Black April

By Anonymous / Spring 2022

Dear friend,

I still remember that day when I bring many Pate Chauds to the class. The day before that, my cousin gave me a lot of Pate Chauds. I loved them, but I could not eat them all. Thus, I decided to bring them to class and share them with other people. Everyone enjoyed the Pate Chaus. After finishing it, you said to me in a smirking manner: “Thank you, it was really good. Now, you can say whatever you want, I believe you. It is time for you to enlighten us”. I laughed; everyone laughed. To you and most of my friends at the time, I was influenced by the wrong information I learned from the internet and what I have been told by my relatives about the flaws in our society. I felt funny after you said that to me. I appreciate that we are still friends even though we have different ideas and views on different problems. On the other hand, I feel a little sad since many people still think that people like me are influenced by propaganda. Today is April 30 in Vietnam. Many Vietnamese people go out to celebrate freedom and reunification. In contrast, where I am living now, the Vietnamese community feels pain and loss. So, why is there such a big difference?

As someone born in Vietnam and gets educated in the Vietnamese education system for most of my life, I understand and feel why you think of me like that. When we were kids, the teacher taught us to believe in the system, following what the Communist party recommends, which is the only political party in Vietnam for the country's good. So, it is inarguably hard for me and you to accept a new competitive idea or knowledge that violates our belief in the system, which was built strongly for a long time.

I want to share with you the history that I learned, which did not even exist in the textbooks that we used in school. First, I would like to ask you a question, when was the first time you see and know the yellow flag with three red horizontal stripes? I believe that no history textbooks in school showed us that flag. The first time I saw that flag, I was 18 years old. Eighteen years and I was not even aware that the flag was an important part of Vietnamese history. There was something unusual here, right? I realized what I knew about Vietnamese history was too little. I thought my history knowledge was good enough as I got pretty good grades in the history exams, but what I actually knew was too little. I did not know the existence of a country called “The Republic of Vietnam” in the South before 1975.

I used to call my uncle, who filed a petition for my family to come to the US, a traitor. I told my mom that he sold out the country because of money. I was stubborn and believed that I was well educated enough to know what was right and what was wrong. Like you, I used to strongly believed that the Communist party won the war and liberated the nation from the oppression of greedy and corrupt Vietnamese backed by the US. However, I was not thinking deeply enough. I gradually realized that no one won the war, but the Vietnamese lost the war. I feel the pain that our nation had to go through. For me, our nation suffered, and the Vietnamese people were torn apart physically and emotionally as Vietnam became a battlefield of two opposite ideologies, Communism and Capitalism. Big countries like US and USSR did not want to fight directly with each other but used Vietnamese like chess pieces and Vietnam as a chessboard to play. Now, I felt bad about using to think of my uncle as a traitor like that. He fought for what he believed in, just like soldiers in the North fought for Communism, which was the ideology they believed would bring a better future for Vietnam.

My girlfriend lived in Hanoi. I met her on an online learning forum back in Vietnam. We have been in a long-distance relationship for almost eight years. I lived in the middle of Vietnam. Back then, when my parents and my relatives knew that I had fallen in love with a girl from Hanoi, they were surprised. Some of them did not even feel happy. My uncle and my aunt from the US called my mom to confirm if that was true. Why was there such a reaction? After 1975, Vietnam was united geographically, but not the people. The war still has a strong effect on us. Have you ever noticed that when you read comments on social media, sometimes you saw people who live in the South use the word “Bac Ky” to insult people from the North? They even divide people from the north into two types, “9 points” man and “2 points” man. The “9 points” ones are people who fled Communism and relocated to the South in 1954 (5 + 4 = 9), and the “2 points” ones are north people after 1975 ( 7 + 5 = 12, take the last digit). My uncle was in jail for eight years because he was an officer who worked for the South government.  He witnessed his friends’ deaths in the “re-education camp.” He mentioned that all the officers in the re-education camp were from the North. When he knew that his mom had just passed away, he begged the officers to release him for only one day so that he could see his mom’s face for the last time. Unfortunately, they rejected his wish. After eight years, he got out of the “re-education camp”. However, he faced many challenges. It was hard for him to find a job because of his special background. Imagine I had a hard time like him; maybe I would hate the system so much, even develop not friendly ideas towards people in the North, viewing them as Communists. My uncle was just one of the victims of the war. Millions of Vietnamese Southerners had that bad experience with the new government, which made them try to flee the country, even by dangerous ways such as walking across the border to Thailand or using boats. Many of them died. I think you would feel sad and surprised like me if you went online and searched for images of Vietnamese boat people.

30 April, many Vietnamese are enjoying the holiday. For the Vietnamese community in the US, this day reminded them of the pain they have gone through. I hope that you can feel and understand the contradiction. I am writing this letter for you while taking a writing class that teaches me to “look deeply to understand clearly.” Many events in our country today are strongly connected to the past, such as the hatred towards North Vietnamese from South Vietnamese, which leads to uncountably “fights” on social media. Let’s hope that our country will be united, not only geographically like now but also in the people, our Vietnamese souls. Todo that, I believe it requires everyone to open their minds and dive deeply into the root of the problems.