A Grain of Rice by Nhung N. Tran-Davies

The events described in A Grain of Rice are loosely based on the experiences of Tran-Davies' family when she lived in Vietnam and then fled after the war. Five-year-old Nhung, her mother and five siblings were sponsored to come to Canada in 1979, after fleeing their homeland by boat to Malaysia. Vietnamese who fled by sea in rickety boats came to be known as the "boat people".  Many lost their lives on the journey, others were attacked and robbed or worse by sea pirates. Today Nhung Tran-Davies is a physician who lives with her family just outside of Edmonton, Alberta.

In A Grain of Rice, a young girl flees Vietnam with her family to escape the worsening oppression and living conditions in the country just a few years after the end of the Vietnam War.

A Grain of Rice opens with a horrific storm that floods the Mekong River next to their home in Vinh My, a village on the river, where thirteen-year-old Yen, her mother Huong, younger sister Tien, and their adopted brother Quang live. As the water floods into their home, Yen races to grab Tien, while her Ma searches for Quang. The family shelters in the loft of their home, waiting for the storm to abate.

The next morning, when Ma is not home, Yen goes in search of her, but encounters their neighbours Co Sau and Cau Sau who lament that they have lost everything. Yen's Ma arrives at Bac Minh's home carrying a dead child, Trinh who was also a neighbour, but cannot find Trinh's brother and sister.  Yen is devastated by the death of Trinh; only a few days earlier she was playing with him and his brothers and his sister Mai. Trinh's parents were away at the markets downriver when the flooding happened. They will return to find their entire family gone.

That night Yen mentions to her mother that they should go find Ba in Ca Mau but her mother refuses telling Yen they don't need him. Ba had been taken away by the southern soldiers prior to the fall of Saigon. After he was returned, when Yen was ten-years-old and Tien was not quite a year old, Ma left Ba, taking her family to the Mekong Delta.

Later that night Yen's two older siblings, her brother Lam and her sister Muoi return home from Saigon where they attend high school. Toa Cu who is a teacher but also owns a crayon factory, pays for their school tuition. They bring home a notebook for Yen and crayons for Quang. As the family talks about their journey home, Muoi indicates that Toa Cu has indicated that their family should "escape"with him. Yen is not quite sure to what they are referring.

Ma decides that she needs to travel downriver to Ca Mau for supplies. This trip puzzles Yen. "We hadn't been back to Ca Mau since we stole away three years ago, just months before giai phong. Ma had not even mentioned Ca Mau since then. What had changed? It was unusual for her to choose Ca Mau when there were other closer markets, although they were smaller."

On the trip down the Mekong with Ma, Yen questions her mother about travelling to Ca Mau, her mother will only tell that it is for business. In Ca Mau, after being accosted by a government soldier, Yen and her mother set up a spot to sell their crabs and bananas in the market. They are shocked to see Co Sau begging for food, which they offer her. She tells them that they came to Ca Mau looking for an old friend but the friend and his family have disappeared.While Ma takes Co Sau to someone who can help them, Yen decides to wander off to find her father. She remembers how he was taken away by the soldiers from the south for being an informant for the Viet Cong and kept for two years and beaten.

When she finds her father, she tells him that Ma and Muoi are planning to escape, although she doesn't quite understand what this means. Yen asks her father to help them so that Ma will stay. but he is not sympathetic. Yen is shocked to see that her Ba has a wife and small child. Furious she runs out and returns to the market, only to find her mother and their items are gone.

Yen finds her mother in the temple, making offerings to Buddha. Yen has already been robbed by a one-legged beggar, and now they are confronted by the same officer who gave them trouble when they arrived in Ca Mau. But this time they are lucky as a stranger wearing a jade pendant intervenes.

Before they leave Ca Mau, Ma and Yen visit a friend Co Thanh who runs a fabric store. Co Thanh's husband has been gone for the past three years, taken to a labour camp to be "re-educated". She seems to indicate that her son is dead but also that he only has hope if he leaves the country. While Yen is confused her Ma seems to understand.

Back home, Ma begins to prepare for their journey that will lead them to escape the country. Yen is frustrated because no one will tell her anything. But when Bac Minh arrives one night warning them they must leave at once because soldiers are looking for them, Yen must discover her courage to make the long and dangerous journey, leaving behind the country she loves for an unknown future.

Discussion

A Grain of Rice is an interesting story that provides young readers with a sense of what life was like in the years immediately following the end of war in Vietnam. The country, previously divided into the communist North and the democratic South was now reunited and ruled by a communist government. 

In A Grain of Rice, young readers will learn that the Vietnamese people continued to suffer long after the war ended. The repressive communist government began punishing South Vietnamese civilian and military officials, sending them to re-education camps. Many never returned. Nguoi hoa or ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam and who considered themselves Vietnamese were particularly targeted, losing their businesses and property. With worsening economic conditions and widespread corruption and human rights abuses, millions fled the country. These refugees fled by boat into the South China sea where they faced drowning, dehydration, attacks by pirates, rape and murder. Many were picked up from rickety vessels and brought to the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong where they spent months and years in refugee camps. At the time, the Vietnamese refugees were referred to as "boat people"  which some consider a racist term today.

The Tran family

The story in A Grain of Rice is based on Tran-Davies experience as a refugee from Vietnam.  Tran-Davies was born in December of 1973, just over a year before Saigon was overrun by the Viet Cong. Her father died during the war leaving her mother a widow with five children. To support her family, they moved to a small village where her mother worked as a seamstress. But they experienced famine and flooding, the latter meaning they had to live in the loft of their home, as Yen does in the novel. Life was so difficult, the future so dismal, that her mother decided to risk everything for a better life. 

Tran-Davies and her family were lucky, they survived the trip and ended up in a refugee camp in Malaysia. After eight months in the camp, Tran-Davies' mother's prayers were answered and they were sponsored by Canadians from Alberta. Tran-Davies was five years old when she arrived in Canada. Today Dr. Tran-Davies is a physician in Calmar, Alberta where she shares a family practice with her husband Dr. Grant Davies.

In A Grain of Rice, Yen and her family are nguoi hoa or ethnic Chinese and are not treated well. Yen's experiences reflect the corruption and fear that the Vietnamese people experienced daily under the communist regime. When they first arrive in Ca Mau, Yen and Ma are accosted by officials who show disdain that they are nguoi hoa and force Ma into giving them money. Yen remembers a time years earlier when they had been stopped by uniformed officials on the river. "They had used their badges to stop us, then confiscated all our merchandise."  In the market at Ca Mau with Ma, they are warned when a "yellow-uniformed official" approaches. "Police officers. They're in cahoots with the northern army. They take everything from us and send it to their friends and families..." When they visit the fabric store run by Ma's friend, Thanh, Yen immediately notices how much has changed. "I could see that the walls, once lined with rolls and rolls of fabric coils in every colour, texture and pattern, were now virtually barren. No silk or satin. Only brown, white or black polyester and cotton."

Tran-Davies manages to capture all the terror and tragedy that Yen and her family and the other refugee's experience as they attempt to flee their country. Before they leave, Yen discovers Co Sau's body on the beach after the previous night's boat sank. Terrified and fully aware of the danger she faces, Yen refuses to leave. On their own journey they deal with rain, a violent sea, sea-sickness and long days trapped in the reeking hold of the boat. Their boat is attacked by pirates who rob them, murder several men and rape some of the young girls. Their boat sinks when the Malaysian Coast Guard arrives, not to rescue them, but to tow them out to sea. Yen's life and death struggle to survive the sinking fortunately ends well. And although the novel has a somewhat happy ending, readers will be left with many questions. What has become of Lam and Muoi? What will happen to Yen and her family in Malaysia?

A Grain of Rice is well written and will give younger readers a sense of what some refugees experience as they search for a place to live in freedom and safety. Novels such as these help create empathy for those less fortunate and provide an opportunity for younger readers to learn about other cultures, other countries and systems of government which do  not offer citizens the freedoms that we enjoy in Canada. They also evoke empathy for the plight of refugees, who generally do not want to leave behind their lives and families, but for whom there is little choice left.

image credit: https://mcccanada.ca/stories/journey-refugee-sponsorship-nhung-tran-davies

Book Details:

A Grain of Rice by Nhung N. Tran-Davies
Vancouver: Tradewind Books    2018
167 pp.