When my Grandfather Holds my Grandmother

Fri, 05 Mar 2021 01:08:57 +0000

 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 Saigon still smolders on the ashes of April.
  
 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 he lowers his head, the way the hunted have always
 bent over their own reflection to drink.
  
 When my grandfather holds my grandmother,
 his schoolboy arms trace etymologies over her waist,
 how the Vietnamese word for “remember” and “miss” are the same
 while his nose relearns a scent, he relearns a year—
 as if to walk through the kitchen window you’d still see
 paper milk-flowers bursting into flames while
 the stars gape like the sky’s bullet wounds;
 and where my grandfather holds her,
 smoke soldiers, also, dig ghost claws in her wrist,
 chanting bạn có nhớ tôi không?
  
 My grandfather holds my grandmother 
 in a history never ended, as if somewhere 
 between his hands, the city smolders on.

By Samantha Liu, 16, New Jersey. She adds: “As for myself, I am a fifteen year-old aspiring writer in New Jersey. I’ve been trying so hard to relearn and revisit my Asian heritage recently – part Mandarin Chinese, part Vietnamese. My grandparents from both sides are children of war, of Mao, of Tet. The bloodshed of the twentieth century, much of it perpetuated by America itself, is etched in my family history. Much of it is cruel. Much of it is turbulent. Much of it inspires bouts of PTSD while I, nine and unknowing, huddle in a corner. But some of it, as I tried to write in “When my grandfather holds my grandmother,” is light. It is how my grandfather and grandmother fell in love, in the ardent and all-consuming way of people who might not see another day. To me, this is the legacy of Vietnam—not politicking, not ideology, but humanity. I have inherited a war, and I will continue to unravel it.”

Ting Pan, an Emerging Chinese Artist

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 04:34:16 +0000

chinese | Skipping Stones

When my Grandfather Holds my Grandmother

Ting Pan, an Emerging Chinese Artist