![]() My father shuffled some papers and was scribbling items into a ledger when I asked him. I answered to all these monikers as my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents summoned me, upbraided me, teased me.Ĭon. My family, as with all Vietnamese households, wielded a series of pronouns, nicknames, and endearments for me in addition to my given name, Phúc. ![]() I didn’t know which name to tell the boy. I didn’t know how to answer the most basic playground question: What’s your name? It wasn’t rocket science, but I answered it like the alien I was: “I’m not sure.” ![]() My father sat at the table, my mother bustled over the stove, and I was saddled upon my rocking horse, corralled in the corner of our eat-in kitchen.įour years old, I was pondering a playground encounter with a freckly blond boy who had asked me my name, and I didn’t know what to say. The Bee Gees’s “Stayin’ Alive,” with Barry Gibb’s siren falsetto, cut a suave silhouette from the radio’s single speaker, the accidental theme song for the Tr?n family. ![]()
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