"Somewhat hungover and somewhat sentimental, this month being the first anniversary Saigon's fall, or liberation or both, I wrote my aunt a letter to commemorate a year's worth of tribulation. "
Once again I have returned to my hobby of picking a sentence I could never write and musing on it. The above is taken from The Sympathizer, written by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It is a book written by a Vietnamese author set just after the Vietnam/ American war--it flits between these two nations, and 'the fall' it documents is Saigon's takeover by the northern Viet Cong. I love this book like I love Vietnam and, particularly *sigh gon. Perhaps I chose this sentence as I am feeling particularly nostalgic from last night's late night/early morning phone call from a friend still living in the bustling heat of the city. He called me from a café which had the familiar blaring-music-played-too-loudly and the sounds of motorbikes' honking horns punctuating every pause. This friend laughed at me as I grimaced at "the noise", "it's not even that noisy" he mocked, "you've just forgotten what life sounds like".
He was kindly reminding me that he and Vietnam are not restricted to living inside a fish bowl. Good of him. He and Vietnam are living, as was blatantly obvious from the aggressively loud background noise, in complete normality. He was heading to a Salsa class later that evening.
Like the protagonist of the chosen sentence, I too am sentimental; no no, not hungover, definitely not, and cognisant that it is approaching the anniversary of a fall of a very different kind. A fall that we are not celebrating but that may turn out to be liberating. This fall showed us that we cannot control everything. This fall showed us that actions have consequences. This fall showed us that we can react quickly. This fall showed us that SciFi is not a far flung genre and this fall showed us that we damn better appreciate life.
xoxo happy anniversary
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