Out back, a couple of huge pigs. Uncle rears and sells them, along with brewing wine and selling that too.
Grandma's land : Tropical. You can just make out her house in the background.
The family : Grandma sits with five of her eleven children (two different husbands). Four of her daughters stand in a line behind her, and one son standing behind Chi. Chi's mother is second from Grandma in the line, although it could be any of those aunts considering the resemblance!
I asked Chi what her family did during the war. Were they troubled by it or involved, especially considering where her mother's family lived in Cu Chi? She explained that her grandmother and family lived in the residential areas of Cu Chi which were away from the fighting. She casually mentioned that she suspected her grandmother and friends sold heroin to US soldiers. Many sources claim that up to 15% of servicemen were hooked on heroin by the end of their service. For anyone who hasn't, pick up the story of Frank Lucas, the movie 'American Gangster'.
Chi's father is from countryside near Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, where he has a fish farm. His father, Chi's grandfather, was Chinese and boasted four wives. Being south of Saigon I guess they were largely unaffected by the war. I'd be interested in learning more of her family tree, but I'm not sure this is a well known concept or if local authorities keep the kind of records you'd need to go beyond the living relatives and their knowledge. But I'd be interested to hear of the heritage of some of the reader's families out there...
The family : Grandma sits with five of her eleven children (two different husbands). Four of her daughters stand in a line behind her, and one son standing behind Chi. Chi's mother is second from Grandma in the line, although it could be any of those aunts considering the resemblance!
I asked Chi what her family did during the war. Were they troubled by it or involved, especially considering where her mother's family lived in Cu Chi? She explained that her grandmother and family lived in the residential areas of Cu Chi which were away from the fighting. She casually mentioned that she suspected her grandmother and friends sold heroin to US soldiers. Many sources claim that up to 15% of servicemen were hooked on heroin by the end of their service. For anyone who hasn't, pick up the story of Frank Lucas, the movie 'American Gangster'.
Chi's father is from countryside near Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, where he has a fish farm. His father, Chi's grandfather, was Chinese and boasted four wives. Being south of Saigon I guess they were largely unaffected by the war. I'd be interested in learning more of her family tree, but I'm not sure this is a well known concept or if local authorities keep the kind of records you'd need to go beyond the living relatives and their knowledge. But I'd be interested to hear of the heritage of some of the reader's families out there...
7 comments:
Happy new year to you and Chi. Hearing about her grandmother story selling heroin to GIs during the war made me think of my dad's letter translation business on the side during that time. GIs w/ Vietnamese girlfriends would correspond via letters in English once they returned to the US and the women would bring them to my dad for translation to Vietnamese. Back then, when I was a kid and didn't know any better, I thought his English was good enough to do this. Anyhow, when we settled in the US and I finally learned English myself, I realized his English skill left a lot to be desired. Makes me wonder what kind wacky translations he made on those letters....
Hey VG!
That's an excellent story, I love it! Thanks for sharing.
Happy New Year,
My mother family is from the North. They moved south in 1954 when the country partitioned into two. The reason they had to move because her father was a big land owner as well as working for the French. My father family is from Dalat and he moved south because he was serving in the southern government's military. So we are proud southerners but with independent streak. We have our own style by fusing the best of three regions' characteristics.
growing in the u.s., never asked my parents much about that subject(never dawn on me), i mean i had enough of a hard time doing a family tree considering my paternal grandma boar 12 children! which was when i became interested in it. according to my father and mother, they were not affected by the war all that much(surprising? yes!), they grew up in Hue and my dad lived by the beach.well besides the famine and lack of education, not much else. my father even ran away from home as a teen because he was angry with his dad for not supporting the family, but what can you do during a famine?! my maternal grandfather however fought along with a long list of relatives, he was not all too keen with teaming up with the "americans", sometimes i do not want to dig further, cause when i do i find out that it was extremely corrupted during those times. one thing i never understood was why my dad left viet nam, he keeps saying that it was for freedom, but thats a bullshit answer thats been propagandized by the radical viet american community over here. anyways, doing the family tree, found out i had an aunt in australia(who knew?), family in canada, uk, france, holland, etc.(all ethnically vietnamese)
im trying to get information before the 1900's on my family's history but the language barrier is unbearable at times, i can't have a conversation in Vietnamese for the life of me. its scary when my french starts to be better than my vietnamse.
happy new year .. a greeting from http://www.xaluan.com vietnam news.
I have use some of your tet's pictures as the sample on forums of www.xaluan.com ...
very happy if you allow to do it..
thanks
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have good days
Ummm....the link still doesn't work.
You can use my pictures if you link back to my site...
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