Ba Noi by Khai

Ba Noi by Khai - May 2024 Scholarship Essay

My Ba Noi wouldn’t read picture books or the Brothers Grim to us before bed. Despite our begging, she insisted she had her own stories, true stories. Every night, she would tell my sister and me stories about her times in Vietnam before the war struck. Being on the rice paddy fields with her pet water buffalo, her long hair swinging in the humid climate, not caring about anything in the world only that she was free. She’d tell my sister and me these pre-war stories so fondly, as it was the prime time of her life, before having to abandon all she knew. She stopped telling us these glamorized stories at age 10. Slowly, the stories started to progress from this Utopia that her Vietnam village was, the lush and humble oasis and soon a war ground, where the Viet Cong came raiding her village, raping, taking, and beating anything in sight. Her stories switched from her being a youthful villager to a woman fighting in the war. She told us that she began delivering messages she eavesdropped on from the soldiers invading her house and hid them in bamboo chutes, her rice bowls, and more to try and help end this war. She was forced to assist the South Vietnamese soldiers by day, but then the Viet Cong by night, since both sides recruited children as spies.
As a girl, my Noi was imprisoned and tortured by South Vietnamese soldiers for having been on the lookout for the Viet Cong. And at the age of 14, she received a death sentence from the Viet Cong, and they were ordered to take her into the jungle and kill her, instead, they raped her and left her there. Despite loving her village and country more than anything, she knew she had to leave.
Ba Noi went to Saigon where she worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy family, yet this ended after she became pregnant. After this, they fled to Da Nang, and she had my uncle Jimmy while trying to raise her son and support her mother, and herself as a single mother, she worked for anything she could, drug-carrying, and one time as a prostitute. In search of finding work, she worked as a nurse assistant in Da Nang, where she was exposed to American soldiers due to the ongoing war. She met Ed Munro in 1969, who is my grandfather, despite being older than her, she had my dad with him, Thomas. Soon, they moved to San Diego to join Ed, this was my grandmother's first time in America. And despite this, Ed died in 1973 of lung cancer, leaving my grandmother a widow in America, with two children on her own in a foreign country where she barely knew the language. In 1974, she married Dennis Hayslip and had my uncle Alan. Yet, her relationship with Dennis was a toxic one, he was an alcoholic and had extreme anger issues. She soon divorced him in 1982, after Dennis committed domestic violence, in this turbulence he decided to kidnap my uncle Alan, his kid in an attempt to get back at her. I don’t know many details, but overall the relationship was a really toxic one. I had to ask my grandmother for these details, and despite having lived through such hard times she kept a positive attitude on reflection. She has found peace within herself, taking upon Buddhism and using religion as a key point in her life.
I was scared that my Ba Noi was going to follow my grandfather to heaven when she called us saying she was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time, my family was worried and asked what they could do to help.
“I chopped it off already”.
And just like that, she chopped off her boob without telling anyone, and came into my house dancing, not having one breast. I think this moment signaled how she didn’t care about her looks, or getting another implant, just so she could live life. Having only one boob didn’t mean anything to her, since life is more than having all of your body parts, it's about being alive and being with family. I think I look up to my grandmother so much because, despite all the hardships she’s been through, she remains a positive person committed to doing good. In Vietnam, she has done much philanthropy work including building an orphanage, aiding her village, taking orphans in to be her own ‘children’, and is committed to spreading awareness of her story through her writing and films. My Ba Noi has shown me leadership in a multitude of ways, not only in her work and positive energy, but how to serve as a decent and loving human being in our family.