A little girl was born in Saigon a few days after the end of the war. When the baby was two months old and her mother had no breast milk left, a kind relative gifted the family a goat. Every morning for three months, her mother gathered enough milk to feed her. And so began the goat milk baby's journey through life.
She relied on her instincts, learned from mistakes, focused on her studies, married, became a retail pharmacist, had a baby, and gave her blessing for her husband to travel to Australia for work. She made desperate arrangements to escape to Australia having no idea that she was securing passage on the last plane to leave Saigon. She disclosed how she rebuilt her life from scratch and overcame diverse challenges through the practice of Mindfulness.
At the age of 77, she realized she might have been the luckiest and happiest person, she decided to share her luck and happiness with readers through her Memoir. She hopes they will join her in her ultimate dream as the totality of book royalties will go to support underprivileged children with their Education, the organizations she has been supporting with her humble contribution.
A little girl was born in Saigon a few days after the end of the war. When the baby was two months old and her mother had no breast milk left, a kind relative gifted the family a goat. Every morning for three months, her mother gathered enough milk to feed her. And so began the goat milk baby's journey through life.
She relied on her instincts, learned from mistakes, focused on her studies, married, became a retail pharmacist, had a baby, and gave her blessing for her husband to travel to Australia for work. She made desperate arrangements to escape to Australia having no idea that she was securing passage on the last plane to leave Saigon. She disclosed how she rebuilt her life from scratch and overcame diverse challenges through the practice of Mindfulness.
At the age of 77, she realized she might have been the luckiest and happiest person, she decided to share her luck and happiness with readers through her Memoir. She hopes they will join her in her ultimate dream as the totality of book royalties will go to support underprivileged children with their Education, the organizations she has been supporting with her humble contribution.
“Mummy, the goat is gone!” My seven-year-old brother cried out when he opened the door of our rented terrace one morning in February 1946. The cord my father used to tie the goat to the lone jackfruit tree in the tiny front yard was there, but the precious animal was nowhere to be seen.
Traditionally, our given names take inspiration from flowers, things in nature, or desirable qualities. As I was born in autumn 1945, a few days after the end of the war around the time of moon festival, my parents gave me the name Minh Nguyệt (Bright Moon).
When I was two months old, my mother had no milk left to breastfeed her baby daughter. Food was scarce. She gave me the liquid of rice porridge sweetened with a little brown sugar my father bought on the black market.
It was a stroke of luck when a kind relative, realising the situation, gave us a goat that had babies not long before that. Another luck was the mature jackfruit tree in the front yard. The goat apparently loved jackfruit leaves.
At first, my parents wondered where the baby goats were but did not think much about them soon after. Every morning, for three months, my mother would wash her hands, clean the goat’s nibbles, and get enough milk to feed me.
Upon the disappearance of the goat, my father went for hours looking in vain for her in the neighbourhood.
A few months of goat milk allowed me to move on to rice porridge and other semisolid food. When I was a young adult, everyone said I was a little stronger and taller than my three older sisters at the same age. I often thought of the rich nutrients in the goat milk I had received as a young baby and thanked the baby goats whose bad fortune gave me a good start in life.
Besides the episode linked with the goat, each year the jackfruit tree gave us several enormous fruits weighing around three kilograms each. The yellow flesh was deliciously fragrant, sweet, and crunchy, a special treat for us all. The boiled seeds tasted like chestnuts. Some years when there were too many fruits, my father had to pluck off some while they were still green and small, double the size of a large grapefruit. Green jackfruits made wonderful dishes, especially appreciated by vegetarians.
My mother would gently boil them in a large pot of water for about half an hour, until just tender. After shaving off the outside layer, the inside was sliced thinly, mixed with crushed roasted peanuts or sesame seeds, shredded Vietnamese mint, and a dressing of sweet, sour, and spicy fish sauce or soy sauce for a vegetarian meal, my favourite salad, virtually free. For a more luxurious version, my mother would add a few slices of cooked belly pork and a few cooked school prawns, a truly delicious and healthy dish. She would also make a lovely soup with green jackfruit and prawns topped with shredded coriander leaves and green onions.
Sometimes my mother made an absolutely beautiful vegetarian stew with chunks of green jackfruit and fried tofu seasoned with soy sauce and pepper. What a wonderful tree! When I was in my twenties, the jackfruit tree died of old age. We truly missed it.
Before I was born, my parents had three boys and three girls aged from seven to seventeen, effectively one or two years between them. When my older brother Khánh (the Bell) was six, my mother found out she was going to have another baby. It was quite unexpected. Then three years later came my younger brother Thanh (Delicate). We were referred to as the little ones.
February 1945, with a relative normality in everyday activities starting again in Saigon, my father, a schoolteacher of government system was summoned to a post in Saigon. My pregnant mother followed my father to his new post. They brought along my six-year-old brother Khánh and the two eldest, my seventeen-year-old brother Thạch (Precious Stone) who was quite ill and his younger sister Nga (Swan) aged sixteen to help my mother. They left the three middle ones, my older brother Quí (Precious) and his two younger sisters Hương (Fragrance) and Liên (Lotus) in a village in Nha Trang with my maternal grandmother who was in her late sixties. Nha Trang was a beach town in the centre of Vietnam, where my father was a schoolteacher before the Second World War. My parents were not sure about the accommodation the government had promised for newly arriving public servants. My father eventually went back for my three older siblings a few months later.
My brother Thạch passed away when I was three months old. My poor mother never completely got over the loss of her firstborn, a kind hearted, bright, gentle, sportive, and handsome young man. My mother used to tell me about him loving to swim along the beach in Nha Trang. One day my brother caught a cold and never recovered from his pneumonia. When my family moved to Saigon, our cousin who was a doctor found out Thạch had tuberculosis. My poor brother loved so much his new baby sister but refrained from embracing her and instead kissed her heel for fear to infect her. My mother told me years later when I was old enough to understand. Thạch died in his prime age due to the lack of antibiotics.
My mother eventually found consolation and peace in the study of Buddhist philosophy, having learned the impermanent nature of all things and acceptance.
"I have to start my life again and I will do whatever it takes."
Author Jeanette Pham has not had an easy life, yet it is one she has made the best of through fortitude and positive thinking. Spanning her childhood in Vietnam, to her flight from her home country and her subsequent life in Australia, this memoir is an engrossing insight into the mind of a woman who is driven by the courage to make the best of what life has given her.
Pham, a scientist, penned this book as a means to raise money for charity. Despite the struggles she has faced in her life, there is a sense of peace and acceptance throughout the book. Pham does not dwell on the things that did not go well for her; rather, her writing is focused on the positives in her life and how she has made the best of her circumstances.
Despite this, her memoir is not a one-dimensional celebration of her life. In candidly sharing her thoughts and her journey, we learn more about the circumstances and culture that have shaped her. From the value placed on education in her childhood to the effects French colonisation had on her identity as Vietnamese, this memoir is eye-opening, educational, as well as emotional. Through her recollections, we vicariously live her escape from Vietnam, a harrowing journey that leaves you feeling her fear and uncertainty as she tries to reunite with her husband who was studying in Australia, and also after as she attempts to rebuild her life in Australia.
The memoir’s writing style has a factual, academic quality about it. Far from weighing it down, it lends the memoir a gravitas that dignifies its subject. While there are a few chapters detailing her work that may not be accessible to readers who are not versed in the intricacies of bacterial cultures, it is often Pham’s evident pride in her story that shine through, leaving us feeling like we too have partaken of her joy. Pham skilfully balances niche topics with those that have a broader appeal, such as family, education and charity work.
The Goat Milk Baby is a memoir of a person who truly feels complete and content with what she has. If you find yourself having time for just one memoir, The Goat Milk Baby should definitely be a contender. This is a memoir that will leave readers with a sense of tranquillity and a desire to adopt some of her positivity in our own lives.