{"id":1118,"date":"2020-11-26T15:45:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T20:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2020-12-24T17:49:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T22:49:11","slug":"13-recalling-my-high-school-years-in-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/13-recalling-my-high-school-years-in-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"13. Recalling My High School Years in Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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13. Recalling My High School Years in Vietnam<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

My high school years in Vietnam were terrible,
<\/span><\/span>I was a reckless student bouncing from school to school.
<\/span>During my eighth grade in B\u1ed3 \u0110\u1ec1 High School,
<\/span>I felt bored and became a delinquent fool.<\/span><\/p>\n

I cajoled my classmates,
<\/span><\/span>Di and Th\u00e1i, to play hooky with me.
<\/span>We often went to a small stream nearby,
<\/span>That was how I spent my school time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, I was one of the top students in my class,
<\/span><\/span>I knew for facts that several girls fighting for me.
<\/span>Particularly, there were two pretty ones,
<\/span>Who both liked the classmate named Lay.<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued to cut classes more often,
<\/span><\/span>For my parents weren’t there to stop me.
<\/span>My parents had a business in another city;
<\/span>Leaving me to my grandma who couldn’t watch me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I slept outside on the street every night,
<\/span><\/span>On the cool ceramic porch of a rich neighbor\u2019s house.
<\/span>The house we rented had no electricity or running water;
<\/span>It was cooler to sleep outdoors and mosquitoes loved to bite.<\/span><\/p>\n

I grew up like a homeless teenage boy,
<\/span><\/span>For so many years having no parents to check on me.
<\/span>If I was hungry, I just waited for my aunt to cook,
<\/span>Sardines and rice were our staple meals, most of the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

My uncle worked for my parents’ restaurant named Nh\u01b0 \u00dd,
<\/span><\/span>Which was opened in 1958 in the town of Ba Ng\u00f2i.
<\/span>Located on National Highway 1 \u2013 about forty kilometers away.
<\/span>Business was extremely good during that peaceful time.<\/span><\/p>\n

My uncle had two days off each month to see his family,
<\/span><\/span>Bringing home the salaries he earned and resting.
<\/span>When my uncle came home, we had some meat to eat.
<\/span>When he went back to work, we went back to our normal diet.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, I went home each weekend to see my parents,
<\/span><\/span>To soothe my homesickness and to get my allowance.
<\/span>The allowance was budgeted for five days,
<\/span>But the money lasted only three days at its best.<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued to play hooky because it was my finest time.
<\/span><\/span>Spending all my allowance for games of billiard.
<\/span>If not, I would go to the Vi\u1ec7t Ti\u1ebfn movie theater,
<\/span>Waiting for hours just to watch it free the ending ten minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued to cut classes almost every week,
<\/span><\/span>The dean of students issued a weekend in-school suspension.
<\/span>But I thumbed up the suspension notice saying I forgot,
<\/span>So principal Hi\u1ec7u had no choice but expulsion.<\/span><\/p>\n

My older cousin and my oldest sister went to the school,
<\/span><\/span>Begging the principal to give me a second chance.
<\/font>\u201cNo, I must expel him to teach others a lesson,
<\/span><\/span>He won\u2019t change if I rescind the expulsion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, my school year was interrupted,
<\/span><\/span>So I went home to Ba Ng\u00f2i, loitering all day.
<\/span>My dad wanted me to enroll in a Catholic high school,
<\/span>But soon they kicked me out again for me the hooky fool.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFather, you teach us wrong,
<\/span><\/span>I believe you are mistaken.
<\/span>The pronoun \u201cyou\u201d even in plural form,
<\/span>Has no \u201cs\u201d at the end, \u201cyous\u201d is wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued to go to school every day,
<\/span><\/span>But to watch people fishing instead.
<\/span>The school sent home my absence notice,
<\/span>Asking my classmate to deliver it to my dad.<\/span><\/p>\n

I roughed up the messenger kid, quitting school for good,
<\/span><\/span>For the rest of eight grade, I stayed home.
<\/span>One day, a passenger bus stopped in front of our restaurant,
<\/span>Then I saw three girls — my former classmates getting off.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you stop going to school?
<\/span><\/span>We did not hear a word from you.\u201d
<\/font>\u201cIt\u2019s because Principal Hi\u1ec7u kicked me out,
<\/span><\/span>That\u2019s why I wasn\u2019t allowed to come to school to let you know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to principal <\/span><\/span>Hi\u1ec7u that I<\/span><\/span> am still alive today;
<\/span><\/span>I believed his expulsion of me had altered my fate.
<\/span>If he did not expel me for all the foolish things I created
<\/span>I would have completed my high school graduation on time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Graduating from an Officer Military Academy at that time,
<\/span><\/span>People were for sure to be sent to the war front.
<\/span>I knew many young Second Lieutenants,
<\/span>Who came home as heroes but their family were mournful.
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13. Recalling My High School Years in Vietnam My high school years in Vietnam were terrible, I was a reckless student bouncing from school to school. During my eighth grade in B\u1ed3 \u0110\u1ec1 High School, I felt bored and became a delinquent fool. I cajoled my classmates, Di and Th\u00e1i, to play hooky with me….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-sailor-named-lay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietphilly.net\/hq11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}