An Afternoon WalkThere was a dirt driveway not far from our house. One afternoon, Aunt Sung took Brother Vinh and me for a walk in this alley. We had to come across Japanese soldiers who occupied the only villa and a few houses in the neighborhood. The soldiers looked serious with stern faces, long rifles and swords. They spoke but as if they were shouting at each other. Two Japanese women in their colorful kimonos hurriedly joined them in the villa. I didn't know who owned this villa and these houses before the Japanese soldiers moved there. Later in my life I learned that many local people had left the villa. neighborhood to take refuge in the countryside when American bombers began dropping their loads on Japanese targets in Saigon. Japanese armies occupied Vietnam in 1940 but allowed the French to continue to govern the country. Japan surrendered to the Allies in August 1945. The dirt alley divided several narrow passages. Vinh and I followed Aunt Sung in one of them. We walked past the stinking sewer line covered in cracked cement blocks. We didn't have to walk far. There were rows and rows of banana trees in the fields next to vacant houses. Aunt Sung cut down some bare plants. She cut the leaves and took the trunks home. Once we got home, she used a knife and cut the trunk so that there were 5 or 6 flaps on the top. She was careful not to cut the flaps completely. The inside end of each flap was still attached to the plant. The flap looked like the upper part of a duck's bill. Using my left hand, I lifted the plant to shoulder level and parallel to the ground. Then, with my right hand, I lifted the cut end of each flap to form just the right angle... middle of paper... those words stayed with me. I only remember what I saw. The Great Prison was destroyed in the late 1950s and its site housed the National Public Library. The court that judged Father remained a court but these French magistrates had long since disappeared. The Catinat police headquarters was also razed in the late 1950s. On its site the main office of the Ministry of the Interior was built. In the 1940s, my father fought for the Viet Minh who later declared independence from France as the Democratic Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. He was seriously injured, captured and beaten by the French. In the 1960s and 1970s, his children, who grew up in the South, served in the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam and fought against the Democratic Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. Two of his children were imprisoned for several years in the Victorious re-education camp..