The Original Misfit

This weird creature entered my world in 1999, as I was just going about with my activity, like any other seven year-old kid in class that day. I still remember everything so vividly: All of us were sitting on the ground, forming a circle — a big one!— while waiting for our new teacher — Philippe Robert— to come in and tell us what to do.

Since it was a new academic year, my extra-enthusiastic self came in early that day and took a seat on the ground, facing the two entrance doors of the classroom — one on the left and the other one on the right— with my back to the huge glass windows that opened to the outside courtyard of the school. I could have sat the other way, with my back to the doors and facing the glass windows instead, but I didn’t like the feeling of having people entering my space without me first acknowledging them. Then, secretly observing them.

As all of the familiar faces started walking in, as we smiled and greeted one another eagerly, and as the circle started to slowly take the shape that our teacher intended it to be, in walked this creature that would soon become my bestie. But, of course, our respective seven-year-old selves didn’t know that yet.

She came in and took a place, opposite of me, in the circle that we were forming. I instantly knew that she was going to be my 'project'. For that day, at least. You see, growing up in the French international school in Hanoi in the 90s, we rarely had new people coming in. In fact, not a lot of Vietnamese people were enrolled at that time in the French school and not a lot of French expats were coming into the country either, to enroll their kids in the school that was initially built for them. The result was that we were a rather small class of 2nd grade — or any other grade, for that matter— with at most twenty students.

She was a newbie and she looked like me. Almost instantly, I felt the need to befriend and integrate her. I felt the need to show her how things worked around the school because I had been there since day one. So many questions popped into my head at that moment. Did she know what she was getting herself into? Was she scared? Why was she here?

As all of these questions were running through my mind, my eyes were fixated on her while also pretending to not give her too much importance in my world. Suddenly, someone opened the door to the classroom.

It was a woman. A beautiful woman with short hair and a very friendly face. The newbie turned around and with a perfect Vietnamese accent, told this woman — her mother, I assumed— that newbie was fine and that newbie’s mom didn’t have to wait outside. I empathized deeply with that new girl. I almost wanted to tell her that I’m there for her and that we had each other.

I decided, right then and there, that my second grade was going to be awesome.

Our teacher entered the classroom and for a little while, it remained the brouhaha that it always was at the beginning of every class. He also took a seat among us kids on the floor and we quieted down. Today, as in every new academic year, we had to start the class by introducing ourselves to one another— as if he was afraid that over the summer, we had either forgotten our French, or built a new identity. I waited patiently for all of my old friends to introduce themselves and tried to hide my eagerness to learn more about this new person sitting in front of me.

One more person and then it’s her turn.

I was ready to translate for her, if she needed help. After all, I knew way too well that feeling of not belonging. In fact, when I arrived to the French school three years before that, I could barely say 'bonjour'. No, that’s a lie. I could barely say anything at all.

And just like that, I was ready to save her and be her representative in this confusing world that was called 'L’Ecole Fran?aise Alexandre Yersin de Hanoi'.

Her turn arrived and I looked at her with a huge smile, as if signaling to her that I could help her translate her thoughts if she needed. I remember smilling so hard at her, a smile that was almost too confident compared to the very little French that I actually spoke at that point. But she didn’t need my help. With a perfect French accent and a somewhat timid voice, she introduced herself:

“Bonjour, je m’appelle Laurence et je viens d’Angola.”

“LIAR!” I screamed inside my head, as she pronounced those words.

I didn’t understand why she did that. It just didn’t make any sense to me. How can she be Vietnamese and be called 'Laurence'? She was supposed to have a name- like mine- that was impossible to pronounce for French people. When she introduced herself, the teacher was supposed to ask her to pronounce her name again, and again, and again. At least three times, to make sure that the whole class got it. And that’s when I would intervene and offer to help teach everyone how to pronounce her name as correctly as possible.

But none of that happened.

“AND WHERE ON EARTH IS THIS MADE UP COUNTRY OF ANGOLA, ANYWAYS???????” My head was boiling again and my heart racing. Did she not know that Angola isn’t in Europe? That Europe was only made up of France and England and Germany and Spain and Italy? And why is no one calling her out for what she just said? Did everyone know what she was talking about but me?

I looked to my other classmates to see their reactions but I could barely tell whether anyone was listening when she spoke or they were all busy talking and thinking about their wonderful vacations back in beautiful France. I knew for a fact that it was a beautiful place because Dad had brought my brother and I to Paris the previous year for summer, too. And it was, indeed, “magnifique”.

Going back to Laurence, I decided that I was going to talk to her properly to understand what happened there. So during our 10:20AM recess, I walked towards her to ask my questions. Or rather, to throw at her my accusations.

“Hi,” I said to her, with the authority and the confidence that only older kids would have on the younger ones. (I later found out that she was one year older than me, but that wasn’t the point.)

“Hi Ngoc” she said, while remembering and pronouncing my name perfectly. She smiled to me. I hated her.

“Why is your name Laurence and why are you from that country that you said you were from?” I heard my thoughts poured out of my mouth without me being able to control them. I didn’t know why I was so upset and emotional about this new girl’s introduction. I didn’t understand either why my classmates weren’t so preoccupied with the same things that I was preoccupied with.

Maybe, unconsciously and prematurely, I thought that she didn’t want to be Vietnamese and I was exactly just that.

“Because that’s how people call me at school and Angola is where I was living before coming here,” she explained to me calmly and almost too nicely. Maybe she hadn’t detected my dislike of her.

I decided to change my approach and softened my inquisition.

“But I heard you spoke Vietnamese to your mom earlier, so how come you’re not from here?”

“Well, my parents are Vietnamese and I think that makes me Vietnamese, too. But I’ve lived my whole life in Angola and have only just arrived to Hanoi a couple of weeks ago to live with my mom and sister. So that’s why I said that I'm from Angola.”

“Where is that?” I asked, adding almost immediately, “That’s not in Europe” to signal to her, that I, too, knew many things about the world.

“It’s in Africa.”

“But you’re not African. Why were you living there?” At this point my mind was pumping out questions to ask this hated-turned-most-fascinated-girl that I’ve ever met thus far in my life. I wanted to write down all of my questions to ask her about the things she knew. I was excited to rush back home to tell my whole family about this new Angolan girl called 'Laurence' but whose parents are Vietnamese. I wanted to tell my family- especially my brother- that there were people like us living in Africa, too. I wanted to know everything right then and there, as my distaste of her slowly turned into fascination.

We spent the entire recess session together, me asking her questions, her answering them patiently, one by one. She told me about her missing Luanda, the city where she lived in, and her friends, especially this girl called Sabrina, who had a swimming pool and a tennis court in her house.

“Is Sabrina Vietnamese like us, too?” I blurted out in the middle of her story.

“No, she is French. Like most of my friends in Angola,” Laurence answered. We had that in common, I told myself.

“I was the only Asian girl in school,” she added.

She continued her stories by telling me about her yellow toboggan and these specific types of chips called 'fish croquettes' that she used to eat during her Angolan recess. She talked about how her clothes always felt like they were soaked in Hanoi, while in Luanda it was really dry. I didn’t really know what it felt like to live in a dry country, but I pretended to know what she was talking about anyways.

And most of all, she missed her father who had to stay behind due to his work requirements. At this point, I wanted to hug her.

“What are Angolan people like? Are they all Africans?” I asked

“Yes, they are black people. They are very nice and they had huge families. You know, all of my neighbors had ten to twelve kids,” she explained.

“That’s so big! How can you remember all the names of your siblings?” I exclaimed.

“Well, they can. And so can I,” she stated firmly. After all, only she knew the truth because she was from there. She continued, “And so I had a lot of friends in my building. We would always play different games together and it was a lot of fun. We had the sea next to us and lots of seafood. I just didn’t really like the adults there. They always wanted to touch my hair and pull on my cheeks. ALL. THE. TIME.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I had different hair than their kids. And a different nose. And different eyes, as well. And all the boys in my building would tell me that they wanted to marry me when we are older,” she added.

“Ewww, boys are so dirty,” I felt a pinch of jealousy in my words as I answered my newest friend. I might have wanted the Angolan boys to want to marry me, too.

The teacher came out to tell us that class had started again and that we needed to head back.

“You can call me Thao Huong, if you’d like. It’s my Vietnamese name,” she offered. Maybe she had felt my misplaced anger, after all.

I thought for a second and answered, “No, Laurence. I like your Angolan name. Besides, there is already someone called Huong in class.”

Little did we know, we walked in class together that day, the same way we would walk together in life for the following two decades.