than I would have liked. At the beginning of summer, Lisa began to assuage the subtle jabs on her tan from her friends back home by opting out of swimming. Seeing her sit in the window watching everyone have fun was almost heartbreaking. But we nurtured as well as we could, and the overwhelming desire to have fun has begun to win out. Who cares what anyone thinks. Be you and have fun.

Spring and Summer

Poolside snacks.

Those first-time experiences

Speaking of those first-time experiences, it snowed a few days after we arrived. I could have never planned that out. I thought we would be lucky to see snow in the first few years. However, we did not have to wait. Though it was pretty awesome, the cold was still, at that time, a very new and curious thing. It never dropped below 60 degrees at any time that we lived in Asia. The girls had never experienced cold weather, and they were none too impressed at first. I still don’t think Diem is fond of the crisp wind and piercing cold. But who is?

The cold is something I don’t think will ever be resolved. Diem is always cold. I’m not sure if she’ll ever be warm again. If it’s hot outside, it’s too cold inside. When it’s cool inside, it’s freezing outside. If it’s 90 degrees outside and I’ve got the zoned air conditioning in the car on full blast, Diem’s in the passenger seat with the seat heater on full blast and hot air bellowing on her side. The grocery stores, clothing stores, doctor’s offices, and furniture stores to Diem are cold. Life in both a natural and artificial climate of cold. Then again, laying around in sweat-inducing conditions is not the American way. And so I introduce dressing in layers.

On the First day of school

Diem was not keen on the girls riding the bus. The concept of the local government taking on the responsibility of transporting your child back and forth to school is unheard of. I had to explain in great detail the lengths the systems go to make them safe and secure. Not passing buses with red lights flashing. How the stop sign on the bus is the law. It yields to no man. The bus is the safest route to school. She was amazed at the importance society puts on protecting our school buses. When she saw it in person as a child was getting picked up on a nearby highway, and everyone on the road stopped. Diem liked the way we did things here with school transportation. Unique and effective, the classic American yellow school bus.

Post cretaceous America

One thing that I particularly found cute and unexpected where the fascination with small mammals. There aren’t really a ton of small mammals in Southeast Asia. Mostly rats and monkeys. The former is everywhere. The latter often hide around and only make their presence known when scavenging for food on the edges of the neighborhoods. It never dawned on me that squirrels would be such an oddity. Or the deer struck in the road in front of our house. As they got off the bus, the girls had to inspect it daily. To log its progress as it slowly decomposed to a few scattered bones. I’ve often found the girls sitting in the bay window staring at the squirrels as they hop and scurry around the yard.

When thinking back on our time in Vietnam, I don’t recall any small furry animals dotting the roads. Mostly just rats and lizards that cannot navigate traffic and end up as roadkill. However, I did see squirrels twice in Southeast Asia. Once in the mountains of northern Thailand. I remember sitting at a restaurant in Chiang Mai and Diem commenting on a squirrel she saw hop a power line. She was intent on showing me, but he was too fast. I should have realized her intense fascination at the time was due to its novelty. The other time I saw a squirrel in Southeast Asia was in the mountain city of Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak province, Vietnam. However, these particular rodents were on the menu. A dish at a wedding party we attended last summer.

Summer Camp

There aren’t too many things that conjure up the classic American coming of age story, like a good ol’ trip to summer camp. A deeply connected and invariably unique American summer break experience. So much has been written about the event. From countless movies, television, and literature, it’s something most Americans can at least relate to in some way—band camp, scout camp, basketball camp, wilderness camp, and so on. In movies like Meatballs, Earnest goes to camp, and The Parent Trap, one can’t deny the ubiquitous nature of American culture and Summer Camp.

So with a bit of reluctance, Diem is freaking out, and Jennie was none too happy, and with a ton of excitement on my part, we dropped Lisa off for a fantastic slice of the American experience, Summer Camp. I can’t wait to hear how much fun she has. The thought of sending your children off to the woods in the hottest part of the summer to stay with strangers is an absurd concept to the non-western mind. So why on earth would anybody do such a thing? Because it’s so much fun and an incredible experience for all involved. Some of the best memories of my youth involved summer camp. I’m sure it’s the same for many of you. 

Everything is so far away.

Early on, a couple of months after we arrived, I asked Diem what something that surprised her the most about living in America was. Her response was simply everything is so far. It’s so true. The design and way people live revolves around rice cultivation in Vietnam. It produces a very interesting rural landscape. The need to cultivate, and cultivate every inch of usable land in Vietnam, forces settlements into very regular and predictable patterns. The communities that cultivate their designated plot will always group their homes and support businesses together to maximize fields for the flood. It’s more economical to have a small settlement in the middle of a large collective of rice fields than to spread them out amongst them particularly when you need to flood the areas several times a year.

This means that from any given house in Vietnam, you can walk to anything you might need. A cup of coffee, a bowl of noodles, and some hardware to fix a cabinet can usually be procured from a few minutes walk. The uncultivated nature of the American landscape, and trust me, outside the great plains, there’s a lot of untouched land across America, is to others, unfathomable. The notion of owning land and not cultivating it is an entirely unknown concept. These large tracts create vast distances between towns and cities—something you don’t see outside of the protected forests and parks in Southeast Asia. The sight of endless forests and 30 miles being a run to town are awe-inspiring to Diem and the girls. They see America much as I saw Vietnam in the early days of my time living there, a land almost too big to touch.

The culture of cultivation

That, too, is part of the Vietnamese paradigm that opposes the American model of open ranges and vast National parks. In Vietnam, every inch, including your balcony, is cultivated. We grew plants and raised catfish on our old rooftop patio in Son Tra. The catfish was on the menu on a few all-nighters in typhoon season. Everything except the oil and salt came from the building. A reality that was not hard to find in Vietnam but widely unheard of in the states.

One of my fondest memories in Vietnam involves such an event. We were sitting on a porch at the edge of the emerald rice fields in Binh Dinh province just after nightfall. Someone mentioned they were hungry. Our friend disappeared into the pitch black that lay beyond the reach of the porch light. She reemerged moments later with a curious chicken in one arm and kindling to start a fire in the other. In 30 minutes, we were enjoying fresh grilled chicken on the fantastic winter night. A sight that is very common in Vietnam.

Atlanta

Living so close to Atlanta, it was only common sense to jump in to get some feel of the profoundly cultural Deep South. There’s no place on earth like Georgia. For all its good and bad, it’s a place that permeates a genuine concept of American culture. Peach pie, coke, Braves, United, Falcons, the dirty south, the deep south, Delta, Hartsfield-Jackson, Chick-fil-A, there is so much that is uniquely Georgia and Atlanta.

Spring Break 2022, we started with the basics and booked an Airbnb downtown. It had been many years since I cruised the streets of the city I had called home for decades. For over 20 years, I had toiled in the recesses of a kitchen somewhere in this city. We were helming a pirate ship of miscreants, mercenaries, and professionals. A strange menagerie of people from wildly diverse backgrounds. Restaurants are the melting pots of society.

Zoo Atlanta

The Georgia Aquarium.

Birthday’s

Food

I think at this point, it goes without saying that a lot of what I mean by seeing the south is eating its food. You can find the most authentic Vietnamese on Buford highway to the Varsity and much in between. I had just as much fun eating as I did visit the zoo or the aquarium. However, the zoo has done much in the way of improvements. Nice African exhibit. We did something I had never done in Atlanta. Spent a vacation there. Snacks at Ponce City Market, breakfast at Metro Diner, The Varsity, the 57th to see some old friends, plaza fiesta, it was a sight to see.

It has been an adventure with many adventures in America to come, I am sure. But, it’s been such a joy experiencing America through children’s eyes for the first time. Through the eyes of an adult as Diem learns to find her way. She recently received her learners’ license and drives us around occasionally. Soon she will be taking her driving test. I’m, in many ways, still readjusting myself and trying to adapt some of the great things I learned while living in Vietnam. To take things more casually, to be more pragmatic. A trait Diem has, and I deeply admire. This is how it is, and you can’t change it, so let’s move on.

Food and Family.

It’s a strange thing for me too. This new world, this new life. A new career. No more coming home late at night smelling of fish and raw meat. Pants legs soaked from the spraying of floors. Exhausted from the countless nights before. In some ways, I miss it. The bloodshot haze of working over several days during the holiday season’s crunch with only time to nap in the catering van. Pumping out a thousand covers on Thanksgiving day. The joys of the kitchen battlefield. The burns, cuts, damaged egos, and crushed hearts when we just didn’t make the mark on an insanely busy Saturday night. The pain of defeat and the highs of success. When that event’s execution goes flawless, the client puts an extra $500 in your thank you letter. Then, it’s a round at the bar for all involved that night. Here, here!

However, food remains a driving force in everything I do. I will never escape it. And that’s okay. It is my most important job still. To ensure my family has the best diet a growing and thriving family could ever need. I prepare a meal from scratch almost every day. And requests are always welcome from Maggie’s wild cravings for Mexican and spicy noodles to Jennie and Lisa’s love of caramelized eggs and pork belly. Anything is possible at our table. If you ever wanted to read about that world particularly. Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen confidential will shed light on the world of the restaurant. Nothing gives me greater joy than cooking great food for people. Now I do it professionally for my family. In my mind, there is not a greater honor.

Diem can often be found riding in the passenger seat, eating.

American adventures

Lisa returns from camp this weekend, and then it’s Maggie’s turn. After that, it’s off on our first family summer vacation! Super exciting. And to continue with our tour of America, we will be heading to the oldest city in the United States. The old Spanish Mission turned modern American city. St. Augustine, Florida. We’ll explore old Spanish forts, Pirate museums, Ponce De Leon’s fountain of youth, a good Alligator show (you can’t get more Florida than that), and as much time in the sand as mother nature will allow. Oh, and lots and lots of food.

For the stories of Typhoons and Pandemics abroad, check out the Dragon Diaries here.