Growing up I had the same dentist from childhood to adulthood. My dentist’s office was run by Dentist Chung (in Vietnamese I called him Bác Sĩ Chung – which means Dr Chung translated directly) and his sister running the office.
The office was in Garden Grove, in between the Korean and Vietnamese districts. Walking in I would always smell the incense from an herbal shop next door.
The office looked like it was from the 1970s. They had this really old but comfortable couch and constantly played oldies music from the local radio station.
I distinctly recall being afraid as a kid going in, and somehow the office manager convinced me if I did a good job with a cleaning I could someday get the dentist’s chair. With my warped sense of rationalizing things, it all made sense and I calmed down.
When I was in early high school Dr Chung said, “you should think about getting braces and fixing your underbite.” I really had no issues with my teeth so far, but I entertained his proposal. I went to an Orthodontist consult.
The Orthodontist I saw was in the heart of Little Saigon – the Vietnamese area of Westminster. When coming in I waited in the reception area for a bit, where the Orthodontist admitted me in the office.
He asked me to bite down and said pretty quickly – “class 3 malocclusion jaw surgery – recommend jaw surgery.” He explained to me that the process would be to remove my 4 wisdom teeth, have braces for 2 years, have jaw surgery, and then have braces again for potentially another year. He didn’t explain much any pros and cons and ushered me away to talk to the assistant for more details.
In another room, the assistant put on some DVD of the process of dealing with class 3 malocclusions. It meant that I had an underbite, and what they needed to do is remove my wisdom teeth to make space, and then crack my jaw and move it back. The recovery would involve sewing my lips (?) and going on a liquid diet for a while.
The assistant also said that some people liked having this jaw surgery because of improvements to their facial profile. She also mentioned that some people don’t even recognize them after the surgery.
The assistant ended with saying, “You know, Vietnamese are a superstitious bunch, so some say that doing jaw surgery will change your destiny!”
Okay, count me in for not believing in superstition, but really that is the absolute worst thing you could say to a teenager after getting a quick 5 minute consult, a gory video on the treatment of an underbite, and somebody saying it will change your destiny. At that point, I decided not to go along with my surgery and went along my merry way.
A couple years after the consult, I called the dentist’s office to book an appointment, and I was told the dentist had a heart attack! He evidently had been eating a pretty unhealthy diet (I know correlation isn’t causation, but he did eat McDonalds every day for lunch). Fortunately he bounced back and started working again.
A couple years after the heart attack, he actually had another heart attack and this time fatal. When he passed away, my family went to his funeral and saw his grieving sister, and the dentist’s daughter who I talked on and off with throughout going to the office. Oddly enough, the dentist’s daughter did a quick internship at one of my old startups back in the day.
After grieving the loss of my dentist, there were the practical issues of finding a new dentist. Pausing for a moment, I remembered, my optometrist’s brother (whose parents live next to my parents) was a dentist.
Dr Tan Huynh was also in the heart of Little Saigon, but when I drove into his office, they had computers that could do x-rays, and an efficient staff to make cleanings and appointments way easier. I had realized at that point I had been going to Dr Chung’s office with technology from the stone ages.
With the first consult, the dentist asked me to bite down and asked if I considered braces and jaw surgery to fix my underbite. This time being older, I peppered him with questions on pros and cons. He mentioned my teeth were functionally fine at the moment, but in the future I might not be able to chew as my teeth wore down. Asking what age I might not be able to eat, he threw out what seemed to be the random number of 60.
Remembering the experience at my last Orthodontist, I wasn’t convinced the pros outweighed the cons (eg – cons meaning my destiny would change).
When I moved up to Vancouver, I was faced yet again on finding a new dentist. Jason recommended me to visit an office nearby, where Dr M was the first to see me.
He did the whole consult and analysis, but this time they took pictures and some fancy 360 xray scan. He brought up again my underbite, and we again talked through the pros and cons. I asked whether I should try to fix it and he said a lot of people have underbites and just manage it. Apparently when eating I push food through my back teeth immediately.
During the pandemic when I got my first cleaning I saw Dr F, a younger dentist who was one of the co-owners of the office. She saw my bite and asked if I wanted to fix my underbite, and after the 4th mention in my life it got my thinking a little bit more seriously about it. This time she said Invisalign might be able to fix it.
I came back to another appointment after my cleaning to get an Invisalign consult. They did some scans and because of the pandemic they wanted to limit in person meetings, so the follow-up was a zoom call.
Dr F proceeded to say that she initially thought she could take out my middle bottom tooth, but to fix my underbite. However she concluded Invisalign wouldn’t work and that I should see an Orthodontist.
This time I was a little more open to it because I was no longer traveling as a consultant during the pandemic, and wearing a mask would make it pretty easy to hide the fact I had braces.
Weeks later I saw the orthodontist Doctor D and they did the initial analysis. He basically said I have two options. First, remove 2 wisdom teeth, braces for 2 years, jaw surgery, then braces for 2 years. Second, remove 6 teeth, braces for 2 years and you are done.
I peppered him with questions on the pros and cons health wise, and he said functionally both would lead to the same outcome. He said the jaw surgery would change my profile, but would come with more risks since it was a surgery. I decided to go with option 2. I also wondered why when I was a teenager I wasn’t presented with a non jaw surgery option, but I’m guessing it was because the technology of modeling these outcomes weren’t available.
Dentistry is an interesting field because most dentists and orthodontists can’t tell you definitely what will happen with your teeth in the future. It all seems to be what risk/reward you are comfortable with. As part of the assessment I had to pay $500. If I chose to move forward with braces they would credit my account, but if not, I would lose it. I think sunk cost fallacy nabbed me this time as this pushed me over the edge to do a final commitment of the decision.
Before putting on braces, and I had to get 6 teeth extracted. To ease the pain, I got 3 extracted from my regular dentist, and 3 extracted from an extraction specialist doctor. Let’s just say, the extraction specialist finished the entire job in about 30 minutes while my regular dentist took about 1.5 hours. My regular dentist felt so guilty taking so long she gave me her cell phone number and told me to call her if I had any post extraction complexities.
The process of wearing braces involved seeing the orthodontist about every 6 weeks for an adjustment, and compliance to get the results you want. In addition to braces, you have a wire running across and little hooks where you can attach rubber bands to. Throughout the process compliance meant always wearing and rotating the rubber bands as needed as well as avoiding eating really hard food (like nuts), to avoid breaking your bracket. Slipping up on compliance inevitably leads to a longer total process.
When I saw my Orthodontist, I noticed I was the oldest person in the office as it was mostly kids and teenagers. Often I would overhear my Orthodontist sternly warn the kids that they weren’t being compliant by either not brushing their teeth well or not wearing their rubber bands. I would then hear parents berating their children in one sentence, and in the next sentence begged them to be compliant. It usually ended with the parents trying to guilt trip their children by saying seemingly unhelpful things like, “don’t you want good teeth like your brother.”
Getting braces as an adult is a bit different as I was on a mission to be compliant and to finish it as soon as possible because I paid for every penny of it. Psychologically, something different clicks in your head when it is your money on the line.
The initial side effects I had were teeth sensitivity. There were times hard food was difficult to eat (like sandwiches, cucumbers, steak, etc), so I bought these tiny tots scissors originally intended for parents to use when cutting food for their babies. The scissors were an obnoxious bright blue color, but I liked it because it was compact and had a case.
One time I had a business meeting with a customer at a restaurant and when the food came I took out the scissors. The person next to me paused and asked why I had bright blue scissors. I explained to him the whole dental situation, and then the whole table caught wind of the conversation and asked me about the scissors. It was a bit awkward in the beginning, but then the whole table spent the next hour talking their dental issues. Also through this experience I learned bringing scissors is generally helpful at restaurants if you are sharing food.
2.5 years later (6 months behind schedule mind you), I had an appointment to remove my braces. The doctor told me saying, “there was a lot of movement of your teeth, we probably need to install a permanent wire retainer behind your bottom front teeth”. And at the same time I was told I needed to wear a retainer full time for 6 months, and then at night time for the rest of my life.
I was a little shocked as I never really put two and two together that after the braces I would have to wear a retainer at night in my mouth for the rest of my life. I wonder if ortho offices gave a really honest assessment of the entire process (brackets breaking, wires poking, teeth sensitivity, retainers for the rest of your life), if fewer people would opt in.
Am I happy with the result? Well my underbite is fixed now, but really the whole intended health outcome of being to chew when I’m 60 might require another blog post in 20ish years.
Grandma and the Vietnam War When I was young, friends would visit, and there was one photo on the shelf that caught their attention in my room. It was a photo of an elderly Caucasian lady and their first question to me was, “How come you didn’t take the stock photo out of the frame?” I replied that she was my grandma, and they became even more confused because they thought I was 100% Vietnamese, so why would my grandma be white?
In 1975, my mom was working in the Saigon Adventist Hospital in Vietnam, and around April 20, conditions were deteriorating quickly in the capital with rumors that the communists would take over soon. She witnessed firsthand horrors of the war working in the emergency room, with one memory of treating an 8-year old where a grenade had exploded near his head. Due to the severity of the injuries, the child passed away and she grieved heavily with her family.
Similar to the fall of Afghanistan in 2021, people became desperate to get out of the country, especially if they were associated with the Americans. Charter flights were leaving around the clock organized by the US State Department to evacuate as many people out of Vietnam as possible.
There was one charter flight where one lady was a no-show and my mom took her place. At that moment, she left everything behind, her family, her possessions, and was only left with a US $20 dollar bill given to her.
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, my foster grandma, Beryl Bason heard calls from the Loma Linda Adventist church about sponsoring Vietnamese refugees to help get them on their feet. My grandma ended up hosting my mom, and two of her nursing school classmates in San Diego for a couple of months where they all went back to nursing to become certified nurses to work in the US.
My mom met my dad after immigrating to the US and settled in Orange County, California where it would end up having one of the biggest populations of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam.
Return to the home land part 1
It is a bit strange, but according to my parents, my first language was actually Vietnamese. They were afraid I would be confused learning two languages, so they switched to speaking to me in English when I was young. Since then new research has shown kids can learn multiple languages without issue. Because I never learned Vietnamese formally, my proficiency was stunted, unlike my Spanish which I consider myself semi-fluent in due to four great years of education in high school.
There was a running joke that since I really didn’t look Vietnamese, my friends bought me a 23andme genetic test to settle the issue once and for all. Funnily enough, the first result of the test showed 1% speculative European, but the results eventually tightened up to confirm that my origins are indeed 100% Vietnamese.
Most kids of immigrants make some type of ‘return to the homeland’ type journey when they are young, and for me it was when I was 13. A priority for my parents was to meet my grandparents while they were still alive and to meet my extended family.
I have to admit, that was a rough trip. My mom’s hometown of Tam Kỳ wasn’t really well developed and I remember when I had to go to the bathroom, it was in an outhouse not unlike a camping trip. Hardly anyone spoke much English so I struggled talking with my cousins and just about everyone else
For some reason, my parents also had wacky expectations that after I went to Vietnam I would become fluent in Vietnamese. Let’s just say that didn’t happen; becoming fluent in something requires understanding the foundational basics of grammar, language, and some schooling which I didn’t get.
As an adult, Vietnam was never really on my radar to visit. I befriended some Europeans at a previous job, and they told me they spent months in the country visiting every nook and cranny. Because of my last trip, my memories of Vietnam were primarily associated with seeing family, extended family, and more family so I didn’t get to see the country on my own terms (although I would have been too young anyways to make my own decisions).
Return to the homeland part 2– 27 years later
In 2014, I took a trip to Mexico with my partner and parents since they had a time share in Cabo San Lucas. It was the first international-ish trip with my parents and I was a bit nervous as I had never traveled with them as adults.
I was pleasantly surprised that we all had a great time with each other, and the trip went really well. There was even a time where I said, let’s go snorkeling in Cabo Pulmo (about 2 hours away) and they were okay with the drive. On the way the road seemed to end and I took the right fork when I should have taken the left fork and got the car stuck in the ditch in the sand. There was nobody around, and I didn’t have any cell phone data (at that time North America plans didn’t exist yet). I don’t know why exactly but my partner and my dad pushed the car while I hit the accelerator and we got the car out of the ditch. After such an incident like that, I’m happy my parents didn’t disown me after such a scary incident. Happy to say, that snorkeling was probably some of the best I’ve ever seen, with a travel adventure to back it up.
Since then I’ve been intentional to travel with my parents as much as possible as I know they are getting older, and there will be a time they won’t be able to travel anymore due to their age or health. Unfortunately this type of thinking boded true as when my dad passed away, I am grateful that I could travel with him quite a bit.
In March 2020, we scheduled a trip to visit Vietnam all together, and it would have been 27 years since I had last visited. However at around February 2020 we were getting news that schools in Vietnam were getting shut down due to Covid. At the time there weren’t hard shut downs, but out of an abundance of caution we cancelled the trip.
In early 2023, my partner proposed we go to Vietnam all together around Thanksgiving time. My parents initially were going to go, but then declined to hang out with the grandkids. Initially I was relying on my parents to do a lot of the planning, but now that we were on our own we began doing research on what to do. My parents not going ended up being fortunate, as my dad got seriously sick around the same time, so it was good he was in North America.
With the Lonely Planet book, I began researching things to do and oddly enough realized that I actually didn’t know much about Vietnam in terms of the cities, regions, or even things to do. After much research (and talking to my cousins and friends), we decided to stick mainly in the north because it was drier, and the central area was rainy season so we didn’t spend too much time there.
Vietnamese – Forked
We started our trip in the city of Hanoi, which is the capital in the north. Probably the most important expression everyone learns when visiting a foreign country is, “where is the bathroom?”. My proficiency in Vietnamese is kind of like a bunch of lego blocks in my head with limited abilities of building certain structures. Everything kind of comes out in bits and pieces, but at the least I know how to say
Cầu tiêu ở đâu? (Where is the bathroom – but literal translation is ‘where is the toilet’)
Of course the waiter in the restaurant gives me a really confused look, and says, you mean
Nhà vệ sinh ở đâu? (‘Where is the bathroom – but literal translation is ‘where is the hygienic house’)
Now I give the puzzled look as I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of a bathroom called “Nhà vệ sinh” in my life growing up in Southern California at all.
One of the things which is important to realize is when the refugees came from Vietnam to North America and other parts of the world in 1975, two Vietnamese diaspora now existed in different locations around the world. One in Vietnam the main branch, and another branch in North America.
Talking to my mom and some relatives about this, my guess is the etymology of “where is the bathroom” in Vietnam pre 1975 probably was “Cầu tiêu”, and that at some time post 1975 it changed to “Nhà vệ sinh”. Even the English language, has radically changed much in 40 years. When I talk with the newest generation in high school, there are a bunch of words that I have no idea what they mean.
Soleil Ho, talks about this how Vietnamese food in North America is basically food from Vietnam from the 1970s. Again, it makes sense because the food traditions were from the initial wave of refugees.
I talked to a good friend living in Vietnam about this, and she mentioned how Vietnamese people living in North America now have a Vietnamese – North American accent. The Vietnamese spoken in North America comes off as a lighter tone and people in the north consider this tone as someone who has studied formally.
This kind of explains a weird situation I had in a grocery market. I was asking what was in the center of this candy, and the lady remarked in Vietnamese, “Your Vietnamese is so good, how many years did you study for?”. Inside I was dying because I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was an overseas Vietnamese (Việt kiều Mỹ). I’m sure if she knew that she probably would have instead asked, “why is your Vietnamese so bad?”
The other surprising fork which I hadn’t really considered is how different the northern dialects are different from the southern dialects. I distinctly recall several friends learning Vietnamese through duolingo, and their parents asking why they are learning the northern accent. In the eyes of the north, their dialect is often viewed as the gold standard of speaking. Below are examples of English Word – Northern Vietnamese Dialect – Southern Vietnamese Dialect as explained by one of my friends in Vietnam.
English Word
Northern Vietnamese Dialect
Southern Vietnamese Dialect
Cup
cóc
ly
Fruit
hoa quả
trái cây
10 thousand
10 nghìn
10 ngàn
Pineapple
dứa
thơm
Passion fruit
chanh leo
chanh dây
Bowl
bắt
chến
You don’t have to be proficient in Vietnamese just to see these are totally different words. I am happy to report when I later went to my parent’s hometown Đà Nẵng (central Vietnam), I did have an easier time understanding and speaking to people.
Reconciliation
Maybe it isn’t me not giving Vietnam enough credit, but the museum scene in Hanoi was unexpectedly stellar. There is the Hoa Lo Prison Museum (made famous where John McCain was held as a POW), Ethnology Museum (about minority populations), Women’s Museum, Ho Chi Minh Museum, and the list actually does go on and on quite a bit.
One day we were kind of tired so we went to a museum right next to the hotel, aptly called the Hanoi Museum. On the second floor was an exhibit on the American War. That’s right, in Vietnam, it is not called the Vietnam War, it is called the American War. Much of the panels were spent talking about Americans as the aggressors, and the breaking of the Paris peace accords. However, the last panel discussed a lot about reconciliation between Vietnam and America.
It is amazing to me that 40 years later, formerly bitter enemies are now actually allies. In the midst of some of the grand global conflicts occurring now, it is helpful to have hope that I truly believe anything is possible in terms of peace.
Hà Giang Loop Tour
From family friends we heard about a trek that was not exactly off the beaten path, but not the first thing tourists do. There is a 3 day loop tour that most people rent motorcycles and drive up the Ma Li Peng pass bordering China. Given we didn’t want to be riding motorcycles on mountain roads for 3 days, we booked a 3 day car trip.
We booked with the Yesd travel agency (huge plug for them here, I do recommend this agency), where the tour guides consist of ethnic minorities of the region. Talking to the guide, there are over 54 ethnic minorities there. I was kind of shocked, and humbled that I really knew so little of Vietnam. The drive consisted of driving through spectacular greenery on the mountain roads and we took many stops for photos.
Our accommodations were at houses belonging to the ethnic tribes in the region. We first stayed with the Tay people, and I was pretty surprised that our accommodation, despite being on the second floor of a traditional wood structure had a shower, heat pump, and pretty fast wifi.
For dinner, we would eat with the families, and it was nice in a way that it wasn’t performative. The families didn’t talk about their lives or their minority status. It was just a regular dinner you would eat with a family. With the eco-tourism booming there, it’s just easier to act like you normally do when you have visitors and not need to put on a show.
On the second day we did a tour through a Hmong village. It was rural in its location, but not in the stereotypical sense because everyone there had fancy cell phones. The Hmong people there still adhered to their traditional of marrying early and their agricultural routines.
We sat down for tea with one of the Hmong shop owners when I noticed he was wearing a French beret. I kind of asked why he was wearing a beret, and he explained that from French colonial rule, this clothing item was introduced. Ever since that time, the beret in that region became traditional wear.
Thinking about this further, it really has helped me alter my thinking of the word ‘authentic’. There is this Vietnamese Instant Pot Facebook group which constantly argues about recipes not being ‘authentic’. Some claim it is only authentic when it is from the source home country. Others argue a recipe is authentic when you cater towards the spirit of it.
Rachel Ray a little while back then sowed a bit of controversy from her pho video. 2 years ago people were raging against her, “how dare she change the recipe, that’s not authentic!”.
Coming back the Hmong person I wonder, who is the arbiter of when something is authentic and traditional? After hearing his story, I think it’s difficult to nail down authenticity to a static period of time. And that the reality is the traditions change through time, and perhaps there is no such thing as authenticity.
Ha Long Bay
After Ha Giang, we went to Ha Long Bay, a large bay of water where cruise ships sail around for about 1-2 days. We took a shuttle and from Hanoi the trip was only 2 hours. Expecting the trip to be a straight shot, I was surprised we stopped half way for a ‘restroom stop’. The restroom stop was next to a pretty fancy gift shop.
At the check-in area of Ha Long Bay, there were tons of people representing a diverse set of people all over the world similar to an airport. The check-in area was a bit chaotic and you board a small boat to join the big boat.
On our particular cruise boat, we somehow joined everyone from Portugal as there were probably only two other couples who weren’t from Europe. We befriended one couple who was from New York while watching a cooking demonstration. The guy was half Vietnamese and half Indian, which was pretty fascinating to me as I have never met anyone of that mix. He was willing to entertain some of my questions on which side he felt most comfortable with. I imagine he probably gets asked this question quite a bit being mixed.
After dinner I stood towards the front of the boat looking at the view and the cruise manager was out there also. He looked pretty young, probably early 20s so I greeted him with “Chào em” (hello little brother). In Vietnamese when you talk to anybody you address people relative to the age of your parents, or relative to your own age. Snafus always happen about people incorrectly assuming age causing people to correct you on how you should address them.
I don’t know if that was a good or bad thing, but he took that as a cue that I was in Vietnamese and began speaking to me in Vietnamese. I explained to him my Vietnamese wasn’t that great and it was my first time visiting Vietnam since I was 13. He said something really surprising during the conversation said, “Welcome home, even though you forgot a lot of your Vietnamese, it will come back to you.”
We were pretty mixed about the experience especially coming after an awesome cultural and nature experience from Ha Giang. Ha Long Bay oddly enough was one of our least favorite parts of our trip more so for the feeling of having a Disneyland type experience of tons of people and long lines. Ha Giang in the next couple years will have a faster road built from Hanoi cutting the drive time to about 2 – 2.5 hours so expect tourism in that region to increase soon.
Da Nang
The last part of our trip was to the central area of Da Nang. My uncle (my dad’s brother) still lives in Da Nang, and my cousins flew from Saigon to meet us up there. On the first night being there, they took us out to eat at a famous Banh Xeo place.
Bánh Xèo is crispy turmeric rice crepe where the ingredients are either chicken, pork, or shrimp. The name of the dish is a fun play of words roughly translating to sizzling item. Bánh is kind of a weird weird as it could refer to a lot of things depending on the word it is paired with. My cousins know I don’t eat pork and shrimp, so I was surprised when they mentioned we could order Beef Banh Xeo.
I inquired further why there is a beef banh xeo, as I never heard of that before. Apparently because of the Korean influences into the city due to tourism and business, the people of Da Nang began changing their food to cater to the Koreans. Because of that, a couple new dishes emerged like Banh Xeo Bo and Mi Quang Bo. The latter dish is traditionally made of chicken, turmeric, and shrimp, but now they made a beef version. What previously was an authentic dish of only chicken, pork, and shrimp now added beef as an option.
Next to Da Nang is Hoi An, the famous town known for its lanterns at night and on the river. On the way there, my cousins wanted me to visit a street named after my grandfather, Quach Xan. I asked what he was known for, and she replied that he was a great leader for the country. Just kind of putting things together, I know that my dad and his brother had a classic story of joining different sides of the war and that would mean my grandfather was a communist.
I had kind of mixed feelings standing there on the street taking pictures by the street sign with an ode to my family name. As a great leader to Vietnam, I wonder what he did? What is interesting about Vietnam is that half of the population was born after the war so it is something that isn’t talked about much.
In Hanoi, we did a walking tour with a student from Hanoi University. We asked what his generation thought about politics and said that mostly everybody was apolitical and most were concerned more about their economic futures rather than the political state of the country.
When we think of wars, history tends to paint everything in black and white strokes. There were the good guys and bad guys. I inquired about my grandfather a little bit with my mom and the war in general and she said really back then, both sides were rather corrupt, and her opinion was neither side really had the people’s interest at heart.
During my time in Vietnam I had a sense that even with my cousins they didn’t want to talk about the war so it is a topic I didn’t approach.
My cousin gave me a quick history of Da Nang, explaining how the city managed to develop quickly and in general Vietnam has managed to raise the living standards of most people around the country. Da Nang used to be a poorer city, but not has attracted a lot of foreign business and tourists.
After the visit to my grandfather’s street we arrived in Hoi An. Half the city had been flooded (which apparently is pretty typical), so we walked around the areas we could. Hoi An is recommended by everyone to visit via people and guidebooks, but I found the city a bit touristy, almost something akin to Venice in Italy. It was overly crowded and touristy by day and early night, but as further nightfall set, there was a charm to the city as the crowds dissipated.
Áo Dài
On the last day of the trip there, I wanted to buy an áo dài (literally translates to long dress). It is a traditional Vietnamese dress that has gone through its own evolution. Originally it was only available in blue and red, but as time has progressed different fabrics, styles, and colors have emerged to make it more modern.
My cousin took me to a mini mall to shop around, and after great negotiation, I bought one that was beautifully hand decorated with a bit more of a modern sensibility. I asked my cousins how often they wear it, and they said not often at all. People used to wear it regularly growing up, but now it really is worn on very rare occasions. They continued to tell me that people now don’t even own any, they just rent it when they need it for pictures on occasions such as weddings.
Growing up I never wore an ao dai, and I kind of wonder why now do I feel the need to reconnect with this item. I wore it for the first time two years ago at international day at church where I asked to borrow my dad’s ao dai. It was very traditionally blue, and I think it was made of silk with a hat. It was a bit janky and needed a bunch of pins to hold it in place. I still have it at home next to the new one I bought from Vietnam, and I have a bit of sadness when I look at the blue ao dai as since my dad is no longer around I’m not really sure what to do with it. My intention was to give it back to him last year, but that never came to fruition.
I wore the new áo dài during Lunar New Year at church last year. Having grown up in an all-Vietnamese church, I’ve adjusted surprisingly quickly to being one of only a few Vietnamese people in my church in Vancouver. This transition makes me wonder: am I simply flexible with my identity, or is it still core to my heart?”
Some Closing Thoughts
Overall Vietnam was not what I initially expected. English for the most part was readily accessible, and everyone super kind. Food scene wise, we mostly stuck to what was advertised on the Vietnam Lonely Planet Book (which was a good foundation of exploring), and friend’s recommendations. We found the high-end food scene in Hanoi spectacular
Book the water puppet show in advance as early as possible. It is a free reservation so there is no harm
Customs
Be aware for North America there is a requirement of a visa in advance. You can do this through an e-portal, although the site looked like it was made during the geocities era. Using one of the passport apps on your phone of taking a photo worked for us. If you plan to do multiple visits, there is a better multiple-entry visa you can get in your local country, otherwise a single entry works.
Transit In terms of getting around, the Grab app is essential. It is pretty much the Uber of Vietnam, but we had a lot of problems of using our foreign North American cards so be sure to bring multiple to get the app to work.
Sim Cards
This is a pretty big problem in the touristy cities. Sim Cards at the airport can be about 4-5x more expensive so you have to go a little bit outside of the main tourist areas to get regular rates. Be comforted though that they rip everyone off equally, locals and foreigners.
Tours
The most memorable trip we did was with Yesd, and we booked the 4 days, 3 nights with a car through Ha Giang
As in all SE Asian countries, you get a better exchange rate if you bring brand new crisp bills. Any bills which have rips or tears get deducted at money exchangers.
Fish Sauce
The Vincom markets have a totally different selection of fish sauce you get from North America. Here the fanciest one we have is Red Boat 40, but they have several brands similar to that there which are able half the price. However, bringing fish sauce home is quite the risky endeavor.
Hope I was happy to hear that throughout the country was a sense of hope. What I mean is most people seem optimistic about the future economic opportunities and that living standards have gradually improved throughout the years.
During the early pandemic, a topic came up I never thought I would need to worry about. Who would cut my hair? My Asian hair is a bit funky where it is similar to Wolverine in X-men. After a couple weeks the sides get really pointy and uncomfortable so I would go to the barber probably every 3-4 weeks.
Since all the barber shops were closed for a couple months I managed to get really cheap scissors and a Wahl peanut corded clipper, both which were incredibly hard to come by at the time. On Youtube, I must have watched this video at least 10 times for some guidance
The video describes how to cut your own hair and was probably one of the most methodical ones out there.
Coming from an engineering background, I like to plan and design as much as possible before doing an implementation. So based off the video I created a diagram on what to do.
In my whole life I never really had a need to cut my own hair as there was always a barber around somewhere. My barber at the time also was incredibly kind as we facetimed for her to give me some tips. There are obvious, but important things she taught me as when the clipper is going over your hair, if you don’t hear anything, nothing is being cut. It seems like common sense, but if you never have cut your own hair, these are important little tips.
When thinking about what I drew versus my plan, I totally deviated from my plan, (the whole numbering system, and up down didn’t work), and the result wasn’t bad, but definitely not great. In May 2020 as I walked around I noticed most men’s haircuts were rather uneven probably from everyone cutting their own hair or asking someone inexperienced to do it.
I was pretty overjoyed when I could go to my barber in June 2020. However after that I continued to cut my hair in between a professional cut so I would now only go a couple times a year.
Gradually, and after watching many many more Youtube videos I slowly got better and then started going to my barber less. After every haircut, I took some notes on what needed to be improved (mostly fading) and I also upgraded my equipment which made it easier to cut my hair
I bought a ridiculous looking umbrella haircut cape. I know I look like a dog in a cone of shame, but it was helpful to catch most of the hair
From Sallys, I bought Wahl Magic Cordless Clippers this was a huge upgrade from my Wahl Peanut as it was bigger and cordless. I read reviews on Amazon, and for some reason a lot of people would get refurbished packages so I didn’t buy it from them.
In 2020 I went to my barber 4 times, then in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 I went to my barber 8 more times.
Below is the cost savings for the past 4 years
52 weeks / 3.5 = 14.8 visits (I would get haircuts about ever 3.5 weeks)
14.8 visits * $50 haircut = $740 / savings year
$740 * 4 years = $2,960 – $600 (haircuts I paid for) – $300 (cost of the clippers and scissors) = $2,060 savings for the past 4 years
Projected savings the next 41 years
Let’s say I cut my own hair for the next 41 years it would come out to a savings of
$740 * 41 = $30,340
This experience taught me to evaluate in life what should I do for myself versus what should I pay for? Anything you choose to do for yourself does have some upfront investment, but can potentially have long term financial savings down the line.
Around US Thanksgiving, my mom let me know that my dad had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with a life expectancy of 1-2 years. In mid December my dad was hospitalized and one of the doctors suggested all family members should come urgently. When I arrived, the days consisted of going back and forth to the hospital and I commandeered a corner of the cafeteria as my remote office.
I think we all have different ways of dealing with stress, and my routine was prayer, hitting the gym, and doing yoga at night like clockwork. The first days were overwhelming with uncertainty, but this routine helped me to stay focused on things on the support tasks that needed to be done for the day.
Towards the end of the hospital stay, the doctors stated that there wasn’t much they could do, revising his life expectancy of weeks to months and suggested the best course of action was to be on hospice care.
My mom and I had a meeting with the hospice staff, who explained what hospice care entails. Compared to regular medical care which is to save a life, hospice care aims to provide comfort care to prepare for a patient’s end of life within a couple months. Since my dad had been diagnosed with a terminal condition of less than 6 months, he was eligible for the care via insurance.
As I’m sure no one is surprised, my dad hated being in the hospital. The hardest thing to see was him exclaiming in English and Vietnamese that, “Ba muốn đi về (I want to go home)” There were some serious medical complications preventing him from coming home, but fortunately, one of the doctors managed to do a treatment plan that enabled him to improve just enough to leave the hospital. One of his last prayers and wishes was to be at home. Thankfully, throughout the ordeal he didn’t have any pain in the hospital.
When he was discharged, we got him set-up at home successfully with a patient bed, and oxygen machine provided by hospice care. However, it was then we realized the magnitude of care needed. Now we would need to take care of my dad 24/7 as the cancer had robbed my dad of his independence. By a fortunate turn of events, God in his good graces lined up a caretaker who was a contact at my mom’s old home church to help watch him at night. Without that caregiver, everyone would have been exhausted to the point of feeling like zombies.
All kinds of questions began to arise, requiring us to adapt quickly. How would he communicate? How would we monitor him? One of the most low tech, but successful things we got was one of those bells that you ding when your order is ready at the diner. Another was a baby monitor where we could see him when we weren’t in the room.
The first couple days were okay, where the new sounds of the house consisted of the whir of an oxygen machine to support his lungs, and an occasional ring from my dad requesting some type of service. It was kind of cute in the beginning, like a customer asking for some food or water. Things kind of seemed normal, where he would read the news on the iPad and even have short conversations with us.
Meanwhile my family were having discussions about finances and the financial implications of having a night caretaker if this lasted weeks or months, and what are the financial thresholds a family can bear.
I think as a society we don’t talk enough about end of life and what is a good way to die? When a parent isn’t able to take care of themselves, what do we do? How much do we pay? Who is going to take care of the person? What kind of hardships would be spread amongst family? Do you want to be there to witness last moments? It seems cruel to equate finances in context of one’s life, but it is an important topic to broach.
When hospice care is at home, there is an unfair burden placed on the caregiver as they are expected to help manage medication for comfort vs lucidity of a person. Each day felt like an impossibility of choices. Administering medication for comfort often results in sedation, while withholding it can lead to suffering.
I give my mom a lot of credit for having numerous conversations with my dad about advance directives and his end-of-life wishes, ensuring that the family had clear expectations about the path to be taken.
As the days progressed, one of the nurses noticed his breathing and said he was struggling. We had a frank conversation about what does it looks like when a person is about to die. She warned us that a common pattern is that people have moments like they are completely normal with a day of a burst of energy, then crash quickly.
In the first week of January he passed away, peacefully and comfortable in the evening.
Sometimes, we reflect on this situation and ask where God was in these moments, why he wasn’t healed, and why a life expectancy of 1-2 years shortened to just weeks.
My approach to prayer is to ask for a specific outcome, such as healing, but if it doesn’t occur, I trust in God’s grand plan regarding life and death.
Throughout this ordeal, there have been many small blessings. First off, his wish and desire to go home were fulfilled, and the last medical treatment plan enabled him to improve enough to leave the hospital.
The second blessing was having a caregiver to cover the nights, starting from the first night after his discharge, allowing my mom to get some sleep. We were panicking when he got home because I knew my mom was not in a condition to stay up all night.
I’ve heard that losing a parent is one of the hardest experiences a person can go through. I’m still processing the loss, but surprisingly, I don’t feel a sense of guilt. By this, I mean that while he was healthy, we, including my mom and partner, spent a lot of time traveling together and had a good relationship. However, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t pain in my heart as I wish there were 10-15 more years to enjoy with him.
In 2014, my partner and I went to Mexico with my parents and this was the first international trip I took with them as adults. We had tons of adventures where uh, I literally got the car stranded in the middle of nowhere driving to a snorkeling spot in Mexico and I was surprised at his grace because my dad was super chill about. There was another trip to Mexico where uhh the car overheated when we went to a mountain town (buyer beware caution, if you ever travel with me, expect some shenanigans). And most recently my parents always wanted to go to Europe so we went to Italy only this past June. The trip was successful in my eye because a) they didn’t lost b) they didn’t get robbed. My dad was usually quiet, but as we took some private tours through Rome, I was surprised at his inquisitive nature about the surroundings around us about Roman culture and life there.
Since 2014 I have been intentional about traveling with my parents as much as possible as I know there would be some point of time, they would not be physically able to travel due to mobility issues. But nowhere in my wildest dreams did I expect this adventuring to be cut short by a fast-moving cancer.
The loss of a parent is strange, and grief comes in waves. It’s not like the world stops, but there are certain intense memories when I reflect that cause tears to fall. It is a balance of a completely normal day, then a realization you no longer can say “my parents.”
The days after a loved one passes through involves the immediate grief to be processed, the need to support family members, but also the huge logistical task of planning a funeral. It is no different than planning a party oddly enough.
I do have to give credit to my mom, as she had an inkling of the seriousness of my dad’s condition, so she already bought a funeral package near her house. This significantly alleviated our stress, as the costs were covered and the arrangements mostly preselected.
We went to the funeral home the day after my dad’s passing, encountering a surreal experience akin to buying a car. There was the base package that was already taken care of, but if you want, you can pay more to upgrade to a fancier casket, or pay more for a fancier box for the ashes. Fortunately, the staff had the sensitivity to inquire about upgraded packages, but not to push anything.
The funeral staff also had an odd warning for us that we might get calls from scammers posing as a funeral home to verify information. A couple days later, on my dad’s cell phone there were actually a couple of voice mails from fake funeral homes asking to verify information. A part of me wanted to call them back just to see where the scam would go, but I dropped the issue. Googling around, this is actually quite a big issue
It makes me wonder when someone dies, how exactly did these people get my dad’s cell phone number? I wonder if there is a black market for death records someone on the dark web. It is quite sad that people would prey on people at their most vulnerable.
The reality is when someone passes away, financial considerations come into play. One option presented was to keep the ashes at the funeral home, which would cost an additional $4,000. My mom thought about this for briefly, but since my dad expressed wishes for ashes to be returned to Vietnam, we realized that amount of money could essentially cover a trip there.
I was responsible for creating the memorial photo slideshow during the service and wanted to give a slideshow of dad throughout the decades. Fortunately, both my mom’s and my Google Photos were active, allowing me to gather photos via image auto-tagging. I then wrote a Python script to rename the files by date for chronological organization and added date-time stamps on the bottom right of each image.
At home, my dad, and as I later learned his brother in Vietnam, were both significant packrats. A theory suggest that growing up in conditions of scarcity may lead to hoarding as a protective mechanisms.
Over several days, I sifted through my dad’s stuff, finding a collection of old cables, cell phones, old laptops, random trinkets until I discovered an old mini dv camcorder and about 30 tapes. After locating the correct power adapter, I played the tapes back and found that the tapes spanned 2007-2010. During that time, my dad had just set-up the camcorder and recorded special occasions with the camera and tripod just sitting there.
While creating the slideshow, I felt a pang of sadness at having many photos, but few videos of him. However, this discovery filled that gap with raw footage of him interacting and talking with family – precisely the memories I longed for.
In today’s society there is a strong craving for the perfect ‘Instagram’ photo, a trend that I have fallen to also. However, I’m come to realize the most important media is ones that captures the raw authenticity of one’s self without filters or edits. The videos of dad just walking around and doing mundane stuff really has brought me the most joy. Maybe it is because I am afraid as the days and years go by I might forget what he was like, his speech, and mannerisms.
The next puzzle was how do I digitize such an ancient format as the only input was firewire. After a bit of googling, I bought a PCI-e firewire card on an old windows desktop at home, and managed to digitize all the videos after a lot of fiddling. I captured it first in .avi, then converted it to h.265 which is a newer video codec.
There was an 1.5 hour video that my dad recorded which took place in Christmas 2009. The video was just of us eating and opening gifts. Maybe because of smart phones, the whole set up a tripod and record for hours during an event isn’t too popular, but maybe this is a tradition worth reviving.
Dealing with the grief has been tricky as we don’t have many playbooks in life to learn about this. However, there are two things that have stood out to me which were helpful.
When I saw a friend after the passing of my father he asked me, “do you want a normal day, or do you want to talk about it”. I never really thought about it, but as the person dealing with grief, you do want to control the narratives of how your day goes. Some days I want to talk about it, some days I don’t.
A friend sent me a text message and said, “as much as you are there supporting family, don’t forget to take time to grieve for yourself.”
Another unexpected blessing, and something to consider with elderly parents is their online accounts and access to their e-mail. I fortunately set myself as the 2 factor authentication back-up so I could log in to my dad’s e-mail to get access to important documents. Also having all his phone pin codes so I could long in was helpful, as some apps were sending SMS messages to log-in.
When I encounter people I don’t often see, I briefly mention the major news, talking about it for a minute or two, before shifting the topic. I feel it’s important for them to be aware of this change in my life, but at the same time, I’m conscious of not letting it dominate our entire conversation.
When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer the first time around and beat it, he was talking to me about this verse and how he enjoyed it.
Ecclesiastes 3
A season for everything
3 There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens: 2 a time for giving birth and a time for dying, a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted, 3 a time for killing and a time for healing, a time for tearing down and a time for building up, 4 a time for crying and a time for laughing, a time for mourning and a time for dancing, 5 a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, a time for embracing and a time for avoiding embraces, 6 a time for searching and a time for losing, a time for keeping and a time for throwing away, 7 a time for tearing and a time for repairing, a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking, 8 a time for loving and a time for hating, a time for war and a time for peace.
It’s kind of an interesting choice because this is not really one of those traditional Bible verses used for comfort. But this choice shows his character because at the end of his life he openly and bravely accepted his mortality. He told us, don’t worry about me, I’m ready to go.
As tough as this was to hear, this was his last gift to us accepting God’s will and to be at peace, thereby bestowing it to us when he passed away.
In November 2020, I read the book Apollo’s Arrow after hearing Dr Christakis on NPR’s Fresh Air. Somewhere midway through this book, this paragraph stood out to me:
“Either way, until 2022, Americans will live in an acutely changed world—they will be wearing masks, for example, and avoiding crowded places. I’ll call this the immediate pandemic period. For a few years after we either reach herd immunity or have a widely distributed vaccine, people will still be recovering from the overall clinical, psychological, social, and economic shock of the pandemic and the adjustments it required, perhaps through 2024. I’ll call this the intermediate pandemic period. Then, gradually, things will return to “normal”—albeit in a world with some persistent changes. Around 2024, the post-pandemic period will likely begin.“
Given we were only 7 months into the pandemic I was intrigued at the timeline specificity of the pandemic. At that time, there was uncertainty in the media landscape on where this was going. Public health agencies also didn’t make any bold predictions about this.
Fast forward about 3 years to the current day, and this prediction has seemed to be accurate, maybe off by a factor of 6-12 months.
Hindsight of course is always 20/20, but would it be beneficial if we could identify experts who made accurate predictions? Or will uncertainty always rule the day?
