My Own Stage

My dream of creating my own stage and drawing an audience has been buried beneath other priorities in my life.

Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 Words – Dear unfinished business.

For me, music has always been a stream of inspiration, the medicine for dejection, and an elixir of zest.

I love to sing, and find myself perpetually absorbed by the songs on stages, TVs, radios,… In my adolescent, I would put fingers on my throat when singing to make the vibrato, and put my face inside a wash-basin to feel the echo and amplification of my voice.

In my 40s, I took private singing lessons and joined a choir that exclusively sang ABBA songs. However, I felt dissatisfied with only two public performances per year for the group. I managed to quench my thirst of singing through the occasional karaoke party but just like fashion, the trend died down after a few years.

My Unseen Neighbour

When Nhất Linh died, I was only a one-year-old girl, but I had just met him in my dream! Just the thought that he knew me gave me goosebumps.

Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 Words – Experiences of the unexplained.

Recently, I came across a Vietnamese article about An Đông market where my family used to live, and it mentioned the fate of the owner of the famous Siu Siu restaurant there. For years, Saigon residents and celebrities as well as important politicians and military officers, enjoyed the fragrant and tasty Hainanese chicken rice of Siu Siu.

In 1978, during the eradication of bourgeoisie by the Communist, Siu Siu’s owner lost his three-house restaurant. He then was the sole survivor after a boat of hundred people – his family included – trying to escape Vietnam tragically sank. He lost his mind, and became a beggar who slept in front of his big restaurant night after night.

My Unseen Neighbour poem

(Whitney-style poem)

<<Story related to the poem>>

Low grey sky,
Tranquil morning,
Drizzling rain,
Chill gusty wind,
In a dream,
A late writer
Visited his young neighbour.

Image credit
by Nguyễn Tường Thiết.

Liberty T-Shirt

The shirt had a photo of the “Statue of Liberty”, the famous icon of the United States showing the ideal of humanity: Freedom and Democracy.

Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 Words – What I was wearing.

After the Vietnamese Communists occupied South Vietnam, being a Lt Colonel in the South VN Army, I was detained in various labor camps in the far mountainous areas of North VN for nine years. Then I was released in 1984 but remained under the close supervision of the local security service for two years. Finally I was acknowledged as a new citizen of the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and basically had the right to vote.

In 1987, a general election for the National Assembly was initiated across the country. Unfortunately all candidates were required to be primarily selected by the local communist branches, that means no independent candidate was approved, something that was strange compared to my experiences of elections in the free world. Disagreeing with that policy of election, I voted blank in protest.

Saigon’s Seasons in the Sun’s related information

<<Story related to the information>>

Listen to: (Link to phamduy.com Ngàn lời ca khác – Nhạc Pop 60-70).

• Duy Quang – Seasons in the Sun

• Cathy Hue – If you go away

• Thanh Lan – La plus belle pour aller danser

• Minh Xuân & Minh Phúc – Beautiful Sunday

• Paolo – Adieu jolie Candy

My noble, widowed grandmother

Amongst the people in Grandpa’s funeral procession were two pregnant women – Grandma with her tenth child and my mum with her first child.

Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Grandparents

I certainly wasn’t my maternal grandmother’s favourite grandchild, however my grandmother received my deepest admiration and greatest affection for her.

My fondest memory of her was her smile. That smile made a child like me felt that I was bathed in love, appreciated and accepted for being myself. Her smile satisfied my longing for tenderness and approval that my parents rarely expressed towards their children.

My noble, widowed Grandmother poem

(Elegy-style poem)

<<Story related to the poem>>

In the quiet night,
The shining moon light,
Reminds me of your face,
That was brimful of grace.

Saigon’s Seasons in the Sun

My childhood memories in Saigon come alive whenever the Seasons in the Sun song is sung.

<<Facts, pictures, video clips related to the story – 70s MP3 Western songs sang in Vietnam, Vietnamese singers and Saigon’s looks then>>

Comments about this post on ABC Open 500 words – Lost in music.

“We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time.” Every time I heard the “Seasons in the Sun” song, my mind is flooded with memories of my childhood before the Fall of Saigon.