I’m reconstructing those once broken frames in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City during my return to Vietnam. As a start, I relearn my broken language at the homes of my father’s parents, brothers, and sisters. My lessons are similar to when my mother was teaching me English 13 years ago. However difficult, I prefer the expressive tonal peaks and valleys of Vietnamese over the flatness of English. Sometimes, my aunt – my teacher and I walk from my grandparent’s home to her classroom; each location is no bigger than the size of my room in America. I don’t mind, the close spaces are cozy and comforting like the closeness of family. Occasionally, we take her motorcycle, weaving amongst the thousands of others in the streets and immersing in the deluge of exhaust and sound. During my lessons, as I become more proficient in Vietnamese, I recall a quote by Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”. After 13 years of being trapped in my English and American existence, I’m on my quest to better my inept language in the hopes of breaking my limits and finally freeing my world.
Back in District 1, I linger before the old, cramped home left behind by my mother, her parents, and her 10 brothers and sisters 20 years ago. I can’t prevent the pang of a realization – I could have grown up in the poor slums of Saigon. This realization, ironically, strikes me a strange nostalgia. I close my eyes, and I’m a child of a past generation back in an old Saigon, singing indistinct songs, clapping my hands, smiling in a tranquil, light, and misty rain. Surrounded by cozy shacks on the edge of water, distant terraces, and natives riding on bikes, I hold a Hoa Mai, a yellow flower signifying the eve of the Vietnamese New Year. It rests balanced in my outstretched palm like a fragile bird, perched yet awaiting flight by a lucky wind. Around the city square, people blooming with delicate smiles gather to see a traditional dragon dance while wishing each other fortune, prosperity, and health for the coming year.
It’s still raining. Along the old muddy path, I’m here again, barefoot, where the wispy trees are now gone. But this time I follow the path to where the dense shrubbery disseminates, the purifying rain pierces the canopy, and the forest at last ends – the threshold between jungle and cove, past and future. A crescent of land formed by tropic greenery almost completely surrounds the sea; its arms hug the secluded and calm waters. I step upon the now pleasing familiar sands. Before me, beholds the vast panorama of Ha Long Bay. From the bay sprout immense rock faces; they are massive mountains, looming giants, towering guardians, watchful ancestors. Daunting yet beautiful, their plateaus and peaks, graced by a sure wind, reach the auspicious sky. Here I belong, now with mended language and mended frames, among these steep mountains deeply bound to this land. In the far horizon where serene sky meets its clear reflection, these mountain shards resemble silhouettes of protecting sentinels. These sentinels, accepting no one but their country’s true natives, finally welcome me home to my promised paradise.