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.