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VAOHP0047 1 Vietnamese American Oral

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VAOHP0047 1 Vietnamese American Oral VAOHP0047 1 Vietnamese American Oral History Project, UC Irvine Narrator: DANH NHUT QUACH Interviewer: Michelle Pham Date: May 6, 2012 Location: Huntington Beach, California Sub-collection: Community Interviewers Length: 01:17:28 Transcriber: Khanh Bui Translator: Diane Tran DQ: My name is Quach Nhut Danh and I am a pharmacist, I was born in May 27th, 1939. MP: Where were you born? DQ: I was born in Sóc Trăng, Vietnam. MP: What is the city? DQ: The city is Sóc Trăng. MP: Ok, Can you tell a little bit about the memory of your childhood? DQ: How is the childhood memory? What do you want to know? MP: Like when you were young, your daily activities like waking up in the morning, having breakfast, go to school, what is your regular day? DQ: During that time as you know the time I lived in Việt Nam when I was young we lived under the French, so my parents sent me to school and our condition was very poor, very limited. My childhood was not like young people here…That time was before the war, after 1945 which was war time, I still went to school with the same poor condition and nothing compared here like I walked to school or if I rode my bike it did not even have a break, it was very hard. During the war time and after the war time with France, French people were exhausted, so our country Việt Nam went to a very hard and difficult condition during that period of time. I remembered when I was 9,10 years old, my father bought for me a bike as I said earlier that bike did not have a break, I had to ride until I wanted to stop then I put both my feet down to stop it. However, I only VAOHP0047 2 walked to school because I did not have a lock to lock my bike, so I just walked. Nowsaday I see young people have better condition. This 21st century is very different it provides lots better conditions. MP: How were your neighbors? DQ: My neighbors were fine. We were living hustlely closed togther in the Việt Nam society at that time. Our houses were closed so our neighbors were very happy, sweet and warm toward each other. MP: So do you have any brothers or sisters? DQ: Yes, I have 5 sisters and brother in our family. I am the oldest and I have 4 younger sisters. I’m the only son. MP: Do you have any special career? DQ: What do you mean by special career? MP: Did you study pharmacy inViệt Nam? DQ: Yes, that time in Việt Nam I went to pharmacy school after passing the French high school test. I studied everything under French school systems that time, so the way I learned about pharmacy was different from America. When I came over here I experienced the completed differences, only the basic such as the foundation of chemistry or biology was a little bit similar as it was more advanced here. MP: How is school? What are the differences between America and France schools? DQ: Do you want to know about that? MP: Yes. DQ: The French school system required to pass high school tests, and entered the pharmacy program for 5 years. During the first year, pharmacy student had to find a pharmacy store to VAOHP0047 3 work and gain experience, then started pharmacy school from the second year on until finished 4 years in school. That career was from French program at that time. It maybe change now, but during the time I studied pharmacy, the program taught in depth for a pharmacist to adapt more at the community, in the city or village. As I told you for example: the French Professor, who came from France, taught us what we should know very well as a pharmacist. In fact, they did not teach about clinical, only community pharmacy. They took plants and mushrooms to experiment which ones we could eat and which ones could not, and we had to teach people to be aware of poison mushrooms, it could kill people. The French program taught more about becoming a community pharmacist to serve the city, village or community pharmacy, and not only working in the clinic alone. MP: Were you marry in Việt Nam or here? DQ: Yes, that time I met my wife in pharmacy school in Việt Nam, she studied one year after me. MP: Oh, she also studied at pharmacy school. DQ: She was a pharmacist too. I met her at school. MP: When you met her, was it almost love at first sight? DQ: Yes, I was shy because my wife was very beautiful and there were lots of men went after her, so I had to try my best to find the way to get her attention. MP: How many children do you have? DQ: Àh, I had three children, two boys and a girl. My youngest one was born here, the two older ones Trí and Thuỳ Linh were born in Vietnam and came here when they were about 9 and 7 years old. VAOHP0047 4 MP: Did you tell your children about when you were in Việt Nam or did you keep it and not want to tell them? DQ: Yes, I told them stories, I told them about Việt Nam traditions, and how family traditions. Like doctor Trí had a family history, he asked me and I explained for him to understand as we were Vietnamese and how we kept our family together by keeping in touch with family members. Especially now they have facebook, we can keep in touch among our family members, and doctor Trí kept that very well. MP: Do you think that my generation now and the next generation later, is it important to keep Vietnamese traditions going? DQ: I think that is very important, we always have to remember our root. Our Vietnamese idiom said:“ While drinking from the stream, remember the source.” We always have to know where our root is. That is very important. Of course there is advanced in the modern country here, but keeping our root, tradition, and custom is very necessary. MP: If you see our generation and later generations, how do you convince me that it’s important ? Because I see some people in our generation and next generation used to say: “I am American, I am not ViệtNamese, my parents are ViệtNamese, but I am 100% American.” DQ: That is very subtle, but you have a very good question. To me I see most Vietnamese families wanted their children to know and keep their roots. We have a culture that has a long history of 4,000 years old. So we always have to address it just like I address to your generation and your generation addresses to the next generation. We have to remember our Vietnamese cultures, traditions. That is very important because that’s also the foundation for us to step on to the new society ladder. Like are you American now right? MP: Yes. VAOHP0047 5 DQ: But if you refuse to accept, I think when you are trained to remember your roots and your ancestors, you are willing to accept it. Your willingness is that acceptance. Maybe because no one passed those to you so you are easy to forget. MP: Do your family have an ancestors shrine to worship? DQ: Yes, we have. MP: How is the order arranged? Because I am Catholic so I am not familiar, Can you show me that? DQ: Remember the shrine is of course for any religion. We have only one Holy One from above, so we have to remember to have the only one who above all such as Catholic has God and for Buddhism, to me they have to have the one who created everything on earth, that is God. All religions are good. No religion is bad, but we have to remember our ancestors like our great grandparents, grandparents and parents. We have to have a shrine for them. MP: You have your ancestors on the shrine, so who are up there? Like my house, my mother has our grandparents’ shrine. She also has grandfather, grandmother, and uncle pictures. How about your shrine and who are in those pictures? DQ: I have my parents on the shrine. I also have my grandparents and great grandparents on the shrine in ViệtNam. I only have my parents and my wife’s parents here who are grandparents of doctor Trí. MP: I’m going to address about the Vietnam war, is that ok? DQ: Sure, ok. MP: How does the war in Vietnam affect your family and community? DQ: Ok, in Việt Nam , you know that you are lucky to be born here, but the generation of doctor Trí also do not know because he was too young. I am the one who directly influenced during that VAOHP0047 6 time, so during the Việt Nam war I had to join the army or served in military or government. I had to work for the government. MP: What did you do when you served for the government? DQ: I graduated in 1964, where were you by that time? MP: I was in heaven. DQ: In 1964 I got assigned to the government healthcare with three more people to the West while most of my friends joined the army or worked in military. Do you know the West? The West is … MP: In the south.
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