Every year in one strip mall in a part of Little Saigon in San Jose, these flags are resurrected around April 30. It's an impressive sight, the splash of sunlight yellow and royal red waving proudly above the buildings. It's another "anniversary" to remember, but certainly one that calls for a different sort of commemoration, and definitely no cake.
I was only six years old on that day in 1975. Unlike other major events that I would live through such as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in Santa Cruz and the World Trade Center attacks on 911, I don't know exactly where I was when I learned of this news. To be honest, I probably didn't even know what it all meant anyway at that time.
I think about my impression compared to those of relatives older than me. Has that moment in time been seared into your memory? An earlier version of 911 perhaps? And I wonder about our other blood relatives who still live in Viet Nam, like Khoa and his father, Uncle Thanh and family. How is this day regarded?
We were all devastated. I was very uncertain about the future, but, God blessed, I had relatively the least of anyone's concerns. 30/4 was uniquely painful for us. I love the Americans and I felt (I still do) horrified about 911 and painful for those affected, but 911 has been less personal to me than 30/4 has been.
ReplyDeleteI am always proud and thrilled to see the SVN flag flying, especially in unexpected occasions.
I give you some examples: (a) in "Twilight", the wall of the school cafeteria, where Bella met Edward for the 1st time, was decorated with pictures of flags of nations around the world, including, clearly, the SVN flag, nice! (b) at the World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008, the SVN flags twice outnumbered the Aussie flags and all the flags of other nations combined, nice!(I didn't have a SVN flag nor an Aussie flag, so I brought along the American flag!); and (c) at the official welcome of the Beijing Olympic torch in Canberra in April 2008, the SVN flags easily outnumbered all other flags (in protest against violation of human rights in Vietnam), nice!.