Money ruins friendship

 I said this all the time but never wrote it down.

"Money ruins friendship.” 

I have firsthand experience of this truth.

When we were in Vietnam, we were poor. My mother was an artist, a single mother of three, and an art professor. Rice was rationed daily to keep us alive. The simple meal was a small bunch of water spinach,  two pieces of tofu, and a few grams of fatty pork belly cuts. 

We were poor, but my mother had a lot of kind, good friends who always helped out with either money or extra food. 

However, some bad friends took advantage of my family situation to profit from it. 

I remembered there were “friends” who came to the house and asked my mother to produce art, clay relief sculpture samples of her works for sale. With the hope of making more money for the family, she spent a lot of time producing these sample artworks.  They took the artworks and left, never coming back to follow up with the money as promised. 

My mother was an artist. She was poor but generous. She knew that she got scammed. She laughed, calling herself stupid, and put it off. Sometimes she met these friends on the street; they ignored each other like strangers.

These were not her real friends. They were her transactional whoever she happened to cross paths with in her life. 

My mother always told me that money will ruin friendship and relationships.

Her Godson, who we took in when he was a homeless architecture student, became a successful architect later and scammed us out of money when he was hired to build my mother’s first and only house. After that project, he left and was nowhere to be found when we needed him. 

I witnessed how poor artists like my mother were; I decided that I would not be an artist. I studied English to hope for a better job opportunity. I studied English and became good at it. I went to night English classes 5 nights per week until I got a job with Vietnam Airlines.

When I went to college, I had already made some money tutoring small children in English. The money helped me not ask my mother for money anymore. 

In college, I hung out with two friends. We spent a lot of time together. We were compatible. We laughed. We always sat together in class. We were an inseparable trio. 

Their families were not rich but were not as poor as mine. I knew that they were much better off than me. 

After the USSR collapsed, speaking English had become trendy and opened more opportunities for jobs. These two friends used to study Russian. They were not good at English. So they asked me to tutor English for a fee. I named my price, the same money I get paid for tutoring the small children. 

After a few days of silence, one wrote me a letter ( I still have the letter with me today ) that both of them could not afford the price, and they were shocked that I named the price. They thought they would get a much better discount because we were “ best friends”.

I was shocked. I was speechless. I was disappointed. I went silent. I felt betrayed. 

The friendship took a turn that would never be the same after that letter.

I remembered my mother’s saying: money ruins friendship. I did not say anything to these two. I suck it up. I promised myself I would never let money interfere with the relationship anymore. 

I kept my promise until much later; I moved to the US. I had become an artist at US Davis and hung out with a friend who loved my art. She loved both the aesthetic and concept of my art. 

She was a professor at US Davis. She came to my MFA studio all the time. We hung out. We talked about art. She went to my house and became close with the whole family. I gave her some of my important art for free because she was my friend.  

One of them was my first big drawing of Boat drawing, from my series of 10 years of research and drawing about Vietnamese boat people. 

One of her friends from Boston wanted to buy another big drawing for $ 2.500.

Because I trusted my Davis friend, I agreed to sell that drawing in instalments. My mother scolded me for how stupid I was. She admitted to me that she was stupid, but she never sold her art in instalments.

It took that Boston lady 10 years to pay off the drawing !!!!

Every year I had to send her an email to remind the payment or “ please return the drawing”. She would say no, she cannot return the drawing because “ it is a very important piece of art”. Sometimes she sent me a postcard saying this year her parents' house got flooded and she could not pay.

I got so impatient and exhausted. I could not keep up and just forgot about it. Until I went up to Seattle, she emailed me again to ask for the new address so she could continue to pay. Finally, she did pay it off. 

I got mad at my David friend. I cut off talking with her for a while because of this installment business. We still hang out when we can, but I would say no whenever a Davis friend gave me a “business” proposal to sell my art.

Last week, one of my friends who lives in Hawaii texted me the story below.

The Hawaii friend loves art. She loves my art, and again I always give my art to her for free. She used to be an art dealer, so she understands artist/selling art, and art ownership. She insisted that she could buy one of my paintings. The sale was $700, I remember. She is proud of her ownership of my painting. She always showed off her wall with my art among other artists' pieces that she purchased. 

Last month, she posted images of my art and another art image that she bought from another artist friend to share how artists use beautiful art to convey human suffering.

 

Whenever she posts my art on her blog, she shared to me. 

Genuinely, I am happy and grateful that I have a friend who appreciates my art. 

But another artist friend said that the Hawaii friend has to pay her $ 50 for copyright.

My Hawaii friend was shocked. She had already bought the artwork, and her blog was not for profit. 

They gently and politely texted back and forth, focusing on what was right and wrong and the artist's copyright, and finally my Hawaii friend got exhausted. She took another artist's image down. 

Like me before, my Hawaii friend was hurt. She was disappointed. She was in grief and loss over a 10-year-long friendship for $50.

To sum up, a real friend would never ruin a true friendship for $50. 

Again, I repeated my mother’s saying to my Hawaii friend: "Money ruins friendship."

I added, $50 is too cheap to end a decade-long friendship, but a reasonable amount for her to realize that person is not her friend, but a transactional entity who just happened to cross paths with her in life.

Helicopter parents : The dream of two liones or the celebration of Childhood Mid- Autumn Festival

 During COVID, I started paying attention to my dreams and writing them down. When I write down dreams, more dreams appear that make sense, and I could decode the dreams eventually.

 I will share three dreams here that may be related to the previous entry, The storm will come”.

First dream: 

During COVID, I saw two full- grown lions jump out of the big gate. I told Nguyen. Nguyen asked in a concerned voice. “ Two lions jumped out and moved toward us?”

 I said no, “Run away from me.” This dream was easy for me to understand. “ My two children went away from their parents for college.”

One thing was questionable. Beo ( Beo in Vietnamese is Leopard/ He was born in the year of Tiger/on the August zodiac sign was Leo) was a Lion. Mando was not. She was born in the year of the snake. Yet, I still think both full-grown lions were both of my children. 

Dreams work with layers. According to Google AI, psychologically, based on Freud and Carl Jung, a lion is viewed as a symbol of the archetypal hero and transformation, or the powerful animal repression, aggressive desires, or raw dominance.

Many traditions see lions as a sign of spiritual awakening/higher guidance and a reminder to tap into your innate resilience during challenging times. 

Both kids got out/ transformed into full-grown adults to college. 

I got the answer to this dream after a long time of contemplating. 

Second dream: 

After Mano went back to Seattle West Point for her medical leave,  I had a dream seeing her, and I stayed in front of the school's big gate. The tall and heavy gate closed in front of us. I stood next to her/ the background was dark, and the ground got muddy. I know that dreams reflect our reality at that time. The door shut down / the road ahead was muddy and sticky, but I was with her. 

Third dream: 

Very recently, last week, right after I posted the previous entry, “the storm will come,” I had a peculiar dream. 

I saw my first cousin's wife from my mother's side, Ms. Nguyet ( Moon in English), come to our apartment. She gave me a piece of cake and some leftovers of a sweet treat wrapped in a piece of light blue paper.

I never ever had her in my dreams. The last time I met her in person was at my mom’s 49-day death ceremony. 

In the dream, my apartment was clean,  revealing a lot of empty space.

Then I saw three Tiger cups coiling, sleeping peacefully at the corner of the house. The image of three little cups sleeping and coiling reminded me of my old dog Happie. Happie is aging/ He does not do much except for sleeping and resting on his small bed every day. 

It took me a few days to think about how weird the dream was. The more I think, the more layers of this dream unfolded.

 Cake / Moon during this time as mooncake for Mid-Autumn Festival. Actually, we are preparing to celebrate this children's festival by the end of this week. My cousin's wife, named Nguyet/ Moon and she, gave me a cake: a mooncake.

Did the dream invite me back to the Mid-Autumn Festival?  Quite interesting. Actually, tomorrow, Friday 09/25/26, is the Autumn Festival. 

The dream happened after the entry “ The storm will come” revealed an image of the clean and empty house. I shared the story to vent it out. My mind and heart are much lighter after sharing. I do not have the burden of “ telling this important story” anymore. I have more empty space inside my heart and mind to breathe right now. Or continued to deal with emty nest symdrome when all the children grown and move out of the house?

Instead of seeing two lions jump out of the gate like before, now I see peaceful, sleeping little Tigers coming back to a safe house to sleep/ to rest after the storm passes.

I got old artworks that two children and I did back in Davis. Tiger collage with torn paper. We did the whole summer for this project.

Why three? I have two lions /or two children only. Why three.

I thought that the third one might be me, as the dream already invited me back to my childhood.

The Mid-Autumn Festival was always one of the most celebrated times during my childhood. I always got invitations to participate in art competitions as a child artist. We would look forward to the moon cake that my father sent to us. Mooncakes were expensive. My mother could not afford to buy mooncakes for us. Father always sent us a tin box with four mooncakes every year. We could eat them in rations. Mother cut each cake into four. We took time to eat our portion and drank tea. I made lanterns out of bamboo sticks and tissue or newspaper. I even had to cook the rice paste to make glue as buying glue would be too expensive. I did not have wire to build my lantern. I did not rubber band. Sometimes after it done, I lighted up with a small candle inside and the rubber band got burned and detroyed my Lantern. I would go to sleep very sad that night. My mom would said, lucky you did not burn the house down.

The sleeping little tiger was me. 

I am ready to let my little Tiger of my childhood sleep in peace.

I hope.

I made these artworks when I was a child during the Mid-Autumn Festival. My mother saved all of these for me. Now it's my turn to save all of my children 's art for them.

I miss my mother pretty much every day. I miss her, not anymore crying, sad nor depressed, less guilty, but with love in my peaceful heart.

Now, during this time, when the day gets darker soon in Seattle, our art class will make lanterns to light up the darkness and boost spirit and mood, as well as celebrate holidays until the end of the year. 

Making Lanterns is a safe way to help artists to go back to childhood and process adversity and trauma. During these festive activities, things from the past may come up. Sadness and depression may become triggers. But the act of cutting/ glueing the colorful paper together helps to amend the past. We do not use candle for this project. We are better now. we used LED light. When the light inside is turned on, our hearts get warm just looking at it.

 Here are some Lanterns that we made throughout the years. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival. 

Enjoy a piece of Mooncake and beautiful art, please.

Helicopter parents: The storm will come

 During COVID, things were stressful for everyone; my family was included.

Both children moved back home from school: Beo from the Navy and Mando from West Point.

I worked from home and moved to full-time as one co-worker left. I took over all of his cases. I should not have become full-time. Not sure why I did it. Besides this job, art practice is primarily important in my life. I thought I could manage both. 

The stress was overwhelming.

I started to listen to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Bible series posted on YouTube. Never had an interest in reading the Bible until listening to his lectures. He used his psychology and clinical background to explain each Biblical story, and it totally made sense to me.

One story stands out: “ Noah builds the Ark.” Jordan Peterson said, " The storm will come. No matter what. Noah walks with God. He believes that the storm will come. He listened to God to build the Ark to prepare." " The storm came. His family was saved because he spent time building a shelter to keep everyone safe until the storm had passed."

I had the epiphany. The concept that life is suffering is undeniable. Yet, it matters how you prepare to stay strong during the storm.

That insight "aha" moment saved my life and my family's life.

During college, Beo struggled. He got disciplined every semester. In fact, we are still amazed that he got into college.

When he was in elementary school, he already struggled academically. I always shared stories of Beo’s teachers and principal calling me all the time to complain.

In his report card sent home, there were D and F with the minus sign next to it. Who got D- and F-? The minus sign was the teacher's burnt-out attitude toward him. I guess.

When we moved to Seattle, sometimes I asked him how school was. He looked at me and answered, if the principal did not call you, you know I am fine. I stay low. 

That was why we decided to send him to swimming so that he would become a lifeguard later. Surprisingly, he excelled in swimming when he moved to Seattle. He won three State Championships, which got the University coach’s attention. 

Frankly, I did not know that swimming could be a ticket for him to college when I sent him swimming. 

In his sophomore year, he was hand-picked by coaches from the Navy Academy in Annapolis.  Under Navy Foundation sponsorship, he got sent to a private high school called Mercerburg Academy in Pennsylvania to boost his academic grade for one year. During this post-grad year, Beo continued to join the varsity swimming team and got support for his studies.

Eventually, Beo officially joined the Navy shipyard in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2017.

Beo got used to asking his parents loudly for help as needed. During 4 years in the Navy, he called Nguyen a lot. Because of the time zone differences, if Nguyen got a phone call at 6 AM, I knew that something had happened to him at school. 

“ Mom, I failed this. Dad, I failed that. I got held back.”  One time, he cried with me over the phone, " Mom, I am done. I do not want to go to school anymore. This is not real. Professors here are not real.”  I told him straight up.

“ Yes, you can go back to a real Seattle. I have a job for you. You can go to clean up the homeless tent and trash encampment here. We need people all year round for this job. I have a friend who can hook you up.” 

 He woke up, “OK, I'll stay. Navy is better than cleaning up tent city in Seattle.” 

As a parent, I always prepare for the storm and focus on helping my son. He was a troublemaker. He needs attention from both parents. He has humble expectations as a lifeguard. Now he was about to finish school at the Naval Academy. The parents walked with him to the finish line. 

Beo could not graduate in May like the other 2000 students of his cohort. He and 19 other students were held back from graduating until August because of "this" and "that". 

For the last three months prior to his August graduation, Nguyen went to Annapolis to rent a place there to make sure his son got all the support he would need. Nguyen bought fresh baby tomatoes and sushi for Beo almost every day and delivered them at the school checkpoint.  

The family went to celebrate the glorious moment of Beo and 19 other midshipmen inside the main building of the campus. 

While we did all that, our little daughter, who was a freshman at West Point at that time, slowly fail behind, and we did not expect it.

Mando was not like Beo. She was responsible and reliable. She loved swimming and did very well in swimming. She stated that she was born to swim. She learnt to swim by herself during the summers when she was 6 years old. I took both to the swimming pool in Davis. She observed other swimmers and mimicked their strokes and suddenly went to swim in the lap lane with others. When I saw that, I told Nguyen that we needed to send both of them to a professionally trained swim club. She loved it. She improved pretty fast when she joined AquarDart club in Davis. 

Mando was a good student academically as well. She was perfect. And we wanted her to be perfect like this. She took care of homework and sometimes did homework for her brother as well. She was always a nice and gentle little girl that I would never have to worry much.

Like her brother, Mano earned three State Championships and got recruited to Mercerburg Academy for her sophomore and senior years in high school. She joined the varsity team and still holds the female record in breaststroke at the school until today, when I am writing this note.

Championship at Mercerberg Academy

As her brother, she was handpicked by the West Point and Navy coaches, as well as other schools like Princeton and Columbia. The head coach at Columbia invited her three times. She chose West Point. That was a stressful decision to make, but we all went along to support her. 

2021, both children went back to school. COVID was still a big concern. I felt that Mando was stressed out during the weekly FaceTime conversation with me.

 She shared school and swim activities, among other things. She never shared that she was depressed. As her mother and clinician, I felt the depression on her shoulders. She knew that I am a clinician; she would never share what was going on.

As a professional swimmer, Mando was healthy. But she gained a lot of weight during her time at West Point. The weight appeared on her shoulders, and she hunched her back more. 

While we paid attention to our son, the storm unexpectedly came toward my daughter.

She was stressed. She sucked it up. She kept going.

Under stress, a few triggers added up and led to the decision that life was meaningless.

What was the point of moving forward? Death would be the way to end all sufferings.

As a young lady full of life, hope, and dreams, some small negative factors could cause catastrophic consequences. 

She wanted to die. She planned her death. She admitted herself to the hospital so she could get her own medicine. The first admission was planned out by a nice- quiet always -smiled and get- along Mando.

Who would know that.

Individual that declared he/she is suicidal would access medical help, social assistance, and emotional support and move past the dark thought and live a life. 

The quiet one was the one who went on with the plan secretly. That was my daughter. 

One weekend, she did not call Nguyen or me. We were worried. The week after, we contacted the coach; he hesitated but informed us that Mando was hospitalized for depression. 

We were in shock. We built the ark, prepared for our son’s storm. We could not see that the storm changed court direction toward my daughter. This was not just a storm; this was a hurricane with waves rising high up over the rooftop and without an appropriate broadcast. 

We did not build the ark to prepare for my daughter’s downtime.

Now I think over it; it was not fair for Mando. She was a perfect child in the family. She would have had a lot of pressure to be a good one. She could not be a "loser" like Beo. Being a "loser" from the beginning, in my son's case, turned out to be an advantage.

As a consequence, she slowly and silently fell apart unnoticed. Her ark was not prepared and built. She would not allow herself to shout it out loud to ask for help like Beo.

She stayed in the hospital for a week and was brought back to West Point. During that COVID time, she was isolated in the room, waiting to be processed back home for medical leave.

We set up a time for Nguyen to drive to West Point to pick her up. By protocol, the school, the coach, the hospital, and the psychiatrist planned for her to come home with her parents.

However, this was not what she had planned in her mind. 

The day Nguyen flew to Baltimore BWI Airport, we got news that she was brought back to the hospital because she overdosed on her medication.

She took the pills intentionally the day Nguyen went to pick her up.

Her plan was not to come back. Her plan was to be gone forever.  

Nguyen drove a car to the hospital in New York; the drive took 6 hrs. I was at home texting him from Seattle. 

We texted each other, guessing what was going on with Mando. Maybe she accidentally OD'd on her meds? 

I was sad and depressed, with anxiety and uncertainty. 

Nguyen arrived to hospital and met Mando’s captain, who was the one to called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. 

Nguyen called me saying that she took pills.

The hospital cleaned her up, and now she was stable.

The captain told Nguyen that after seeing the lab results, he felt relieved that she did not use drugs or alcohol. 

She took her sleeping medicine and ½ of a bottle of her antidepressant to kill herself.

When Nguyen arrived and saw her, Mando was still not awake from the pills she took. There was a nurse to stay there with her 24/24.

Nguyen looked at her arms. She cut her arms with scissors. Nguyen was traumatized seeing his daughter's arm like this. He went back to the car. He got a bottle of vodka, drank it all off, and cried inside his car in the parking lot for the whole night. He cried with grief and guilt.

" I should have paid more attention. What if I could have traveled back and forth between Navy and West Point to support both of the kids during that time? I loved them equally and never want my daughter to think that I love the boy more than the girl."

It would take years for Nguyen to process his grief and guilt. He would sit in his car and cry his eyes out for a few hours at night for a while.

We now know that treatment for depression is a long process that the whole family has to participate.

I could not sleep that night either. I cried periodically until the next morning, waiting for Nguyen’s phone call.

Mando woke up the next morning, and Nguyen gave the phone to me to talk to Mando. I got so mad, frustrated, and yelled at her, Why did you do that? You want to punish me?"

The nurse stopped me at once. 

Nguyen told me that they would need to keep her for observation for 1 week before releasing her back home.

Nguyen said he may stay in New York for a week so he could pick her up. 

We talked. And I said to him that he did not have to stay there that long. He should go back to Seattle so he and I could be together to find a way to help our daughter. 

That night he drove back to the airport. In the darkness, he saw a Ghost. He stopped his car for a moment.

Later, Nguyen shared that he felt he had already died. His soul was gone after the hospital visit. The Ghost appeared as the young boy in the middle of the road asking for help. That image woke him up. He needed to come back to life so he could save Mando, per Nguyen.

After the weekend of being depressed and crying over the news, I knew what I needed to do.

I stopped crying.  I informed all families from both sides. I texted my two best friends. I emailed to HR asking to add Mando to my health insurance just in case she was out of Westpoint and would need health insurance coverage.

Nguyen was home. We hugged. We comforted each other, and we were gentle with each other so we could be together genuinely to help Mando. We made a solid rule that we both could not say anything that would shame or blame pointed at each other. Shaming and blaming would dig the hole of depression deeper and darker.

We needed to use solution-based conversation to get past this storm.

One day during that week when she was hospitalized, I gathered my courage and dried up my tears to call and talk to Mando over the phone she was allowed to use in the hospital. I asked if she wanted me to pick her up. She said, “If you want,  Mom.” 

People around us, family and friends, were supportive. The hospital referred Mando back to Seattle to participate in an outpatient program 30 minutes away from our apartment. 

My friend gave me material to read about why teens cut themselve. My family formed a united front with a chat group to support the family.

 

Another best friend helped to take care of our dog, Happie, while we were back in New York to pick Mando up. 

Mando's friends from swim team and her company called and talked to her every night to make sure that she was OK.

We went to the hospital. I was nervous. I waited in the waiting room. 

I saw kids and teens come out, and parents picked them up. 

She came out in her favourite yellow knitted sweater. She was quiet, gentle, but defeated. Her sweet smile squeezed my heart bleeding. We hugged and drove back to West Point so she could say goodbye to her swim team. 

We stopped at Annapolis to stay overnight, then flew to Seattle. 

The outpatient program required her to check in at 6 AM the next morning. 

I was extremely worried. I slept next to Mando's room. The week before, we thought about taking the door away so we could see her from outside.

We were happy that we did not do that. Trust must be rebuilt. Love must be regained. Mistakes must be acknowledged and apologized for. The door stayed the same.

I woke up at 5 AM. She was up almost at the same time.  The light from her room was up. I felt relieved. "She was still with us". I thought.

She was always reliable. She was always on time and ready to go.

The whole family started a new chapter the day she came back to Seattle on March 21, 2022. 

Later on, I asked her what she thought when she woke up from the hospital: “ I got mad. I got angry because my plan failed.” 

Then I heard she told her best friend, “Do not go to that hospital. They are bad. All they did was keep you alive. They did not help much” 

I was shocked hearing that, but I prepared. I did not react. I listened carefully. I stepped back to hold her in my arms tightly during the darkness to wait for the storm and hurricane to pass. 

When I saw the cuts flash across her arms, I composed myself. I asked her, “Feel good, huh?” She nodded. She felt validated. She did not feel rejected. When I held her in my arms, I intentionally made sure I held all the flashes and scars as well.

I made a deal with her: “ Give yourself 10 more years to see how your life turns out; if, after the deadline, you still think life is meaningless, we would go together. You are a part of me. If life is meaningless, we all go.” She agreed. 

As we all know, we survived.

Things were better off.  She was back. We went back to my friend's house to pick up Happie the day we arrived in Seattle. I would like to shout out to Happie. He is important to this story. When things did not make sense, life was meaningless, parents were asshole, the dog meant everything. Happie has been an emotional support to both of my children. Happie always knew how to be an unconditional, lovely brother that keep my daughter going at the darkest moment.

After 45 days of treatment at an outpatient clinic, she reached out to her previous coach of Seattle Club and went back to swimming. Swimming saved her life. At the time, going to swim was the one thing she knew how to do best. One thing that was under control, safe, and made sense. I believed that water has the property of healing. She said swimming calmed her mind and body. She started to do art and amination /clay and drawings to express herself and process her emotions. Yup, art helps.

She started to learn how to drive and found volunteer jobs and then worked at the restaurant for a while until she got back to study at Hawaii University in 2023.

Our family's journey toward healing was impossible without the support of so many people around. Family, friends, coaches from Navy, West Point, Mercerburg, Boston University (that coach later moved to become a head coach for Hawaii), and coaches in Seattle, hospital, school, and healthcare system from both New York and Seattle.

She said, " I did not know that I had so many people that love and care for me so much."

                                                                       She was in charge!

                           Things that did not kill you will make you stay stronger. That is my daughter.

               She's back swimming for the Hawai Varsity swim team after a gap year from West Point. 

Hawaii helps. The sun, sea, sand, animals, ocean, waves, breeze, fresh air, and people. 

 Last week we went to my high school reunion. Some friends invited me to the Mass in the newly built, beautiful Vietnamese Church. We all wore Vietnamese traditional ao dai. I am not Catholic, but I would go with my friends when I am invited. 

I learnt wisdom from the Bible to save myself from the big storm.

I told one of my friends that I am better off now.

I continue to expect that the storm will come unexpectedly.

I continue to build the ark like Noah did.

I would need it in the future. I just do not know when. But I know for sure that I am not scared or running away. Not anymore. 

We are ready!

                                       Brother and sister at Army -Navy game and swim meet. 

Note for artworks: from the handbook series I did during COVID called " COVID special