Growing Old in a New Land : Senior Center Is Cultural Anchor for Vietnamese Who Feel Adrift

Hinh Nguyen is a tired and lonely man growing old in a strange country.

Sometimes, the 79-year-old says, he gets so despondent he just wants to close his eyes and never wake up. Then he thinks about how hard his children worked to bring him from Vietnam and how he doesn’t want to disappoint them.

To rid his mind of dark thoughts, early every morning Monday through Friday Nguyen tucks a Vietnamese daily newspaper under his arm and awaits a van to take him to the Vietnamese Community Services and Asian Senior Acculturation Center in Santa Ana. There, he spends the first few minutes perusing the recreation room for familiar faces with whom to share his paper.

“Here at the center, I find friends,” the Santa Ana man said in Vietnamese one recent day as he sat down next to an old friend who once fought in the Vietnam War with him. “Here, I come to meet people and pass the time away. Here, I live day by day.”

For Nguyen and more than 100 other seniors who come to the center daily, the large two-story, white stucco building with a pagoda-style front entrance is a refuge for about five hours a day; they can forget about the world whose language they can not speak. The main reason they come to the center, say the seniors, many of whom are widows or widowers, is to be with people their own age, people who share their sense of isolation and frustration at not being understood.

Once there, cac cu , (the title of respect meaning old ones ) can forget about the cultural gap at home with their children and grandchildren, who are too involved in work or school to spend time with them.

“In Vietnam, the old ones can just go from one neighbor’s house to another to socialize, but here they cannot,” said Mai Cong, chairwoman of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a social services agency that established the nonprofit center. “But, they feel it would be a burden for their children if they invite so many guests home. This is the perfect place for them to mingle.”

The seniors are free to come and go as they like, and the center, financed by state and federal grants, is always staffed with people who can counsel or answer questions.

Although there are numerous senior centers in the county, several of which are designed for Asians, seniors say they keep coming back to this one.

“There are more people here than at the other places,” said a 77-year-old man. “Sooner or later, you’ll bump into someone you know.”

Some come as early as 7:30 a.m. and stay until the center closes at 5:30 p.m., just to read Vietnamese books and newspapers or watch video movies. About 30 take an English language class. Many participate in low-impact stretching exercise, or tai chi , sessions. The majority play Chinese card games. And amid watchful eyes, a few secretly engage in romance.

“That’s my beau over there,” a 65-year-old woman said shyly in Vietnamese one day as she discreetly pointed out a dapper-looking man who was playing Chinese chess several tables away.

“We met here several months ago when I asked if I could join in their card game,” said the Westminster woman, who asked that her name not be used. (“People around here are very disapproving when it comes to romances and would frown if they knew. They say we are too old for such things.”)

Their respective children do not know, she said, adding that she and her beau only see each other during the week when they come to the center.

“We began the day together on the bus (to the center), we look at each other across the room, and we say goodby on the bus going home,” she said. “So, you see, this place means a lot to me.”

But others scoffed at the idea of romance at the senior center.

“There’s no time for things like that around here,” one man said with disdain. “Too many things to do to think about tinh-cam ,” or romance.

For example, said 75-year-old Nhang Tran, there’s the English as a second language class which “no self-respecting senior citizen should go without.”

“It’s so frustrating to not communicate with people you see on the street,” Tran said in Vietnamese. “You’re hungry. You go to a restaurant and you know what you want to eat, but you don’t how to ask for it. It’s just terrible.”

Therefore, since September, every weekday for three hours, Tran religiously attends the ESL class offered by the center. Until taking the class, Tran said, she rarely ventured outside her home in Santa Ana. Now, she said, “I travel around the city because I can ask questions and make requests.”

Most cac cu , though, find taking English or exercise classes too boring or tiresome, they said. They prefer, instead, the recreation room where they spend their time gambling with Chinese cards for pennies a game.

“It’s nice and peaceful here, not like at home where our children have so many worries,” said Cong Nguyen, 78, in Vietnamese. “If we argue, it’s only a friendly basis like when someone cheats or leaves too early.”

Besides the classes and the few celebrations for someone’s birthday or a holiday, the center offers little excitement, acknowledged Minh Le, executive director of the center. But it offers what its regulars need, “a place to get together, to speak to each other and to talk about their lives, whether it’s about life here in the United States or in Vietnam,” Le said.

“Growing old here is not easy for the Vietnamese elders, it’s almost tragic,” Le added. “And, they can’t communicate that sadness with the younger generation at home. But here, they share their sadness with each other in their own simple way, and they let all of that go.”