The driver in the taxi I’d hailed in San Jose was an Asian man, probably in his early forties. Shortly after we pulled away from the curb, his phone rang. The conversation started in English, then quickly switched to a language I didn’t recognize.
When the call ended, he glanced back at me. “Sorry for all the noise in a foreign language. Some friends from back home and I are opening a restaurant. Lots of logistics to work out.”
“No problem at all. Was that Vietnamese or Cambodian?”
He looked momentarily surprised, then smiled. His roots were Vietnamese, he explained, but the language was a variety of Khmer. His family belonged to a minority group in the Mekong Delta, near the Cambodian border. After the fall of Saigon, they’d spent years in a Thai refugee camp before coming to the States in the early nineties, when he was three.
“You’re from Japan?” he asked.
I told him I was.
He kept talking. He didn’t remember about the journey to America itself, he said. But his earliest memory was Narita Airport.
His parents had told him the story later: they’d flown from Bangkok to San Francisco via Narita. They’d arrived early in the morning with a long layover until the afternoon connection. While waiting in the terminal, they were given lunch — something called “bento,” a Japanese-style fried chicken called “karaage” with white rice. He’d been amazed by how good it tasted. That flavor, and the sight of the Narita terminal, became his first memory.
I watched his profile as he drove, saying nothing.
In the early nineties, I had worked in an airline office at Narita. One of my duties as a junior employee had been handling the early morning flight from Bangkok. Back then, the International Organization for Migration had been running a resettlement program for Indochinese refugees heading to America. Every flight had carried groups of refugee families, dozens of people at a time.
At the time, I had known almost nothing about the Vietnam War or the refugee crisis. For the airline, passengers had been passengers, regardless of who was paying their fares or why. My supervisor’s only instruction had been to make sure none of the refugee passengers wandered off during transit.
Not that it would have been easy for them to leave the terminal, or that they’d have had any reason to. When the Bangkok flight arrived, I would find someone who spoke English and tell them: “Please wait here until your afternoon departure. Water and restrooms are over there.” Then we would leave them alone. As long as everyone boarded the U.S. flight that afternoon, our job was done.
Around noon, box lunches paid for by the international organization would be distributed. A colleague and I would walk around saying “Hai, karaage bento” in Japanese, handing them out. They were ordinary lunches to us, but when we passed them out matter-of-factly, most people would smile quietly. Everyone knew how to use chopsticks. They ate with evident pleasure, finishing every bite.
As I collected the empty trays, I would think about their futures, especially the small children. Many would grow up as Americans. Some might lose their way. Some might succeed and one day return to Vietnam as U.S. citizens. None of them had chosen to become refugees or to make this journey. They’d already endured more than enough. I hoped the rest of their lives would bring them happiness. I hoped that at Narita, at least, they could have a few peaceful hours.
“Everything OK? Am I saying ‘bento’ and ‘karaage’ wrong?”
The driver laughed, turning back to look at me.
“No, you’re perfect.”
I looked out the window. This man might have been one of those children. But there was no way to know for certain, and no need to ask. The people we meet while traveling sometimes remind us, unexpectedly, of something we’d forgotten. That’s enough.
The taxi arrived at my destination. As I paid the fare, I quietly wished him well with his new venture.
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