However, they soon move to California to resettle permanently. Through refugee sponsorship programs, the family relocates to Hammond, Indiana, where they stay with a family member. The family narrowly escapes an encounter with Thai pirates and eventually makes their way to Malaysia, where they are housed at the Pulau Besar refugee camp. Nam became the boat’s captain in the heat of the moment, replacing someone who would have led the boat to ruin. In 1978, Hắng arranged for her family to escape Việt Nam on a cargo boat. She was a student in Sài Gòn when she met and married Nam. Hắng spent her childhood in the Southern Nha Trang, an area initially isolated from the violence of the conflicts that would develop into the Vietnam War. It was there that he met and married Hắng, and they began a family together. Nam and his grandfather eventually made it to Sài Gòn by the time Nam became a young man. Nam spent most of his childhood being cared for by his grandfather, who took charge of his care when Nam’s father abandoned the family to join the Việt Minh. We learn about Nam’s rural origins in Northern Việt Nam, and Hắng’s idyllic, wealthy upbringing in the South. Her brother Tâm was born in a Malaysian refugee camp in 1978, the year that the Buis fled from Việt Nam.Īfter each of the Bui siblings is introduced, the narrative moves in and out of distinct time periods in the life of the family, as well as the individual lives of Hắng and Nam. After that, Bích was born in Sài Gòn in 1968, followed by the stillbirth of Thảo in Sài Gòn in 1974. Then, Lan was born in 1966 in the Mekong Delta. Quyên did not live for more than a month. First, there was the birth of Quyên in Sài Gòn in 1965. We hear about the births of each of the Bui children in Vietnam. Within these two brackets, the narrative covers the lives of Thi’s mother, Hắng, and her father, Nam-as well as the story of the Bui family’s escape from Việt Nam during the Vietnam War. The book begins and ends with a depiction of the birth of Thi’s son.
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