-^-for posterity-^-

christmas in long xuyen.

we had quite a party thrown for us by all of the important people at the university and in the province. it was held on the first floor of the guest house and was catered by a local restaurant. there was a small army of waiters, a wonderful menu and two giant speakers and a karaoke machine.

for the first few minutes, we all milled about chatting aimlessly. some of us were trying to appease those above us and others were trying to patiently listen to the subordinates. it’s very easy to find your position in this society. lines are firmly drawn and no one has to ask questions. i spent a good deal of time talking to the vice-head of the province. he is a wonderfully amiable man and we had a nice chat. he got his masters in political science from harvard back in the 90’s and then returned to hanoi. he talked about his travels in america and what he remembered. he talked about nebraska and new york city. he talked about pennsylvania and, after a pause where he rolled his eyes back and furrowed his brow, lancaster.

lancaster? how long was he in lancaster?

he said he spent a good amount of time there and had some good friends there. he talked about amish people and how wonderful he thought it was that they were still holding on to their tradition. he talked about their appearance and their homes.

i told him about my grandparents and my father and my memories from childhood weekends spent roaming through the beautiful farmland. we both were standing casually and fantasizing about another world. for a moment, both me and the vice-head of the party in an giang province were recalling blue skies, corn fields and the peaceful, rolling hills. he stopped for a moment and said, ‘i stayed with a family there.’

my ears perked up. so, he wasn’t a tourist roaming through lancaster and gawking at the strange amish people. he actually had a connection. ‘did you stay with an amish family?’

‘no, i stayed with a family named…’ he trailed off here, once again trying to recall a name that had long been placed in the back of his memory. ‘kaufman’

my shock turned to wonder and amazement. kaufman? that was surely a mennonite name. ‘do you know the mennonites?’

‘of course. the family i stayed with were mennonites. they worked for the… the… mennonite central committee.’

now this i couldn’t believe. this very important man who i, being in a lower position in society had the honor of speaking with, actually knew about mennonite central committee. my two worlds collided in an instant, brought together in the strangest way.

‘i am in vietnam because of the mennonite central committee. i was raised as a mennonite.’ i stammered on for a bit not really knowing what to say.

‘the mennonites are the reason that i went to harvard. the kaufman family introduced me to harvard and helped me get in there.’ things, at this point, could get no stranger. this man owed a good deal of his success to mennonite compassion and generosity. we sat there and smiled and i couldn’t think of anything to say. i was thinking about lancaster and akron and pennsylvania. i was thinking about being a mennonite. i was thinking about this very important man in front of me and how much power he had and how incredibly interesting and wise he really was. the contradictions of his bmw sitting out front and the memories of the click-click-clicking horse and buggies could not be rectified. i was a mess.

we sat down to eat and chatted some more but my mind wouldn’t settle.

at the end of the meal, we all stood up and sang karaoke songs. we sang in vietnamese first and then someone found some christmas carols for us to sing along to. we sang ‘silent night’ ‘joy to the world’ and ‘o little town of bethlehem’ in vietnamese and english. that was also too much. reading such religious words in vietnamese and listening to the huge group of people sing brought too many things into my head at one time. the mixture swirled around and around and refused to rest. i went to bed and couldn’t sleep. nothing made sense and yet it was all so perfectly simple and clear.