Leaving to find a new home and returning to find a lost heart Bittersweet Journey Home and About the Family are two articles written by Tu-Anh Nguyen. The articles describe her trip leaving Vietnam and coming back to visit Vietnam. The article Bittersweet Journey Home is about Tu-Anh Nguyens trip back to Vietnam with her family and the article About the Family is about her trip to the United States. After reading the article Bittersweet Journey Home, it made me realize how Tu-Anhs journey is so identical to my parents journey. Like Tu-Anhs family, my family also escaped to the United States. My parents, my older brother, my grandparents, and some relatives all left Cambodia in 1978. They walked through and lived in the jungle with little food and some personal belongings until they got to Thailand.
My mother said that they had to sleep on grounds filled with insects and snakes. She had to take turns carrying her oldest son at the age of almost two with my father. When they got to Thailand, just like Tu-Anhs family, they were luckily able to go to the Philippines where there was a refugee camp. My mother was pregnant with me when she was in the Philippines. A month after I was born, our family was sponsored by an American couple and their church in San Diego. When we were on the plane, my mother, grandmother and I took a picture.
Looking at the picture now, I noticed how excited and happy they were. I was just a little infant in my mothers arms. We lived with our sponsors until my father had found a steady job. Similar to Tu-Anhs family, we came to the United States with nothing. After two years, my parents had another baby which is my younger brother. They saved enough money to rent a donut shop and started a career. Today, my parents are now in the Jewelry business.
My younger brother and I both go to San Diego State University. My older brother is a Gemoligist currently working in Downtown. In the article About the Family, it stated that Dong Nguyen graduated from Pennsylvania State University and eventually became a software developer(Nguyen 123).
Tu-Anhs family is succeeding and living a better life just like mine. According to the article Bittersweet Journey Home, Tu-Anh went back to Vietnam to visit her home country. Her experience was again like my familys.
My little brother and I had the chance to go back to Cambodia with my parents. This trip was also like Le Ly Hayslips trip to Vietnam, in the book When Heaven and Earth change places. Like Hayslip, my parents were scared of not being able to get in Cambodia because of their escape. But everything turned out just fine. We saw bicycles, cars, mopeds, pedestrians and cyclos all intertwining with no rules and regulations of the roads. I have never seen so many homeless people in my life.
I felt sorry for the children in the streets who were starving. My family and I spent two weeks passing out pocket change to the beggars. I have never seen my parents cried so much when they met relatives. My younger brother and I started to cry with them. I found myself lucky because I lived in the U.S. I was lucky because I had nice clean streets to drive on, a five-bedroom house, toys when I was little, food to eat every day, and clothes to wear.
These kids had nothing except ragged old clothes and left over food from the markets. It was such an impact that I began to cry. Nguyen described the buildings as Three-story houses stand wall to wall along the streets. The ground levels are used as businesses; the upper floors are living quarters(Nguyen 116).
Her description was exactly the same as the buildings I saw in Cambodia. Nguyens experiences are almost exactly like my familys experiences. Reading the articles made me feel like the time my parents told me about their arrival to the United States.
It also related to the time when my family and I went to Cambodia to visit. This shows that many people who had escaped from their homeland to the United States experienced almost the exact same things. I really treasure my trip to Cambodia because it was an experience I will never forget. About the Family RWS Writing. Ed. Cassie Doerfling.
San Diego: KB Books, 2000 (123).
Bittersweet Journey Home RWS Writing. Ed. Cassie Doerfling. San Diego: KB Books, 2000 (115).
Nie, Marlene W.
Plane picture Photo Album. Ed. Marlene Wu Nie. San Diego, 1980 Nie, Megan. Interview with Marlene Wu Nie Interview Ed. Megan Nie.
San Diego, 2000