Professor Trinh once told me that Guan Yin (觀音), the goddess of mercy and compassion, holds a portrait of my ngin ngin, my paternal grandmother Professor Trinh once told me that The tree has no core. It exists neither in its leaves or branches, Nor in its roots or trunk. “Think of a ginger root Where each part is its core.” My exes said to me Stop asking yourself if you’re real, Or if the world is real, That you’ll be ok And just live your life. But I can’t just live when I d

I was born in Tan Thanh, a coastal village that thrived on the bounty of the sea. But as the war uprooted our lives, my family sought refuge in Go Cong, a peaceful town just ten kilometres away. Before that fateful day of April 30, 1975, my parents received gifts of fresh fish, prawns, clams, mussels, etc. from friends and family who still fished the waters of Tan Thanh. This connection to the sea ignited a lifelong love for its treasures. However, after the fall of South, th

(A fragmented recollection of a day visiting Vietnam. I write this in the hopes of it reaching out to others that have migrated, adapted, and now living within the gray area of what once was and now is) Dad, Linh and Lam walking to the market (Monarch butterflies migrate south to escape the cold of the winter. Humans are not so different. We migrate to escape the cold of war, poverty, and injustice. We take boats. We take planes. And some of us, even on foot. We leave behind

When I first touched down in Việt Nam, I thought I knew what to expect. I grew up hearing the stories of dusty roads, rowdy street markets, the smell of rain after a storm. All of these painted vivid, but strangely frozen, images of a country my parents left behind decades ago. I didn’t realize I was arriving somewhere both achingly familiar and brand new, and that in the process, I would meet a version of myself I hadn’t known existed. Growing up in the U.S., it was easy to

This week is the second week of Jordyn's three-week semester break. Although private schools in Melbourne, Australia charge high tuition fees (approximately north of twenty thousand dollars yearly), they give their students more time off than public schools. It sounds illogical because if you study less, you can't be good. However, based on reliable statistics, not “fake news”, it is common knowledge that private school students usually achieve positive results in terms of ed

TW: contains topics on abuse and suicidal thoughts Growing up, my mother put out bamboo on the kitchen counter for the second new moon of...