Laurie Nguyen
She is a Haunting, by Trang Thanh Tran, is a gothic horror novel about a young woman struggling to save her family from a horrific, paranormal infection.
Jade Nguyen is on the cusp of going to college. But before she can do that, she must stomach through five weeks of working (for free) with her father as he struggles to open up a bed-and-breakfast in Vietnam’s tourist city, Da Lat. After those five weeks are up, her father will give her tuition money to go to college. However, the moment Jade sets foot in Nha Hoa, her father’s bed-and-breakfast, she notices bizarre occurrences that lead her to believe the house is haunted. What starts as a good old-fashioned haunting becomes an increasingly violent portrayal of colonization.
Entitlement to Vietnam’s History
I love how hateful Alma and her husband are. They perpetuate racist systems that have kept Jade’s father in metaphorical chains. Although they’ve invested in Nha Hoa; they have mistake financial involvement for ownership. They catered to the white savior mentality and ignored the brutality behind French colonial rule. A glaring example of this is Tran’s portrayal of the overwhelming number of rats running around Nha Hoa. It’s a parasitic infection, to say the least.
The history is interesting. Back then, the French paid Vietnamese locals to become rat catchers to mitigate Hanoi’s health issues. Of course, since French officials were too disgusted by said rats to catch them themselves, they put out a bounty. If you catch, hunt, and kill rats, we’ll pay you. They didn’t understand that these rat catchers would keep the rats alive and just cut off their tails. After all, you can’t make money if there aren’t any rats. When the French attempted to parade Hanoi as a symbol of hygiene and civilization, they unironically worsened disease spread.
An Erasure of Tragedy
After the fall of Saigon, many Vietnamese refugees fled from Communist rule. They came to a foreign land that, though they weren’t being blown up, forced them to conform. Much of Vietnamese literature is rife with Americans rescuing the Vietnamese from the corruption. Never mind the fact that these Americans were the ones who played a part in destroying Vietnam. Look at the My Lai Massacre or Operation Ranch Hand, which exposed much of the land to Agent Orange. That’s not even counting the number of American soldiers who regretted being in Vietnam.
The Results of the Diaspora
Like Jade, my father and I don’t have the best relationship either. Granted, my father didn’t partake in the character’s extreme actions. He didn’t go out for milk and never return, nor did he take a middle schooler’s biting words seriously. But there is the expectation that you put your community and family above your own needs and desires. You must maintain the relationship you have with your kin, no matter how undeserving they are. It’s harrowing when the man you’re supposed to trust is exposing your most vulnerable to subjugation. It makes Jade’s already wavering loyalty towards him that much more. heartbreaking. In the end, he doesn’t care. Or rather, the ghosts are making him not care.
Moreover, I am Vietnamese American. In some ways, I do feel that much of Vietnamese culture in America is forced to cater to a majority white population. But I can’t really say anything about it. Again, similar to Jade, I’m too American to be Vietnamese, but I’m too Vietnamese to be American. Children of this diaspora have a unique, isolating role between these two worlds. We don’t fit in anywhere, aside from the small community we’ve made for ourselves here. And even that’s fractured.
Intertwining Folklore
I admire Tran’s insight into hungry ghosts. These ghosts are malevolent entities had improper burials. As a result, they became insatiable monsters that consume anything and everything around them. Similar to the Wendigo, they are warped by greed for life, for family, for anything. Jade’s father represents this very well, doing everything he can to achieve his dream even if it meant stealing his family’s lives. His ambitions are an infection. Anyone taking from the community is heavily scrutinized; think of it as a parasite that will do whatever it takes to try to take over.
Tran interweaves horrifying aspects of racism, colonialism, and filial piety to deliver a story that, at times, may be very painful. Like the parasites that torture Jade and her family, echoes of racial violence continue to draw admirers with deceptively innocent portrayals of resilience and duty. Meanwhile, they bash lies into our brains that it’s completely fine to dismiss your will and the will of your family. It’s like how you’d cut yourself open with a rusty nail and expose your body to the disease.
