Page 4 of A Banh Mi for Two
Photographs of strangers stare up at me. Well, not strangers—they’re family. At least, I think they’re family. It’s not like I can ask Mom, who I stole these photos from. She’d just reprimand me for going through her things, and still wouldn’t give me any answers.
I pick up each photo, smoothing out their vintage edges before tucking them safely back into my purse. The photo of Mom in a pretty áo dài in front of a cathedral I insert into my wallet instead.
“You okay?” Cindy picks up the last photo from the ground—three women smiling in front of a tall building, maybe a marketplace. One definitely is Mom, while the others share the same nose. “Already getting into your first accident abroad. Guess that trip insurance was worth it.”
I place the photograph in the same pocket as Mom’s photo. “I’ve stared at these black-and-white faces so much, spent so much time imagining how they’ll act and what they’ll say to me… I can’t believe they’re real people, and I’m potentially meeting them soon.”
“Potentially meeting? Vivi, we didn’t just fly across the globe for you to hallucinate this meeting in your head. We’ll find your mom’s family and find out why your parents never wanted to take you here.”
I gulp. “I guess. Where do we even start? I have no address. No names. And my mom would rather put me on the first flight home than ever tell me.”
Her gaze softens. “We’ll figure it out. This city can’t be that big. We’ll find someone.”
But as we both stare at Sài Gòn through the airport windows, we know there’s a very slim chance of finding my mom’s family. The city is that big.
Most Vietnamese kids in the States grow up speaking to their families in Vi?t Nam through phone or video calls. Not me. Mom and Dad keep that part of our lives separate like a scar they want hidden.
Not that Dad can really do much; his parents died when he was super young. The only things I really know about my grandparents are that my grandma passed sometime during the war while my grandpa and Dad became refugees when Dad was three. Grandpa didn’t make it to Dad’s wedding. So Dad grew up with all things American: burger joints and Happy Meals, the twenty-six letter alphabet that doesn’t contain Vietnamese diacritics, and football (the man really loves football, although I can’t understand why).
Mom, on the other hand… I know we still have family here. I’ve seen her taping boxes to be mailed to Vi?t Nam. Still, she’s never shared much, and the place across the Pacific Ocean remained an enigma throughout my childhood.
Mom accidentally reverse psychology’d me, and her refusal to talk about Sài Gòn only made me more curious. When I first googled Vi?t Nam, textbook images of decapitated bodies scarred me. I grew up thinking Vi?t Nam looked like rural land where everyone treks ten miles to school. This airport—city—does not look rural. At all.
“What’s the first thing we should do in Sài Gòn?” Cindy huffs beside me, walking too fast for both our short legs.
“Nap? Eat? For you, pee.”
She rolls her eyes. “What did that blogger you’ve been following for years say? What’s the name again… A Bánh Mì something?”
“A Bánh Mì for Two,” I say immediately.
“Right.” She nods slowly, raising an eyebrow. “Any tourist recommendations? You’ve read like every single post almost a bazillion times, probably memorized the entire blog by now.”
“They don’t do posts like that. Everything is focused on local life. Hidden gems, that sort of stuff.”
I ran into A Bánh Mì for Two while looking up Vietnamese food history for a paper one night. The first post I read described how ph? is actually a product of French colonialism in so much detail that I ended up citing the entire blog. I stayed up all night scouring the site. The words made me feel warm, comforted. I hadn’t realized what Vi?t Nam is actually like.
I scroll through A Bánh Mì for Two’s Instagram every day, hope in my chest that the blog’s hiatus will end soon. I miss their writing, and I miss imagining myself in their words even more.
We hurry through the terminal to baggage claim, the coolness of the airport replaced by the city’s thick humidity and sweltering heat. A sign hangs above us: WELCOME TO THÀNH PH? H? CHÍ MINH. So many bodies trickling in and out. A sense of nostalgia washes over me. Home but not home. Scents I’ve always known, and a language spoken throughout Little Saigon, and yet it’s the first time I’m here. Sure, I look Vietnamese, and I can somewhat speak Vietnamese, although I’m not really fluent. I feel like I’m not Vietnamese enough, but I’m not American enough, either. Unlike other students in the program, I can’t just pass as a foreigner, but I can’t blend in with the locals, either. It’s a constant tug-of-war within me: being Vietnamese, but not really… and being American, but not really. Will I fit in—ever?
Cindy came up with the plan to study abroad for our first semester of college, and I signed on without a second thought. Why should we be stuck in smelly dorm rooms and share gross showers with people when we can do the same but abroad.
Still, I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Guilt eats at me for lying. Taking advantage of my parents’ trust did not feel good. But my parents didn’t pry. They never do. They’ve always silently signed whatever academic forms I needed them to. I picked AP classes and submitted college applications on my own, skills I’ve learned from being a daughter of immigrants and the first of my family to go to college.
I breathe in the smell of motorcycle fumes and diesel from nearby cars. It’s evening and the sun is still scorching hot, baking us all in her ruthless heat.
Cindy mirrors my action, wrinkling her nose. “Ew.”
“My mom said that when she first landed at LAX after coming from Hong Kong, she breathed in the scents of LA and knew she had found freedom. So, I wanted to try it here,” I say sheepishly.
“Freedom must have smelled like piss and pollution, then.” She throws her head back laughing.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes.
My parents talk a lot about America being the land of opportunity, and they’re always going on about freedom and liberty. But as I watch them struggle with the language barrier and find menial work that requires them to rise at 5:00 a.m. and toil until after sunset, I wonder if they meant the land of missed opportunities.
Mom refuses to speak about her life before the States and why she chose such a life of hardship over Vi?t Nam. I did all of this for you, you know. Vi?t Nam is always spoken of as a reminder that I shouldn’t take things for granted. That I have it better, that I should be grateful. That I shouldn’t wonder why or want to look back.
