Vietgone

The other lead character in Vietgone, Tong represents the Playwright’s mother and is the only character besides Quang, her love interest, who sings. Throughout the play, Tong expresses most of her inner thoughts and emotions through song, and her attitude toward Vietnam and her new life in the US starkly contrasts with Quang’s and helps establish her as his foil. She sees life as a refugee as the first step toward a new life and does her best to stay focused on this goal:

AND HERE I TELL ME I CAN’T BE HURT AGAIN

SINCE EVERYONE I KNOW IS EITHER LOST OR DEAD

CONVINCING MYSELF THE END IS NOT THE END

BUT A BED TO BIRTH A NEW DIRECTION (24).

During the war and in fleeing to the US, Tong loses many people, including her brother, whom she can’t communicate with after the war ends. She uses the pain from these losses and steels herself, focusing that energy on building a new life in the US, where she can be more independent and successful than she could back in Vietnam. She puts faith in the notion that the war’s end and her flight from her homeland isn’t the end of her life and that she must keep moving forward.

While Tong tries to stay positive and establish herself in the US, Quang works tirelessly to return to Vietnam, driving a wedge between them. Although Tong warns herself that falling in love with Quang may compromise her independence, she falls for him, which makes his impending departure more painful. Her emotions for Quang establish her as a dynamic character who opens her heart to the possibility of love after the pain and trauma of losing others. Nevertheless, even when he leaves, she resolves to stay strong:

IMMA KEEP RUNNING TILL I GET ME MINE

DON’T NEED YOUR LOVE, ROLLING SOLO’S FINE

IF LOSING MY BROTHER CAN’T MESS ME UP

MY HEART’S ROCK HARD NOW, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK (80-81).

Tong doesn’t want Quang’s decision to leave to affect her and commits to not caring what he does. She focuses on being independent and not needing any emotional support in her new life. After losing her brother, she believes that she can maneuver through life with no one and no love, and though this attitude helps her keep moving forward, it cracks when Quang returns, and she allows herself to begin a relationship with him.

Quang’s best friend and sidekick, Nhan constantly acts as the voice of reason. He always follows along with what Quang wants to do but gently and persistently reminds Quang about what’s important and what’s at stake. Nhan joins Quang on his long trek to California, despite his own objections, and talks him through the pain of losing his family. Throughout their relationship, Nhan constantly pushes Quang to think on a larger scale and to frame his present in the context of the future, pushing Quang to make the right decision, even if it’s painful: “Look man, Soc Trang is two hundred kilometers from here. Thu and your kids are safe. Viet Cong ain’t gonna roll that far south now that they have Saigon. These peeps on the other hand are plant food if we leave them here” (22). Quang wants to abandon the people around their helicopter so that he can immediately go save his family, but Nhan assures him that he’ll have time to get to his family after helping the people around them who are in need. By pushing Quang to make the unselfish move, Nhan helps save many people in great peril.

Through his role as the voice of reason in their friendship, Nhan frequently challenges Quang’s beliefs and tries to convince him that what’s best for him isn’t always necessarily best for others. When Quang and Nhan arrive in California, Nhan finally confronts his friend about his plan to return to Vietnam and challenges him on the safety of the mission:

At best they put a goddamn bullet in your brain as soon as they see you […] the other option is they put you in one of their camps. And we’re not talking some cushy two-year re-education cake walk, we’re talking the rest of your goddamn life (84).

Quang can focus only on reuniting with his family, but Nhan understands that this is barely possible given Quang’s status as a former soldier and the new regime in Vietnam. He helps Quang understand the risk his return poses to his family. Not only would his family become a potential target, but they would also be unable to move on from their separation from Quang, knowing that he’s alive and in prison or knowing that he died while returning to them.

Tong’s mother, Huong is often antagonistic toward her daughter and is in many ways a foil to her. Like Quang, Huong doesn’t like the US or Tong’s efforts to assimilate; Huong hopes to return to Vietnam soon. When her daughter pressures Huong to assimilate with her, Huong pushes back, confident in her resolve to return to her life across the Pacific:

I’ve been on this earth over fifty years. I’ve learned everything I need to learn. I’ve raised eight kids. I’ve survived two husbands. Wars. I’m not going to waste my time learning a language that I’m never going to speak because I know we’re going to go back to Vietnam (40).

Huong refuses to learn English because she doesn’t see the point. Her desire to return to her homeland relates to her obstinate belief in her life returning to normal. She doesn’t fully accept the massive change in their lives like Tong does and fights against it, even allying with Quang as he plans to return to Vietnam.

Despite her objections to Tong’s approach to life in the US, Huong undergoes a transformation partway through the play, proving that she’s a dynamic character. Throughout Act I, Huong is cold toward Tong, constantly judging and disagreeing with her, more concerned with how she’ll leave Tong than how she’ll help her. However, as Tong’s relationship with Quang grows more serious, Huong realizes that she must protect and help Tong as she creates her new life, before she makes life-altering mistakes, like marrying Bobby: “Just because I think you’d be happy having a child—or three—doesn’t mean I want you to have one with just anyone. Especially with just some dumbass” (88). Huong’s opposition toward Tong’s relationship with Bobby brings out a more protective side of her. She begins to become open to a new life in the US with Tong, wanting to protect and help her daughter as she maneuvers through this uncertain time in her life.

Tong’s part-time and half-hearted love interest. Bobby represents the cultural and linguistic disconnect between the refugees and Americans, and his presence helps demonstrate why assimilation can be so confusing and frustrating:

BOBBY. Pretty you are, old lady. Like daughter is mother.

HUONG. Thanks, dumb American!

BOBBY. No problem, old lady! (27).

Even though this quote might seem like sarcastic but friendly banter, Huong passionately dislikes Bobby, seeing him as a desperate man with a romantic interest in her daughter, and consistently mocks him in front of Tong. His approach to Huong exhibits his motivation for learning Vietnamese in the first place: to pursue Tong. Bobby speaks to them and tries to help them only because he’s interested in Tong and wants to woo her, not because he wants to help refugees build a new life.

Qui Nguyen, the Playwright, is both the actual playwright of Vietgone and a kind of narrator in the play: He introduces the lead characters in Scene 0 and even interviews his father in the Epilogue, demonstrating his use of real-life stories and experiences to write the play. In addition, the Playwright acts as a foil to Quang, disagreeing with him over the justification for the Vietnam War: “Jesus, Dad […] it’s a foregone conclusion by everyone that Vietnam was one of the biggest military mistakes in all of history. America should have never gotten involved. We had no right to be there” (96). As Quang and Tong’s son, the Playwright identifies first as an American citizen and thus sees the war as a mistake. This angers Quang, whose perception of the war is based on a Vietnamese standpoint, so he contradicts the Playwright. The Playwright’s role in this pivotal scene is to help frame Quang’s experiences through a more modern lens of the war.