When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace

After discovering that she was pregnant, Hayslip went to an herbalist in an effort to terminate the pregnancy, at her mother’s urging. It did not work. When Lien observed Hayslip praying to Anh’s ancestors, Lien knew that Anh had fathered the baby. Lien refused to allow Hayslip and her mother to remain in her home. Agreeing to allow Anh to provide monetary support for them, Lien insisted that they leave Saigon and return to Danang.

In 1944, Hayslip’s brother, Sau Ban, was born. A kind and talented individual, he cared for Hayslip, who was five years younger, when she was a child. Between the French and American wars, Ky La was a “childhood paradise” and Hayslip has fond memories of that time (172). After President Diem was assassinated, Sau Ban was required to construct strategic hamlets away from home. When he returned to Ky La, Sau Ban had to register with the military on his 18th birthday. Soon thereafter, he was instructed to report to Danang and fight with the Republicans. Horrified that Sau Ban could be fighting against his older brother, his mother advised him to travel to Hanoi. That proved impossible. At his father’s urging, Sau Ban married before deployment. In an arranged marriage, he wed Nham from another village. His father hoped that Sau Ban would have a child. To avoid service with the Republicans, Sau Ban traveled to Saigon with his sister Hai. She then informed the family that he had taken a job with “Uncle,” which was code for Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong. Later, the family learned that Sau Ban had been killed by an American-made mine when he was returning home for New Year’s (185). This was devastating news. Because Nham was not pregnant, she returned to her family.

In Ky La, most people were either Buddhist or Catholic. Since President Diem was Catholic and was solicitous of US support, Buddhists experienced discrimination in South Vietnam. Yet Buddhists were in the majority and were more closely linked to traditional culture. In 1955, the government issued identity cards to all who voted in an election. These cards bore a Christian symbol. As a result, Buddhists threw them away. Unable to produce these cards at the demand of authorities, Buddhists were then terrorized. Hayslip notes that there was for a time no distinction between a religious and a political war (190). In the late 1950s, the police also arrested those with relatives who had gone to North Vietnam.

Ba, Hayslip’s sister, was married but her husband had gone to Hanoi. Chin, a cousin of Ba’s husband, made unwanted advances to Ba. As a member of the Common Guard or police, Chin threatened to have Ba and her family investigated if she rebuffed him. Both Ba and her father were taken to a place of torture but quickly released. Ba consented to marrying Chin to avoid the arrest and torture of her family. She soon became pregnant with his child. Hayslip’s father was upset but powerless to do anything to change the situation.

Upon her return to Vietnam in 1986, Hayslip encountered Anh’s son, who took them to his father’s house. Now divorced from Lien, Anh lived in a run-down house with Yen, with whom he had had five additional children. Anh had to give his company to the government but had employment there. Hayslip, who had helped his two oldest boys when they emigrated to the US, showed Anh photographs of Jimmy, their son. Anh arranged for Hayslip and himself to travel to Danang by plane. Before that, Hayslip went to her required meeting with the authorities.

When Hayslip and her mother returned to Danang, they asked Lan, Hayslip’s sister, to allow Hayslip to stay with her. Lan worked as a hostess in a Danang bar and had American boyfriends. In return for domestic services, such as cooking and cleaning, Lan allowed Hayslip to stay in her apartment. However, Hayslip’s duties were soon extended to service at parties and attending to Lan’s personal needs. When one of Lan’s boyfriends visited, Hayslip, home alone, fled. Outraged that Hayslip did not provide him a drink, Lan kicked Hayslip out. Fortunately, an older woman took her in, offering her room and board in exchange for work at a laundry. A short time later, Hayslip returned to Lan’s apartment to pick up clothes. Lan welcomed her back and explained that their father had chastised her for casting Hayslip out.

Desirous of his family, Hayslip’s father was miserable alone. He drank heavily and was mocked in his village for Lan’s association with Americans. When he became emaciated in his home, Republican soldiers took him to the hospital. Following his release, he attempted suicide but survived. He was initially very angry with Hayslip for her pregnancy and said that he did not want to see her. Later, however, he softened and told Lan that he missed Hayslip.

Hayslip saved Lan when a drunk American soldier was assaulting her. The soldier then hit Hayslip but quickly left the apartment. Lan, feeling indebted, agreed to pay Hayslip’s hospital bills, since Hayslip and her mother were not able to access the money that Anh had promised. Hayslip delivered a baby boy, Hung (later called Jimmy), and stayed at the clinic with her mother for 21 days. After staying at her sister Ba’s for one month following her release from the clinic, she went to work for her cousin, Nu, who gave her room and board in exchange for caring for his large family. There, she learned from Nu’s wife how to make money selling souvenirs to Americans. With that cash, she purchased cigarettes, liquor, soap, and gum and sold those items to the South Vietnamese and to soldiers who were based in the countryside. She was able to earn enough money to buy a house for herself, her mother, and child. Others in this trade encouraged her to sell marijuana, which she did. When the authorities caught her with it, she was detained. However, because the marijuana was fake, the charges were dropped. Warned not to sell it again, Hayslip felt dirty and corrupt. For the first time, however, she was earning enough money to be truly independent.

Shifting to her trip in 1986, Hayslip details how she was informed at the required meeting with officials to not do anything without permission and to keep the authorities informed of activities. She and Anh, whose employer had a factory in Danang, flew there on a crowded plane. Hayslip comments on the rudeness of the flight attendants. Once in Danang, a soldier demanded her passport but was “more fascinated by, than hateful of, his former enemy” (227). She checked into a hotel, still called the Pacific, that had “rustic charm” and observed that the clerks were less officious than those in Saigon. Anh went to fetch her niece. When he did not return after several hours, Hayslip worried about the reception that she would receive from her family.