By Christina Vo

For Father’s Day, Christina Vo, co-author of MY VIETNAM, YOUR VIETNAM, interviewed her father and co-author about their writing process. Vo is currently on a book tour celebrating the release of the dual memoir while opening discussions about Vietnamese culture throughout generations.

Christina Vo: Is there a specific passage in MVYV that is particularly meaningful to you, and if so, why?

Nghia M. Vo: The afterword Christina wrote is particularly revealing. One of the readers of MVYV tells me that the following paragraph struck him the most and I would agree with him. What I could leave to youngsters as legacy is a path, a way to look at the world.

“Although he wrote only a few words, they landed straight to my heart. All the worries and fears I had of his disapproval washed away, and I felt his respect for my creative vision. Those succinct lines felt reassuring and soothed my concerns. Most Importantly, they reverberated his love.

This undertaking has deepened my admiration and affection for my father. The trust and the way our stories have woven together have underscored my respect for his journey. My youthful experiences in Việt Nam pale in comparison to his profound odyssey, yet they found harmony. His unflagging belief and confidence in my creative process demonstrated his love for me and his faith in my vision. when I responded to him, I expressed my gratitude for his journey, courage, wisdom, and willingness to share. I feel honored and blessed to have such an intelligent, respectful, kind, thoughtful, and profound father. Although not many words pass between us, the emotion, the care and the concern can be read through these pages.

To this day, my father continues to inspire me to seek deeper understanding and greater purpose.”

CV: How do you think younger generations, both in Vietnam and elsewhere, can benefit from understanding the narratives and perspectives in MVYV?

NMV: Although I cannot speak for the young Vietnamese who grew up under the communist regime, they and the overseas Vietnamese could benefit from reading MVYV, participating in conferences about the war, and doing their own research about Vietnam.

Vietnam is a very unusual country because of the many representations, descriptions, and assessments people have about it. There is no single Vietnam, but a multitude of Vietnams whether one looks at its history, culture, civilization, wars, and so on.

CV: You wrote a lot about Saigon and your memories of the city. What are some of your fondest memories –of holidays, food, etc?

NMV: Tet is one the greatest Southeast Asian holidays in the world.

Vietnamese cuisine is well-known around the world after overseas Vietnamese, after 1975, introduced their pho, Vietnamese spring rolls, banh mi, etc. One could see at least one Vietnamese pho stall today in any US state of the Union.

CV: Why did you start writing? And how did you continue to push yourselves to complete so many books?

NMV: As a “child of war,” a person who lived during the Vietnam War (1954-1975), I wrote books as someone once mentioned, as a “way of remembering and revisiting” that part of my life. There are plenty of facets, facts, tragedies of that part of my life that are unexplored and remain worth of understanding and exploring.

The Vietnam War, although vilified by some, remains one of the most discussed wars in the world. Since people generally thought that the war was fought between Americans and North Vietnamese, I try to fill up the gap by explaining to young Vietnamese who never knew the war that the South Vietnamese were also one of the participants of the war.

CV: What is your hope for Vietnam’s development and evolution- and the relationship between Vietnamese and overseas Vietnamese?

NMV: My hope (and the hope of people of my generation) is to see Vietnam graduate as a free and democratic country, something that it did not have under its 1,000-year-old Confucian monarchy and its Chinese, French, and communist legacies. The war the South Vietnamese fought for was for a “free and democratic Vietnam,” although we eventually lost the war.

As to the relationship between Vietnamese and overseas Vietnamese, I’m afraid, it is diverging like that of their parents because of the effect the communist education/training has on children.

CV: Happy Father’s Day!