2.5 Sticky Rice cake (or Banh Chung)

In my early childhood,
Growing up in the west,
Mother used to pack our lunch,
With these square sticky rice cakes,
Pan fried,
Sliced in triangles,
Wrapped in banana leaves.

The banana leaves 
Gave the sticky rice cake or "bang chung"
A savory fresh flavor,
Which contrasted with the crispy,
Crunchiness of the fried outside skin.

Inside the cake, pressed between
Layers of glutinous sticky rice, 
engulfed in it,
a filling of bean paste,
with small bits of pork meat,
Amply seasoned with eastern spices.

With a bit of fish sauce dipping,
We've tasted heaven.
Banh Chung is normally served
Within the days of the lunar new year.

During lunch time at school,
When we opened our lunch box,
Attempt to unwrap our cakes,
The other children would tease us,
Tell us it looked funny.

For the color of the banana leaves,
Infused into the skin of the rice cake,
Gave it an alien green color.

Although we did love the sticky rice cakes,
We had to tell mother to stop.
Since then we ate our cakes,
Enjoying them with only our close ones.

2.4 Boy from across the creek

Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable,
and unfortunately there is no doubt
that life does not spare its purest children 
and often it is just the most deserving people 
who cannot help loving those that destroy them.
~ Hermann Hesse

There is this boy, 
from across the creek.
He is a boy from the west,
But lives on the south side
Of this creek,
Near the sandy beaches.

On the north side of the creek,
Where the majestic boat docks,
And rolling mountains on the back drop,
Lives a girl of the east.

Both the boy and the girl,
Have the perfect life.
Perfect place,
Perfect friends,
Perfect family,
Perfect job,
Perfect suitors.

She think she loves this boy,
from across the creek.
But in reality, 
she only loves the idea of him.
He seemed to be the perfect muse.
She uses him to be her muse,
In her writing, in her art.

She sees a picture of him.
His photo annoys her to death.
She is cursing at him, inside,
Cursing at his sneaky grin,
Cursing at his silliness,
Cursing at his distancing lecture.

On other days,
When she is more dreamy,
She sees the boy in a more rosy light.
Then she would idealize him,
Place him on a pedestal.
Dream about being with him.

He opens his mouth,
Then the dreamy bubble burst.
She curses him again,
For bursting her bubble.

One day,
She decides to move away.
Move away from the creek,
Move away from him,
Move away from all the noise,
Far, far away, to the east.

2.3 God's Rescue

Using our nepotic ties,
We were able to cross over to the West.
Others were rescued by God's messenger.
Families, who were once Buddhist,
Now prays to a new God of the West.

One day, when I was five,
I wandered throughout the intermittent camp and
Stumbled upon a church.
As I peaked in, I saw
People walking in a line,
Towards a priest in a dark robe.
He held out a bowel,
Inside, with round white flakes.

I merged into the moving line,
Motioned towards the priest.
As I opened my mouth,
Closed my eyes,
I received a light tasteless flake.

Being the ignorant child that I was,
I ran back to the line again,
Moved up towards the priest,
And again, opened my mouth,
Closed my eyes.
He recognized me,
Pats me on the head,
No sacred bread.

My good friend Lan and her family
Was rescued by one of God's messenger.
Her family was fortunate,
To be rescued by a church in the West.

After the cross over to the west,
She was to attend Sunday mass,
And were told many puzzling stories,
That women, including young girls
Grew out of men's rib cage.
That Eve, gave Adam the poisoned apple,
Which is how only men had the adam's apple.

If all these were true,
And women grew out of a men,
Then womem must belong to men.

2.2 Escapes in Despair

Our family did miraculously escape.
We escaped the waves of the South China Sea,
The despair of being separated from loved ones,
The lost of lives, lost limbs, retained dignity.

Stories of others were not so reassuring.
Once, I had a friend who told me of the lost
of her five year old brother.
The pirates came, took everything,
Including the boy.

From that day forward,
Her father stopped eating meat.
He prayed everyday for the safety of the boy.
He prayed that they would take him in,
Raised him as their own.
That was all he could ask for from God.

There were stories of families,
Running in the night,
Crossing the train tracks,
A young toddler falls,
The on-coming train took both of his legs.

Decades later, 
Ti and I would see him walking,
With artificial limbs,
We saw him walk with a sort of bounce
Across the street.

There were stories with violent,
Which flared up from a camp in Hong Kong,
One day the riot started
And not one woman was spared from rape.
After that incident, 
the camp was closed down.
All refugees were sent back to their home country.

2.1 Of Beauty

I could get it wrong, 
could think I'm beautiful,
Like women who really are beautiful,
Like women who are looked at,
Just because people really do look at me a lot.
What I want to seem,
I do seem,
Beautiful too if people want me to be.
~ Marguerite Duras

I was average looking as a young girl,
But there was something about me,
That stood out -the breast.
They started to develop at age eleven.

By the time I was in junior high,
I had C-cup size breast,
In a petit body.
Those who did not know me,
Would ask my friends if they were real.
Older men would look at them.

Once in my early twenties,
I followed a wedding party
To this beautiful park named after a queen.

As my partner and I  stood aside,
For another wedding party to pass,
The groom seemed to have caught a glimpse of me,
And my large, voluptuous breast.
He couldn't stop staring.

As you can imagine,
The horrifying look on his bride,
Dragging her groom down the garden path.
It must have been at least 20 feet,
And an angry bride in white
Before the staring stopped.

Puzzled, I turned to my partner,
I asked him why is the groom staring at us?
My partner responded that the groom,
Must have been an old friend from long ago.

2.0 A profound sadness

"Perhaps our eyes need to be washed with our tears once in a while,
so we can see our Life with a clearer view." ~ Alex Tan

This profound sadness,
Engulfs me,
Takes a hold of me.
For no apparent reason,
I am sadden,
In mourning.
But I've lost nothing.

It is the heaviness of the heart,
Like weights placed on the chest.
The shortness of breath.
Emotions, tears wants to spill out,
But for no logical reasons.
There is no purpose to release them.
I wonder if this is a sign,
Of a lost I am unaware of.

1.9 Our Lost, Father's side

On my father's side,
We were once well-to-do,
However, by the time father was born,
The family had lost everything.

Father was also the third child.
He had two older brothers.
And used to have two older sisters,
But both had passed on earlier in life,
Due to chronic diabetes.

Grandfather owned a tea manufacturing plant.
They sold all types of tea leaves.
Occasionally, they would drop
A gold coin Into the tea packets.
Our tea bags, suddenly turned
Into lottery tickets.

One day Grandfather decided
to take on a second wife.
From that day and onward,
Grandmother started to gamble.
Her gambling got worse as the days pass.
Eventually, there was nothing left.
They couldn't even take care of father,
They sent him to live 
With a distant uncle.

During those early years,
He would go to school during the day.
In the evening he would work,
Folding tea bags into the night.

Once I had a glimpse of a photograph
Of father when he was ten years old.
He was the only kid in the group
that wore a black shirt.
The rest wore all white.
I figured it was because the family,
Was too poor to buy him white shirts.

1.8 Our Lost, Mother's side

During the years of the communist revolution,
A dark cloud hovered over our little house
next to the small lake.
My family, on my mother's side,
Were considered of the bourgeoisie class.

Grandfather had a lucrative business of 
Importing medicine from France.
As I recalled my mother's words,
Were that He was very handsome,
And well to-do.
Even with a handful of children,
Women seemed to flock to him.

At the time, mother was six years old,
Communist came and took everything.
Grandmother was quick enough,
To have run upstairs,
Place a box of jewelry,
Under mother's shirt,
And instruct her to head over,
To Auntie Mung's house.

That little box fed the entire family of ten,
For at least a year.
Along with our possessions,
They took my beloved grandfather.
Charged for being a capitalist bourgeoisie.

In the years leading to my grandfather's death,
Mother would frequently take trips,
To visit him at the prison.
Eventually, he passed on.

My only memory of him,
Is a black and white photo,
Placed in our shrine.
On occasions, We prayed to him,
To our past ancestors,
In the anniversary year of his death.

Although I had never had a chance,
To meet him in this life time,
I did recalled one time,
I saw him briefly a while back,
His face was superimposed on a man,
I once loved.

1.7 The Fortune Tellers

1.7 The Fortune Tellers

Over sixty years ago,
In the Old Quarters of Hanoi,
My grandmother had her first born, a girl.
Her second, third and fourth,
Continued to be all girls.
My mother was the third child.

Tired and exhausted,
Grandmother consulted a fortune teller.
He told her that in order for her to bear a son,
She must adopt a boy.

Grandmother followed his advice and
Within the next few years,
She bore five more children,
All of them baby boys.

There were many more predictions
To come.
Both joyful and painful events.
From large lotto winnings,
To deaths of close ones.
All seemed to have come true.

1.6 The Song Sheets

Yes, we were poor.
But we were not under-privileged to say the least.
By the time I was eight and Ti was six,
They bought us a brand new upright piano.

Piano lessons were expensive,
So each week,
When we paid a visit to our italian teacher,
Mr. Cruz.
He needed to pass us,
On each song sheet,
At each lesson,
We passed,
That saved us from the belt.
And a whole lot of crying and pleading.

Ti had mechanically light fingers,
Where I had soft fingers.
She excelled in her fast paced allegros.
Teased me with her staccatos,
While stoically, effortlessly,
Maintained composure.

My hands, on the other hand moved
To a slower pace,
So I leveraged the only thing I had,
My feelings, the emotions from within.

By the time we reached grade one,
Of our Royal Conservatory  Music book,
The song sheets were more complicated.
We were expected to play by hart,
To play from our memories.

We were never told,
That it would have taken one year,
To perfect five to six chosen song sheet,
Before we are to enter into our grade one examination.

As usual,
We frantically practiced,
An hour, Two hours a day,
Hoping for our teacher to pass us,
At each lesson,
On to the next song sheet.

By the sixth song,
Of the grade one royal conservatory music book,
He stopped giving us new songs.
We were in a hell of a lot of trouble!
We pleated to him to give us more songs.

After a few belting, pleading and crying episodes,
It all came out,
Mr. Cruz explained to father that,
We no longer needed new songs,
As we were to take our first piano examination with months.

1.5 The Sacrifice

You would have thought,
that those who left,
Were of the marginal kind.
Those who had little to sacrifice for.
It was not so.

Did you ever heard,
That In the west,
There were indian taxi drivers,
With medical degrees?

University Professors from a foreign land,
Who worked in restaurants, washing dishes?

The same sacrifice were made for us.
It was all for the future generations,
To bring us to the west,
To grant us freedom,
On the condition that our parents,
Gives up the prestige of their previous profession,
And to accept a low level, low paying job.
It was all, really for us, for the children.

In return, the children too,
Must make sacrifices.
While other children were out,
Playing after school,
Watching television,
Doing homework,
We toiled away,
Helping our mother and father,
In our part-time jobs they've created for us.

1.4 The Reunion

Long ago,  men went to sea, and women waited for them,
Standing on the edge of the water,
Scanning the horizon for the tiny ship.
      ~ Audrey Niffenegger

It was well known, 
That many men who left their wives,
To cross over,
Rarely comes back.

They often re-marry,
Have new lives,
New families,
In a new land.

Soon after my father had left,
My mother and my younger sister,Ti,
stayed behind in Saigon.
They waited in sadness.

Six months later,
Mother was determined to follow.
She would have taken the same routes,
Sail on a rickety old boat,
To cross the South China Sea.
Arms embracing my little sister,
At the time, at the age of three.

They were lost at sea for days, weeks.
Food was running out.
It was surely the survival of the fittest,
And in their starvation, 
the strong steals from the weak.

A beautiful child will get fed,
Over an ugly child.
Luckily, my sister was blessed,
With light white skin,
Pink supple lips,
Round dark eyes,
And curly brown locks,
Like those of a baby doll.

But beauty can be a two edge sword.
By the time the fishermen came for them,
They too noticed my sister's 
Supple lips,
Her smooth skin,
And dark round eyes.

One Thai fishermen proposed
To my mother,
If it was possible for her to hand over her child,
In exchange for a necklace,
Made of gold.
He explained, that he too has a son,
At about the same age.
And my sister would one day,
Make a beautiful bride for his son.

That must have been a terrifying situation for her.
Because when my mother and sister,
Finally arrived at the very same camp,
Where we were at,
Mother would not let Ti
Leave her side.
It was miraculous that our family reunited.

1.3 The Rescue

After being stranded for days at sea,
a fishing boat came to our rescue.
While leaping over from the rusty old ship,
To the fishing boat, I slipped,
And fell into the ocean.

I could hear my father screaming
frantically in vain.
Fortunately, 
one of the younger fishermen dived
Into the ocean.
Grabbed me,
And I was rescued,
Safe and sound.

In return for saving us from death at sea,
We were to surrender all our belongings.
My father and uncle,
Had already foreseen such a risk,
And had gold leaves and threads sewn,
Into the hems of our sleeves,
Into and around our shirts.

Finally, we were brought to land,
They brought us to a camp.
This was an interment camp,
For refugees like us.
I remembered a logo,
Of a globe,
With two hands holding a globe.
It was the logo of the United Nation refugee agency.

Every morning,
Father would bring me to line up for milk.
He would have his morning conversation,
With a Vietnamese lady,
And I would give her the evil eye,
hoping she would stay away.

Each night, I would ask him,
Where's mother?
When am I going to see her?

1.2 The Escape

Over three decades ago, 
Father along with my uncle Phe,
Decided that in order for us to have a better life,
We must escape the city of Saigon.

The escape entails us leaving our homes,
Leaving mother and little sister Ti behind,
Treading through the mashes,
Boarding a rusty old ship,
And sailing across the South China Sea.

I was about five at the time,
And still have some memories,
Of that frightening ordeal.

It would occur at night,
Father and I,
Along with my two cousins, 
Danh and Trinh,
Would have board,
That rickety old boat one daunting evening,
Risk our lives to cross over.

Normally, an escape like this,
would be lead by a ship captain.
The rusty old ship,
would only be strong enough,
to carry us over,
And then discarded at sea,
once it reaches it's destination.

Sometimes, the engine of the old ships would die,
in the middle of the ocean.
Some are lost at sea for weeks,
leaving the boat dwellers,
Starved, Thirsty and disillusioned.

When our engine broke down,
And we drifted for days,
We all just had to patiently wait.

Once, there was a gigantic oil tanker,
That passed us by.
We screamed at the top of our lungs,
But to no avail, it kept on going.

1.1 The Reflection

One Day in my youth,
I saw a portrait of myself.
Almost like a reflection,
My face was looking up.
Adorned in a wedding gown.
The expression at the time, 
was of hopeless confinement.

I was trapped in that picture,
I looked out into the world,
Unknown, waiting to be explored.
A month later, I informed my partner,
Of my decision not to proceed with the wedding.

Almost a decade later, 
I am staring at another portrait,
Hand drawn by a famous artist in Nha Trang.
Yet, it is not a portrait of myself,
But of a man I believe to love,
The picture I gave the artist,
Was of an exceptionally handsome man,
With kind eyes and perfect features.

The Portrait drawing, however,
Was of a sly man with shady features.
The left side of his face was thug-like,
It over takes the right side,
Almost completely.
The right side, Hiding behind,
With child-like eyes.

I was puzzled when I saw the portrait.
Slightly disappointed.
And as the picture predicted,
Nothing has yet to materialize between us.