Synthesis of Two Worlds

When I was young, I didn’t have a place to be alone where I could think. I shared a room with my brother in a duplex which only seemed to get smaller as I grew older. When I was seven we moved to a three bedroom house and although I got my own room, it still was never easy to organize my thoughts because I was always kept busy by one thing or another. Behind our backyard fence, was a creek… it smelled bad because my mom said that it was used to carry treated sewage to the San Francisco Bay, which coincidentally is where the water from Chico Creek ends up as well (Chico, California is where I live now). When ever I went back behind the fence, there was nothing to look at on the other side but yet another fence, and when I looked up and down the stream there was nothing but fences on both sides lining the slim, steep, rough, dirt and dry plants that left stickers in my socks, lining the green glob of a mess they called a creek. Moving has its benefits, but the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Andrew Lam experienced a more life changing move than I did. He is the author of Perfume Dreams, which is a collection of his essays that reflect his experiences. He is a Vietnamese man who witnessed the fall of Saigon as a boy, spent some time in a refugee camp thereafter, and moved to the U.S. when he was 12, and later began a career as a commentator and a journalist. With his parents who held on to their deep Vietnamese cultural roots and an American culture shock, he has a lot to say about the two worlds, especially in his essay Child of Two Worlds.

    Lam explains his world view as a child by saying "I was not entirely convinced that the outside world existed," (p. 3) which is not uncommon at all for someone who is so used to ways that are "sacred and very old." (p. 3) I know that I never thought there was a possibility of moving until I was seven, I guess I just thought I'd always be living on B Street. However, when he moved to the U.S., and his life in the world of Vietnam became just a memory, he began his realization that Vietnam was a nightmare, and America is just a dream. Eventually, he accepts them both as part of who he is.
        At first Lam is at ease with the fact that he left Vietnam, and he shows this when he says to his mother "'That country,' I slowly announced in English, as if to wound, 'is cursed.'" (p. 5) Then he portrays his initial response to America by saying that "Vietnam was now so far away-- an abstraction-- and America was now so near (outside the window, blaring on the TV, written in the science fiction books I devoured like mad)-- a seduction." (p. 5) His allusions to America's reputation both signify his new attraction to the country, however, they also portray his dislike for the character that America takes on in his mind, just by stating that America is a seductive force.

With Vietnamese stories ending in misery and American fairy tales giving people hope, Andrew Lam reveals at the same time the unfortunate truth that the realistic approach would be to reject both possibilities for miserable and happy endings.

In the end, he says "my sense of home these days seems to have less to do with geography than imagination and memories." (p. 15) Although he was a child from both worlds, it's safe to assume that both worlds have been synthesized into the memories of him and him alone. 

Although my move from B street to Fiesta Dr. was not at all a giant leap from one unique culture to the next, I have also experienced the surrealism that moving can bring. I remember at first glance, my new house looked dark and haunted, and not much of my family life changed either, but when I moved to Chico, I did get a chance to think more about my self and at first I thought that my life as the girl who lives in Sam Mateo was coming to an end, and my life as a Chico woman was beginning, but in the end, I decided that although I lived on B Street and then on Fiesta Dr. in San Mateo, and now I live on Nord Ave. in Chico, none of it has anything to do with who I am.
So who am I? Read on...