Adoptee rejected by birth mother

The request was made during a hearing at a Ho Chi Minh City court Tuesday.

Nguyen Phuong Du, 46, a city resident, has sued the Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp, or Sabeco, over suffering caused by strange-smelling liquid he found in partially-filled sealed beer bottles.

Du’s case is that in a 24-bottle case of Sabeco’s Saigon Beer that he bought in September 2018, two were partially filled, one with half and another with quarter the usual quantity of beer. Furthermore, the liquid inside smelled strange.

Both bottles were sealed and carried an expiry date in 2019.

Du suspected the liquid inside the two bottles could be leftover beer or water used to clean the bottles that were sealed and sent to the market through some fault in the production process.

He reported the situation to Sabeco and the company only sent a representative to record and verify the complaint several weeks later. He never heard from Sabeco after.

Du sued Sabeco in 2019, demanding compensation of nearly VND40 million ($1.733) – the value of the beer bottles and VND39.8 million for the “mental suffering” he had to undergo.

He also demanded that Sabeo publicly apologize to him in four print newspapers in the city for three issues in a row.

Later, he added a supplement to the lawsuit, demanding compensation of another $1 million. He said that if he won the case, he would donate the money to the HCMC Consumer Protection Association.

However, at the court on Tuesday, Du said he was withdrawing the extra compensation demand and sticking to his original one of VND40 million.

For its part, Sabeco asked the court to transfer the case to investigators. The company’s lawyer, Hoang Huu Nhan, said it was necessary to make clear why Du demanded such “abnormal” compensation.

Sabeco had sent a representative to meet Du at a coffee shop as required by him to check the allegedly faulty beer bottles, but there was nothing to guarantee that they were truly the company’s products, the lawyer argued.

Nhan also asked that the case be suspended, saying Du did not have the authority to file such a lawsuit.

He said the beer bottles that Du used to claimed Sabeco’s faults do not have “evident value” and were not collected legally. All claims that have been made so far are one-sided, he added.

The defendant’s lawyer also noted that several tricks were available on the internet, showing people how to withdraw beer from a bottle without opening it, and those with dubious motivation could make use of those.

Furthermore, the fact that Du had accidentally bought some faulty beer bottles and demanded compensation of as much as $1 million indicated it was “no longer a consumption purpose of a normal customer,” Nhan argued.

Du’s lawyer Tran Dinh Dung rejected the arguments, saying Du was completely qualified to sue Sabeco.

A receipt can simply prove that Du was the one who bought the beer case with the faulty bottles and as a consumer, he has every right to sue the producer, Dung said.

Existing laws do not require that consumers to provide evidence to prove the faults of the producer and so far, there is no law that says the consumer has to specify why they bought some particular product, Dung said.

The panel of judges decided to put the trial on hold to collect more evidence, including Sabeco’s bottling process, and come to a conclusion later.

Andrew Lam

Her short-term memory has been rendered almost non-existent.

“Why have you not called me for so long?” she asked me on the phone. “No one remembers me, no one cares if I die,” she breathed out. I felt the resentment in her voice.

“Mom, I called you three days ago,” I said.

“Liar. You did not call me, you did not,” she snapped back.

But I did call her. I call her frequently, in fact. She just can’t remember it.

Alzheimer’s has left my 88-year-old mother a mere shadow of her former self. It has loosened her grasp on reality, making her spiral down into paranoia.

In the last two years since I returned to Vietnam for work, I have not been able to go back to the U.S., but I remember to call my mother every day. My siblings still visit her at a nursing home in Fremont, but she still feels abandoned. As the disease progresses, she doesn’t even realize that her children haven’t forgotten her and still see her as often as they can.

The beautiful, energetic Hanoian woman I once knew has now been reduced to a frail and morose figure. The life she once lived, as if no longer her own, has been slipping away, piece by piece. Only memories of the most distant past remain.

I have opened her journal and copied the lines onto a computer. When the diagnosis came, my mother, knowing the days she had left with her treasured memories were numbered, decided to record them all before everything faded away – her life, the life of an immigrant, one half back in Vietnam and the other here in the U.S.

“The phone rang. I picked up. This is that woman in Los Angeles, who has diabetes and just had her leg sawn off. Another ring. This guy in Georgia had lung cancer, with only months left to live. We were best friends back in Vietnam. But someone my age, how can I possibly visit them when we’re miles apart? How can one even imagine calling their best friends as they lie dying in the hospital, only to say we’re sorry that we couldn’t see them one last time? And yet I do it every month.”

America’s a heaven for the young. There’s everything for them: toys, movies, amusement parks. But for the old? There’s nothing but loneliness.

Back in Vietnam, mother once said she never thought about living anywhere else but her homeland. “We live and die where our forefathers lived and die. Our families, lineages and loved ones are all here and nowhere else,” she said.

When we moved to the States, however, we shed our old ways of life as well. And as age catches up with us, so do our losses: friends, families, mobility, even our own minds.

Both my grandmothers spent years in the same nursing home before they passed in their 90s. My mother used to take buses to visit them every day, even though she had a day job. The nurses there often told her how blessed my grandmothers were to have someone visit them so often. “That’s how the Vietnamese live,” she responded.

Many of the other elderly people in that nursing home didn’t have someone visiting them regularly. I remember seeing old grannies on their wheelchairs casting their eyes towards the gates, waiting for someone, day after day, but no one ever came. An old lady told me she always looked forward to her son stepping foot inside the home, but he never did.

Even at a young age, my mother knew the fate that awaits the old in America.

“In the winter afternoons I often watch the leaves die on tree branches, and my heart goes astray. I think of the world I once knew, that is long gone, like streams of incense smoke carried away by the wind. I think of my hometown, of Tet in Saigon, the weddings, the trips, the family reunions. Everyone was there, the children running around, while adults chattered about life… I long for those days in the past.”

I read my mother’s entries as I wait for the flight back to the U.S. this May. My father died a couple months ago, and I could only attend his funeral online. But now I know I need to get back to my mother as soon as possible. Now my home is wherever my mother is.

I will not tell her that her dearest homeland Vietnam is on its way to becoming one of the fastest aging countries in the world; that there are many other elderly people left behind in their own homes as their offspring move to the cities; and that the strings that tie families together, thought to be unbreakable, are more frayed than ever.

An old woman collects trash in Hanoi, February 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

I look at Mom and her friends in their nursing home and see my own future. A future I have yet to fully envision, whether I am in Vietnam or the States, once my twilight years come for me.

For many Vietnamese, family and community are core parts of their identity. I don’t expect all the elderly to eventually choose nursing homes like in the U.S.

But I know that the demand for elderly care in Vietnam will only rise from now. The thing is, Vietnam doesn’t have many good nursing homes right now, even if a lot of people are going to need them five, maybe 10 years down the line.

Vietnam can no longer rely completely on old family traditions to sustain and assist the old in facing the inevitable passage of time. The country needs stable, strong policies in place to provide the assistance needed.

*Andrew Lam is a Vietnamese-American author. His book “Birds of Paradise Lost” in 2013 won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. The opinions expressed are his own.

Taking place from April 16-19, the 8th Congress will look into the important issues of politics, economics and social life in Cuba. This congress is a turning point, marking the conclusion of the historic leadership transition, which is strategically significant to the nation’s destiny, ensuring the continuation of the revolutionary process and the irreversibility of socialism.

In the spirit of the Hiron Victory and with the indomitable revolutionary tradition, the 8th Congress of the CPC affirms the determination to overcome all challenges and stay firm on the path of building prosperous and sustainable socialism.

The Cuban revolution succeeded on January 1, 1959, when the Cuban people and patriotic revolutionaries, under the leadership of Fidel Castro, overthrew the Batista dictatorship and established the first state of workers and farmers in the Western hemisphere, bringing the “island of freedom” to a new era of independence, freedom and socialism.

The birth and existence of the socialist Cuban state has motivated the oppressed peoples of the world to step up their struggles for national independence. However, with hostile forces’ plots to overpower the young revolutionary state, Cuba has been faced with a great deal of difficulties, especially the policy of blockade and embargo.

Through 62 years and seven congresses, under the leadership of the CPC, the Cuban people have fought steadfastly to foil the plots of hostile forces, successfully safeguarding the revolutionary achievements and taking the Caribbean island firmly on the chosen path.

With creativity and hard work, the Cuban people have weathered numerous difficulties and gradually recorded significant accomplishments. Since 2009, Cuba has been implementing a number of new socio-economic policies. In April 2011, the 6th Congress introduced a policy on updating the socio-economic model, expanding the participation of non-state economic sectors, increasing devolution and autonomy; while stepping up reform, encouraging self-employment, reducing subsidy and implementing a new tax policy.

The first five years of updating the socio-economic model brought about some positive results, with the average growth rate reaching 2.8% during the 2011-2015 period. The Cuban economic growth rate slowed during the 2016-2020 period due to increased blockages and embargoes. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic exerted profound impacts around the world and Cuba was also faced with numerous difficulties as economic growth was low, healthcare service exports declined and the socio-economic model update process was affected.

In the face of challenges, the Cuban Communist Party and people have shown enormous efforts and determination to push through the cause of building prosperous and sustainable socialism on the heroic island. The 8th Congress will review the economic performance during the 2016-2021 period and outline the development plan until 2030, conduct an overall review of the economic model update, and discuss and approve the documents on updating the guidelines for the coming period.

The Cuban Communist Party and people have affirmed that they will carry on updating the socio-economic model, strive to remove difficulties, protect the recorded achievements, persist with development goals and the path of socialism, maintain and promote the support and solidarity of the world’s people, continue with its dynamic foreign policy, and uphold the example of proletarian internationalism.

The special friendship between the Parties, States and peoples of Vietnam and Cuba, which was formed and constructed on the historical foundation of the indomitable struggles for independence, liberty, sovereignty and self-determination of the two countries, has been nurtured and developed by President Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and generations of the two countries’ leaders, bringing about substantive benefits to the cause of socialist construction and defence in each country, weathering the ups and downs of history for more than 60 years.

Cuba was always a symbol and a pioneer in the global movement to support Vietnam’s just cause of fighting against foreign aggressors and reunifying the country. The Cuban Communist Party and people always show their valuable and effective support for Vietnam while Vietnam always holds the spirit of solidarity, friendship, and sincere, close and transparent cooperation with Cuba.

The Vietnamese Communist Party and people are delighted at the achievements that the Cuban Communist Party and people have been recording for more than 60 years, and believe that, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, the heroic Cuban people will overcome all difficulties and continue to steer the revolutionary cause to victory. The Vietnamese Communist Party and people would like to extend the warmest congratulations to the entire Cuban Party members, officials and people. May the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba be a great success!

Phan Huu Nghiem and his mother

On April 14, Nghiem was officially discharged from Cho Ray Hospital in HCM City. The hospital director came to meet him in person and say congratulations.Nghiem had been in the hospital longer than any previous patient.

In 2003, Nghiem, who was born in 1984, accidentally fell. The wound caused lasting bleeding and his hip bone, thigh bone and pelvis started to decay.

In 2010, Nghiem was brought to Cho Ray Hospital with severe inherited hemophilia. At that time, he used Factor VIII (FVIII) medication, a very expensive product. There was no other effective therapy for his condition.

Nghiem said that in 2014 the hematoma suddenly became pock-marked with holes like laterite, causing blood and pus to ooze out. Dr Tran Thanh Tung, head of the Department of Hematology, had to perform surgery to save the patient under the instruction of Nguyen Truong Son, who is now Deputy Minister of Health.

The major surgery was conducted with surgeons from three departments, Hematology, Urology and Orthopedic Trauma. Blood, pus and necrotic bones were removed totaling up to 3 kilograms. The necrotic mass was ingrained so deeply that when most of it was removed, the surgeons could see the patient’s intestines.

At that time, Nghiem’s abdomen was like a leather ball that had been gouged out and become empty, leaving a huge hole. Doctors tried to make a skin graft and use different methods to fill in the hole, but they failed. The wound caused a prolonged blood infection.

“I felt lighter after the surgery, because 3 kilograms of blood and pus were removed. Doctors told me that the incision would heal after one year. But it did not. They then once again told me to wait one year more. I kept waiting, but the incision was still the same. I did not ask about the incision in the third year and felt disappointed. I was just lying in the hospital and sometimes I wanted to give up,” Nghiem recalled.

Cho Ray Hospital doctors said that over the years they sometimes could not look at the mother’s eyes as they still had not been able to cure her son.

Nghiem stayed at Cho Ray Hospital for seven years after the first surgery. One day, as Nghiem and his mother felt homesick, they decided to catch a bus to return home. When he was carried into the house, blood gushed from the wound, and the bleeding could not be stopped.

Nghiem then had to return to HCM City. The driver had to drive as fast as he could all the way as he feared Nghiem might die halfway there because of bleeding. On that day, Nghiem began living in the hospital and only returned home during Tet holidays.

Nghiem’s life might have continued this way until his end of life if Dr Ngo Duc Hiep had not made a brave decision one day.

Hiep is head of the Department of Orthopedic Trauma and Burns. Not having the heart to see the patient living in such a situation, he decided to try a new costly therapy – fluid extraction with VAC method (Vacuum Assisted Closure).

All of the great efforts by the doctors and Nghiem were rewarded as the wound healed gradually.

Hiep said the dressing change alone requires a lot of patience. The bad odor from necrotic bone tissues spread throughout the room but medical workers never complained.

Nghiem’s wound eventually healed. However, due to the removal of the inflamed bone, he can only sit in a wheelchair or use crutches. He now has been officially discharged from the hospital.

“With this return, I will be able to live with joy,” Nghiem said.

According to the hospital, the 11-year treatment of Nghiem cost VND40 billion. Of this, VND38.3 billion was paid by health insurance. The remaining was paid by benefactors, responding to the call for help from Le Minh Hien, head of the hospital’s social work division.

Nghiem’s mother, Tran Thi Mai, has been next to her son for the last 11 years. Mai said she once lived on donated rice.

“They told me to feel free to have meals and help Nghiem in his treatment. They would ask for money from people to help me cover the expenses,” she said.

Cho Ray Hospital doctors said that over the years they sometimes could not look at the mother’s eyes as they still had not been able to cure her son.

Ca Linh