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Moonlight Refugee

by Hai Yen Ho| June 17, 2025 | Literature

Photo © by Hai Yen Ho

Ever since I was a child, I have always known that the world around me was much larger, that it was not limited to a small market, a moldering temple with a desolate courtyard, a solid church that I had not entered, rows of houses, schools, and a highway. That poor and ragged landscape never limited my imagination. I did not know how I got there, but I always knew that one day I would leave it. I knew I would travel to other vast places, reach the tops of mountains, dive to the bottom of the sea, and talk to people in every corner of the world.

For a long time, I have been obsessed with such things: the top of the mountain, the bottom of the sea, new journeys, new people, old backpack, and worn-out shoes. I have a special locker for what I need for such trips, and when the time comes, it takes me less than ten minutes to pack everything and leave. Most of my trips were unplanned, with no destination, no place to sleep, no acquaintances, and sometimes, no common language. I don’t deny the countless troubles I encountered, and will likely encounter if I continue to travel this way, but these journeys are still incredibly alluring to me. I know that I will feel uncertain and insecure as soon as I set foot in a new place. I know that I may have to walk for hours without finding a safe place to sleep. I know that I may suffer from hunger for a while. I know that I may not have anyone to support me on this journey. But I know that, in the short time, I will be staying in a place I never thought I would, doing things I never expected to do, and living like a local for the rest of my trip. That prospect is an attraction that no carefully planned trip can provide. That unplanned coincidence, I consider as a way to test myself, to reveal the possibilities that a comfortable life cannot bring.

At least once in a lifetime, everyone ponders their birth. Why was I born in that corner of the world, among countless corners of the world? Why that day, from this father and mother? If I were born elsewhere, at another time, from another father and mother, what would my life be like now? These questions keep repeating in my head during my trips, reminding me of who I am in this life. I have asked myself the question of who I am countless times, but I have the feeling that it is only during these uncertain journeys that this question truly takes on its full power. If I were a child born in this rural or bustling place, the child of farmers or city dwellers who are passing by, how would my life turn out? In the end, are our lives shaped by our subjective actions, or more by the objectivity of the things around us, the things that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot replace? And that, in the end, am I satisfied with my life, satisfied with myself, or am I just constantly dissatisfied and thinking that I deserve something better?

Sometimes, in the past, I felt that I was unlucky to be born in a poor, desolate countryside, a place that had not yet developed before becoming shabby, had not yet become rich before becoming vulgar, had not yet matured before becoming frustrated. From a distance, it looks like a pile of ashes from the fires of old ruins, mixed with lots of dust, new mortar, beams, and steel that hold them together. It is like an empty house built on the foundation of a wilderness where anything can become an opposite version of itself: the red, dusty ground in the dry season becomes super sticky in the rainy season; the rubber forests are absurdly straight next to the hard, rough coffee trees with no definite shape; the Ede and Ba Na people always silently and calmly step into the bustling place of immigrants, where the Ha Tinh and Thai Binh accents mix with the tones of Phu Yen and Quang Ngai. It is a strange mixture of purity and impurity, of nature and artificial, of silence and noise, of peace and violence, of natives and complex immigrants from all over the country, the North, the Center, the South, forming a chaotic whole that is always latent with contradictions. Those contradictions endure, and I still cannot think of a way to eliminate them.

But as I grow up, a part of me tells me that I was very lucky to be born in such a land, that my parents were brave people, or had no choice, to leave their homeland in the hope of making a life in a new land, that they could do nothing but do their utmost simply to survive, that not only my parents, but everyone around me, regardless of their backgrounds and accents, all carried the same spirit and enthusiasm. Living in a place where everyone had their own story, my ability to reflect and tell stories was nurtured little by little. Struggling in a place full of contradictions, my being was also split into two opposing halves, which increasingly went in two different directions. The desire to leave for a new place and explore my own potential to the fullest also came from the same spirit. When I consider each step of my development, I can hardly find a reason to complain. In a chaotic place where everyone struggled to find food and a way to live, I grew up in a well-off family, where I had just what I needed but not everything I wanted. As I grew up, I realized that having everything too easily was the most destructive weapon in the world. I, by contrast, could study in peace and still reflect on the less fortunate circumstances of my friends around me. I realized that education could make all the difference in the future. The raggedness and decay of the surrounding landscape unintentionally highlighted all the sparkling and attractive aspects of certain individuals or phenomena. When I realized this, I understood that my perspective and attitude would determine the kind of people I met in life. This place, a remote countryside, was my destiny, and I was in no position to blame my fate.

I was born on the evening of May 22, 1993, the year of the “storm of the century,” a systematic combination of weather conditions that attacked humanity:  snow from eastern Canada to Alabama, tropical storms in Australia and the Philippines, earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, and continuous rain and floods in Vietnam. Half a world away, the World Trade Center in the United States was attacked by a group of Muslim terrorists. The memorial fountain erected to commemorate those who were lost in the attack was later destroyed along with the rest of the building in the September 11 terrorist attacks and was never restored. A mining accident in Ecuador and a fire at a toy factory in Thailand became the worst industrial disasters in each country’s history. South Africa officially abolished its centuries-old apartheid regime. Russia experienced a constitutional crisis known as “Black October” that shook the country… Also, that year, there were 5.577 billion people living on earth, of whom 134.69 million were born, and 50.77 million died; the birth rate, marriage rate, and divorce rate all decreased worldwide compared to the previous year. I learned all of this information when I was growing up. I wanted to know what was happening in the world when I was born, and how small the birth of a 2.7-kilogram baby seemed compared to such events. I was among those 134.69 million new people who appeared on this earth, and among those 50.77 million who disappeared was my grandmother, who passed just three months after I was born. Our almost simultaneous appearance and disappearance brought a certain balance to the world. Although that meant I had no memory of her, I always felt that I had known her for a long time, that she had been present throughout my childhood, like all other children. Perhaps because I was aware early on that in life, we encounter both death and life, and our job is to live our part well until we die.

The vision of death affected me more than most children. Or at least, that’s what I thought. Having thought a lot about death since I was a child, I had developed the idea that I needed to explore everything I wanted before I lost consciousness. What drew me back to my travels again and again was not just the tall buildings, the majestic waterfalls, the deserted beaches, the photos no one is expecting, but rather, the dark, hazy images of a dead mind. Never thinking of myself as someone who would stick to a familiar place until time took it away, I defined the meaning of life through the journeys I took, the people I met, and the thoughts I had along the way. And because I still can’t find a reason to stop traveling, I think fate has orchestrated a life for me that keeps me constantly on the move and a mind that always grows excited when contemplating travel to a new destination. I don’t know when I will let go of that mentality, or in other words, stop thinking about how to embark on a journey, even if only in my mind.

Maybe, not until I die.