When I was eight years old, I had a small, yellow dog named “Little Babe” which I loved dearly. Most dogs in Vietnam ate whatever they could scavenge, but I fed mine with scraps from our family table.[1] “Little Babe” was my loyal companion and a faithful friend during those early years.
We had to keep him quiet, though, because the Viet Minh forbade villagers from owning dogs. They would spread their resistance propaganda in the villages at night and the dogs would bark if they sensed movement in the shadows. The Viet Minh feared that the French would discover their tactics, so they banned everyone from keeping dogs as pets. For this reason, I had to keep “Little Babe” inside the house and never let him out.
All of our neighbors knew we had a dog and did not report him, but my mother was afraid that the Viet Minh would eventually find out. She also knew my father spoiled me and that I would whine and complain to him if she tried to get rid of my dog. So, she secretly convinced two of our tenant farmers to kidnap “Little Babe” and take him far away. She planned this treachery to take place while my father and I were visiting my oldest sister, who was married and living in Ca Mau. Unfortunately, the farmers who kidnapped my dog, decided to roast him on a fire and eat him. They couldn’t really have hidden “Little Babe” from the Viet Minh. Plus, like all Vietnamese at the time, they loved dog meat as a delicacy.
When I came home and couldn’t find my dog, I couldn’t stop crying. My father, who also loved “Little Babe,” had a growing suspicion about what had happened. He told me to visit the farmers to see if the haystack behind their hut was burned up. If so, then those men must have kidnapped my dog and roasted him over a fire. My father’s wisdom made sense, so I snooped around their hut and saw that the pile of hay had been completely burned up. I even found my dog’s leash lying on the ground. I was so furious when I learned what they had done that I ran home and grabbed a match to burn down their hut in revenge.
Still, I didn’t want any people to get hurt, so I peeked inside the house before I lit it on fire. The farm tenant had taken some of the roasted dog meat (my dog!) to share with a neighbor and had not yet come home. Yet his wife was lying on the bed inside and I feared that she might die if I burned down the hut. I found her trying to nap. So, I lied to her and said my mother wasn’t feeling well. Could she come over to the house and rub some healing ointment on her back? The tenant’s wife got up quickly to give my mother a massage. Then immediately, I lit the match and set the hut on fire. It didn’t take long at all to burn down that ugly thing.
In the distance, the tenant’s wife saw the smoke coming out of her hut and started screaming to my mother, “I have to go home! I have to go home!” My mother, of course, was somewhat puzzled and asked her why she had come in the first place. When the tenant’s wife explained what happened, my mother knew instantly what I had done. She grabbed a long stick and shouted for me to come into the house and kneel down. She then interrogated me, “Was it you who burned down the farm tenant’s house?”
I lied, “No, it wasn’t me!”
She shouted again, “Don’t deny it was you! I know the truth!” My mother could not be tricked. Why else would I ask the tenant’s wife to give her a massage even though she hadn’t been sick? My father saw her anger and was afraid she might strike me. So, he grabbed the stick out of her hand and asked, “Why were you about to spank little Dai?”
She replied, “He burned down someone else’s house. He deserves to be punished.”
My father defended me though. He claimed that the farmer got what he deserved because he had stolen and killed my dog. My defeated mother then admitted that she was the one who had ordered the farm tenant to take the dog away so we wouldn’t get in trouble with the Viet Minh. I survived that day without a beating. And after my father found out what I had done, he couldn’t stop laughing as he declared that it was better to have a clever but mischievous son than a foolish one. He even bragged to our relatives about my exploits. My mother would provide the resources, logs, and dried palm leaves, for the farm tenants to rebuild their hut. She even gave them a wooden slat for their bed and table. Thoughtful kindnesses such as these were the reason all the people in the village loved my mother. They even called her the “Living Buddha.” When they didn’t have food to eat or medicine for their families, she would give them what they needed without asking for anything in return. Reflecting on her life many years and several wars later, I believe our family was especially blessed because of my mother’s compassion toward the poor. It was a miracle that a family as large as ours: two girls and six boys, would all survive the Vietnam war without any major injuries. Every other family that we knew, would suffer numerous tragedies and most would only have only one or two children who survived. Surely, some god was smiling down on us.
[1] I also owned a pet pig which ate only human food. That got really expensive because of my pig’s love for fresh noodles.
