Page 6 of A Banh Mi for Two
“Stop it, Cindy!” a voice squeaks from across the street.
They must be the international students, judging from the way they’re gawking at the city. A Vietnamese girl stands out from the group, though I can tell she’s American based on her accent. Overseas Vietnamese come all the time, always trickling into the city either because of nostalgia and a filial duty to visit, or simply because they want to strut the streets with accents and designer clothes. They’re not hard to spot. Like Má says, Vietnamese recognizes Vietnamese.
I tear my gaze from the students, but not before catching the girl’s eyes on me, too. Maybe she’s curious, Má’s words echo in my head.
Well, at least her curiosity led her somewhere. My curiosity could hardly afford a flight outside of Vi?t Nam.
With one look back at the stall, I slip into the maze of streets. Navigating Sài Gòn thrills me. My body twists and turns through the motorbikes, each step almost like a dance. Lanterns line the streets as the city readies itself for T?t Trung Thu, the Mid-Autumn Festival. A goldfish lantern glimmers on the side of a shop, its holographic scales reflecting the evening sun. Grief creeps up my spine. Chinatown lion dancing. Me on Ba’s shoulders, reaching for the sky and the lanterns above us.
Another Trung Thu without him.
Instead of hurrying home, my feet take me to the nearby park as I spy the sunset and its red hues looming over the Sài Gòn skyline. I watch kids flying their kites nearby, some riding bikes with kites strapped to their backs. I make my way toward the street food vendors, settling on cá viên chiên before sliding onto a blue plastic stool and feeling lonelier than usual.
The worker slides a piping-hot plate of fish balls onto my tiny table. I snap photos of the plate from different angles, rearranging the brown, white, and orange fish balls for maximum effect. After almost a hundred photos, I pick the picture of me holding the plate against the pink sunset, editing its saturation and vibrancy before tapping share on Instagram.
I open my phone and stare at the submission announcement again. Instead of sleeping last night, my head swam through different ideas. Maybe a story about the lemon trees by the Amalfi Coast. The grand Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. Or even California, where most Vietnamese Americans are, with the ocean at their doorstep and—well, I don’t know what else. ’Cause I’ve never been.
The submission requirement is one story, one piece with the following theme: The Most Beautiful City in the World. The grand prize is a feature on the Southeast Asia Travel Magazine website and a grant that would keep our business afloat for at least a year. Má wouldn’t have to take special orders late in the day anymore, and maybe we could close early some days, too.
If Ba was still with us, would he encourage me to enter—to write? Would he believe in me?
Ba, I miss you.
I let the thought sink in, allowing it to course through my mind for the first time in months. When you miss someone, you want to be with them. But no flights can take me to him.
My feet carry me to the edge of the park, where the synthetic grass meets the river. I pick up a rock and release it from my hand, watching it bounce atop the murky water before sinking, invisible beneath the lotuses.
The day’s heat is simmering down as the sun starts to sink below the Sài Gòn skyline. Swirling the straw around inside the coconut with one hand, I click my pen with the other and begin to write, all while the Vietnamese American girl’s face floats into my head. I wonder why she’s here, and why so many people come to this city.
But that’s not my business.
Chapter FourVIVI
I’m not used to being around this many people. And I’ve definitely never been around this many people that look like me.
Living in Little Saigon was almost like living in a bubble—Vietnamese spoken at every turn, Vietnamese mom-and-pop shops at every corner, and Vietnamese kids being the majority at the local high schools. Still, my little bubble can’t compare to the enormousness of Sài Gòn.
People speed by on motorbikes, grunting over potholes. They laugh with friends at food stalls and dodge traffic like experts. A whole new world I’ve never known, never grew up with. It’s overwhelming, but I’m so glad I’m here.
I chew on the twenty-hour-old bánh bao that Mom packed for me. She ran out early yesterday morning just to get me my favorite food before my flight. But the bao tastes like rubber—too cold, too stale—and not the same as when she’d make them every Friday with pork, spices, Chinese sausage, and quail eggs.
I wonder if Mom knows the best bánh bao spots in Sài Gòn; if she even remembers. It’s hard to imagine Mom as the girl in the photos buried inside her closet, smiling beneath the same Vi?t Nam sun as me. I haven’t ever seen her smile like that before. Whoever this girl is can’t be Mom.
Yet her name is on the back of the photo, next to the date when it was taken.
“Vivi! Will you quit staring and finally help me unload your suitcases? You’re right. Your parents did pack a truckload of crap—”
“Cindy!” I hush her. She gives me a “what the hell” face. “Don’t air out my dirty laundry to everyone.” My voice low, almost whisper-yelling.
Cindy, unlike me, still speaks at a normal volume. “Are you embarrassed? Why? It’s a suitcase. For packing stuff. That you packed.” She says it so matter-of-factly that I almost convince myself I’m the one being unreasonable.
“We’re trying to impress people here.” I help her drag my definitely, very, awfully heavy suitcase. “And I want to be, I don’t know, cool? This isn’t high school. These people have no idea who we are. It’s like a clean slate.”
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Then can I have a new personality, too? Oh! What if we invent alter egos for ourselves abroad?”
“You sound like a sexpat. What’s next? We have affairs abroad and never tell our families about it?” I never would have learned the word sexpat if not for A Bánh Mì for Two. One of the older blog posts on the website, “Ten Reasons to Never Travel to Vi?t Nam,” mocks the types of Westerners who come and “colonize brides.” It’s one of their least popular posts and received so many hateful comments that the author locked the comment thread. The post remains on the site to this day. I never understood the criticisms from readers. The author wrote about their experience in their home country. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t try to butt into the conversation since I know absolutely nothing about Vi?t Nam.
Cindy winces at my suggestion. “No, thanks. We’re not even rich enough to be sexpats. I do not have enough money to fund a green card for my foreign spouse.”
