Tuesday, December 18, 2007

What does a change of worlds bring you. "No matter how long, I am here," says Mr. P. "I still long for Saigon...like you, for New York." The night is dark and Mr. P has to get up at the crack of dawn so he can reach the Vietnamese restaurant in which he works early enough to get the food ready. We laugh, this small wiry man who so loves his family and his God that he barely has time for his other passion, music, and me--old enough to be his mother, riding through the streets of Sunshine, home of newly arriving Vietnamese families. In the darkness, we long for bustling cities while we drive through the dark empty streets. And when he says the word, "Saigon," I am flooded with memories I have no right to have--the intrigues of a war torn city, the sounds of a cosmopolitan humid city fighting for its life, thin work worn farmers and laughing frightened soldiers. How close I feel to this man.

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