Every story has a beginning, and mine begins with my roots. There's my mom and dad leading procession to their wedding. As everyone told me, it was a beautiful wedding. As most weddings of that day, it was an arranged marriage. I guess it was to better or maintain one's social or material heritage, so lucky for me, my family had deep Vietnamese roots.
My father was the son of the village leader, but due to the encroaching VC army, my grandfather sent my father away to study with my uncle. I was told a very sad story about my grandfather when I was little. The Viet Cong had killed several of his friends in neighbouring villages to send him a message that he was next. So that night he mixed up a ball of rat poison for him and his wife. But he didn't take the poison cuz he reasoned that it was his karma. If he avoided it, it would eventually fall on his family to pay. They killed my grandfather... but my grandmother lived to a ripe old age.
Well, my father lead a very distinguished life in Vietnam. He was a well loved teacher (which was also how he was able to dodge fighting in the army), a lawyer, and even elected senator for a few years.
