Aunt Thu and I having breakfast my first morning  back in Vietnam, April 11, 2017.

Da Nang Redux

Reluctantly aware that I have never used the word “redux” before in any way.  A perfectly serviceable 17th century word to describe “returning, as from war or exile”. Somehow the word seems appropriate and has established itself in my head as the title for my latest trip to Da Nang, my fifth trip to Vietnam, the 4th in the past year and a half.

My first trip to Vietnam at age 19 in 1971 led me on a fate-powered journey to write my daughter’s story, “Letter from Lena”.  I am here for 5 weeks to finish that story.  I live in an apartment near my family, none of whom speak English.  For the next few days I am without the aid of my able interpreter and niece, Xuân.  She is in Saigon with her father Hung completing an exit interview so she can accompany me back to the United States in the middle of May.  Xuân plans to attend the University of North Texas while living with my daughter Lena in Dallas.

On the plane flight from San Francisco to Seoul to Da Nang, I re-wrote and shortened the book’s prologue for the twenty-somethingth time (thanks Diane, you were right) and have now pledged to put it aside for good.  

This afternoon after lunch I will begin writing the story of Huong’s years in a Re-education Camp for the crime of having an American soldier lover.  This one is the hardest chapter to write and I’ve put it off with the never-ending excuse that it needed more research.  Well, there’s no more research to do.  Now it’s just the words, the story, the memories.