The other day, my mom brought moon cakes home. They tasted terrible, as most Chinese and Vietnamese things do in Japan. We hated how we couldn’t find a single true Vietnamese restaurant in Tokyo, so my dad opened his own restaurant last summer!
The classic Vietnamese beef and noodle soup
It’s called Little Saigon Kitchen in the Ueno/Okachimachi area and my daddy’s food is the best ever! (Here’s the link: http://hitosara.com/0006008551/) Anyway it made me miss my Chinese side of the family and it got me thinking about my grandpa, and, from what I heard, how he and my mom were all about mooncakes.
If my brother and I, or anybody in the Phu family tree, go to Saigon, the people there would take good care of us without question. My grandpa, was a well respected figure in Saigon.
He once said, “Gi yao ko ka.” or “Wherever you go, go to a free country.” He fought in Chinese army during the revolution. His brother decided he hated China, and so he went and joined the Taiwanese army. To their surprise, they met at battle when his brother was about to be caught but my grandpa let him go. After his battle, on his way back home, there were villagers waiting for him telling him not to come home because the Red Army was there waiting for him. He immediately turned around and moved to Saigon, Viet Nam, now Ho Chi Minh but that’s what it was called before it became communist. There, he met my grandma and opened a restaurant. All the cooks in the other restaurants would have nobody but my grandpa cook their lamb because he was the best. He had all eight of his kids go to a private school, and on top of that, he built a public school for kids who weren’t very fortunate.
He had a huge sense of pride and knew how to make things right. During the Viet Nam war, he sent my dad and two of my uncles to America so they could help the rest of the family flee to America over time. Like them, there were many people trying to escape. My grand-uncle’s wife tricked some of these villagers by making a deal with them where if they paid her in advance, she’d hook them up with a ride out. Instead, she took all the money and escaped by herself with my grand-uncle. My grandpa repaid every last person who was played, even if some of them refused to accept the money, and he ended up broke.
He died in 1995 of lung cancer.
I haven’t had a chance to ever meet him, but I love him so much and I’m so proud of him.
Young & Wanderlust 