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Dazzling neon lights in the same spectrum of this,” Vivien had said, smiling as she clasped
5
colors as the parkas illuminated the sculptures, Phuong’s hand, “but I’m cold.” Even a month
the scurrying crowds, and a pair of long chutes, later, Phuong could feel the chilliness of the Ice
also carved from ice, down which shrieking Lantern, and how she had shivered and turned
children slid. away toward Egypt’s crystalline sand. She fed the
“This is weird,” Vivien had said, fire with more photos, and their heat warmed
hunching her shoulders from the cold as she her, two dozen others disappearing until only
stood before a miniature London Bridge. It was one was left, of Vivien and Phuong at the airport
Redefining America
in front of this bridge, not far from the frozen on the morning of Vivien’s departure, Vivien
pyramids of Egypt and the rimy Sphinx, that with her arm around Phuong’s shoulder.
Vivien and her father posed for the photograph. Unlike Vivien, Phuong was not smiling.
While Phuong aimed Vivien’s camera, father and Their father had forced her to wear an ao dai for
daughter had wrapped their arms around each Vivien’s departure, and she looked serious and
other’s waists. Phuong had taken the picture grim in its silk confines. Hers was the expression
mechanically, not paying much attention to that older people of an earlier generation
the small digital image after it had flashed up usually adopted as they stood before the
on the camera’s screen. But now, holding the camera, picture taking a rare and ceremonious
photograph as she sat on the stool, she could occasion reserved for weddings and funerals.
focus on its details. With their hoods over their The photograph flared when she touched it with
heads, the only visible parts of her father’s and fire, Vivien’s features melting first, their faces
sister’s bodies were their pale, triangular faces, vanishing in flame. After the last embers from
two white petals floating on lily pads of neon this photograph and the others died, Phuong
green. In the Ice Lantern’s glow, her sister’s face rose and scattered their ashes. She was about to
looked more like her father’s than Phuong’s turn and enter the house when a gust of wind
did, the symmetry rendering clear what Phuong surged down the alley, catching the ashes and
could now say. Their father loved Vivien more blowing them away. A flurry rose above the
than her. neighboring roofs, and she couldn’t help but
The photograph ignited easily when pause to admire for a moment the clear and
Phuong lit it with a match. After she dropped depthless sky into which the ashes vanished,
the photo into the bucket, she watched it curl an inverted blue bowl of the finest crystal,
up and shrivel, remembering how Vivien had covering the whole of Saigon as far as her eyes
approached her after she took the picture and could see.
tried to make amends. “I never thought I’d say 2011

Understanding and Interpreting

1. Viet Thanh Nguyen opens with four paragraphs that describe the situation, setting,
and characters. What conflicts or tensions do these details suggest, both directly and
indirectly?
2. Nguyen explores commercial tourism throughout “Fatherland,” specifically in the scene of the
family dining at the Nam Kha Restaurant (paras. 00–00). How are the tourists characterized
in this scene? How does Nguyen reveal their version of Vietnamese culture? What does the
evolution of Phuong’s reaction to such tourists reveal about her?
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