Sunday, January 4, 2009

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.

1 comment:

Brenden said...

It's very sad to hear about what war can do to people. I would certainly break down if I came back to my family and they didn't want to see me. I am especially ticked off by her brother. Does he think that the government is more important than his family? And besides, Hayslip hadn't even actually done anything wrong yet, she's just looked down upon for being American, which she actually isn't anyway. This story is very moving, and I hope she turns out happy in the end.