The real trip to the ORPHANAGE

This was my first trip in an orphanage. It was an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh city, at 7p.m. I accompanied some of my Singaporean friends when they were on their tour in Vietnam.

“7 o’clock!” I looked at my watch.

“Ni hao!” a kid smiled at me.

Then words such as “Hello!”, “Hi!”, “Xin chao!” bombarded the air from a group of other boys behind him. They thought I was foreigner, a Singaporean. There were about 40 of them when I looked around. I even spotted a tiny kid who aged about 3 or 4. He could not run but walk slowly and speak separate and indistinct words. The oldest was in grade 12 (equal to JC2 in Singapore) because I recognized he wore a 12^th-grade badge on his shirt. Nearly half of them wore school uniform to greet us, except the very small kids.

The boys looked smart, bright and happy. They greeted us by smiles and warmth as if we were angels who could make any of their dreams come true. We entered the house in a round of applause and could not sit down as the kids surrounded us, forming a circle of people.

A bell was rang by the master and a total silence soon came after that.

“Assemble!” a boy whispered to me in English.

The master soon spoke some greetings on the behalf of the orphanage and all the boys. The performances awaiting us that he later mentioned in his speech made me amazed, thrilled and feel like a VIP. This orphanage was a boy’s so we could see no girls around. As the girl’s dancing part came, small boys wearing girl’s clothes came out. Though they were not as professional and skillful, they were smart and could get all the movements and postures correct, drawing the picture of a countryside Vietnam in front of us. All those traditional songs which were very familiar to me seemed to evoke a sense of pride as my Singaporean friends were enjoying them, and excitement because everything was prepared finely and carefully for us.

To me, that night was a night full of amazement, hope, belief and a pure love of many unlucky childhoods there. Everyone belonged to a big family. No one was discriminated, no one was an island.

When we distributed the sweets, a small boy took the bags, briskly and skillfully opened and passed each handful of candies to others around him. Finally, he realized that he had not had a single candy left for his own. Then another boy turned back to him and gave his uneaten one. The first boy took it and smiled. I wondered then if there was some adults who would give his only special ration to his friend without any hesitation.

After that came the “snack feast”. I called it the snack feast because there were lots of people and snack. We bought enough for all of them so each could take one of his own. But after taking their own share, they immediately got into a group and poured all the snack they had on a big piece of paper on the floor. That moment reminded me of my own primary school years. We used to do that, to eat like brothers and did not use to care what we had or what another got. But as I went higher to my secondary years, everyone just minded what they could get. They did not know what they could give so no one shared, even I. However, that was not what I saw now. The coke was drank in bowls not glasses because they did not have enough. Everyone sat in circles sharing each piece of snack and each bottle of coke. When there was a little coke left, they did not use bowls but they used the bottles’ lids because then the coke could be shared longer. I finally joined a group and drank some. It tasted much better than normal coke I had in those fast food restaurants back in Singapore. It was the sharing that counted I thought. There was laughter everywhere. People were talking to each other loud despite the barrier of language, sometimes doing some incomprehensible and funny gestures.

We also taught them English songs. When we left, there was a boy insisting on asking us to teach him all the spellings and tunes. I hope that he can sing out alone now. Other boys that impressed me were the ones that kept asking me about the scholarship I got when they knew I was a Vietnamese! They had hope and belief. I encouraged them and prayed that their dream would come true one day.

After all, the moment that a small boy turned back to me and gave me a candy that we bought for them was the most memorable. I noticed some of his teeth were missing when he smiled. His eyes glittered as the light was behind us and his hand was small, open up. The candy was in the middle. I refused then but he insisted. His patience and determination was something I could feel so I finally I took it. He smiled back at me and ran away, sharing the rest with his fellows. That smile, that face, that determination I will never forget…