Meher Marfatia: Learning from Vietnam

Why do I wish Id visited Vietnam last year and not last week Because it would have changed the way we mdash my friend Rupal and I mdash talked with a bunch of preteen reading club kids Some months ago wed met to discuss Thanhha Lais amazing debut title Inside Out and Back AgainMoved by the deceptive lilt that belies the grim truths on which this 2011 book is based they were fully engrossed by the childhood experience of the authors flight from Vietnam at age 10 after the 1975 fall of SaigonInsightful as ever the 11 to 14yearolds responses made us even firmer in our belief that if The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne provide a good introduction to Holocaust history for kids Thanhha Lais comingofage novel in verse does the same for a war which childrens writers seldom addressA verse below this picture at the War Remnants Museum Saigon reads When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child But when I became a man I put away children thingsSo it was that everywhere I travelled from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City down south the young book clubbers comments on Inside Out and Back Again swirled in my head Having called it a crisply emotional account of a war the world must never forget they found the story told in short poems compassionately traced a year of tribulation for Ha the protagonist and her family The traumatic journey from waiting in vain for a soldier father gone missing in action to their immigration to the United States made the children share how unreal it felt leading the safe and sanitised lives they didLines that especially moved them included People share when they knowthey have escaped hungerShouldnt people sharebecause there is hunger These left them pricking with guilt as one girl put it Having too much should feel as bad as having too little a boy beside her said softly to which the group agreed No deprivation stands as a block to growing sensitiveMom says weve got too much too soon another voice piped up Sheepish to shamefaced they were deeply joltedTo the millions of refugees in the world may you each find a home is the beautifully simple Dedication at the start of the book The words assume a more particular poignancy in a world that has witnessed in the past year both a backlash against refugees and superhuman efforts to accept themThe book is about the authors flight from Vietnam after the 1975 fall of SaigonEarlier this week our first guide in the country were touring is clearly overwhelmed as he tells my husband and me how his sister had a brush with death at Brussels she was safe only because she was using the restroom when the airport exploded We trail him into the War Remnants Museum at Ho Chi Minh City There along with the Howitzers and fighter jet planes which dropped dioxin and napalm bombs ruthlessly relentlessly we see with pride photographs of Indian women activists on marches protesting Americas brutal aggressions next to an iconic still of Rajendra Prasad and Nehru welcoming Ho Chi Minh to Delhi in 1958A short hop away we visit a shop which showcases much more than its wares Its where the second generation of war victims make handicrafts to sell at such outlets across the land Coping bravely with being struck maimed or mute from the ravages of twenty years of savagery from 195575 they urge twisted limbs to deftly weave silk embed lacquer paint fine brushstrokes Once again I long to take these impressions to the children back homeNotions of solidarity and support can stem from true understanding of diverse cultures alone The bullying Lai describes Ha going through on her family being forced to move from a refugee camp to Alabama in the US touched a chord with the kids Seeing how Ha and her brothers endure derogatory nicknames like Ching Chong one book clubber drew a revealing parallel mdash Isnt that like us labelling all South Indians Madrasi or our North Easterners ChinksThat session had ended on a warm note with the kids attempting to live up to Has and presumably Lais exhortation at the books end Sit close to someone you loveand implore that personto tell and tell and tell their story Pairing off in close interaction the children chose to open up personally to each other From My longest day and The time I was most relieved to My most rewarding moment and What I feel really bad about their reallife episodes were in turn tender dark funny and above all honest We should do this with the family a few suggested returning the compelling candour and depth of Lais book to the real world A world thats bigger and meaner than their understanding of itWrite in to Meher at mehermarfatiagmailcom