Who are you, Trynn Diesel?

Well, it's about time, so allow myself to introduce myself. I’ve delayed it long enough. I'm a rather shy and private person, so it's hard for me to write about myself. On the other hand, I think that for readers to better appreciate what's written in this weblog, they would probably need to know a little about my background.

My dad was a bicycle repairman (now a Goodyear mechanical technician). He had a small business in bicycle accessories and repairs in Vietnam. My mom joined the business when she married my dad. Mom and youngest brother were inseparable, up until adulthood. He was a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), captured and was sent to a "re-education" camp, where he suffered from harsh labor, malnutrition, torture, and solitary confinement for ten years. He now lives in San Francisco with his wife. My other three uncles had been killed during the war. On April 1973, my oldest brother was born. His father was an American soldier. When U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, his father disappeared. I don’t know how my previous generation survived those war-time years. My mom and her son contemplated about escaping Vietnam on a boat, but my grandmother would not approve any of it because the life and death risks. After a couple of failed attempts, my mom decided to stay and remarry. There was also life and death risks for staying. My brother was of mixed-raced, Mỹ Lai, and was regarded as bụi đời (lowest of the low) by the xenophobic ignoraneous Vietnamese communists. My mom burnt his birth certificate in order to hide the ethnicity for fear of persecution by the communists. For some time, Big Brother was denied educational and vocational opportunities by the government. My mom dyed his hair darker in hope that he’d blend in, and it worked! The situation would have been a lot more difficult for Mỹ Lai đen, whose father is an African American serviceman. At any rate, Big brother was picked on, teased and humiliated at school by his peers and teachers. After school, they would beat him for no particular reason. Luckily, Big brother was bigger than his peers and had longer legs for running.

Eight years after Big Brother’s birth, I was born in a small village near Bến Tre, South Vietnam, on November 1981. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Brother was born the following year in 1982, and in 1989 Brother in Black was born. We lived quietly by the Mekong Delta, and we experienced eight months a year of monsoon season every year. The Communists seized a chunk of my dad’s business, which was passed down from his dad, and confiscated several hectares of our land. My dad was left with two or three acres, and we used them for harvesting sugar canes. We would plant a few banana trees, papaya trees and some herbs along the bank of the Tiên Giang River. It was fun trying to run through the nearby rice patties and sugar cane brushes, chasing across fragile wooden stick bridges with my brothers and cousins. Most of the scars on me tell a tale of those wonderful adventures. A few of them tell how stupid I was as a kid (still not very smart today). We had a thin black Labrador dog and a pet monkey. Grandma had chickens and pigs. My uncle loved chickens to the point that he trains the roosters for “professional” cock fights. We do what we can to survive after the war.

In 1992, Big Brother was finally accepted into the U.S Ameriasian program. Big Brother requested that the whole family go with him to America or none at all. Mom and Dad gathered all our family savings and said our goodbyes and left almost immediately. We were sent to Baatan, Philippines for seven months of screenings and processing. The refugee camp in Baatan was not much better than the land we were used to in Bến Tre. We experienced bad water that led to diarrhea (one of my first English words) and dysentery. There were earthquakes that killed several Vietnamese refugees. I remember playing football (soccer) with some peers in front of our cabin housing, and suddenly we were dropped to the ground hanging on to the grass. I thought that was fun; my folks thought differently. After all the paper work was completed, we were boarded on an airplane to America. I was so happy to have left that place. The screening process was inhumane and the treatments with the refugees were somewhat cruel.

I’ve been living in Prince George’s County, Maryland ever since I came to America. School was tough, but I pressed on. I’m the first in my family generation to graduate from High School and College. I had never seen so many cars on the road, and the people were always in such a big hurry to anywhere. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Brother, Brother in Black and I were young, so we adjusted well to the society. My folks and Big Brother had a culture shock of their lives. I went to Seat Pleasant Elementary on Martin L. King Hwy, and then transferred to Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary. I finished Junior High at Greenbelt Middle and failed the admission exam to Eleanor Roosevelt Overrated High. These were the years of high alert for bomb threats and shootings in Prince George’s public schools. A lot of Vietnamese families migrated to Montgomery County for safer and better education, but my folks would not move because of their (minimum-wage) job locations. My godparents, GG and JA, (bless their hearts) insist that I enroll in a Catholic school: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton High. Now, don’t be offended. I love the experience and the friends I made at Saint Seton and the dudes at DeMatha High, but I hated that school. I hate that you have to pay to go there. I didn’t like the uniform policy. Some of the girls are too R-rated for me (at the time). Although, I think St. Seton High is one of the best Prince Georges County private schools I’ve been fortunate to attend. GG and JA strongly encouraged me to apply for college and helped me financially during the first years. I chose Gettysburg College because they needed minorities and because they were generous in financial aids. I picked Biology (and later add on Environmental Studies) because I know my folks would disapprove and because it was a tough major. One does not take Organic Chemistry just for fun! I’ll never admit that I selected the concentration because of a guy, damn it, that’s not me anymore. I’m a sucker for outdoors activities and live concerts. My longest relationship was barely four months, but I digress.

Obviously, English is my second language, and my compooter skills are quite limited. You become an artist when you can read binary codes. I had no training in writing or journalism or law. Television is my ultimate ESL instructor. I was hesitant about continuing the blog until a Multi-talented Wicked Smahrt friend encouraged me to maintain this path, as a venue to collect my thoughts at the end of the day. Let’s see how this adventure turns out.

So, what’s this blog about? Whatever the hell I damn well pleased! Well, you can tell a little bit already. I just want to share my thoughts on any number of things that occur to me. I have great reverence for the health of the environment, such as renewable and sustainability. Wildlife conservation is one of my passions. I read progressive news every other day. Did I mention I like beer? Awwh yeah. Despite my mild allergy, I take pleasure in the taste of Heineken and Bud Lite.

Now, I ain’t no intellectual. I am not a historian, gosh no, I fall asleep reading history books. I try to take a step back and look things from both sides and bring a certain bias to the table. I am a progressive liberal. I own about 100 CDs and play the violin recreationally. I am proud to say that I have friends from States I didn’t know existed when I was in the 10th grade and have friends from some other parts of the world. I like to travel when the mood strikes. I don't care where you live, what your sex is, what your sexual preference is (as long as it doesn't involve children or hurting people), what color your skin is, or what your religion is-- unless you're in a mind-controlling-death cult. I am a member of no organized religion. So why coba007? My three nephews and nieces call me “cô ba”, and Golden Eye 007? Because I’m licensed to kill! haha. ¿Por qué es su nombre Trynn Diesel? Because I’m Vin Diesel’s twin, haha! My college friends nicknamed me at the time when I threw a wicked hard frisbee across the parking lot and because I broke Kaiser’s wrist (ok, I stretched his tendons, but he had a cast on for a week!). Or was it because I could not explain the properties between petrodiesel, synthetic diesel and biodiesel. I dunno.

For personal reasons, I would like to remain anonymous for now. I like comments and criticisms, but if they’re spam, I’ll have to cyber delete you. One more thing, I love this country and extremely grateful for everything that she has given my family and millions of other Vietnamese-Americans. There is one too many things I disagree with politics, like our dim-witted Dubya and the sneaky oil tycoons that are running the country. Anywho, I maintain an Amazon Wish list, which may give you some insight into my interests. I hope you like ‘aiueo sometimes y’, my online journal, if you ever stumble upon it. I truly am a shy person, really; I hate talking about myself.