The Refugees

Phuong Ly and her brothers, Hanh and Phuc, are named after her father’s first set of children, who live in America. Phoung believes that her half-siblings are blessed. According to the letters the first Mrs. Ly sends periodically, Phuong’s namesake, 17 years her senior, is taller, more beautiful (by Western standards), and more successful.

In 27 years, Phoung’s half-siblings have never written; consequently, it is a big deal to the family when Phuong’s sister, a pediatrician who goes by Vivien, writes to tell them that she will be visiting Vietnam for two weeks and that she hopes to stay with them. Mrs. Ly scoffs at Vivien using a Western name, but Phuong knows it comes from Vivien Leigh, star of Gone with the Wind, Mr. Ly’s favorite movie. The fallen grandeur of the Confederacy reminds him of the fallen South Vietnam.

Phuong forms an image of Vivien as a glamorous, Western woman; this image is reinforced when they meet Vivien at the airport. After a week in Saigon, Vivien is still out of place, “eas­i­ly mis­tak­en for a Ko­re­an busi­ness­man’s fraz­zled wife or a wea­ry Jap­a­nese tour­ist, her frost­ing of make­up melt­ing un­der the trop­i­cal glare,” but “In cer­tain in­door set­tings […] she was clear­ly the mis­tress of her do­main” (127).

Vivien takes the family out to eat at a fancy restaurant where Phuong has worked as a hostess since graduating from college with a biology degree. The restaurant’s usual clientele are tourists; it is out of the family’s price range, and Mrs. Ly views it as extravagant. Phuong wants to emulate Vivien. She is relieved not to be the object of the tourists’ attention like the waitresses and musicians wearing ao dais.

Vivien’s mother fled the country with her three children when Mr. Ly was taken to a New Economic Zone and his mistress came to demand money. After his five-year sentence ended, Mr. Ly, after a spell of depression, married the mistress: Phuong’s mother. Mr. Ly often compared Phuong with Vivien. Phuong feels pangs of jealousy for Vivien, especially because of the way her father acts around her, constantly wanting to win his eldest daughter’s approval.

Mr. Ly talks about the difficulty of being reeducated by the communists in the New Economic Zone during the postwar years, forced to recant his past as a capitalist. Vivien asks him why he named his second set of children after his first—the question Phuong never dared ask. Mr. Ly replies, “‘If you hadn’t come back to see me, I would have un­der­stood. But I knew you would come back to see the one I named af­ter you’” (132).

Mr. Ly is a successful tour guide. The next day, he takes Vivien on one of his tours in Ben Dinh, where entrenchment tunnels were preserved from the war. Phuong tags along, aware of the fact that her father has never invited her on a tour; she realizes she would have liked to have been asked. Despite being a seasoned traveler, Vivien is ill-prepared for the climate and complains to Phuong about the heat and insect bites. As Mr. Ly performs his routine for the mostly American tourists, Phuong recognizes that the Americans will leave with this caricature of her father as their image of Vietnamese people. She worries Vivien will see her in this way.

On the second-to-last night of her visit, Vivien gives Phuong lingerie from Victoria’s secret. Phuong is embarrassed but tries it on anyway. She feels a new intimacy with her sister. Vivien tells Phuong that her mother told her Mr. Ly would break her heart. Vivien feels little love for their father; it is hard to love someone she has never really known. Phuong pities her father; worse, she does not respect him.

The next day, the family visits a local amusement park. Phuong and Vivien board a Ferris wheel. On the ride, Phuong confesses to her sister that she wants to be just like her; she wants to go to America and become a doctor. She does not think she has a future in Vietnam. Vivien becomes nervous. She confesses that her mother lied about everything in her letters: Vivien is not really a doctor and she is unemployed, having been fired from her receptionist job. She used her severance pay and credit cards to pay for this lavish trip.

Vivien sends another letter two months after she leaves, along with photographs of her trip. Vivien’s hypocrisy makes Phuong sick. When the rest of her family leaves for the day, Phuong examines the pictures. A photo of Vivien and Mr. Ly in the ice palace at the amusement park reinforces Phuong’s conclusion that her father loves Vivien more than her. She goes outside and burns the photographs Vivien sent, scattering their ashes into the wind.