[The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book ‘Saigon Sojourn’ by Dan Kempner – Editor]
It began with a wink, a tiny cultural mistake. And yet, like the first ripple in a pond or the proverbial beat of a butterfly’s wing, the repercussions of that act spread and multiplied until they swept me off my staid, predictable trajectory, and carried me off to the other side of the world.
Up until The Wink, my life had been marked by disappointment through a litany of terrible decisions. When all that was done I was middle aged, divorced, and bankrupt.
But then came The Wink. It was like Cinderella’s fairy Godmother tapping her wand a few times to get the pixie dust flowing before putting wheels on a pumpkin. I winked, a little magic dust fell, and once – just once – the angels sang or the Gods smiled, and when yet another great choice, Trúc, was presented to me, I said yes.
Portrait of Trúc Huýnh (2005).
Drawing by Đỗ Vũ Hải. Pen on Paper
Returning to school to get my Master’s at a small University in Massachusetts, charming women of every age and description swarmed the place. Yet none, not one, had shown an iota of romantic interest in me.
But then a tall young Vietnamese gal, in belted leopard-print jacket and tight-white capris, arrived early to class one day, as did I. “Hey, how you doin’?” I asked thoughtlessly, and winked. Had I understood the forces there unleashed I might have swooned. Instead I gave it no more thought and opened my homework.
Nine months later I found myself on the thwart of a swaying bamboo fishing boat, bobbing gently on Vietnam’s famous Hạ Long Bay. Trúc, the young lady to whom I had made that careless gesture, was by my side.
Our boat was meandering through a little fishing village that literally floated on the turbid green waters, in a bay surrounded by hundreds of towering islands – humps of scrub-covered karst that make the Bay one of the world’s wonders.
The scullers of Hạ Long Bay. Photo by Gary Cacciatore
One of these slid past our bow and its pilot glanced my way. Again without thinking, I winked.
She flushed. Her lovely eyes shone, and a broad grin appeared. Laughing, she called out incomprehensibly to the woman guiding our craft, whose eyes also twinkled as she grinned down at me.
Suddenly there was a terrific thump! on my shoulder and I turned in surprise. Trúc was glaring at me, clearly furious.
“Why you do that?” she demanded.
“Huh?”
“Why you do that? Why? Now she’ be thinking of you all the tine!” Thump!
Apparently, the woman’s words had been comprehensible to Trúc, and the wink, I learned later, is a steamy local version of come hither.
Trúc’s first time studying in my apartment in 2010.
Photo by Dan Kempner
My mind clicked and hummed. A montage of whirling lights; a helix spiraling backwards in time; and I was once again in that classroom, one eye closing lazily for an instant. Finally, I comprehended what had sparked the interest of this 25-year-old Vietnamese woman in me.
A year later we were married. I had made one – count ‘em, one – good decision.
It was, however, very good.
About the Author:
Dan Kempner is a writer and editor based in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. He dotes on his two daughters, takes them to school on the family motor scooter, and has been happily married to their mother, Trúc, for fourteen years. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Saigon Sojourn, from which the extract above was taken. He is the Executive Editor of MDI Legacy magazine.
