When Heaven and Earth Changed Places #6

In the end of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, the author, Le Ly Hayslip, starts to identify an important part of our everyday lives, labels. We put labels on people, places, and feelings without trying to find out what they are behind those labels. Hayslip's family itself is labeling within itself because they had people on both sides of the civil war. "You see, I think we are all used to putting labels on things we don't understand"(340). The labels people all over the world use for things they don't understand have negative and suspicious connotations. Pretty much, people who are different from them are thought of as people to be suspicious of just because they aren't the same. Some labels I can't use on this blog but in Vietnam and in Hayslip's time Communist and Capitalists were labels on opposite sides of the war. Hayslip started a fight with her brother Bon where she said, "...Communists--capitalists--I don't know what these mean anymore. Are they people? Are they enemies? Well, yes and no. Bon Nghe, your a Communist, but your not my enemy. You may call me capitalist, but does that make me your enemy? I don't think so"(340). Hayslip's fight with her brother ended up bringing them closer, erasing the labels both of them had for each other from opposite sides of the ocean and almost 10 years of being sparated.

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places #5

Le Ly Hayslip, the author of "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places", returned to Vietnam after she emigrated to America, she faced dangerous speculation because of the circumstances that led to her leaving the country. The Vietnam government thought she was a person who was against communism, so when she decided to come back, she says she was prepared for an interrogation. The interrogations of her past as a teen and child were beatings and spening nights on end in damp cells, but in comaprison, the one she had as an adult was the complete opposite. Hayslip, a local friend, and two officials were in the best restaurant in the city, the Pacific. One official says, "My Goodness...a Viet Kieu who has lived so long in the states and doesn't smoke or drink and acts like a lady! We are very impressed! That's not how we remember most Americans"(264). The questions the officials ask give you a really good look into how Vietnamese people view Americans, mostly as heavy drinkers and smokers and although there are deffinitely people who do live that kind of lifestyle, to know only one type of answer to what an American is probably based on their fear. Later on, the officer says:

You are right about one thing, Miss Ly. Much of what our two peoples know about each other comes only from the war, and that is most sad. I would be discouraged to think Americans believe we are a country full of terror squads, secret police, death camps, and starving peasants (266).

The officer really hits the mark with this comment on the war, and pretty much all wars. Many of our, and their, misconceptions started in wars or similar events were people who knew almost nothing about each other were fighting against each other. Hate for killed friends and other numbers of dead patriots could lead to many wrong ideas about the other side. The wall of undertanding between America and Vietnam seems old, but it is still standing, even after all these years after the war.

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places #4

Le Ly Hayslip, the author of the book When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, which is all about Hayslip's journey back home and she also tells us about her life before she left Vietnam. When she comes back, though, she meets changed people who have moved ahead in life, or backwards in some cases. "Although Tinh explained these things calmly, my heart sank at this example of peasant justice--at how grasping and vindictive my family seems to have become since liberation"(206). The changes her country has gone through that now seem normal to Hayslip's family shocked her. When she first sees her older sister in the market, her sister reacted alarmingly for what should have been a happy meeting, saying, "...for god's sake--get out of here! Take pity on us--please! Let us live a little longer!"(218). This is the exact mentality Vietnam had during the war, Hayslip later tells us, and seeing her family being hounded by the shadow of war shocks her, leading her to run back to the house of her niece, Tinh.
She doesn't connect with them anymore after her years in America, and they also see her as an "American" at first and not her for who she really is. Hayslip had not told her brother yet that she was coming and her family said "He'll think she's a spy or saboteur! Maybe even a party agent assigned to ferret out defectors!"(228). That Hayslip's family could think this is mostly because her brother is a person in the government, so if he were to do anything wrong or suspicious, he would suffer. Because of this mentality, that many governemnt officials had, Hayslip's brother doesn't trust her. Her family was right about her brother, and this nearly breaks Hayslip's heart, "Co Bay! He uses the ceremonial form of greeting--one reserved for distant relatives--rather than the familiar em bay for number-six sister. It almost breaks my heart"(229). The gulf between them had changed drastically from when they were children and he would carry her around. Now he is in no position to dote on his youngest sister because of the country he is in.