I arrived, alone, jetlagged and tired. This was pre-internet in Vietnam, so I kept in touch with back home at $5 a page for faxes. And, I hated Vietnam. It was too hot, too humid, there were smells I didn't like, it was too noisy, and I just didn't understand anything. I'm sure I must have had a little cry. And that always makes things better. I had a hand drawn map that a French couple who had been through the process had drawn with good advice scribbled about a few restaurants, which taxis to take (Festival? Remember them?). Marked on the map outside my hotel down an alley in D3, was Mr J. Mr J was an interesting character. An educated man with good French and a liking for fairly violent French detective fiction, Mr J had served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. I don't know if he was a good soldier, he was such a gentle man it was hard to imagine him as a soldier at all. In any case, when I was having my birthday in Liverpool back in 1975, he was being sent off for re-education. Now, he eked out a living on the street mending bicycles and occasionally motorbike punctures. Always cheerful and with time to chat - business was never very good - I felt a little less alone. And so it was on my third day in Vietnam, I woke up, had breakfast and went out to face the day. Rain overnight had cleared the air. The sky was blue, I had a "Bonjour" from Mr J and I was in love with Vietnam. The heat, the smell, the noise? I laugh in their face. I am above such things. As Bernard Ullman said, "Sometimes a man can lose his heart to a place."
I make my way out to one of the well known orphanages to make myself known. Run by Catholic nuns. We have the language of Voltaire in common, but we don't have a common understanding. "Ces enfants sont destinés à être adoptés par des couples sans enfant". I can see we have different views about who the benefit of adoption is for. I drink lots of tea and tell them I will be back tomorrow. Back at the hotel, I write out an impassioned argument that adoption isn't about the needs of the parents, it's about the needs of the child and we can offer much to a child. Faxed back home for $5, it comes back translated into flowing French much more eloquent than mine. I call in at the orphanage the next day, drink lots more tea and give my letter to the nun in charge to read. I think we have reached an understanding. We can come back to Vietnam with our paper work all certified and apostilled as required and she will see what she can do. I have got as far as I hoped on this visit.
And so, over the course of several more visits and several more years, we adopted two young boys from Vietnam, E in 1998 and M in 2001 and Vietnam became a place I would explore and re-visit with them and alone as they grew up. This is my 26th visit and I'm beginning to understand a little of the country.
On again to the more recent past. 2015 and I was back in Vietnam with my younger son M (14). He was spending some time with friends in Hong Kong and would fly down to join me later. I was having fun cycling around the delta. Well, it was ridiculously hot, but I was telling myself I was having fun. I would be back in Sài Gòn in time to meet him. I wended my way down to Đất Mũi, the most southerly point on the mainland. I'd now done North and South and maybe I would need to look at East and West.
Back in Saigon, we settle in to enjoy the delights of the city. Great food. Beer with ice in it. Well, for me. Sting for M. Wandering down the once a canal, now pedestrianized, Nguyễn Huệ, we are approached by two young ladies keen to practice their English. "If you're selling something, we're not interested." "We're not." I've read all the warnings about scammers in Vietnam and am being my usual careful self. Fool me once...won't get fooled again. The extensive probity check formalities thus concluded, we chat English as I have done hundreds of times over the years. As I get older, I enjoy spending time with young people. Youth is wasted on the young, they say. They're wrong. But it does become a foreign country and one can never go back, only look in through the window. We arrange to meet one of them, A, for coffee next day. I pick Trầm Cafe, one of hundreds of cool cafes in Saigon. We meet up for coffee and chat. A is 21, working in a hotel and struggling to support her mother and the daughter of her recently deceased sister on a very tight budget, even by Vietnam's standards. Family is important in Vietnam, and it's common for people to make sacrifices here that nobody here in the '1st world' would ever consider taking on. She seems a genuine, serious caring young lady being slowly crushed under a burden too heavy for her shoulders and with few easy options. Knowing I have adopted children, she asks questions and says she is considering whether that might be the best or only option for her niece. We swap email adresses and say we will stay in touch.
Next day, I check out what I can find out about A online. Nothing seems to contradict anything she said. Exhaustive background checks thus completed, I message my long suffering wife back home - no longer by $5 fax - and say I'd like to send $100 a month to a girl I have just met and barely know in Vietnam. Ever reliable, she sees this as a perfectly normal thing to do. I am sure many wives would have had many more questions. I message A to propose this. She is moved to tears as I am by her reply.
And so it goes. Just 7 and a half years later, out of the blue, I get another message from A via my wife to say that she is now able to stand on her own two feet and that my $100 a month should now go to someone else who needs it. She is making a good salary now and can manage on her own. The niece is now in the final year of high school. Again there are tears at either end of the exchange. I feel extraordinarly lucky to have been presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in the right place at the right time. And that, for once, I did the right thing.
And, now, in the present, the hugs we've been waiting 7 years for. We're both 7 years older and A, at least, is 7 years wiser. And there, before me for the first time is a 17 year old girl I've never met but whose life I have been privileged to touch.
I guess that what I am saying is that if you are ever lucky enough to have the stars align and present you with such an opportunity, use both hands to grab it.
