Silent Sunday
29 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Monthly Archives: August 2021
Book Review from France
26 Thursday Aug 2021
Posted in Books, The Siege of An Loc, Village Teacher
Tags
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who lives in Paris sent me an email about “The Siege of An Lộc”, my second novel published a year ago. I have translated his email below and also included his original in French.
oOo
I read your book “The Siege of An Loc”. I finished reading it a long time ago, but I was too perturbed by the events related to Covid to give you my impressions.
I loved both of your books [“Village Teacher” and “The Siege of An Loc“] and I think that one of these days someone will put the two on the silver screen since you provided sufficient historical details as well as details on military operations to transform both novels into love, historical, and action movies.
“The Siege of An Loc” is particularly captivating from beginning to end. From the start, I rediscover the ambiance of Saigon with its sunny mornings and rainy afternoons, with people rushing to find temporary shelter when the monsoon rain occurs. Then the trip toward Xa Cam makes me relive my bus rides in Viet Nam.
“The Siege of An Loc” is a beautiful love story, but to me personally it is also a tribute to the brave soldiers of the armed forces of the Republic of Viet Nam, to the Regional Forces, to the people who fought against the deluge of fire from North Vietnamese artillery and tanks.
The description of the main characters under your pen is genial, with each having their own unique trait. I have a lot of sympathy for Lieutenant Trung, the charming, gentle but courageous and willful Ly, and the valiant Captain Nam, as if they were real life persons. I also like the young girl Ut who scrambles amid the ruins of the city to gather information for Trung and collect those provisions which fell into enemy zones.
Through Dung and Thu, it’s the success of the “Open Arms” program. One could imagine the two brothers [Trung and Dung] fighting in the same battlefields without knowing they are brothers, but you have skillfully spared us that painful situation.
It is very touching toward the end when their family is reunited in Saigon, and the families of the tailor and Ut are resettled and life begins a new. It is truly a happy ending, thank you Hien.
You deserve a big thank you for having articulated our deep gratitude toward the soldiers, the men and women who have defended our freedom.
oOo
“J’ai lu ton bouquin The siege of An Loc (le siège de An Loc). J’ai terminé la première lecture depuis longtemps mais j’étais trop perturbé par des événements liés au covid pour te donner mes impressions.
J’ai beaucoup aimé tes deux livres et je pense qu’un jour quelqu’un mettrait les 2 livres sur l’écran car tu donnes suffisamment de détails historiques, des détails des opérations militaires pour en faire des films d’amour, d’histoire et d’action.
The Siege of An Loc est particulièrement captivant du début jusqu’à la fin. Dès le début je retrouve l’ambiance de Saigon ‘sáng nắng chiều mưa’ avec des gens qui se précipitent vers un abri de fortune quand survient une pluie de mousson. Et le trajet en car vers Xa Cam me fait revivre des voyages en ‘xe đò’ au Vietnam.
The Siege of An Loc c’est une belle histoire d’amour mais pour moi personnellement c’est un hommage aux courageux soldats de l’armée VNCH, de la force régionale, à la population qui ont résisté au déluge de feu créé par l’artillerie, des tanks des nord-viêtnamiens.
La description des personnages principaux sous ta plume est géniale, chacun a un trait de caractère spécifique. J’ai beaucoup de sympathie pour le lieutenant Trung, la charmante, douce mais courageuse et volontaire Ly et le vaillant capitaine Nam comme s’il s’agissait de vrais gens. J’aime aussi la petite Ut, elle se débrouille bien dans les tas de ruines pour donner des informations à Trung et récupérer les approvisionnements mal tombés.
À travers Dung et Thu c’est le succès du programme ‘chieu hoi’. On peut imaginer les deux frère qui s’affrontent au champ de bataille sans savoir qu’ils sont frères mais tu nous as habillement épargné cette situation douloureuse.
C’est très touchant quand finalement la famille se retrouve à Saigon, les familles du tailleur, de be Ut…s’installent ailleurs et la vie reprend. C’est vraiment un happy end, merci Hien, merci pour les deux livres.
Tu mérites un grand remerciement car tu as exprimé notre profonde gratitude envers des soldats, des hommes et femmes qui ont défendu notre liberté.”
Silent Sunday
22 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge
Summer Flowers, Dragonflies, Birds
21 Saturday Aug 2021
Posted in Photography
Tags
black-eyed susan, blue dasher, Carnegie Lake, graffiti, gray catbird, hydrangea, postaday, sayen Gardens
I took the following photos over the past two weeks at various places in Central Jersey.
Four Butterflies and a Turtle
20 Friday Aug 2021
Posted in Photography
Tags
cabbage butterfly, eastern black swallowtail, eastern mud turtle, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, mapleton preserve, postaday, sayen garden, silver spotted skipper, small skipper
Summer is the season for beautiful butterflies that flutter around plants and flowers, their colors and appearance letting us know that the outdoors are where we belong. I photographed the following butterflies at two different spots not far from home.
A small turtle (less than 5 in or 10 cm) was crossing the road as I drove by.
Monochrome Monday
16 Monday Aug 2021
Posted in Photography
Self-Published Saturday: August 14, 2021 Village Teacher
15 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in Photography
It’s Saturday, and I’ll be reviewing only Self-Published/Indie books all day. Saturday is exclusively Self-Published/Indie. Self-Published Saturday is my effort to help Indie authors market their books. As I always say, Self-Published/Indie authors have to do it all, from editing to cover design to marketing. My hope is that this feature will give them a little help. Please remember that if you decide to review the book, leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and anywhere else you review the book. This is so important for Self-Published authors. My first SP Saturday feature today is Village Teacher by neihtn, or Hien T. Nguyen. Village Teacher is a wonderful historical love story set in Vietnam.
Village Teacher by Neihtn, who also writes as Nguyen Trong Hien, is a well-written novel set in Vietnam in the late 19th or early 20th century while Vietnam was under French colonization. Teacher Tâm has traveled to…
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Around the Lake
12 Thursday Aug 2021
Posted in colonial lake, Photography
Tags
bee, blue dasher, dragonfly, hibiscus, mallard, monarch, painted turtle, postaday, primrose
Yesterday I walked around Colonial Lake, five miles from home, to see what I could photograph during one of the hottest days of the year. An excessive heat warning is in effect until tomorrow evening.
The dragonflies enjoyed the heat.
The primroses were thriving.
The hibiscuses were in full bloom.
There were many ducks, mainly Mallards, with some oddly colored ones mixed in with them.
Monarchs were flying around.
Painted Turtles were sunning on an old tire.
Lotus Pond Demise
11 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in Photography
Tags
Around this time of the year, I’ve been going to photograph lotus flowers at a small pond at the Carnegie Center in Princeton, NJ. In previous years the pond used to have beautiful lotus flowers blooming in July and August. This year all the lotus plants have wilted and turned brown as if struck by some disease. The pond looked terrible. Was it some fungal disease that attacked the lotus? Were the plants left to die intentionally? There was no one around to ask questions.
Here are some shots of the flowers I took on July 25, 2020.
Silent Sunday
08 Sunday Aug 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Great Blue Heron.
Monarchs
07 Saturday Aug 2021
Posted in EBF Refuge, Photography
Tags
asclepias tuberosa, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, milkweed, monarch butterfly, postaday
Following are three images of Monarch butterflies during a drive at Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.
Baby Puppet
03 Tuesday Aug 2021
Posted in Short Story
On April 30, 1975, the North Vietnamese Communists succeeded in conquering South Việt Nam. As a result, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese military and police personnel as well as civilians were forced into re-education camps. Many would spend years in those camps or die there from malnutrition, disease, or mistreatment.
To this day the North Vietnamese often call South Vietnamese by the derogatory term “ Ngụy” or puppet.
Following is my translation of “Thằng Ngụy Con” a story written by Ngô Viết Trọng. Born in 1944, he was a police officer from 1967 to 1974 before becoming an instructor at the Police Academy in Đà Lạt until the end of the war. He was forced to spend 7 years in a re-education camp followed by 11 years in a New Economic Zone. In 1993 he was allowed to resettle in the United States under the Orderly Departure Program for South Vietnamese refugees.
When they transferred me to the prison in Bà Rịa, I was thrown into a very small cell. There was already another man in it, Mr. Đoàn. The cell door was a rather thick and rusted piece of metal that had been there a long time. There were many holes in the door, finger sized holes. At the bottom was a larger hole that a hand could fit through. Because the door was seldom opened, those holes provided us with a little bit of light into our cell.
One day, while I was utterly despondent, I heard female voices resonating outside. I hurried to put an eye against one of the holes in the cell door. It turned out that the prisoners from the women section were allowed outside to shower and wash their clothes. It was a scene of lively activities. The sound of brass wash bowls were mixed in with voices of people hurrying one another or arguing loudly among themselves. They washed their clothes, showered and cleaned themselves, combed their hair, hanged their clothes to dry. Everyone appeared to be in a hurry. There were too many people and only two wells. Their time outside was limited and everyone was worried they would not be able to complete their chores.
I suddenly saw a small boy jump out into the open. He ran toward two Muscovy ducks that were grooming each other near our cell door. The alarmed ducks flew away. A woman yelled after him:
“Don’t fool around or I will spank you!”
The little boy stopped. After their initial shock, the two ducks came to a stand still and continued their grooming. The boy was pale looking and appeared to be three or four years old. He was cute and adorable. How did he end up in prison? How could he bear the lack of food, the absence of friends, the intense craving for everything in a small dark, crowded and stinking cell? What kind of person would he grow up to be?
He seemed to like the duck couple very much. He was looking at them in awe when his mother told him to return to their cell. He walked in that direction but his neck kept craning toward the ducks, forcing his mother to yell at him several times.
I turned to Mr. Đoàn:
“In the female prisoner section, there is an adorable little boy. Do you know why he was put in there?”
“Rumors say that his father is a Major, but that he has escaped to the United States. His mother is a member of the Thiên Nga [a South Vietnamese police counter-intelligence team composed entirely of female agents]. I saw the little boy when I arrived here. He was barely walking at that time.”
I laughed out loud and said:
“Later on, his paper records will have to read: at one year of age he had to be sent to a concentration camp run by the barbaric Communists …”
Each day I received two small quantities of tapioca that I used to make soup mixed in with some salted green cabbage. I wondered whether the little boy was allowed his own daily ration or whether he had to share his mother’s. I told my cellmate:
“That little boy must really crave for sugar and milk!”
Mr. Đoàn laughed:
“Don’t you worry. On visitation days, the cadres allow him to roam at will, and people give him a lot of stuff. Even in their own cell, there are quite a few women who have been mothers or sisters, and nobody would let such a charming boy go hungry. I have seen female dogs that let baby cats suckle. The instinct of women who have been mothers are much higher than that!”
I said sadly:
“Is that so? Then he is more fortunate than my own children. I have three boys, and the youngest must be his age. When I was sent to jail, he had just turned one and could not yet stand. I did not know to economize and save, and I had nothing to leave to my wife and our children. It kills me to think of my poor wife running around to make ends meet and feed our three boys. But regrets are now too late!”
A few days later the female section was again allowed to shower and wash their clothes. After he took his shower, the little boy came over to our cell. He did not see the pair of ducks and sat on a step in front of our door. I put my finger through a hole and poked him in the back. He jumped up and turned around:
“You startled me!”
I liked the fact that a young boy was using a grown-up expression. Knowing that I was only teasing him, he sat down again.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Baby Puppet!”
Surprised, I asked him again:
“I am asking what your name is.”
“Baby Puppet!”
“Who gave you that name?”
“The cadres did.”
“Didn’t your mother give you a name?”
“She did. She called me ‘Baby’, then the cadres called me ‘Baby Puppet’ and the aunties in our room now also call me ‘Baby Puppet’.”
Heavens! What kind of impression would such a name have on him when he grew up? I intended to ask him more questions but his mother called him back to their cell.
oOo
Then visitation day came around. In a prison, that day was like New Year’s day. Cells with many prisoners were left open so that gift packages could be brought in easily. Those prisoners permitted to see their visitors had to put on clean clothes in good conditions. If they didn’t have such clothes, they had to borrow them from someone else. Thus on visit days, prisoners wore bright and sharp clothes. The cadres also put on benign airs while enjoying the delightful smells of visitations.
Those prisoners who had no visitors could enjoy the fact that their cells were left open to let in a little bit of sunshine and fresh air. They could share some of the visitation food packages given to others, or inherit the daily rations of the more fortunate prisoners who received food packages. Prisoners who were confined to isolation cells were not allowed visitors, but they could at least count on the fact that they would not be subject to the cadres’ bullying for that day.
Thus on visitation days, all prisoners shared a little bit of joy, even if it was only temporary. The one that was truly happy was “Baby Puppet.”
While cadres and prisoners were busy carrying in packages or going out to see their visitors, the little boy ran from one cell to the next. He was very smart and every time he saw a cadre he would politely greet them. No one scolded him or prevented him from doing anything.
oOo
One month went by, and visitation day arrived once again. It rained that day and a cold breeze blew in. I pasted my eyes on our cell door to share in the common joy of everyone else. The little boy was roaming around collecting gifts. Seeing that it was getting cold and fearing that he might get rained on, his mother had him wear a spiffy raincoat over his clothes.
That day, perhaps because he received too many gifts, he braved the cold, took off his raincoat and used it to carry his packages. As he ran happily back to his cell with his gift bundle, he met Sơn, the most loathsome disciplinarian in the prison. Smiling slyly, the cadre stopped him:
“Boy Puppet, you have so many packages. Give me one of them.”
The little boy became agitated, stepped on a slippery part of the path and fell, scattering his gifts in every direction. Cadre Sơn bent down to help him gather them. Then he pretended to take a package wrapped in paper.
“Give me this one!”
The little boy thought the cadre was serious and yelled:
“No! This package must not be shown to the cadres!”
Hearing what the boy said, Sơn became suspicious and opened the package to see what was inside. He glowered immediately and kicked the boy on his chest, sending him sprawling backward. It took a moment before the boy began to cry. No one knew what was going on, but then everyone heard the cadre’s loud and threatening voice.
“Fuck this puppet breed. He just started growing up but has already become a reactionary.”
Turning toward the disciplinary cadres, he shouted:
“Make him kneel under the basketball hoop.”
At once they dragged the boy up and pulled him away. Right after that, Sơn and another disciplinary cadre went to room B5. He stood in front of the door and began talking and asking questions. A little while later, a prisoner who had seen a visitor that morning stepped out of the room. Sơn made the prisoner stand still then began punching and kicking him. The prisoner fell down several times, but each time he was made to stand up again to continue receiving his brutal punishment.
In no time at all, the prisoner was crumbling and coming apart. Sơn had him handcuffed then told his men to take him to the discipline room.
The rain continued to fall, and the wind kept coming in gusts. The little boy was still kneeling under the basketball hoop. Sơn kept moving around to supervise visiting activities.
After some time, unable to wait any longer, the boy’s mother poked her head out and begged for mercy. Sơn made as if he did not hear her. Only after a long hour did he allow the poor boy to return to his cell. His body was cold as ice, he was shaking constantly and could not utter a word.
In the evening, when they brought food to our cell, Sơn bluntly warned us:
“You people better watch out. Don’t use that Boy Puppet to communicate with one another! Even if just to ask about someone’s health.”
I then understood that our fellow prisoner in room B5 had violated the rules. He had sent a gift package with a message to a friend in the female section. I kept thinking back to his punishment all night and I pitied the unfortunate little boy who had to kneel in the rain and cold for several hours.
Early next morning, I was awakened by appeals for help from the female section.
“Reporting to cadre: A5 has someone seriously ill.”
I was startled and thought maybe that person was the little boy. A voice from the guard office asked:
“How serious?”
The female voice pleaded with more urgency:
“Reporting to cadre: someone is dying in A5.”
“I heard you! Wait for resolution.”
Half an hour later, I heard some commotion in the courtyard. The medical cadres had probably arrived.
Then the entire prison became silent. Near sunrise, Mr. Đoàn woke me up.
“Do you hear something?”
I listened carefully. A female prisoner was lamenting.
“Baby, why did you have to leave me? My baby was not even three years old. What did he know that made him a reactionary? Oh heavens, that is so cruel!”
I shuddered. Baby Puppet!
Right after that, I heard a hostile voice:
“You let your child catch pneumonia and would not report his condition early enough. Now why don’t you let us bury him instead of wailing and blaming us?”
The unfortunate and pitiful woman went on crying and sobbing.
neihtn 