Ethnic Vietnamese keep flame burning in distant Guam

From WIRE REPORTS

            For most people, Guam in the western Pacific Ocean conjures up images of brutal European colonization, World War II, and U.S. military bases.

            But this U.S. territory is also home to a large Vietnamese community that keeps its native culture thriving.

            “There are around 200 [ethnic] Vietnamese here, and as many as 25 Vietnamese restaurants, and each of them has pho,” said Jennifer Ada Mai Anh, Vietnamese ambassador at large in Guam, who helped to arrange a recent media visit to the island.

            All was quiet when the media delegation arrived at 4 a.m. after flying from Sai Gon to Taipei. The visitors had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant named Truong’s, where pho was served with other Vietnamese noodle soups and fried spring rolls. Trang, the restaurant owner, said her family moved to Guam dozens of years ago and has run the restaurant since.

            The family grows all the herbs needed for the noodle soups since the soil is not much different from Viet Nam’s.

            Vietnamese restaurants in Guam have formed a community and there is more support than competition, owners said.

            Sang, from Viet Nam’s southern province of Soc Trang, whose family runs a shop named “Pho,” said the island has nearly 200,000 people and most of them like Vietnamese food.

            Eddie Baza Calvo, Guam‘s governor, told the delegation that in fact Vietnamese food is often served to honored guests to the island.

               But the most famous Vietnamese on the island is not a restaurant owner but a doctor, who says all Vietnamese on the island are his patients.

            Nguyen Van Hoa of Nha Trang has been on the island since 1995. His family left Viet Nam before 1975 when he was very young, and he studied medicine in the United States.

            He started with a small clinic and then joined several other doctors to open a private hospital, which now sees 100 people or more every day. Hoa said he plans to bring his wife and daughter to Viet Nam next March to provide free treatment to poor people and help poor students.

            Anh, the ambassador, does her bit to keep Vietnamese culture alive in Guam.

            Her family also left for the United States before 1975, and they went to Guam in 1987 to open a restaurant. She married into one of the richest families on the island, which owns major real estate groups and the Bank of Guam.

            With a cousin-in-law being a former Guam governor, it was not hard for her to get the current Guam governor and as well as Madeleine Z. Bordallo, a non-voting delegate of the U.S. House of Representatives, to greet the delegation.

            Anh brought 80 life-size buffalos made of fiberglass from Viet Nam, where it is an iconic animal, to decorate Guam‘s streets and offices.             “I wanted to add some Vietnamese spirit here,” she explained.

            She has recommended that the Guam government should have more potted plants and pottery products from Viet Nam in public places.            Her own house has a garden with bamboo, a symbol of Vietnamese villages, and two fiberglass buffalos. It also has some dragon fruit trees, a typical central Vietnamese fruit.

            Anh’s contribution to Viet Nam is not merely about decoration.

            She said she has convinced many Japanese businesses to invest in Sai Gon since 2005 and has been doing her part to improve Viet Nam‘s trade relations with other countries, including Guam.