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| Quỳnh Trang mới gửi hình của em bé có tên là Quỳnh Châu lên 6 tháng rồi.
My vicarious niece Quỳnh Châu in Cam Đức, Viet Nam at 6 months with her Mom
and Grandma
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| I work at night and start at ten o'clock in the evening. It is a long
way to work and I must be on time so I always leave quite early
in order to make sure that a delay because of a traffic accident
or a road closure does not make me late for work. Thus I am
usually thirty minutes or so early and spend that time with a cup
of coffee in a convenience store or, for a few months a couple
of years ago, in the Burger King across the street from my job.
One of the employees there was a young Thai woman
on a 6 month work contract. She had no more than a dozen
words of English and worked in the kitchen and did not
deal with customers. If the clerk up front made an error on
the cash register or got confused and didn't know what to
do Sunee would see what was happening and go up front
and in a few seconds would have it all straightened out and
the problem would be fixed. The shift manager, a big woman
named Shakeela, did not like for Sunee to do that after
Sunee once got that shift manager out of a similar jam. It
made Shakeela feel stupid.
Alas, Shakeela was, indeed, stupid.
When I started getting coffee in there I would often hear
Shakeela in the back yelling at "you stupid gook bitch!" and
telling Sunee she was an animal because she couldn't speak
English. Sunee did not understand the words But she
knew the tone.
There were also Thai contract workers in Housekeeping where
I worked then and one of them knew some English. I asked
him if he was acquainted with the lass at the Burger King. He
said he was and that she was miserable working for that loud
ugly person.
I went on-line to a Thai language teaching site and learned the
meet-and-greets and a couple of other social phrases and tried
them out when I went into Burger King again. Shakeela was on
a break and Sunee was up front mopping the floor. I caught
her eye, put my hands together and said, "Sawadee." She looked
up with a big smile and returned the greeting. We went back and
forth with "How are you" and "I am fine," then "How is your
family" and "What is your name" et cetera for half a dozen
exchanges. I had also learned to say "That's all the Thai I know."
She seemed pleased with that.
We repeated that performance, except the part about names,
whenever I went in there for a couple of months, much to the
annoyance of Shakeela . Shakeela just gave her hell more and
more for saying things Shakeela didn't understand. Once I put
my hands together in greeting when I entered and saw Sunee in
the back. She hastily put her own fingertips together and almost
dropped the pans she was holding. I resolved not to surprise her
like that again.
Then one night I heard Shakeela screaming even before I got
to the door. When I went in there were no other customers
there and Shakeela quit yelling when she saw me enter.
Sunee also saw me and came quickly out to the front and this
time she greeted me first-"Sawadee." I returned the greeting and
we went through the whole series . When we came to the end of
my Thai, Sunee put her hand in front of her where Shakeela
could not see and made "keep going" motions. I didn't know any
more Thai so I shifted to Vietnamese and she answered me back
in Thai. We made half a dozen more exchanges like that, neither
understanding the other, and then she motioned me to end it. I put
my hands together and bowed slightly and she did the same. Then
I got my coffee and went over to a table while Sunee returned to
the kitchen I could hear Shakeela berating her again for talking
"that ugly noise" and demanding to know why she was talking to
me and what was she saying about Shakeela. I could see them back
there and the blower was off for a moment so I heard Sunee say in
English, with her chin tilted up and a smug smile,"He speak my
language." Then she turned around and went back to work washing
stuff.
After another minute Shakeela bustled out officiously and
confronted me where I sat with my cup of coffee. "What's that
(stuff) she say? You really talk that (stuff), too? "I answered her,
"Yes, of course I speak Thai- I went to high school." The
woman got suddenly very tense and her hands shook a little.
She started to say something but her voice just squeaked. She
spun around and stomped back into the kitchen where she
commenced to berating Sunee again.
After that whenever I went in there and Shakeela was being
obnoxious Sunee looked so very serene as if the shift manager
were just a noisy radio. She would see me and put her hands
together and bow slightly and I would do the same. If she was
in the front we would repeat the meet-and-greets. Then one
night she wasn't there and Shakeela met me inside the door and
said triumphantly that "that (adjective) gook gone back to Korea!"
I hope Sunee has better memories of her time in America than
that shift manager. And I hope she was able to send enough
money home to make it all worthwhile.
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| I discovered I needed a pocket-sized notebook and noticed a
dollar store so I stopped there and went in. I found the notebook
and a pack of stick pens and walked up to the register. There
was a line of half a dozen customers waiting their turns at the
counter. At the front was a woman with a cart full of items who
was disputing the price and condition of every item one by one
and it was taking a long time. I didn't want to drive to another
store to get the notebook so I waited patiently at the back of that
line. Two more customers extended the line behind me while I
stood there.
The woman finally reached the bottom of her cart and
everything was on the counter properly rung up and in bags.
Instead of presenting cash or writing a check the woman said,
"My boyfriend be here soon. He got the money."
I sighed and expected the clerk to push the stuff aside, clear
the register and continue with the next customer but that did
not happen. Things just stopped. The clerk got out her cell
phone and called her boyfriend for a chat. Worse, the other
folks in line seemed to accept the situation as normal.
Everyone just stopped moving. No one complained. They
looked as if they weren't even breathing except for one
customer who got out her cellphone and called her mother to
chat about operations and diseases.
I waited for a minute until I realized that nothing further would
happen in that store until the boyfriend arrived with the money
and I didn't see any cars driving up out front. I put the notebook
and pens down and left thinking I had seen this show once a
long time ago on Twilight Zone. Rod Serling should walk into
the scene and wind up the show followed by final credits.
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| I am currently thinking about retirement and Social Security.
This morning I went to the Social Security office to find out
what I need to do if I decide to retire. While I was sitting waiting
for my number to be called three people walked in through the
door, a man, a woman, and a little girl. Only the little girl was
facing me and she looked very familiar. Then the name "Mary"
came to mind. The man turned around and I knew who they
were. He is a fellow I have known peripherally for almost 30
years but haven't seen for a couple of those years. Tôma is a
Vietnamese immigrant who went back to Việt Nam in 1999 to
get married. He returned and began the sponsorship process to
bring his wife to America.
Tôma had been unable to bring his family, now including a
daughter born in 2000 back to America because of problems he
was having gaining his own citizenship. Tôma had been going
back to Việt Nam every year for three months to stay with his
family. He even thought about returning to Việt Nam for good
but his wife would not hear of it. She wanted to come to
America and told him to go keep trying.
A week before I was due to get on the airplane to về quê (go
home) from Cam Đức where I was visiting in 2003 a friend
confronted me and said I had to get behind her on her xe mô-tô
to go visit someone who I must meet. It turned out to be
Tôma's wife Hường and their little daughter Mary. I had not then
even known that Tôma had got married. He had not told me.
 
Mary and her maternal bà ngoại in Cam Đức
Mary impressed me then as very much an American child, not
Vietnamese. She behaved like a very smart American child. She
interrupted adults and could not keep still. In Việt Nam this is
unfortunate. She was a ball of activity and eventually got out a
picture album with her parents' wedding pictures in it to show Ông
Mỹ.
I saw them again in 2007 and had brought some things from
Tôma's mother for Hường and Mary. Now Mary was very tall and
properly shy and subdued at seven, not the ball of fire she had
been at three.
Mary and Hường were the last folks I ever expected to see in
the Social Security office. Mary says she doesn't ever want to go
back to Việt Nam because in America she has a refrigerator and can
go get ice cream whenever she wants
Mary at 9 in America
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