Blog #10 My dad, my hero

"I'm going to write a literary profile about you, and you cannot read it." I told my dad through the phone.
"Great." He laughed. "But why?"
"Because it's embarrassing." I mumbled.
He started laughing for ten seconds or so, his common laugh, the one that I will never get used to. I told him it was lame sometimes, and I got scolded. I wasn't going to push my luck again.
"But I want to read it." He said. "Is that the reason why you've been calling and emailing me randomly this week?"
"Yes boss." I said. "And no you're not going to read it. Even if you buy me."
"One hundred bucks?"
"No."
"Two hundred?"
"Dad!"
"Okay okay." He laughed. "But I expect it in my inbox next week, if you want your ticket back to Vietnam this summer."
"Are you blackmailing your daughter? Seriously?" I said.
"Well, obey your dad then." He laughed again.
He always cheated when he knew he couldn't persuade me.
"Two hundred." I said.
"You missed your chance."
"Or I'm staying here over the summer."
"Fine. But it better be a good one."
"It will be. And now I want to talk to mom." I said.
I could hear his laugh still going on over the phone even after handing my mom the phone. I just love my dad.
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The money feature might seem negative, but it's just how it goes in my family. We are a business family after all. My dad taught us about the value of money since we were young, and I started working at sixteen. Small jobs. And no it's not illegal. He said if I couldn't make money, I had no right to use it. And I believed so.
Why would I write a literary profile about my dad? I'm not trying to show him off or bluffing about my family, but he is the hero in my life. I mean, god I was close to hating him a lot of times. Don't you feel that way too about your parents sometimes? Every time I was separated from them, I missed them till the point of crying, but one week of sharing the same roof could drive me crazy. I hate how I love them.
Of all the people I've met in my life, my dad has the hardest life. I never noticed them before last year, but since I started understanding what he's been through and still going through, I love him more and more each day. He's my motivation to move on in life. So why not write a literary profile about him, the one I love and admire the most?
"I love you dad." I said, after mom handed him the phone to say good bye.
"You better." He laughed, and hung up.

Blog #9 Vietnamese Anonymous Vent Chat: Leeches in food

I had late classes on Tuesday, so I just went back to my room and took a nap, then when I woke up, it was midnight already. I wouldn't want to take a bus or go to the UC at that hour, so I asked my friend, who was an admin of a Vent Channel called Vietnamese Anonymous Vent Chat, to let me join the channel and listen to people talking.
Vietnamese Anonymous Vent Chat is a Vent Channel created by a Vietnamese Facebook Paged named Haivl, which in English is (this is a terrible name to translate to English, so I'm trying the best I can) Comedy till you piss you c*nt off. So from the name, basically the conversation I was about to hear wouldn't be really formal with nice and clean language.
As I joined a channel, I realized people were talking the issue when China was buying leeches from Vietnam and mince them, then mix them with dry food to sell back to Vietnam (yes Vietnamese people have a thing with China). There were a lot of people talking, so this is what the part I could write down.
"This is so bullshit."
"It's good so edible."
"That's so disgusting!" A voice screamed out.
"This is false, stop accusing China just because you dislike them." An old voice from the background responded to all the yelling.
"Bullshit."
"True or not, it's a warning. China has a bad reputation from long ago and everyone knows why. And you never know, leeches can regrow from only a small part of it, not the whole body, so watch out before you eat is still a good option." A girl said.
"No Made in China food. Done."
"It's all Made in China now. What else do we even have?"
Someone started a weird and long laugh in the background.
"Yes even if you burn the leeches into ash, if they meet water, they will regrow back. This is reasonable. So don't say this is bullshit. Watch out before you eat, I've heard a lot of news about this issue."
"God."
"Disgusting."
"Why there are so many evil people in the world."
Okay I should stop here since they started talking about politics and I wasn't that interested. But it was a scary conversation that I heard. Personally I hope it wasn't true.

Blog #8 Talking to strangers

I'm not good with starting conversations, so this is a very, very awkward task for me to do. So as I walked into the UC, I glanced around for the friendliest face I could get a hold of. And maybe I cheated a bit, but I noticed that my friend's roommate was sitting alone having her dinner at a corner of the UC. I never really spoke to her before, but at least I had the confidence that she wouldn't give me the stalker look.
She had her hair tied up and was wearing her grey shirt and black pants. She didn't notice me until I came over and stared at her for 30 seconds. After the awkward silence, I started the conversation.
"Hi" I said.
"Hi" she replied, confused.
"So my professor gave me this task" I continued awkwardly, "that I have to pick someone I'm not familiar with and strike a conversation with."
"Okay" she replied.
"So..." I continued, "if you can be any animal, what would you be?" I asked.
She started thinking for awhile, chewing her Mongolian grill, then looked at me and said:
"Cat."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because it's cute." She replied, then looked down at her Mongolian grill and continued to eat.
"Oh okay" I said. "Thanks for your time" I smiled.
"Nope" she replied.
As I walked away, I had this extremely awkward feeling rising up my chest. God I suck at striking a conversation.

Blog #7: Existence of the Soul and Paranormal Activities

"There is a ghost in this house."

That was what my maid told me one year ago, after my family coming back from our Europe trip.

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Because I was the only one staying here," she said, "and every night there were footsteps running upstairs. When I went to check, I heard footsteps downstairs, and they kept repeating for nights. When I went in your room I even saw a shadow of a girl for a second and it just disappeared right after."

I know my maid well, and of all the traits that she has, she is definitely not a liar.

A lot of Vietnamese people believe in the existence of ghosts, and they believe that ghosts are the souls of people who died with regrets. Virgin girls are usually the strongest and scariest ghosts. My friend told me a story about a girl in her school, who went on a trip with her boyfriend. They got into an accident, and the guy got thrown away from the bike to the other side of the street, yet he only had scratches. But the girl, who was pressed under the bike, died instantly. In Vietnamese tradition, people burn incense to see off dead. When her boyfriend tried to burn his incense, it wouldn't burn. An old wise man behind him whispered to him, that the girl hadn't forgiven him yet since he took her away from home but didn't bring her back. He cried and said sorry on her grave, and then he could burn his incense.

An experiment by Doctor Duncan MacDougall (an early 20th century physician) called "Mass of the Soul" proved that the human soul was 21 grams. The experiment was carried out using six patients who were near dead, and Duncan measured the mass of the patient before and after dead, and there was an average of 21 gram loss after the dead of six patients. His result was considered meaningless and never had been reproduced, yet there was a movie in 2003 called "21 grams" which was related to this experiment.

Asian people tend to believe in ghosts more than American and European people do. It might be due to the fact that, as a Vietnamese myself, we live more based on the spiritual side of life, then the realistic side. We believe that the people who passed away are still watching us and helping us going through our lives. The popularity of psychics also makes it easily for us to believe in this non-scientific existence. There are a lot of famous psychics in Vietnam, for example, Phan Thi Bich Hang, one of the psychics who are currently famous for finding the lost soldier bodies in the war. She has found out more than 4,000 bodies lost during the war, and they were also identified as the people she said they were. However, there were a lot of bad rumors about her in 2010 so she stopped doing her psychic work and returned to business. She said that it wouldn't stop her from doing the good work for the future, but back then it was her only choice to get out of stress.

I live in Ho Chi Minh City, where the war was at its bloodiest. I've heard stories about headless ghosts since I was 7, and people wandering on the rivers since I was 9. People find psychics to check the houses they were going to buy before they actually buy it, and my mom does it too. Apparently she got a bad psychic, because even though he said our house was safe, my maid saw a ghost in there. Personally, I do believe in the existence of ghost, because I myself had somewhat experienced paranormal activities before in my life. When I was 11, I usually slept alone on the third floor, the top floor of the house, because there was only one bedroom there and I could get the whole floor for myself. One night, I woke up and heard someone walking outside. I opened the door, and saw the balcony door opened. There was a white shadow passing through the windows. I thought it was my grandpa because he usually walked on the balcony to relax himself, so I came downstairs and checked. His light was off, and it was 2 A.M, so I was confused. I came back up, and saw the door closed, and I was sure that nobody went up stairs because my grandpa's room was right next to the stairs, and my room was the only bedroom on the third floor. After that, I decided to stick to my bedroom on the second floor every night.

Blog #6: On Wearing Clothes Backwards

Blog #6: On Wearing Clothes Backwards

If you were a teen during the early periods of the 90s, or the 90s, you would know what I mean. This was a fad started by the rap band named Kris Kross, to wear your clothes backwards, usually baseball jerseys and baggy pants. Even though this trend has ended and people don't wear clothes backwards anymore, there are still a lot of people wearing small things backwards like their hats or watches after this trend.

Asking my friends who spent their teenager days during the 90s about this trend, most of them find this dumb. People were selling clothes which were meant to be worn backwards. People wore their necklace backwards too (This is actually weird, personally speaking). It was supposed to be cool, to wear clothes the way they weren't meant to be. Imagine a zipper on your butt, that thing is just amazing.

However, asking a few people who were over their teen days during the 90s gives me a different answer to the trend. They found it disrespectful, like people would go in a restaurant with their hats backwards. It's already disrespectful to wear their hats inside, not to mention even wearing it backwards. People got used to this trend after awhile and started to accept it though (well, some of them). The amount of people who thought it was weird/uncool/lame is surprisingly (surprisingly) much higher than the people who thought it was.

Their are different opinions about this trend, however, I personally would want to stay with a normal look and not having zipper rubbing my back or my butt. I believe though, that most people nowadays, when they look back at their photos during that time would be saying "WTF was I thinking?"

Blog #5: On dreams

Blog #5: On dreams

Have you ever experienced a moment when you go "I dreamed about this"? I remembered I felt that way not once, but many times before. Usually I would feel like I dreamed about something which was happening, then a minute later, I wouldn't be so sure about it. The dream just became like an illusion, or I would just forget it right away. Sometimes I felt like I'm a psychic, but the idea just seemed so ridiculous.

Some Asians believe that if you dream a dream 3 times, it will come true (Asians do have a lot of strange and interesting believes). Some believe that when you sleep, the soul leaves your body and travel around, which creates dreams. People might argue on the existence of soul, but there is an experience called "Weight of the Soul", when someone weighed his father before and after he died, and there was a weight loss. There are people with continuous dreams, like you would dream one thing one night, and it will continue on the next night or maybe a while after. You can actually remember what you dreamed in you next dream. Then some people think they can dream the future, sometimes fuzzy, sometimes clear. The mind can do tricks on you to make you think that you dreamed of what is happening, but it's just what you think you did, or de javu. 

Believing that you have seen the future in a dream is surprisingly common, with recent surveys suggesting that around a third of the population experience this phenomenon at some point in their lives. Paranormal believers believe that some people have the gift of precognition, and it happens in their dreams. Scientists, on the other hand, believe that it's the work of probability. You dream on average 4 dreams a night, and when something similar to your dream happens, you get that de javu feeling and it makes you feel like you dreamed about the future. However, there are people who can dream exactly what will happen and they can see and remember it clearly. So do you believe in precognition dreams? 

Blog #2: My First... farewell

Blog #2: My First... farewell

"We are almost there."

The car was moving slowly. There was odd silence. Nobody spoke a word until my dad turned back to tell us we were reaching the place. My mother looked down at me with her wet dark brown eyes and whispered silently:

"Remember to behave, okay?"

I walked out of the car, holding my mother's hand. It was hot outside with a little bit of rain. Typical weather in Saigon. The place looked neat and gloomy. Everyone was wearing black. I was wearing my short black dress and a small black hat with a white ribbon on the side. I held my mother's hand tightly.

"I'm scared."

"There is nothing scary here, sweetheart." My mother knelt down and patted my head "We are here to say good bye to Mai."

"Mai? Where is she going?" I looked up at my mother with eyes of curiosity. The blinding bright sun covered my mother's face with shadow.

My mother kissed me on the forehead and stood up. She released a long sigh, then shook her head.

"Let's go."

Everyone was talking silently. The kids were playing behind the lines of chairs. One of the old women shushed the kids a few times. My dad came late because he couldn't find a parking spot. He went over to my aunt and hugged her. I could see her trying to hold her sobbing.

"Why is aunt Hoa crying mom?" I pulled my mother's hand.

"Because she has to say good bye to Mai." My mother flipped her hair over her shoulder with the other hand "We are all here to say good bye to her."

I wanted to ask more, but looking at her eyes, I kept silent. I went behind the chairs and played with the other kids. Time passed by, and it was already afternoon. My mother came to me and held my hand, whispered to me softly.

"Let's say good bye."

It was about a two minute walk through the stone pavement. We arrived at a quiet place, where my aunt was standing. Her eyes were red. My mother led me to a grey stone with words which I did not understand on it.

"Say good bye to Mai, love."

"She's not here." I looked at my mom, confused.

"She's watching you. Say good bye." She smiled sadly.

"She's playing hide and seek? Where is she?"

"Just..." my mother looked away quickly, her voice cracking, "say good bye, love, say good bye."

I looked at the grey stone and whispered softly.

"Good bye, Mai."

This was the memory of my cousin's funeral when I was 5. She died from cancer at the age of 8. Some of the details are actually blurry, and I was trying to make up parts of it because I did not really understand the meaning of death at the age of 5. The reason why this memory is so important to me is because it teaches me the importance of silence in life, where you can read the mood with silence.

The story happened when I was young, but since I've understood what happened now when I'm older, my emotions might differ. I might have not thought that much when I was younger, but when my mom told me what happened, I felt it differently. This shows that emotions do come with understanding about a matter, which also affects the writing.