An Unlikely French Upbringing

“My name is Pierre Le, Diana.  France, c’est mon pays natal.  It is my homeland.”  

This, coming from a man born and raised in Vietnam for half of his life, with Canada and the United States making up the other half. 

“I see you don’t believe me, Diana.  But it’s true.  Can you not hear the French in me?  Ce soir, je serai la plus belle pour aller danser…danser.  Tonight, I will be the most beautiful to go dancing. ”  

He punctuates the second danser with his arms stuck comically out at his sides, palms bent at a right angle with his forearms.  He walks away, sashaying his hips flamboyantly while humming the rest of the Sylvie Vartan tune.  Then, he quickly turns to look at me and with a straight face, yells, “DANSER!”  

My dad caught in the act.

I would normally say that my father is a thoroughly Vietnamese man: industrious, practical, level-headed.  But there are other cultural influences peppered throughout his personality.  From the French, he took that weirdly punishing desire to live for the tragedies in life.  Kind of like Lana Del Rey, who always seems to be mired in an unrequited love soap opera.  He’s completely aware of it, too, and has no qualms about poking fun at the French: “All the French sing about is oublier, crier, and pleurer.  Forgetting, screaming, and crying. Their movies are always sad.  All French movies end one of two ways, Diana.  One of the lovers die or both of the lovers die.  That’s it.  They never sing or watch happy things.  If a movie doesn’t end sad, it isn’t a good movie.”  He pauses and grins, “But I like it.”  

On family road trips, my parents would often play French songs popular during their childhood, and true to my father’s word, none of the songs proved to be particularly cheerful songs.  Unrequited love, lost love, dying love, the French just never got their shit together in the relationship department. But like my parents, my sister and I learned to revel in the tragic.    

I joke, but I can see myself being very French, sitting in a cafe on the Left Bank in a trench coat, spouting existential nonsense, silently weeping about life and the sentiment of it all.  “One must choose in life between boredom and suffering,” the French often say.  Of course, the pragmatic Vietnamese side of me thinks French brooding is utterly useless, so I try to release that French outlet elsewhere.  My music and film taste tend to run along more melancholy lines, and I can always find myself crying after reading a satisfactorily heartbreaking autobiography.   

Even if the French don’t necessarily go about it the right way, they are onto something.  Life in a lot of ways is tragic.  My parents can certainly attest to that.  They’ve seen friends come and go, to war or to escape, never to be heard from again.  They hold a lot of regret for missed opportunities and missed connections, but instead of wallowing, they default back to being Vietnamese, trudging along and accepting the circumstances for what they are. 

It’s slightly odd that my dad never actually says, “I am Sơn Lê, Diana.  Việt Nam, đó là quê cha đất tổ.”  Maybe it’s because it would state the obvious.  Or maybe being Vietnamese is something so ingrained into himself, he doesn’t need to explain it.  Hip undulations and sashaying, c’est pas nécessaire.