18th century Japanese drawing of people capturing fireflies

Asian Cha | Flickering Little Lights

My creative nonfiction piece “Flickering Little Lights” appears in the September 2015 issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. Cha is an award-winning English online literary journal based in Hong Kong. “Fireflies are called flickering lights (đom đóm) in Vietnamese. As a child in the Mekong Delta, my husband saw them darting around the …” Read the rest here.…

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Thanks to Chris Galvin Nguyen for nominating me for the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award.” The award is a way for bloggers to share other websites they admire. I’m honored to be thought of by Chris who writes about living in Vietnam and shares her incredible photography on her blog. Here are the guidelines for accepting the award and nominating…

The Monkey King (Tề Thiên)

5 Interesting Facts

Here are 5 interesting facts about Catching Shrimp with Bare Hands: A Boy from the Mekong Delta. 1. The islands in the Mekong Delta where my husband grew up are Ship Island (Cồn Tàu) and New Dragon Island (Tân Long). Next door was Phoenix Island where the Coconut Monk had his elaborate pagoda. 2. He watched Bonanza…

Dangling Squash

Dangling Squash

Mướp squash grew over the water coconut leaf roof of the hut my husband’s family fled to during the Tết Offensive. Because he was small enough not to crash through the leaf roof, Lượng could sit up among the mướp squash watching the U.S. planes and helicopters retaliate by attacking a Việt Cộng base in…

Backyard Chicken

Expensive Chickens

My daughter has a job babysitting chickens for our neighbors when they’re on vacation. A side benefit is fresh eggs. Last time most of the chickens were molting, so she said they were crabby. They didn’t want her to pick them up. Only the one chicken that wasn’t molting was laying eggs. She gets paid quite…