Hello world, hope you're listening~

greenswallow:

thejoyliu:

by Thien-Bao Thuc Phi

from the WAY WE PAY (2004)

It’s one of those nights when no one wants to be Asian.

Everyone wants to slip into something easier.

Any city, any bar, where a mixer or social event designed

To put a bunch of Asian people in one room

And hope they don’t hate each others’ guts.

He is already there, back stiff from the earlier day at work.

Already made small talk at this bar, with this sea of political consultants,

Paralegals, actors, nonprofit arts administrators and community workers,

Almost everyone is dressed in a neat, Asian, flat black.

She enters, and she is herself.  She lets out a small sigh to herself

That says,

I hate this shit, but I love my people.
 

She feels awkward since she is not wearing all black,

Does not know many of these people, does not feel like she is a part

Of their income bracket, does not watch Sex and the City so

She doesn’t know what she’ll talk about and with whom.

He looks closer as she walks by – their eyes meet.

They introduce each other.  Both their last names are Nguyen.

She works for the community.  He is an investment banker.

And it happens suddenly

They both look each other in the eye

And he sees that he doesn’t have a chance

With someone who is usually entranced by blue eyes

One of those expensive tea and gentrified hardwood floor type of girls

With a bathroom full of fruit extracts and verbena

And you know, soap bars with oatmeal sticking out of them

So that visitors mistake taking a shower for breakfast.

She probably got

An amazing vinyl record collection of R&B, soul and

Old school hip hop

And a white underground rapper boyfriend

With lots of tattoos

Yeah, he says to himself, She is probably a poet

Who takes her shoes off before she gets on stage

For some fuckin’ reason

Probably only likes boho spoken word poet types of boys

Who nod their heads

When she speaks of oppression –

Nod their heads so fierce to her didactic

That they make her feel like hip hop

She probably hates me for making money and being

Materialistic

But the money she spends on Paulo Freire books, rare vinyl records and

Tattoos could support an entire village back in Viet Nam.

Yes.  This is what he thinks of her

But he doesn’t ask her.

He doesn’t ask her.

If he did, maybe she would tell him

About a man, put into a re-education camp in Viet Nam,

His pregnant wife unable to sleep because she was afraid

That she would see her husband only in nightmares.

All they had, a small amount of money

In a tea tin, they escaped

And she, born on a leaky boat, miles away from any shore

Raised in America, on a tiny farm

The only Vietnamese amongst many Hmong farmers

How her parents said she must be a gift from Heaven

To survive being born on that leaky boat crammed with people.

They gave her raw cucumbers, they gave her stories,

They gave her everything they could

And she would secretly bury pennies in a corner of their farm

Water those pennies everyday

To see if she could make money grow

For her parents,

A tree with spinning, copper fruit.

If he asked her, maybe she would tell him

That in this hurried city, sometimes she misses that farm

The pond where she as a girl, skinned frogs and skinned knees

And skimmed the face of the water with her feet as she swang from the trees

But her parents wanted her to go to school, in the city,

Where the same whiteboy who called her a chink in High School

Asked her to have a cup of coffee with him in college

And all the white women

Wanted to show her pictures of their trips to India.

Those times she just wanted to get away

From the two jobs and all the schoolwork

And stare at the moon’s reflection

Unraveling itself on the Mississippi

Every wave breaking that reflection apart

And bringing it back together again

As if it was a ball of silver threads

That couldn’t decide if it wanted to be

Solidly itself

Or become undone.

Wondering if the people on that leaking boat

Saw the moon like she did tonight

And wondered who was buried under that moon

So that she could be alive today.

She would tell him

That her parents still send her

Dried fruits, pickles that they jar themselves

And when she opens the box that they send

She sits at her chipped kitchen table

And cries

Wondering why she can’t have a job

Where she can send them more money,

See them more often,

And despite all this, why her beautiful parents

Refuse to hate

Their beautiful baby girl.

Maybe she would say that she doesn’t move

In mysterious ways

These are mysterious days when being yourself

Is harder than being someone else.

So who is he to judge her?  He doesn’t know her,

This man-child with his expensive sweater

Who probably lives with his mother

Drives an Acura,

Drinks too much,

Plays Texas Hold ‘em all night

Plays basketball

Badly to try to prove his manhood

With his former AZN pride friends

Who hide their tattoos under long sleeve shirts

Who is this mothafucka to judge me, he probably

Can’t dance, can’t hold a conversation

For more than 15 minutes

Probably only goes to two stores: Banana Republic

And Armani Exchange

Looks like he has no personality

Blames the reason he can’t get a date

On Asian women dating white dudes

So who is this mothafucka to judge me?

Yes, she thinks this of him, but she doesn’t ask him.

If she did, maybe he would tell her

That when he was a boy, his mother

Stepped on a landmine, it opened beneath her

Like a thirsty flower unfolding

His mother suddenly becoming

A million red broken stars

Falling

His auntie, dead from giving birth

To an agent orange baby

Twisted to death in the womb

Another auntie,

His father spent days at the factory,

Asking his senile father to look after his young boys,

Sent money to auntie, did paperwork, kept the appointments

To bring her to America

And when she got here, she spit in his face at the airport

Blamed him for leaving all of them back in Viet Nam

As they starved.

How he saw this and swore

He would make enough money

To never have to see that look on his father’s face again

The look on his father’s face when his uncle

Stumbled in to borrow money for liquor and gambling

How kids in the neighborhood laughed at them

When they bought canned soup and macaroni

With food stamps

Now, he, an adult, an investment banker, living in a tiny apartment

Sending money to his relatives, in America and Viet Nam,

Stopped hanging out with his friends

Cuz they kept asking him, ‘Man, where’s all the money you make?

Where does that money go?’

Sometimes he sits alone

Holds his cold cell phone to his ear

Pretends in the silence that his mother has called him,

What her voice would be like, asking him

If he had eaten, if he was taking care of himself,

If he had found a girl, worthy of her son.

How his father once sat him down

And said, Boy, you have my blood in you.

Which means you will never be beautiful

But you will always survive.

He may have told her these things

If she had asked.

She may have listened, if he would

Have let her.

She may have wanted to hear it all,

He may have wanted to hear as much of her story

As she was willing to tell.

But neither asks one, the other.

So they pass, two leaking ships

Trying to stay afloat

Clinging on

To what they know.

BAO PHI AND ALMOST 1000 OTHER AMAZING ASIAN AMERICAN ACTIVISTS AND STUDENT LEADERS ARE GOING TO BE HERE IN A FEW DAYS. MY HEART HAS BEEN POUNDING WITH THE STRESS AND THE EXCITEMENT.