Our Parents

Mr. Trương Quang Đại & Mrs. Ngô Thị Nguyên

 

Dear Brothers & Sisters

We plan to create a Foundation to honor Ba & Mẹ. Through hard work in Vietnam and then incredible hardship in the US to raise us, the eight children. We are creating this website and build up from here, and hope to keep it for generations to come.

To help starting up, please make time to prepare and send me your ideas, writings about Ba & Mẹ, our family, any great memories or photos, etc. Just like Ba put a lot of effort in helping to build "Nhà Thờ họ Trương" in Quảng Ngãi. Help us create this while Ba & Mẹ still alive. I just registered a domain name TruongQuangDai.com

Here is a very preliminary Website: Just a temporary template, that needs a lot of work. Thank you.

Chuẩn 9/10/2021

My Parents' Family
Through the Course of Political and Social Lives

Written by Trinh Quang Truong

I. Feudal and Colonial Periods

After getting married, my grandfather returned to live in his wife's hometown, My Lai village, Son Tinh district, Quang Ngai province. My grandfather was a well-to-do landowner, a teacher of Confucianism. In the village, people call him teacher Van (Truong Quang Van). Dad is the first son, the eldest son, so his parents love him wholeheartedly and named him Dai. He grew up in a feudal society under French colonial rule. At that time, King Bao Dai (1925-1945) was the last king of the Nguyen Dynasty. When my father finished primary school, his father took him to the imperial city of Hue to continue his studies at Quoc Hoc school. At that time there was no high school in the small province. High schools are only available in the capital, organized by the French and taught according to the French program, in French only. Therefore, only the children of the noble family or the rich can send their children to the capital to study.

1. World War II and Viet Minh.

World War II began to break out in 1939. From 1940 to 1945, the French power gradually weakened after the war. In this historical context, the Viet Minh seized the opportunity and prepared for a revolution to gain independence and sovereignty for Vietnam. All intellectuals are urged and almost forced to "put up the pen to fight." In the chaotic situation of World War II and the pressure to fight, many high school students had to drop out of school, flee to their hometown, or leave the country to go elsewhere for safety or refuge. The August 1945 revolution led by Ho Chi Minh was favorable and successful. Democratic Vietnam was formed with the international declaration of independence. Growing up during the turbulent times of World War II, and because my father did not want to join the Viet Minh resistance movement, he had to drop out of school and go back to his hometown.

2. My Grandfather's Family In Sa Ky

a. About My Mother and Grandfather: In 1947, my father got married and lived in his wife's hometown. My mother is the second daughter of a wealthy merchant in Sa Ky village, Quang Ngai province. My grandfather because his parents died early, so he was brought in by his aunt (his father's younger sister). With an industrious nature, my grandfather worked very early with fishermen and communicated with many merchants from all over the countries. After amassing some possible capital, my grandfather bought fields and land to cultivate. Seeing that the business was favorable, he bought more salt fields and learned how to make fish sauce. From trading fish sauce in a small area of operation, he grew bigger and bought more boats to trade fish sauce, salt, and agricultural products to more distant provinces. I later learned that he also had a rice mill, an ice factory, and an ice cream factory. During the feudal period until the French colonial period, the district was divided into many villages, each village was headed by a chief of staff (lý trưởng). My grandfather was the chief of Sa Ky village. The chief's main duties are in charge of managing books, conventions, palaces, tax collections, and urging dikes and roads. Assistant to the chief of staff are deputy assistant (phó lý) and the hương’s chief (hương trưởng). When the chief of staff is absent, the deputy assistant takes over the work in the village. In the village, whenever there is work or something happens, the mandarin, the district will appoint the chief of staff, deputy assistant and the head of the village to order and blame. My grandfather's house is located near the mouth of the sea in Sa Ky. In front of his house is the last section of the Tra Khuc River before flowing into the sea. The riverbank in front of his house was built with dark red laterite rocks and steps to facilitate the arrival of ships. In his house, there are always four or five domestic workers, who are always on duty to help, such as carrying agricultural products, storing salt in the warehouse, and getting on the boat to deliver goods from near and far dictricts.

b. Grandfather is Very Good at Medicine: My mother told me that my grandfather learned and knew a lot about traditional Chinese medicine and folk medicine to help cure diseases in the village. Every time someone in the village was sick with something suffocating, in urgent need of treatment, day and night, he was also ready to run to help right away. So My grandfather was very respectful and grateful to the people in the village. My mother told me that when I was four years old, I had a high fever and urinary retention. My mother asked uncle Giáo Lang to help me, but he came to check my pulse and said to my mother, "Whose child's child, I can give reagents, but for Nguyen's child I am hesitate to do so, if there is anything bad happen, I can't pay.” My mother understood what he meant, so she hurriedly sent the boatman back to Sa Ky to ask for her father's help. That afternoon, my grandfather quickly visited me to check my pulse and ask my mother about my illness. He sent people to the back of the house to turn over the bricks to find seven earth cockroaches and pick seven green onions for him. He brought cockroaches and onions to beat and mixed them together and put them on my navel. Within four to five minutes, I was peeing and passing urine. This miraculous cure made everyone around me admire my grandfather.

c. My Mother: Once, she said that because her grandparents did not have a son until she was 17 years old, and because of her intelligence, she was loved by her grandfather very much. Grandfather considers her as the eldest son in the family, hoping that someday, when she grows up, she can help him with business books. When my mother was 13 years old, grandfather sent her to imperial city Hue to continue her education at Dong Khanh High School. At that time, students follow the French curriculum. Every month, my grandfather had to go to Hue to visit his daughter to provide money or any necessities to her. For the same reason as mentioned above, after finishing the tenth grade but not having time to take the French’s high school diploma exam, my mother also had to drop out of school and go to her hometown to refuge.

Picture 1: My Mother in the center, at 15 year old, with friends, students of Đồng Khánh H.S., Hue

d. Instability in the Countryside: After my father had married, during a difficult economic period, my Maternal Grandfather shared some fields with my parents to make salt and helped him for a while. My parents worked very hard on the 1948 crop. A year later, my father decided he did not like to work in the field. He applied to be a clerk at the primary court of Sơn Tịnh district. Frequently, he acted as a judge for this court. In 1949, my mother gave birth to her first child (Như Thủy). In 1950, my parents returned to district Mỹ Lại to live again. During the time in her husband’s hometown, my mother gave birth to me (Trình) and my brother (Chuẩn). Since the Japanese army withdrew from Vietnam, and after the August 1945 Revolution, the French colonialists did not want to give up Vietnam, so the French army (most of them were the Foreign Legion soldiers) regularly went for operations by air and marched into villages to raid and hunt down the Việt Minh. Because of that, the Việt Minh divided the countryside into war zones to fight against the French. Every time the French aircraft would fly over for an operation, people in the village took turns to alert others by knocking on the drum to warn everyone in the village to run into the shelter to avoid bombarding from the French aircraft. Until early 1954, my sister and I also experienced many times the fear of being bombarded by French planes when we were still in our hometown. In addition, French Foreign Legion soldiers were obsessed with young women, so many women had to dress up as if they were pregnant to avoid their eyes.

II. The Period of the Country Divided in Two

After the French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ (1954), the Geneva Agreement was made; they divided our country into two parts along the 17th parallel. In the south of the 17th parallel line was the Government of the First Republic of Vietnam led by Ngô Đình Diệm with the support of the Americans since 1955. In the north, it was led by Hồ Chí Minh with the support of the Chinese.
1. Struggling for a Livelihood
a. Life in Tư Nghĩa town: In early 1955, because of desiring to build a good future for their family, my parents moved to Tư Nghĩa town of Quang Ngai Province to establish their careers. Thanks to her basic education at Đồng Khánh school, my mother applied for a job as a teacher for Tư Nghĩa town primary school. Because my father could not find a job in the province, he decided to go to Saigon to set up a career. After giving birth to Như Nguyện, my mother found that life in Tư Nghĩa was very discomforting since my father was in Saigon and my mother was both teaching and taking care of the children. Although there was a maid who lived in the house to help my mother take care of four young children, there were still many difficulties.
b. Life in Mỹ Lai Village: In mid-1957, my mother took her four children back to her husband’s hometown to live less expensively. She continued to teach at the Sơn Mỹ Primary School. In 1958, I was six years old and also started my first grade at this Sơn Mỹ school. I still remember during those years when my father came home from Saigon to visit his family. While living in her husband’s hometown, despite being bullied by her sister-in-law, my mother always proved to be a good daughter-in-law, a good mother, an exemplary teacher, and a very kind person who helped the poor in the village. She often brought common medicines such as scabies medicine, eye pain medicine, malaria medicine, and “vermicelli” medicine (penicillin) and showed her neighbors how to use medicine to treat the diseases. Once a month, my mother rode a bicycle to the city (Quảng Ngãi) about 15 km away, to buy more medicine or other necessary items that were not available in the countryside. Seeing someone poor and needy, she was willing to help. So, everyone in the village always loved her. Compared to her sisters, my mother was the most educated person. So, when my mother worked as a teacher at Sơn Tịnh primary school, her sisters sent their children (cousins Phượng, Ngô, Biên, son of Aunt Hai [second], and Vân, daughter of Aunt Bốn [fourth]) to live with my mother. My mother helped to educate them while my aunts were always busy doing their business. In early 1960, my mother gave birth to another son (Khổng) in Mỹ Lai.

Picture 2: Father and sons walking on the street of Saigon (1959)

2. My Father Set Up a Career in Saigon
In 1955, the government was recruiting a lot of staff for the Colombo conference to be held in Saigon. Again, the Colombo program was an international organization to cooperate for economic and social development in the Asia and Pacific region. This association was established on 1 July 1951 with seven original members: Great Britain, India, Canada, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and Australia. This organization later grew to include 26 countries, including some countries in ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asia Nations) and SAARC (The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation). With a relatively good background in French, my father was fortunate to get a job as a diplomat employee in charge of reception and organization for this conference. He was later transferred to the Vietnam Press, an autonomous press agency subsidized by the government. Also, during this time, in the evening, my father worked as a tutor for children at home and did some business affairs to buy and sell green dollars to earn more money. In addition, he studied at the Saigon Law School to get a Certificate of Competency in Law. After completing this certificate, he was promoted to deputy head of the press information department, in charge of news on the stock market.

Picture 3: Photo of my mom and dad (1960)

3. Stabilizing Life in Saigon
In the mid-1960s, my father bought a small house in Tan Binh district. After that, he took his wife and 5 children to Saigon to reunite with him and settled here. Six years later, my parents had three more daughters (Như Ý, Như Ngọc, and Như Ngà). By then, my father had also saved some more money, so my parents moved to a more spacious house on Hùynh Quang Tiên street, near the Ba Chuông Church. Meanwhile, the countryside in Mỹ Khê village, Quảng Ngãi was besieged by the Việt Minh and unsafe because of war. My grandfather had to give up all his fields, gardens, house, and precious belongings to go to Saigon to live with us.

4. A Sad Story of My Maternal Grandfather
In 1964, the land of Sa Kỳ was no longer under the control of the South Vietnamese Government. My Maternal Grandfather was hit by a fight against the bourgeoisie. All my maternal grandfather’s fields, houses, production facilities, and businesses in Sa Kỳ were completely confiscated. He was sent to a mountain re-education camp for over three years. Once, he was about to be executed by gun, but fortunately thanks to his ancestor’s blessings, he was saved. Indeed, in the past, he had helped many people in the village. On that day, there was a high-ranking officer who had lived in Sa Kỳ village, who was helped and cured by my grandfather; this officer recognized my Maternal Grandfather. And he ordered my grandfather to be pardoned and released from prison. My mother took her father to the Grand Hospital in Saigon to help him recover and heal. He was very depressed because all the inheritance he had built in his life was lost. Moreover, he was too worried and disappointed about his only son, who was still unmarried and had no career or future. From that mental decline, he developed a mental illness. And about a year later, he was deceased (in 1969), at the time he was 73 years old.

5. My Mother Decided to Work to Make Her Family Life More Abundant
With an expensive life in Saigon, my mother could not bear the hardships anymore, so she decided to find a job to earn more income for the family. Thanks to her good background in the French language, my mother took extra English lessons and learned to type for a few months. My mother eventually got a good job with the US Defense Attaché Office (DAO) in Saigon. And thanks to that, my sister, I, and my brothers were brought up and fully educated. I was admitted to Petrus Trương Vỉnh Ký High School, my two younger brothers (Chuẩn and Khổng) were admitted to Thủ Đức Model High School, and my younger sister (Như Nguyện) entered Gia Long High School for Girls. My sister Như Thủy is the eldest daughter in the family, with an intelligent personality. When she first arrived in Saigon, she did not have time to prepare for the entrance exam for public schools, so she had to attend private schools. After finishing the first part of the baccalaureate, she was admitted to the Phú Thọ National Technical Center and studied as a chemist. After two years, she graduated, and she was allowed to work for the Standardization Institute (Viện Định Chuẩn) in Saigon. She would just go to work during the day and go to school at night; a year later, she also obtained the second part of the baccalaureate degree. After that, she continued to study at Vạn Hạnh University to get a bachelor’s degree in economics. The admirable thing about my sister is that she gave all her monthly salary to my mother to help her younger brothers and sisters study and prepare for the entrance exams or baccalaureate exams such as an advanced study in philosophy, English, math, physics, and chemistry. Since my mother worked, our family life was relatively full and peaceful. In our home, we always had a maid to cook and wash clothes for the family. In the spring of 1972, my younger brother (Chuẩn) received the Columbo scholarship to study abroad at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

6. Helping Other Relatives Enter Saigon to Set Up a Business
My parents were pioneers who entered the South and established quite a successful career. Since then, my parents’ relatives from Quảng Ngãi also went to Saigon to settle down. My uncle Năm’s family used to stay at our house for a while before finding a place to stay. Other relatives on both paternal and maternal sides (Uncle An, Uncle Trí, Uncle Tâm, Uncle Hai Cượng, Uncle Tịnh, children of Aunt Hai, etc.) also stayed in our home for a while until getting a stable job. My father also helped other relatives such as bringing Uncle Trí to work as a printing technician in the Vietnam Press. Ms. Luận and Uncle Trí had been keeping their hawker carts and sugarcane juice carts at our home for quite some time.

7. The Difficult Period of the Second Republic Regime
At the beginning of 1972, while I was studying at the Saigon University of Law, the general mobilization order was issued in South Vietnam, so I had to drop out of school and join the army. In early 1973, the Paris Agreement was born. Although the Paris Agreement was signed to cease fire, the North Vietnamese army devoted all its strength to annexing the South. Meanwhile, because of congressional pressure, the United States cut its budget as much as possible and eventually stopped providing aid to the South Vietnamese government. The South Vietnamese government began to struggle because of the lack of ammunition and air support to fend off the onslaught of the North Vietnamese army.

III. Asylum Period After April 30, 1975

South Vietnam finally fell on April 30, 1975. At the beginning of 1975, before the fall of Saigon, my sister (Như Thủy) was sent by the Institute of Định Chuẩn to study in the United States for a short period, 6 months, on the method of testing according to the standards of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Thanks to my mother, who was working for the US Defense Attaché, my parents were fortunate to have the opportunity for the whole family to flee (with only five children at that time) to Guam for refuge. Meanwhile, my sister was in the United States, my younger brother was studying in Australia; I was in the army, so I could not go anywhere.

1. Refugees’ Feelings and Concerns
Arriving in Guam at the end of April 1975, my parents brought worry about the uncertain future of the family. What would tomorrow bring? What would life be like in a different language in a foreign land? What would they do to earn their living and to raise the children? During that time, they thought that if they had a piece of land to cultivate, living day by day with their young children, they would be doomed. They also worried about their son leaving in Vietnam. Would he be able to find a way to reunite with his family? They contacted international aid organizations to track down his information with the slim hope of finding him. During the days in Guam, my mother was the leader for the whole family because she used to work with Americans in Vietnam. My mother speaks and understands English relatively well. It took my father a long time to get used to the new language.

2. Lucky to Meet a Good Sponsor
While waiting for charity organizations to help find sponsors for refugees to settle down, my parents were also very worried because they didn’t know who the sponsor would be. Through the camp’s operating organizations, they learned there was a family of Dr. Smyth in Virginia who wanted to sponsor a refugee family with five children. Parents had to be able to speak English and a little French. Fortunately, my parents’ family met those criteria and quickly applied for sponsorship. Did the blessings of our ancestors also cause the settlement in America to be well rounded? I later learned that Dr. Nicholas Smyth was a very famous cardiac surgeon. Once again, at 50, my parents had to start rebuilding a new life from nothing for the third time in Virginia, USA.

3. Some Difficulties When Integrating into New Life in the United States
After my family temporarily moved to their sponsor’s home in Virginia, right after the summer, Dr. Smyth sent the children to school. So, they were very awkward for a while. However, thanks to their study efforts, after a few months, they also caught up with their classmates. A younger brother (Khổng, 15 years old) was sent to the 8th grade instead of the 9th grade according to his age. My brother was very unhappy about being assigned one grade lower. My mother went to Khổng’s school to meet the principal, trying to ask for his help in assigning Khổng one grade higher, but was refused because of language difficulties in the initial integration into American society. In the following school year, Khổng attempted to attend two classes a year (9th grade and 10th grade), then jumped up to 11th grade the following school year so as not to be late compared to his friends. That is commendable for his drive. This boy later earned a doctorate in physics. The youngest sister (Như Ngà) was nine years old, only knew a few words of English, entered the classroom, and everything she wrote was corrected by her teacher. However, later, Như Ngà graduated high school with the honor of valedictorian. So, at the graduation ceremony, Như Ngà was nominated to represent the entire school’s students to give a speech of thanks to her teachers. Later, Như Ngà became a Medical Doctor.

4. Quickly Settled into New Life
Within a month of arriving in the United States, my mother was introduced to work for a trading company (Hecht’s Company) by Mrs. Smyth, who was her sponsor. Three months later, my father also got a job in the same company as my mother. After six months of being helped and living with the sponsor, my family also had to move out and live on their own. Although with a meager salary, Mom and Dad still lived happily and always encouraged their children to study hard as a necessary basis for their future. Realizing that they were the refugees with empty hands when they arrived in the United States, and with the responsibility of raising 5 young children, my parents tried to forget about their relatively prosperous and good life in the past. Because if they were still in Vietnam (and nothing changed), they would have only five or six years more to work before they could retire and enjoy their old age. Here, mom and dad had to do a job they didn’t enjoy for a long time.

5. Family Reunion
After enduring three hardship years at the re-education camp in Long Khánh, I was released from the camp. By the end of 1978, I was lucky enough to cross the sea successfully with a relative from my maternal side (Uncle Thừa Am). After eight arduous days and drifting at sea, we finally reached the island of Pulau Tengah, Malaysia, for temporary refuge while waiting for a sponsor or relative to sponsor us. This was great news for my parents because they had been waiting and looking for me for so many years. At the same time, my younger brother (Chuẩn) from Australia wanted to reunite with my parents’ family in the United States. At the end of June 1979, my parents’ family was completely reunited with eight children after over 4 years of separation.

6. Retirement Period
After 12 years of hard work for Hecht’s, my father retired. My mother worked for a few more years and then retired. In the family, my father always showed us an exemplary father, dignified, especially in the worship of grandparents and restoration of ancestral graves. My parents are very peaceful and have many friends. On every full moon day and major holidays, my parents always go to the temple to chant sutras and worship Buddha. They are also respected members of the Vietnamese Elderly Association in the Washington Capital area. On traditional anniversaries such as Saint Trần Hưng Đạo or Hùng Vương, there were many times when my father was invited by the association to be the chief priest for that anniversary. He wore an ao dai and a turban and bowed solemnly and dignifiedly. When he retired, my father liked only reading books and growing flowers, especially exotic flowers. Then he turned to growing medicinal plants to make homemade teas or drinking alcohol. My parents love to go on pilgrimage and have traveled to many countries around the world. In addition, with a tendency to worship Buddhism, sometimes on weekends they invite a monk who is good at scriptures and friends to come to their house to learn about Buddhism together. Every two nights, my parents recite Buddhist scriptures. They are very devoted to good deeds and ancestral worship. It was my father who called for his descendants and relatives in the United States to contribute to the construction of the ancestral worship temple. He raised a considerable amount of money to send back to Vietnam, enough to build the current magnificent Đại Tôn ancestor worship temple in Mỹ Khê. He also donated to the Đại Tôn temple a bronze censer weighing over 920 pounds, which was placed in front of the temple. In addition, my father also raised and donated a large amount of money to help build Trung Tôn and Tiểu Tôn ancestor worship temples.

Picture 4: Bronze censer

Picture 5: Đại Tôn ancestor worship temple

Picture 6: My parents’ birthday, 2019

IV. A Few Words of Gratitude and Thank You

When I wrote this memoir, my father was 97 years old and my mother was 96 years old. The happiness of my parents in their old age is having eight children living close to them all the time. Nothing is more precious than the sincere love of dear children who always visit and inquire about them in old age. Taking this opportunity, I would also like to express my deep gratitude to our parents, who gave birth to and raised us. Thank you to sister Như Thủy and brother Chuẩn who have put the most effort into arranging the caretaker, serving the parents as well as managing the necessary documents, and arranging the time to visit the dentist or doctors for the past ten years.

January 10, 2022
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Trinh Quang Truong (Kỳ Khê)