True or not, the story omitted a key point: Catholics in Thai Xuan and other parts of Vietnam have flourished even without religious freedom, yet the Catholic population in Houston's Thai Xuan and most of the United States is in steep decline. Maybe the Virgin was grieving not for the oppression of the Vietnamese, but for the freedom of the Americans.
Josh Harkinson
A shrine in Thai Xuan, Vietnam
Josh Harkinson
Truc Dang and her father, Thu, are among Chinh's
relatives who still attend services at his former church
in Vietnam.
Josh Harkinson
In Vietnam's Dong Nai province, wood-planked houses
of the early years rub shoulders with new, four-story
edifices.
Daniel Kramer
Nhiem Nguyen of St. Joseph's Village plants
Vietnamese herbs and lettuces in anything that will
hold soil.
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From downtown Houston, the drive down Interstate 45 toward the villages and Chinh's nearby house offers plenty of lanes for passing and exits for sinning. An Adult Video placard beckons, a billboard hawks Jack Daniel's, and a sign trumpets Coushatta Casino, "Houston's Playground." Images of the saints, if they exist at all among the sales pitches, concrete and sprawl, are hidden until the trip ends at Chinh's house, where statues of Joseph and Mary stand guard.
Shouting through a metal door rouses Chinh from a couch. He hoists himself with difficulty, slowly shuffles down a hallway and invites a visitor to sit. His body fills a chair like a loose sack, but his eyes are sharp. A plaque on a wall commemorates his tenure with the church; the second of two dates awaits inscription.
Like his health, Chinh's congregation is dwindling. His most recent mass in Thai Xuan attracted a flock of 20. He knows that the church in Vietnam's Thai Xuan is exponentially larger. "In Vietnam, people go to church every day because there are strict rules; they never miss it," he says. "In America, people have freedom. They can do whatever they want."
Freedom in Thai Xuan in Houston has gotten out of hand, Chinh says. "I just wish it would be more like Vietnam, because it was stricter and there were more rules."
But didn't he flee Vietnam to escape the rules? Didn't he come to America seeking freedom?
He pauses. "Well, of course," he says, "but there is a difference between imposing a law and following a set of morals."
Morals in the Houston villages these days are whatever the villagers make them. They no longer ask Chinh to tell them what is right and wrong. "With rules, it is easier to lead people," he says. Without them, there can still be vegetable stands and dragon dances and rice noodles, but there will be tabloids in the supermarkets and monsters on the streets and greasy burger wrappers in the parking lots. Anything goes. "Here, the first thing you ask is 'How many husbands and wives have you had?' " he says. "And that is why a lot of the kids are losing their morals."
And so Chinh sits in his bare house, where he almost never runs the heat or the air conditioning, and reads the Bible. It's an uncommon activity these days, but there's no doubt that anybody who wanted to try it could. Does that assurance make Thai Xuan in Houston preferable, or would he just as soon take his chances with the shards of his homeland's repression?
He scarcely hesitates. "I prefer Vietnam," he says, knowing just as clearly that he'll have to make do with his imperfect outpost in Houston -- the modern Nineveh. Whether in the belly of a whale or a 747, there's no going back.
