For many root-forget-er like Jim, April 30 remain a day of mystery; to some this day is a day of hatred, a day to be condemned forever as the day that Vietnam no longer be a country; and to others it’s a day of celebration, a day to cheers that Vietnam unified as one.
Jim doesn’t know whether to pickup a bottle of campaign and toast for his Vietnam as its merged into one, unlike North and South Korea. Or to pickup that yellow and red stripes flag, head to city hall, screams with others demanding freedom for this poor southeast Asian country of his. Jim’s generation too young to remember the horror of war and too old to know that he’s carrying the blood of “Con Rong Chao Tien” (in short, it means children of heaven).
Jim’s torn between his two different self. Part of him angry for the invisible hands that drove him to leave his native land and the Vietnam that he was born and raised and love. Those memories would forever be part of his past. Jim’s blood boils for the fact that the many poor farmers still struggled in the field and the rich have started driving BMW, Mercedes and enjoyed premium beers in high end brothels house that sprang up in the metropolitan city of Ho Chi Minh City formerly known as Saigon, where a single beer cost more than his Engineering’s hourly salary. Where is the equality that have been promised, the communal theory that so many bloodshed have been spilled on our ancestor’s land?
Once said and done, and the dust settled, Jim’s happy that Vietnam is finally an independent country. Where its people no longer colonized by some other country, where they are not a puppet by any other foreign state. Where the people are free to make a choice without the influent by anyone else. Even thought, some of that decision may turn out to be bad, but that is freedom is all about: it’s the right to make stupid decision, because that’s how we, as human being, learned. As the children of Vietnam, we’re no longer be divided like the story of our forefather – we are the one and only, Vietnam. No more South or North. No more Democracy and no more Communism. Just Vietnam.
After more than 35 years in this cold, North American country, and every single year since his boy, Colin, arrived 10 years ago, Jim has only one wish on this day. April 30th. He wish that his people, Vietnamese people, can be united under one flag, can sing the same song, and eat at the same table. Because Jim wants to teach his children the colorful heritage of his generation but every time he went on to show them, he is confused of the question, why we as the children of Lac Long Quan and Au Co (the mystic version of Adam and Eve from Vietnam) still fighting each other? Not with machine guns or bombs anymore but with words and deeds. Why demand freedom when no such thing exist? And why jail people when they write song that certain people disagree?
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