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.

You see, Mẫn, my father — his journey is simply never-ending. In fact, his whole life had been a whirlwind of being on the move, working, enduring, providing, and protecting those around him. That’s why he’s as hard as nails and as strong as they come. I’ve only seen him cry once in this lifetime. As long as I've known him, Dad has worked so hard, that in the first few years of my life when he picked me up those late nights from the babysitter, it took me a while to realise who this man was. It eventually came together of course - how he held me, and how safe I felt in his arms. The older I grew, the more I learned about his story which meant that I would come to understand that there was no one like him in this world. As one of the first wave of refugees, he helped build and support our Vietnamese diaspora community in Melbourne, Australia. Not forgetting, the man singlehandedly helped support his family and my mother’s family all the while healing, recovering, and building what he can. In fact, you can call him a builder, he can put things together like no other, you name it; furniture, broken taps, car parts, Phở amongst other hundreds of dishes. He’s just a natural with his hands. Take one look at them and you can tell all those callouses must have healed countless times over his life and they definitely left some marks, which is only a testament to what he had built in his lifetime.

You see, my father really is a builder, a man with hands that built wonders. He just has a way of seeing and doing things, it’s as if everything he did was an invention. He has this perfect balance of efficiently multitasking and problem-solving, it’s almost like he has this foresight with whatever he does encounter, blessed with a streetsmart genius, I categorise it as. On top of that, he delivers tearjerking eulogies and wedding speeches and imparts an aphorism every so often, remarkable for a man of few words. I suppose I have him to thank for that, now that I’m a writer, and how thankful I am. It’s only natural to feel that way when you're a child of a man like this. I consider myself very blessed with whatever qualities he has that has rubbed off on me. Speaking of which, I also inherited his immune system, we both sneeze monstrously from allergies. Then there are even the aches in his body when it senses rain and storms, this now flows through my body too, a handy attribute really and a much-needed reminder I was his son. Growing up, walking alongside him on a street, I knew I looked nothing like him, physically. There were even times when I was afraid, he was not my father, it was almost too good to be true. Of course, he was always going to be, I know that now because we hold similar core beliefs and share mutual passions. We share a love for sociology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and history - we're always wondering why people do the things that they do and the meaning behind it all. Just like me, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, mind you in a language he had to learn from scratch within a mere decade. But that’s where the barrier lies between our meeting minds, Vietnamese is no longer my native language, it’s at an intermediate level at best, and still, he gets me when I express my ideas for a better world, albeit limitedly. It’s probably because he thought of all these ideas before I was even born. My father certainly is a man who had seen life and understood it.

The one thing I found that always seemed to slip my father's grasp though was time itself, he just never found time for anything. He just seemed to always be on the move. My father was always busy, and there was never much time to talk with him as you can imagine, so I cherish every conversation we have. I suppose that when we do talk, we talk of virtue , it's of the greatest importance we both think, it's the key to everything, and figuring out which one is the most important is always a fascinating and profound conversation to have, there's always something to learn - as he explains to me why he upholds duty as one of the great virtues. See, I'm all about wisdom. But what I gather from just watching my father and his life, I start to understand a little more of what he means. See, the wise ones are always granted the time to think, explore, discover, and reason, but they're really held together by the pillars of those who uphold their duties, think about kings, queens, and heads of state and then those that serve them; soldiers, advisors, the common people. My father simply exemplifies the concept of duty, he's a living embodiment of that virtue. Now that I’m older, I've grown to understand and appreciate the extent of his exhaustion, even his absence, and how he was always so tired at the end of every day that he could barely talk or have time to take us out. See, I’m not even thirty yet, but never would I have endured having to be conscripted, facing death on the battle’s lines, to starting life anew, to raising all his families; my mother and us kids, his siblings, my mother's siblings, his army buddies, his community - all before the age of thirty.. It's just amazing to think of how he was able to carve out the life he made.

In some ways, my father never truly flourished, perhaps because of all those sacrifices he made. Maybe it was his greatest strength, duty, that actually held him back from greatness. Yet it was perhaps that sense of duty that forged his path, one that was not always easy, let alone desired. Yet, arguably, he’s still complete - in his own ways, more than I would ever be anyway. I’m always hoping to have more of him in me, his adaptability and survival instinct. Loss, war, migration, COVID 19, he’s survived it all. Though his lungs are scarred now, five weeks in ICU from the virus was always going to leave that mark. In fact, he’s changed drastically, always tired, retired even and he deserves to be really, the man had never taken a day off from his sixty-five years of working. From the age of five, he was already helping his father farm the fields and build houses while also finding the time to gather knowledge to elevate him to the top class in his province in the midst of war and this was before he became a soldier in his early twenties. Here in Australia, he never even stopped, he worked in steel mills, had his own family business, and built a family — it’s endless, his journey of working and doing. Still today, he never refrains from working or building, or growing things.

My father now spends most of his time in our family garden, his own fortress of solitude, if you will, where he cultivates all the herbs and vegetables needed in Vietnamese cuisine; mint, garlic, chili, lemongrass, lemons, lettuce, cabbage, water spinach, Thai basil, pumpkins, tomatoes and so on. He grows anything he can get his hands on, I mean he could really do anything he put his mind to, he even makes underrated homestyle Italian and Chinese food, there's that sense of balance coming through again. But it's not like he does anything for the sake of it, even his quietness or his time spent in solitude. See, I used to always wonder why he spent so much time in the garden, him just sitting there way past sunset, reflecting. Now I think he must have been thinking of his home, his life, and everything. He must have cultivated his garden to reflect where he was from, a place he lost and longs to see once again. Though the war has been over for a long time, nothing is ever forgotten. For many reasons, my father has never returned to his homeland, his 'home pond'. Before my first trip to his home, my ancestral motherlands, my father's younger brother, Uncle Cảnh, reiterated to me a very fine proverb, Ta Về Ta Tắm Ao Ta, Dù Trong Dù Đục Ao Nhà Vẫn Hơn.

Uncle Cảnh, translated it as such, I return home and bathe in my own pond, regardless of whether it is clear or murky my home pond is always better. See, I finally knew what that had meant when thoughts of my father permeated my mind when I came across the province of his birthplace. Where he was from, Nghệ An, it did not rain here as it did anywhere else in the world. It was a calm splatter, there was a harmony to it. There was something special about it. This part of Vietnam is known for its modest people. It’s one of the poorest areas of Vietnam, but there was something peaceful about it. The province name even translates to ‘governance in peace.’ Anyway, regardless of how I felt about my ancestor’s hometown, it was special anyway, as it bore one of our most important and revered figures, a revolutionary by the name of Hồ Chí Minh. He remains a polarising figure, depending on what side of the war you were on. Nevertheless, my father is a wise man who never sees things in black and white. We both exist in the grey, that’s where wisdom resides, as does empathy and understanding.

Dad’s favourite colour is green, I’d like to think it’s because it's the colour of trees, of plants, and of life and maybe it just reminds him of home too. It’s so green and lush there. This applies to where he was from and where he grew up which was further down south of Vietnam, La Gi, where he had relocated as a toddler after the Geneva Accords. Come to think of it, my father has lost his home so often, he's always been on the move. I could not even begin to imagine how much he misses his country, his home pond. I guess it makes sense now, why he always wants to impart to me, this concept he adores so much in our culture, Đồng Bào. Its translation is something along the lines of fellow countrymen, citizens, or simply compatriots. It refers to our creation myth, Âu Cơ, how we all descended from the same eggs. Essentially, in a nutshell, we're all family, that's what it represents. He values this concept very deeply, in it, he thinks exists the greatest virtue s— love, wisdom, and duty. If that weren’t enough to reveal who he is and how he thinks, he also gave me the most precious gift as a reminder. My father gifted me with the name, Nhân Vị, personhood or personalism if you will. Before me, he gifted my sister the name, Nhân ÁI meaning benevolence, and my brother, Nhân Quyền, human rights. I guess that says a lot about his way of thinking. How convenient and wonderful of him to inscribe his own personal tenets of his own philosophical school of thought, in his children’s name. How’s that for a legacy?

I may be biased, but I always thought of my father as a Confucius of some sort, he would’ve been a great scholar and adviser — the man you wanted as chief of staff; dependable, the smartest man in the room, the soldier through and through, and above all, a natural and wise leader akin to Solomon. By the way, those aphorisms he gifts us once in a while without us truly noticing, put him on the level of a Lao Tzu. As I said before, he has a way of things. Essentially he's all three of them rolled into one. Again, I really think he could have been something along the lines of that had he lived in those times, or had fate led him elsewhere. Well, regardless of who how he is or could have been, all I know is that he will continue to be the man you would want; if you were in a war — he’s been through hell and back, to the man you would want when the world is coming to an end from famine — he could cultivate anything, or the man you could depend on in your community when you’re a newly arriving refugee seeking shelter and support — he was everyone’s big brother. For me, I know intrinsically that from the circumstances alone, he was the man you wanted as a father when you were growing up — because no matter what the circumstances were, you would never ever starve in his home.

My father really has a way of holding things together; his family, his duties, his composure, I mean just look at the way his hands can build the daily necessities to ensure survival. What's more impressive and still continues to amaze me is that, while he was holding things together, so that nothing fell apart, he had a mind of his own, one that was forging insightful thoughts, some of which most definitely would have built a foundation for a world that could be more wonderful than it is.

As my father nears the twilight years of his life, I only imagine him to be still fruitful, in cultivating the things around him; from the garden to the wonderful universe in his mind. I’m only thankful to be an extension of what he created and built — it’s one of many reasons why I am here, in the way that I am now- a thousandfold. To anyone, he might just be an old man, now. To me, when I look at him, I’ll always be that five-year-old marvelling at his father’s abilities, stories, and journey. For he will always be the man, who with his mind, and with his hands - the man who built wonders.