Banh mi is a representative food of Saigon.
You can buy it anywhere, anytime. It is easy to bring it with you when you’re out.
It is very easy to make that you quickly make and eat it with people you’ve met for the first time like this.
Let’s make a Banh mi.

The ingredients are a baguette, cucumber, tomato, cilantro, brined carrot and pickled radish, mayonnaise, chili, and soy sauce.
You can prepare [extra ingredients such as] Vietnamese sausage, canned tuna, marinated beef in Vietnamese style, eggs as you like.

First, cut the baguette in half.
Spread mayonnaise on one side.
Slice Vietnamese sausage, tomato, cucumber, onions and place them in the baguette.
Put the sweet and sour carrot and picked radish,
some fresh cilantro.
To finish it off, put this special soy sauce and chili.
Now, let’s cut this Banh mi into a good size to eat, and taste it.

1. This classroom is bigger than the others. I think it’s around 5 P.M. Only the green curtain that is not too thick, wears an afterimage of the sun. The classroom is dark and my seat is in the most innermost spot next to the teacher’s desk. The sunlight stretches out from a slightly opened curtain. At last, I scooch down.

2. “Yesterday, B cried after visiting the teacher’s room.”

I feel like as if I’m standing up with a broken ankle. The evening I longed for is dark and the floor is warm. But the look in the A’s eyes is cold. It’s scary. Standing here, I don’t know if I should explain myself or not. I only squint my upper face with pity.

3. Winter. Once again, we are sitting in a circle on the warm floor. Mere exchanges of voices are made and I get a cramp in my lower belly. D sitting next to me who was toying with my mobile phone tries to remove the protective film. I stop his hand with a surprised look. He says, “I told you to just remove it.” The half-torn protective film is covered with dirt that it makes it hard to see the screen. I press the film flatways as if I can stick it again on my cell phone.

Winter. January, 2001. Training center. Morning. The longer clock hand between 6 and 7 and the shorter clock hand between 8 and 9.

One by one, I put on a green jumper, flower patterned socks, and open the training center door. Cold wind blows through the door. The gray sky is the first thing that catches my eyes. Then a sound, drip-drip.

Without thinking, I start walking towards where the sound is coming from. Huh? You are sitting in front of the place where the sound is coming from.

You turn around as if you’d heard my footsteps. Our eyes meet.

“Why did you wake up so early?” You ask. Feeling awkward, the corner of my lips slightly draws up. I sit next to you. My white breath meets your white breath and billow like a smoke.

The sound, drip-drip becomes dri——-p dri———-p dri——–p

You say, “That sound is clear. The water is also clean. It’s alive despite of the icy weather.”

“It’s quite loud,” I speak to you for the first time. You and I just listen to the dropping sound.

I saved the sound of you into my cochlea.

Deep.
(It) is, in deep darkness.

There is nothing. Nothing, no woman, no speaker, no expectation.

There is nothing. Not me on our photo, not her, nor the spear.
I open the fire hydrant box. It’s cold. Bang. There is nothing
I open the upper door of the fire hydrant box. It’s not there.

Suddenly! I remembered as I passed the front door.
I rummage through my stuff. It’s not there. Nothing, the woman nor the speaker, expectation neither.
My lingering feeling of waiting ends in nothingness.
I mutter a little. I think I’m doing well getting over it.

I’m blowing on something hazy in search for something.
I know it’s not there but, maybe it’s there.
Well, finding that may not be that pleasant anyways.

Deep.
(It) is, in deep darkness.

Open a door as if nothing happened.
Like I disregard my mother questioning what I’m looking for,
I disregard the memory of her.

Number 1 on the my kakao messenger window does not disappear.

She’s not even answering her phone.

It’s been 3 days.

I visit her.

She is not there.

The next day, I visit her again, but she’s still not there.

2 days later, I visit her in hurry.

I first ask her if she’s well.

“How are you doing? I came here because I couldn’t reach you”

She avoids my gaze.

She says she was sick.

“I see…”
A moment of silence.

She sees me to the door.

I cannot hear the door closing behind me.

I walk away from the door with feeling of relief.

How long has it been since the beating began?
The room was already dark,
The clothes washed by my grandmother always smelled like a mop.
Maybe I was sweating when getting beaten. The musty smell of mop spread.

That night, the back of my overweight grandmother lying on her side in the dark room looked like a wall.
She hummed ‘Life of Women’ by Mi-ja Lee.

Her humming is still ringing in my ears.

She combed the young girl’s long black hair. She hummed a hymn while combing the girls’ hair everyday as a small morning ritual. I still remember. One day, the long hair became another aspect of the girl. It was endless love.
Eventually, the girl became able to comb and tie her hair by herself. [The mother’s] little ritual is faded away.
The salon was filled with cries.
Contrary to the sad face of the hairdresser, her hands and the scissors moved fast, the girl was crying out loud sitting yet, without moving. [The mother] l was staring at her with emotionless face.
The love got cut out. That was much bigger form of love.

Autumn in September. At crowded Han River Park at 5 P.M.

I put on the earphones and turned up the volume to the max.

There were a lot of people but nobody I knew.

The song I was listening to was “Breathe.”

The lyrics saying, “I know you had a day too hard to even take a little breath.”

My tensed body became relaxed and loosened.

My earphones allowed the sounds to be heard only by my ears.

It protected me from the outside noise.

On the warm day before the New Year’s Day, I gave my grandmother an envelope (for new year’s allowance money) with my drawing of ground lotus. Because her eye sight was not good, my mom asked her, “Can you recognize what Linh drew?” She was sitting on a bed with her back hunched, and with squinted eyes, she moved her face to close to the envelope. She burst into laughter as her eyebrows raised in a shape of ‘^’. Her body shook from her laughter. I felt warmhearted like a flower blooming under new year’s sun light.

She always said, ‘Thank you’.
Tears had often fallen from her big eyes beyond her glasses.
Before she knew, she shrunk. Probably, around 162cm or so. She has plumped lips, a little tanned skin with no trace of make-up. Short hair. Because she has naturally curly hair, it always looked like she got a perm. She said she became to like gray hairs. She stopped dying her hair. Gray hair. She’s weak. Lost quite a lot of weight, but still seems healthy. For some time, she was able to wear my clothes. She now wears jeans and running shoes rather than skirts and shiny shoes. She kind of looks like a boy who had aged a bit. Born on January 28th, 1964. She always says she’s happy. She is my mother.

My grandmother is almost in her 90’s, and lives alone in a country side. It’s just her children visiting her from time to time. Her round face, wide back, little bit chubby body, she especially has ‘^’ shaped eye brows, and speaks very loudly as if she is calling someone about five blocks away or as if she is trying to protect me from a fierce dog. Her eye sight is bad because of her age, so she cannot see well. Since she cannot move easily with her hunched back, she rides a wheelchair.
She raised her kids with her wrinkled hands. She still makes Vietnamese pickles for her family.
Cutting up vegetables, making sauces, mixing them, she does everything on her own. There are a lot of ground lotus in her  garden.

A tiny basement that cannot be locked from inside used as a warehouse before. A basement full of crickets without a gas facility that only cold water comes out of a blue hose. I happened to not live with my mom since I was 13 years-old. When I was in my first-year middle school, I came back alone to this very dark basement 2 or 3 in the morning after playing at my friend’s house where there was nobody around.

Nevertheless, when I had to stay home, I listened to the radio from my aunt that only had just few stations working in the middle of the night. When an idea suddenly came to my mind while I was listening to the radio, I opened up my notebook that I got as a prize from a writing contest at school. That gray notebook spring fell off a bit, and even thought it was a hard cover, the corners were peeled off.

My handwriting that had started off neatly became messy along with the change in my emotion. When it became impossible to express myself in writing, I started to draw.

Drawing while sitting at a very low table hurt my back. However, there was no other way to express my emotions that I continued to draw despite it hurt my back.

Woman, Her height about 155cm.
Little chubby, and her back side reminding me of a Welsh corgi. (woof woof)
Born early in 1986, does not like alcohol, have never smoked yet.
Black hair, prematurely gray hairs are scattered. Bobbed hair curled outwards as blown by the wind.
She only has one double-eyelid on one side. Prominent nose. City girl fashion style with chic look in her eyes. She wears different clothes every day but the accessories are almost always the same.
Gold-silver, earrings-neckless-ring, wears many of simple shaped accessories.
She usually wears contact lenses. She wears glasses after washing her face before going to bed. If she removes her eyeline, she looks quite naive.
Someone said that she looks like a professor.
She is introverted and needs time to become close.
Always concerned of others, and sharp.
Once you become close to her, she becomes playful and quite charming.
When she is pleasant, she laughs like a kid.
Raises both her arms, and dances as she shakes her hips.
She likes to wear Vans sneakers.

Lying down with my eyes opened, I observed my mother.
She puts her clothes squatting down beside the shopping and cries.
She carries me on her back and leaves the house without letting my father know.
Ting-a-ling, cyclo sound, and the sound of rain and wind. My mother and I took the cyclo to the express bus station at the break of dawn, silent and dark.
She hugged me to keep me warm.
“My mom is warm and has a scent I like ”
On our way to the country side on the old bus, a voice of an old woman suddenly came from inside the bus.
“Hurry up, why are you moving so slow like a turtle?”
Right after, an accident occurred that the bus almost got into the river.
Fortunately, the trees on the riverside prevented the bus from sinking in the river.
Everyone was safe.
In the middle of the chaos, people crying were heard.
The driver saved the youngest passenger, me, first.
I lost one of my shoes that my mother bought. It was cold because of the rain. I kept asking for my shoe in tears.
My mother gave me a piggy back as she was holding a shopping basket.
She sung a Vietnam lullaby to me with me on her back until we arrived at my grandmother’s house
(lullaby) “Because this wooden bridge is too weak, I will hold your hand until we cross the bridge. My daughter, you go to a school, and I will make the best out of my life.”
The cold weather, the sound of rain, my mother’s sad voice, and the sound of wind…
It still reminds me of my mother’s sad face when I look at the shopping basket.

When I think of my father’s younger sister, Hyun, drawings, Spanish, cockroaches and ghosts come to my mind. She has a chubby belly and many freckles on her face. She is gradually losing her long hair from the crown of the head. She resembles grandmother a lot, has a high-toned voice but not talkative, and she always has smile on her face. The only time she speaks out loud is when she is talking to the voices that can only be heard by her. Her eyes out of focus. Words spoken into the air and her smiles. Hyun always made me feel like we are in different places even when she was sitting next to me. Whenever she saw me, she gave me 5000won and a strange bag that I had no idea where she even bought it from. When I hugged Hyun, it made me realized that she was my aunt after all.

Shinlim-dong Byucksan apartment- It was a place where I still vividly remember not wanting to go. When I entered Hyun’s place, obnoxious smell greeted me. There were long strains of hair on the floor, stained yellow walls, sticky furniture, and cockroaches moving around. Just in case I might hurt her feelings, I sneaked around to find a clean spot. Regardless of how many times I visited there, I never got used to the place. That place was shocking to me when I was young. One day, I accidently opened Hyun’s room that I was never interested in. There were paintings, writings, certificates and awards related to Spanish from Hyun’s younger days that no one could imagine for them to belong to present day Hyun. The room was dark, lonely and beautiful. On that day, I was able to understand what my grandmother and grandfather always told me- “Hyun wasn’t used to be like that…” This made me curious of Hyun’s life for the first time. How was Hyun in her old days, what kind of world she’s living in now, who are those she’s talking to and where is she getting that 5000 won and bag she always give me.

When my second daughter was 9 years-old, I was busy because of the work that I have started again.
One day, she told me, “I have nothing to do for the school performance day.”
Back in the days, the mothers took care of their kids’ performance by assigning them into different groups and making them practice.
Sometimes, the teacher assigned what to do for the play to the kids with no assigned groups.
I wasn’t close with the other mothers that it was hard to become friendly with them just because of this event.
Also, I thought it is meaningless if I made the choices for my kid.
I decided to wait and see how my daughter deals with this issue.
Her teacher suggested her to play a children’s song with a kid’s melodeon.
She practiced hard at home.
It was the performance day.
I went to the school.
Other kids in dance costumes, taekwondo uniforms and such were showing off their performances.
My head was filled with swarming thoughts.
Thoughts of what my kid wore to school today, what if she’s going to be too shy, or what if she looks so trivial doing a solo.
Finally, the host called out my daughter’s name.
She came into the center with her melodeon.
She took a bow and slowly started to play by blowing on the hose.
I thought, what if she cries because she is too nervous?
Slowly but with complete concentration, she started to play the melodeon.
What was surrounding my daughter became hazy and the only thing I could see was her.
She finished the performance.
I think I clapped hard.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was the most memorable moment among all of my two daughters’ school performances.
One afternoon, the phone rang.
My cell phone caller ID showed that it was the 2
nd year homeroom teacher.
The teacher told me, although my daughter was doing fine at school, she thinks it might be a good idea to let my daughter take the intelligence test.
I burst into tears when I heard this.
After the call, I thought about this a lot.
I observed my daughter carefully for a few days.
She was having trouble learning the multiplication table and understanding meanings of some words, but she looked totally normal to me.
Well, except her school grades were low.
So, I decided to not to take the test.
I did not want my daughter and myself to experience all the awkwardness during the process.
I trusted my decision.
Later, she told me she wants to learn a violin.
She played the violin about twice for the school performance.

I have two daughters.
When they were really young, I would lose it with the kids because taking care of them was overwhelming from time to time.
After experiencing my beast inside, I thought this had to stop.
So, I made a promise to my kids.
If they do something really bad, I will punish them by hitting their palms only twice with a wooden stick.
I don’t quite clearly remember what defined “really bad behavior.”
However, I repeatedly emphasized the fact that they can stand up for themselves if I ever try to hit their palms more than twice.
Then, we went outside to the playground to find a tree branch to be used.
I smoothened the pointy parts of the branch that was picked.
Then, I placed the stick on the top of the refrigerator.
It was a kind of warning not to misbehave.
When the first child was nine-years-old, there once was a day when she needed to be punished.
Again, I do not clearly remember what she exactly did wrong.
I was so angry, so I told her I will hit your palm twice, and grabbed the stick on the fridge.
She stared at me and said ‘DO NOT TOUCH ME.’
I was stunned by her reaction, but I told her that she had to be punished because that was the rule.
She argued that I should not hit her.
I had got angrier, so kicked her out of the house.
She kicked the door and made noises screaming out, ‘Why do I have to be kicked out!’
When she came back into the house, I told her that she needs to be punished in one way or another.
I asked her where she wants to go because I, the mother, do not want to be with her.
She said she will go to the veranda.
Just like now, it was a cold winter day.
There was a winter coat hung on a hanger in the veranda that I sent my daughter to the veranda thinking that if she feels cold, she would put on that coat.
Much longer than an hour had passed.
I asked the younger daughter to bring her sister back inside.
The older daughter came to me with only wearing her panties without the outer.
At that moment, I felt her rage.
I wondered how angry she would have been to not wear the coat in such cold weather.
Without saying anything else, I told her “I am really sorry no matter what, and I will never punish you by hitting you with the stick even if you misbehave.”
I broke the stick in front of my two daughters.
After that day, I never laid hands on my kids.

Her name ‘Tui.’ It means water.
She is neither fat nor skinny. She is neither tall nor short.
She likes wearing different colored peculiar outer garments.
She wears big glasses, and has curly hair.
She has braces but always put on a big smile.
She is a teacher and teaches the kids to live happily. The kids love her.
She lost her brother, and people blamed her for his death.
It was a long time ago, but she still suffers.
Then again, she always finds a way to heal, and shares a positive energy to others.

19 hours passed since your birthday. The air was so cold that my cheeks were freezing. I was wearing a scarlet muffler. I was holding a bag with a present inside in my right hand, and like a habit, I was on my way to find a place without any of my acquaintances. Surprisingly, the place was halfway between my house and your house. There was a big dismal tree, we sat on the bench at a short distance from each other. You had pretty bright red hair and were wearing a mask that it only showed your pupils. Because you said you didn’t want to be recognized by your name.

You told I don’t need you in my life. I couldn’t hear your voice because of your mask as always. I was handing you a plenty of letters. All this has been a long time. The only thing I tell you is, “Thank you for being born.”

In few days, it’s my birthday.

My mother’s height is 152cm. She is really slim and little, so she looks younger than her age. She likes to wear a skirt but never wears high-heels because she has to move to one area to another in her office where she works as an editor of local newspaper. Maybe it’s because her only daughter lives far away from her. She calls her cat, and two Chihuahuas, ‘My Children’. She is always with her dog which is small enough to get into her bag. She prefers vegetables over meat, but she cooks various things for her family. Her favorite food is white rice with fish sauce because rice was so precious when she was young where she only had salted yam roots to eat. Whenever she had to work very late, she has a cheap chicken noodle soup from a street vendor near her office. The same chicken noodle soup for 20 years…

Jung-ja Song.
Born on June 1, 1933.
Husband, the late Tae-jin Bing.
Had a boy and a girl.

She lived in Gokseong Jeollanam-do, sold the property and moved to her daughter’s place in Seoul. She raised three kids of her daughter and did all the house work.

Less than 160cm height, overweight, round and flat face shape with no double eyelids.
She had a surgery for double eyelids, but her eyelids became droopy again.
Had liposuction, but went back to her overweighed body.

When she was younger, she had made clothes for herself, and for her grandchildren. But it’s now all in the old days.

She is not good at cooking, her food is either too salty, too spicy, or too bland.

As she was staying in her daughter’s place, she dwelled more on her own misfortune.
While she was watching what her daughter had to face supporting her husband, she (Jung-ja Song) was filled with anger.
She cannot stop mouthing swear words. Murmurs swearing words. She swears while shouting, swearing as if she was rapping… she swears nonstop.

She always adores her grandson but her granddaughter who resembles her son-in-law is someone to take her anger out.

She often sings ‘Life of Women’ by Mi-Ja Lee in her bed.