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Old Chin always maintained that selling lottery tickets was a matter of some significance. It gave man hope and, if he won, brought wealth to him. But what was of the utmost personal significance to Chin was that his wandering about selling such tickets helped him find the cai luong opera singer Hong.
Chin had followed Hong down three streets as she walked with a load of sweetened porridge on her shoulders. They were both in their late sixties now, so their eyesight wasn't good enough for them to recognize each other after forty-six years of separation. But he had remembered her voice, and it sprang from her shriveled lips clear and strong as a song as she called out her wares. Chin was stunned to see her. Her beauty was gone, and her once high neck was bent under the burdens of life. Catching up, he called out, "Miss Hong!" Tears filled his eyes.
He took her hands and invited her to come to the Buoi Chieu [Late Afternoon] House. She wanted to gather some of her belongings first, but he said, "Forget them." Her belongings were nothing but some sweetened porridge and the tattered shack she had erected near a water-fern pond at the end of a lane.
The Buoi Chieu House stood at the end of Cay Cong alley. It was a dead-end street, and only old people lived in the house: the abode of once-famous artists from the reform or classical theater. Chin Vu was a nobody in that artistic circle, but he had helped to found the Buoi Chieu House and, in fact, had named it himself. When asked why he hadn't called it the more likely Hoang Hon [Sunset] or Chang Vang [Twilight] or something like that, he explained that buoi chieu meant that there was still some daylight left: these artists still had a role to play in the affairs of society. The Buoi Chieu House was poor, and its expenses had to be covered either by the district or by good-hearted patrons. More vegetables than meat were served in the meals, but all its residents were happy because before they had come to this place, they had led miserable lives, poor as mice. Virtually all of them had been homeless. Some of them had lived in pagodas, some in public gardens or parks; some had wandered aimlessly on the streets. Coming together in the Buoi Chieu House gave them a chance to sing for an audience again. After all, they were artists.
Chin had taken to selling lottery tickets in order to make ends meet, but he also felt that it was a way to trace friends who were still wandering. After she moved in, Hong continued selling her sweetened porridge; she insisted on it despite the pity everyone had for her. "Let me do it. Chin and I are still young and strong enough..." It was true; they were young compared to the others in the house: he was seventy and she sixty-four. Each morning, Chin shouldered the load of sweetened porridge to the beginning of the alley and then stopped at the base of the cong tree, a tree old as a hill—so old it had stopped blooming. He would hand over the shoulder pole to Hong and stand, at a loss for words, until she was out of his sight and he could only hear her sweet voice ringing out in the early morning. Then he would stop at the Tu Bung Café and order a cup of tea.
Once, when someone asked him why he didn't drink coffee, he smiled and shook his head. "I'm saving up to buy a bottle of perfume for her."
At the old man's words, the whole café burst out in laughter. "The geezer is still in love!" someone exclaimed.
"I am," he said, "and there's nothing I can do about it. How could you understand? Ours is an old love story, and I love her even if she doesn't reciprocate."
He finished his tea and stood up. Turning, he addressed the café. "Please come and enjoy our performance tonight."
"What's the name of the play?"
"The Courtship of General Lu Bo and the Courtesan Dieu Thuyen."
"No—you guys did that already. Please sing us 'Nua Doi Huong Phan' [Half of the Beauty's Life], OK?"
"If you wish, but I don't remember the words."
"No wonder, uncle," someone teased. "You always played either a soldier or a servant. You never got to sing a song, remember?"
The old man laughed and turned, snorting ironically. His bent back slowly faded from view.
The residents of the alley were not art lovers, but none of them could forget the singing they heard at the Buoi Chieu House. Even though the singers were well advanced in age, their voices were still sweet. The stage overlooked a large, empty lot. The orchestra consisted of a guitar and an old two-chord fiddle. Without a microphone, the artists would sing with voices blessed by nature. Actress Phi was eighty-nine and unable to stand. She sat on a chair and performed her role, her hand waving a whip. Once, she sang out of tune and cried out, "I can't live like this anymore!"
The people in the alley laughed. "You've lived so long now, what do you have to complain about?"
Since Old Chin couldn't sing, he bustled around, arranging the chair for the actress Phi, rushing in to change a light bulb, and so on. It was only when Hong began to sing that he hid himself and remained silent, missing her even as he looked at her.
He had met her when she was only twenty-one. If people asked him now how he felt about severing his connections to his family, he would just smile at them, as if he regretted nothing. It was well known that he came from a very rich family in Bac Lieu, that he had been their pampered and privileged son. A kind-hearted and generous youth, he had once arranged for the visit of a Saigon drama troupe to enhance the village festival. Hong had been in that troupe. It was the first time he saw her, and he immediately fell in love. He couldn't help it; she was so beautiful she made every man's heart beat faster. When they first met, she had barely finished drinking her tea when Chin burst out, "Have you found someone to marry?"
Hong smiled. "I have sworn before the altar of my ancestors that I will devote myself to my art until my last breath."
Chin Vu hadn't said anything, but had looked at her thoughtfully. The next day, when the Kim Tieu drama troupe returned to Saigon, he left his home and followed them. But he had a rough-looking appearance and couldn't sing, so he wasn't able to perform with the others. His only acting duty was to play the role of a soldier or servant or to reply "yes" or "no" from behind the curtain. In fact, he worked day and night pulling the curtain and getting the stage props set up. He was prepared to work even harder as long as he could see Hong. He often said that the founder of the form of theatrical art known as cai luong had cast a spell on him, and he was like the three legendary princes Can, Chon, and Chat, who had abandoned their luxurious court lives to pursue art. Whenever people heard this explanation, they laughed: it was ridiculous to think that a fellow like Chin could be lured by the art of the theater; no, it was clear he must have been struck by love. When he thought about his situation, he considered the possibility that he owed Hong a great debt from a former life—a debt he could not pay in full during this life, no matter how great his efforts.
When Hong became pregnant and the troupe's manager threatened to fire her, Chin pleaded her case. "She is still rather naive, please..."
"Is it yours?" the boss had asked.
Chin smiled. "Yes. No one else's."
"Are you sure of that?"
Yes, he said, his heart filled with sadness. He knew who the real father was, but Hong had begged him not to tell. "Please don't. He still has something very important to do." He knew she must have loved the man very much to protect him at such cost to herself. After she had given birth, Chin took care of the child. When Hong found that he had taught the little boy to call him Ba [Father], she couldn't help crying. It was the first and only reward she'd given him during the two years he'd been with the troupe.
Saigon in those days was in the turmoil of the war, and Chin found himself arrested one afternoon, when the police received information that some members of the Kim Tieu troupe were Viet Cong. All of the members of the troupe were screened, but Chin's background made him suspect. He merely smiled at his interrogators when they asked him why he had abandoned his good life to join the wandering actors. He knew they would not believe the truth. Ten days later, after failing to find any evidence, they freed Chin. Only ten days, but it took him half a lifetime to meet Hong again.
The troupe had disintegrated very quickly, and Hong hadn't waited for him. Later, Chin learned that the actor Thuong Khanh had been arrested by the military police and that Hong had taken her child and gone into hiding, fearing that Khanh, her lover, would falter in his duty if the police used her and the child's safety as leverage against him. Chin searched for her in vain. For years, he wondered how she was able to sustain herself without his support.
One night, Hong told the residents of Buoi Chieu House her life story. They sat in the moonlight, next to a basket of boiled sweet potatoes. Not one person could hold back tears, hearing their own miserable destinies reflected in her story. She had remained true to her vow, staying single for the sake of her art, even though her own son eventually rejected her because of her insistence on following her calling. She never mentioned his name again, in all her life. Chin sat silently, listening in misery. The sadness of her life had taken its toll on her, but he was still struck dumb by her fading beauty.
At Buoi Chieu, Hong became the only female actor never to go on stage without makeup. During her first days there, she had only shaken her head when asked to sing. She never responded to the questions rained on her as a result. All seven women in the house were old and couldn't afford lipstick. When Chin insisted, she told him the truth. He immediately broke into his savings and bought her lipstick and face powder. Hong was moved, but also very sad.
"Why are you so good to me?"
Her words made Chin sad as well.
"Why can't you understand me, even at our age? Oh, my dear Hong."
But he wasn't being completely fair. There were times when he didn't understand her as well. Hong had an old, dull, bronze-edged mirror she liked to use. Somehow this made Chin love her all the more, and he bought her a new mirror and then hid the old one. She became very angry with him. "Don't be so clever. I don't need a new mirror."
"But it's very old, very dull."
"I like it, in spite of its dullness."
He never understood why she preferred the old mirror.
He was sad that day. He did not go to greet her when she came back. He knew she was still waiting for something in her life, but he did not know what it was, nor did she confide in him. She had always been an introvert, always kept her face expressionless and hid her emotions. It was only on stage that she could cry her heart out or laugh to her heart's content.
One day, when all the other residents of Buoi Chieu were picked up and taken by bus to the municipal theater for a commemoration of the death of the founder of the classical theater, Chin stayed back to look after the house. While he was there, an old man with snow-white hair, a deliberate gait, and a very respectable bearing came to the door and inquired after Hong. Chin asked him how he knew her.
"She and I were old friends. Have you known her for a long time? Yes? So you know. How can anyone forget such beauty? I recently read a story about this place. I felt as if I'd been given a second chance at life, and I rushed here to find her."
Chin was at a loss. The man left, with Chin giving no sign that he knew who he was. Thuong Khanh was very old now, but he still had a refined and deliberate bearing. Chin had waited for him to mention the son he had had with Hong. Could he forget so easily? Chin thought about it for a long time before deciding not to tell Hong about the visit. He feared he would lose her again.
But he couldn't remain silent. "Hong, do you remember Thuong Khanh? He came looking for you today."
Hong stopped combing her hair, but she said nothing. Then she went to wash her clothes. At the water tank, she gazed at her reflection and burst into tears. Her faded beauty. Without turning her head, she knew that Chin had come running up to see what was wrong.
"If he comes tomorrow," she said, "please tell him that I don't live here...I don't want to see him again."
At that, Chin felt happy. But he also pitied her.
"Dear, you can't avoid meeting him; there's no use trying. We exist because we have hearts."
One day soon after, Khanh was waiting at the head of the alley. Hong returned home at twilight and spotted him first. She smiled. "I heard that you've been looking for me. Is that true?"
Khanh stood dumbfounded, pain rising in his heart. This was not the beauty he had loved. This could not be Hong, the woman whom he had embraced and loved and who had protected him in those days.
Later, Chin told her that not everyone could see beauty, so there was no need for her to be sad. She smiled. "I'm not sad at all," she said. Then tears flowed down her face.
The people of Cay Cong alley never saw the old man in the luxury car visit the Buoi Chieu House again.
There came a season when raindrops splattered on the roofs and Hong was no longer seen with her sweetened porridge. No longer did her sweet and sad voice ring out, nor did Chin drop in for a cup of tea at the Tu Bung Café.
She was seriously ill. He was devastated. Her talk would always turn to death until old Phi scolded her. "I'm much older than you, and I'm still here. So how can you talk of dying?"
The fifteenth of the Lunar March: as usual, a performance day at Buoi Chieu. Hong was still bedridden, but she insisted that she would sing. Chin applied her makeup and helped her to her chair. She sang the ancient songs: the lament for the fate of Queen Mother Duong Van Nga, torn between her debt to her country and her love for her family; the eternal wait of Quyn Nga, at her hand loom by the bridge, for the return of her warrior husband; the hard and faithful life of Chau Long, who silently served her husband's friend Luu Binh for three years until he won his Confucian laureate title; and the fate of To Thi, who turned to stone as she stood with her small son in her arms, awaiting the return of her disgraced husband. She sang and sang until she fainted.
By the time Chin got her into bed, she was already in a coma. The residents of Buoi Chieu all sang a last song to honor a genuine artist. In those final moments, she saw all of her relatives, and she saw her son also, and he finally called her "Mother." Her parents were there as well, and they pardoned her, and then she found herself in her native village and was happy in that place of her beautiful childhood.
Trang flowers fell from the trees in the yard.
Once, I dropped in at the Tu Bung Café and met old Chin Vu. He told me that he had spent his life following the drama troupe and that, in the end, it was worth it because he had finally been given a major role to play. What role was that? one of the other patrons asked. The son of actress Hong, he said. When the woman he had loved all her life was on her deathbed, he had been able to come to her and call her "Mother," and see her smile. Only that? Yes, only that, but how could you young people ever understand?
----
Translation by Nam Son and Wayne Karlin
Nguyen Ngoc Tu was born in 1976 in Ca Mau Province, Viet Nam, and works in the Ca Mau Association of Literature and Arts. In 2000, her first collection of short stories, The Inextinguishable Light, received first prize from The Youth Publishing House in Ho Chi Minh City.
Nam Son is a translator who lives in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
Wayne Karlin is a novelist and the coeditor, with Le Minh Khue and Ho Anh Thai, of Curbstone Press's Voices from Viet Nam series.
Project MUSE
Chin had followed Hong down three streets as she walked with a load of sweetened porridge on her shoulders. They were both in their late sixties now, so their eyesight wasn't good enough for them to recognize each other after forty-six years of separation. But he had remembered her voice, and it sprang from her shriveled lips clear and strong as a song as she called out her wares. Chin was stunned to see her. Her beauty was gone, and her once high neck was bent under the burdens of life. Catching up, he called out, "Miss Hong!" Tears filled his eyes.
He took her hands and invited her to come to the Buoi Chieu [Late Afternoon] House. She wanted to gather some of her belongings first, but he said, "Forget them." Her belongings were nothing but some sweetened porridge and the tattered shack she had erected near a water-fern pond at the end of a lane.
The Buoi Chieu House stood at the end of Cay Cong alley. It was a dead-end street, and only old people lived in the house: the abode of once-famous artists from the reform or classical theater. Chin Vu was a nobody in that artistic circle, but he had helped to found the Buoi Chieu House and, in fact, had named it himself. When asked why he hadn't called it the more likely Hoang Hon [Sunset] or Chang Vang [Twilight] or something like that, he explained that buoi chieu meant that there was still some daylight left: these artists still had a role to play in the affairs of society. The Buoi Chieu House was poor, and its expenses had to be covered either by the district or by good-hearted patrons. More vegetables than meat were served in the meals, but all its residents were happy because before they had come to this place, they had led miserable lives, poor as mice. Virtually all of them had been homeless. Some of them had lived in pagodas, some in public gardens or parks; some had wandered aimlessly on the streets. Coming together in the Buoi Chieu House gave them a chance to sing for an audience again. After all, they were artists.
Chin had taken to selling lottery tickets in order to make ends meet, but he also felt that it was a way to trace friends who were still wandering. After she moved in, Hong continued selling her sweetened porridge; she insisted on it despite the pity everyone had for her. "Let me do it. Chin and I are still young and strong enough..." It was true; they were young compared to the others in the house: he was seventy and she sixty-four. Each morning, Chin shouldered the load of sweetened porridge to the beginning of the alley and then stopped at the base of the cong tree, a tree old as a hill—so old it had stopped blooming. He would hand over the shoulder pole to Hong and stand, at a loss for words, until she was out of his sight and he could only hear her sweet voice ringing out in the early morning. Then he would stop at the Tu Bung Café and order a cup of tea.
Once, when someone asked him why he didn't drink coffee, he smiled and shook his head. "I'm saving up to buy a bottle of perfume for her."
At the old man's words, the whole café burst out in laughter. "The geezer is still in love!" someone exclaimed.
"I am," he said, "and there's nothing I can do about it. How could you understand? Ours is an old love story, and I love her even if she doesn't reciprocate."
He finished his tea and stood up. Turning, he addressed the café. "Please come and enjoy our performance tonight."
"What's the name of the play?"
"The Courtship of General Lu Bo and the Courtesan Dieu Thuyen."
"No—you guys did that already. Please sing us 'Nua Doi Huong Phan' [Half of the Beauty's Life], OK?"
"If you wish, but I don't remember the words."
"No wonder, uncle," someone teased. "You always played either a soldier or a servant. You never got to sing a song, remember?"
The old man laughed and turned, snorting ironically. His bent back slowly faded from view.
The residents of the alley were not art lovers, but none of them could forget the singing they heard at the Buoi Chieu House. Even though the singers were well advanced in age, their voices were still sweet. The stage overlooked a large, empty lot. The orchestra consisted of a guitar and an old two-chord fiddle. Without a microphone, the artists would sing with voices blessed by nature. Actress Phi was eighty-nine and unable to stand. She sat on a chair and performed her role, her hand waving a whip. Once, she sang out of tune and cried out, "I can't live like this anymore!"
The people in the alley laughed. "You've lived so long now, what do you have to complain about?"
Since Old Chin couldn't sing, he bustled around, arranging the chair for the actress Phi, rushing in to change a light bulb, and so on. It was only when Hong began to sing that he hid himself and remained silent, missing her even as he looked at her.
He had met her when she was only twenty-one. If people asked him now how he felt about severing his connections to his family, he would just smile at them, as if he regretted nothing. It was well known that he came from a very rich family in Bac Lieu, that he had been their pampered and privileged son. A kind-hearted and generous youth, he had once arranged for the visit of a Saigon drama troupe to enhance the village festival. Hong had been in that troupe. It was the first time he saw her, and he immediately fell in love. He couldn't help it; she was so beautiful she made every man's heart beat faster. When they first met, she had barely finished drinking her tea when Chin burst out, "Have you found someone to marry?"
Hong smiled. "I have sworn before the altar of my ancestors that I will devote myself to my art until my last breath."
Chin Vu hadn't said anything, but had looked at her thoughtfully. The next day, when the Kim Tieu drama troupe returned to Saigon, he left his home and followed them. But he had a rough-looking appearance and couldn't sing, so he wasn't able to perform with the others. His only acting duty was to play the role of a soldier or servant or to reply "yes" or "no" from behind the curtain. In fact, he worked day and night pulling the curtain and getting the stage props set up. He was prepared to work even harder as long as he could see Hong. He often said that the founder of the form of theatrical art known as cai luong had cast a spell on him, and he was like the three legendary princes Can, Chon, and Chat, who had abandoned their luxurious court lives to pursue art. Whenever people heard this explanation, they laughed: it was ridiculous to think that a fellow like Chin could be lured by the art of the theater; no, it was clear he must have been struck by love. When he thought about his situation, he considered the possibility that he owed Hong a great debt from a former life—a debt he could not pay in full during this life, no matter how great his efforts.
When Hong became pregnant and the troupe's manager threatened to fire her, Chin pleaded her case. "She is still rather naive, please..."
"Is it yours?" the boss had asked.
Chin smiled. "Yes. No one else's."
"Are you sure of that?"
Yes, he said, his heart filled with sadness. He knew who the real father was, but Hong had begged him not to tell. "Please don't. He still has something very important to do." He knew she must have loved the man very much to protect him at such cost to herself. After she had given birth, Chin took care of the child. When Hong found that he had taught the little boy to call him Ba [Father], she couldn't help crying. It was the first and only reward she'd given him during the two years he'd been with the troupe.
Saigon in those days was in the turmoil of the war, and Chin found himself arrested one afternoon, when the police received information that some members of the Kim Tieu troupe were Viet Cong. All of the members of the troupe were screened, but Chin's background made him suspect. He merely smiled at his interrogators when they asked him why he had abandoned his good life to join the wandering actors. He knew they would not believe the truth. Ten days later, after failing to find any evidence, they freed Chin. Only ten days, but it took him half a lifetime to meet Hong again.
The troupe had disintegrated very quickly, and Hong hadn't waited for him. Later, Chin learned that the actor Thuong Khanh had been arrested by the military police and that Hong had taken her child and gone into hiding, fearing that Khanh, her lover, would falter in his duty if the police used her and the child's safety as leverage against him. Chin searched for her in vain. For years, he wondered how she was able to sustain herself without his support.
One night, Hong told the residents of Buoi Chieu House her life story. They sat in the moonlight, next to a basket of boiled sweet potatoes. Not one person could hold back tears, hearing their own miserable destinies reflected in her story. She had remained true to her vow, staying single for the sake of her art, even though her own son eventually rejected her because of her insistence on following her calling. She never mentioned his name again, in all her life. Chin sat silently, listening in misery. The sadness of her life had taken its toll on her, but he was still struck dumb by her fading beauty.
At Buoi Chieu, Hong became the only female actor never to go on stage without makeup. During her first days there, she had only shaken her head when asked to sing. She never responded to the questions rained on her as a result. All seven women in the house were old and couldn't afford lipstick. When Chin insisted, she told him the truth. He immediately broke into his savings and bought her lipstick and face powder. Hong was moved, but also very sad.
"Why are you so good to me?"
Her words made Chin sad as well.
"Why can't you understand me, even at our age? Oh, my dear Hong."
But he wasn't being completely fair. There were times when he didn't understand her as well. Hong had an old, dull, bronze-edged mirror she liked to use. Somehow this made Chin love her all the more, and he bought her a new mirror and then hid the old one. She became very angry with him. "Don't be so clever. I don't need a new mirror."
"But it's very old, very dull."
"I like it, in spite of its dullness."
He never understood why she preferred the old mirror.
He was sad that day. He did not go to greet her when she came back. He knew she was still waiting for something in her life, but he did not know what it was, nor did she confide in him. She had always been an introvert, always kept her face expressionless and hid her emotions. It was only on stage that she could cry her heart out or laugh to her heart's content.
One day, when all the other residents of Buoi Chieu were picked up and taken by bus to the municipal theater for a commemoration of the death of the founder of the classical theater, Chin stayed back to look after the house. While he was there, an old man with snow-white hair, a deliberate gait, and a very respectable bearing came to the door and inquired after Hong. Chin asked him how he knew her.
"She and I were old friends. Have you known her for a long time? Yes? So you know. How can anyone forget such beauty? I recently read a story about this place. I felt as if I'd been given a second chance at life, and I rushed here to find her."
Chin was at a loss. The man left, with Chin giving no sign that he knew who he was. Thuong Khanh was very old now, but he still had a refined and deliberate bearing. Chin had waited for him to mention the son he had had with Hong. Could he forget so easily? Chin thought about it for a long time before deciding not to tell Hong about the visit. He feared he would lose her again.
But he couldn't remain silent. "Hong, do you remember Thuong Khanh? He came looking for you today."
Hong stopped combing her hair, but she said nothing. Then she went to wash her clothes. At the water tank, she gazed at her reflection and burst into tears. Her faded beauty. Without turning her head, she knew that Chin had come running up to see what was wrong.
"If he comes tomorrow," she said, "please tell him that I don't live here...I don't want to see him again."
At that, Chin felt happy. But he also pitied her.
"Dear, you can't avoid meeting him; there's no use trying. We exist because we have hearts."
One day soon after, Khanh was waiting at the head of the alley. Hong returned home at twilight and spotted him first. She smiled. "I heard that you've been looking for me. Is that true?"
Khanh stood dumbfounded, pain rising in his heart. This was not the beauty he had loved. This could not be Hong, the woman whom he had embraced and loved and who had protected him in those days.
Later, Chin told her that not everyone could see beauty, so there was no need for her to be sad. She smiled. "I'm not sad at all," she said. Then tears flowed down her face.
The people of Cay Cong alley never saw the old man in the luxury car visit the Buoi Chieu House again.
There came a season when raindrops splattered on the roofs and Hong was no longer seen with her sweetened porridge. No longer did her sweet and sad voice ring out, nor did Chin drop in for a cup of tea at the Tu Bung Café.
She was seriously ill. He was devastated. Her talk would always turn to death until old Phi scolded her. "I'm much older than you, and I'm still here. So how can you talk of dying?"
The fifteenth of the Lunar March: as usual, a performance day at Buoi Chieu. Hong was still bedridden, but she insisted that she would sing. Chin applied her makeup and helped her to her chair. She sang the ancient songs: the lament for the fate of Queen Mother Duong Van Nga, torn between her debt to her country and her love for her family; the eternal wait of Quyn Nga, at her hand loom by the bridge, for the return of her warrior husband; the hard and faithful life of Chau Long, who silently served her husband's friend Luu Binh for three years until he won his Confucian laureate title; and the fate of To Thi, who turned to stone as she stood with her small son in her arms, awaiting the return of her disgraced husband. She sang and sang until she fainted.
By the time Chin got her into bed, she was already in a coma. The residents of Buoi Chieu all sang a last song to honor a genuine artist. In those final moments, she saw all of her relatives, and she saw her son also, and he finally called her "Mother." Her parents were there as well, and they pardoned her, and then she found herself in her native village and was happy in that place of her beautiful childhood.
Trang flowers fell from the trees in the yard.
Once, I dropped in at the Tu Bung Café and met old Chin Vu. He told me that he had spent his life following the drama troupe and that, in the end, it was worth it because he had finally been given a major role to play. What role was that? one of the other patrons asked. The son of actress Hong, he said. When the woman he had loved all her life was on her deathbed, he had been able to come to her and call her "Mother," and see her smile. Only that? Yes, only that, but how could you young people ever understand?
----
Translation by Nam Son and Wayne Karlin
Nguyen Ngoc Tu was born in 1976 in Ca Mau Province, Viet Nam, and works in the Ca Mau Association of Literature and Arts. In 2000, her first collection of short stories, The Inextinguishable Light, received first prize from The Youth Publishing House in Ho Chi Minh City.
Nam Son is a translator who lives in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
Wayne Karlin is a novelist and the coeditor, with Le Minh Khue and Ho Anh Thai, of Curbstone Press's Voices from Viet Nam series.
Project MUSE
