Priest makes bittersweet return to his Vietnam home
Staff writer
Father Hien Nguyen, pastor of Holy Family Parish of Marion County, felt a mixture of emotions on his most recent trip — from the end of September through the first weeks of October — to Vietnam.
Nguyen has visited family members in Vietnam four times since he was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest in 2000.
On the one hand, he enjoyed the time he spent with his aunt, uncle, and six cousins. However, Nguyen was constantly reminded of the reasons his family fled Vietnam in 1985.
“It’s just a different way of life,” Nguyen said. “It’s hard to survive there.”
He took the 13-hour flight for a three-week trip on Sept. 28. He landed in Ho Chi Minh City and then drove to Rach Gia, which is the closest city to his family’s village.
Nguyen’s aunt and uncle live in a small house, next to a river. The family farms rice and fish — the two mainstays of their diet — for a living. The house stands only a few feet from the water’s edge and the family repeatedly drops their nets into the water from the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed around 7 p.m.
Nguyen would spend three hours every night operating the fishing net while talking with his cousins.
“(I enjoyed) just sitting back and relaxing,” Nguyen said, “seeing my family; enjoying my time with my relatives.”
The family has a limited number of possessions. Every person in the house sleeps on an elevated platform without a mattress. Mosquito nets are around their beds because windows and fans are their only source of cool air. At nightfall, Nguyen could scoop handfuls of mosquitoes out of the air.
Nguyen’s aunt and uncle have only a few chairs for furniture.
Meals are cooked on an open fire inside the house using small pieces of wood and straw for fuel, and are eaten while sitting on the floor.
The clothing for each family member is minimal. Most people in the village walk barefoot and only have a pair of sandals for church or other events.
“(Americans) don’t appreciate the freedom that we have,” Nguyen said. “Over there, you don’t have a job; you don’t have a choice. They can’t move away; they can’t go to school; they can’t afford it. They can’t let it go.”
Nguyen fled Vietnam with his family when he was 13 years old. They left their village in a small boat — approximately 5 feet by 25 feet — that held 33 people. They almost starved before they made it to an island in Malaysia. They were found by a fisherman and entered a refugee camp in Malaysia and then transferred to the Philippines. The Nguyens were brought to the United States by an aunt and uncle in Wichita. They came to America with no knowledge of the English language or American culture.
Nguyen became a United States citizen in 1994 while he was in seminary.
He began his education in religious devotion during his childhood in Vietnam. Catholicism continues to be a staple of life in the village.
Vietnam’s communist leaders have relaxed their persecution of religion, and the church is the largest and most ornately decorated structure standing in the village, Nguyen said. Everyone in the village is Catholic.
Nguyen said Mass for the first time in Vietnam during this visit.
Nguyen’s trip wasn’t all hard times. Nguyen’s young cousins played a game where they tried to walk out into a river on a fresh piece of bamboo. Nguyen also enjoyed all of the hard-to-find Vietnamese food including Jackfruit, a bitter, spiky fruit native to Southeast Asia.
“You know Andrew Zimmern?” Nguyen inquired about The Travel Channel host famous for eating exotic delicacies. “He took one bite of Jackfruit and threw it up. It is an acquired taste.”
Nguyen tries to return to Vietnam every five years because the country is part of his identity. Vietnam humbles Nguyen.
“I try to live simply,” Nguyen said. “It was the way I was raised.”
Nguyen will show a slideshow of pictures from his trip at 6 p.m. Feb. 19 at Holy Family Activity Center. He will also offer samples of Vietnamese food, including a fruit cocktail with Jackfruit imported from Thailand.
