After a few years at the Department of Social Services, I was assigned to train new hires. One day, I had the "opportunity" to demonstrate to a group of four employees how to deal with an ill mannered " homeless " female client.

Miss J., my antagonist, had created quite a stir when she walked in that morning. Showing our receptionist her eviction notice, she had demanded immediate cash assistance so she could go get a motel room for temporary residence. Informed that she would have to wait, to fill out forms and provide required papers, she threw a tantrum and demanded to speak directly to the district chief.

It took a stocky security officer to escort her out of the office and, after some firm persuasion, she calmed down and accepted an appointment for that afternoon.

When I entered the interview room, barely a minute after we had J. sent in, I found her slumped over the table as if she was ready to go to sleep. I gave her a perfunctory but courteous welcome, introduced myself and my charge. She straightened herself up slowly, not making any attempt to conceal her contempt or weariness. Even if she was to maintain her silence, her expression of sullenness and arrogance was enough to irritate any one who had to face her. But she would not be silent. She set off cursing and complaining about the reception she had earlier that morning.

There were the five of us sitting across from her on one side of a long table that divided the room. Yet that imbalance of presence did not seem to have much effect on her or would induce her to behave in a more appropriate way. Her contemptuous glares seemed to tell us that comparing to law enforcement officers she probably frequently had to deal with, social workers like us were nothing to fear.

I signaled to J. to stop talking so we could begin the interview. Obstinately, she added on:

"Should anything happen to me or my kids because you guys delay the damn money, I'll hold all of you responsible!"

I felt anger rising. Offended, one of my new female co-workers blurted out:

"You should watch your language! You're swearing too much!"

"There is no law against swearing!" J. retorted.

At that moment, the door behind J. swung open from the waiting room. A boy about three years old came in and, looking straight at me, asked for candies. I told him no. He asked for colored pencils as he bent down, getting ready to crawl under the table toward me. J. grabbed him as she told us his name and sat him down on the chair next to her. But the boy jumped off and ran back out, squealing " I want to be with Daddy! ".

I asked J.:

"Who's Daddy?"

"He's referring to my roommate. My kid likes to call him Daddy and I let him. But the guy is neither his real father nor the father of the child I'm bearing."

"How long have you been living together?"

"Slightly more than three years. But we never slept together!"

J. had kept her face down as she was answering my questions, undoubtedly knowing she was insulting our intelligence. But as she was telling me they never slept together, she looked straight at us as if she was trying to tell us she knew we wouldn't believe her but there's nothing we could do about it.

Asked for her driver's license, she said she did not have it with her; any I.D with photo? None!; automobile registration? Stolen!...

I informed her that since she claimed she was homeless, I would arrange for a social worker to find her a homeless shelter. She immediately turned down the offer, stating that she would not want to live with other homeless people, that she wanted a motel room...

To make a long story short, the interview went like that for more than half an hour. I could have ended it several times in view of her uncooperative attitude, her profanity and inconsistencies but did not do so. I patiently explained to her the process, walked her through various forms and provided her with a list of locations where she could obtain immediate food assistance.

Afterward, Melinda, one of the sharpest new trainees asked me:

"How could you stay so calm when you deal with such kind of people?"

"My professional courtesy demands it," I summarily replied, sensing a casual student-teacher indirect praise.

"You have gone way beyond your duty to assist her. What's your secret to maintaining your cool in similar circumstances?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Show us your secret!" The rest of them chimed in.

For one reason or another, two weeks passed before I had an opportunity to speak to them about my " secret ".

It would have been easy if it was something I had learned from some books. All I would have to do was to write down the name of the books. But I actually derived my strategy from a short story by one Vietnamese writer, Mr. Vo Phien. I saw the story, titled " The Lost Youth ", in Bach Khoa magazine about thirty years ago. One particular paragraph was especially touching and it had created an image that had remained with me since, frequently influencing my thoughts.

The main character of the story, an old bachelor, in one particular encounter with a call girl, saw a small scar on her body. As he was about to consume the transaction, he spotted the scar on her naked shoulder, a scar created by a small pox immunization in her childhood. He stopped dead in his tracks, paralyzed by emotion.

I found the image deeply moving. I visualized a mother and her husband happily taking their infant child to a clinic to get immunized. I could see their hope and dream for a healthy, wonderful life for her; doing all they could to ensure her a bright future. I could picture her, as a grown woman, suffering in her profession, carrying on her harsh existence with that minuscule symbol of her parents' hope forever etched on her flesh.

I sincerely told my new young colleagues I had my doubts as to whether that story would help them as it had helped me. It had truly helped me to keep my patience in dealing with some ill behaved client. It had helped me to shed any lingering anger after such an incident. But it made me often find myself thinking of several generations while interviewing one person.

Facing a drug addicted, delinquent woman like Ms. J., I would subconsciously picture and feel sorry for her parents; wonder about their existence; ask myself since when had this child of their hope and dreams given them heartaches? The once beautiful infant child had grown up to be a wretched person without even basic social skills to obtain public assistance! I had my anger but I could not refuse her my help because had I done so, I would be violating the expectations of the unlucky parents.

In March 1991, Mr. Vo Phien had another published story that contains a very touching segment. He wrote about certain Hawaiian birds:

" ...The Barre doves of Hawaii are small, furtive birds. They live close to the ground, moving around quietly and always in pairs.

It is obvious the principle of yin and yang applies equally to all living species, even though the pairing of male and female usually only happens at certain maturity stage and after much frantic search. It is the same way with humans. Yet some exceptions occur, by special Divine intervention, and among them this particular specie of doves.

These Barre doves never have to search for mates. It seems that God, omnipotent and omniscient, foreseeing the chill of loneliness, had arranged for these birds to have a mate at birth. To be more accurate, one would say these doves have mates even before they are born. As an egg it is already paired up with another egg, side by side. The two have yet to become living creatures, being two mere spoonful volumes of liquid life substance, but they are facing life and death together oblivious to the absolute freezing temperature of outer space. Then, the time has come to hatch. One dove pecks its shell open, peeks out... and there, next to it, its companion has done likewise! It would be the first time they see each other yet they had been together since back when and there would be no shyness. Life is comfortable at the very first moment. No fear. No crying at birth. No tear at adolescence, puberty. No heartbreak sobbing at train stations, coffee shops... And when they reach adulthood, when they reach that yin and yang stage of relationship they will be joyfully singing of a life with a companion. The Barre doves of Hawaii do not look elegant with their short legs and short necks, but they definitely have the characters of loyal, faithful beings.

...One day, on the beach of Kapaa on Kauai island, near my hotel, I saw a heart wrenching scene. At one corner of the building, there was a bush of banana plants - about five or six of them - on the lawn next to a high traffic walk-way. Walking by one evening around 8 o'clock, I spotted a pair of barred dove among that clump of plants. My footsteps had probably stirred them out of their fitful sleep and their movements caught my eyes. I wondered why they had chosen to stay so near to the pathway of humans.

I recalled later of having seen earlier in the day a barred dove without its tail, feeding on the lawn. Gradually I sensed perhaps the bird was wounded by some cat and could no longer fly away. Its mate did not abandon it but chose to stay together, huddling at night near the banana plants despite all dangers.

Birds do not mate at night. Those two were together, not out of sexual urges, but out of companionship, regardless of possible harms.

Think of how one bird would risk its life for the sake of a lifelong companionship! Two birds, one tail. Should a stray cat wander by, the other tail may also be gone! Even worse, they both may just lose their lives!

Tails or no tails, life or death, nothing seems important, as long as they are by each other. How can one not feel for those barred doves?"... .nf (The Chill of Loneliness - Vo Phien)

By excerpting just a portion of Mr. Vo Phien story, I have probably made a disservice to his talent. " The Chill of Loneliness " is about much more meaningful things than mere pondering on the loyalty between these birds.

Should you find nothing outstanding in this excerpt, there is no need to worry or to re-read over and over to analyze it. I no longer have this longing for his works to be widely read. Years ago, I had this regret that my children could not read Vietnamese which would enable them to read Mr. Vo Phien's books. I regretted that billions of people, you among them, could not enjoy his works for lack of language.

I have since become more understanding with all, for it is not easy to grasp his nuances. Some literary works require readers to have fluency in the language, deep understanding of the vocabulary, style, and occasionally the sound of each word; to enjoy it to the fullest. Mr. Vo Phien's book sometimes asks for even more. To be his ideal reader, one should have experienced his childhood and adulthood in Vietnam, and some of it should be spent in the countryside as well.

Many well educated Vietnamese could not truly appreciate Mr. Vo Phien's talent until they were well into their forties.

And even then each enjoys different things from his books, not unlike how I was especially moved by the story of a scar on a woman shoulder or the above story of the doves.

How many times have I seen a couple of birds in my back yard and found nothing worth noticing. Then Mr. Vo Phien's story of two doves invaded my mind with images of the Barre Dove couples, and other similarly blessed species, living all over the Earth. Those creatures came into the world with a vow engraved in their souls, "We'll be together in happiness or in danger, until death do us part." It was so cute.

A small immunization scar on a human arm is unsightly, I know. But when I read Mr. Vo, I found myself thinking of millions of those marks of parental love stamped on millions of babies all over the world, repeated from generation to generation, I am amazed by how cute, how beautiful this giant blue marble, our planet, can be.

Well, it appears that I like Mr. Vo Phien's works a little too much. Perhaps because I always have appreciated nature. And to me, the beauty of nature does not manifest itself only in towering mountains or deep canyons, but also in the immense capacity for love engraved in our hearts, and in the absolute devotion within the relationships of some special species.

These invisible natural wonders enthrall me no less than the very conspicuous grand vistas of nature.

Dear James Keeran,

I have not written much of anything but Mr. Vo Phien's literary work in this letter. There are several reasons.

If you would recall, in my wife's diary published in the Pantagraph in October 1975, it was mentioned that Mr. Vo Phien and I were so disheartened by the loss of our country we had planned to stop writing. One of the reasons of this letter is to let you know Mr. Vo has resumed writing quite a while ago.

The second reason is to share with you a personal dream. I dream that all nations in the world have at least one writer like Vo Phien, at least one composer like Pham Duy, at least one poet like Nguyen Sa. I dream that all leaders of nations have the opportunity to read something similar to Vo Phien's stories and are as touched as I was.

It is true that there are countless literary works, movies, plays or real life stories that move one more than Mr. Vo Phien's. But normally one's sympathy is directed more toward certain specific character of each work, maybe a father, maybe a mother, for example. Rarely is one's sympathy extended out to all hapless parents as in reading Mr. Vo's.

I think these types of stories and books will be our best defensive weapons in our struggle against a man made Armageddon, a final war made possible by the incredible intellectual power of the human brain.

At this very moment, our best minds are working hard to create either new technologies to serve mankind or new weapons to destroy mankind. Some nations stealthily produce these weapons for a future invasion of a neighbor. Others justify them as defensive strategy. It does not matter what the motives are. What matters is that man will have a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction on hand for future generations to use.

With increasing population and dwindling natural resources, it is not hard to imagine how conflicts will increase. On top of that, man, with his survival instinct, his avarice, his selfishness, all of which have made him usurp present resources vis a vis other species, probably would not preserve, protect those resources for later generations. Is our planet possibly facing the bleak prospect of turning into another lifeless planet spinning senselessly in the infinite cosmos?

Neither you nor I, nor anybody else would want that. I doubt the Creator would want that. For the Creator had engraved in our hearts a defensive move: our love of life.

In the future, should this Earth resemble a house full of children living in a jungle of weapons...should there be no law, no authoritative figure to control them; their survival would depend solely on the wisdom, the self control of each child. At that time...

Well, dear James Keeran, let's not sadden ourselves with gloomy thoughts. Dream with me. Let's hope that in those circumstances, each and every child will have in his mind a story, a paragraph not unlike one from Mr. Vo Phien's books. A story, a paragraph that elicits in our hearts a profound feeling.

• Co Lai Chinh Chien... - Chapter 6

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