Q. Lan, you've written a book called "Monkey Bridge", but you're also a lawyer. That's no small achievement for anyone. I think it's an even greater one for someone who came to this country as a teenager and had to learn the language. Now you've written a novel. Are you someone who has always wanted to write, or was this a story that you felt needed to be told, and you were the person to tell that story?

A. I wanted to write this particular book, just theoretically I wanted to do it since the '80's, because I started noticing since the '80's that there were a lot of stories, accounts, reports, on television and in the movies about Vietnam that were beginning to come out in the '80's. Because when I came in '75, there was a complete silence about the experience. In the early '80's there were more stories written about Vietnam, and over time more and more would be heard, but understandably they would all come from a very particular perspective. Whether it be from the left or the right, it was from the American experience. Actually they're not as different as either the left or the right would like to think. And I, of course, noticed that there was nothing about Vietnam that came out from the Vietnamese perspective. So I wanted to write it but only as a matter of theory, like wouldn't it be nice if this happened? I never thought really of writing fiction, and I never really took any writing courses.

My mother became very ill in 1990, and I began to write a story that came quite naturally. It's a story about a girl's relationship with her mother. And as I was writing that, the Vietnam part of it just became intertwined with the story, so the emotional impetus was really provided by my mother's sickness, but the Vietnam story part of it, the part that I had wanted to bring forth since the '80's, became sort of embedded in the mother/daughter story as well.

Q. Was there any sort of influence that you can point to that helped you in your approach to writing this book?

A. Well, I've always read a lot, and I think in many ways that's probably one of the best ways for writers to start writing is just from reading. There were a lot of writers that were especially influential for me. Primarily, as far as the classics, my favorite is Henry James. Recent writers...I like Robert Owen Butler and Maxine Hong Kingston.

Q. Let's talk about what "Monkey Bridge" is about. It's a story of a family and the fall of Saigon, told by a woman who comes to this country as a teenager. I believe a similar experience to your own. What I found fascinating in the unraveling or the unveiling of this story was the role that the grandfather, Baba Quan plays in this, the longing that the mother has to see him again. Can you speak a little bit about how the family was affected by both sides of the story of the war?

A. The grandfather is, as you point out, a big catalyst in this story because he really provides the movement forward of the story. What I wanted to do with him was to look at how the absence of something, the longing, the absence, that space between the time when something actually happened is a presence in many ways, and, in fact, defines many parts of people's lives. And so...especially for immigrants and refugees a motivating factor in their lives is the absence, the absence of home, the nostalgia, which, in fact, is an absence of belonging, and so all of that is embodied in this particular character, the grandfather, who was supposed to arrive or come to the U.S. with the mother but didn't show up where he was suppose to, and so was left behind. The story really is about the people who made it to the U.S. and their desire to...or at least the daughter's desire, to bring the grandfather back from Vietnam to the U.S. It also is a story, through the grandfather's story, about identity, what happened to him, who is he, why did he disappear, and the mystery behind that.

So in many ways it's a story about absence and identity, and the very complex nature of identity, because I think identity is shifting, and it's very hard for any of us to be able to segment the different parts of our identity.

Q. You mentioned that in your view perhaps there's not so much difference between the left and the right point of view from an American perspective of that whole era. And in the telling of Baba Quan's story, we learn to have sympathy, I think, for both sides of the question.

What would be different from a Vietnamese perspective? How would you speak about the war and the political ramifications of both sides? Or perhaps you don't view it quite so simply as two sides of a story?

A. First of all from the Vietnamese perspective I think, because my family comes from south, although, even though they're from the south, they fought on the side of the Vietcong. So I grew up knowing very intimately and not simply as a matter of academic interest or theory, the actual ramifications of picking one side or another, and, in fact, the whole theoretical reasons why one would pick one side or another. As a child since I was six, seven, or eight, I was very close with my uncle who was a Vietcong, and we had long debates about this.

So, even though I would probably be more familiar simply from the south Vietnamese perspective, I know very well the Vietcong perspective as well. It's very much viewed as a tragic event, but not from the national perspective. I mean, from a personal perspective it's extremely tragic and very hard to get over. But from the national perspective it is viewed as something that is unfortunate but not a kind of event that would be used as an occasion for deep psychological psychic analysis, and I think that's one thing that I noticed a lot, for example, when I went to Vietnam last year at the invitation of the Ministry of Education to give seminars at the law school in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. No one really wanted to talk about it anymore, not because they were in denial, as someone here might say. Well, if you're not talking about something, you must be repressing it. You're not coping with it yet, and the time will come when you will have to cope with it. But simply that, you know, it's a country with really more than a thousand-year history, and that war is 20 years of that, and it's not a psychic assault on the national identity of Vietnam, the way the war was a very big psychological scar on the U.S. It's had much more significance collectively for the U.S. as a country in many ways because from either perspective, you know, the U.S. lost this war, and what does that mean for a country like America that has not lost a war before? What does it mean this loss of innocence that America experienced? I mean, Vietnam lost its innocence many many years ago, and so it doesn't have that kind of significance. It's just another war. We've had many many wars fought on the soil of Vietnam. So collectively, nationally, it's not that type of an event. Personally, of course, people are still coping with it.

Q. The book is called "Monkey Bridge". A monkey bridge is a narrow bridge that is difficult to cross. You have to watch your balance. Symbolically, what does a monkey bridge represent in the book?

A. Well, symbolically I wanted to talk about crossings and bridges, and for me symbolically the story is really about a wasteland, and that's why I have an epigraph of T.S. Elliot's "The Wasteland" at the beginning. It's a wasteland that in this particular case came from a war that was waged very tragically and very violently, but ultimately the crossing would be from that wasteland into a territory, and it probably would be a mental or psychological territory of reconciliation and peace. So it's a movement from war to peace.

The reverse of course could be, depending on whether or not one can, in fact, make the crossing, be from peace to war because the bridge goes both ways.

So...and as far as the war is concerned, of course, it's the transition from war to peace, but it's also the transition here within this family's story from being immigrants to becoming American, whatever that means, and the process of the assimilation ultimately means.

Q. Is that a never ending bridge that you're crossing when you live in this country?

A. Yeah, I think so. I think in many ways this is a story that is very classically the immigrant story. I think these bridges that immigrants of all kinds in this country have crossed are generational. I mean, I think the process doesn't start with the parent or the grandparent's generation and end there. It goes down several generations. And it also depends, I find, on the history of the particular immigrant group we're talking about. If you're talking about Japanese-Americans it also depends on the stage they're at politically, but perhaps the desire to assimilate may be even more strong simply because of what happened in World War II. Chinese-Americans, I have noticed, tend to be more eager to discover their roots because they never had that psychic scar of the loyalty question.

So the crossing takes many forms depending on the history of the particular immigrant group, but it's strung out generationally.

Q. It was interesting to me to note in this book an appreciation of the female warrior's role. Maybe you could speak a little bit about the female role in Vietnam, and what you have brought of that with you.

A. Very interesting you know because Vietnam certainly is a patriarchal culture, but the manifestation of patriarchy is not as violent as it...I believe as in other countries in Asia. For example, even though we've had...we've inherited a lot of different facets of Chinese culture, we've never had the so- called tradition of foot binding of women. And there is not that same kind of devaluation of women...of girl babies as there is in other parts of Asia. We don't have a history of bride burning. We don't have a history of the bride family having to pay huge amounts of dowry to the husband's family. In fact, it's the reverse. The husband has to pay the wife's family because what they're getting, the daughter, is a valuable asset. As a result of that, women have had a different role in many ways in Vietnam, and the role of the woman warrior has always been highly celebrated in Vietnamese history. There are many many historical figures in Vietnam who were women, and the most celebrated warriors in Vietnamese history are the two sisters who led the first rebellion, the first successful rebellion ever against the Chinese. One of the first Chinese invasions, which happen in the year 40 A.D. And since then there have been other women warriors who have been very celebrated and successful and who have gathered armies consisting of men who were very willing to be led by these women generals. And there's even a story where the Chinese, when they captured some of the women warriors, in fact, killed them and had their livers eaten by their men just so that they could be as brave as these women. So, as a result of that, there are myths about women who are quite celebrated as strong figures.

When I came to America, I was very much taken by the Bionic Woman a modern woman warrior, and it's one of the most popular shows in the Vietnamese community in Washington D.C., where I grew up. Everybody watched it. Everybody loved Jamie Summers because it's really not at all a strange thing to see this woman capable of doing all of this.

And the woman, for example, in the village, you know, there's always the understanding that she is, in fact, a source of wisdom. So there are women shaman in Vietnam just as there are men shaman in Vietnam, but what's very distinctive about Vietnam is the idea of the woman being strong.

Now, what's interesting, of course, is that a lot of countries have that, but then they have also the reverse, you know, the dichotomy, the woman being a source of strength but also a source which can be, you know, sort of like this Eve, the source of evil that tempt men into doing something terrible, and I don't think we have...unless I'm completely ignorant of this. I did not grow up inheriting that other facet of female power. You know, for example, in the west you have witches, right. Like you have "Bewitched." All right here's a witch, which is in Anglo-Saxon roots a wise woman, and, yet, because she is a source of strength that strength is very dangerous, and she has to be controlled. So the strength is acknowledged, but it is only useful if it's channeled in a way that is controllable, and so you have the show where she becomes married to this mortal who's, you know, sort of ridiculous in many ways, and she has to give up all her powers. She has to do all her housework by hand rather than by magic, rather than relying on her interior source of strength.

I don't think we have that. I mean, we have the strength, but there doesn't seem to be this culture impetus to have the reverse of it, which is, it has to be controlled, or that the reverse image is a totally evil woman. We don't have national icons of that sort.

Q. It's interesting to hear you use these examples of television shows as culture, and which I, of course, grew up with as well. You said you recently visited Vietnam. How do you see television culture...modern culture affecting the Vietnamese culture today?

A. You know, I visited Vietnam, but I have to say I visited Saigon...Ho Chi Minh City as it's now called, although everybody in Vietnam calls it Saigon still, and Hanoi. We took an excursion into the Mekong Delta. And then when we were in Hanoi, we took an excursion into this beautiful area called Halong Bay where there are beautiful rock formations all over the place. But my point in saying that, is that whatever I saw in Saigon and Hanoi are really things that take place in the city, and the moment you get out of the city it's a totally different world. And in Vietnam there is a proverb that says the emperor's law stops at the village gate.

So it's two different worlds, and you really...you get a wrong picture, I think, if you've seen the country by going to Saigon and Hanoi. Saigon is an extremely commercial city. It's bustling. The women that I saw, just from being in the streets, are very westernized in terms of appearance and very very fashionable. In fact, the women were more fashion conscious than the people in New York City. I mean, they were really wearing beautiful clothing and very clearly concerned about their appearance. And you see western ads on billboards all over the place, not so much for cosmetics. I don't know whether or not this obsession with appearance will invade Vietnam the same way it has probably caused us to internalize it here. Most of the billboards are more for commercial products, you know, like electronics and things like that. I did not see this merger of the commodification culture with women's bodies yet. I'm sure it will come. But that's not what I saw.

Of course, I stayed at hotel, you know, so I'm sure I was watching different shows than someone who's not at a hotel watches. But I do know from my aunt who is there that the American shows are very popular, "Dallas", "Dynasty." Those are the shows in Vietnam.

Q. And "The Bionic Woman?"

A. I would like that to be seen there actually. I think it would be very popular.

Q. Do you plan to write some more books?

A. Yes, actually I'm in the process of working on a book that will be set in Chinatown. It also deals with immigration, but in this case it will deal with the underground economy in Chinatown. We've been hearing a lot about the illegal immigrants and all of that. So the story will be about that.

Q. What sort of Vietnamese community exists here, and how do you feel it functions within the greater city of New York or even of America if you want to extend it further?

A. The Vietnamese community is a very small community in New York, and I'm not sure why. The biggest community is in Orange County, in California. And then I think the second biggest is where I grew up right outside of Washington D.C., in Virginia, and the Maryland suburbs. And then Texas and Louisiana. New York has never really attracted that many Vietnamese. I have no idea why that's the case.

To the extent that there are Vietnamese in New York there are primarily Vietnamese of Chinese descent, and as a result, they were primarily boat people who fled because the government was engaged in the early '80's in a terrible backlash against the Chinese Diaspora, ethnic Chinese who maintain their cultural identity in Vietnam who have been in Vietnam for thousands of years. So a lot of the Chinese fled, and if you go to Chinatown, you will see a lot of Vietnamese stores, but the owners are really Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese Vietnamese. The restaurants are also primarily run by Vietnamese Chinese.

I have to say I'm not really that much a part of the Vietnamese community only because when I came I was 13, and my primary concern really was to learn English, do well in high school, because I was told (my first grade was ninth grade), that everything I do from now on counts right away for college. That there is no period of testing the waters. So that has been my concern all the way up to college and into law school. Now I have more of a desire to explore the community that I left, but for the past fifteen or so years it's been much more about assimilating.

I think to be an outsider in this country you have to almost be an insider first. I think a lot of outsiders very much want to be in, they may be skeptical of what it means to be in, but it's very hard for recent immigrants to be part of the immigrant community right away, unlike the parents, you know, who have no choice, but their children have a choice, and I think that's the route most of them will take.

Q. Speaking of insiders and outsiders, one interesting thing that came up in "Monkey Bridge" was a sort of affinity that developed between the Vietnamese immigrants and the American soldiers who returned. Is that something that exists to this day?

A. Definitely in the '70's, '75 until '80, '82, '83, '84 I would say. If you go to any little Saigon community, whether it be in northern Virginia, Maryland, or California, you will see a lot of American vets, and you see American vets in grocery stores buying things like fish sauce, right. Probably things that they never tried in Vietnam, for example, but here they are now harking back. There's their absence. You know, that's their nostalgia. And I saw a lot of that growing up. I would go into a grocery store and they would suddenly be attempting to communicate in Vietnamese with a lot of these grocery shop keepers, same with restaurants, and at that time, it was definitely a source of comfort and finding solace with people who also felt themselves to be outsiders. Because the vets were definitely looked down upon when they arrived back in the States, in many ways tragically by both the left and the right, Americans of both perspectives. Now, you see...you will still see that. I mean, I was in Virginia recently. There's a huge center of Vietnamese groceries, et cetera, in northern Virginia, very large, a whole shopping mall of just Vietnamese stores. And almost half of the people there were Americans, and when you talked to them, and actually looked at them, they would have shirts that would have the south Vietnamese flag, or a medal of some sort.

I don't know if now they are there in order to seek solace anymore, because there is normalized relations now with Vietnam. I think the vets are seen in a different light certainly after Desert Storm, for example, nowadays. And the military is not looked at the same way. I mean, we can debate whether or not that is good or bad, but that's the reality now after Desert Storm. But they're still there, and I think it's more of a cultural affinity than political, or a searching for shelter motivation that once existed in the '70's, but there certainly is a cultural affinity there because you see a lot of the vets eating at these restaurants.

Q. Will "Monkey Bridge" be coming out in paperback?

A. Yes. The book was published by Viking in July, and will be coming out in paperback with Penguin in June, and I'm actually doing, again, a seven- or eight-city tour.

Q. So people can look for you then. I want to thank you for your time. I enjoyed this conversation in your home with the children playing in the background. I look forward to speaking with you again.

A. Thank you very much.