Boat People (1982)

Mengshi Qi: Comrade Nguyen

Quotes 

• Comrade Nguyen : They're too young, Comrade Le and Comrade Vu. They're too eager. They lose proportion. When I see how determined they are... I think I must have been weak when I was young. It makes me feel old.

  Shiomi Akutagawa : You aren't old.

  Comrade Nguyen : Recently I've been thinking a lot about my youth... here and Paris, drinking French wine, eating French food... even longing for a French woman. I must be old! The Revolution claimed half of my life. And now I realized I'm old. My mind still lives in the colonial past. Vietnam has won her Revolution. But I've lost mine! I know where to get the best French food in Danang. I'll take you there sometime.

• Comrade Nguyen : Guess how old she is?

  Shiomi Akutagawa : Thirty?

  Comrade Nguyen : Past forty. You'd never guess. She's Chinese. Her mother was in the same line. When the Japanese took Saigon, she lived with a general. When she was only 14 herself... she was living with a French general. When the French pulled out, she moved on to Americans. Can you imagine? She still has figure of a 14-year-old. It's as if all those French and Americans... never left a trace on her. But she did learn how to cook French good. Her mother taught her Japanese cooking... and how to make American hamburgers.