One summer when I was already a middle-aged man, we took a trip to Grand Cayman Island.
As we drove along a winding road to our hotel, my son, now ten years old, pointed toward the roadside trees flowering in scarlet blossoms and said, Dad, what’re those trees? Those, I said, flame trees. He rolled down the car window and leaned out and said, We don’t have those back home, how come? I said, They only grow in tropical countries, we have them in Vietnam too. My wife, American and a Virginia native, said, I’ve seen them before, I remember those flowers, what’re they called in Vietnamese? Phượng, I said, a female name too. She repeated the word, Foong? Yes, I said, Foong, going with her accent.
As we drove along a winding road to our hotel, my son, now ten years old, pointed toward the roadside trees flowering in scarlet blossoms and said, Dad, what’re those trees? Those, I said, flame trees. He rolled down the car window and leaned out and said, We don’t have those back home, how come? I said, They only grow in tropical countries, we have them in Vietnam too. My wife, American and a Virginia native, said, I’ve seen them before, I remember those flowers, what’re they called in Vietnamese? Phượng, I said, a female name too. She repeated the word, Foong? Yes, I said, Foong, going with her accent.
