Miraculous Sunday

          As usual, I got up early in the morning. I lit up the candle on the altar and prayed for our family members who had passed away to keep their eyes on us, to give us a blessed day full of peace and happiness. I logged on to the computer, and turned on Chopin classical music, at a high volume, loud enough to go through to the bedroom where Dan was still dreaming. I started to exercise. After that, I checked e-mail, read aloud the “word of the day,” “Today History News” and “Local News,” “Daily Horoscope,” and wrote a ten-minute free- writing journal entry. I tiptoed to the bedroom.

           Dan opened his eyes; with a sleepy voice, he greeted me, “Good morning, My Dear. I love the music that calms me down. Your reading is beautiful. Your voice is loud and clear.”
           I was surprised, “Did you hear my reading? I thought you slept deeply.”
           He nodded, “Yes, Baby! Although I sleep, I know what you are doing.”
           I lay down next to Dan. He embraced me; my head leaned on his chest; my eyes half closed; unconsciously, I played with the hair on his chest and neck. He murmured into my ear, “I wish every morning, when I wake up, I will see you next to me. Even when you are in the living room, I hear your sounds and know that you are there. You fill up my emptiness, Honey.”
            We cuddled.
             Dan counted as he exercised: “One, two, three, four, five, sex. Sexercise!”
              I laughed. We often played jokes while Dan did his morning exercises, in order to motivate him to exercise more.
              Dan finished his exercise at the same I finished making breakfast. Dan called me: “Honey, I am sweating a lot. I don’t like it.”
             I took his hand and led him to the couch, let him sit on the couch, and slowly dried his sweat. Dan kissed me and cooed, “Thank you, Honey. You make me happy. You are the best woman in the world and the perfect wife.”
             My eyes smiled with him. He said, “Honey, I am the luckiest man in the world. You are so beautiful. I see love in your beautiful eyes.”
            We fed each other like babies.
            Dan ate very slowly. While waiting for him to finish his breakfast, I stood up and shook my body, following the music. Dan watched me dancing. He left his spoon on the plate and moved toward me. He started dancing. Both of us were dancing; we sang, “Shake, shake, shake our body! Shake, shake, shake our body! That makes us healthy!”
           We turned around. The music stopped. Dan glued a long passionate kiss on my lips. Dan showed me a piece of paper and said, “Honey, look! This is the list of things that I need to do today.”
           I told him, “It’s fine, Dan. Today is Sunday; you don’t need to do anything. Your job is to clean the table. That’s all. This afternoon you have three hours of online teaching. That’s too much for you. I don’t expect you to do anything today.”
            Dan replied, “I know, but I want to show I am a good husband.”
             I answered him, “Thank you, Dan.”
             I cleaned up in the kitchen for about an hour. I had not heard any sound. It was very quiet in the living room. I wondered what Dan was doing. I entered the living room. Dan was not there. On the table, my sunglasses were on a piece of paper with a big note: “Your glasses were repaired by Dan, your Man.”
             Yesterday, we went to the Madrona Marsh Preserve in Torrance; a part of my sunglasses broke and fell off. Dan fixed it for me. I wore my glasses and sang, “Dan, Dan, Dan!” 
             No answer.
             I sang with a high tone, “Dan, Dan, Dan! Where are you?” 
             I went to the back and kept singing, “Dan, Dan, Dan! Where is my Man? Dan, my Man, where are you? I miss you. Where is my Man? Where is my Man?”
             From the room in the back of the house, Dan sang to reply to me (to the tune of Frere Jacques), “Honey, here I am! Here I am! I’m in the back room! I’m in the back room!”
             I entered the messy room. Dan put junk and old things in a big black bag and told me, “Honey, I am cleaning up the room. You are right. I need to donate or throw away old things that I don’t need.”
              I blissfully asked him, “Are you sure? Do you really want to throw them away?”
              Dan nodded, “Yes, Honey!”
             I doubted, “Promise me not to complain or tell your friends that I want to throw away your souvenirs.”
             Dan said with a sad voice, “Honey, in the past, I quarreled with you about cleaning up the house, so you do not trust me. Sorry about that. You help me a lot. You make the house clean, neat, and beautiful. Your touch gives our nest its soul.”
             I told him, “You make me happy. You have changed a lot. I am proud of you. Do you need help?”
              I helped Dan take old furniture and clothes to the front gate at the driveway; homeless people would take them soon.
              We were tired. We sat on the couch. Dan caressed me. He said, “Thank you for coming to America, my Yellow Flower.”
              I sang, “They come to America! Today! Today! Today!”
             Dan searched You Tube, and found “They Come to America” by Neil Diamond, with the printed lyrics on the screen. We looked at the text and sang together.
            I suggested, “Dan, why don’t we make a video for us?”
            Dan agreed, “Good idea, Honey!”
          

             I gave Dan a camera. While I set up the screen on the laptop, Dan set up the camera to choose a good angle to film us. We held hands, raised a small American flag, and waved the flag left to right, and right to left. We shook our bodies left to right and right to left; back and forth. We were singing, clapping, laughing, cooing, kissing, and caressing.

 --For Dan, with all my love,

Anhthao Bui
July 30, 2013

 

Eating Plants

A Love Reflection

I Love Anhthao:

She is my piece of pie;
Cuter than a butterfly.
When I am with her
I can kiss the sky.
She makes me feel
Like I can fly
Up to the sky.
What kind of man am I
That I deserve the love
Of a woman with such
Beautiful brown eyes?

--Dan Lambert

August 3^rd, 2013

Freedom

Founding Fathers
Fought for Freedom
Lincoln left legacy:
Liberal life
Ronald Reagan
Recaptured Rights

  (Words were read at Reagan Library
June 25, 2013)
Anhthao Bui
 

Flowers

The Los Angeles Bridge

One early morning, when I went to Facebook, I saw a message under the photo of my book Fish Sauce, “Daniel and Anhthao, I purchased your books and cannot wait.” I replied, “Thank you.”

I called Dan and asked him, “Dan, who is Khetam? Did I meet her before? Her message is friendly, as if she knew me before.”

Dan explained, “Honey, I do not think you met Khetam before. She is my colleague. She purchased our books because she is also an author and an immigrant like you.”

I asked him, “Really? Do you have her book?”

Dan answered, “Yes, I will show her book to you. Her book is also the textbook for English as a Second Language Students. She teaches ESL courses.”

I replied to him, “Thank you, Dan.”

That afternoon, I went to Facebook, and wrote another message for Khetam, “I look forward to reading your book, The Journey of an Immigrant during the winter break.”

Dan could not find Khetam’s book because he had too many books, so when he reorganized his bookshelf, he did not remember where he put it. I did not contact Khetam until I received her message: “I love your book,” with a photo of the cover of Yellow Flower. I was very happy and replied to her immediately, “Thank you so much, Khetam, Could you do me a favor? Could you post this photo in public? Again, thank you so much for your support.”

Since then, we became friends. I often wrote comments on her posts. I liked her beauty, friendliness, open mind, independence, confidence, and understanding. I thought she was an Indian-American immigrant until I met her in person.    

                        Dan handed me the book, The Journey of an Immigrant: From Farm to Freedom by Khetam Dahi. I was fascinated to read Khetam’s book and to learn more about my new friend.

 In Khetam’s introduction, she honestly reveals her parents’ early engagement and wedding “On his wedding day, he had to call him in to get ready for the day’s event.”(xix) to help the audience learn more about her culture.  Also, Khetam quotes her father’s words to teach her how to succeed in life when she was rejected at her first job “You need to be tough and try again. You will be denied things sometimes and you will be rejected other times. You may lose to others and you may fail in some things, but all these negative things should be lessons and opportunities to get stronger and wiser.” (128). Khetam introducing about her parents like Condoleezza Rice’s introduction about Rice’s parents and Condi’s parent teaching in Extraordinary, Ordinary People : “if you were twice as good as they were, ‘they’ might not like you but ‘they’ [would have] to respect you” (3).   Both Condoleezza and Khetam maintained good relationship with their parents with love and pride about their parents’ wisdom and care. Both Condoleezza’s and Khetam’s parents tasted the bitterness in the United States, so they wanted their children to have a better life and by working hard and education was a sturdy barricade to protect themselves. In the United States ethnic elderly endure unfairness for minority people, so many parents wished their offspring to succeed, no matter whether they were immigrants or not.

 Khetam’s life in Syria and my life in Vietnam were similar. We both shared common daily life and typical cultures. Khetam describes “Most students in town walked to school, but many from the surrounding villages came by bus, on motorcycles behind their fathers or other family members. Some rode their own bicycles or motorcycles” (xvii). The image was also the vivid typical picture of going to school in Vietnam.

Although my family did not live in a farmland, Khetam family’s situation and environment were similar to my family when she told the reader that some people thought that her family was rich because they owned some a large piece of land and a farm, but it was not true because her parents worked very hard and saved every single penny with the hope to provide her siblings a better life. Likewise, our relatives, friends, and outsiders assumed that my family was rich because my parents provided us the best educational opportunities and condition to make us only concentrate on school. I think not only Asian cultures, but also different cultures in the world also share responsibilities with the other members in a close family or extended families.

             Both Khetam and I had similar childhoods with many made up games and toys because we did not have much luxurious toys and games. As young girls, we both enjoyed crocheting, embroidering, stitching and knitting. I liked to sew and made clothes for my dolls, but I asked my older cousin to do it for my dolls because I was not good at, or interested in female tasks. Like Khetam, I was bored to wear my older siblings’ outfits and reused their old school supplies, toys, and their possessions.  Our parents provided us limited new clothes and did not buy new belongings if they were in good condition. We grew up in male dominant cultures, so female had little rights in our society. As Khetam revealed many unspoken forbidden laws and rules for girls, we were tired, confused and felt unfair for us, the girls because we unexpectedly received too many harsh and strict complaints, punishments, and annoyances.   

             I laughed out loud when I read the story about Khetam’s trouble with the bathroom on the airplane—her first experience, opinion, comparison about the restroom on the airplane and the restroom in her motherland on the way to the United States. The story was similar to my story, “Bathrooms,” on the trip to the United States. Khetam used the words, “pee” and “poo” to  provide ESL students daily conversation new words that were big help for the newcomers. I only learned these words right after I got my bachelor’s degree in English because during my undergraduate periods, I only worked and read academic writings, textbooks, and fine literature, so I did not have any chance and opportunities to learn daily conversation and common vocabularies.  

             Khetam describes her hardship, bias, and disadvantages during her journey in the United States. Khetam does not write much about her triumph and achievement, but her real story and her position as a full time English instructor at a community college are real and vivid tokens of her accomplishment. Khetam’s The Journey of an Immigrant is not only the book text for ESL adult students who learn English writing and reading skills with practical and dynamic exercise and common vocabularies worksheets that the English learners need to acquire, but it is also the motivation for newcomers to pursue their dreams as Khetam’s wishes revealing in Note to the Reader.

 

 

Creeping to the Torch of Liberty

 Life is a mysterious and fairy dream. I cannot believe myself that it is true.

When I first set foot in San Francisco Airport, I was only an immigrant who spoke a little English. However, eight years later, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in English degree and became an educator at a public school. Now I am a self-published author with two books written in English. What kudos and privilege I have received from the beneficial nature of the United States. The United States is a gracious fairy who uses a magical wand to transform my doom into radiance. I would like to spread around the world the beauty of the United States and the benevolence of this country.  Uncle Sam provided me with knowledge to empower a timid, female immigrant to become an independent and confident Vietnamese-American woman.

  “Life is not a rose”; the American life is toilsome and severe for any newcomer. However, I believe that the United States is the paradise of opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from Alpha to Omega. The Founding Fathers always find the best ways and solutions to provide the residents contingency and freedom to reach their dreams in their own ways.

Under the control of the Vietnamese communist government, my creativity hyphenated under deep down ground. When I came to the United States, in this rich, knowledgeable, fertile soil and free atmosphere, my artistic seeds started with sprouts, grew up, and bloomed. 

Choosing the English major was a lonely path and a great challenge. However, the passion of writing urged me to overcome tons of hardships. Writing and reading are parts of my daily activities. Writing calms my anxiety and releases my adversity. Writing is also the way I learn English.  Each self-published book is a significant milestone in my life to measure my improvement in learning English, and an expedition to the torch of liberty. The undertaking of this adventure is risky, dangerous, and exciting to test my endurance and to prove my hypothesis about the United States: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

June 16, 2013

 Happy Father’s Day to the Founding Fathers of the United States!

 Pay tribute to the Fourth of July

Happy Birthday to the United States of America!