Vietnam Ghost Story: Đà Lạt Lovers
By Hoa Nguyen
A student at the military school 1956
and a literary teacher at the nearby high school
fall in love Cute:
each day after school the military student left
a love letter on her door Thao (an orphan)
wrote back and left a love letter reply on the door
of her small house on the hill
Their love grew like a stack of letters
They were in love and waited
for Thahn to graduate from military school
before living as a couple officially
Unlike Thao Thahn is from wealth
and his rich parents insist that
upon graduation he return home
to the Delta and marry a local girl of their choosing
Unable to defy them he does
Thao devastated jumps into a lake
drowns leaves a letter
with instructions to bury her body
near her house and the memories
of her love for Thahn
on the love letter hill
Thahn finds out about her death
goes to war is killed
and then buried in Đà Lạt
next to his beloved Thao
on the hill per his written wishes
But
the widow spurned in death
won't leave it at this
She instructs that his body be removed
and taken back home to the Delta
What a terrible
idea
and now his ghost wanders
Actually
both sites are haunted by their ghosts
and Đà Lạt made the site on the hill
into an attraction you can visit
because why not
Hoa Nguyen, "Vietnam Ghost Story: Đà Lạt Lovers" from A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure. Copyright © 2021 by Hoa Nguyen. Reprinted by permission of the author and Wave Books.
Source:
A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure
(Wave Books, 2021)
