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As always, I was sure to walk only on the grass.
No one had told me in words that it was wrong, but without a doubt I knew, even in my 5-year-old mind, that it would be terribly rude to step on the concrete and metal blocks embedded in the field. They belonged to someone, after all.
They must have-- they had people's names on them.
For the most part, they laid flat in the earth, so you couldn't really see them in the grass from afar. Some had become awfully overgrown-- you had to scrape aside the greenery and wipe off the dirt to be able to read what was written. Others were clean and adorned with flowers.
My sense of days or months or years wasn't so good then, but it seemed to me that every few months, aunty and mom would take me to this field.
We'd park the car in the lot and walk uphill for a bit, careful to watch our feet. Out of the thousands of blocks laid out, aunty would eventually find the right one to stop at.
She and mom would clean off whatever grime and moss had accumulated. Incense was lit, prayers were made, and a small bouquet was lain just below.
I never asked questions about this-- it seemed to be a Serious Thing, and I had quickly learned early in life that asking questions about Serious Things would either a) get me in trouble or b) lead to a really long explanation in Vietnamese that I wouldn't understand.
So I never asked.
Anyway, aunty and mom always seemed a little sad whenever we went, and I didn't know how to comfort adults, so I stayed away and skipped in the field, admiring the rainbow of flowers strewn about.
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Recently, I've been addicted to a video game called Stardew Valley.
It's an embarrassing thing to be addicted to, because the premise is that your dead grandfather has willed his farm to you, his grandchild who just so happens to be disenchanted with their menial corporate job. So you pack up out of the Big City and move out to Stardew Valley where your goal is to rebuild the farm and woo a local villager. The day-to-day of the game is you wake up, water/pick/plant your crops, tend to your livestock, chop wood so you can build more structures on your farm, talk to villagers and then go to sleep so you can do the same thing the next day (each in-game day is about 25 minutes real time).
It's a game where I fantasize about being a small-time farmer in the countryside.
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Vietnamese people aren't much for celebrating birthdays, but man do we love hanging out with ghosts.
In every traditional Vietnamese household, there is an altar with photos of deceased grandparents from the father's side of the family and maybe some other ancestors. Fresh fruit is kept on the altar, along with incense and lights.
A few times a year, we have a traditional ceremony for these ancestors. We light incense, do some praying, and then cook up a big meal which we lay out on a table next to the altar. We then proceed to not eat the food for a few hours, so that the aforementioned ancestors can come and enjoy the food first.
As a non-Vietnamese friend pointed out, we are literally inviting ghosts into our house.
The altar in our home is prominently displayed-- it's the first thing you see when you walk through the front door. It's a fairly standard altar, with your standard fare of fruit, plastic lights that plug into the outlet so it stays dimly lit all day, incense and an austere photo of grandpa and grandma.
There's also a third photo of a man I don't recognize, but I've long suspected I know who he is.
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Sometimes, my fellow Asian friends and I will complain about common Asian American problems. Like parents not letting us have social lives and just telling us to study all day back when we still lived with them, i.e. our most critical formative years for developing social skills, and now badgering us about why we're not married with kids yet.
Another common complaint is how focused they are on our monetary and career success-- they're no doubt disappointed when we don't end up doctors, lawyers or engineers, and God save you if you try to become an artist or musician!
But it all comes from a good place. The experiences that have shaped our parents' lives are vastly different from those that have shaped ours.
As one friend put it, "How do I tell my parents who escaped being poor farmers in Communist China that they came all the way to America so I could fulfill my dream of becoming a farmer?"
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Nearly 40 years ago, after the fall of the Southern Vietnamese army and the victory of the Communist North, grandpa made the decision to send his three eldest offspring and their spouses away from Vietnam-- he didn't have enough money to send everyone. And so, the six of them made their way to Hong Kong, which at the time was still owned by the British. From there, they worked odd jobs to save up money so they could immigrate to America.
For whatever reason, they started off in Chicago where these jungle people who had only ever known two seasons-- hot and dry, and hot and rainy-- were suddenly faced with hardships like winter. After enduring too many years of this, they decided snow was a terrible Western invention and moved to the Vietnamese mecca known as California which is where they have been chasing sunshine and the American Dream ever since.
Except that's not quite right.
Grandpa didn't send his three eldest away.
He sent four.
The youngest of the four never got to realize his American Dream. The Chicago winter instead gave him pneumonia, and without money for doctors or medicine, he died.
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Sometimes when I try to explain things to others, they don't quite understand.
You should live the life you want, they say. Shouldn't your parents support you? It's your life, not theirs anyway so if you really want it, go for it.
But how can a life be entirely your own? Is it not the work of so many others?
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The adults will rarely talk about Serious Things-- I suspect it's from a mixture of shame, grief and a good amount of PTSD.
And I will rarely ask about Serious Things-- I suspect it's from a mixture of shame, guilt and a strong innate desire to run away from responsibility.
Over the Lunar New Year, we dusted the altar and set up numerous plates of fruit-- pineapples, mangos, Asian pears and dragon fruits. We cooked so many things and arranged them on a table and lit incense. We waited, as we always do, for the spirits to eat first, and once they were done, we ate the now lukewarm dishes.
Afterwards, we tidied up the altar once more.
"Dad, who's that?"
"Ah, that... That's your uncle's younger brother. He would have been, ah, maybe 60 now."