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John first learned of study abroad programs in college in Washington, DC. Study abroad programs allow you to study in a foreign country for an entire semester and actually get credit for it. Without hesitation, he knew of only one country he wanted to go to. The country his family had such mixed feelings for. The country his grandmother could not speak about without tears running down her eyes. The country he had left at the age of two on a cramped wooden boat with strangers. The country was Vietnam.
Meanwhile, in a small college town west of Philadelphia, Vi was also contemplating which country she wanted to go to for the semester. Like John, Vi’s motivations for studying abroad in Vietnam related to all the stories and pictures that surrounded her childhood. She had left war-torn South Vietnam under similar circumstances. Forced to leave a country she had barely known, she arrived in the United States at the age of seven. She knew she had to go back one day. That day came in the fall of 1998.
In the fall of 1998, 15 Americans and Vietnamese-Americans from different colleges around the United States arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam. The group stayed at a guesthouse occupied by many foreigners adopting Vietnamese children. The guesthouse was less than a few miles away from the local university, where they would attend classes for the next few months.
It was anything but love at first sight for Vi and John. They would see each other everyday around the guesthouse and the university, but nothing ever happened other than the typical “hello, how are you” type conversations. At the time, Vi made it known to everyone she was hopelessly in love with her high school boyfriend, whom she had been dating for three years. But it was obvious to John what Vi was attempting to do. She just didn’t want to be bothered with men trying to hit on her so she could concentrate on her studies. This didn’t matter to John, because he wasn’t interested either. That is, until the third week of classes when Vi got her infamous haircut, which made her look like a whole new person.
The following day, John stood outside the classroom when he saw an unfamiliar person riding her bicycle to school. Not realizing the “new” girl in school was Vi, John thought to himself how he could have missed seeing such a pretty girl around school for the past three weeks. When John found out the “new” girl was Vi, the chase was on.
John started off in the intermediate Vietnamese language class, but quickly asked to be transferred to the advanced Vietnamese language class where Vi was. The instructors gave John an examination to see if he could be placed in the advanced class. And he passed with flying colors. John immediately impressed Vi with his language skills and wit, and the two grew closer over the next few months. They often rode their bicycles together to school in the morning, ate lunch together, and exchanged notes and played footsies during classes. On the weekends, they would attend church together and John often invited Vi over to his aunt’s house in Saigon to have a meal or two. They simply enjoyed each other’s companionship.
Vi often reminded John she still had a boyfriend in the United States. Undeterred, John kept pushing the limits with Vi and to prove to her he was the one. Things became so heated between them John even shared his toothbrush with Vi when she “misplaced” hers during a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. John eventually grew on Vi like mold underneath a damped carpet.
It took several more months of convincing after they returned to the United States, but John finally had the woman of his dreams. Vi and John’s lives were originally separated by less than a hundred miles where they were born in Vietnam. It was only fitting the two returned to their birth country to learn about their background, and found each other along the way.