Page 3 of A Banh Mi for Two
“Thank you so much! One more question.” He points to the lanterns floating above our heads, his face visibly confused. “Why does Vi?t Nam look like China? All these lanterns and pagodas… and even Chinese letters! What does this mean?”
Of course. I paste on the same smile I use every day at the bánh mì stall, and in my best customer service voice, I say: “Maybe try researching why when you’re free.” But I feel a twinge of guilt—they found this place on my Instagram—and backtrack. “Vi?t Nam has a lot of multiethnic communities. Not everywhere is just ph? or bánh mì. We have immigrants here, too, and they’ve been flowing in and out for hundreds of years.” And beyond all of that, Vi?t Nam’s history and culture have been so deeply influenced by Chinese imperialism. Wait till these tourists realize why some of the architecture of Sài Gòn resembles Parisian homes.
“Thank you again.” They both nod enthusiastically. “This is our first time in Asia and we’ve wanted to go to Sài Gòn for so long because of this blogger.”
How nice that is, to pick a spot on the map and call it a vacation, or to have the money to pack all those suitcases and head for another country.
“The author is a genius for blogging in both Vietnamese and English, and they seem to know this city so well. Everything looks delicious, and I can’t wait to try it all. Thank you for helping us.” They nod at me and head for the bridge, their suitcases bouncing against the asphalt.
The blog was written in Vietnamese for the first year, but as I moved to advanced English in high school, I took up translating to practice, and so the Instagram captions are in both Vietnamese and English. Still, I wouldn’t call myself a genius for having a bilingual blog.
It’s not strange to see foreigners here. Maybe I should be proud that Sài Gòn is such a tourist destination. A must-see spot—a line other travel bloggers say often, but I’ve never understood it. My city isn’t a must-see spot, it’s what I’m used to. My home. All the other travel blogs portray Sài Gòn as this glamorous city where young people can find themselves and live their best lives. I can’t do that. My life isn’t glamorous. It’s a cycle of work and bánh mì crumbs and even more work.
But readers don’t want to see that; they want an escape, something beautiful. The blog used to be a way to capture a portrait of my home, but now every follower feels like more pressure to help turn Sài Gòn into a tourist playground.
Just as I near the bánh mì stall, my phone chimes again.
Evermore13: I’m on my way to Sài Gòn right now and can’t wait to try all your yummy spots! <3
Chapter TwoVIVI
Faking a trip is a lot harder than I imagined, especially if it includes lying to your immigrant parents.
“Are you sure I can’t just text my mom now?” I chew on my lower lip as my eyes follow the chaos unfolding on the plane: people shuffling, flight attendants asking us to be patient, and of course, babies crying. The same babies that have been wailing for the entire eighteen-hour flight. I get why my parents are so travel averse.
Cindy rolls her eyes at me. “Singapore is sixteen hours ahead of California. We told your mom that we’d land at six. It’s only five.”
“It’s only an hour ahead—”
My best friend opens the twenty-page outline that we wrote in excruciating detail about our Fake Study Abroad Trip. “We said that we’re on Singapore Airlines flight 2044, which hasn’t even landed yet. Knowing your mom, she’s probably up watching the flight tracker right now.”
I snort. “She was so scared we’d crash into the ocean.”
“Well, that turbulence was no joke.” She shudders. “I really thought she jinxed us.”
“My mom thinks the entire world is out to get us.” After living in Orange County, California, all my life with parents who’d rather spend every day staring at the same palm trees outside our windows, the plane ride was more thrilling than scary. “The jello theory explains that we technically can’t go down during turbulence.”
“Technically,” she repeats. “Well, it’s not Singapore… but hey, we’re finally in Vi?t Nam.”
“I know. I can’t believe it. This place is real and not just photographs or Google images.” There’s an uneasiness in my stomach, but that’s probably because I’m lying to everyone I know back home.
I look out the plane window, and my heart flutters at the cityscape beyond the tall trees. I’m really here.
Unlike other Vietnamese families, mine doesn’t go on annual vacations to the “homeland.” Weekly gatherings at mom-and-pop ph? shops in Little Saigon are the closest I’ve ever gotten to the real deal. Every Sunday, family friends would share stories about Vi?t Nam, about mouth-watering food and expansive landscapes and bustling streets. I envied them. I asked my parents over and over why we couldn’t visit, but they always said, You’re too young to understand. It made no sense.
But now I’m finally here, in the homeland I’ve wanted to visit all my life. I scroll through photos and screenshots in my phone, trying to remember everything I want to experience here. Fresh coffee every morning at a local café, watching the sun peek over the horizon as the city wakes. Meals eaten while squatting on kiddie stools on the side of the road as the smell of street food seeps into my clothes. My thumb pauses on a screenshot of a blog post, “Best Places to Hang Out After School.” Maybe—like once in a lifetime maybe—I’ll meet the person behind the Blog and thank them for bringing me here. Or maybe not, because that’d be a little weird.
Who knows.
Cindy taps on my shoulder impatiently. “Hurry, I need to pee.”
We scramble out of our seats and down the aisle. My carry-on is absurdly heavy, and I groan, thinking about Mom’s antics. “My suitcase is going to explode from all the vitamin supplements my mom insisted I take for extra immune system support. She said, and I quote, ‘You won’t know what kinds of sickness you’ll catch abroad.’” Maybe it’s an immigrant-parent thing to always be extra, extra careful.
“On the bright side, you’ve brought the entire CVS store with us!”
“True. Need melatonin or super-fast-acting flu medicine? It’s on me—”
I’m barely finishing my sentence when someone plows right into me, sending my purse into the air. My eyes widen in shock as we watch it fly up and land with a thud that knocks all its contents onto the floor.
