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Thursday, May 3, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR

On the Words I Can Never Tell My Mother

There exists this word, or 
sentiment, 
in 
Vietnamese: 
“đau khổ.” Individually, the 
words translate to “pain” and 
“suffering”, yet together, they 
form something along the 
sense of an intense anguish 
that transcends any attempt 
at a linguistic description. It’s 
more than just the sum of both 
pain and suffering, but rather, 
it’s this profoundly unsettling 
and deep-rooted unhappiness; 
it is a pain without promise. 
The phrase carries with it this 
intensity even in how it is pro-
nounced; the harshness of the 
first letter in “đau” followed 
by the hauntingly questionable 
nature of the tone mark that is 
placed on “khổ”. Đau khổ is 
something best felt, rather than 
described, but I can’t really 
comment on how efficacious it 
would be to write this piece to 
serve as an avenue towards the 
feeling of this sentiment, so for 
now, my descriptive explana-
tions will have to suffice. 
My mother grew up as the 
eldest and least appreciated of 
five children. She was never 
supposed to have moved any 
further than the steps outside 
of her parent’s home. She had 
every expectation to stay back 
and care for her own parents 
and live a life of ennui in the 
same town she was born in, 
and yet somehow, some hap-
penstance chain of events inev-
itably allowed her to come to 
America. She wasn’t expected 

to amount to anything more 
than just a simple woman liv-
ing a simple life, but here she 
is, living with her husband and 
children in a home that nobody 
from her family back in Viet-
nam could ever dream of own-
ing.
As a child of war, my moth-
er was born in the midst of the 
most violent events to occur 
in Vietnamese history. She 
came of age during these grue-
some years, and it was as if she 
was never able to live a child-
hood independent of đau khổ. 
All she ever knew from the 
moment she was brought into 
this world was both pain and 
suffering. 
I remember stories that 
she would tell me while I was 
growing up; stories of how she 
saw the decayed corpses of 
soldiers being driven back en 
masse to her small town all to 
be redistributed back to their 
respective families. These sol-
diers weren’t people anymore. 
They were just vessels of rot-
ting flesh waiting to be returned 
like property. She would tell 
me that she still remembers the 
stench, that disgustingly famil-
iar aroma of death and decay. 
These things never really left 
her. I can’t imagine how things 
like that could ever leave a per-
son, but despite these hardships 
and horrors, she endured and 
overcome so much. 
There is so much of her life 
that I don’t know about. There 
is so much about my own 
mother that I still don’t know 
about. I want to understand her 

on a deeper level as I continue 
to grow into adulthood, but I 
have to come to terms with the 
fact that by doing so, I would 
be forcing her to revisit some 
of the most traumatic events 
she has ever witnessed. I don’t 
want to hurt her. I don’t want to 
pry. She saw so many horrific 
things during this war. She was 
only six years old then. 
To say that I can empathize 
with my mother’s own đau khổ 
would be a stretch of the truth. 
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to 
comprehend the magnitude of 
pain and suffering she has so 
carefully kept hidden from me. 
The horrors of war, the tragedy 
and loss of seeing her entire 
country crumble before her 
eyes, the despair and discrimi-
nation she faced at the hands 
of the communist government; 
these were all kept a secret 
from me until I was taught 
about them in school. 
I understand that people 
choose to cope in different 
ways, but I don’t really know 
what to even call this. I can’t 
blame her for anything she 
chooses to do, or rather, not 
do. It would be unfair of me to 
decide on how my own mother 
chooses to cope with trauma 
I could never even begin to 
grasp.
In 1998, my parents were 
given the opportunity to immi-
grate to the States. This was a 
pretty late time to come to the 
United States in comparison 
to the Vietnamese refugees 
who came here after the Fall of 
Saigon on the 30th of April in 

1975. While a community was 
being built in Grand Rapids by 
refugees who had been able to 
make a living and thrive, my 
parents would be thrown into 
it with nothing to their names 
except the ill-fitting clothing 
given to them by others who 
had come here first. 
Neither 
of 
my 
parents 
attained anything above a high 
school education in Vietnam. 
The communist government 
barred my family from obtain-
ing any form of higher educa-
tion. It was a punishment they 
felt fit the “crime” of my grand-
father holding a major position 
in the South Vietnamese army. 
My mother left behind the only 
life she ever knew in a blind 
attempt toward the promise of 
a brighter future. She boarded 
the plane en route to the US, 
cradling me in her arms, not 
knowing when she would ever 
see her family again. Not being 
able to speak English, she 
would do her best to find any 
work in order to support us. 
I don’t have it left in me any-
more to try and mask the trag-
edy she has had to face with 
beautiful words. My mother 
has suffered through so much 
for me. 
My mother is still afraid 
to go to stores alone. She’s 
been living in this country for 
almost two decades, but she 
is still so flustered whenever 
she has to speak in English. I 
don’t want anyone to judge her. 
I love her so much. I still go 
with her to the bank and Mei-
jer to translate for her when-

ever I am home because of the 
stares. People don’t look at her 
how I look at her. They see 
her as somebody burdened by 
the inability to speak English. 
She tells me about their tone; 
the glares of disapproval and 
the judgment she hears when 
she stumbles on simple ques-
tions while grocery shopping. 
If only they knew how bright, 
wonderful and loving she was 
in Vietnamese.
These are all things I would 
like to tell my mother some-
day. I think it’s a combination 
of a language barrier and an 
emotional barrier. I don’t have 
the vocabulary necessary to 
tell her these things, and she 
doesn’t have the emotional 
capacity to liberate herself 
from past trauma. It always 
brings her to tears. I take after 
my mother a whole lot. Every-
one around her has always told 
her that I was born in the exact 
image of her. Sometimes I look 
at pictures of myself as a child 
and I can really see the resem-
blance. 
As I’ve grown older, I’ve 
come to realize that my cop-
ing mechanisms mirror those 
of my mother in exactly the 
same way that my face mir-
rors hers. My mother internal-
izes so much of the pain she 
has encountered and continues 
to encounter in her life. She 
builds walls around this pain 
so that, while she won’t be able 
to see them, they continue to 
exist. I wish I could explain to 
her the concept of closure or at 
least the semblance of such an 

idea in a way she could under-
stand. 
My whole life has been built 
around a series of these walls. 
All of my life I’ve dealt with 
the inability to connect with 
my parents in the same way 
others did. Friends would often 
complain about how overbear-
ing their parents were, but I 
distinctly remember longing 
for a life in which over-com-
munication with my parents 
was a burden. It’s something 
I’ve learned to internalize as 
well. I wish things were dif-
ferent. 
As selfish as this may sound, 
I’ve found that one of the major 
reasons why I want to under-
stand my mother’s struggles 
and trauma is that in doing so, 
I believe that I can begin to 
understand myself on a deeper 
level as well. I always won-
der why I am the way that I 
am. Perhaps my mother could 
answer these things for me on 
the off chance that we can find 
a mutual avenue of communi-
cation that lacks the barriers 
and obstacles we currently 
face. 
Despite these difficulties, I 
know that the most significant 
piece of knowledge that we 
share with one another is the 
mutual understanding that I 
love her very much. I will never 
be able to thank her for the lit-
eral life she has given me and 
the life I continue to live to this 
day. Her story teaches me that 
even in the deepest trenches 
of đau khổ, there always exists 
some form of hope.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR

By KHANG HUYNH

MiC Contributor 

