Another Quiet American by Brett Dakin

Author:Brett Dakin [Dakin, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Asia Books
Published: 2013-11-26T06:00:00+00:00

___

Eventually it came time for me to make a trip back to America, a place about which, it strikes me now, I thought of far more intensely and critically while living Laos than I ever had back home. What Ying had said about her and China held true for me and the States, as well: it was from afar that I had the best view of the place that, according to my passport, at least, was home.

As I waited for my flight in the departure lounge at the Vientiane International Airport, I gazed out the window and onto the runway below. The familiar sight of a man ambling across the strip, shielded by a large straw hat and pushing his bicycle, came into view. Inside, a teenage boy stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by his family. His feet shifted back and forth, and he looked at the floor. This boy’s features were clearly Lao, but the way he carried himself gave it away: he was an American. I hadn’t seen this typical Western teenage behavior—the awkwardness of adolescence combined with an intense pride—since I’d arrived in Vientiane. The boy was decked out in baggy pants and a baseball hat slung back to front. Head shaved, he sported two loop earrings. He was heading home to America on his own after a visit with his relatives in Vientiane. He seemed out of place: what did he have in common with these people anymore? He barely knew the language, and probably missed his friends in the US. When it came time for him to go, the family gave the boy a cheerful send-off.

One person in the group, however, wasn’t smiling. The boy’s elder sister, I noticed, was fighting the urge to cry. She held back tears as he made his way through the customs checkpoint. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer, and, looking back just as I stepped out into the scorching heat and onto the runway, I noticed a teardrop rolling down her cheek. No amount of foreign currency arriving in the mail from the US each month could compensate for a lost brother.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.