The man who built wonders
For as long as I can remember, one of the dearest and most revelatory memories of my childhood was working on a school project tracing my origins to where I was from, Vietnam. I was only five years old at the time, so naturally, I enlisted my father’s help to tell me the story of how I came to be and how we came to Australia. I remember it quite vividly, he sat me down on the ground and grabbed an A3 piece of paper, and started drawing away a map of Vietnam and Australia. Then came the lines signifying his movements, it was one hell of a journey. His level of annotation was the first thing I noticed — the way he drew the outline of Australia, it’s not an easy thing to do as was exquisitely done by him. Even better was his storytelling, he was so eloquent, and thought so deeply. This was the first true father and son conversation or moment I recall having with him. This was the first time I had put together everything about him, that he was a soldier and that he originally came from the north of Vietnam. He even escaped execution and fled for a year or two in the jungles after the fall. There he uncharacteristically smoked and even ate gigantic jungle rats. He did all those things to survive while he was hiding from the Viet Cong. Fortunately, he escaped with the help of the Australian government and landed in Australia by plane. One could say he was lucky, but on some nights, I couldn't help but overhear and witness his night terrors, the tremors and paralysis telling a far more unfortunate story and journey - one unspoken, one that must be so painful that no soul could ever bear it. Sometimes, I wish he would just one day bare it all, so as to become less a mystery to me. You see, my father either talked a lot or very little. There’s no doubt he has always been a humble and quiet man, especially as a father. But to leave the story there would be a disservice to everything he had achieved, see he’s more than just my father, he was a man destined for great things, and to his credit — he forged the path himself despite all the adversity he had to endure.
