Tales of an Expat Tourist, a Haiku Collection from Viet Nam

In March 2015, I returned to my country of birth, Viet Nam, for the first time since fleeing as a child refugee in April, 1980. It had been almost 35 years, and pretty much everything was different from the way I had remembered it. While the trip was planned to some extent, I did not know what to expect for most of it. For example, just because I knew Aunts, Uncles and cousins awaited to welcome me, there was no telling how we would get along. I also had no idea how I would react to all the natural things in life there, from extreme poverty to bribery. Then there were all kinds of things and experiences I did not know about to even anticipate encountering.