When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhha Lai

Eleven-year-old Ha lives with her mother and her brothers Quang and Khoi in Alabama. They fled their home country of Vietnam, without her father who was missing in action, something her mother won't talk about. Ha's middle brother, Vu Lee lives in San Francisco.

Ha is in grade six and has a best friend, Pam who wants to celebrate their birthdays together. She decides they will celebrate this on Ha's birth date with a special party.

At a family meeting, Ha's mother announces that she wants to move the family to Texas where Vietnamese seem to have more opportunities. Ha's mother wants this because she hopes this will take some of the responsibility away from Ha's older brother Quang who is working as a mechanic and so that Khoi can study to become an animal doctor. She also doesn't like that Pam's mother pays for Ha when the two girls do things together.

A first family vote has the three children Quang, Khoi and Ha vote to stay in Alabama. But a second vote sees Khoi side with their mother, creating a tie. Ha knows that her mother is scheming and will bring Vu Lee into the vote. He does return home and the family decides to move to Texas. They begin packing but Ha's mother delays their travel to Texas so Ha can have her day-of-birth party with Pam. After the party and roller skating, Ha, her mother and Khoi leave. 

In her new school in Texas, no one remembers Ha's name and she finds herself the only Asian student. Her mother works in a radio factory, while Vu Lee works in a bakery as well as at a second job finishing wood. They live in a pay-by-week rental. Eventually, Ha and her family move into an apartment. They have no furniture or beds. Starting over is hard, and for Ha this is just the beginning of many more changes.

Discussion

Thanhha Lai has crafted a realistic portrayal of a Vietnamese family's struggles to settle in 1977 America. The Vietnam War, which the Americans and South Vietnamese lost, has only been over for two years. Initially Ha's family, having fled Vietnam without her father, had settled in Alabama. However, Ha's mother has heard there is a larger Vietnamese community in Texas along with better job opportunities. In the beginning, life seems no better for Ha in Texas.

When the family moves into their first apartment they have very little - five boxes and four pillowcases. But her mother tells them to "...lengthen your gaze, toward where land meets cloud."  All Ha wants though, is an end to refugee living. She is in her third Grade Six class in the past month and she misses evenings with her mother who works late. Added to this, Ha has her first menstrual period at school despite some help by her teacher, she is left waiting on a bench for over two hours for her bus. 

Although she meets a few friend, Diggy, who is Puerto Rican, she knows this friendship will likely not survive their eventual move to a house. When Ha tells her mother about things that happen at school, her mother  panics, trying to protect her only daughter by having Ha presented at a Buddhist temple where she is scrutinized by Vietnamese mothers looking for prospective wives for their sons. Because her mother works long hours, Ha takes to signing school forms and her report card.

Ha also has to endure an insensitive class discussion of the My Lai Massacre which she doesn't know about because she was three-years-old when it happened in 1968. Charlie Company, part of the American Division's 11th Infantry Brigade, numbering less than one hundred men, was ordered to search for Viet Cong guerillas in nearby Son My. However, when they searched the village, they found no guerillas, only women, children and elderly men. Lieutenant William Calley, after ordering the villagers rounded up, gave the order to shoot them. The soldiers also raped a number of women. The massacre was only stopped by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson who placed his helicopter between the soldiers and the fleeing villagers. They flew many wounded villagers to a medical hospital for care. Five hundred and four people were killed, including one hundred eighty-two women, seventeen of whom were pregnant. The U.S. military attempted a cover-up but the war crime was exposed when Rod Ridenhour, a soldier in the 11th Brigade gave an interview to an investigative reporter after the military refused to act.

When Ha confronts her mother about this event, she tells Ha that she has invested in her children rather than being angry. 

"Instead I chose you children,

vowing to educate

your minds and hearts

so you would know the result

of your every action.

Choices to no

pick up a gun,

glorify a leader,

hide behind commands,

claim honor, blame others.

You would then 

begin to create

a different history." 

Ha's mother advises,
"Contemplate on yourself

until you're a solid anchor,

then ensure kindness to family

then society then earth."

Beautiful words, that ring true for everyone.

The lack of understanding between Vietnamese and American culture reaches a crisis point when Ha's mother is accused of abuse, after Ha returns to school having been ill. Treated at home by her mother, Ha has a leaf imprint on her back which is mistaken for the marks of a beating. Ha's mother stands up to school officials and with the help of a Vietnamese doctor they are exonerated.

When Clouds Touch ends on a much happier note: with the help of her brothers and her own contribution, Ha's family is able to buy a home. The clouds on the horizon have dived down to touch Ha and her family. And Ha discovers that her mother is their true anchor, working to provide a home that they can return to, one that replaces what was lost from war. Even more so, her mother refuses Ha's offer to study nearby, to be with her mother. But Ha's mother tells her,
"I relinquish you

to a world

unknown to me."

In some ways all mothers do so, but even more so, the refugee mother.

When Clouds Touch Us is a fitting sequel to Inside Out & Back Again which was written over a decade ago..

Book Details:

When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhha Lai

New York: Harper Collins Children's Books    2023

244 pp.

Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai

Listen, Slowly is another story of Vietnam, following on the success of author Thanhha Lai's debut, Inside Out and Back Again.

The first day of summer vacation, twelve year old Mai Le finds herself on a plane to her family's home country of Vietnam and she's not happy about it. Plans to spend her days at Anita beach with her best friend Montana and possibly with the boy she's crushing on, have all collapsed. Mai, her father and her grandmother, Ba, are returning to Vietnam together for six weeks this summer. Her father, a doctor will be spending his time setting up surgical clinic to fix cleft palates and treat acute burns. But the main purpose of the visit to Vietnam is that Ba has always had questions about whether her husband, Ong Ba, could still be alive. During the Vietnam War, Ong went missing in action, leaving Ba to raise their seven children by herself. Mai's father was only two years old when his father disappeared. They left Vietnam and came to American where the family thrived; "one doctor, four engineers, a professor and an accountant."

All this leaves Mai disoriented and unhappy. "What's so important? All her children and grandchildren are in California. Her life is there. My life is there."  But Mai's father points out, "Ba has had questions for decades. Be with her as she finally accepts...I thought she already did, but that quack calling himself a detective wrote her. I seriously doubt it's possible but..."  Although Mai's father hopes this trip will provide closure for Ba, he is concerned because "Ba thinks Ong might be alive..." because of the information she received from a detective in Vietnam.

When they arrive in Vietnam, Mai notices that every person has yellow skin and looks like her. The airport is clean and orderly, not at all like Mai thought it would be. But Vietnam is hot and sticky, and the city is crowded. "Tall buildings, jumbled electrical lines, tons of mopeds weaving between cars and buses. Every single driver is beeping." They arrive in Ha Noi where the plan is to meet the detective and then travel to Ba's village. Her father warns her not to mention politics as this is not something talked about in Vietnamese society. The detective tells Mai's father and grandmother that he has spoken with a guard who was with Ong Ba but he will not travel to talk to Ba. After the meeting, Mai's father heads out to the mountains, while she and Ba travel to Ba's village. When Mai complains about not going home, her father tells her, "Listen, Ba has sacrificed everything for us. We've raised you to be considerate, so act like it. Be good, listen to Ba. The detective has to find the guard and that might take two weeks. I should be back before then."

Mai is further upset by the fact that she will have to stay for at least two more weeks while they wait for the detective to locate the guard,  but her mother, via cellphone, encourages Mai to do this for Ba. They travel to Ba's village, eighty kilometers from Hanoi, set in a land of rice paddies and water buffalo. At the village Mai and Ba are welcomed by many relatives who are especially fascinated with Mai's braces, her height and her henna-highlighted hair. During a huge meal, Mai meets Ut, whose real name is Muong and who carries around a gigantic frog. Unfortunately, they do not get off to a good start, when Mai causes Ut's frog to ingest a stone while it is eating flies.

Mai's first days in Vietnam consist of coping with the large, voracious mosquitoes and getting use to having a nap in the afternoon because of the excessive heat, They walk to Ong's ancestral home, where his younger brother now resides. Ba and Mai share a bedroom that was once tiled with blue tiles of a goddess. Ba tells Mai that they were betrothed when Ong was seven and she was five, but due to the war they were married earlier than planned at eighteen and sixteen respectively. The room with the faded blue tiles, was their bridal chamber. Ba at first refused to let Ong in but eventually relented. Now, after years without her beloved husband, Ba thinks about the time lost and tells Mai that against reason she continues to hope he is still alive.

Mai also meets an older boy, Minh, who has a crush on Ut's older sister Lan, and who will be acting as a translator and guide. Minh, who is a junior at a boarding high school in Houston, explains village life to Mai, how the boys and men work at a shrimp hatching facility the village purchased. Mai's manages to access her facebook account and also speaks with her mother for the first time since arriving. She desperately want to return home but her mother tells her that being away will test her friendship with Montana and asks her to be open about what will happen during her visit in Vietnam.

On his second visit the detective tells Ba that he has located her husband's guard in Hanoi but the guard refuses to travel to Hanoi. Ba tells him the guard "...held my husband captive; he must come to me to release his past." Later on Mai again complains about going home, this time to her grandmother. Ba asks her for more time, that her presence brings her joy, but she does give Mai the option of contacting her father and arranging for her to travel back to America. However, Mai tells her grandmother "Khong sao." No worries. "I chant "khong sao" to myself over and over. Perhaps after a while, I will wholeheartedly believe it'll be all right to wait. What can I do but wait? Things will happen in Laguna whether I stress or not."

Ba tells Mai about the day she learned that Ong Ba was missing in action and how she carried this date with her to America, about the last day she saw Ong before he left on a mission. She also reveals that he closed each letter to her with Mong Nho Em Dem Tung Hat Mua - which means Longing Missing You Counting Each Drop of Rain. These words are also the names of their seven children.

Mai's settles into life in a small village in North Vietnam. Gradually her decision to stay with Ba on her journey to learn about what happened to her husband and Mai's paternal grandfather bring about a change in perspective and a deeper understanding and appreciation of her Vietnamese roots. It is a journey that will provide some closure for Ba, and many changes for Mai.

Discussion

Author Thanhha Li proves once again that the best novels are those written about what we hold dearest to the heart. Listen, Slowly is really two stories, one which focuses on the tragedy of a couple torn apart because of war and a second which deals with  a young girl's journey toward embracing her culture and her family's past.

At the beginning of the novel, we learn that the primary reason for the family's trip to Vietnam is to bring closure for Mai's elderly grandmother who seems unable to accept that her husband is dead. New revelations from Vietnam appear to indicate that there is a possibility he might still be alive. However, once in Vietnam, Ba tells her granddaughter, Mai, that she although she is hopeful she is also realistic. It is her recounting of her marriage to Ong, that the depth of their personal tragedy becomes apparent.
"I do not live on butterfly wings, my child. His chances of remaining among us rank as likely as finding an ebony orchid. Yet I hold onto hope because I have been unable to imagine his ending."
Ba and Ong promised that if they ever became separated, they would meet again under the blue goddess. Mai asks herself, "How do you know someone almost since birth, then one day you know absolutely nothing more about him at all?"

Despite knowing all this, Mai is not really sympathetic to Ba's quest. She knows, as do her father and mother, that Ong is dead. However, gradually Ba's knowing becomes important to Mai. She and Ut trick Ut's mother into sending them to Saigon. With the detective's notebook and the help of two guides, Mai and Ut find the guard's home and Mai begs him to help her. "Then I start crying...It's so embarrassing, but the possibility of Ba not knowing any more about Ong rips a hole in my gut. Right now, I want Ba to get her wish even more than I want to go home...That's just how I feel."  This along with help from the detective lead to Ba traveling south to see the message Ong wrote her in the tunnel he was forced to dig so many years ago. That message is the same one he closed every letter to Ba with and it confirms to Ba that he is indeed gone. It is his final signing off.

Mai feels very different from the spoiled, self-centered girl who first came to Vietnam weeks ago, as she looks at the "alphabet letters scraped into the dirt by a shaky hand." She recognizes the "familiar line Ong had written in every letter home, the line that came alive each time he called their children's names, that line that ached with longing for his wife as he counted his last years, months, weeks, and days."   "While I stand there, nothing else matters, not the heat, the air, or the stench rising above a floral spray. Nothing matters as long as I can hear Ba's breathing elongate into full, satisfied breaths." For Mai, nothing matters except that her beloved Ba has closure.

In the end, Mai decides to stay on for another twelve days, for Ba and even for Ut, to help her learn the scientific names of the frogs for her examination. "Maybe I can stay and maybe I would enjoy it. What's in Laguna that's so urgent? Mom is exhausted with her trial and I will see Kevin when I see him. As for Montana, I can wait." No longer consumed about whether or not Montana is with Kevin, or what is happening in Laguna, Mai has put her life into perspective. What matters is the time in Vietnam.

The title, Listen, Slowly is a reference to the dominant theme as young Mai struggles to adjust to Vietnamese culture and to understand her grandmother's desire to uncover what happened so long ago. The theme of listening is woven into every aspect of Lai's novel. When Mai arrives in Vietnam she is examined closely by her relatives, one of whom asks her if she is obedient. Mai acknowledges that he is really asking if she listens to her parents and like most young people she's not about to admit "I just pretend to listen."  By her own admission, Mai used to "listen" to Ba, "Twice a day I used to hear long stories, one at nap time and one before bed. Then I went to kindergarten and stopped listening."

When Mai's mother calls, Mai complains that she wants to return home but her mother urges her to stick it out for her grandmother. At her grandmother's meeting with the detective, Mai finds that if she listens, she can understand. But often she finds herself not listening, especially at the beginning when she is so focused on herself and on returning home. She asks Anh Minh why, if everyone agrees the Ong is not alive, they are staying in Vietnam. Ahn Minh tells her what her father and even Ba have told her, that acceptance is difficult, leading Mai to realize that in her desire to go home, she has "missed listening."

Mai becomes ill after inadvertently drinking pond water and is given a local remedy and required to rest her stomach by not eating. When she does resume eating again, the pho stand owner tells her "Eat just noodles and broth, all right? Let's listen to what your stomach does with that." By listening Mai will know whether she can begin to eat food again. 

The guard who comes to speak with Ba about the last time he saw her husband reveals that Ong wrote her a message. Ba believes the message to be a letter but when she asks for it, the guard refuses telling her she must go to the south for the message. In a reversal, when Mai remembers all the times she would listen to Ba at night "whisper all kinds of maybes to herself...maybe Ong escaped, maybe Ong lost his memory but was healthy and happy..." she suggests to her grandmother that maybe the message is not a letter. "But Ba isn't listening."

In Saigon, when Ba and Mai attempt to cross a street to get Banh canh, they find it impossible because of the numerous mopeds zigzagging past. They are helped the the hotel clerk who tells them "The trick calls for not looking at any driver but listening to the engines...".

Finally,  Ba, after having seen the message Ong left for her so many years ago in the tunnel,  tells Mai that the hurts and joys of life become a part of us, that they are important. "I tell you of loss, my child, so you will listen, slowly, and know that in life every emotion is fated to rear itself withing your being. Don't judge it proper or ugly. It's simply there and yours. When you should happen to cry, then cry, knowing that just as easily you will laugh again and cry again. Your feelings will enter the currents of your core and there they shall remain."

Listen, Slowly is a poignant story about a terrible war that tore apart a nation and affected its people deeply. The themes of reconciliation and forgiveness (Ba forgives the guard after seeing the tunnel) and of the importance of family dominate as well.  Beautifully crafted, capturing the atmosphere and culture of Vietnam for those of us who will likely never visit the country, Listen, Slowly is highly recommended for ages 8 to 12.

I hope Thanh ha Lai will write more stories set in Vietnam, perhaps continuing the saga of Mai Le. On her website Thanhha Li reveals that her first name means gentle (Thanh) river (ha).

The map included at the front is very helpful in orienting readers who are certainly not familiar with the locations in Vietnam. This map also contains minor spoilers.

Book Details:

Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
New York: HarperCollins Childrens Books     2015
260 pp.

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

"Every new year Mother visits

the I Ching Teller of Fate.

This year he predicts

our lives will twist inside out."

Ten year old Kim Ha lives with her family in war-torn Saigon, South Vietnam. Her family includes her older brothers Quang, 21 - an engineering student, and Vu who is 18, as well as younger brother, Khoi who is 4, and her mother. Her father, a Vietnamese navy officer, was captured nine years ago while on a mission. Ha's family continue to hope he is alive and will return some day. It is 1975, what will eventually be the final year of the Vietnam War, and for Ha this means celebrating her birthday and waiting for the delicious papayas to ripen. Little does she know how dramatically her life will soon change.

At first, despite her father's absence, the war seems to have little effect on the family. When war finally does come to Saigon, Ha, along with her family make the decision to leave their beloved country and flee via boat. Crammed onto a navy vessel along with thousands of other Vietnamese who do not desire to live under communist rule, they are rescued by the American navy. Their boat is towed to Guam where they are placed in a refugee camp. Eventually the family is sent to South Florida and are sponsored by a man and his wife from Alabama. Despite the good intentions of the couple from Alabama, the transition from Asian culture into what is essentially the American Bible Belt proves to be intensely confusing and painful for everyone.

For Ha, the transition proves to be almost impossible until one day she meets Miss Washington, a neighbour who agrees to tutor Ha and her family in English. However, learning English only adds to Ha's pain because she now understands the insults made by her American classmates. Eventually, as Ha grows to trust Miss Washington, she confides that she has been hiding at school, eating lunch in the bathroom and is being bullied by her classmates. Efforts to make things better only worsen the situation. But, as Ha and her family begin to acquire more language skills, the transition to their new life begins to go more slowly.

Discussion

In her novel, Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai poignantly captures the essence of what it was truly like for an refugee from Vietnam in 1975. This was a time when the world was a much smaller place and a profound lack of cultural understanding permeated the well-intentioned help offered to Asian refugees in America (and Canada). The prejudice that Ha and her family experience are due not only to racial intolerance but also to ignorance. Settling immigrants in an area of America with very different customs and beliefs, and especially in a part of America known for its staunch biblical beliefs, made integrating into American society much more difficult. In Canada, many Vietnamese refugees settled in Montreal, Quebec, where they at least had the familiarity of the French language.

Some of the intolerance may also have been due to the anger and pain Americans especially felt in the aftermath of losing the Vietnam War. Many Americans were angry at their government and military for the country's involvement in a guerrilla war they couldn't possibly win. Still others were angry at the Vietnamese people, whom they saw as being ungrateful towards the sacrifice made by American soldiers.

In eloquent and moving free verse, Thanhha Lai chronicles Ha's journey from February 11, 1975 until January 31, 1976. The novel's simple poems allow the reader, through the voice of Ha, to experience the raw emotions of hope, loss, and fear, thus making the character very realistic. One such poem captures the joy Ha feels about papayas.

Two More Papayas

I see them first.

Two green thumbs

that will grow into

orange-yellow delights

smelling of summer.

Middle sweet

between a mango and a pear

Soft as a yam

gliding down

after three easy,

thrilling chews. 

April 5

It's hard not to feel a deep empathy towards Ha, whose entire life has been turned inside out. Beside being in a new and strange country, she must also come to terms with the loss of her beloved father, and cope with the frustration of repeating a grade because she is struggling to learn in a new language.

Inside Out & Back Again provides young readers the opportunity to explore the situation immigrants face when coming to a new country. It also provides an opportunity to discuss the Vietnam War, an almost forgotten conflict that consumed America and Asia during the 1960's and early 1970's.

Book Details:
Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
New York: Harper Collins 2011
262 pp.