Linh Nguyen

A talented cultural affair officer in the Department of Culture and Information at Hanoi's United States Embassy.

The myth wanders up north: I am the first voice in a hundred years to call a tropical summer tree to life on Alaska’s soil.

Amid the wind’s howl, a tumult of merry clamor and jubilation rose in one classroom. It couldn’t be anything else, except that of students.

Shoulders drew closer, cozy puffs of breath, humid air.

So – what’s that? An autumn breeze? Or the biting frost left on someone’s jacket? Either way, catching a cold is easier than spotting amber leaves these few days. Were it possible, I would even snug all the people in my scarf until the first bloom of spring.

Now, no time to lose. I rose from the circle and searched for the cold air’s source: the cracked window. I was halfway through dragging the beastly-thick curtains when a honeyed haze of pollen kissed the curve beneath my nose.

“Could this be?”, I muttered.

My chest tightened; The world held its breath. The same boreal breeze struck me with a resinous fragrance— It’s Flamboyant Flowers !!

There I was, beneath the flame-red tree in front of aunt Thanh’s house. Eighteen minutes into Vietnamese students’ beloved card game – Tấn (‘Attack’) – it was my turn to face the left-side strike from Bin – my 11-year-old cousin slash rival. As predicted, his thunderous slurps of calamansi tea were weaponized to rattle my focus.

I could defend myself, bracing against the counterattack rain bomb. But every card I play will be an “unhoped beacon”. That means I invite other players to strike back mercilessly. If luck smiled upon me, I might weather the storm. Having little power left to defend back and forth with my 8-card pile. If not, I would have to pick up all the thrown-down cards and miss my shot to surge right.

Or I could add the pitched-in cards into my palm. A few deep breaths are guaranteed — for a second. Why? I just forfeited my shot to shed cards. What my ancestors always did was: clear their piles, clear the center deck.

Not long before those pocket-sized cousins of mine choked on their own laughter, I caught myself wearing a pouty expression. Picture me having my brows curled no different than parentheses, drops of sweat camped out on frowns, lips pursed around the flower petal’s tip. How embarrassing!

I searched the sky for a sign and all I got was a dead fly hanging upside down. My heart roared – so much that I didn’t hear the shout.

“Eat your food or feel my mood!”, my auntie yelled. Apparently we were three minutes past our lunch time.

Seconds later, we were running the staircase marathon (ohh, the mighty punishment!). Each gasp dragged the mid-May flower’s ghostly scent into my lungs, as if softening the ache of the unfinished card game.

Time swiftly unfolds, it’s already June. At that point, I had locked my summer in the wooden closet and set off to The Last Frontier.

Ever so clear, summer (as I used to know) meant mosquitoes swarming like organized chaos motorbikes in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. However, summer here is peculiar — even a bzzzz or píp-píp is odd.

Call it a weather shift (mild, they say?) Please, we all know what it's like to step into an icebox store seconds after being barbecued under the savage sun. Be that as it may, it is humanity’s phenomenal gift to adapt (much like those warm-blooded grizzly bears in the backyard) that pulled me into the embrace of the vast winterland.

On an evening distinguished only by the reddish flare over to the fireweed bush, the currents of fortune shifted. I followed my morning ritual – glancing at the thermostat.

Outside: 6.2 degree Celsius.

Don’t tell me no porkies. My Narnian blood simply didn’t buy it.

Shaking off the chill, I rummaged past the floral hairclips and special-occasion paper microphones in the desk drawer to grab the cotton-candy grape taffy.

Truthfully speaking (wink), that wasn’t the piece that got swiped from my dear brother’s legendary candy stash. Instead, my fingers brushed against a palm-sized rectangular object.

Resting on my hand: a wear and tear card box.

A sudden amber breeze filled up my lungs. The sun-drenched noon felt like yesterday.

Is Anyone There?? Oh my summer!

The cold breeze took me back to reality. There was no gigglings of cousin Bin and Thỏ, no tropical sunbeams, no shout from disciplined aunt. With summer gone, my soul desperately reached for the fading echoes.

How scary!

It’s scary that one can miss something one can’t see. It's even scarier that the seemingly never-ending frost out there barely touched the cold in here.

I could not let it go. Not until I had created a happy ending that it deserves.

All kinds of ideas bubbled up as I walked to and fro in the backyard (fearlessly). The night began to wear its velvet cloak when it dawned on me.

“Tấn!!”, an unusually loud, open-air statement.

“Hihi… I’ll be back in no time”

My first plan: pitching raw ideas to a handful of newly-met classmates. I scoured my contact list, sowed every seed, and watched the plan wilt. Well, it failed miserably.

But no. My unbounded determination didn’t allow me to say sorry just yet.

I’d sown all my efforts in one patch of soil and be blind to the acre of possibilities just beyond, didn’t I? The problem boiled down to my sample size. To increase efficiency is to attract a bigger number of people. And guess what? I knew what exactly made people pay attention.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s showtime!
I wholeheartedly offered chewy candies to all the schoolmates that I encountered — hallway or homepage, Facebook or face-to-face.…you name it.
(And this time, I was not my brother’s masked candy thief)
The fact that fireweed’s flame climbed higher (signaling a summer farewell) set me on fire and electrified me to strain my voice out. Childish as my way of global communicating is, the effect was real.

I successfully gathered all into a circle during break time. Then, I stated the rules.

“Simply put, the first card drawn from the center deck sets the count — starting at the drawer’s seat and moving counterclockwise…”

Game On!

At the start, the players treat every move as glass beneath their feet. In their hesitance, I glimpsed at my old shadow.

Would I want their shoulders to stay soft, or tense up? If not contained a bit hesitant, courage is never courage. I pioneered courageously despite my once bomb-strucked feeling.

Thanks to the untamed power of Tấn, it took as little time as ten minutes before my circle buzzed with uproarious laughter. Things had begun to hot up. Passers-by, like a moth to flame, were even intrigued to peek at the fun.

During moments of discarding, we found something worth keeping: the trait of courage and proactiveness. As the Taffy gambit took off, my smiles outnumbered the stars in Alaska’s dark blue sky. From that moment, I pushed myself harder to keep the eternal-lit fire in order to become the best prospective cultural affair officer who hosts Vietnam-America exchange culture events for the Latin dancesport championship teams at the Embassy in Hanoi.

Do you smell it? The sweet Flamboyant Flower, flaring up with a furious blaze of heartfelt giggles and chitchat. Who could have known? My summer happily ended, yet it will never, never vanish.

You might have heard the northern myth about a red plant which dared to sprout amid the neverending winterland. Truth be told, there stands the same girl by the window. Her hands gingerly pulled the now light-weight drapes, her dimples appeared beside her rosy lips, her tear-smudged eyes imagined the fiery flower swaying like a hand waving hello. Should luck call for another round…

Performing international Latin Dance Sport (Cha Cha Cha, Samba, Jive, Rumba, Paso Doble), studying new knowledge, playing romantic semi-classic piano pieces, nurturing purple flowers, growing homemade bean sprouts, reading classic children novels, writing rhythmic poems about youth and Hanoi's breathtaking sceneries, designing handmade cards for beloved children, family members, stickers enthusiast, leading scrapbooking club, perfume enthusiast, acrylic painting advocate, travelling across Asia.