Ba Noi

I can still remember the tobacco in her mouth,  the constant chewing of her mouth that made the wrinkles on her face dance, the fabric wrapped around her head like a hood that covered the grayness of her hair.  Ba Noi, my grandmother, my father's mother, was one of the two women in the house: my mother and her.  

I was 7 at the time and I had just moved into my brother Thuan's room.  Before, I had slept in my parent's room where every night was a Chinese movie night.  I used to stack the black tapes pretending they were sky scrapers.  I would see how many tapes I could stack until it collapsed.  One time, I made a tower of tapes surpassing the height of my adolescent body.  I also remember the tape rewinder we had that looked like a car.  It was ironic that the car did not rewind as fast as the VCR. 

It took me awhile to realize that the movies were Chinese dubbed in Vietnamese.  I had always wondered why the lips sometimes did not match the the melody and the rhythm of the Vietnamese langauge  and why sometimes the ambience sounds were obscure.  I suppose I was too used to the animation of cartoons on Nickelodeons where characters' lips moved up and down like a nutcracker.  Up and down.  Up and down.  No variation.

It took me awhile to understand my grandmother.  From what I can remember from my childhood, I did not have a great relationship with her.  What I do remember was I looked down her and I was ashamed of her.  I looked down on the tobacco she chewed throughout the day. I was ashamed that she could not speak much English and was always in the house, immobile.  I was ashamed to bring my white friends home, fearing they would see me differently after they had seen my grandmother.  I looked down on the cave-like room she lived in, like a bear, like a vampire--always in the dark.  

I often teased her and let her chase me up stairs to my brother's room.  Her raspy voice, groaning of old pain would circulate the empty house.  My premature, pre-puberty voice gigling, laughing like I meant it.  I still regret doing all those terrible things to her.  My grandmother used to take care of me.   She became my my mother when my real mother could not take care of because her work--putting together angel dolls for a company--a few cents a doll.  My grandmother loved me, but I did not love her back until after her funeral, after I grew up a little bit more after that.  Thank you/Sorry Ba Noi.