Bookmarks|Archive|Art|Works|Home

I went to a Vietnamese Catholic school for 6 years. It was called La San.

I think I'm in this picture above.

We'd line up for attendance every day.

During recess, kids would crowd around the vending machines. I remember buying a lot of sour patch gummies here. In front of the Coca Cola vending machine, a guy stole my holographic Summoned Skull Yu-Gi-Oh card.

These are the iconic tables where we played Yu-Gi-Oh.

Here's my sister taking a piano class.

I am fascinated by how densely packed the history of Vietnam can be read from the above imagery.

Vietnam traditionally used Chinese characters in writing before the Portuguese brought over latin characters. After that, the French colonized Vietnam and brought over Catholicism. In 1954, Catholic Vietnamese from the north fled to the south to avoid persecution from the Communist Party. When South Vietnam fell, many Vietnamese escaped to San Jose (and other places too), which became the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam.


                rebirth from chaos of arcane sins, the end (11)

In the above picture, you can see Chinese calligraphy, along with Vietnamese text written in Portuguese-imported Latin characters. All of this is set up in a Catholic school in San Jose that was named after a French priest named La Salle.

Hey Isabel, happy birthday! From Henry :)
I was raised both Catholic and Buddhist, attending both church and temples. I identify with both religions and take from both.

I hated this school because it was on Saturday morning and it made me miss my Saturday morning cartoons.