Le Ly Hayslip

I think that is my life, yes. And everything in the film, it come from the book. And everything in the book, it come from my life story. So yes, I find my life is in the film, yes.

What is the essential of this part of your life? What do you think?

You mean now, or the whole life? I was born as a farm girl, uneducated farmer, want very much to plant rice, take care of my water buffalo, worship my ancestor, and take care of my father and mother when they old, but the war came to my village. Tiger Troon put me on the way of life in the city.

I couldn't survive well in the city. I sold myself to a soldier so I can buy a house for my mother and my son so we not be homeless. After that, I married to American and went home, and all of the thing that you saw in the film give me a rich life. Not I'm talking about material, religious rich, spiritually rich. The life that I can go out and share with you, with others, the life that I can give the villagers, the villagers in Vietnam, and people around the world who are voiceless, faceless, nameless, a voice.

The life that I can say that I hope wake up a lot of the people, learn how to live with one another so we don't have war. We should learn about compassion, about forgiveness, about taking care each other, and live in a peaceful world, rather than bring all that suffering to others, human being, especially young children and women.

That is what I went through in life, and life have taught me.

Excuse me, könntest du noch mal wieder aufziehen, wenn ich die Frage stelle? Ja, klar. Und dann wieder langsam ranfahren. Also während ich rede offen und dann langsam ranfahren? Okay. You loved and you married an American soldier. Generally, did you view the Americans as friends or as enemies?

As friends. The enemy is only the government put the label there. People did not ask who are enemy. And so they just go with the word of enemy. That's why we have war. Yes, I was growing up, born and raised in a revolutionary family. I joined the Viet Cong, just like my brothers and my cousin and my father and my grandfather fight against Chinese, Japanese, French, and America.

In her foihr, hieß nhau phụng tích mì diệt nhận tracking message sent to the German press in Pheongyang, Because we know they come to kill our people, destroy our and torture our brothers and sisters, so we stand and fight. However, when I married to American, came to America, I saw that they have the same feeling that my mother have when she send her son away to war. As a mother, I know how I feel if my children go to war.

I recognize that only if we stop and think who are enemy. If we don't have an enemy around the world, perhaps we don't have war. We wasn't born to know about enemy. We born to know human being.

Könntest du dasselbe jetzt sozusagen immer noch mal machen, wenn ich die Frage stelle? Ja, klar. Was it a problem to stay, a problem for you to stay with an American soldier during the war? Was it a problem?

In the movie, they put four different men, two my husband, one boyfriend, and one lover to one man. I have problem with all four of them.

All of them are veterans. All of them, my husband, who a World War II veteran. And so I don't know any problem at that time. I know that husband and wife, we supposed to get fight one in a while, but now that I look back, and I have my three children, and I saw an average American, how they live their life: they like gun, like go out hunting, like talking about communists and war and become hero in a war and all that, But when I married to a man, I don't know that any problem, he's just a man, you know? And so now, the more that I learn, the more that I understand that only, not only the man I marry and I met, it have problem, but almost all U.S.

Vietnam veterans who return home, they have a lot of problem. And the other men who come from different war have their problem. But perhaps Vietnam is more problem because American lost the war.

What was the darkest period of your life?

You mean beautiful?

The darkest.

The darkest, oh. When I left my village, and I left everything behind, the beautiful landscape, the villagers that I love, my father, my brother went and never see him again. My mother, we have a home, we have an identity in our village, and come and become homeless in the city. People treat us like an animal. I have a baby without father, bring very shameful to my family.

My father died when he need me the most. That is darkness. The rest of is just a human nature, they think they did the right thing. I think I do a right thing, so we even. But the thing that my mother and my father went through, very hardship in their life, that is very hard for me to, you know, don't talk about it.

I know I have, thank you, I'm sorry. You shouldn't ask the question.

What do you think about Vietnam today, about the communists in Vietnam?

The communists have gained many different face. You go to Vietnam today, you don't see that the communist unless you see the flag that they raise. They have opened the door. Many old people step on the side, put the younger ones in power. They welcome American back. They want the world to accept them in as a nation. They try very, very hard to provide the needs to 72 million people.

They have a lot to learn. They have a lot of things to need to be changed so that become international level. But again, they have 40 years of war. Too many problems after the war with the U.S. They call American War. In U.S., they call Vietnam War. Many people need help. They have no medical care for the people, have no school for the children.

Many disabled come back from the war, it have no place to go. Have a same problem as a Third World country. Vietnam is one of the poorest in the world. And so, I hope that embargo be lifted by U.S. so that many businessmen can come and help to rebuild the country. And I hope that communists of Vietnam are willing to learn how modern world technology function, so that he can try to improve his country as well as his people.

Returning to the film, how was the collaboration with Oliver Stone, your collaboration?

I just be on his side if he needed me. I am not a filmmaker, I am not a director, but I know it's my story, my village, my people. The war, the battle that I been in there against him or on opposite side of his, therefore I asked to be there, he need me there, and working with him every day on the set is very helpful to me, as well to him, and add on a lot more thing for the movie.

He admit that he not Vietnamese, he never lived the kind of life that I grow up with, and so it's joy, adventure, working together, and I'm very pleased that I have that opportunity. Because usually people say Hollywood, they take my story and do whatever they please with it, and I will be very sorry, and I have concern. But I have confidence in him. My book is nothing there that he can make it any different than that, I thought. And when he present me with the screenplay, I'm very pleased with that, that he very truthful with the book.

And so when I working on the film with him, it's a lot of fun, it's a lot of hard work, but we get thing done. I hope you happy with it.

My last question. Tell us about your foundation, please. What is the object?

In 1986, I went back home for the first time. I was shocked to see how poor the country has been after the war. So many crippled people all over the street. And here I have a good life in America, and I feel like I have to do something to help. And so I came home and I sold everything I own in America and started to write this book. And I made commitment that if this book do well, it's made into a movie perhaps, and I will give everything back to the poor people.

So that's what I did. Oliver Stone helped a lot. He funded for the first medical center in my village called Mother Love Clinic, and he also funded a school called Compassion School for Children. We had two medical centers there, a school, an outreach program, and a center training the disabled, as well as a major center for the orphanages, for orphan.

Ly Hayslip ist eine vietnamesische Schriftstellerin und Philanthropin.