Jeanie is your average Vietnamese mom-down-the-street. Jeanie is also a professional genie when it comes to manicures and pedicures. You may come in the salon with dishpan hands, or feet, but you will leave with mitts fit for a kiss. While you are soaking, if you are lucky, she'll hum or sing a little song that let's you know how she really feels.
One of her favorites goes like this: "A kiss on the hand may be very continental but diamonds are a girl's best friend..." Jeanie knows Jules Styne wrote the music and Leo Robin wrote the lyrics. She knows what year the movie came out and lots of other stuff. She usually finishes the song with a surprise of a belly laugh.
Jeanie chats when she isn't singing. "Qu 'y is my real name," she says if asked. "It means precious. Americans can't say it, so we picked the name, Jeanie."
A lifetime later, Jeanie/Qu 'y remembers her trip to America like it was yesterday.
Qu 'y was 11 when she and her aunt left Vietnam in the middle of the night on her uncle's fishing boat in 1984. There was no room or money for other family members. "I had to be so quiet. We couldn't talk at all," she says.
According to Jeanie, the boat didn't make any sound as it slipped out to sea with just enough rice, sugar, pickled stuff like cabbage, and water for 70 people. It was a Noah's Arc overflowing with Buddhists. The plan was simple. Ride the open seas until a freighter found you, they would take you to the Philippine Islands where life would start over, much better.
"I was too scared to ask any questions. My aunt took care of me. I promised my mom I'd do what she told me," Jeanie says.
Qu 'y's uncle handled his boat really well through a couple pounding storms and blistering winds. But when the wind stopped, the boat rocked side to side going nowhere. When their drinking water was gone, sugar was mixed with sea water for drinking.
"It was nasty," Jeanie says, as she shivers and scrunches up her face. "My aunt made me drink it. That's all there was. We had to lean out over the side of the boat to go to the bathroom. Everyone would look away, but we didn't care."
Qu 'y, her aunt, and all the women prayed to Buddha for a freighter to find them. One did. The captain gave Qu 'y a red dress and an orange one--her first Western clothing. But since no one was dead, he did not take them onboard.
"It was so hot. My aunt said we must now pray to get to the Philippine Island," Jeanie says. "Pray for your uncle to get his boat there, but when he did, we were told to go to a different island," Jeanie continues.
At last, they docked the boat and went to the refugee camp. "My uncle had a brother in Norway who was supposed to sponsor us," Jeanie says. "But, a Protestant Church in Los Angeles did."
Qu 'y, her aunt and uncle lived with an American family while they learned English, how to eat with a spoon and fork, where the Buddhist Temple was, and how to get around the city.
"Linda and I," Jeanie says as she gestures to another manicurist, "trained together. Now we carpool to work with two other girls. Save money."
Jeanie's mother and sisters and brothers still live in Vietnam. She does not ever intend to tell them she and her husband have allowed their unmarried daughter to live away from home. "They would never understand that an American college girl does that," Jeanie says.
And that's true. To some extent.
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