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And this, alas, is my Vietnamese close-up: I am 11. Communist
tanks roll into Saigon. An inveterate bookworm, I read quickly the last pages of
Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, written by that most famous of all Wuxia (martial
arts) novelists, Jin Yong, whose prolific work inspired several generations of
filmmakers and comic book artists across Asia. I toss the book back through the car’s
window, grab my backpack, and wave goodbye to Uncle Phuoc, the family chauffeur, and
board the C-130 cargo plane with my mother, sister, and two grandmothers to begin our
lives in exile. On the plane heading toward Guam, amidst weeping refugees, my head
remains full of dueling villains and heroes as my homeland beneath me gives way to
a vast green sea. Mythical, magical China accompanies me on my own journey to the
other West: The wild, wild West.
But the America that received my family and me in the mid-’70s had
not yet fathomed the dawning of the Pacific Century. And if Bruce Lee with his swift
kicks, furious punches, and energized grunts made a dent in the American imagination,
he died too soon. He did not save me from the taunts of the neighborhood kids. The
blond teenagers who played softball and skipped rope on Mission Street in San
Francisco mocked my three cousins and me as we tried to live our childhood kung
fu fantasies in the backyard of my parents’ new home. We knew all the lore of martial
arts epics: the right acupressure could paralyze one’s enemy; the antidote to the
deadly flower from the Cave of Desperate Love was the poisonous sting of a certain
bee; Wu Tang Clan’s secret fighting manual would teach you to soar above the treetops
and to run on the surface of water. The "iron palm," the "dragon stance,"
the "six-median sword energy"—this was the language of our childhood wonders.
But it was not yet a shared language, and it fell mostly on deaf American ears. "How
can you paralyze someone with just a finger; that’s just so stupid," our young
neighbors would jeer over the fence when we tried to explain the great power of
various kung fu techniques. Embarrassed, we took our mock kung fu fighting, our
heroic quest in ancient China, into the safety of the garage, hidden from neighbors
and the glaring California sunlight.
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