The Quiet Vietnamese

Unlike Pyle, the quiet American, his Vietnamese counterpart is truly quiet: he wouldn’t venture out to dance. Not until and unless he ends up an odd-man-out, looking anti-social in a socially mediated society. He wouldn’t dare proposing to Phuong, Fowler’s live-in girlfriend. Not that short of a dating runway. Not without first checking with a trusted matchmaker (Pyle later cleared it with Phuong’s older sister).

After all, our quiet Vietnamese has already lived a dozen lives, as it seems: inoculated against “mal jaune” (Bernard Fall’s term via Ron Nessen, Ford’s Press Sec) common among Euro expats. By nature, he treks and talks with caution (“uon luoi hai lan”). Walls have eyes and ears (before surveillance cameras become more ubiquitous). The weight of history and community looms large.

This is to no one’s surprises since his root reaches back thousands of years, with edited and whitewashed mythology i.e. heroines and heroes, defenders and offenders (if honest) swords and elephants, ships and even tanks. Our quiet Vietnamese was taught not so much in school nor censored at home, but by inherited curriculum, by those who are dead ( the Ancestral Altar) or alive (neighborhood or village life).

BTW, born in a predominantly agricultural society, somehow he felt ashamed – perhaps it’s second-rate to be seen dining like peasants (que qua!) out on the floor in circle as oppose to sitting alone at an outdoor table in District 1 – even Alain Delon, as the talented Mr. Ripley, acted awkward with his forks in a rich-man’s yatch. Our quiet Vietnamese was quiet, a condition after living over a hundred years “downstairs”, Oui oui Monsieur. Excuse moi, Mademoiselle ( Ong Tay, ba Dam, thang tai xe).

In that long and high context, our Vietnamese “Pyle” is quite reluctant to assert himself as egalitarian in debate. The mike is on “Mute” comes his turn. It keeps people guessing. Silence is golden and agreeable. If it were perceived as wisdom all the better. The more unscripted, the more vulnerable. Unedited speech and unrehearsed rants rarely and only show up in a competitive comparison situation among compatriots let’s say, at beer garden after a few rounds (of you first) where “look, my scars are bigger than yours”.

Most times, he just observes and stands ready with AI-like auto-fill reply – to deflect and discourage further probing. He wouldn’t want to give away proprietary wisdom e.g. the second mouse always gets the cheese etc… ” An co di truoc, loi nuoc theo sau”, “nhat phao cau, nhi dau canh” (chicken ass tastes best, then come wings and heads).

Always humble (in appearance) he stays back, waiting for others to push him to the front. This reverse psychology is all too familiar with local event organizers who anticipate and adopt flex seating arrangement e.g. folded chairs. Moreover, wedding invitation are printed indicating precise venue, but not always observed stated time (fluid i.e. it’s time when everyone gets here).

He faked left to go right; answered Yes to a negative question (supposedly “No ” in English). His being uncertain and wavering on issues (his world was more time-tested not truth-tested) was because of harmony and his role in relations to others i.e. someone’s brother, Phuong’s sister or son of so and so, looms larger over individualism (a Ba, chi Tu …Brother 3 Sister 4 …naming in the order one is born). More lineage-centric than future-centric. More Old Testament than New.

In early 80’s, World Relief organization built a replica of an American house at Bataan, Philippines for Cultural Orientation. Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees might need to adapt to new environment, and language is just one component of acculturation (their second generation swung the pendulum far the other way…”hey, bro”) hence, “fences make good neighbor” ( R. Frost) , only missing the NO SOLICITING sign. Welcome to the land of “No Trespassing” on private property.

Sociologists mentioned third-generation who will in turn balance out the over-compensation of their parents (Roots?). Meanwhile, having survived the Killing Fields, their extended family left the weight of old world ideologue behind. Crossing over means transitioning from ancestral worship to Thanksgiving, from duck to turkey, chopsticks to forks (once just a glimpse by pedicab past the Continental Hotel patio), politics to economics of survival.

It’s one thing to be subversive to a minority representing a Colonial power. It’s another to feel hemmed in by the majority in a new land. Coming into contact with foreigners almost always brought bad news. As a result, xenophobia prevents his full integration. After all, it’s been centuries of occupation by “the 0thers” (foreign “devil” or invaders who pushed opium) still hard-wired in collective memories i.e. when it comes to Colonial legionnaires, except for the Chinese up North with thousand-years occupation, the best one can hope for were some brown half-breeds, despised and unwanted, until the day America decided to grant them “Homecoming” status (early 80’s)

He himself knew this (racism), since his people did the same to the Chams in the South. Besides, Westerners often misread the other’s non-verbal cues (Gooood Morning Vietnam, where a date is not a date, unless an entourage of chaperons trail behind with eyes wide-opened. In film, they call it “sex coordinator” in case the scene gets too hot and “real”). No means Yes, but he gives in only at the third invite (Khach Sao). Western counterparts who would jump right in at first sight of fish sauce (Bourdain).

Brought up in high-context/circular existence vs Western low context/linear thinking – he found himself speaking out of turn and living out of place (Woody Allen once said ” nobody is walking in LA”. ) Unlike the old Colonial days, when he roamed around downtown in Bata shoes for a Sunday stroll.

He is not apt or up for a panel discussion (ready 2, take 2 – on camera, one sees his reaction only). Due to fear of missing out he would self-designate a “tension relief” role in group dynamics. Sarcasm greases social. At the ready were chewing gums that water the mouth for face-to-face encounter e.g. Fowler’s Vietnamese contact in Cho Lon warehouse – not unlike our Indian friend in One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Except that one didn’t speak much English, the other, pretended to be “quiet” except for ” Want some Juicy Fruits?”.

To him, disagreement and resolution are to be routed via a third party. Direct confrontation and bridge burning are not encouraged. Passive aggressive disorder he was, hence venting and ranting to sympathetic ears only – off-stage and during post debate. Besides, for thousands of years, his ancestors got by with delayed Karma. Why now, why here, why him. The nail that sticks up always gets hammered down (1963 successive coups).

Meanwhile, low context individualist has an urgent need for over-talking bombastically (let’s not side track and get into our ongoing evolution of the American electorate, who nowadays are nothing but quiet: ” Hang Mike Pence!”). Here in the West, one must toot one’s horn and chant the chants (often in 3 words e.g. “Push them back, push them back.. way back ” in Game Day).

It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

“How are you” = “hi” . It’s an acknowledgment of your existence. Not to be milked out and followed by a series of “how is your buffalo doing “ (ke kho – sympathy seeking) . Time = money (In and Out burger).

To no one’s surprises it’s Kissinger who caught the drift ” Vietnam would find more ways of breaking one’s heart than anyone could ever have conceived” (pg. 11 Making the News Taking the News). As it turned out, he and Le Duc Tho split a ” Peace with Honor” Nobel Prize for crossing the chasm.

The West and the Rest, time vs eternity, the Past and the Future, being stoic vs move-fast-break-things. On Russia’s centuries-old ambition, Undersecretary for Defense Colin Kahl ” It’s always weird to read things like that – Russia Imperial Ambition- as an American, because our history doesn’t go back very far. So the notion that countries would give a shit about what happened 9,000 years ago or whatever or, you know, 2,000 years ago or 1,000 years . Americans don’t think like that.” (Woodward’s War pg. 45).

That explains Pyle’s Messianic complex ( per Graham Greene). After a brief brush with death – hiding in the tower with Fowler, he decided to offer Fowler’s “birdy” a way out: a more stable American Dream ( a Green Card). Legally she was not married (while Phuong’s sister protectively wanted security for sibling – Quyen Huynh The Phu – in the absence of parent, older siblings act on their behalf.) What would happen to Phuong, my young sister, once the old geese repatriates!

Humiliated, our British old reporter (played by Michael Caine, a long way from his Alfie rookie days) tried to obtain without success a divorce from his wife in London. Even among “white folks”, we detect subtle deductive vs inductive nuances i.e. for Pyle “I have all the advantages of a strong and sustained commitment, Hell, we won at D-Day; hence, I can provide more for Phuong, with your permission, of course”.

For Fowler ” we have been going steady and sufficiently i.e. a social/economic practical and win-win arrangement. As an expat (Alfie again) mix-race couple; why should we rock the boat? ( he’s in denial regarding diminishing return – with just a housemate, a typewriter and books. What’s is this all about! in Alfie’s days ” there will always be someone younger (Pyle?) and more qualified” to “take over the account”. For context, it turns out to be Dien Bien Phu 2.0 presciently.

Talking about let sleeping dog lie, later on, our Colonial French detective tries to mark the crime-scene e.g. pet’s footprints on wet cement for admissible evidence.

You are here, per Thich Nhat Hanh. Existence and presence. No need for justification or alibi. Walk the ground and feel the grass. Smell the salty sea and savor your uninfected hemoglobin. Leave and let go. What happened in near shore e.g. repeated rape and robbing (in the case of our quiet boat-people) stay in near shore. Even when one is labeled by sheer and shanty mode of transport, you are to keep the faith, chant more than 3 words always while counting the constant beads.

Each moment will never “happen” again. Boat? just a nameless seafaring vessel , insignificant and unworthy, unlike the Mayflower. Incognito is better.

Stealth mode is modus operandi. He/she quietly obtains the “news”, but not forms an opinion. Not without bouncing if off others (group think) since life in the Orient (itself circular in endless loops) is non-absolute non-binary yin/yang relativism. Our own Viet Thanh Nguyen came up with ” the man with two faces”. That situation ethics accommodates and entertains various interpretations (the more power, the more correct), fitting everyone (who paid bribes) unto one boat. Even rightly deserving – a paid customer just keeps your head down. No staring or eyes contact. Statistically, it’s 50-50 survival rate.

Let the other 50% discover Nirvana first.

“Truth” is what’s spit out after multi data points which got fed in ( like an old IBM mainframe). “Facts” filtered through a machinery of sanitized propaganda. What Harari would coin a “Nexus” of inter-subjective reality. Business decision or marital decision, public or private, expertise or amateur, all consensus/compromise. If that doesn’t work out, blame it on luck or failure to obey heaven mandate e.g. forgot to burn incense to fat Buddha. In networking, one also concludes that it’s the person one degree away from our direct link who has more substantial influence on our lives.

The Asian mindset in broad daylight via the Church of Reverend Moon’s mass wedding . “Truth” is subjected to revision in an endless cycles. There will always be plenty (people and decades) to spread the blame e.g. not a boy? no problem. Here is your next mistress or second wife. (“di hang hai” : man of two minds).

I saw you (generic) lie there in the infirmary, upstairs of a make-shift camp (Jubilee prison in Hong Kong). Eyes closed, bodies still. Passive and stoic. Your boat behind, but your nightmares were not. Perhaps you were still shaken and paranoid. Strangers reminded you of foreign aggressors who attacked in waves. What do they want this time? Another round of the pleasure of the flesh? Wow! Rape = power. Gratification and self-elevation all in one felt swoop.

At sea, you either get beaten or eaten. In your case, it’s both. One must feel convulsive to have survived on other passenger’s stale flesh, after offering your own unwashed in exchange for survival. Against all odds. If it were today, they could have used Facebook to announce the location to fellow “bros” so they too can have their fill at second serving.

Far out in blue ocean, pirates could easily spot Boat people. Human traffic were just like the flow of fresh “meat”. It’s easy a harvest, both profitable and pleasurable (BTW, they would never wish for their mothers to be on the receiving end of their own act in broad day light).

As a result you just absorb the punches, and make concession to all power and principalities, in land and at sea via cultural osmosis. This philosophy is central to Cao Dai ism who appealed to Pyle as a possible Third Force. A bamboo branch in the storm, sways like a slim dancer during Temple festival. The more chopsticks, the harder to break. Let someone else falls by their own sword.

So far, it seems as though you were the last “domino” in a cascade of political upheaval: Pentagon Papers, Santa Monica and Watergate break-in (“Our national nightmare is finally over” said Ford) with fateful and eventual collapse of your “shit-ass country”, Nixon’s Quaker expression – caught on tape. Extra Extra. Deep Throat and Heaven’s Gate (subsequently the tagged on suffix “Gate” kept showing up since e.g. Lewinsky-gate).

Our foreign-affairs expert x-president thought his voice alone could have won him the Kennedy debate, if only American voters had listened over the radio – hot medium – and not watching mostly on television – at the time a new and exciting cool medium. As it turned out, it’s his VOICE on tape that did him in.

After repeated and failed attempts at bribe, suddenly you were told to leave without a hush-hush goodbye. Equipped with just a faint hope and an ill-defined notion of Social Contract i.e. La liberte and fraternite – you ignored the absurdity and futility of it all (if vanished at sea, at least your remain will float and finally be linked up with loved ones.)

Like Ukraine and Palestine displaced today, you spilled out to sea by any means necessary. Out in the middle of nowhere, putting up no defense. In the absence of coast guards, even the USA-flagged Mayaguez was vulnerable (76)

So you remain quiet, block out the drama of the past. All-white funeral to all-black funeral. Time waits for no one. Depression is anger turning inward. In compliance, you just fill out forms (INS) and stop at STOP signs (DMV). Human-to-documents chain, as mentioned in Nexus.

But for those brief moments, between red and green light, something inside wants to scream. You want to shout: “I don’t just exist”. You live. Yes, they can rob, rape or draw blood. But like Victor Frankl says, “they cannot harm or hurt you, who resides inside your body”. Hey, you can’t just press a button and expect me to jump (how high?) To the roof of the Capitol? Hell No, we won’t go!. By this edit, I reflect back on D.C., and I want to thank the 52,880 whose names are still inscribed on black marble to document our sorrow of war. You can be done with the killing, but not the healing.

So Pyle, Fowler, Alfie, Peter, Paul, and Mary, whatever name you are called nowadays: Tom, Dick and Harry. May I call you with your new name, instead of just John Doe. since you’re an American now, a truly quiet one who stops at traffic lights (lots of and longer wait as software configuration revises continuously). You have compromised your identity and heritage to blend in and not draw attention to yourself (during the Pol Pot regime, wearing glasses was asking for trouble).

When it comes to human acting inhuman, it’s best to keep quiet. Your mere presence already serve as a walking reminder of CREEP (Committee to re-elect Nixon) and CRAP (Constructive Republican Alternative Proposals). Already Bush’s “Vietnam Syndrome” as it is. From Pol Pot to Post-Cold War ‘s End of History. Yours. Why do the birds, go on singing! All quiet on the Cambodian front.

That night, that first night out to sea was the longest. Sunrise could not come too soon, like children waiting for Christmas morning. After all, everything, your old and true version of self sunk to the bottom of the sea. To live on is to strike the balance between self-loathing (survivor’s guilt) and self-acceptance (Lancome’s “the first time, I ever saw your face”) then, if lucky, some social acceptance not unlike other naturalized immigrant groups before you (huddle mass).

Yet, it’s been decades since. Today people found it easy to air dirty laundry, their prejudice and their rant – Social Media crammed with targeted ads paid for by sponsors and powered by AI. High-context living low context pitching e.g.” Where’s the beef”. Not on Hamburger Hill nor Capitol Hill. Not without future-forwarding statement in fine-print disclaimer. Digital preying and virtual pirating (of your attention and time spent clicking around) whose business aims are turning grievances into gold, tragedy into treasury. Get to the point before they “SKIP AD”.

You left a lot unsaid. By default, your no-contest = voluntary servitude. After all, not all was romantic e.g. even Camelot via Colby and Lodge, a few degrees of separation = plausible-deniability e.g. Diem and Nhu – then found himself and his brother suffer the same fate (1963/68). The quiet Vietnamese is patient, deep in thoughts and carries a lot.

With a long history of in-fighting, victim and victor, over neighbor up North, or next door, of genocide on the Southern tip and defending against Northern invaders, you could have roared like Tiger against Elephant. But you fear further antagonism would slow FDI infrastructure upgrade.

I know you don’t succumb to love at first sight – unlike Pyle, at an expat hangout (at the opening scene, we find him faced down in the gutter while Fowler, ordering drinks and looking down at his watch nervously for an alibi). All quiet in the Colonial town. It’s here where country folks more than likely equated white American with French counterparts. Graham Greene foresaw the implosion and erosion of the colonial way (long game vs limited intervention, thousand of years vs every four years, kill ratio of 10:1).

What can you do, given your short life against a long shadow (of a war of attrition and aired out in public opinion). My Lai and Killing Fields – in “shit-ass countries” all to be expected (BTW, “going downtown” in Nixon’s era, meant “carpet bombing of Cambodia” unlike the hit song “Downtown” which Madison Avenue uses to sell luxury). Those ordinances, exploded and un-exploded, defoliated and deformed both land and people, whose scars will never fully heal.

By estimate, it would take another 350 years to rebuild Gaza. Often times, as Greene’s novel last line, ” How I wished there had existed someone to whom I could say I was sorry”. Xin Loi Vietnam. Xin Loi 52,880 American families. Xin Loi the conscientious objectors – who can’t or no longer want to come home to summer tree – by now seduced and sedated Upstate.

Inarticulate, but always under construction at the subconscious level are “voices never share, no one dared, disturb the Sound of Silence”.

The quiet Vietnamese. God knows the things he carries, what’s inside his/her head: millions of mini-calculations? Inarticulate thoughts and immature impulses? Survivor’s guilt in slow burn? Pain hidden in plain sight? What’s unprocessed occasionally and eventually flares-up or lashes out. Most times, it’s self destructive and self-inflicted behaviors (a few quiet Vietnamese are armed to the teeth, perhaps for catharsis since 1975 Congress refused funding request for ammo resupply…so much for “…Asian boys ought to do it for themselves…”

War-torn world with intangible and tangible damage e.g. enemy ears for trophies (S Korean joint forces at the urge and nudge of LBJ to replenish his Hill Country coonskin collection). His successor resigned, while he himself refused to be nominated for a second term. Remember Kissinger’s comment about Vietnam ‘s more ways than one…

In reality, everything needs to be accounted for e.g. army PX, ammunition inventory, kill ratio etc…When “winning is the only thing” (from Vincent Lombardi football field to McNamara’s “Vietnam Muon Nam” – Vietnam wants to lie down – mispronouncing “Forever” for “wanting to lie down” during his 1964 field visit).

At LBJ urging ” Asian boys ought to do it for themselves..” During Tet 68, it took Col. Loan only a fast High-noon draw of a pistol to execute a terrorist on the same street Graham Greene had his Continental Hotel film setting. Meanwhile, it took the Longest War for the West to get OBL. (Col Loan later went from pistol to pizza, fast draw to fast food, from barking out arrest orders to taking down phone orders, one of our new quiet American).

Yet, even when everything is lost or looted, when your gun (VP Ky’s gun, a gift from John Wayne) or radio confiscated, you still hear the music. Ear-deafening explosion might muff out those Bolero beats but not your heart beats. Your internal dialogue: “to fight or to flight” keeps echoing since the founding of the Nation, old or adopted.

For Boat People, the journey was a toss up, with destiny in the hand of whichever vessel happened to sail by (Statue of Liberty both in France and NYC welcome the huddle mass). Then it’s up to State and Local (Jerry Brown of California did not want Camp Pendleton to be repurposed from a boot camp to a refugee camp). The irony did not escape neighboring Orange County’s beach bum.

In today’s environment, they would have been bussed up North, to “sanctuary city”, to join relics of War protesters and Hippies deserters. Back then, those Pennsylvania Quakers did not want to “barn-raise” for Vietnamese outsiders either (not all were bad, since one non-violent conscientious objector Quaker burned himself in D.C. to protest while his fellow congregant in office, cursing in baritone – now available on DVD – de-classified WH tape ” bomb the s.o.b back to stone age”).

Having found safe harbor, you remain shamefully and sinfully quiet. As a survivor, you tell no tales, as if you’re a “perfect spy” working as stringer for TIME during the war. Not even to your American-born children (Mom! I want to go to Prom – good luck with Ballroom dance, young “Pyle”). By now your Anglicized name and naturalized status afford you upscale living as should be; you AKA Fowler, Pyle, Peter, Paul or Mary.

With ideologue self behind, you enjoy a lightened load to climb on, up the Immigration and Naturalization ladder (leaving the bottom rung to Haitian and Puerto Rican counterparts – on the receiving end of “Uncle Sam – doesn’t – want you” campaign), You glide through with Model Minority insignia and convention-hall badge (for entry and exit as a legit paid TED-talk audience).

You have earned it. You have purchased or exchanged your dignity, virginity, blood, sweat and tears. That arduous journey would turn any stoic into shopper (of goods made in China – ironically, your old arch enemy). On rare occasion, while soul searching, you wrestle with buyer’s remorse like Jacob in the well. Our quiet Vietnamese asks himself: “What’s it all about, all this,” at what costs : “to spend the money he didn’t have, buying the things he didn’t need, to impress the neighbors he didn’t like”. Life interior for life exterior.

Then off he goes, to the store, Black Friday or any Friday of the year. Amazon-recommended.

Congratulations on your “success”, on having essentially evolved, from the Quiet Vietnamese to the Quiet American, from Phuc “Muon Nam” to “F**k” “wants to lie down”, from pajamas to tuxedo, in style and in subtle Art of not giving a F, “oh, I get it” e.g. SNL punchline or cursing in traffic jam ( what the ….), fully tested and inoculated (COVID and mal jaune), too sterilized and sedated to unsubscribe (permission marketing).

Just click “I agree”.

It’s an advertising-supported silo and solo society, where one is caught bowling alone.

My sincere wish is you would know where the line bleed from being a Quiet American to being an Ugly American. Artificial Intelligence wouldn’t know that and wouldn’t warn you otherwise. Up to you, the last line of defense, having paid a very dear price to stay true.

Our quiet Vietnamese remains quiet. Walking man walks on by. He always washes his hands thoroughly, as if long history could be washed away with hand soap. Heck, the past is not even past.

Don’t venture out to the dance floor, our new Pyle, unless it’s absolutely necessary. In a socially-AI-mediated world, fear of missing out trumps fear of being labeled anti-social. On the Net, nobody knows you’re a dog, anti-social or truly quiet.