The story asking for forgiveness:
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, my aunt and her three young daughters (my successful cousins) were taken deep into the jungle with hundreds of other southerners (the ones who fought with the Americans). They were all given only three months' supply of food and then they were told they needed to plant and harvest their own, since all communists are supposed to work together to survive. They were dropped off 7 miles from their camp and they walked there through the approaching twilight. They had to walk there and there was a man who helped my aunt.
Her three young, exhausted, hungry daughters and her heavy pack slowed her down, so that she was left alone in the darkness, first carrying one daughter and then another, walking in almost complete darkness. She feared tigers and other jungle predators. She wept and trembled with fatigue, knowing she could not protect her daughters. Luckily, one of the old men, bent and tired, turned back and helped her along. (Melanie wonders why I have such automatic respect for older people. Well, the highest virtue in my opinion is compassion and understanding and these virtues are learned over time, hard earned experience. I'm not saying all old people have these virtues, but I respect them all all the same).
Terror in the jungle
Once, my aunt was walking with one of her daughters, both of them collecting firewood or food, and as she walked, she noticed tiger tracks the size of her feet. Then, she noticed that there were actually two sets of tiger tracks-a set of big ones followed by a set of small ones-a mother and her little one too. She hoped that the tiger's protective instinct mirrored her own, so that both mothers can leave the other in peace.
Hatred and suffering in America
For all the hardships suffered by my aunt and her daughters, they suffered in a different way when they were able to go to America in 1983. (My own family arrived in 1991.) They lived with Ahn Hi's older brother and his Philipino wife. The wife, my aunt's sister-in-law, was a horrible bitch who thought my aunt and her daughter were dirty immigrants who brought dirty, backward traditions with them. She said to my aunt-well, at least teach your children how to clean. At least they will be good for hire as maids when they grow up to be no-good.
Every time, after my aunt used the bathroom, she had to clean the toilet bowl with Ajax and a stiff brush. However, when she opened the bathroom door, her sister-in-law stood there waiting and came barging in, taking the Ajax and brush and cleaning it again. But I just cleaned it!-my aunty exclaimed in mortification, shame, and anger, but the bitch said that it was all still filthy, filthy dirty.
Letters home
My aunt was deeply unhappy, since it was better to be mistress of her own home, even if poor and dirty, than to be a guest to a bitch's mansion. My aunt wrote letters home to Vietnam and it angered my grandmother to read the letters about abuse. My grandmother usually walked down the hill to my mother's hut, where my mother was holding the infant me in her arms.
My grandmother shook the letter and said to me-grow up quickly and go and beat up that bitch. (Well, I can't beat up the bitch, even if I am grown. The best I can do is write a story and call a bitch a bitch.)
