And if there’s one thing I am
certain of after all these years, it
is this: there is no such thing as
coming home for those of us who
were once exiled. There is, however,
something else the returnee can do:
build a new one from scratch.
Diverse, pluralistic, and com-
plex are what Saigon has become.
A multiverse. A city of multiethnic
enclaves—Japan town and Korea
towns and Chinatowns spring up
as I type. A city of immigrants. And
a city full of returning Vietnamese
coming home from abroad.
And it is full of young people,
eager to surge ahead.
Saigon is therefore both forget-
ful yet secretly longing for its own
history. Or rather, Saigon’s public
story of itself is of a city liberated
by the Communist army at the end of the Vietnam
War. In that story her name is Ho Chi Minh City, a
stale narrative of collectivism. In truth, her nature has
always been feminine and individualistic. Her power
is alchemy. She turns foreign ideas into local fares. She
seduces stern conquerors and over time turns them into
businessmen and epicureans with savior faire; she takes
in their ideology and idolatry, gives them back a tad of
hedonism instead.
STANDING IN CONTRAST to the public narrative
of itself—the male version of events—are the private
dialogues shared by the city’s inhabitants: the story of
desires and ambition, thirst for knowledge, yearning to
travel, wanting to better one’s self, dreaming of owning
a house, working toward sending one’s child to study
abroad, a kind of American dream.
Such as it is, Saigon, growing ever more complex, is
in desperate need of a new framework.
That is my guidepost, my re-entrance.
A professor at a college here recently asked me to
give a talk about the history of the Vietnamese people
in America. Another teacher at an international school
asked me to teach a writing workshop to her students.
“Tell them how to think outside of the box.” A café
owner who organizes talks invited me to read from my
work. I tell listeners about my American life, my adven-
tures abroad. I show images of myself as a child in this
selfsame city. I share my discoveries of the self: that it is
multilayer and not etched in stone.
Slowly, it feels that I am of use here. I look forward
to sharing thoughts and ideas widely the way I look
forward seeing Dinh Lê’s work on lost memories being
enjoyed by the people of this city. I look forward to shar-
ing my stories with a bigger audience, perhaps, yes, in
my mother tongue.
Soon I will make my pilgrimage. I will enter the old
school. I will walk around the old courtyard, find shade
under the tamarind trees and listen to echoes of my
childhood. I will enter the old country club and mourn a
way of life long lost. I will stand in front of the old house,
too, in whose verandas I once read my books and whiled
away the hot afternoons, my three dogs at my feet.
I will incorporate all this into a new story. I will try
to build bridges between all these fragments, across
time zones and languages. I will try my best not to re-
create or stay mired in the past. Instead, I will marry
the tenses as if they are bricks and mortar and build a
new home here.
SaigonAnd if there’s one thing I am certain of after
all these years, it is this: there is no such thing as
coming home for those of us who were once exiled.
There is, however, something else the returnee can
do: build a new one from scratch.above A photography
installation from Dinh
Q. Lê’s exhibit True
Journey Is Return at
the San Jose Museum
of Art. Photo: Sharon
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