Film: The Beautiful Country
- Themes:
- Home
- Family
- Belonging
- Displacement
- Migration
- Reconciliation
- Being Other
- Sacrifice
- Hope
- Class
- The Beautiful Country centers around the life of Binh, a man born to an American man and a Vietnamese woman during the American-Vietnam War.
- America came into Vietnam, destroyed, and then left. American Soldiers birthed many children to Vietnamese woman during the war.
- Binh being of of American decent is an outcast in Vietnam, he is an other, he is resented because of a heritage he couldn’t control. That heritage though is the result of war.
More scars from war. - Binh leaves the country to go to Saigon to find his mother, They have a tearful apologetic reunion.
- Binh’s mother works for a much wealthier family in Saigon. She suffers abuse from both the mother of the family and and her son. She is forced to accept this as it is her only avenue of making money to provide for her son. The son sexually assaults Binh’s mother but both the mother and Binh are in a situation where they feel trapped in having to put up with him.
- The rich woman hitting Binh because he was holding something to help clean led to the rich woman falling, the item Binh was holding dropping, and the Rich woman dying.
- Binh is forced to find a way out of the country without his mother. He is tasked with keeping his little brother Tam safe and is given all of his mother’s money.
Binh looks to find a way to get to America. - Binh and Tam flee and get onto a boat headed for America. A storm takes them off course which lands them in Malaysia, once taken to a refugee camp Binh is interrogated and acts as if he is a full Vietnamese and does not understand them. Binh and are Tam taken in as a refugees.
- Binh is told he has the “face of the enemy”.
- Some of the girls in the camp sleep with the guards, with the hopes of getting out? Just seem to suffer abuse, the one girl had her hair cut.
- Binh, Tam, and Ling (Woman he met in the camp, gives him money to help escape with Tam) escape in a basket boat. Ling tries to give Binh and Tam all of her saved up money, Binh refuses to leave without her and she comes.
They get on a boat, are threatened with one choice of agreeing to work after they get to America in order to secure their passage.
Tons of other refugees on the boat, all with the same deal of wanting to get to America but being bound to these “Saviors” bringing them across the sea. - Promises of a prosperous future in America where it’s easy to rich are told to the “passengers”.
- While on board treated as cargo to be sold, not a person but a product from which profit could be drained.
- Tam dies of sickness, hunger, thirst, isn’t clear but either way the conditions were terrible and Tam dies.
Binh is forced to have a burial at sea for Tam then immediately gets angry at the guy who was hogging all the stuff, goes all beast mode on him, angry that he was hiding food and water for himself when people and kids were dying. - When Binh arrived in the beach in Malaysia it was beautiful and serene.
When Binh arrives at the beach in America it is trashy, gross and desolate. - Movie flashes forward to Binh in Chinatown , Ling works in a Chinatown bar enduring the college bros and creepy old dudes.
- Ling finds an old white guy to date and Binh gets angry.
- Binh writes to his mother about Tam and how sorry he is to have failed her. His mother probably lost her job, may have even gotten arrested, but never the less Binh feels responsible for what happened and sends her money and an apology.
- The Vietnam vets giving him a ride was hilarious.
- The Mexican guy giving him a ride was hilarious, “thought he was Mexican but he was Chinese”
- Binh arrives at a ranch in Texas and gets a job, the same job his dad has.
Binh meets his dad and obviously brings up a ton of memories.
Binh and his dad work as coworkers for a while before any inclination of a relationship begins being formed,
Binh always wanted to be a cowboy
The dad knew Binh was Vietnamese because he was “Blind not deaf”
An accident forced the Dad out of Vietnam, didn’t go back because he didn’t want to burden the mom with a blind man to take care of as well. - Binh and his dad connect over the pho Binh makes, it brings so many memories back to the dad, it was probably Binh’s mother’s recipe as well.
- The movie ends without outright saying it, but I believe that Binh and his father both knew the extent of their relationship.
Text: We Should Never Meet
Themes
Family
Home
Going Back
Forged Communities
Sexism
War
Sacrifice
Betrayal
Reconciliation
Responsibility
All the stories are interconnected through one way or another and when you figure out each one it’s like wow, just wow.
- Much like in all of the other stories we have read scars from war are present throughout this text as well.
Each of the character’s lives in these stories are heavily effected by the war and even if they aren’t able to remember it it still had a heavy effect on the characters. The war forced families apart, caused children to grow up without parents and parents to give up their children for the sole purpose of safety. - Family is heavy theme throughout this text.
- Huan, Mai, Kim, and Vinh’s stories all reflect different aspects of the Vietnamese war orphans.
Mai although given a foster home wasn’t given actual parents, just foster parents.
Vinh and Kim never had that, both of them lived much harder lives through the foster system.
Huan was given a set of adoptive parents that truly loved him as a son
Miss Lien:
Miss Lien tells the story of a woman in a landowning family who is forced to give up her child to the orphanage. Differences in generational views clearly depicted in this chapter once the entire book has been read. The idea of a baby having an American father would be helpful, these views are expressed by the other woman in the room when Miss Lien is having her child. Compared to later on in the story where it’s clear that being of American decent was something that became negative in Vietnam, understandably because of the war. American’s came in promised to help, fucked shit up, and then left.
Miss Lien is her parents hope.
Miss Lien finds a job in Saigon to send money back to her family because the war destroyed their rice paddies.
In the story Miss Lien is treated as a firstborn son and with that came the responsibility of making money when the father no longer could and supporting the family.
“Sons could go out and make money in place of the father and support the family. Daughters didn’t have the same liberties” (14).
Explores some women turning to prostitution as a means of supporting their family.
“I wasn’t either. And I won’t be for much longer. But it’s nice to eat. It’s nice to provide for your family”
The crying of the baby isn’t what bothered Lien it was seeing the baby’s face.
While working in the city Lien has to endure the Sexual assault by patrons because she would lose her job otherwise. Her boss blames her for hit saying she was flirting with the soldier.
“The money was too valuable. So Lien stayed. This was her responsibility” (20).
Lien was giving the child up but still fed it draining herself of much needed recourses.
Nun gives the Lien last chance to see the people who will take care of her baby.
The way all the stories are interconnected really impressed me.
Lien’s decisions are completely understandable given the circumstances surrounding them.
We Should Never Meet:
Focuses on Kim, a Vietnamese-American orphan in the United States. Author quickly paints a picture of Kim as low on money, with the needing to replace the borrowed beeper, th
e apartment, the doctor, all of it. Like in Dark Blue Suit, Kim’s friend Mai is going off to college, which would either way be leaving Kim behind.
“She wouldn’t mean to, but she’d leave Kim behind” (29)
Kim and Mai fail to steal a beeper and eventually go home.
Kim feels she was let off the hook because the store owner pities her for being mixed.
Kim lives with her ex-boyfriend Vinh, a gang member of the Brookhurst 354.
Vinh’s height being a problem for Kim surprised me.
Kim wanted a massage but Vinh went straight for the underwear,
“What?”
“I don’t want to.”
“What’s wrong? More nightmares?”
“Yes”
“Christ”
This exchange right her, like what the fuck Vinh.
When talking about their birth parents, Vinh is convinced they are dead, they were dead the moment they gave him away.
Vinh arrived in a boat
Kim arrived as part of Operation Babylift
The store owner talks to Kim at her work and invited Kim to come back into the store.
It’s clear that the store owner misses Vietnam.
Kim receives a birthday present from the woman in the form of the bracelet. A gift from mother’s to daughters.
Little Saigon depicted as growing into a sort of tourist attraction of sorts.
When Kim needs money she goes to the Store owner who rightfully so doesn’t want to give up $400 dollars to a stranger. Kim get’s mad, a ton of the issues around her and her own mother come up during this.
Kim runs home and gets Vinh and the boys to go rob her.
Vinh happy to please gathers up the gang starts the job.
Explores Vinh and his gang
“These weren’t bad boys, Kim had known most of them since they were kids. though they all had problems, most were friendly, funny, loyal. The only reason they could do the things they did is because they felt they had to. For years they’d been denied so much from their new country and government-issued families. they robbed these houses and stores to break even. to survive. They believed they had no other choice” (52).
The story ends with Kim regretting what she had sent upon the women.
What is the deal with Kim and the women, she thinks she is her mother?
Kim’s feelings about being an orphan shine through at the end of the story.
The Delta:
This story deals with the characters of Truc and Phuong.
It is clear at the beginning that their relationship has changed from what it once was. Truc is a from a family of Duck farmers. Phuong is from a family of rice farmers. Truc’s families ducks go chill in Phuong’s families rice paddies. Truc and Phuong were made for each other, destined to merge by the two families. When the war hits Truc’s father and older brothers all left to fight in the liberation front. Phuong on the other hand began hanging around nuns. Even though they were wealthy they were exposed to the plight of their country men. Phuong developed a need to help. While Truc was doing the farm business and Phuong was working at a clinic in the city they became essentially betrothed to one another. Truc was planning on building a house for them. Phuong was planning on other things. Phuong leaves Truc to join the monetary and help for her life, It was her choice and she chose god. Obviously this causes a split in their relationship.
Truc is later called upon because he has a truck and him and Phuong deliver 10 babies to a place in the city. Truc encounters Phuong’s apparent lack of compassion. The reality is that the lack of compassion id needed otherwise the work would break you. Truc and Phuon argue about the lord and how the Christians are tearing the country apart.
Over the years Phuong went from crying at the sight of the babies to a faceless expression.
Truc angry that Phuong didn’t bring food, Phuong couldn’t risk it.
Explores the argument of taking sides, Phuong doesn’t want to take a side just want the babies to live.
As Phuong began accepting the western things she became alienated by her community
Visitors:
This story covers two characters, Bac Nguyen and Vinh.
Bac is an old man who lost family during the war
Vinh is a young man who lost what would have been because of the war
Bac feels like by asking for help hat he is wasting the boy’s time
Vinh’s parents died in Vietnam
Bac lost a wife and kid in the war
Vinh blames the Americans for all the loss
Bac blames the Communists for all the loss.
The story I could not put down, the dynamic between these views alone compelled me to keep reading.
Bac’s home in America never felt like home, too American.
Bac keeps head down when police drive by on instinct, showing distrust of police.
The story explores the difference in views of the different kinds of Vietnamese-Americans in America.
Vinh is a dick
Gates of Saigon:
Either decision Hoa could have made would have been just that a choice.
I personally think it was a bad decision to stay, solely on the basis that Hoa had a husband and son in fighting in the liberation front. In addition to that Hoa lived with a patriotic widow of a South Vietnamese general. Also Hoa herself worked at the embassy with the Americans and with that information her entire family are targets.
Either way would have resulted in hardship.
Emancipation:
Mai’s story, deals with how her parents were never really parents and just there to help as many kids as possible. Mai plays into the orphan child to get into college. Mai’s friends expect her foster parents to help her. Mai has a breakdown where she yells at her foster parent about not acting like a real father.
Bound:
Bridget’s story is about her making her own choice to go to Vietnam and help the orphans there.
Her husband was a soldier and he saw Vietnam when it was beautiful and then he caused destruction.
Bridgette came to clean up the results of America in the war.
The reporter at the end who asked about why she wasn’t helping kids in America was great.
Many of the children were American is the thing.
Bridgette being unable to adopt Huan and the plane crash was crazy.
The parents at home hating Bridgette and her ex-husband defending her.
Sacrifice and Choice
Motherland:
Huan, Mai, and Huan’s adoptive mom Gwen are in Vietnam. Huan travels to the all the places he was when he was little. He meets Sophie and Phuong. Doesn’t believe how so many people wanted him. So many did in a way, adoptive parents and Bridgette. Mai always went to Huan’s house when they were younger. Mai buys a bracelet for kim. Gwen is more of an actual mom than the Reynolds.