Mango and Peppercorns by Tung Nguyen

Author:Tung Nguyen [Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Nguyen and Elisa Ung]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2020-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Tung had gotten her green card a few years after arriving in Miami, then became a U.S. citizen in 1983. She failed the citizenship test the first time she took it, so Phuong Lien and I helped her study more for the next one. We taught her the word Congress by having her memorize con (the Vietnamese word for child) and dress, which was something that she’d sewn for Phuong Lien. To learn then-President Ronald Reagan’s name, we used the word dragon because with her accent, it sounded like Reagan. Phuong Lien tried to accompany her mother to the second interview, but the agent waved her finger no. Tung managed to pass on her own.

The next step was to get her driver’s license. On Tung’s first try parallel parking, she smacked into the cone behind her. On her second try, she hit the cone in front. Both times she arrived home from the Department of Motor Vehicles, Phuongy and I heard the front door slam shut. After the third try, we heard the door slam and whispered to each other, “Not today.” After the fourth try, the slam was even louder; we just looked at each other and giggled.

When Tung returned from the fifth try, Phuongy and I braced ourselves. We heard the door open, then shut gently. We looked at each other in excitement and dashed into the living room to greet the new driver!

We had two cars, including my mother’s, so Tung getting her license made our lives much easier, since we kept different hours at the restaurant. But she now faced a new challenge: navigating. One day we drove separately to get a swing for Phuong Lien. On trips to new places, Tung usually followed me in her car until she learned the route. During this trip, she wanted to go home before we were finished shopping, so I pointed her to the highway and told her to “go straight” until she recognized our exit. When Phuong Lien and I got home a little later, Tung was not there. We figured she had made a stop somewhere.

A few hours later, we heard her come in and slam the door. It turned out she had gone straight for so long that she had ended up in North Miami Beach, about 15 miles [24 km] away. Then she pulled over in confusion and called a tow truck to tow her home. Phuong Lien and I couldn’t help but laugh. Eventually Tung did, too.

Fortunately she no longer needed help navigating the aisles during her frequent trips to various grocery stores. She was also getting more comfortable experimenting with unfamiliar ingredients that piqued her curiosity. It didn’t matter if it came in commercial packaging and she didn’t know exactly what it was or what the instructions said because she still couldn’t read many English words.

This is how I once came home to find that Tung had purchased Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing mix. Having thrown away the directions, which were of no use to her, she smelled the powder, then instinctively added water, sugar, salt, and oil.

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