A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Author:Viet Thanh Nguyen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2023-09-27T12:14:02+00:00

You let it go because he has let it go. You,

who have forgotten so much,

understand that forgetting

can also be a blessing.

say my name, or your 1980s,

episode II

You are forgetful of some things (the emotionally complicated)

and not of others (the historically complicated), or so you tell yourself.

You tell yourself history stays with you because of your name.

You are so Vietnamese your name is

VIỆT

How are you supposed to forget the past, where you come from, your mother tongue, when you see and hear the name of your people every day? To ensure you do not ever forget, your last name is that of a dynasty, one so popular about 40 percent of your people bear it, forty million people in Việt Nam and abroad, a Nguyễn homeland and diaspora, a nation in and of itself, seventh most common surname in Australia,127 second only to Smith in the Melbourne phone book.

You might have been called

George Washington if you had been

born in the United States. The TV reality show

House of Ho features a family of rich Vietnamese

Americans in Houston with sons named Washington

and Reagan. Your generation had Tom Vu,128 who

created infomercials about getting rich in

real estate with bikini-clad white

women cavorting around

him on a yacht.

As a child in the era of Tom Vu, the most famous Vietnamese in AMERICATM, you go on a school field trip to Monterey in the California Bay Area, including a propagandistic visit to the Defense Language Institute, which teaches military personnel the foreign languages needed to be more culturally sensitive soldiers, interrogators, and invaders.

A nice young white man with red hair and glasses, a Quiet American wearing a Vietnamese áo dài who speaks more Vietnamese than you do, translates your Vietnamese name into English:

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